All the Time in the World

 

 All the Time in the World

Reedsy Short Story Submission

 

 

    Imagine if someone asked you, “If you could choose any superpower, what would it be?”.

    What would you choose?

    I bet a dozen different things came to mind.

    I know at least a few of you would probably say something like super-strength. Or the ability to fly. With how popular some of the big supers are, heroes like Cosmic Man or Power Woman, I know that’s probably first on a few lists. Big and powerful. Flashy. The epitome of what you picture when you think “superhero”.

    Still, maybe you’re rethinking that choice. Or maybe you had something else in mind. Maybe you even gave more than a knee-jerk response.

    What else did you come up with?

    Was it invisibility? The ability to hide from sight. To do whatever you want without worrying about being seen. Not very heroic of you, but still certainly superhuman. What about the ability to breathe fire? Would sure make cosplaying as a dragon fun. Or perhaps you chose something contrarian like “Money” just because you’re a fan of the playboy philanthropists with a penchant for justice and vigilantism.

    It’s funny. For a lot of people, they don’t think of the ability to manipulate time as being very high on that list.

    Until you mention it.

    “Gee, that sounds like a great power.” You’re probably thinking. “Why didn’t I think about that?”

    I wondered for a long time why nobody thought of time manipulation as a superpower. It just seemed obvious to me, but I guess it’s because I was born with it. A lot of people just take time for granted, I suppose. Everything exists within time. Everything is held by its laws. In a way, it’s easier to forget that it’s there. Now, though, I think it’s because some deep part of the universe knows better than to let too many people go mucking about with the very fabric holding everything together.

    It’s better if people didn’t mess with it.

    Now, don’t get me wrong, there are one or two comics out there that talk about the idea of a hero with the ability to manipulate time. But of all the big licensed supers out there fighting bad guys in the streets, not one of them has that power. You would sooner see a six-year-old fighting a t-rex with a tanker truck than you would see someone stop time.

    Why is that?

    I learned early on that the first reason is just because a lot of people can’t even conceptualize what we’re doing when we’re using our powers. Time manipulation is so outside of the scope of proper existence that, when it’s seen, people don’t even know they’re seeing it. There are a few different kinds of T.M.’s, that’s short for Time Manipulators, people like me that can alter the flow of time in the universe. But all of them are generally misunderstood for something else.

    Take me for example: I can stop time. But what do you think that looks like to some guy watching? That’s right, it looks like I just moved super fast. So they just generally think I’m a speedster or something like that.

    Easy, right?

    Well, what about those who can move forward or backward in time? Same thing. If they move forward enough that they can be seen, provided the whole spatial issue, then POP, it looks like they just teleported. So someone thinks it’s a teleportation power. And going backward in time? Same thing, albeit with odd accents and money you’ve never seen.

    The only thing I think could ever stand out for what it would be is if a T.M. was able to specifically mess with the age of a given object, but I’ve never seen one of us manage that. I’m sure it’s theoretically possible, but either it’s incredibly rare or you need to live long enough to develop it, and none of us have pulled that off.

    That brings me nicely to the second problem with messing with time and why you don’t see many of us: it’s fucking dangerous. Simply put, despite T.M.’s showing up at about the same rate as other supers, we just don’t have a long shelf-life.

    I mentioned earlier the “spatial issue”. While I’ve personally never dealt with it, an old buddy of mine explained it to me before he died. In short, while a lot of T.M.’s can manipulate time, the universe is made up of both time and space. Basic physics kind of stuff. But those basic physics make a big difference when you travel in time because there’s a fair chance that the planet you’re on won’t exist beneath your feet if you go too far backward or ahead. With very few exceptions, most T.M.’s couldn’t do anything about that and so any jumps they made had to be in weird, quick intervals to avoid leaving the Earth behind.

    Space is pretty fucking cold and you can’t breathe out there.

    Unfortunately, though, for someone like me with the ability to stop time, not breathing is also a big issue. As a kid, I remember seeing a bunch of comics about how cool it would be to stop time, to run around without anyone moving or even knowing what was going on, but those stories never took into account the fact that when you stop time, more than just people are frozen. And I don’t mean plants or animals or bugs or anything like that.

    Like I said earlier, everything in the universe is bound to time.

    You’ve heard of the speed of light, right? Maybe you haven’t thought of it too much, but speed implies movement. A lightyear is the speed of light measured against time. So naturally, if you stop time, you stop light.

    Do you know what else requires time to move around?

    Air.

    Oxygen. Nitrogen. Hydrogen. All those little particles that make up our ability to breathe. To survive. All of those are just as dictated by time as the rest of us. And if they aren’t moving. You aren’t breathing them.

