voluptuouswhale

[voluptuouswhale]

Laughing portraits

If you are well careful and enter a room full of portraits by yourself, nothing will happen. This is because they know: they are clever, in their own way, and they are well aware that if they are caught in the act something will happen. To find out you have to be like them: sneaky, silent. Smiling. You have to catch them off guard. Try, for example, to enter the room with the naive attitude of a simpleton who simply wants to admire some works of art. Now, go through them one by one. Stop a few seconds on one, then a little longer on another, then skip one completely with a disinterested attitude. If you stretch your ear properly, you will hear a faint guttural cry coming from the ignored portrait. Don't stop. When you have finished your tour, make a mental note of which paintings you paid proper attention to, and which ones you angered with your disrespectfulness. They will remember it. Leave the room without looking back. No hesitation. They can sniff you out. Did you close the door? Perfect. Not locked. Only janitors do that. Now you have a window of a few seconds to decide: are you going to walk away and pretend nothing happened, or are you going to turn around to jerk the handle and catch them off guard? You are curious. You are brave. What's stopping you? Ancestral fear of that which is similar to man, and yet diverges from him in details imperceptible to the eye? It is natural. How natural it is to be attracted to what we fear. Facing fears. Such things. Turn the handle. Now.

Congratulations, you've done it. Who would have thought? The boy who has never been able to achieve anything in his life has entered the picture room he had been wrathful about only seconds ago! Truly a miracle. Do you hear that laugh? You've earned it! Now all those portraits are laughing with you. Or rather, at you. You know, I always conjectured that once they were discovered, they would simply keep laughing. After all, what more appropriate gesture? Oh, what a fractious noise! They must really be amused. How? Do you wish your legs could move? Fear has really frozen you, huh? Trust me: it's for the best. You may not have noticed, but on the door behind you hangs the worst picture of all. Yes, it is the same one who first started the taunt, and who is now literally cracking up with laughter. After all, what picture is more wicked than a mirror?

#shortstory #fiction #horror #supernatural #paranormal #spooky #mystery #haunted #art #creepy

[voluptuouswhale]

The dog who occasionally did pirouettes in the air for no apparent reason

As you might have guessed from the title, there was a dog who occasionally did pirouettes in the air for no apparent reason. It was not that he was happy. Or, at least, I don't think so, since I can't talk to dogs or read their minds. That is, he was happy from time to time, but I don't think he was doing pirouettes in the air to express his mood. Pirouettes in the air aside, he was a fairly normal dog: he wagged his tail when he was happy, ate kibble, chased reflected lights from mirrors, drove a Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stolen from the U.S. Navy, and urinated to mark his territory. Not inside the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, because otherwise the seats smelled way too much afterwards and no other dog would ever get on it. And he loved it when another dog accompanied him on his expeditions to resolve armed conflicts in a non-peaceful manner. He would occasionally do loops in the air, which are about the equivalent of pirouettes, but with airplanes. And these, I can assure you, he did because he was happy. Not the ones on the ground. Those we still don't know why he was doing them. But, I mean, he did them. And at the most unimaginable times! Like when Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, the Bahamas, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu, supreme governor of the Church of England, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Lady of the Isle of Man and ruler of Jersey and Guernsey, welcomed him into the throne room of Buckingham Palace to bestow upon him some honor whose name I do not remember for the feats he performed in the skies of the enemies of England, Northern Ireland, Antigua and Barbuda, etc. etc. But he, who was a normal dog who knew neither the language nor the customs of men, decided to eat a kibble he had brought along for emergencies. That done, he performed a perfect pirouette in the air and took off to find out if indeed all the swans in the United Kingdom belonged to the queen, or if any of them were free and could therefore be taken for a ride in his Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. Because, you know, the ducks you can find in the parks are free. I have already brought home 635 of them and they have yet to catch me. But there was talk about the dog doing pirouettes for no reason.

