#radium screeches

[georgie-barker]

Sasha was at the meet and greet...its fine it's fine I'm just imaging an alternate universe where I got to meet the person who voices my fave magnus character....

#screeches in cross atlanticism #radium warning

[psychopompstories]

By Fire

Author’s Notes: Follow-up story to “Tough Life”. 

Content Warnings: Wildfires, death

"I hate fire," Egg muttered. Nearby, plumes of smoke rose from distant trees, and the horizon was stained the colour of sunset at midday. 

"You hate everything." Cat looked down on us with an air of luxurious boredom. I think she did that just to taunt me. Dogs, cats, trees...everyone knows how that story goes. 

Egg's feathers puffed up. "I hate you."

Two of us answered at the same time. "We know." 

"Jinx." Panting from the oppressive heat, I lolled my tongue in a grin at Crow, who just tilted her head at me with black eyes full of wry amusement. 

"Honestly though," Egg said, to various sounds of resignation from the rest of us. Here we go. "If they took better care of this world and stopped mucking it up with carbon emissions and plastic --"

"Egg," Crow rasped, "snap your beak."

"I'll snap your beak," the little bird mumbled, but sank into himself a bit when Crow fixed him with a glare. 

"He has a point, you know." Everyone, including Egg, stared at Cat. She made a show of stretching, digging her claws into the bark, then sat up with prim hauteur. "If they destroy themselves, we'll be out of a job." 

Crow's laugh was quiet and hoarse. "Is it a job when they don't pay us?" 

"I just don't understand!" Egg made a sound like a dog toy being squeezed. "They know they're killing things! They know this isn't sustainable!"

"They knew lead, radium, mercury, and cigarettes were poison too, and that didn't stop them," I said. It was an old, tired argument. "People are brilliant and stupid at the same time, Egg. Sometimes they're beautiful and sometimes they're horrifying. You should know that by now." 

"I do know," Egg insisted.

"You really don't," Cat said. 

We all had our specialties. We've diversified, but we all felt drawn to a certain kind of energy. We were often called to a specific type of death. Cat understood violence. Murder. War. Messy, bloody, and brutal. 

Egg had nothing to say to that. 

“The wildlife has suffered the most,” Crow said. “There haven’t been many human deaths.” 

“Yet.” Cat sounded calm and certain. 

“Why are you here, anyway?” Egg asked. 

“You think all of these fires happen naturally?” Cat gave him a bland stare. “With fires like these, all the arsonists come out of the woodwork.” She tilted her head. “Have you ever seen flesh melt from bones? Lungs seared from smoke? Slow death from heat expos--” 

“Ok!” Egg rustled all of his feathers and shook himself like a bird in a bath. “Yes! I get it, it’s terrible!” 

“Yes, it is,” I agreed with feeling, hoping they wouldn’t get into yet another one of their legendary spats. I’ve said it before, but I said it again. “We’re not here to judge them, Egg. We’re just here to see them off.” 

“But Dog...” I winced at his hopeless tone. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” 

“Some of them are trying,” I pointed out with a sigh. “A lot of them, in fact. But more of them don’t want to face the death of their entire species. They can’t. Humans have never been good at grasping death in large numbers, Egg, we’ve seen it before, so many times. How do you expect them to react to something that threatens literally every single one of them?” 

There was a moment of silence while Egg squirmed and fluttered, and then he let out a shrill screech of frustration and flew off to where the humans were struggling valiantly to douse the inferno. I sighed again and looked up at Cat, who just flicked the tip of her tail at me and watched him go in silence. 

There was a rustle from Crow, whose head had turned to look off into the distance. “Ah. Another old one gone.” 

I raised my head from my paws. “Do you want me to...?” 

“No,” she said. “Stay. The humans trying to fight will want to stay and keep fighting if they fall, and you’re better than I at convincing them to go. I’ll take this one.” She spread her wings and flew off towards the beach. 

Leaving me with Cat. Not my favorite of the bunch, but she and I had learned to work together despite our differences long ago. We didn’t talk to fill the silence...we rarely do. We just watched the landscape burn together, and waited for our cue. 

#shortstory #psychopomps #death #afterlife #writing #death cw #paranormal #readersofinstagram

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

These Everyday Items Were Dosed With Radium Until We Discovered It Was Toxic

Radium was discovered by Marie Curie and her husband Pierre in 1898. In 1903, the Royal Academy of Sciences awarded Marie and Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel the Nobel Prize in Physics, making Marie the first woman to win the prize.

Chocolate - Food products containing radium, like the Radium Schokolade chocolate bar manufactured by Burk & Braun and Hippman-Blach bakery’s Radium Bread, made with radium water, were popular overseas until they were discontinued in 1936.

Water - Radium water crocks like the Revigator stored a gallon of water inside a radium-laced bucket; drinking the water would cure any number of ailments, from arthritis to impotence to wrinkles.

Toys And Nightlights -  The Radiumscope, a toy sold as late as 1942, offered a glimpse of radium in action. Noting radium’s famed luminescence, the ad also mentions that the radium scope could double as a “wonderful” nightlight, since it “glows with a weird light in a dark room.”

Toothpaste - Toothpaste containing both radium and thorium was sold by a man named Dr. Alfred Curie, who was not related to Marie or Pierre but didn’t miss an opportunity to capitalize on their name.

Cosmetics - Alfred Curie’s product line didn’t end with dental care, though. He also manufactured the extremely popular Tho-Radia brand of cosmetics, which included powders and creams that promised to rejuvenate and brighten the skin.

Heating Pads and Suppositories -  Early 20th-century doctors also jumped onto the radioactive bandwagon with both feet, producing suppositories, heating pads and radioactive coins (used to “charge” small amounts of water), all intended to treat rheumatism, weakness, malaise and just about any health complaint for which a fast and magical cure was needed.