    Even worse than that, if they aren’t moving, then you aren’t moving.

    Yet again, if time isn’t moving, then none of those little particles are. Fully stopping time is like locking yourself in a prison of darkness, unable to move any part of your body. My mom and dad thought they were night terrors when I was a kid. Turned out it was just my superpower developing and no one understanding that the “sleep paralysis” that wore off after I passed out was me accidentally locking myself in that prison.

    Who knew I’d put myself back in it willingly?

    To be fair, I figured out what it was years ago and I haven’t used a full time-stop again until today. Normally I do what I call “Extreme Slo-mo”. You slow down time just enough so that you’ve still got photons bouncing around and the particles in the air can move around. It’s like moving through beef stew, and you still can’t breathe, but it lets me do my job and save people. It also comes with the cool side effect of making these big explosions when I move through a lot of space because it displaces all the air super fast. Everyone thinks I’m a speedster because of it, and I guess for a long time I was happy to just accept that.

    Until today.

    Man, everything was going great today. It was supposed to be nice and easy. Just go grab some shmuck that had taken some hostages. My friends and I had dealt with similar stuff a hundred times over since we became supers five years ago.

    Why the fuck did he have a nuke?

    Maybe if I was a speedster, I could have done something. At the very least, maybe I could have gotten away. I wouldn’t just be sitting here waiting for my body to give up and pass out. It’s already been three minutes since I locked myself in my little time prison. It’s pretty impressive I haven’t blacked out already.

    Okay, maybe I’m being pedantic. I don’t have any light and I haven’t since that bastard set off the bomb.

    I just wish I had realized what he was doing. Wish I had been proactive and not only been able to react. He’d already pressed the button. Already primed it to go off. He had never intended to get out of there. He just wanted to take some supers with him and used the hostages to do it.

    I just wish I had a chance to do it over again.

    Who knows, maybe I can figure out how to.

    I’ve got all the time in the world.

   

Without

Without

===

A friend asked me: 
What would you do 

if 
money was not a factor?

The question was not:

What would you do 

if

you had a lot of money?

The root of the idea was not:

A fantasy of wealth 

but rather

A fantasy of satisfaction

The idea was not:

To dream of extravagance

but rather

To dream of contentment

It made me realize:

The dreams might be the same for some

but for others

Wealth and Happiness only briefly connect

Some people believe:

Wealth is the end all to happiness

but for many

Wealth is only a means to wholeness

In considering, I realized:

While I desire wealth

it is not

for Anything but my own freedom

What I want most:

Peace, contentment, and the right to live

and not

The constant struggle to survive

If money was not a factor:

I would do many things I do now

without

the Damocles Sword above me

Dualism

 

Picture Source: https://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/616/gear-drive-lubricants

 

  Trigger Warning: Physical Violence / Gore

 

 ===

 

Dualism

 

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Drp.

    Blood dripped off of his body steadily, adding to the pool of crimson beneath him...wait...above him?

    Dorian arched his body this way and to try and get a better view. It was hard to really get a good angle given the dozens of large, metallic spikes that pierced his body at odd angles starting at the neck and going all the way to his feet. The giant skewers locked his body into place and made it difficult to really see anything, but given the blood was 'up' his face, he concluded that the most reasonable interpretation would be that the pool was above him.

    ...adding to the pool of crimson above him. Our stalwart hero once again found himself in the evil clutches of the Mastermind!

    "HA! HA! HA!" a boisterous and raucous sound echoed out from somewhere underneath of Dorian as...wait...

     Once again, Dorian twisted in place and tried to determine what his orientation should count as. His head was getting pulled towards gravity, so he was technically upside down. If someone else was looking at this other than stupid old Victor, they'd probably interpret that Dorian's feet were above him. But would it matter more about his own orientation or a global orientation to the room?

    "Do you mind? Are you even listening?" Victor demanded from his position above Dorian at the top of the spike contraption on a small platform overlooking the massive hole. Only moments before, the entire death trap had been covered by some well-laid lumber and a throw rug meant to catch Dorian in just such a predicament.

    "Yes, yes, yes." Dorian answered dismissively. "I'm listening, I'm listening. I'm just trying...to figure out..."

    ...underneath of Dorian as...wait...crap. What's the next line. Let's see, Mastermind above. Spike trap. Blood below...What's a good next line?

    "I don't think you're even listening." Victor accused the impaled man.

    "Yes, yes." Dorian called again. "Just...Give me a second. I'm trying to figure out the next line!"

    ...dripping blood. Right. Whatever.
    The evil Mastermind towered above our stalwart hero, standing only feet above the precipice of metal and malice that now threatened to...