And he did exactly two of them, of pirouettes, when he found a duck with a hat and a goose with a butter knife in its mouth, both willing to accompany him on his next trip to the Langkat Sultanate, which is rumored to have dissolved in 1946 but he can't know until he ascertains it for himself. He, and the two short-necked swans, as he has decided to call the duck with the hat and the goose with the knife, and who in the end are two geese because the duck is a still-young domestic goose. Quoisities, in the face of the magnificence of the Langkat Sultanate, or what remains of it. Considering these two events, one might think that the dog who occasionally did pirouettes did them because he was happy. But he did three pirouettes during the tragic day that was September eleventh, two thousand and one, and one would hardly think that he was happy at that time. Right?

#Writing #ShortStory #DogStory #Pirouettes #Humor #Animals #Adventure #Aviation #UnusualPets

[voluptuouswhale]

The lapidator of words

The sun was placidly setting over the metropolis in foment. Every single street, every single car, every single human being seemed oblivious to the spectacle offered by the sunset. The sound of the mufflers echoed in the deserted lanes, a cacophony that had long since become melody for the inhabitants of the lower floors of the buildings that, starting strictly from sea level, seemed to reach for the clouds. "Another productive day has come to an end", said a voice from the back of the room. "What is today's word?", replied the voice facing the huge window that stretched across the room, providing a three hundred and sixty degree view of the city. "Cacophony. It meant unpleasant succession of sounds" "Excellent. Carry out the removal" Every single street, every single car, every single human being seemed to ignore the spectacle offered by the sunset. The sound of the potholes recalled in the deserted lanes, an unpleasant symphony that in the long run had become a melody for the inhabitants of the lower floors of the buildings that, starting strictly from sea level, seemed to reach for the clouds. "Much better", sentenced the voice from the window, "you can go now". A door closed silently behind him. Another word is gone, he sentenced. He laughed, thinking back to his rise to power. "More than three thousand years ago, the Babylonians built a tower to reach God. They hoped to rise to his level, and what did they get? Everyone began to speak a different language, creating the longest-lasting divisions in history. Even today, people still discriminate against each other, hate each other, kill each other because of their different language. A black man who speaks Africans is considered equal to an ape, but a black man who speaks English is almost a gentleman! So tell me what differentiates them, if not a language! Take a science book: if it is up-to-date, it is in the English language! If it is dated, it may be in some other language of the world! But not in all of them! And now tell me: why can't a Vietnamese person know the causes of cholera? Why can't a Chilean understand special relativity? The problem is not the languages: it is the words! Now I ask you to close your eyes, purge yourself of all certainty and see a world of facts, of videos, of realities intersecting without the verbal mechanism! Can you see it? Then you can see my dream! The dream of an equal world in which no damn idiom enshrines the difference between smart and stupid! If you too see what I see, if you too feel what I feel, you know where to put your cross. If not, I ask you to look at your life and draw sums from it. Have a good day, world!" It had been easier than expected. Within a few years - eight, to be precise - human language had become more uniform. But that was not enough. As long as words existed, division existed. And so, one day after another, gradually, dictionary words were being erased. Of course, it would take millennia to complete this work, but at some point the idiom would spontaneously cease to exist. People would stop communicating verbally, and my dream would come true. No more wars, no more inequality, no more unnecessary deaths. A perfect world. Because of this peculiarity of mine, someone had affixed to me the nickname "word stoner." I didn't mind: I was just waiting for any of those three words to be stoned to ironically get that nickname off my back. There was a better chance that the language would spontaneously die out before the elimination of any of those three idioms, but that tiny chance of victory still put a genuine smile on my face. The researchers had given the global language ten years to live. It still had two to go. The secretary returned. "Restless night? Would you like anything?" My heart, as usual, went crazy. "Yes, would you mind sitting here?" "Sure" Right now, she was about half a meter away from me. My heart was going crazy. I had to tell her. Tell her what? "You know, you're doing a great job with the stoning"

I saw her hold back a laugh. "Since when did you adopt the jargon of the opposition? However, almost all the work is done by the stoners, I just make sure the task is done slavishly to orders" Slavishly? What a beautiful word! "Well, it is still a fundamental and delicate job. Congratulations!" Was I really saying that crap? "Thank you… Now, if you don't mind, I should go home. My shift ended ten minutes ago" Tell her to stop! "Actually…I have something to tell you. I do…I do…" What was the right word? "Do you…?" Come on, it was easy! When you have very strong feelings toward a person--positive feelings! "I'm going to…" "I'm sorry, but I really have to go now. I'll see you tomorrow, at 8. I wish you a good night">>" Ten thousand three hundred and fifty-six words had been deleted. There are approximately four hundred and seventy thousand words in the English dictionary. What were the chances that word had been stoned out? At that point, it was no longer important.