Health Spas -  Radon health spas took off in the 20s and 30s, where women and men alike could stop in for a long relaxing soak in radium mud, rinse with radium water and leave soft and glowing, thanks to a thorough application of radium cream. Radium mines and caves also doubled as “healing rooms,” if patrons were willing to travel. At least one radon spa is still in operation in the United States, as are a few in Japan in Europe.

Clocks/Watches - Between 1917 and 1926, during the height of radium’s heyday, the U.S. Radium Corporation employed more than a hundred workers (mostly women) to paint watch and clock faces with their patented Undark luminous paint. As many as 70 women were hired to mix the Undark paint, comprised of glue, water and radium powder. Workers were taught to shape paintbrushes with their mouths to maintain a fine point, and some used the material to paint their nails and teeth. While U.S. Radium’s labor force were all but encouraged to ingest the dangerous mixture, management and research scientists who were aware of the danger carefully avoided any exposure themselves. Five Radium Girls sued U.S. Radium in a case that initiated labor safety standards and workers’ rights. There are no records of how many of U.S. Radium’s employees suffered from anemia, inexplicable bone fractures, bleeding gums and eventually, necrosis of the jaw. Though many of the factory’s workers became sick, cases of death by radiation sickness were initially attributed to syphilis. (It’s believed that this was an attempt to smear the girls’ reputations, and that medical investigators hired by U.S. Radium were paid to withhold their findings.) The Radium Girls’ case was settled in 1928, putting a swift end to shaping paintbrushes with the mouth and open containers of radium paint. Though radium was still used in clocks until the 1960s, new cases of acute radiation syndrome in dial painters came to a screeching halt, and soon after, so did the popularity of radium-containing products and toys. The former U.S. Radium manufacturing plant is now a Superfund site.

#radium #toys #19th century #20th century #science #facts

[sacrilegious-skeletal-scribe]

boyyyyyys

we win these!!!!!

yeah, so remember that submission thing I briefly mentioned wherein the adventure lay in the fact that I had to look myself up to provide links to my social media (yes this the only platform I can stand to use, no I’m not sure what that says about me as a person) and discovered those, frankly, very tone setting tags I wrote promptly forgot about?

yeah that little shindig?

ummmm I guess they liked it?

cause this dropped into my inbox

ahhehehuahs

I’d crop their names but they’re all over the issues, so I presume it’s fine

But yeah, this is a thing that happened

In a month I will technically be a published author, that’s…. holy shit that’s astounding

The e-zine is free, I’ll come link it when the December edition is published, but yeah holy shit

can’t believe one of the biggest memories of my early professional life is going to be intrinsically linked to ‘I throw around animal death like a well loved frisbee’

But, as you heretics have deigned to read this far, a highlight from my upcoming publication; also I have given you actual content in like two weeks and I’m starting to feel bad. also I did a teensy fucky-wucky and haven’t reviewed this until tumblr’s refusing to let me copy-paste forced me to type this by hand and made me realize that I should’ve made sure I was happy with the first part of this before submitting it for other human beings, but if I wasn’t using these wax wings to fight the sun what good would they be

Anyway here’s wonderwall, or as I’ve christened this, Radium Mind

It was the morning, and the day laid before me,

possibilities and structure offering themselves to me, mine to choose.

the birds lived in a plane above, flying and screeching and singing and dying,

I saw them in silence, and they shrieked to fill the void.

it does not offend me; faced with myself, I would shriek too.

the worms wriggled in the ground below me,

sunlight a harbinger only of death to those who live without it.

the worms might scream too, I would not know;

they are not as loud as the birds,

and the earth between us would distort the sound past understanding, anyway.

I stood between them, for the lack of any other place to stand,

and separated we carried out our lives, the gap crossed only,

by esoteric diseases with little interest in our self-imposed separation,

living only as it knows how to be,

the casts inflicted on ourselves merely anecdotal,

incidents it has no reason but to forget soon.

alright heretics, this has been battered through my drafts for long enough, so I’ll thrown you some language you can spit at, sorry for the insane fucking post, this is definitely tone consistent, I’m self-aware I’m just not willing to do anything about it.

How else would I tag for whale corpses and thinly veiled threats for family members who aren’t allowed to parasitically infect my sense of self anymore, well loved frisbees and teensy-weensy, girl-bossy, fucky-wuckys. I am as Icarus, and the sun can kill me as it would kill a god, with dramatis and weight, and a lieu of spectacular fucking paintings.

Have an excellent goddamn evening heretics, and keep your abhorrent minds as crunchity as your foul souls can withstand.

As always, to you.

#sin the ironic paladin speaks #we win these!!!!! #if god’s not going to stop me than neither will this rotting conscience #I had a stroke and a panic attack and I think I’m going to make brownies or practice or kill a small god #it’s anyones guess honestly #e zine submission update #writing #writing update #submissions #spilled ink #spilled prose #glorified prose #poetry if your willing to squint and call it poetry even when it doesn’t scan or rhyme #whale corpses #again #animal death #that shits going to fucking haunt me huh #art

[feely-touchy]

