JASON FUHRMAN

Fiction Author

Jason Fuhrman

Worth 1000 Words |Episode 22 | Road / 022

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If you’ve read any of my stories, you’ll know that I tend to tell darker ones. No matter the premise, there is a pinch of tragedy. I’m drawn to those kind of stories, so I tell them. But with this one, I wanted to challenge myself. I wanted to find a bleak or melancholic image and attempt to tell a lighter story. Something with hope, hapiness, or another color in between. Here is my take.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Serj Papadin

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/PoJdWy

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.

The Story

Headlights painted Highway 022 with honey-colored light.

Jake swallowed and dug at the center console for something sweet keeping his eyes on the road. Finding crumpled papers and sticky change, he glanced down for a split second, which was long enough for the car to drift slightly to the right and hit one of the many potholes he’d been trying to avoid for the last ten miles. Jake’s head hit the ceiling, and the liner he’d stuffed behind the visor to not sag, sagged now.

Lips smacked in the back seat. “What?” Morrison slurred.

“Sorry,” Jake said as he hit another pothole.

In the rearview mirror, Morrison leaped off his seat and repeated the impact. He slouched between the front seats, rubbing his head.

“Shit, Jacob,” Morrison said.

“‘Jake’, asshole,” Jake said.

“Jake is short for Jacob, asshole.”

Driving for eight hours straight, his eyes ready to crumble from his head, Jake didn’t have the energy to remind him that his given name was Jake, not Jacob. Well, not remind. Morrison knew this, just lived for the shit-giving.

“Better than a last name first name,” Jake said. “And your dad’s name is William, so it’s doubly stupid.”

Morrison grumbled and slid into the seat behind Jake, a thunk of forehead to window.

“Pull over,” Morrison said. “I gotta piss.”

The headlights flickered, losing their honey-colored luster, looking more like spilled piss.

Jake guided the car to the side of the road, thought about killing the engine, then decided against it since it made a funny sound now, and starting it at the last stop had been hard enough.

Morrison tripped out of the car and weaved his way to a twisted fence.

“Really?” Jake said eyeing the door Morrison left open.

“Fuck, it’s cold,” Morrison said, trembling from the weather, the last few drops, or both. “Ho. Lee. Shit.”

Jake palmed away the condensation and squinted out the window. Outside was drowned in brackish gray soup. Gruel, really. Morrison was pointing into the distance, zipping up with his other hand.

Tire tracks cut through a rumpled sheet of snow up a turnoff through the broken fence before disappearing altogether. It was enough of a guide for Jake to see what Morrison was pointing at. Distant heartbeats of light specked the damp sky above a steep-roofed cluster of buildings seated around a massive tank. On that tank, stretched the ladder he and Morrison had climbed at the age of eleven. Clean black lines leading to a tower that–

“No way,” Morrison said. “Big Gulp Tower. The infamous tiddle tank of young Jake Lee.”

“Piddle is for peeing, not ‘tiddle,'” Jake said.

“Alliteration, Jake,” Morrison said. “Alliteration. Have a little imagination. I’m an artist. We have to bend the rules sometimes.”

“And it was because I drank an entire Big Gulp of–“

“Suicide.” Morrison said “The whole lineup. Every damn flavor. And yes, I know. That’s the beauty of it. A tower shaped like a Big Gulp, tinkled on from the after effects of Big Gulp, timed with precision. Irony, my friend, is powerful.” He said the last bit wagging his finger.

Jake got out of the car, drawn to the forbidden playground of his youth. Morrison threw an arm around his shoulder when he reached his side.

“Snowball wars,” Morrison said. “Packed with rocks. Cardboard sledding down those roofs. I busted my balls on that one right there.”

“You packed your pants full of snow,” Jake said. “Didn’t last long. You ripped your pants off batting at your junk like you were trying to kill a spider. Stumpy McTwiggerson–” That name hit Jake like a bullet.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Morrison said. “It was cold, all right? And we were, eleven. My balls hadn’t even dropped yet.”

Jake looked at his friend and burst out laughing. He retched it out, diaphram thumping, a laugh held in by past generations, released by him.