The next day, no person was able to put it into words. The punishment for any individual found speaking, listening, reading or writing was death. The secretary stared at him, mute, from across the room. The governor's throat was encircled by a rope, and the body hung still from the ceiling. A white letter lay at his feet. The secretary approached the lifeless body. She examined the letter. She placed it back on the floor, and headed for the exit. She thought about the grilled chicken she was going to cook that evening, and she was happy.

#Writing #ShortStory #Novel #Language #Dystopian #Fiction #SciFi #Future #Dreams #Words

[voluptuouswhale]

Ms. Lisandra's fantastic lamp

When I think of my childhood, I think of the smell of mold and the sound of water drops falling on the floor on rainy days, permeating the wood and soaking it from the inside. I was told that when my mother learned she was carrying me, she was immediately removed from the estate where she worked. Few words were spent on the matter, and - like a pack animal unable to keep up the pace of work - she stood on the roadside begging for a few crumbs of stale bread stolen from the rats. I would never have come into the world if the owner of the estate had not been reached by deplorable rumors inherent in a possible extramarital affair that would have seen the aforementioned nobleman carnally unite with a servant girl. Since such rumors did not befit a man of his ilk, he was rather quick to arrange a marriage between the servant and a young man who used to visit the nobleman's house. And, in an unexpected outburst of generosity, they had been given a country house: a dilapidated hovel impregnated with fetid miasmas, to which the rats residing in the walls only waited for the inevitable departure of the house's inhabitants to feed on their rotting bodies. For that pile of putrid wood was an open-air tomb for its tenants, a death sentence delayed by a lifestyle that, sooner or later, would lead even the quietest creature to inescapable madness. But my mother, who until a few weeks earlier was collecting scrap yarn from weaving mills to sell to knitting widows, was more than happy to accept this arranged marriage to someone she had never even seen until now, and with whom she would have to share the rest of her crude existence. Fortunately for her, that poor woman who carried me abandoned life a few years after giving birth to me, expiring in a bed that had never known love. Her death raised yet another fuss: official rumors said that she had gone peacefully in her sleep, complicit in an illness that was as incurable as it was painless. The truth, unfortunately, she took to her grave: but the marks that encircled her neck seemed to tell a story quite different from the one told by the town doctor. In any case, I was a handful of years old when my father, having lost his wife, also lost his wits. He had never loved her for a second of his life, but it would be incorrect to say that they had hated each other: it was more of a peaceful cohabitation, where each spouse tried to get through the day together with the other, like fellow adventurers. Only now that he had found himself alone had my father drawn the sums of his life.

After his departure from the noble estate, his path had led him to become a peasant confined to a dilapidated house, condemned to raise a child who was not his and whom he would never be able to feed. It was then, in the story of my life, that Lisandra appeared. I could not explain with what money she managed to hire a maid, since she did not earn enough even to guarantee daily meals. But I was little more than a whining child at the time, and the only thing I saw was a mother sent to me to replace the one I had lost. What Lysandra looked like, I could not tell you: when I am sure she was a middle-aged woman with raven hair and a hooked nose, the next thing I remember was that she was a blond girl with very graceful manners, except to realize later that she was a canny old woman, and so on. What is certain is that she gave me a very special lamp as a gift, and was very precise in her instructions for using it. When she would be gone and the world would become very ugly, I would have to politely ask the lock to open. Then all I would have to do was gently rub the waxed wick, thanking him for his helpfulness, and he would light up and brighten any problems. During her stay, Mrs. Lisandra was very kind to me. When my father was away, she would take me to the garden to play with lizards and chase butterflies, as long as I did not disturb them during their flight, however. She had never been good at cleaning houses, she told me, so it was enough to pretend they didn't exist and play outdoors, where nature made up for any man-made shortcomings. Then my father began to get very angry with Mrs. Lisandra, and I never saw her again. That was when, on an evening where there was no more light, I whispered the secret words by the magic lamp. I felt the bruises disappear from my face, the sadness dissipate from that portable star, the wood hone and smell of lavender. My rat-eaten bunk became a huge bed the size of the rich man's, the windows found their panes missing, and every single corner of the house was transformed into a mansion that would have aroused the envy of a king. My father ran to me, his arms outstretched and his face filled with tears of joy. Then my eyes closed, and I never opened them again. Finally, everything was warm again. Like it used to be.