    "Oh, come on, Dorian!" Victor yelled. "Are you doing the whole thing again? That narration thing?"

    ...that now threatened to consume...

    "Doriiiian..." Victor called again.

    ...to consume...Fuck!...

    "Yes! I was doing the narration thing! And you fucked it up!" Dorian growled back.

    "Ha! I knew it!" Victor yelled, pumping his fist in triumph. "I build this whole death trap and you can't even give me the time of day!"

    "It's not like that, Victor!"

    Victor, pulling a controller from his coat pocket, hit one of the dozens of unlabeled buttons. The walls of the tunnel that Dorian was suspended in that weren't being used for a giant crushing spike trap slid open. Cylindrical metal tubes, not spiky on the end this time but, instead, hollow, jutted out from their newly exposed spaces in the wall. Dorian's body was consumed a few moments later in great gouts of flame that were so hot the spikes holding him in place began to bubble and drip with molten metal.

    Victor stared down at his nemesis, or, more accurately, the flaming plume where the now liquefying body of his nemesis was, and just soaked it in. The heat washing over his face. The stink of burning human. The sense of success and a job well down.

    By the time the flamethrowers had done their job, the spikes, and the body that they had been holding in place, had been reduced to molten slag and was little more than a stinky, softly glowing puddle on the hard stone below.

    Satisfied, Victor put the controller back away in his pocket. 

    ...joining the pool of blood that had once been inside of him... Wait...I guess it's now inside of me? Do I have an inside?

    "Question." the bubbling mass of remains called up.

    And, like that, Victor's satisfaction drained away and left him with the same old exhaustion that had been plaguing him for a while now.

    "What?" he called back down to Dorian with defeated acceptance.

    "If blood was in your body, and then out, and then...uhh...this happened. Is the blood back in your body? Does the molten metal cause a problem with how things are mixed up? I'm having trouble figuring out the in's and out's here."

    Victor glowered down at the pool where lips and, disgustingly, a throat and vocal cord set were already emerging and rebuilding from the gore.

    "I feel like inside requires you to have the rest of the body in one piece." the disembodied lips continued as cheeks and teeth started to form around them. "So a puddle in a puddle is just...what...a big puddle? Right?"

    Pulling out the controller again, Victor considered it for a long moment. He had several things that would shut him up for a little bit. He could freeze him. Maybe suck him into a giant spinning saw blade. Just melt him again. Call a Roomba?

    But what was the point?

    Victor let out a long, drawn out sigh and, instead, tapped a button that caused the platform he was in to start descending towards the floor. The metal spikes did their best to retract automatically, but some of them, now hardening in strange, half-dissolved columns of metal, jammed in their housing. Still, it was enough that he could maneuver the platform around here and there and touch down next to the remains of his arch enemy.

    "Dorian." Victor began before sighing again and pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand. "I really don't know. I just... I don't know."

    "Like, don't get me wrong." the grotesque amalgamation of meat and bone declared matter-of-factly. "It's probably already actually inside now, but I feel like making that proper distinction is important to really get a sense of everything going on."

    "A sense of everything going on." Victor echoed, pinching his nose tighter. "Dorian, do you even have a sense of what's going on?!"

    "Pardon?" the bust of Dorian asked as he continued to slowly regrow from his molten puddle.

    "I mean, do you have any idea why we're still doing...THIS?" Victor demanded, waving a hand at half-destroyed trap room as a well of annoyance that had been growing within him bubbled to the surface.

    "This?"

    "YES! THIS! This song and dance! This... Whatever this is! Why are we still doing this?"

    "Well, you see," Dorian began. "I find your evil lair..."

    "Naturally."

    "Break in."

    "Obviously."

    "Deal with the traps and minions and all that."

    "Clearly."

    "And when I'm just about to defeat you, against all odds, you escape to your actual evil lair."

    "Oh, yes, the real one." Victor remarked snidely as he considered just how many different actual evil lairs he really had and how many had been destroyed over the years.

    Honestly, the property taxes alone made him cringe to even think about them.

    "And then I go to break in there! The actual lair."

    "Yes, yes." Victor agreed. "I know what we're doing. I asked why we're doing this?"

    "Because that's what we do." Dorian gestured with a meaty appendage. An arm, perhaps? Hopefully an arm.

    "And we've been doing it for as long as I can remember." Victor agreed. "But how long has that been? I know it was at least before the British came about."

    Dorian seemed to nod and consider. "I vaguely remember something about you wearing Roman armor for a while..."

    "Oh yea, I remember that one. I really liked that armor."

    "So, I guess before the Romans?" Dorian considered.