The uptown Washington joke shop

sells all manner of mischief

fake puke

democracy built on omission

court-mandated cartoon lipstick

the jokesters count quarters and magic beans

stock shelves with shit to overflow

push funhouses on schoolyards

offer radium teeth whitening

promising satisfaction with smiles all aglow

Displaying Groucho Marx glasses

Faces that looks like you except cheaper

Sampling out mouse-trap gum

Peddling upward mobility

To the sound off of novelty beepers

They show ecologically minded plastic flowers

Suspended from suspenders

affixed to star-striped trousers

Reasonably priced for unreasonable minds

Rare and recalled bourgeoisie finds

They have everything you want

Everything you hate

Nothing you'd ever need

Polka dotted with clearance sales

Covering up warning labels

Signs imploring one not to read

Guarantees with a wink of the eye

Each customer sold a promise

A piece of Banana Republican cream pie

You can haggle with enough money or friends

If you got the means they're flipping ends

Passing out forgaries via business cards

certificates for clown schools

Holding a dishonorary doctorate

Pledging that they don't make the law

they just choose the rule

gentrifying the penny candy shop

barring young minds from magic books

so we have fun outside for free

'til they called the cops on all us crooks

Then spoke their matter-of-fact motto mantra

in the hollow screeching voice of a garbage disposal

"Give away your money if you're so giving

Death is for the working poor: money for the truly living"

#poem #poems of tumblr #poetry #poets of tumblr #art #literary art #writing #poems on tumblr #government #clowns #joke shop #circus

[watching-overyou]

Patient #372: Jamison Fawkes

Focus, and let go. There was no appointment, the scrawny man hobbled his way into my office without a second thought and began lounging on my therapy couch. I originally thought it was either one of two things: He wanted to go out and get boba tea, or his own cooking is finally killing him. Either way, I could have solved the issue, if it wasn’t for the thousand yard stare. I had asked him if he was alright and just got a nod. I decided to grab my clipboard and start writing. An almost sick smile comes to my lips, yet I quickly manage to hush it. It would have been exciting...If this was the Junkrat I knew. Something is off...something- oh god. It’s the fire in his eyes. It’s dead.

This entry is for Patient #372: Jamison Fawkes, A.K.A. Junkrat. I will inevitably regret this.

“Are you ready?”

A nod.

________________________________________________________________

The hell does ‘e think ‘e  is, grabbin a clipboard like I’m some sort of- He closed his eyes and immediately it was back. Fire everywhere, and...and her face. Goddammit, I gotta do this shit.

“Yeah I guess.”

No....aw shut it ya drongo.

His eyes began to wander down to his leg and he forced them back up to the doctor.

“Hell, If I knew where to start I wouldn’ be here doc.”

He closed his eyes and let it come back. Blackness turned into his old home...and his fiance. Everything was good for a while. They had just settled in to the trailer, and she had been taking care of their three year old son. Even in memory, he knew he would never be able to see that little face again. A tall, lanky Jamison Fawkes all dressed up in a suit and tie ready to go work at the new building. He manufactured explosives for the boss-man up at Emperor Inc. Things... hadn’t been going well and the company was quickly sinking. They had just been bought out by a man- a tyrant by the name of Ferguson - who was dead set on experimenting with Fawkes’ prize invention: The Omnium Fusion core. He was a savvy, cold business man that didn’t give a damn about anything unless it made a profit. He had got in his Jeep and drove off to, hopefully, the last meeting...and that was all his memory would allow.

Blackness.

An office.

A voice.

“Fawkes, I am not taking no for an answer! If I add one drop of radium to the center of the Omnium Fusion Core, we will be able to make the weapon increase in power tenfold! If there is another Omnic outbreak, we would effectively be able to-”

“No. End of story.” 

“Really? Because it would be a shame to fire you. I did my research on you, kid.”

“Im thirty-tw-”

“Can it Fawkes, I did my reasearch. You have a fiancé who is bussing tables at a local diner and a three year old son. Even with the money that you make, you have to tell them it was a bonus from the local university that you “work” at.

That goddamn grin.

“I know all about you Fawkes, I know your secret...all that cash and you still can’t live outside of a god-forsaken trailer. If you don’t comply, I will end you.

Silence....dread...compliance.

“Fine. Test it once. Find an area with at least a 30 mile radius before any civilization, and test it. We don’t know what it will do. You better pray to god that it is contained, or so help me I will hang you by that necktie.”

The grin. “We start today, I have the location. Thank you for your business. Come with me.”

Blackness.

Her voice.

“Jamie, it will be okay. Phoenix and I love you. We will see you when we get home, ok? I’m making lasagna for dinner tonight.”

“Alright Carrie, love ya too. Bye.”

click.

Blackness.

A ground plot about 100 miles away from the office they were sitting in marked the location. Ferguson sat at the desk watching the monitor while Jamison held the landline ready to give the go-ahead.

“Fawkes, give the order.”

Fine. “Clear for testing, administer the radium.”

A mechanical arm screeched as it shuddered over to the small cylinder with a vial in hand. It began to pour the red liquid into the cylinder.

In a flash, before anyone could get any sort of results, it exploded into a massive mushroom cloud.

“Failure...damnit Ferguson where did you go wrong?! You’re fired.”

Rage flew over the man as he ripped the landline out of the wall and prepared to bash the suit on the head...but something stopped him and caught his eye. Something he will never forget.

Approaching the building at lightning speed....was fire.

Immediately the building was covered in flames. A gas-line exploded and sent Jamison flying back into the wall. His vision blurred, he saw Ferguson with a shard of glass through his neck in a pile of blood...then nothing at all.

He woke up on the ground outside in intense pain, a large shirtless man near him staring at him. His jaw dropped in shock as he realized he no longer had right arm or leg, instead replaced with makeshift bandages from what appeared to be a shirt. Ignoring it the best he could he reached for his phone. It was gone.

“Use mine. Names Mako.” came a voice from the man.

He hastily grabbed the phone and dialed the only number he could.

“Carrie Middleton can’t take your call right now. Please leave a -”

click

“Carrie Middleton can’t -”

click.

“Carrie Middleto-”

Blackness.

He opened his eyes to see Mercy sitting with the clipboard, watching him intently. Getting up he cracked his neck and plastered on a smile.

“Ain’t nuthin. I tried my hand at makin lazagna again...thought I might puke it up ya know?”

