A chicken tried to cross the road
Upon which fate had last bestowed
A fetid mess of flesh and gore
From those who tried to cross before
The other side was just in reach
When road and fate allied to teach
The chicken's desperate, futile cause
Was ended by a couple cars
All this chicken wants is a hamburger. Nothing fancy, just meat and cheese. Maybe lettuce and tomato. That's it. Really, I don't think that's much to ask for. Is it?
Here's the problem. The road won't let me do it. The cows are relatively fine with it. Not happy, but they've at least come to understand that I'm going to eat them.
The road, on the other hand, is not happy at all. You see, the road has it in it's head that its reason for existence is to protect the cows. The cows can't see the danger and incowity...
The Ministry of Health had issued a flash across every network in the country. You knew it by the sudden crimson blur in your peripheral vision when nearly every screen within three hundred miles was showing the same thing. Such things could cause the closest thing to a standstill in a city of twelve million people.
"Mario, could you turn up the volume?"
"Sure, Jose," he replied.
"... at least fifty thousand have already been affected, with thousands more potentially affected. We strongly recommend wearing a breathing mask or handkerchief as an alternative, to prevent the spread of this endemic."...
"Honey?"
"What is it?" Sharon asked, not looking up from her work.
"Do you know why there are a couple of police outside wearing masks?"
"Um ... can't say that I do," she lied. Damn. They weren't supposed to get here so soon.
"Shall I let them in?" Camden said.
"Sure," Sharon replied. "We have nothing to hide, right, dear?"
A minute later, the two were standing before her in the living room. "Sharon Vasquez?" one of them said.
"That's me," Sharon said blithely.
"You're under arrest."
"What for?" she said, trying to sound indignant.
"The charge is causing a...
It was the fall that surprised me the most. The fact that it took so long that I could actually be afraid of the action of falling. The wind was stinging my face and making my eyes water, I was screaming but the noise of the explosion had taken out my hearing. The people strapped in around me were mere shadows, forms with fuzzy outlines and indiscernible features, mouths open in silent noise.
I forced my head back round, my throat filling with bile as the ground suddenly rushed up to meet us, my fingers twisting in the belt around...
How did we meet? You really want that story again honey? Okay, then.
Well, it was ten years ago, your father was a student and I was visiting an old friend of mine. We were on our way out to a club to listen to this band...
No honey, I don't remember which band, because I never got to the gig. No, I don't know if they were any good... Look, do you want me to tell you this story or not?
Right, so we were walking to the bar where the band was supposed to play and to get...
With a sharp, breathy hiss, the seal of the airlock broke, and Simon felt the cool Earth air blow across his face.
Well, technically he didn't feel it, but his suit's sensors recorded data on the air; its composition, pressure, and temperature.
It was the first time a human had set foot on the planet in over two centuries. The Consumption had taken total control over the planet in 2077, rendering it uninhabitable. The survivors had fled to Mars and the Jovian colonies just before the air itself had been sucked away to feed the relentless multiplying of the microscopic...
Like a breeze in the wind
Rising and falling.
Telling and calling
Whispers that fly
and then die without falling.
Like a small spec of dust
that seems just like the others
but is really unique
as it floats and then shudders
its way to the ground
and then splits and disperses
its atoms around.
It's horses for courses.
The sound reverberated through the streets. The sound regenerated through the beets. The sound remunerated above the seats.
Then, the sound transubstantiated inside William Butler Yeats, who became a poet.
The sound instantiated outside the session scope, ultimately causing a null pointer exception. The sound invigorated the soccer players and re-elasticized their cleats.
The sound was of a kitten who had received some treats.
I don't know what the hell this is. I think I'm having an off day.
The sound reverberated through the streets. It was as inevitable as an old man passing gas. The sound of children of all ages gnashing their teeth as the electricity that powered their individualized false realities went out.
The modest city had been the birthplace of televitality, and was therefore the first to experience what was optimistically known as "progressive population decline." With the ability to meet perfect friends, perfect mates and raise perfect children in through completely realistic virtual interface few people felt the impulse to have actual families.
Most people also worked artificially, their movements on the elestairs and...