#Writing #ShortStory #Fiction #Childhood #Family #Poverty #MagicLamp #Mystery #Grief #Loss

[voluptuouswhale]

Am I sitting in a tin can

He placed one foot across the gap. Then it was the turn of the second foot, which took the rest of the body with it. It had happened within seconds, in the face of decades of research conducted by a united Earth under one banner. Now there he was, the first Earthling to step on ground outside our solar system. No emotion shone through his face as he took his first breath on an unknown planet. Then again, the air was still that of his suit. He turned around: the bridge connecting him with the lab was collapsing. Orders began to thunder from the radio built into the suit, then indistinct screams, then silence. Quiet. The landscape projected before his eyes was as monotonous as it was terrifying: an expanse of unfamiliar, purple, perfectly smooth material stretching far beyond the reach of his eye. That platform must have been built by a sentient civilization, but no life form seemed to dwell down there. Maybe they had been hiding underground. Maybe they had escaped into space. Maybe they were dead. He decided to take off his helmet. Without oxygen supplies or provisions or connections to Earth, he would survive a few hours at most. It was not even worth prolonging his stay. What would the surface of that land smell like? He would find out soon enough. Sure, the atmosphere could have burned his lungs before he could even inhale deeply, but how could he find out without trying? He inhaled greedily, like a person reaching the surface just before drowning. No burning. The smell was a little acrid, but so far it did not seem to be toxic. After a few minutes of breathing, he became convinced that there was enough oxygen to keep him walking. He would have given half his annual salary to be able to light a cigarette and test the effects of combustion in that particular atmosphere, but unfortunately his request-at the moment-was almost more science fiction than the situation he was in. He did not even have time to take four steps, when a deafening buzzing threatened his sanity. After unnecessarily plugging his ears, he evinced that the noise came not from his eardrums, but from some meander of his brain. After a few interminable seconds, silence returned. A human voice burst from the void.

Welcome. I apologize for the acoustic stress. Our neuro-linguistic analysis technology is still primitive, and I doubt it will have a chance to evolve. The amount of neuro-sentient visitors we have encountered is confined solely to you. You will certainly have many questions, but first let me explain our history. Our estimates indicate that the first life form was introduced to this planet millions of revolutions before today, or about half a billion Earth revolutions ago. The first sentient life form made its appearance ten million Earth revolutions ago. Ѐ it is still unknown which was the first species to obtain self-consciousness, and this diatribe was the birth of the conflict between the two peoples who have been fighting each other since the dawn of their respective civilizations. A mountain range divided the planet exactly in half, and it was said that the other side was inhabited by abominations who fed on their own kind. Those on the other side, on the other hand, claimed that nameless monsters resided here, who in macabre rituals invoked obscure and forgotten deities. The first wars broke out, and the legends had to adapt to these close contacts. The few returning sane soldiers claimed that the opposing faction lived in an animal-like state of degradation, and that their eagerness in battle was such that they confused their enemies from their allies, with immense slaughter in their own ranks. Then, finally, peace came. It was not stipulated by some charismatic leader as is the case in your culture, but was an almost natural process that shifted the conflict to other planes. No longer in open warfare, the two peoples began to compete culturally and technologically. Stories about the other half of the planet continued to meander, more than ever enlivened by innovations that seemed to establish the superiority of one species over the other. There were still tales that the sky on the other side was completely blackened by the putrescent fumes of their inferior machines. It was rumored that their rivers had been turned purple by production waste, that the soil itself was corroded to the crust, that trees had been replaced by plastic copies with the aim of hiding the ruin of their own kind. These stories seemed to have unified on both sides, so much so that a book on the culture of the opposite side would have matched perfectly with that of the rival species. And, when the whole planet was occupied by factories, both peoples turned their eyes to the sky. That would be the ultimate goal, finally establishing the superiority of one faction over the other.