And with that, he was gone.

________________________________________________________________

Patient #372 Jamison Fawkes, A.K.A. Junkrat:

False alarm.

#drabble #has he come to explode? (Junkrat) #Beende mein Leiden und ich werde diene beenden (Mercy) #im gonna cry. #Analysis

[blxxder-blog]

i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth

Blinding lights. Cold air. People shouting, laughing and chatting. The fuss that only an over populated city had. It seemed so alive, so filled with energy.

It wasn't as if Minsoo hated the city. No. After all, cities like this were what made him who he was now (not that it should be a good thing though). He learned to mingle in the crowd, escaping from sniffers and watchers ever since he was little. A boy that had no one but himself and the will to stay alive.

Eventually, Minsoo understood the reason for his undercover. As his parents were taken away from him, the boy saw that there was no place for someone like him among normal people. He cried for days and no one dared to come near. Every window within a mile's radium shattered. The ground trembled. The probability of killing anyone who got too close was high. Minsoo realized that only when he was older and a man from the Division laid at his feet, blood splattered all over. It wasn't accidental. He didn't get nervous and lost control. Not at all. His intentions were clear from the moment he noticed his only way out was over the man's corpse. So Minsoo screamed and watched as his target screeched back in agony, clutching his ears as he bled to death. Not the most enticing view, but what could he do?

He worked alone then. Most runaways like him preferred to be in groups, each one with a different skill. Minsoo never liked that much. He needed money and became good at tracking people down (almost as good as any sniffer) and taking them down in a single shriek. Many organizations hired him then, sometimes loners like him who seeked vengeance or safety from the Division. It wasn't luxurious, but Minsoo was fine with it, thank you very much.

The boy strolled down the market, lazily coming to his usual meet point. One of his contacts told him there was a new person in town that seemed eager for his services. Not much informative, however Minsoo was not one to turn down something new. If things spiraled out of control, all he had to do was scream. The boy grinned at the thought, his face hidden under his coat. Hands in his pockets, lazy steps. Minsoo looked like nothing in the world could bother him as he stood on the dark alley, soon coming to a stop.

"I know you're there.", he said to the seemingly empty alley, crossing his arms over his chest. All he had to do was wait for that person to show his face.

#: dark alley :

[frommediterraneantomoyaland]

Two men and a woman landed their avatars at The Museum of Modern Art in Moya Land.  It was ten o’ clock in the morning inworld.

“We are Koreans!” exclaimed the woman.

“Ha, I did an exhibition in Busan,” typed Moya who then directed the curious visitors to the arresting virtual replica of his real world exhibition at the Radium Art Center in Busan.

I thought I knew Moya Land like a book. Perhaps, so did Moya himself.

Sometime later, he returned to the landing point with the genuinely surprised Koreans who wanted to explore all four islands of Moya.

I got a car from the nearest car delivery point before the Tourist Info center. With the three visitors seated in the car, I began driving. My aim was to make the trip a memorable experience for them. However, my keypad’s arrow keys were malfunctioning as I tried my best to drive in a civilized fashion.

“[It] seems you [are the] best driver ever!” joked one of the Korean men when our car finally came to a stop near the Rebel or AYOM Territory after briefly speeding us into oblivion.

The shadowy region had a number of two dimensional rebels furiously protesting ‘Not a dictatorship of art’. They demanded their own kind of liberty going against the real Moya and his avatar. A series of steps led us up to where the rebels had burnt down some buildings along with one of MOYA posters. We came down the same steps but this time we were headed to our left. There were what looked like a cave with MOYA writings on its stone wall, a big stone known as the Moya Stone, a mammoth, and bones arranged vertically as the letters MOYA. As we walked out our respective avatars of the cave and the Rebel Territory, we found ourselves before a large water body.

To my bewilderment, I saw what I had never seen there before. A real human avatar sized female, whose age I couldn’t tell, was lying by a dilapidated foreign boat on the shore.

“ [Is] she [a] creation of Patrick Moya?” asked the confused Korean woman in English over her microphone that started screeching in moderation as soon as she turned it on.  Just then, the strangely real female figure before us appeared to be slowly picking herself up.

“[She] look[s] Middle Eastern…,” said one of the visitors to the others as they agreed with him.

“That is racist! We could be from the United States or the United Kingdom! My name could have been Adam instead of Abdel. You cannot guess by the looks,” yelled a voice from behind me! The voice belonged to a realistic male figure. He looked as real as my own hands to me.

I heard the clueless trio talk softly among themselves in, probably, Korean.

“This place looks too strange. We arrived here very early in the morning on our boat through this waterway.  We were out in the Mediterranean Sea on our way to Italy, escaping from our own war-torn land. The boat was too crowded and the journey suffocating,” explained the human male in the pixel world, apparently devastated.

“And one day… I don’t know what day it was…I saw the surrounding looked different from real life like it is now. The water and the sky look like we had seen them in video games. It frightened all of us at first, especially when we landed here and saw a character flying over our heads. We hid in that cave but then we could hear shouting and screaming…We did not dare to find the source of that noise, “added the woman.

They spoke surprisingly perfect English. However, they couldn’t read our local chat box. Nor had they anything to do with it. They had no profiles. They weren’t clickable in any way. The fact that they were now in Moya Land located in a virtual world called Second Life couldn’t easily be grasped by them. They could only hear our voices. They found it too difficult to understand that we were equally humans who must switch on a computer, connect to the internet, log in to Second Life on a viewer, and teleport to Moya Land to interact with them. They couldn’t fly like our avatars either.

“Only the two of you were in the boat? Where are the others?” asked I.

“They ran out of this rebel held region. Some of them have children with them. I was too tired to even walk after getting out of the boat. Haven’t had a good meal for days and days but I am not hungry anymore,” said the woman.