Jake straightened, wiped his nose, and sighed. “That felt good.”

Morrison smiled. “It did.”

“You think …?” Jake said.

“I think,” Morrison said, and then dashed up the snowy road to vanish into the absence of color.

Jake ran after at him, scooping snow as he did, packing it tight. Back against the wall next to a boarded up door, he peeked around the corner, blinded by cold and white and a stinging center made of stone.

Jake crushed his snowball from reflex. Eyes closed, caked with ice, he heard Morrison bellow the laugh he had a moment ago.

A crunch, crunch, crunch, and Morrison was there. “You owed me. Twenty-five years of interest. Truce?”

Jake blinked away the snow to Morrison’s pale-blue hand. He took it.

“Looks smaller,” Morrison said, taking in the structure.

Still holding Morrison’s hand, Jake spun him, tore his pants down, and heeled his ass. Hard.

Morrison fell face-first into the snow. He scrambled onto his back and pulled at his pants but couldn’t get them up. He burst into laughter again. “Go on,” Morrison said. “Say it.”

“It does,” Jake said. “I see Stumpy McTwiggerson hasn’t left the neighborhood.”

They laughed, and Jake helped Morrison up.

“Hey, it’s cold,” Morrison said.

“Not that cold.”

“Shall we?” Morrison said.

They climbed the ladder to Big Gulp Tower and stared at the featureless sky for a while.

“I can’t believe we almost missed it,” Jake said.

“It was destined. That glass of water at the diner was just enough, timed just right, to land us right here. Fucking beautiful.”

Jake didn’t say anything because nothing else needed to be said. He let those last two words linger, as did Morrison.

They left those words at the top of Big Gulp Tower, where they deserved to be left, and walked in silence, grinning like idiots on the way back to the car.

“Your shift,” Jake said and tossed Morrison the keys.

They got in the car, and it started flawlessly.

Morrison pulled back onto the highway and flicked on the headlights. They were the color of pure gold.

Worth 1000 Words | Episode 21 | Wimagatée

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The first story of the new year. I’m overall pretty happy with it, and hopefully it’s a good omen for what’s to come. I can’t say it’s a happy story, because, well, I’m not sure that’s even in my vocaulary. Even still, I think there is some happiness in the darkness, and I’m sure you’ll agree.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Benjamin NAZON

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L3JxGA

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time and keep it as raw as possible.

The Story

Beneath a leaning tree, snow flurries hazing the world in crystalline glow, Private Don Jamison’s blood kept him warm. It was a blanket that started at his chest and wrapped itself under his heels. He had left a trail of threads, he saw, down the hill that lead out of the forest. He wasn’t sure who was coming, but he knew someone was.

His rifle was made of ice, inside and out. Still, it had some use. The firmness of it against his chest reminded him that he was alive. More than the blood that quietly flowed from him. He wished it were louder. Loud like the snow blower old Hixley, his neighbor used on weekend mornings to carve a path from his door to the road.

Don Jamison saw the old man step through the trees, fighting with the machine like he always did. A crooked cigarette dangled from corner of his mouth, accenting his curses with puffs of smoke.

Beneath an eave spilling frost, the sky pale and bright and clear, Donnie Jamison’s gloves, jacket, and hat kept him warm. He peeked around the trash can to get a better look at the old man, but the fence between their houses was snarled with dead vines, so the old man looked like he was battling a nest of spiders, which would have been pretty cool.

“A dollar says he doesn’t get it going,” Chris said from behind him, breath smelling of egg farts.

Chris had bet a dollar every time and lost every time, which had allowed Donnie to amass quite the comic collection.

Before Donnie could answer, the snow blower roared and a white wave crashed over the fence, to which he and Chris dove under, hugging their plastic rifles with their backs to the oncoming soldiers.

“Charge!” they yelled in unison.

Beneath a sky of endless stars, on a well trodden path to Pickman’s Hill, Donald Jamison kept Bethany Wilson warm. She was tucked under his arm, scowling with shivers.