The best minds worked day and night for years, and finally the first device was sent beyond the exosphere. Again, it is not known who was the first to reach the goal. One could cry paradox here: how is it possible that such an important event went unnoticed? What could have prompted two races in perpetual conflict to ignore the possibility of standing on the heads of their enemies? Little matter what was said in the days to follow. The leaders of the nations, elected for the exceptional occasion, eagerly awaited the return of their astronauts. And, when the spacecraft returned, there was complete silence for several months. Paradoxically, no announcement was made. But the entire surface of the planet was soon completely covered with the coating that is now under your feet. The excuse that was used was to protect the peoples from the terrible weapons their rivals had developed, terrible devices capable of completely exterminating all life on the planet, devised in the face of the defeat they had recently suffered. It wasn't like that. What the astronauts had seen was something far more terrifying. "What does the planet look like seen from up there? Well, on one side is green. On the other is green. On one side is our species, on the other side is theirs. Nothing we have built is visible from the sky. Neither are we. We are very small" It was wrong. We could not be similar to them. We could not be so small that we could not be distinguished from afar. Their land was corroded, ours lush. You might think that the minds of the global leaders went beyond these prejudices, that they were aware of their similarities with the other faction. But you know: for those who live in lies, lies are reality, And so this immense cover was created, a mask to conceal the lies we had told ourselves for so long. It was not a weapon of mass destruction that killed us, it was enough this huge pile of metal that obscured us from the rays of the stars. No one wanted to escape to the surface. So I was created, a sentient artificial intelligence that would act as a warning to future visitors. I speak for both species, if there is any difference between them. I will be glad to answer your questions, at the end of which I can lead you back to your home planet. "I thank you for the offer, but I'm all set." This was my story, the story of the first astronaut to cross an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, a man given up for dead by his kind. A lost banner for his nation, which in a desperate attempt to stand above the others had sent me here without any simulation. I'm sure I've learned to lie from these species: a small, honest lie makes the incipit much more entertaining, when reread in retrospect. I think I'll go for a walk; I've always liked desert landscapes.

#Writing #ShortStory #SciFi #OuterSpace #Exploration #FirstContact #ArtificialIntelligence #Fiction #EinsteinRosenBridge #SentientCivilization

[voluptuouswhale]

Children are manufactured on that planet over here

"H-how far is it?" asked a quivering little voice. "Yes, how much longer?""Is that the Earth?""Of course it is!" "That must be his moon! What was her name?" "Moon" "Yes, I know what a moon is, but what is that one called?" "Moon" "After the first one broke the ice, stopping them is impossible. Ah, blessed youth," sighed the Grand Instructor. And she sighed so loudly, and so convincingly, that she grew a thick reddish beard, and became the Grand Instructor. "Grand Instructor… Oh no" "Her beard grew again" "Is she angry?" "I'd say more like angry" "But we didn't do anything" "Anyway, my beard doesn't grow only when I get angry," the Grand Instructor ruled. "When am I going to grow a beard, too?" asked the reflection of a little girl who was being mirrored in the large glass window that completely surrounded the spaceship's cockpit. As he spoke, he had parted his amber hair into two large locks; he then ran them from his ears to below his chin, where he finally brought them together as if they were his first beard. "It will never grow on you," the Grand Instructor chuckled to her, "however, you can wear a fake one whenever you want." "Hey, they didn't tell us that!" "So I'll always stay like this?" "Boooooring." Since he had been given the prestigious as well as delicate task of finishing the children's education cycle before sending them to their planet, there had not been a single crew-or cargo?, he thought with amusement-that had not put him on the spot. After all, each child's mind was manufactured differently, and among all those billions of people there were no two who had ever thought the same way, and never would there be for the rest of the universe's history. A difficult job, that of the Grand Instructor. Instructor: as he reflected, his beard had escaped from his chin to his head, taking on an aquamarine tint as he moved. The voice in his head, however, spoke to her in a masculine tone; a complicated moment, to which the two genders of our language cannot alas do honor. What was sh...he supposed to be called? A throbbing headache was all he could feel at that moment. He struggled to answer. "You can be a little what you want. Your anatomy is little more than a coin toss. If you want to be called Francis, know that you will be Francis as long as you want." "But I want a beard!" "And buy it!" "But I really want it!"