“Me neither. I was almost out of this danger zone. I just came back for her. How great! We were escaping from one menacing place only to land at another!” The young man seemed enraged as he uttered those words.

We hurried past the angry rebels and saw the brilliantly lit Moya Tower, adjacent to the Statue of Liberty carrying the Moya Land guide book in her left arm, in the North American part of the land in front of us. We were far enough from the hearing range of rebels in their territory. Besides, the rebels were all nearly stone deaf being exposed to their own constant riots. The two refugees now felt safe. They found a few others, who had arrived with them, standing under the tower. Some shocked, some scared, some expressionless, when Abdel and the woman started announcing to them something in a foreign language. None of those refugees could be spotted on the map or radar of my viewer.

Turning around to my avatar, the man said, “I just tried to tell them whatever you told Afraa and me about this place. They cannot really believe anything of it either.”

I learnt that woman’s name. Afraa must be it.

With the aid of my viewer’s camera I saw about ten or fifteen more refugees, some of them with their children, scattered all across the Moya Museum of Street Art, attempting to figure out their new reality. A two-dimensional policeman from the Moya Land Police, whose van was parked at the entrance of the museum, had to fire their guns five times in the air to quieten the screaming refugees. He must have had come to protect that area from the rebels, who couldn’t be seen anywhere near us anymore, but was naturally distracted by the sea of humans he had never seen inworld before.

“Who do you think you are?” roared the policeman in a neutral English accent and signed the same in an unusual sign language that anybody can easily understand.

“We have escaped a humanitarian disaster in our homeland where a few countries, fighting among themselves over gas, are bombing innocent civilians. But they keep saying that they are only aiming to kill the terrorists who are using people like us as their shields. We are all in search of security which is the most basic human instinct. Most of us here are well-educated. We can work the smartphone, the computer, and what not! All we need is a safe space where we can all settle down and rebuild our lives,” stated Afraa.

“…Even if it is on a virtual island somewhere in the metaverse on the internet for now,” said a young refugee slowly.

“Listen up! The Constitution of Moya Land reads: ‘Everything on the island of Moya is artistic and on its central part (Moya Land) only the works of Moya are authorized. Visitors to Moya Land are free to come and go as much as they can with the current 3D web techniques. They can stay the time they want.’ It says nothing about what to do with you real people inworld who want to remain here for a long time!” shouted the black and white policeman.

“You, Mister 2 D Policeman of Moya Land, have no power over us who have human flesh and blood. Your gun, I observed, fires no bullets. It fires art that can only liberate and not dominate our consciousness. Now, we don’t want to risk another human being in the real world knowing about our arrival here. Maybe your ruler is kind. But if he turns out to not like us, we can be in deep trouble. Right now we want nobody else to know about us here.” The young man looked sharply into the cop’s eyes.

The refugees probably felt like illegal immigrants in America under Donald Trump. I tried my best to explain to them that the creator Moya Janus (Second Life username of the original artist Patrick Moya) is no Donald Trump and that he would welcome them to secretly stay as long as they wanted. But, my words had no effect on them. I realized that the difficult circumstances encountered by the refugees had made them paranoid.

Sometime later, the thoughtful cop replied loud and clear, “Okay…well…I will let you all stay here for as long as you want without any other real world person knowing. I can never use three dimensional guns firing three dimensional bullets. But you all must obey me! However, you cannot hide from our ruler’s alter ego, Moya, or Dolly or any of his creations who breathe here all the time in almost all his artwork on this land. ”

I then saw that the refugees were discussing the matter with each other in their own language. Finally, the Moya Land Police and the refugees came to a perfect mutual understanding. I was the official witness of it.

It was 1 am by my real world clock and I was almost logging out when Abdel came up to my avatar and asked, “What about you and those three other people with their avatars who were with yours? You all know about us!”

I noticed that the visitors were no longer on any of the four islands. I was too concentrated on the incident involving the refugees to notice when they had quietly left. Assuring the worried refugees that I would never do anything to harm them and that the Koreans didn’t even understand English well enough to comprehend such a reality, I went offline.

 As soon as I woke up the next morning, I logged in Second Life and landed at my last location on Moya Land. It was 9:30 pm inworld. There was no one around my avatar save the little rebels behind me who now seemed to guard their territory standing alert and still. The police jeep near the Moya Tower had no one in it. Not knowing where to look for the refugees I met there eight hours ago, I ran my avatar towards the Moya University. Embracing the street leading up to the university region were vivid virtual sculptures of the artist’s creations. A few steps ahead, on entering the region, I found to my right the Moya Sanctuary and the conservatory of live paintings which he had actually performed live in real life for different big causes. To my left was a hall of Patrick Moya’s artwork preserved at a real educational institution.

At a small distance before me was erected a gigantic model of Moya called Moya Research Center. Within the left feet of the model, was an open hall with Moya the robot available to talk to avatars who typed in local chat. I could almost see a human’s left foot sticking out from behind the robot. Going halfway around the robot, I discovered that the feet belonged to one of the male refugees who had arrived that morning inworld. He was standing there ashen-faced and naked. His hands were trembling a little and he remained unchanged despite seeing my avatar. He went back to staring at the pixel ceiling.

A cry from afar reached my ears and grew louder. She was probably uttering foreign words and all I gathered was the name ‘Omar’ she kept crying repeatedly.  I sensed her descending down the adjacent pathway that connected each floor within the Moya model to the ground. As the middle-aged woman saw me, she started questioning me eagerly. Since I didn’t understand a word, I helplessly looked at the naked man who slowly came forward. The woman instantly appeared greatly relieved but equally ashamed. Coming close to the man, she took off her head scarf and tied it around his waist to cover up his privates.