    "Yea, we'd been doing it for a while before that. Definitely before the Romans."

    The two sat in thought for a second, Victor standing over the cooling pool of mess while Dorian slowly grew and emerged out of it, his body stitching itself back together.

    "Was there a thing with dinosaurs once? Has it been that long?" Dorian asked thoughtfully.

    "Well, there was, but that was pretty recent." Victor considered. "You meant the one with the pterodactyl, right?"

    "No, no." Dorian shook his head. "The tyrannosaurus."

    "Oh! Right! When I was trying to create a dragon!"

    "Oh, yea! And you had that whole knight thing going on. Where did you even get that one?"

    "Bought it off some guy from Montana. Something... Brown? I think his name was Brown."

    The two stood there, just staring at each other. Remembering things that had come before and realizing that they probably only recalled a fraction of what had actually been.

    "Vic," Dorian echoed his nemesis's question. "Why are we doing this?"

    Despite himself, Victor tried again to recall, but knew that the answer was no longer there. Maybe he had just run out of space to remember stuff like that. Maybe it had been lost from one of the times he'd 'died'. Maybe it just hadn't been significant to begin with.

    "I don't know." Victor confessed.

    Another few seconds drew out before them as Dorian slowly reached his natural height. The man was nude as his clothes had been disintegrated in the conflagration earlier, but it was nothing that Victor hadn't seen before.

    For the first time since he could even remember, they regarded each other as men, as thinking people, rather than as the enemies they had been for so long.

    "Dorian." Victor began.

    "Yea?"

    "I'm tired." he confessed.

    "I- Me too, Vic."

    The two took in their surroundings, glancing around at the half-destroyed trap room again, but looking at it again with a new perspective. So much time. So much money. So much everything wasted in this endless rigamarole of back and forth, back and forth. They had been spending so much time trying to kill each other even though they both knew that neither of them could die. They had tried literally everything under the sun to invoke their own deaths that-

    "It was because you couldn't die." Victor declared, the briefest flicker of a memory bubbling to the surface.

    "Was that it?" Dorian asked hesitantly.

    "Yea. You said you'd never met someone else who couldn't die when...something happened. I can't remember what. And then you tried to kill me just to see. And then I tried to kill you."

    "Seems about right."

    "I can't remember what really started it, but I definitely remember bashing your head in with a rock." Victor recalled.

    "I think I tried to drown you." Dorian though.

    "Oh, right! I remember that." Victor said before shuddering. "I hate drowning. Always leaves me feeling weird."

    All at once, the silence of the room grew around them. Everything that had been said, everything that had been done for so many years. The maiming, the attempted murder, the property damage, the crimes against humanity, the tax evasion...

    "Do you want to-" Victor began while Dorian stared at him expectantly. "Do you want to go get a drink?"

    "Yea." Dorian said with a nod. "I think I do."

    Victor stepped further to the side of his platform and offered the space to Dorian who slowly stepped on, dripping with the remains of the pool.

    "Though, one requirement." Victor continued.

    "Don't drown you in it?"

    "Also good. But let's get you cleaned up first."

    "Sounds like a plan." Dorian agreed.

    And so, enemies no more, the dastardly duo ascended towards the heavens aboard the Mastermind's creati-

    "Stop that."

    "Sorry."

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about two characters who have been fighting for so long, they can’t remember what started it.

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

All In a Day's Work

 

Source: https://www.wallpaperflare.com/old-radio-station-vintage-wallpaper-uvrya

 

 

 All In a Day's Work

 

 ===

 

    Bzzzzzzzzzz.

    The constant droning hum made Gabby's neck and shoulders ache. It was this constant, incessant sound that just seemed to drill into her skull and set her teeth on edge. And, for whatever reason, it was absolutely atrocious today.

    "Guhhh!" she cried out in annoyance to no one in particular.

    "Problem?" Mike called from the other room.

    "No. It's nothing." she said with a deep sigh.

    She reached out to the small radio on her desk and fiddled with a few of the knobs but to little success. While she was able to lower the volume slightly, it also made the constant noise less of a hum and more of a soft crackle as more of the sound came through clearly. Gabby briefly considered turning the whole contraption off but knew she'd get in far more trouble then she cared to think about if her boss came in and her dispatch was turned off.

    But bless it all she needed a break.

    "Hey Mike?" Gabby called as she stood, stretching her arms in a feeble attempt to loosen the knot between her shoulder blades.

    "Yea?" came the answering call.

    "Can you keep an ear on dispatch? I wanna go grab a refill."

    "Yep." he replied unethusiastically.