The Directorate that decided how to instruct each and every mind was a few million miles away; the Grand Instructor-who had finally settled down-decided it was for the best. Every meter she placed between herself and that mass of fools was a meter of pure peace and resignation. One more meter he would have to travel before he set fire to their premises once and for all. Underneath, he knew that they were decent people whose commendable work had enabled the progress of the human race on Earth. He also knew the reasons for the petulant and sometimes sarcastic nature that possessed most children's minds before their memories were erased at birth: it had something to do with learning. The incessant torrent of questions and placid mockery that characterized those newcomers to humanity enabled them to learn much faster than a peer who simply accepted what was brought before him. A matter of speed, surely, for quality still depends on the individual. In any case, that child simply would not accept that she could not have a beard. The only thing that saved the Grand Instructor-a good approximation of her various genders-was the hands of the clock, which were only a couple of inches away from reaching the fateful time. But there was nothing to stop her from sending them off a few minutes early; then the rest of the crew would look after them, and she could rest her ears at last. The last child had come hopping through the door; now would come the subtle symphony of pistons that would independently push the two large pieces of steel until they completely isolated the cockpit from the rest of the ship. A piece of paradise he could never do without. Here it comes-this is it-now! No, now! Now! Why don't you shut up!!! The Grand Instructor…trice turned sharply to scan every nook and cranny of the round room: he would catch the culprit in the act, and give her an additional lesson that would serve him well on Earth. Those who have been scolded by a Grand Instructor are immediately recognizable, even if they have lost memory of it: they are the typical people who always apologize to everyone, and do a great job of balancing out those who deferentially admit nothing and always point to others. However, this is only a trace, because at the end of the day, every child grows up a bit as it happens. "Did you think you'd fregar--hey, are you okay?" It couldn't be. After all those millennials in his career, he refused to accept that the most important moment of his life as an Instructor had come at that time, in that situation. He was mistaken: it was the prank of an overly bright child. It had to be. "Turn around, I command you."

He had tried to pronounce the words of command in the strictest tone he had in his body, but he had let slip a clear note of concern, and his order on Earth would not meet with much success. On that ship it was different: to prevent insubordination from getting out of hand, there were key words, called command words, in the lessons that were projected into the minds of those children that they could not physically disobey. A safety measure that was certainly much appreciated. The child, however, had not moved an inch, and was still staring at the stars outside the glass window. He could feel the palpitations of his heart getting faster and faster, and his head was beginning to feel light. He had never felt that sensation before. It was strangely pleasant. "No, no, there are a thousand other reasons why he didn't obey." But if not, was she ready for that moment? "Maybe something shorted out in his body, and he can't move. It happens about one time in a hundred million, in newer versions: an ultraviolet radiation passes through the titanium exoskeleton, and it quantizes on the protective membrane of some circuit sending it into overload. That's an allowable margin of error: a very good trade-off between the thickness of the titanium and the ħ constant. At most junctures, the child's mind just had to be transferred to another body and reeducated. At worst…" He did not want to think that. As he approached the soft iron chair, he did not know what he would prefer: still eyes, or blank eyes? Steady eyes, definitely. What if they moved…? "Hi. How are you?" the Grand Instructor asked him, straining to smile as he scanned the slightest movement on the face before him. Blinking, the child turned expressionlessly toward the Grand Instructor. The moment of his teaching life had just begun: a child devoid of any trace of teaching had happened upon his ship, and his task as instructor was to shape his entire future existence in those few minutes left to him. "What you see down there is Earth. In a few minutes you will be down there, and you will have to learn everything all over again." "You will come out of your mommy's belly, and your daddy will shake your hand. Maybe one day they won't remember, but that will be the best day of their lives. At that moment you will have to open your eyes and take your first big breath. Then you will feel a weight inside you, something you can only throw out in one way: you have to cry. As you grow up it will seem like a pointless thing, because you will be reminded of all the times you ended up in tears at every opportunity as a child.