I followed them up to the first floor containing Moya Janus’ virtual memory where a few other men, who were probably there searching for Omar, appeared to be unusually happy on seeing the pair. Abdel entered the hall in great excitement and going right close to the lost and found man, he asked him something in their language. Omar kept quiet. His head hung down.

Now facing my avatar Abdel began, “This woman’s son is as insane as he was in the real world! A few minutes ago, when we were all at the uppermost hall which looks like an office, he stripped off his clothes and was throwing them at us. This made us furious. He then stormed out before any of us men could catch him. I got busy along with the others there trying to find every part of his clothes that he threw in different directions! Only these two fools along with this illiterate woman went out looking for her lunatic son. Here he is!”

After a brief conversation with the woman he added, “Oh and guess what? He ran up and jumped off this giant’s head! But, he is unharmed!”

Everyone in the hall was dumbfounded when Omar, slowly looking around now, reflected, “Our being here isn’t death. This isn’t life either. This is an opportunity to live.”

 They were twenty one adults and ten children in number. That’s what Omar’s mother informed me in sign language when she, her son, Abdel, and three other young refugees with their children were sitting down in a circle on the surface of the model Moya’s brain.  Everyone was calm and admiring the bird’s-eye view of the island.

On the floor below, the others were talking softly. Outside some children ran all around the intriguing disorderly array of the real life live paintings’ reproductions, sometimes using the Moya sanctuary as their hiding place while playing hide and seek. A few others were too busy admiring in-depth the 3D models for laser cutting in reality. Afraa was out on her own exploring the land.

“What time [is it now?]” asked an old man sitting next to Omar. “[Does] this world’s time [count when it comes to] praying?”

“Second Life runs on Pacific Time because the headquarters of its creator, Linden Lab, is in San Francisco, California,” informed I.

“Who will you pray for? Do we have a purpose here other than learning about our new place?” asked Abdel, somewhat unsettled.

“I [want to] pray [for] my older brother who is [back in our] hometown, sitting [in] his armchair near [his] half ravaged bed room balcony [and] composing fine music. [He] refused to leave [his home] even in war,” said the old man.

“I have my family back there as well. But, I don’t miss them anymore. I respect them but I just don’t feel that penchant for being close to them or my friends who were killed. Why is that a bad thing? I am experiencing what normally people don’t get to and I am happy. I am ready to start afresh!”  Abdel sounded confidant.

I had been asking people on my friends list in Second Life if they had experienced anything unusual recently. But none of them had a similar story to tell.

The refugees decided to pose like mannequins if any person, other than the artist, with their avatar, saw them. That way they could be easily passed off as the artist’s other types of creations. How long could they hide from Moya Janus?

 Later that day, I flew my avatar not very high over the University region and rebel territory. Seeing Afraa talking to two-dimensional Moya and Dolly the sheep in the Museum Drawings part, I came down.

“The rebels divulged all our confidential information to those three Koreans that came back. They introduced themselves to the rebels as journalists,” said Dolly.

“How do you know all these things?” demanded Afraa.

“You know, the rebels discuss everything so loud that they can be heard from well outside their territory! They told the journalists whatever they had seen last night. Also, one of your people has betrayed you all. Moya Janus has given us the power to be at different places in real and virtual and do different things at the same time. That’s how Dolly and I saw a tall human male telling all about himself and the others who arrived here with him when the three Koreans caught him walking alone through the Moya Biennale,” Moya relayed.

“So, he spoke English?” Afraa looked infuriated.

“No! He tried to speak in English at first and then moved to French! The people had a translator with them this time who could only translate French or German or English to Korean and vice versa. They introduced themselves to the man as journalists of the newspaper No Dong Oi Bich. At first, the man tried to behave like an avatar. But, when they promised him that they would arrange a meeting between him and anybody from the real world he wanted to talk to if he cooperated with them, he instantly agreed,”  Dolly spat out.

Before shutting down my computer, I checked the news thoroughly. The English version of the same newspaper online had no word about what I had been seeing on Moya Land lately.

 “Look I am too old to type. I don’t care who you are in this world or in any world I meet you. I just want to tell you things I am thinking of. You can talk to me in broken English or French all you want. I am well-versed in it and six other languages. But, I prefer untangling my troubled mind now in my mother tongue.” The voice confirmed that the pretty neat mesh female avatar belonged to an intoxicated late fifty-something year old man. She was positioned close to one refugee sitting at Moya Restaurant by the sea.

I can only let you know the old man’s words as I didn’t understand any of the French spoken by the human inworld.

“Betrayal is essential to keep the art of cynicism alive. Do not regret it.

I am not a journalist but you can say that I am a writer.

No I have not published any of my work anywhere because after conceiving any idea or a plot on my mind, I google them to find out that someone has already got it conceptualized, worked on, and published for me under their own identity. That gives me more time and opportunity to relax and think about other things like how to spend more money on making my avatar prettier. I have earned way too much money which I don’t think anybody should get after I die. You see how those reporters did not come back to ask you who you would like to meet and when? They won’t either.

Why do I waste money on fake stuffs and not give it to the needy instead? I’ll tell you why. Albert Camus said it: The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.  Also, spending all my money inworld is better than leaving it to the government.”

The refugee implied something in an undertone to which the man reflectively added, “So, only if you discover that you can pleasure from making love to my beautiful avatar, you will not try to trace back to reality through the route that brought you here?”

Just then, I had a power outage.

 A few days later I logged in and flew over to an empty Moya nightclub and then to the virtual duplication of the St Jean Baptiste chapel, located in the commune of Clans in southeastern France, with modern frescoes done by Patrick Moya, known as the Moya Chapel. Inside the chapel, two people were chatting and synchronizing their respective basic looking avatars’ dance moves to With A Little Help From My Friends playing on radio. They were probably men whose voices, I thought, had been morphed into ones that sounded familiar to me.

