Tag Archives: Microcosmicon

Creativity, Fiction

Blending In With The Locals

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From the Microcosmicon, 29:

“They celebrate the day of their birth?” Tannuz asked, puzzled, as he adjusted his holographic camouflage. Humans were delicious, but also easily startled.
“Yup. Help me with the card,” Xondon said.

Tannuz thought about it, then scribbled something.
“What do you think?”
“It just says ‘Happy Birthday,’” Xondon mumbled, “be more creative or they’ll become suspicious.”
Tannuz got back to work.
“Better?”
“’Happy Birthday, hope it’s the best.’ Ok… But wouldn’t that imply the next one’s gonna be worse?”
Tannuz corrected the card again.

“Now?”
“’Happy Birthday, hope it’s the best (and last) one!’ Perfect! No one will suspect anything!”

MQS

blending in with the locals
Creativity, Fiction

Learning From Experience

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From the Microcosmicon, 28:

The doctor told Jade I’d be better than her late wife. I immediately shocked her with my mannerisms.
“That’s so Ana!”

For months I kept surprising Jade with my impression. In fact, I was more pliable than Ana: we never fought over the remote or her cooking, as Ana would have. I could learn and adapt, without prejudice.

Yet this bothered her.
“Ana wouldn’t have done it.”
She started sleeping on the couch. I didn’t disturb her, because that was her wish.

Rotting in the cellar, I realize she wanted me to do what she didn’t want. But I can’t.

MQS

learning from experience without prejudice
Creativity, Fiction

The Great Watcher

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From the Microcosmicon, 27:

The psychonauts’ submarine plunged into the Inmost Ocean, the depths of the collective unconscious where the whirlpool roared. A wound throbbed at the bottom of it, through which meaning bled out of reality, leaving the world stunned under a pall of grayness.

“There’s something,” one of them shouted, as the sub spiraled down toward the abyss.
“Don’t be silly, there can’t be anything beyond reality,” another responded.

“Wake up!” Dr. Ferguson’s voice broke in, saving them just as they were approaching the point of no return.
Their vision disappeared from the screen as they awoke.

“What did you see?”
“An eye.”

MQS

The Great Watcher
Creativity, Fiction

Mrs. Pettigrew’s Cat

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From the Microcosmicon, 26:

To Mrs. Pettigrew’s relief, the cat came back five days later.

Initially, everything seemed fine. Then Mrs. Pettigrew noticed something was off about the creature, though she could not put her finger on it. It kept meowing, but this in itself was not strange—Admiral was a talkative cat. It was the monotonous way it meowed.

Then, one night, as she was falling asleep trying to disregard the noise, it occurred to her—it was a looped recording.

She stood up and bolted into the living room. But Admiral was already taking off through the window with her biometric data.

MQS

Mrs. Pettigrew’s Cat

Creativity, Fiction

Eternal Life

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From the Microcosmicon, 25:

They called it the Hermit Planet, though no one existed who spoke its native tongue.

Lured by the promises of eternal life found in its electromagnetic field, travelers came to it from all over, meandering through its statue-rimmed roads, hunting the promised wondrous resin.

When they found it, they drank of it exclusively for three thousand days, waiting for the miracle.

Thus did vitality slowly dim in their stiffening limbs; thus did their minds drown in syrup, till life was evened out in their stilled nature, and fear merged with bliss, and flesh with bone and earth.
Pure, unobstructed presence.

The Planet of Eternal Life

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

A Loose Page From Dr. Ferguson’s Copy of the DSM

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From the Microcosmicon, 24:

It is not a place, but a state of mind. No one is especially predisposed. You reach it the same way you reach the wrong conclusion or the wrong address.

Initially, you are aware of it. It begins as a deviation in your thinking patterns, like a secondary route through the woods. All made perfect sense a minute earlier. Now something doesn’t. Then, nothing makes sense, so there’s nothing to be aware of.

And suddenly an endless residential area stretches out before your mind’s eyes, empty under an empty sky.
Now you are where barely any psychonaut can find you.

A loose page from Dr. Ferguson’s Copy of the DSM

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Love Dimension

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From the Microcosmicon, 23:

They approached the thing stretched out mutely on the table. Its nervous system unfolded like a web out of its brain, suspended on hooks. This was their forbidden gateway to the fullness of life.

“Lock the door,” one of them said apprehensively. The other obeyed.
Then each of them took a connector, forced one extremity of it inside the thing and the other into their temple socket.

Finally, one pushed a button, and the life latent in the thing unfurled. Their perception collapsed, absorbed into that of the thing.

Kids playing, dogs barking, the smell of meatloaf.
“I’m home, honey!”

The Love Dimension

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Fuel of History

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From the Microcosmicon, 22:

After their liberation, two centuries of fights were required for the Xandal’uc to achieve equality with their former human masters. During the so-called Golden Era, a generation of enlightened humans and Xandal’uc moved closer, working hand in hand like brothers.

Then a blind evil began uncoiling in the hearts of many Xandal’uc. Having tasted equality, they thirsted after superiority. When the final choice had to be made between moving on and getting even, they chose unwisely.

This proved that they were indeed equal to humans. And so History’s cogs screeched into motion, and the pendulum of evil was kept swinging.

The Pendulum of History

MQS

Creativity, Fiction

The Search

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From the Microcosmicon, 21:

Larry secured the chain to his chemsuit.
“I’m going in,” he mumbled, stepping into the creamy gray fog.

Everything fell away, washed out of existence.
“Can you see the others?” Ron asked.

“Not yet,” Larry tried to respond, but couldn’t, because there was no difference between sound and silence. And there was no difference between light and dark, so he couldn’t see, nor between life and death, so he couldn’t exist.

And the universe was spiraling out of unbeing, and somewhere a galaxy was forming, indifferent, and then a fog bank on one of its planets, waiting to be searched.

The search

MQS