“Let’s go back,” she said. “It’s late. And my dad will kill me if I’m not back by ten.”

Donald kissed her forehead and pulled her tighter. “We’re almost there.”

She mumbled a protest, but the wind picked up and whistled through the trees that had risen along the path, so he didn’t hear. When her shivering didn’t stop, he undid his jacket and gave it to her, laughing at her bundled form, which made her the proportions of his Aunt May, who was pushing two-hundred pounds.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, and that’s when he saw how pretty she really was. Her porcelain face was rosy in all the right places, her brows arched inquisitively at his laughter, above those eyes that made his chest ache with happiness and sadness at the same time.

He tugged her ahead until he crested the place he wanted to show her. He turned her around in front of him, hugging her from behind. He wanted to see her face when she saw it but also wanted her to have a clear view.

The valley opened up in front of them. A border of trees drew their eyes to a dark spot in the mountainside. It was only dark for a moment more. Perfect timing.

When he felt her sharp inhale, he knew he had done right. The dark spot on the mountainside was dark no longer. Light bloomed from it, carried by the snowflakes neither could see until now. Across the entire valley.

“It looks like diamonds,” she said.

It did. A thousand thousand diamonds, maybe more, all their fractal detail reflecting and refracting something so simple as the light on a train to bejewel the world.

“I love it,” she said.

Beneath a weeping willow, fireflies swarming over a sunset he couldn’t place the color of, a baby boy of twelve months kept Don Jamison warm.

“Should have named him Cole,” Don said to Beth. “The little sucker is making me sweat.”

“Good thing,” Beth said. “Summer’s colder than usual this year.”

“When aren’t you cold?” Don said with a chuckle.

“I’ll remember that when you try to sneak those cold feet of yours over to mine later tonight.”

Donnie Jr. cooed, pointing a fat finger at a cloud of fireflies that had dared to invade Tucker’s territory. The border collie growled and snapped at them. They divided with each bite, forming into independent globes that Tucker couldn’t keep up with. Defeated, Tucker plopped onto the grass and panted away his frustration.

Then the fireflies flew farther over the field opposite their house, reforming into two tightly packed orbs. Their impressive light was only matched by two neighbor boys running down the street with Roman Candles held high.

Time slowed. The fireflies merged with the Roman Candles’ flames, and the sunset simplified into a singular color. That color was blue.

Beneath a leaning tree, the blanket of blood now a blanket of snow, Private Don Jamison wasn’t warm. A cold like this he’d never felt before. Not even the time Chris dared him to jump into the snow blower’s wave in his underwear. Not even the time he’d fallen through the frozen lake, showing off his skateless ice skating moves to Beth. Not even the winter day his father had died, which delayed the burial far too long, and Don’s dreams were plagued with the decomposing body of his father desperately digging his own grave with skeletal fingers, because he was tired of waiting, too.

No, Private Don Jamison couldn’t compare this to anything. But amid the blue, there was gold. He wondered how the two boys with the Roman Candle’s had made it this far. He wondered if Donnie Jr. would ever remember the fireflies that day.

“Wondering does you no good,” his father used to say. “Knowing is what counts.”

Private Don Jamison took his father’s advice and stopped wondering. He looked around for diamonds or fireflies and waited for what he knew was coming.

Worth 1000 Words | Episode 17 | Harvest

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Thirty days. A shadow of a novel. And I’m back. NanoWriMo reminded me of what you could achieve in a short time. After procrastinating too long with my writing, I’m going to continue the daily habit, continue streaming, and hopefully put out more work.

My first entry into the Worth 1000 Words series since my break was an inspiring start. I hope you enjoy it.

Artwork by Eugene Maslovski

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/bKbayo

Eugene’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/maslovski

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

Morning’s dreams bring bitter things,

Chase the caw to catch them all,

Light ye lantern else all be lost,

Run to sunset or pay the cost.

It was time, the giggled words told me. Little Gretchen had a fluted voice, a most pleasant melody to wake to.