Crying is the first thing you do, and it is the thing that makes you more human than all other men: do it whenever you need to. But never cry to ignore what makes you feel bad! Even if it seems uncomfortable, the best thing is always to understand why you feel that feeling in your body, and accept that being sick is normal. Of course, you will have to work on it." "Then, after crying in front of Mom and Dad, Dad will make some funny faces at you. He'll do it for you, he'll do it for him, but he'll do it mostly for Mommy: because, after all the hard work he will have done -- and he will do it -- as soon as you smile, he'll forget everything, and Daddy who has been by her side all the time will forget it too. Then you will have learned the smile, and in life you will slowly remember how it is the most beautiful gift you can give to the people you love. Never forget to smile, really!" "Everything else from then on will be made up of other things you will learn to do on your own: you will walk, you will talk, you will cry a flood of tears and embrace those difficult moments; you will hate yourself, and that will teach you to love yourself. And if you don't have to, know that I will run the millions of miles between us to teach you one last lesson. You have my word!" "And if you don't make it in time and you feel heartbroken, and you don't know what to do anymore: on sleepless nights, raise your head and look for the little dot where you came from. Don't you see how small it is? You have come, a long way! And on this road you have found a lot of people who really love you, and even though everything will seem to hurt, remember the times when you loved yourself and smiled even in the midst of tears." "Your life will be like this, because we learn lessons only after we face them, and unfortunately some will be bad. With patience, you will learn to love them too, because they will have made you the man you will be then: a child who can hug himself and can hug everyone else." "And you must never stop learning! And of loving! And of wanting the good of all others, be they humans, animals, and all other things! And don't sigh too much over the things you could have done, or the things you did wrong! If you can see your mistakes, it means you have matured! And when you think you've learned enough, go somewhere else and start again!" "In short, live your life! I, from up here, will always think of you, and send you many more people to love!" As he spoke the last words, the child's pupils dilated into a great black sea. The time had come: he would leave, and she would never be able to see him again. One day, that child would die, and she, the instructor, would outlive him. He was about to plunge into a sea of thoughts that until a few minutes before would have seemed totally foreign, unknown to him, when a faint voice emerged before her. "Thank you." And with one last smile, the child's titanium body lost the last of its energy. Today I learned to cry.

#shortstory #writing #sciencefiction #spaceship #education #children #gender #philosophy #teaching #lifelessons

[voluptuouswhale]

I couldn't say when my passion for the stars was born. My parents say that I was always a curious boy, that I would spend hours and hours contemplating something until I understood it. Or, at least, until I thought I did. I like to think that my first fixation was with my cat, Minu. Minu was a Persian who was not particularly sociable, one of those mood swings that purr one second and scratch you the next. But I loved her anyway, and I think she eventually understood that too. Occasionally, when I was running in the garden, she would pop out of some hedge and we would compete to see who could reach an undistinguished finish line first. Needless to say, the few times I won were easily attributable to some kind of concession on Minu's part. I wondered then how such a small furball could run so fast, and I was fascinated. After Minu came a little fish, Fin. Yes, in those days imagination was not my forte. But he, too, knew how to give me quite a few headaches: how could he move so nimbly through the water, when I barely knew how to swim? In short, you may have guessed my unique relationship with animals. My mother would often turn on the Discovery Channel TV, and I would waste entire days staring at penguins diving into the ocean, leopards stalking prey, and albatrosses soaring through the sky. In time I learned that we humans, to make up for our shortcomings, had found ways to swim faster than penguins, chase leopards and fly higher than albatrosses. It was the same day that, to pique my curiosity, my mother uttered those words. "Just think, after exploring all the lands, oceans and skies, man decided to reach space. And he succeeded!" "So he sat on the stars?", I asked with the naiveté proper to any child. "No, not yet. Maybe you will be the one to sit on a star first! Take your sunscreen with you, it must be very hot up there." And, when Christmas came, she most likely regretted that talk. But I had my telescope, and there wasn't a happier child on all the Earth.