    Picking up her mug, Gabby stepped out of the crowded little office into the main bullpen to find Mike exiting his own office. He looked very much like she felt. Tired, bleary eyed, and completely bored out of his skull.

    "Don't look too excited now." she said with a weak smile.

    "Haha." he exhaled dryly, running one hand through his blonde curls. "Wanna grab me a snack while you're over there?"

    "Sure." Gabby replied. "Any preferences."

    "Surprise me." he said as he walked past her into her office, sipping at his own coffee.

    Gabby let out an uncontrolled yawn as she walked by rows and rows of cubicles, making her way to the breakroom and the expensive coffee maker that her boss had felt was a 'necessary expenditure' for the workplace.

    She certainly wasn't going to argue.

    The whole thing was a fancy pile of machinery that she had no hope of ever understanding. It was shiny and chrome and seemed to gleam in the light of the breakroom. One of their clients had recommended it some years back and bless the man who did because it made dealing with the stress of the job just so much easier. 

    Taking her time, she looked through the selection of different beans and settled on a dark roast she had tried a few times but hadn't sampled in a couple of weeks. Gabby rinsed out the used mug in her hand, tossed it under the drip, and let the machine do its thing while she raided the nearby shelves for snacks.

    Onion chips. Potato chips. Granola bars. Popcorn. And...what is this? Salmon jerky?

    She shuddered at the thought, having tried it once and only once. The smell had been way too much and the taste was somehow even worse.

    Settling, instead, on some of the sweet Hawaiian onion chips, Gabby snatched up one of the bags and returned to the coffee machine as it finished dispensing the life-giving bean juice.

    "Hey, hey." Ralph said with a bit more pep then she felt the day deserved as he entered the little breakroom. "There she is. You workin' hard or hardly workin'?"

    "Hey Ralphie." Gabby replied, offering a genuine, albeit tired smile.

    "Hey Gabs." he returned. "You hear about that...?"

    "Yea. Yea I did." she said with a sigh. "Been non-stop all morning because of it."

    "Well, least first response is all done, right? Just the client's responsibility now?"

    "Mostly." she confirmed, glancing back to the near full coffee mug and snagging it from under the drip. "I think there's a few stragglers that are still getting sorted out."

    "Fair enough." Ralph replied with a shrug before taking up residence in front of the coffee machine. "You have to go out for it?"

    "No." Gabby replied as she fished out some almond milk from the nearby fridge. "But I wouldn't complain if they did, honestly. Ever since the big guy wanted to do the 'less hands-on' thing, I feel like I never get to see any clients. I didn't exactly sign up for a desk job."

    "Yea. But I get it. We can't hold their hands forever." her coworker replied with a shrug. "And hey, if we're the only ones doing any work, whats gonna be left for them to do? Am I right?"

    "Yea, yea. I guess so." she replied while stirring a spoonful of sugar into her coffee. "Still. I just wish I had a bit more to do."

    "Careful with that kind of wishful thinking." Ralph said with a smirk. "You just might get it."

    "Pff. Later, Ralphie." she said, walking out of the breakroom and back into the main hall.

    "Later!" he called after.

    Coffee and onion chips in hand, Gabby trudged her way back across the bullpen and by a seemingly endless number of cubicles. Each one had a different person in them, all doing their assigned work. Some looked happy. Some looked tired. Some looked like they could look into oblivion and win a staring contest.

    Same shit different day.

    "Oy. Big guy." She called as she reached her office door before unceremoniously tossing the chips at Mike's head. He was sitting at her desk, his attention focused on the radio on top of it, and staring at it rather intently.

     The chips bounced off his skull with a satisfying crinkle and cracking of the chips inside.

    "Rude." he said as he reached down and grabbed the now fallen chips off the ground. 

    Mike popped open the bag as Gabby walked back into her office, but he made no move to get up from her desk. Instead, he leaned back over and began fiddling with one of the knobs on the radio. It was only then that Gabby realized-

    "It's weirdly quiet." she observed, realizing that the constant hum was gone.

    "That's what happens when you don't try to listen to every station at once." 

    "I'm more efficient that way."

    "Yea, I bet you are." Mike said with a shake of his head. "I bet you can't even understand half of what's being said."

    "I mean, I can. I just have to really try to listen, ya know."

    "Well, I tuned you to Kids radio."

    Gabby frowned, thinking that maybe she should have gotten Mike that Salmon jerky instead.

    "Come on, man. Kids radio? That's always the wors-"

    As if on cue, the radio chirped in its own opinion on the matter.

    "H-hello? I... I don't really know how to do this... I've never really done this before..." came the uncertain sound of a young child through the contraption on her desk.