“God has given me the authority to take you out!” He chuckled. So did the other one.  He continued, “Both of us don’t bother about pleasing anyone. We’re so good. So great. There will always be people who like us, who don’t like us, who don’t care about us, and who are not even sure who we are.  We don’t care about them. They don’t know that they mostly feed on evil fantasy daily.”

“Yes, yes…” The avatar dancing next to him cheerfully uttered. “We [are]… the original hardcore gamers!”

“Absolutely. However, I like to call it the art of living… Hey chubby, what are you reading these days to improve your English?”

“Indian removal…”

“Too bad our favourite chum isn’t available to play with us.”

“He [is] catching big fishes. He’s updated.”

Addressing me, the fluent English speaker questioned, “Do you also have an art fetish like us?”

 One particular news story had been dominating my news feed ever since: Realer than real artificially intelligent refugees, invented by an American, roam Moya Land in Second Life

© Potato Brown 

Typed during the war of words period (August, 2017)

#short story

[galimatios]

Keith didn't know what it felt like to feel anymore. The blast that swept across his city and destroyed it in one fell swoop left the remnants of a life he once knew, from a time that seemed like entire eternities ago. The skeletal remains of buildings stood in the wake of ruin, with cement and brick and debris strewn everywhere like blocks from a child's playroom. Among the rubble Keith could remember seeing far too many bodies to count. Some dead, killed immediately by the impact of the blast, and yet others still alive.

He saw a man get crushed to death underneath the weight of a toppled 16-wheeler. Sometimes in his sleep Keith can still hear the wet sound of his ribcage cracking between the truck and asphalt. The smell of gasoline and blood mixing together would not leave his mind for weeks, nor did the memory of his final hour before the explosion.

Keith remembered being outside. It was a Friday afternoon. It was routine for him to take a walk downtown to pick up an after school snack before heading home for dinner. He'd go to the local T-mart and grab a soda, then stroll through the business district where all the mom and pop shops were, then he'd say hi to the locals, catch up, make small talk, and occasionally help a kindly old woman with her grocery shopping before he returned home. That particular Friday, he stalled longer than usual, catching a late bus on the way back, then —

— everything went dark.

Retroactively he could recall the ear-shattering noise of wheels screeching and glass shattering. He remembered his body being thrown from his seat with such force he felt like he'd been tossed like a rag doll. But he could not remember these things in the moments right after he woke up.

When Keith opened his eyes, the sky was red. A huge plume of smoke seemed to mushroom out of the horizon. He air was scalding hot and he nearly choked on the scent of ash filling his lungs.

It took a moment for him to realize that his entire neighborhood had been wiped off the map.

Against his better judgement, he went back. He walked the remainder of the way home, limping with a sprained ankle and bruises marring his body. He could feel glass cuts leaking blood into his shirt. He refused to stop. And when he made it back, there was nothing left of his house except the imprint of the floor he used to walk on so many times before. Everything else had been vaporized immediately.

He could not think of the unthinkable. Whatever family he had before the bomb was buried miles deep underneath the debris in his mind. He did not think about them — could not think about them. Like clockwork, his thoughts switched immediately to survival. He left the radiation zone, propelled forward by some force that wasn't his own. His movements felt mechanical, but he didn't think much of it.

No. He didn't think much at all. It was sheer instinct that made his feet move — the drive to live. What for, though?

Keith supposed that was the question he had to find the answer for. He'd taken up shelter at one of the abandoned warehouses still left standing in the city. Scavenging what he could find, he managed to collect a few cans of food as well as a handful of items. First, plastic jug. He used this for collection what little clean water he could find. Next was an old blanket, for the nights when the hoodie he'd been wearing for two weeks now wasn't enough. Third, a lighter. Keith avoided using it as much as possible, just in case of an emergency. And, finally, he still had his pocket knife on him since the day of the bombing. It proved to be an indispensable ally in acquiring and crafting things.

The first few days were hard. He could not relax —  not after what he witnessed. He ripped his tank top into makeshift bandages to stabilize his ankle and tie the cuts on his arms. He then tried to look for others —  help them, if he could. But everyone alive in the city seemed to have vanished somehow. They were either running away from the radiation, or they were already dead.

Keith knew he should follow suit. Find what he could and move on to another location, far away from the sickness-inducing radium that contaminated the city grounds. But somehow, he could not bring himself to. Instead, he waited. He broke into abandoned stores and only took what he immediately needed, spending the rest of his time curled up in the warehouse corner. He tried to sleep. Couldn't. Bags formed under his eyes soon enough, and the sting of his untreated wounds along with the high dosage of radiation he received were all taking a toll on his body.

At the top of the warehouse, Keith had enough sense to spell out an SOS message using whatever he could find — old tarp, bottles, used cans, whatever. If someone was out there looking for survivors, they had to see him too. That was, if anyone was still out there looking at all. Hunched with his back to the warehouse corner, he had a knee pulled to his chest — the other leg with his sprained ankle lay straight, and he let his head rest on the adjacent wall.

Whatever feelings he should've been feeling vacated his body two weeks ago. All he wanted to do now was sleep. Keith closed his eyes.

#roleplay sample #keith

[sandwormsladybugs]

Chapter 5 - Steve and Stevonnie

Stevonnie took off at a run in the opposite direction that the creature had gone their hair flowing out behind them. Captain America was hot on their heels.

Steve still could not believe what he what he had just witnessed. Even after the crazy rooms, the strange creature, finding his lost compass, the fact that he was following what apparently was a boy and a girl that somehow fused together was crazy.

She came to a screeching halt as Cap came up behind her. He was confused, “Um, didn’t that thing go the other way? Shouldn’t we be chasing it down?”