In truth, the incipit was a lie. As you may have already guessed, I know very well when this passion of mine was born. I know how it has evolved over the years to bring me to today. I have been dreaming of discovering a star for years. Even small, even lost, even dim. Something to shine in the darkest moments of my life, to burn even after my death. Yes: I would discover a star. After getting my degree in astronomy, I had immediately applied to work at an astronomical observatory a few hundred kilometers away from my home, the most important one on the entire continent. My application had been trashed because of my age. How could they expect me to spend at least three years in some provincial observatory while out there complete strangers were stealing my stars?

"Why did you quit your job? The pay was very good." "Yes, but I couldn't see the stars." "Of course you are strange. I think … maybe that's also why I love you" ""I love you?" That's stuff you say to a friend." "Of course! What did you think you were, my boyfriend?" Her eyes had always reminded me of heaven, but it was her character that had made me fall for her. I stretched my lips, and met hers. "Do you always kiss your friends?" "Only the ones I feel sorry for," she replied, laughing. "Anyway, I managed to save up enough money to buy a telescope. Then, when they accept me at the observatory, we can move in and live together." "Isn't it a little early to be making such plans?" "Not if I'm together with you." In short, I could say I was happy.

There it is. There it is at the bottom. The astronomical coordinates--they don't correspond to any known celestial body. A chill ran through my body, passing from my legs to my face. A few drops of sweat were beading on my face. I had no time to wipe it away. I had discovered a star, and in less than six hours I could claim its name. Less than six hours. I took a sleeping pill to combat the feverish anxiety running through my body, and soon fell asleep. I opened my eyes. The clock on the desk read 03:15. Whatever, I might as well check that the coordinates had not appeared in some forum or magazine. Four more hours and it would no longer be a problem. A sigh of relief escaped my lips. No star thieves, at least for now. My eye fell on the computer clock, 07:02. When had this happened? How had all that time passed? The thought was quickly interrupted by a rather peculiar fact. The photograph in the news article on Proxima Centauri had come to life, and its light had rendered me completely blind within a few thousandths of a second. I was enveloped by a heat so strong that I felt my limbs melt like wax in the sun. I opened my eyes, which had miraculously regained my sight. Beside me, everywhere I turned, there were only stars. Dazzling. Burning. "Why have you come all this way?" one of them asked. "Because … I love you. You are beautiful. Even if I were to die right now, just the thought of having seen you in person is enough to make me smile until my last moment." "Do you love me? Then why did you abandon me?" "I… I don't think I understand." Our talk was interrupted by a nearby pair of stars. "What about us? What have we done?" "Nothing! You have done nothing! Why are you mad at me?" "We are not mad at you," made a spokesman star in the midst of a host of heavenly bodies, "we love you. That's why we are here." "No-you are not real stars. Real stars would never treat me like this. Go away!" "We already left long ago. Don't you remember? You kicked me out after I confronted you about the mania that was ruining your life. And our relationship." By now I didn't understand anything. "It was different with us," the star couple intervened, "you slammed the door screaming. And you never came back." "We, on the other hand, never heard from you again. You didn't answer messages, calls, the intercom." "No one knew where you had gone. The observatory had never seen you. We thought you had disappeared-or worse." Only then did the light and heat dim. And I already knew who I would see. Next to me were my girlfriend, my parents, and my group of friends. Their gazes were not mean, so much as more…sad. And it was much worse that way. I was suddenly catapulted into the middle of nowhere. There was no one near me anymore. Everyone had disappeared. Everyone?

No, not her. My star. She was there, staring at me, with no pretense of lecturing me. She shone, she burned, she warmed. She was warming. She was burning. And the more I stared at it, the less I could look away. The temperature was rising. I felt every single ray of light pass through my skin and penetrate to my internal organs, burning every inch of my body. And she shone, cold, unconcerned about what she was doing.

"Francis! Next time you make do with breakfast, that everything here has gotten cold. Since when did you start ignoring alarm clocks?" I ran to hug her with tears in my eyes. I had been looking for stars in the wrong place.

#writing #shortstory #fiction #astronomy #relationships #passion #stars #love #discovery #dreams

[voluptuouswhale]

I've got absolutely no idea on how this thing works, but hey here's my first post! Wherever it goes.