    "Come onnnnn." Gabby groaned loudly.

    "Hey, you've been saying you wanted some field work and you know the big guy has a soft spot for the kids."

    "But..." she began.

    "No good deed goes unpunished. You ever heard the story of the good samaritan?"

    Gabby glared as him as he walked past.

    "You suck." she declared.

    Mike just laughed.

    With a sigh, Gabby settled down to her desk and turned the radio up. Despite feeling riled up by having to do actual work, Mike was completely right. A kid could be justified and would let her get out of the office. At least, provided it wasn't over an X-Box or something.

    "...don't even know if you can hear me or not. But Daddy always says I should try to talk to you. He says..."

    The radio starts to go to static but Gabby quickly adjusts it until its crystal clear. Though whether the clarity is due to the equipment or the client is anyone's guess.

    "...every night. So, if you're listening. I guess I'm asking about my dad. He... My mom says he got hurt. There's a lot of people here. Lots of doctors. And they told me I should say goodbye. But I don't know why. Why can't we just go home?"

    Gabby felt a tightness in her chest as she listened that seemed to wash away her previous annoyances. She set down the coffee cup, having not even taken a sip.

     "If you can... Can you help him? I don't know what's wrong, but I don't want to say goodbye. I think he's hurt, but I don't know how. He won't get up. And there's these machines and..."

    She could hear the child's voice beginning to crack as the emotions began to overwhelm him. Pulling her attention away from the radio, she grabbed her workstation and pulled up the file on the client. Skimming it briefly, she noted a few key details both about him and his family.

    "Ahh, kid." she whispered to no one,  an exhalation of exasperation at the notes on the child's father. "That's awful."

    "I don't want to say goodbye. I just want him to get up. I don't want to say goodbye." the kid began to actively cry through the radio.

    There was nothing more to listen to. It wasn't like she was going to get anymore from a traumatized nine year old.

    A warmth flushed through her cheeks and around the edges of her eyes as she listened to the quiet little sobs and her throat closed ever so slightly. There was something about kids that always just got under her skin. Maybe it was too much of her boss's comments or something.

    "Alright!" she shouted to Mike. "You win!"

    "Ha!" came the answer from the door next to her's.

    She pulled up the messenger on her workstation and quickly jotted out a message to her boss, letting him know where she was going and that it was for a client. She then shot him over the ticket information and marked herself as absent before standing up and leaving behind the forgotten coffee.

    "See you when you get back." Mike called after her.

    "Yea, yea." she responded. "I blame you for this." though she knew he wasn't at fault for anything more that tuning the channel to be more focused.

    Crossing the bullpen and winding her way through the desks, Gabby reached the elevator and hit the button. She thought about how things used to be and how it seemed like only her, Mike, and Ralph were ever given leeway to do field work anymore. It used to be half the desks did on-sites but now the big guy only trusted the three of them and even those had to be justified.

    Still, she wouldn't complain about not having to wait on the elevator.

    The gleaming, chrome doors opened and she stepped inside, slapping the 'G' button before leaning against the far wall. The doors closed a few moments later with a gentle 'whoosh' and she felt the elevator begin to move. Her stomach lurched ever so slightly as the elevator descended quickly towards the ground.

    "Bluh." she groaned at the sensation of her lunch trying to crawl up her throat from the speed of the thing.

    The elevator hit ground floor a minute later and, stepping out, Gabby found herself in a crowded city. She took a moment to get her bearings, glancing around at the people walking by and the cars zooming through the streets, before settling on the large white hospital building at the far end of the block. A few seconds after, the sounds of the street died away, only to be replaced by a soft, incessant beeping of machines and the light murmur of voices, broken only by the occasional cough.

    Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her phone and pulled up the details.

    "JEREMY GREEN. ROOM 722."

     Crossing the lobby, she took another, much slower elevator up to the seventh floor of the hospital, only to be greeted by a Caduceus symbol. Gabby couldn't help but chuckle, thinking that she really needed to see Hermie as it'd been a while since they last spoke, and then checked the directory. Following the guide to the right, she soon found what she was looking for.

    A young boy sat on a small bench, tears streaming down his face and his hands clenched tightly together in a ball. A woman, his mother presumably, sat over top of him, her arms draped around the child's shaking body. Tears streaked her cheeks as well and Gabby could clearly make out the racking sobs in her ribcage.

    "Ahh... Kid..." Gabby whispered sadly as she walked up and gently ran a hand through his hair.

    He didn't notice.

    Glancing past the bench into the room beyond, there was a cacophony of sound and light.