Stevonnie smiled over their shoulder, “yes Sir but I thought you might want this.” They stomped their foot down, and Cap’s shield sprang up into their hands. Contemplating it before giving it to Cap, “Wow, nice weight, the balance feels a lot like ours.”

For the first time in a, while Cap smiled, warriors do what warriors do, they talk about their weapons and equipment. “Thanks, you have to admit yours has some great options too, the whole magically disappearing thing.”

“For sure, but we can talk about it after.” she pointed over Steves' shoulder, as he turned to look he saw the monster scuttling towards them fast enough that it was churning up a trail of the flotsam and jetsom of Amethyst’s room in its wake. Stevonnie broke left, and cap went right, as the moved off it became eminently apparent that the monster was focused on one thing, Captain America!

Cap took off at a run with the monster in hot pursuit. As he ducked and dodged, through the piles he could hear it gaining on him. It certainly was fast.

Behind them, Stevonnie was almost upon the creature just as it was closing in on Cap. They bounded forward catching it by its tail. With a jerk, they brought it to a halt and without a second thought spun the creature and threw it into a pile of odds and ends a little way in the distance.

Stevonnie mused as Cap came to stand beside them, "odd most of the gem creatures never seem to be very interested in humans, but this one gives the impression it’s very interested in you."

Cap shrugged, "honest I have no idea, I still don't really know what is going on here."

The creature tore at them again, intent on getting Cap.

"Mmm, well here it comes again if you jog over that way I will see if I can surprise it and might have a chance to poof it."

"Poof?" Cap said as he jogged off. Stevonnie hid behind one of the larger crystals, sword at the ready as the creature scuttled towards Cap.

They jumped out as the creature swooshed past swinging their sword, but to their surprise, the sword struck solid ground. The creature had dodged, it was faster than anything they had been up against before. It was still heading towards Cap, they took off after the creature at a run.

Cap was running tired of running. He spun around shield at the ready as he watched as the creature approach. Murmuring to himself, 'Ok Steve, keep it together this time. Who knows maybe you will wake up soon,' it certainly did seem like a bad dream.

The creature slammed into his shield, again grabbing on all sides, this time he was ready for it as it reached under the shield. He stomped the first hand that appeared causing it to let out a load hiss.

Stevonnie had caught up and was coming in from behind. The creature had another trick up its sleeve. As they approached the creature's tail, suddenly it turned in their direction. As they moved back and forth, the tail followed their every move. It could see!

As the made their final approach, Stevonnie summoned their shield and reached over their shoulder to draw Rose’s sword. Suddenly the creature pulled its limbs in tight and rolled. Once it was a ways away, it burrowed into a pile of Amethyst’s stuff and was gone.

Stevonne turned to Steve, “Ok, that was odd, even for a gem experiment. It certainly has a thing for you.”

“That and it certainly doesn’t like that sword of yours.”

“Uh, yes. It’s possible that during the gem war it might have been used by Rose to shatter enemy gem soldiers. Though I am not sure, the crystal gems haven't told us much about the war. It might be related. I do know that Rose wasn’t happy with what she did. Uh, but we can discuss that later. Any idea why it might be so interested in you?”

Steve pondered, “hmm, no idea.”

“Well, it didn’t seem interested in you when you first got here. Wait! What did you pick up when you first landed in Amethyst’s room?”

Steve reached into one of his pouches, “ Just this.” He pulled out his old compass, the one with Peggy's picture in it.

‘Wow, can I see it?” Steve handed it over. Stevonnie took it, flipped it over, weighed it back and forth between their hands, brought it close to their face to smell it. “Hmmm.” They cupped their hands and looked at the face of the compass. “It glows!”

Steven smiled, “Oh ya, our compasses back then had radium painted on them to glow in the dark. I’m actually not sure about this one, it was a gift from Tony's dad Howard so gosh only knows what he painted it with.”

Stevonnie pondered, “so it's probably radioactive. I wonder if this is what is exciting our friend over there.” They jerked her thumb in the direction of the gem monster.

“If it is, we can use it to bait a trap so you can… Poof It?... we need a good open spot to draw it to then maybe you can get to some high ground?"

Stevonnie smiled and giggled. "I think that we can manage that. See that crystal sticking up over there? If you can get it to follow you into the clear space in front of it, I’ll be waiting."

Steve looked at the crystal, "that has to be forty feet in the air how are you going to climb it?"

"Oh, you worry about the creature, we will worry about that."

Steve gave her a thumbs up as he started to jog towards where the creature disappeared to. "Back soon."

As he ran, he pulled the compass out. He flipped it open having a quick look at Peggy. "Don't worry I got this Peg… I hope."

It didn’t take long to get the creature's attention. It launched itself in Steve's direction with a crash more stuff flying all around. Steve wasn’t sure how much time the girl would need to scale the crystal but the speed it was coming at him he couldn’t spend much time to think about it.

He could hear it wheeze and grunt behind him as he ran. He looked up as he approached the crystal and sure enough she was perched on top. Steve didn't want to think how this was going to work. He hoped she had something up her sleeve or she was going to break her neck getting down.

Suddenly she was standing on the side of the crystal as if gravity didn't matter. Pushing off she launched herself sword in front. She pierced it dead centre, and with a pop, it disappeared. She executed a perfect tuck roll coming to her feet as her hair flowed behind her. She turned and smiled a huge smile at Steve.

Walking over to where the creature had been They stooped down and picked up the two crystals that had been on the front and tail of the creature. With a hum suddenly a pink bubble appeared around them and then with tap the bubble shot up and disappeared.

Stevonnie walked up to Steve and gave him a hug. "Come on I'll make you some tea."

Ao3

Let me know what you think. or comment on Ao3

#steven universe #steve rogers #stevonnie #mcu #spitfic