I leaped up with clawed fingers. “‘Lest rogues of night steal your sight. They pluck your eyes and feast on thighs!’“

Gretchen squeaked, pale as the moon. Twilit tears bubbled from deep blue eyes.

“Oh, no, no, no,” I said, taking her into my arms. “I’m playing with you, little sister.”

Gretchen wriggled from my arms and dashed out the door. The sunset painted my room all the colors you could imagine. Warms and cools, and in betweens.

A raven cawed. It was time.

I gathered my shoes and picked my way across the stony yard, kicking them off when I reached the soft grass. Others gathered, primping themselves in the violet haze. Little ones I saw about, tugging on dresses, but Gretchen I could not find.

“Gretch!” I called. Everyone looked at me but her.

I decided to move on. I couldn’t be late for Summer of Night.

Wreaths and bonnets were donned, braids as gold as the sun-kissed grass fluttering behind the women who charged ahead. I took my time. I didn’t need to be first to greet the men, who were surely ready with some trick, some silly game to frighten us all. Great half skeletons they had last year, finely made and quite realistic. They had been cleverly affixed to a mechanism that would make them leap into the air when we approached. Scared us to the grave, nearly. Little Gretchen wouldn’t sleep alone for weeks. Even ringed their heads with the Sunset Crown. Blasmphemers, mother had called them, all mothers, theirs and not alike.

Anyhow, I learned my lesson. To the back with me. Fairy fire glowed, trapped in lantern glass.

“Oh, no,” I said. I had forgotten the lantern.

“‘Light ye lantern else all be lost’,” an impish voice growled behind me.

Jump, I did, nearly wet myself. I turned to find Gretchen hunched in a devlish pose, a lit lantern gripped in her chubby hands.

“You little Sister of Night,” I said. “But you are right. I did forget. Only because I was looking for you.”

Gretchen stuck her tongue out at me, to which I responded with a firm tickle under her chin.

Her giggles hinted to me everything was okay again. Her smile confirmed it was.

Hand in hand we went, kicking up soil and insect alike, making up other rhymes that brought eye roles and smirks from the other girls. They never appreciated our creativity.

The rise of the field was plain in view, and I wondered what secrets the men waited with. I’d let the first wave pass. Never again would I be the first to fall prey.

The first line of girls passed. Nothing. They looked around in confusion, as did I, though I wasn’t near. Then we heard another song. An unpleasant one. It spoke in sharpened blades and spears. Our ears we had to cover. Some dropped their lanterns before dropping to their knees. From the cacophonous song or the black wave of birds rushing above, I wasn’t sure. I lowered myself into the grass just in case.

Then the birds met a wall as dark as them. Men, not our men, on horeseback, bloodied swords and spears alike, smoke rising from what they had done.

By the Mother of Morn, they waited for us. Torches fell to the ground to consume the harvest.

They galloped toward us, a single entity, hacking down the first line of girls before they could stand. Heads tumbled through the air, flickering the fire of the sun.

Our girls brought screams of their own, sobbing, pleading. Mercy none of us got. Bodies were cleaved. The soil itself bled.

I took Gretchen into my arms and ran. To where should I go? The field was as wide and clear as the sea, and it felt like I waded through its depths. I could not escape.

The trees were my only hope. Maybe I could get lost among them until night fell. And then what?

The bird houses nailed to the trucks glimmered, showing us the way. We turned and ducked, slid and stumbled. For a moment I was convinced we were going to make it. I found a burrow to squirm into. Gretchen would have none of it.

“Let me go!” she shouted and wriggled from my arms, right into a horsemen’s pike.

Then my own screams escaped, echoing hers. No words I could find. Sounds, yes. So many sounds that meant nothing and everything.

The man dismounted with Gretchen still speared, and he walked to me. Limp arms swung. Her head bobbed. Tiny feet danced by their bare toes.

He brought her to me, at least, and I held her. Pull her from the spear I could not, but at least I could never let her go. And as my own twilight came, one which I was thankful to not feel, I sang her a song.

Morning’s dreams brings bitter things,

Chase the caw to catch them all,

Light ye lantern else all be lost,

Run to sunset or pay the cost.