    Machines of all make and model stood around an unconscious middle-aged man in a hospital bed. Each one, some filled with fluid, some pumping, and most of them beeping and booping and flashing, created a chorus of noise that made Gabby wish for the simple hum of her untuned radio. Every device was hooked up to the man in some way or another with fluids coming and going in a truly disgusting display. At the far end of the bed, a nurse and a doctor stood looking over a chart, quietly whispering to each other. And, next to them, a gentleman in a black suit looked over his own chart while glancing occasionally at the man in the bed.

    "Hey." Gabby said with a wave, walking into the room.

    The medical professionals paid her no mind but the man in black glanced up and then locked eyes on Gabby.

    "Oh, come onnnnnn." he groaned, tossing the chart on a nearby chair.

    "Nice to see you too." she chuckled.

    "No. No it's not. Are we really going to do this?"

    Gabby glanced at the man in the bed and grimaced. He was in rough shape. It was truly a marvel that he was alive at all for the moment.  

    Bless modern medicine, she thought to herself.

    "Yes, we're really doing this, Az."

    "I just finished the paperwork!" he near-shouted in exasperation. "You can't just waltz in here and-"

    "I can."

    "But you can't-"

    "Yes, I can."

    "Can't."

    "Can."

    "Can't!"

    "Look, Az, I can and I will. I know we don't do this much anymore, but your department is just gonna have to deal with it. I'm doing my job and you know darn well that I am above you on these kinds of things."

    "But this is different!" Az complained. "He had a date! It was scheduled. You can't!"

    "Oh get off it before I call the big guy." Gabby said, turning away from him towards the man in bed. "Besides, what's worse? Filling out a report or having to complete the escort?"

    "Hmm. Well..." Az seemed to think, his annoyance turning thoughtful as he considered.

    "That's what I thought." she replied before settling next to the hospital bed, lifting her hand, and slapping the patient hard across the face.

    The man woke with a coughing gasp, vomit spitting up just a little around the edges of ventilator.

    "Holy-!" the doctor jumped.

    "Jesus!" the nurse chimed in, rushing to patient's side.

    "Can we get some help in here!" the doctor called before joining the nurse, working to get the ventilator out of the struggling man's throat. "It's gonna be alright, son. Calm down."

    From outside the room, the young boy peeked in and then tried to rush in before being caught up by his mother.

    "No, honey. Let them work."

    And work they did. With the patient machinations of the medical professionals, the man was quickly unhooked from a good majority of the machines that had been being used to keep him alive over the course of the next half hour. All the while, the boy and his mother continued to cry and watch, though it was clearly for a new reason.

    Relief.

    By the end of an hour, the three of them, the man, woman, and child, were crying together, embracing each other tightly in the father's bed.

    "I think we need to work on your subtlety." Az commented after finishing gathering up his things.

    "I can be subtle." Gabby retorted.

    "Clearly." Az shot back.

    "Easy, easy." the man complained from his bed as his wife squeezed him tighter. "You're choking me."

    The woman loosened her grip, but did little else to release her husband.

    "It's a miracle." she sobbed into his now tear-soaked hospital gown. "I don't know how but it's a miracle!"

    "I just choose not to be." Gabby continued. "They're not always supposed to be subtle."

    "Yea, yea." Az grumbled. "Wanna get some lunch?"

    "Sounds good."

    As the two began to make their way out of the hospital room, Gabby stopped to look back and realized that the little boy was no longer death-gripping his father but rather looked a bit more stoic. His eyes were closed tightly.

    "Thank you. Thank you so much." he whispered to Gabby, though he likely didn't know she could hear him.

    Gabby couldn't help but smile.

    "You got it, buster." she said, gently stroking the child's hair once more before turning and walking out with Az.

    "So, what're we thinking?" Az asked.

    "Anything but Ambrosia." Gabby answered with a grimace.

    "You still hate that stuff?"

    "When it's all you eat for a century or two, it gets old." 

===

Story submitted to Reedsy for their Weekly Writing Contest with the following Prompt: Write a story about someone whose job is to make miracles happen, literally or figuratively. 

 

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/

Real-Life Conflict

 

 ====

 

Hello, Everyone.

 

I've been debating whether or not I wanted to say something, particularly because I don't know how it will be received, but I feel like I'm morally obligated to at this point. I know plenty of those people who read here are not from the United States, nor do the politics of my country directly or even indirectly affect your lives, so you really have very little reason to care outside of a passing interest in world politics. With that said, however, I wanted to say something.

