S/t.ex

I tried to look for her. I have since the beginning.

Down the back a red man sits in a red room because it reminds him of the days when he was born. He knows earth but leeches from it. He reads their magazines and their brochures. He hates the creators themselves. No one can be a chooser. Three steps and 80 degrees to the left there is another. We will come to it in time.

The red man needs more blood. He is going to need a lot more blood. He will never stop. The magazine presents an old idea worth nothing in his eyes.

“Tried?” It asks. “Perhaps new other item. Very in house, all special guarantee. But NO!!! Stop! Don’t always never go get up yet, because of blue sale ending!”

The red man hates blue. He despises it because it reminds him of the days when he died.

Beneath him is another probing creature. It leeches earth in its own way, reliving memories and experiences that are not its own. A touch and experiences are grafted to its own synapses. It knows little of itself. It doesn’t need to. It has all the ads and all the products and all the content that says it is happy, as happy as it could ever be. And so it does what it is told and is happy. “Do what you are here to do,” a product whispers. “That will be fine by me.”

The massive ship in the past stops kicking and lies dead and wasteful in the present. There’s no air. There’s nothing to breathe in the air and sea and sky. You can have anything. You could have it all. Given the choice, would you choose to dream?

The driveway was charred when he drove down it. It is no longer there. That was the past and the past has stopped kicking. There is a man in the house but he is yellow now, an angry specimen. A tricky specimen. His rudimentary lagomorphs riddle the property. It is a silly hobby. The ghost of a woman walks across his lawn with automated cries. “Any other products wrong bad but without! Voted and voted, courageous new.” The yellow man narrows his eyes. “Don’t.” He tells his rabbits.

“Don’t

Don’t

Don’t

Don’t.”

They never listen. They look at him with nothing but contempt. They wash up on the beach by the thousands, stopping the fire and starting the water. Our future has no need of them. Old ideas. Dead and Wasteful.

The fourth protagonist doesn’t live in a house. She does not own a rabbit or a ship or a product of human society. She is dead and gone. She is gone and gone and gone. Over years she has hardened and supported a forest of thousands. The screaming things in the trees never knew their parent, but take solace in the trees that take solace in the sun. She despises the sun because it reminds her of the days when she was alive.

Over years her forest has grown and his house has crumbled and their ship has faded to nothing and it cannot be taken back. It was all a trick to live with and discard as needed. Things stop kicking in the past. They will accept this with begrudging finality. “Do what you are here to do,” they finally tell the colored beings. “That will be fine by me.”

The red man finishes his day in peace. He severs himself from the world he used to be and floats his way to the planet he’s taken so much from. He silently dangles from a forest as the sun tries to char him without success. His smile is grim.

The colorless probing thing continues blindly.

The yellow man never finishes his day. He is the center of the blaze and cannot cope with the present. He is left behind to stare and be gone. “Don’t. Don’t don’t don’t don’t don’t…”

The colorless probing thing continues blindly. It crawls to her. It reaches out.

She isn't there. She never was. She is gone and gone and gone.

Dead and Wasteful.

Dead and Thrashing.