The world wasn’t flat after all. Despite all the doubters, despite the fact that you could see the curvature from outer space, indeed the world wasn’t flat.
The vaccines weren’t the things murdering people. Despite all the doubters, despite that people with the vaccine lived long and healthy lifes, indeed guns were killing more people. 

But to J. Hilder Baum, none of this mattered. He rose to power on a flat earth platform. In fact his business made its fortune plowing through, over and under what was once known as the Colorado rockies.
And now he arrested scientists, math teachers, and worst of all Atheists. He knew there power rested in knowledge of a world before, of a world of free thought.
And he wasn’t going back.

A man fearful of knowledge, but a man with all the money to buy his own version of the truth. And no one dared ask meaningful questions.

People came and went from the cobblers storefront, none of them carrying shoes with them. People came and went to the florist but all the plants had died long long ago,
Chozen was tired of watching the bun stand at the end of the street, hoping for a rush for one hour a day and the rest spent counting bills from a government that no longer exists. His mother opened the shop and with a lack of a government led to an lack of institutions of higher learning. Chozen remembers the sun hitting his mother’s face as she taught him how to make the buns which now sustained his livelihood. The sun was warm on his skin that day and his mother’s smile added to the fire in his memory.
Chozen long ago forgot his mothers features, her smell, and her voice. But he remembers the sun that day, long long ago,

9.

The neon light sparked and smelled of sulphur. It mixed well with the chicken shack playing old blues tunes out of a loudspeaker above the kitchen. Marcus Samuel Jones had worked next door at the clothing shop for about three years. It would have been an ideal situation except Marcus was a vegetarian. So he smelled the mixture of sulphur and grease every day for three years without earning to buy anything. The owner of the chicken place would smile and wave at him for a while when he first started working there, but over the days, months and years passed, they didn’t even look in each others view anymore. 

Marcus Samuel Jones didn’t look many places anymore. He felt the seam on a velvet pair of trousers, the line perfect in every way. A fine piece of work, most likely done in Idaho or some other third world area. He wondered about the people there, the smoke from the last bombs probably still hovering, the air ripe with lingering death and those who breathed it in most likely shortening their brief, hard life.
The doorbell rang and he looked up into the eyes of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. 

He ran his hand along the velvet seam on the perfect pair of trousers. 

8.

“Even it hasn’t been that long, shes none of your business anymore”. The way the stranger said it  rang trueer then all the advice he has ever heard. So he took the beer, shotgunned it, threw the can to the ground and went to sleep.

Changing of the guard, a refresh,
Doesn’t matter if its love or hate,
take it in stride, and do the best you can for each other.

Heading to Charlotte Friday night to compete in my third State championship for pinball. Each of the past three years ive dropped in seeding (8th, 9th) and this year 15th but happy to be included with much better players. Tournament will be on Saturday and cant wait to watch all the good play on display!

“Without you, without me, your the end i can see,” she sang quietly to herself while tending to the shipping line. Boxes continuously flowed in her direction, she checked against orders, moved them down the line. He senses were dull here, a bright fluorescent light seared into her retinas. The smell was off a few bits though although it somehow morphed into an almost metallic taste in her mouth.
Last night she walked through a field of roses, the thorns gracing her open arms with small pricks, the smell of blood, also metallic. Her copper hair streaked silver in the moonlight that managed to pierce the atmosphere. She stopped to gaze up for a while. She had heard the tales, of a sky full of stars, a sky full of light. Hard to imagine what it would look like. Finally she came to the bush she had been searching for,  She plucked two purple rose petals and sealed them in a tiny flask, It would be the right amount for the medicine she would need to make later. Always careful to only take what she needed she walked back through the slightly painful rose path, a few hours left before the trudgery would start. Time to rest, and maybe if she was lucky to dream of stars. 

Let down your small walls and take care to step gently,
The anger inside the color wheel isn’t all red and tyranny.
Be wise and slow, be kind and know,
Have time for the answers and things that are shallow,
Sing songs to a friend, sing songs to your enemies,
Or sit in a corner and stand in the center,
Be scared of nothing except the things you can control,
Choose wisely or randomly, but stay true to your vision,
And let down your small walls and take care to step gently.

6.

Somewhere fifty miles east of nowhere sat the factory. Its silver smokestack, a lone cylinder spanning into the sky puffed a steady stream of black. Once or twice a day a bird would wander into the toxic cloud and plummet to its quick demise. At the base of the factory the poor children would collect the dead birds and sell them for souvenirs. It was a horrid affair. But the authorities understood that the children needed to eat, so they turned a blind eye.
Mr. Caspers sometimes watched them from his office window. He wondered why they bothered? The sickness would smother them all in due time after all. Still his lot in life was to produce. And so he did.
He looked to his desk, a strange metal apparatus with ascending steps to a large projector powering up.  Such wonders he could imagine. He grabbed the film marked Annapolis and smiled. It was a new one just delivered. They didn’t get much in these parts of the world. Not anymore.  He took the metal cylinder, careful to not harm the celluloid inside.  His fingers shook as he adjusted the focus and finally after much fidgeting found the moment, sighed, flipped the switch and sat down for a respite.
The girls skipped. 

It is really hard to be better than we were made to be.