 

First off, for those of you that are possibly still unaware, there was a recent ruling by the United States Supreme Court that they have overturned a key case known as Roe vs. Wade. This case was a keystone that allowed for the safe practice of abortion and female reproductive rights within the United States, allowing for and providing protection of medical and bodily autonomy. However, due to the beliefs of a loud but strategically placed minority, those rights have now been stripped away from women across a majority of the United States, making them less of a person depending on the state where they might live. Worse yet, there have been multiple comments implying the intent is to try to actively ban these rights in locations where it is protected by State legislature as well as targeting the same for protections that exist for LGBT individuals as well as birth control methods.

I've been trying to think of what to say, to think of some eloquent or well thought-out means of portraying my thoughts on the matter and, candidly, my lack of ability to do so is the part of the reason I debated saying anything. However, at the end of the day, I'm fucking appalled by my country and the fucking dehumanizing policies that have been passed, and the only thing I can do at this time is to express anger and disgust.

Just to target a few of the early questions. No, I am not a female. No, I have not ever needed nor do I believe I will ever need these medical practices. No, I haven't even dealt with anyone within my friends or family groups that have even NEEDED these practices. However, that does not make this anymore appalling or infuriating as we, as a country, have been taking steps backward for many years now and this was a big fucking leap.

 

The atrocities that humanity may face are sometimes little and sometimes big. Sometimes they're creeping, slow, and only seen when viewed in relief against the shadows of the past. And sometimes they're plain as day.

It's very often easy to think of the conflict within stories to be something that is there only for the drama of the tale. To think of villainous actors and the horrors and atrocious acts that they commit in the name of good literature to be relegated to some bygone era or to the exclusive land of fiction. However, we need to remember that the terrible things we love to hate in fiction are not exclusive to storybooks and these things often have real world examples or parallels. Likewise, while stories often have big, grand, and commonly singular heroes, life rarely plays out so simply.

We need heroes. 

 

But, unlike books and stories, more often then not those heroes are not going to truly realize their impact. There are no knights in shining armor single handedly fighting a dragon. There's no sole survivor detonating the spacecraft to save the human race. There's not even a singular whistleblower that reveals the corrupt and malicious who are working against the people they are meant to protect and provide succor. There are only normal people.

For most, there is no singular view of success. There is no epic battle that your average retail worker is going to see. Your local plumber is not going to go on some grand quest and your neighborhood baby sitter isn't going to single-handedly dismantle the systems that are oppressing the American populous and trying to hand the power of the people to a select and privileged few. And, unfortunately, for many this will discourage them. They feel powerless. Unheard, unwanted, and enslaved to a life where they are nothing more than slaves to those in power. Fortunately for those in power, this is what they want you to feel.

Do. Not. Give. In.

All of the changes that have happened for the betterment of people have been the unification of singular people into a group who are unwilling to back down and unwilling to take anymore shit. Feeling divided and hopeless is what gives those forcibly stripping power the ability to do so. It is inconvenient, it is hard, and it is messy, but if you want better than you have, you have to fight for it. You must reach out to your neighbors, to your friends, to your family, to all those around you who are much more like you then they are different and say 'Enough is fucking enough.'

Many of us want life to be different than it is. For all the bad stuff to just disappear. We want to ignore things that are hard and we want it to just go away if you just turn your head long enough. And, in a way, it will go away. Freedom of choice will go away. Freedom of movement. Freedom of autonomy and the rights to free will and action. At this point, if we wait long enough, everything that made the country we live in great in any fashion will, indeed, go away.

So, I say again, we need heroes.

We don't need dragon slayers or heroes of fiction. We need people willing to do what is right in the face of the difficulties that will occur. We need unified, group action that says to those in power we are no longer going to be an easy mark and no longer going to let them rape and pillage our rights, our lands, and our lives. We need to act as one and say in one voice 'We don't need or want your version of history anymore.'.

I'm truly sorry. 

 

I know this isn't what you would normally expect from my site, but unfortunately I haven't been able to write or think about much else. For those of you who are indifferent to this, well, here's hoping it's because you are not American rather than simply deaf to the suffering of your countrymen and women. For those of you who are scared and being directly affected by this, I am very sorry you must experience this and I wish I had the power to just make it go away for you. And to those of you sitting on the sidelines, I ask that you take a moment and look around. Look at the people who are inflicting this. Look at the people who are suffering. And listen.

Connect with people. Plan. And Push back. There are many non-violent but effective ways to make your voice heard and to remove those from power who would do us harm. Money talks, but its silence is heard loudly. Reach out to your neighbors and, I promise you, there are already those working against this.

If action is not taken, worse will occur. We can fix this and we can turn it around, but it requires the average person to take ownership of their own lives and the lives of their countrymen. We need leaders, yes, but we need normal, average people who are willing to stand up and say 'No. Enough is enough.'

Are you willing to stand up too?