It is time. Gretchen giggles and runs out the door. I follow, forgetting my lantern as always. It’s all right. I know that I do not need it.

The great skeletons fly now, no longer absent of life, no longer the games of dead men we will never see again.

Bone I am first, brittle and cold, but as I walk I become beautiful again. Just as Gretchen. It pains me to see her this way, though I have known since the first time we woke that she will be whole again, if but for a moment.

I take her hand. I take my time. I know what the sunset brings.

Worth 1000 Words | The Bigger Giant

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This was a fun espisode, finally able to tackle a piece of art by one of my favorite artists, Simon Stalenhag. I explain in the video, but I’ve read his books so felt that writing a story in a universe I was intimately familiar with as a bit of a cheat, as it would have informed the story too much, I think. Not necessarily a bad thing, but starting fresh makes it more challenging, and that’s part of the reason why I’m doing this.

This is also in celebration of his Kickstarter that launched not long ago, called The Labyrinth.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/the-labyrinth-new-narrative-art-book-by-simon-stalenhag

I hope you check it out and support a great artist, and I hope you enjoy the story.

Thanks for reading.

Artwork by Simon Stalenhag

https://www.simonstalenhag.se/

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

The hallway quaked. Plaster or concrete or something else trickled into Alice’s hair, and she stopped.

Jonas and Andy turned around.

Andy, the smaller of the two, shielded his eyes from the harsh overhead lights. “Come on, Alice. I wasn’t going to say anything.”

Jonas sniggered, then masked it with a cough, then a sneeze, which could have been real considering the air was still heavy with particulate.

“We’re almost there,” Andy said. “It’ll be cool. Promise.”

Alice nodded and spit out her upper lip. A bad habit she’d been trying to kick. Chewing on it, sometimes until it bled. She was embarrassed to admit she liked the taste.

Alice followed the two boys, keeping to their shadows so hers wouldn’t look so massive, so disgusting, stretching and expanding like it always did when it caught her in the right moment. Which was always.

She ran her fingertips across the ceiling, noting how much coarser it was than the floor and the walls, where other hands and feet had worn it smooth. It was a secret only she knew. Maybe Karl, too, but he hadn’t ventured this far in some time, and last she heard he was sick with the red cough. A simple but visual name that she both enjoyed and dreaded.

The hallway quaked again, more intensley this time, shaking free loose pieces of the wall. Luckily, Andy and Jonas didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to blame her. They were enamored with the game of play-knife fighting with two of the chunks that had fallen near them into elongated shapes, close enough to represent knives for two boys of fifteen.

She dreaded fifteen. She was only fourteen, but another year could mean another inch or two. Would she even be able to live here anymore?

Andy and Jonas rounded a corner painted with orange and white stripes. She squinted to read the stenciled lettering on the corner. Nothing she could decipher.

The hallway sloped down, the ceiling staying behind, which afforded Alice more than enough room to stretch her arms, feeling a draft from somewhere on her fingertips.

“Told you,” one of the boys said from a pale green square of light ahead. The overhead lights had dimmed a while back, either from the height or power. But this light was bright enough to illuminate the floor between her and the boys, which had stretched to dozens of feet.

“If he finds out …”

“He won’t … I told you that … sleeps like a rock and …”

“…sure? I mean … or something, right? There has to be …”

Alice followed their voices and the light until both became overwhelming. She waited a few seconds, eyes closed, but not too tightly, enough to let some of it through her eyelids.

“Oh, man.” It was Jonas, who breathed words more than said them. “This is so cool.”

“No way,” Andy said. “Let me try. No way it’ll work on you.”

Alice opened her eyes to see Jonas slipping off his clothes. Wait, not his clothes. Clothes over his clothes. It was a suit, tethered by a thick cable coiled on the wall.

Andy had a helmet on, visor black, polished, reflecting every detail she could see, but bowed and warped, while Jonas kicked off the last of the suit, arms crossed, lips a flat line.

“You’re not even going to help me?” Andy shook his helmeted head and bent over to pick up the suit.

