Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Random Snippets with no stories attached

Please tell me we have a plan.
We have a plan
A good plan?
Don't push it.

Look, there's no way you're going to understand this without years of graduate school, so just pretend it's a result of resonant frequencies within the sinusoidal matrix underlying the energy fueling the apparently impossible happenings.

I'm, telling you, I never met any famous people.
You've been around, like, six thousand years.
Five thousand three hundred and twenty eight is not 'like six thousand'.
Well it's closer to that than, say, four thousand.
That was arbitrary.
Random chance alone dictates that you should have met at least--
No.  No one.  I can tell you loads about historical goat herding techniques, though.

While you were out of it the world changed.
Do human children still chase chickens?
Well . . . yeah, I guess.  If they're around chickens, like say on a farm, I suppose they do.
The world is the same as it ever was.

Why would you go there?  Nobody there but poets and thieves.

What's your desired endgame?
Not dying.
A bit simplistic and over broad, don't you think?
It's worked for me so far.

Then, if we're lucky--
When have we ever been lucky?
Ok.  Good point.  By this time we'll have half of the facility's guards converging on us while the other half preemptively relocate to the places we're going to want to go.  They'll then start to fortify which will make everything that much harder.  So the next step is to . . .

Why is Dionysus in your living room?
Because my rec room is full of crap.

Is this the part where you offer me three wishes which will all blow up in my face because I phrased them badly?
I've only been trapped about a thousand years, how can knowledge of my kind be so distorted?
Hollywood.
I have only a cursory knowledge of what that word signifies, but from what little I do know, that makes sense.
So what happens now?
Well, if you were a powerful mage with less powerful ethics you might cackle about absolute power and try and make me your slave, but the description doesn't if you, so I'm free now.
Just like that?
Just like that.  The wish thing is a way of saying, "Thank you," and I can give or withhold them as I see fit.  I certainly have no intention of bringing harm to you by willfully misinterpreting you meanings.

These instructions literally say --and don't do anything until I've finished reading this bit-- "To power down the device one must disconnect the energy core by severing the red, green, and orange couples (in that order).  Such an action would result in a powerful exothermic release unless one first rerouted the control feed through the tertiary bus of the redundant processing unit."

How did you become a girl?
I was always a girl, I just never felt comfortable telling people.
*pause*
You know that.  You're like the one person I did tell.
Ok, sorry, bad question.  How did your body . . . *gestures in frustration* get that way?
Oh, that.
Yes, that.
Well, I got an option to turn into a mermaid.  Not merperson.
So the entire species is female?
Well . . . no.  There's a trans minority.  I didn't exactly have all the details of aquatic culture downloaded into my head, though, so I don't know anything about it.

One of the few mistakes your mother made was to have a human sire her embodiment of Sloth.
Why would that make a difference?
Not all brains work the same way.  For human minds and those like them choice becomes pattern, pattern habit, habit a rut you can't escape from.
Ok?
When that happens you don't have sin anymore, you have sickness.  A sickness that can be treated, no less.  Your brother may have been born the embodiment of Sloth, but now he's just another person with depression.  Fortunately it responds to treatment well.
Took a decade to find the right treatment, though.

How is it possible that the only one who thinks I'm crazy is the voice in my head?
Plenty of sane people have one or more voices in their heads.
And you think it's healthy to have a voice in your head telling you you're insane?
I think it's an expression of your low self-esteem that's latched onto sanity as its axis of self deprecation, but I'm not licenced to make an actual diagnosis.

[Describing the experience of playing a certain game:]
. . . and, lo, did I feel like a small horse not more than fourteen point two hands tall at the withers.

Q - Your friend was possessed by a demon for six months and none of you noticed!?
1 - Well, in fairness, he wasn't my friend until after he got possessed.  Before that he was just someone I had the misfortune of working with.
2 - The changes were all for the better so I just figured he was working on self improvement.
3 - Speaking of--
1&4 - Can we get the demon back?
Q - What!?
3 - I'm not saying in the same body or anything, it's just that the demon was easy to work with.
1 - Always helpful and nice.
2 - A real joy to be around.
4 - Our productivity was so high with the demon on the team.
3 - We could hire someone whose entire job is allowing the demon to use their body during business hours.
2 - Surely someone would be willing.

With great power comes--
Bullshit.
What?
You think that just because I was born with extraordinary powers I've somehow forfeited my right to choose what I do with my life?  That I have to put on tights and fight themed villains to save the city?  Bullshit.
I'm just--
I want to teach science to fifth graders you schmuck.  That may be only mundane responsibility, but it's important and it's what I'm going to do.

I thought that:
Of course "Jack" is a girl's name.  Jack is a girl.  A girl whose name is "Jack".  Thus Jack is a girl's name.  QED.
would go here, but it turns out I've done that already.

Tell me you had nothing to do with it.
I had nothing to do with it.
Good.
Now, would you mind telling me what I just denied involvement in, so that I know whether or not I just lied?

I guess that's everything. *beat* Everything except for one thing.  And that one thing?  Everything.  You think it's nothing.  You're wrong.
(Adapted from Jon Stewart doing a Glen Beck impression.)

Um, excuse me, mister evil over lord.  Before you take over I was wondering if you'd go into a bit more detail about your proposed tax code.

Please say you weren't involved in this.
Are you asking me to lie to you?

You're having that for breakfast?
Just think of it as poor man's bacon.
It's more expensive than bacon.
Then think of it as rich man's bacon.
You're not a man.
I never said I was the rich man.  Realistically the only way I'd ever get rich man's bacon is to steal it.
It's not bacon.
I do believe you've missed the point of this little thought exercise.

3 comments:

  1. Some of these make good writing prompts...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Some of them work just fine on their own, without any stories. They're themselves stories already.

    ---Redcrow

    ReplyDelete