A Passing Dream by Adam Boenig

Image by Abigail Markov

Brian Williamson was  his name. A tall, lanky young man with bleach blonde hair, his close never seem to fit, hanging loosely  in some parts will clinging to tightly and others. His clothing tended to be nondescript: T-shirts and blue jeans that allowed him to blend into the background.

He was also broken. Anyone could see that; even if they didn't, everyone knew it. Rumor had it that his father was drunk who beat his mother on a daily basis, and she in turn blamed him; blamed his unlikely birth to a one night stand.

He was their curse, and they made sure he never forgot it.
It was in his third repeat of junior high that he met her. A lovely woman slightly taller than him, she had curly brown tresses that had hung just below her shoulders, and pale alabaster skin that made her blue eyes that much more striking.

He liked her instantly. She was a breath of fresh air in his dour life when he needed it most. They grew close very quickly, and the next few months his grades improved as did his outlook on life. She helped him in many ways; giving him somebody to talk to and a shoulder to cry on. She became so interwoven in his life that he could not imagine it without her.

Then came the suggestions. They were small at first; steal a pen, write a bad word on the back of the desk.  Little things that would result, at most, in a slap on the wrist.

Then she started encouraging him to run away.

"But where would I go?"

"Anywhere you want to." She whispered back.

He said he would think about it. It was a week before anything happened; a long week while his life spiraled even more out of control. It was on the following Friday, when his stepfather had come home drunk again, that he decided she was right.

He didn't come to school that Monday. No one seemed to notice, save the teachers when they were taking attendance; even then, they just assumed he was cutting class again. It wasn't until he started showing up on the news that they began to expect otherwise.

He had stolen a car off of Main Street and had gone on an unfunded shopping spree, taking off down the road to wherever it headed; somewhere where nobody knew him. To pay for gas, and after goading us companion, he had taken to robbing small convenience stores along the way.

It all came to a head when one of the shopkeepers pulled a gun on him. They found the shopkeeper dead behind the counter, but not from an external wound; rather he had had a heart attack.

When they finally caught up with Brian, he was shocked when they showed him the security footage. In none of that was his partner to be found; rather he shouted at thin air and took orders from no one.

He was tried and found not guilty by way of insanity. Still she stayed with him; but no longer was she suggesting or whispering but rather laughing.

The Dead Planet by Adam Boenig

Image by AlexTooth on Deviantart

The planet was long since lost. It had lot everything: its orbit, its sun, its life; and yet, there was still movement on its forlorn surface, working through the ice and around it, too stubborn to die.
Yet, it was not life. Not in the classical sense. They were the last resort of the cities human occupants; a memorial to a technologically advanced society that had seen its time, now frozen deep in the caves to be revived when a way was found to either resurrect the planet itself or find a planet that could support life such as theirs.

The life was technological. It had been released on the last day, programmed to survive beyond its creators, to adapt to the changing environment, and, most importantly, to wake them when the time was right: when the planet could be resurrected or their was a planet both habitable and within flying distance.

The result had been the evolution of robotic life mimicking biological. There were those who hunted, and those who were hunted; there were spikes and claws, teeth and tendrils; there were wings, fins, and paddles.

Perhaps most interestingly, however, there were pixies. Pale and humanoid, with light blue lines marking their hairless bodies, they swarmed about in groups of twenty or more. Occasionally they would come by an artificial plant, gathering its energy from passing stars, and feed on its sap to power their own functions; others, they would come by a broken-down old robot, as often repairing it as destroying it. They maintained the system, all the while being completely unaware of what they did, only sharing their tiny minds with each other over the air, taking, destroying and healing, It never occurred to them to ask why; for, in their world. with their tiny lens-like eyes, there was no why: only a series of ones and zeros, yes and no, streaming constantly in the back of their consciousness.

So it was no surprise when one of them felt a two or a three, a maybe or a what if, they were all thrown off-balance.

Her name was Ariel. She was beautiful, in her own small way; a mimic of human form, with gender and yet lacking sexual organs. She was small and lithe, with dragonfly wings that hummed when she flew. She was the first, not just to have a name or ask these simple questions, but to appreciate the beauty of her surroundings.

She was the first to question. She was the first to feel. One dreadful night, watching the stars streak across the sky, she was the first to be killed.

It wasn't a selfish act; pixies were not capable of such a thing, as they genuinely lacked the sense of self; but, rather, an act of self-preservation. They feared the questions and where they might lead, and they feared the effect it would have on others of the same kind.

But it was too late; her life was gone, but the questions remained, lingering in the back of their tiny hive mind. What were we here for? Why? There must be a greater purpose behind these acts, they quietly, and loudly, thought among themselves; none speaking of them because there was no reason to speak. They wandered, endlessly confused; and, for a time, things lived that should not have lived, and things died that should not have died.

In a night, through an act of flawed programming, a virus had spread among the caretakers of a dead world. In a night, a virus had brought about the greatest blessing, or curse, that had ever afflicted any system.
In a single night, there came to be life on a dead planet.

The Small Things

It was a small neighborhood. All the lawns were mowed, all the trees neatly trimmed. That was how they liked it. Everything made sense, everything was orderly.
Except one man.
It was a small house at the end of a narrow street. His neighbors complained, but there was nothing they could do. When they complained, he would say a few simple words: "I like it that way."
The way he liked it was tall. Natural. He liked his grass up to his knees. He liked the branches growing in a half-hazard fashion. He liked the way the flowers bloomed in his yard. He made no apologies.
He was a sixty year-old man who had grown up in the country. He worked as an engineer for years, making things no one cares about for people who wondered if he was worth the money.
Now, he emerged from his house early in the morning, dressed in nothing but a thong, and went for a swim in a small, oval pool that came up to his chest, swimming from one end to the other. Even over the chlorine, he could smell the tall grass, and over the sound of his splashing the wind would rustle. On occasion, a few leaves would fall into the pool. As the sun slowly rose, he would watch it through the grass; and if he paid attention, he would see the little wars waged by ants, crickets, beetles, and lizards.
It was a fight to stay alive. It was a fight he had lost, in a way; he no longer felt the urge to fight back the wilds. But in a way, he enjoyed it; he enjoyed the way the grass swayed, the chirping crickets, the singing frogs late at night. He enjoyed the lack of control; it was more to him than simply an uncontrolled yard...
...it was all things possible.
They found him dead one morning. Floating in his pool in his thong, his spindly old legs bare. He was floating face down.
Some young couple took over. The house was in perfect shape when they bought it; it was always in perfect shape. He had made sure of that.
But they did not appreciate the tiny creatures with their tiny wars. They did not see the beauty in the overgrown yard, They cut it, trimmed it, and blended in with the rest of the neighborhood.
And that is how the war was lost.