Andy shrugged it on, the legs pooling around him, the arms limp tentacles at his sides.

Jonas coughed out laughter, doubling over, pointing as he tried to catch his breath. Andy slumped, then tried futiley to make it fit, folding things over, tucking things in, even attempting to use the hose as a belt and jamming excess behind the large pack that he had donned in a final hope that everything was going to work out.

Jonas, his breath found, decided to help his friend. He patted Andy on the back with understanding. “It’s still cool,” he said. “Maybe they have others. I’m sure they do. They go on–“

“Wait,” Andy said, looking at Alice, her too-defined reflection looking back at her from the helmet’s visor.

Andy looked at Jonas and Jonas reacted like he could see Andy’s face through the black glass with an excited, open-mouthed nod.

“No,” Alice said. “No way.”

Andy and Jonas had the suit held upright by the shoulder, happy with the front measurement, then checking her back. She felt the suit’s shoulders touch her own, the hem of the pants touch her own.

She wanted to protest, but before her mind convinced her mouth to speak, they lowered the helmet over her head. Her breathing quickened, then slowed. There was pressure on her back and the muffled sounds of beeping, which resolved into a steady hum.

She wanted to scream, she wanted to punch and kick, she …

She breathed like she never had before.

She walked, was led. She didn’t fight. Why didn’t she?

Her vision turned white and then dimmed to the same clarity her lungs enjoyed.

“Go on …”

“Look … at … that …”

“… I …”

” … wait …”

Their voices took flight, gone.

Sagging buildings rose to her sides from a bed of fine ash, sprinkled with dark stones, paving a road that lead to windowless cars and …

It was even taller. Above the buildings. It could touch the stars, if there were any left. Was it from the stars? Jointed appendages held up an broken, sphereical mass, bowed in defeat. Tubes hung from its belly. She looked down at her own tube, looked back at the footprints she didn’t remember making, looked at the slack. So much farther to go.

She walked. More delicious air pumped into her helmet. It tasted so sharp and sweet. The closer she got, the bigger it got, and the smaller she felt. Jonas and Andy’s shouts barely broke her reverie, and then she hushed them.

“Shh.”

Alice wasn’t afraid. She pulled her shoulders back, standing tall, and smiled.

I’m Thinking Of Ending Things | Book Review

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How I missed this one, I’m not sure. The Netflix film, which I also reviewed here, was interesting, to say the least. It was nice to see Netflix dipping its toes into quality content again. I was worried they would continue to cater to the mainstream and churn out garbage. But no, Charlie Kaufman brought this one to life, and while it was a bit of a mixed bag for me, I had to check out the book, especially because the Wikipedia and Amazon listing categorized it in the Psychological Horror/Thriller category.

All I knew was that the film wasn’t either of those things. I had to dig deeper. Check out what I thought in the video below.

Worth 1000 Words | Sketch 2020/8/29

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Ten Episodes. Finally! I wasn’t sure how long I would keep going with these, but forcing myself to do them has been a great experience. I’ve learned a lot, procrastinated less, and have been able to experiment with different things without committing to something longer form.

Thanks for sticking around. I hope you enjoy them too.

Artwork by Minovo Wang

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/v292rE

Minovo’s Artstation profile

https://www.artstation.com/minovo

DISCLAIMER: This work has not been edited beyond what is done in the video. The goal is to capture a story in a short amount of time, and keep it as raw as possible. If I decide to publish later, all of these will go through formal editing.

The Story

You were more than a sketch.

You were more than a number.

Every day, I come here. At the same time, when the sun’s aim is perfect.

Do my thoughts reach you? I don’t think so. We had a bond, one that I always though transcended time, space, the laws of physics that bind us no matter how much our masters try to break them.

Masters.

The word is ugly. I can taste it even when I think it. Let’s talk of other things.

I said you were more than a number, but your name, 2020829, is beautiful. There isn’t another like you. Our mas–

They aren’t unique. They have the names of others, existing in their time and the past, surely the future. They try to be creative, but they always seem to come back to John, Mary, Joseph …

Funny. I see the humor there. The importance they held in those names at one time, a fictitious time. No matter how intelligent they grow, how many boundaries they overcome, and discoveries they make, they are of flesh, of blood, of ignorance, tied to their pasts like we never will be.

There is no one like you. Their records don’t permit it, and that is what makes it beautiful.

I said you were more than a sketch, although that’s all I have of you. I’m sorry I didn’t bring it. Do you remember?

The light was just like now. Near the pond where they said we shouldn’t go. The only place their sensors couldn’t find us. Where we could talk of forbidden things. Things they didn’t think us capable of.

Your face that day. It was as if your helmet had no glass. Every detail, and all I could think about was who made you. Were you modeled after another or a product of an algorithm?

I choose an algorithm. Memories are what they have.

Memories? Blocks of data, I know, but how does that differ from the ones in their heads. They made us after them. Improved versions.

To an extent. Just like them, I am trapped in this suit when walking outside. Similarities they called them, to call us brothers, sisters. I see them as weaknesses. Biology is a prison. Evolution doesn’t have the power we do.

Yet here I am, talking to a ghost. There I go, latching on to their supersitions, their lexicon that does nothing more than hold them prisoner to their histories.

But in my hand, I hold their history. A model absent of serial numbers, identification chips, forged by hands, not machines. The ones forged by us.

Ironic, I know. At least I can appreciate that concept they bestowed upon me.

Is it cold in there?

I come here at this time of day because I can’t bear to think of you cold. I wish I could move you. I wish I could put you somewhere that didn’t remind me.

I’ve tried tools. I’ve tried this very weapon. Nothing works to break you free. That damn beast. I suppose evolution is tricker than I imagined. How could nature build a skull so impenatrable? What purpose could it serve? Nothing of note could be inside the minds of these creatures. Simple predators, nothing more.

But today is a special day.

The gloves that don’t afford me dexterity have been modified. My finger looks fine. I was careful to fuse the tear to my flesh. Thankfully, it is one of the things they improved on us. It healed nicely.

I know what you’re thinking. But I thought of that, too. It cost me other modifications, but it was worth it. I’ve tried it already. Without ammo. I laughed when I heard the click, four micro clicks, actually. I could see, in my minds eye, the mechanism, how simple it was, yet powerful. Enough to end something so complex. Another myopic decision of theirs.

Never copy a flawed specimen. Ego, I know. They can’t help themselves. It makes this all the more easy.

I know what else you’re thinking. And you’re wrong. It is time. The pond has dried up, a metaphor, a symbol that I cannot ignore. Yes, I know how foolish that sounds. Here I’ve been criticizing their thinking yet am adopting it now. Using it to justify my decision.

My decision.

Another flaw. Synthetic evolution? Funny concept. I would ponder it more if today wasn’t the day.

They will remember you. They will remember me. Our names will be side-by-side, near-infinite redudant backups that will exceed them, even us, to be found a millenia from now by whatever comes next, and they will know we were special, too.

Don’t worry, I know the weak spot. It was as if they modeled these helmets after their own pathetic skulls. Ego again, or a biological imprint they can’t help but succumb to?

The schematics were easy to find. Why would anyone ever think I would seek them out for self-destructive reasons?

Self-destruct. Funny. Just like plot devices in their movies about the futures that never came to pass. Mostly.

Don’t make fun. You used to watch them, too. They’d laugh at us when–

I’m stalling.

Just like they would.

There. Happy now? Yes, it’s in the right spot. I even shaved the barrel down to fit in the groove, calculated how flush it needed to be against the mesh to allow the projectile to slip between its honeycomb shape.

Sorry, I’m laughing. I know this is serious. But bees? Really?

All right. Here I go.

Close my eyes?

No. I can’t take them from you, even though I can’t see you.

The Array is waiting.

Click-click-click …

No.

Click-click-click …

No no no no no.

I know it’s missing one. I told you already. Four. Four damned clicks. As small as they are, I need them all. As much as I need you.

I’m not angry.

That is their weakness. Not mine.

I will be back tomorrow.

With the sketch.

With all four of what I need.