Robert Langstrum was unpleasantly bored. He woke up to the most beautiful sunny day, with white puffy clouds peppering the bright blue sky. The trees shifted pleasantly from side to side, dancing to the soft breeze. The grass was the very definition of green, gracefully crunching under bare feet with small drops of morning dew. Birds chirped merrily, but not too loudly as to be offensive to the ears; just pleasantly enough to add to the harmony of untouched nature.
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“Soldier! STOP! STOP! SOLDIER!”
I heard the words as they were shouted at my back in the hot morning sun. I grunted to myself, not the least bit surprised. I knew it was coming, I suspected it would be public and extravagant and very military-like. I was right, but not quite the way I anticipated it.
The deadman steps down from the scaffold. He holds his bloody head under his arm and pauses thoughtfully, staring at the big piece of metal that just fell off the roof. So stupid, so quick, so final. All he did was look down, at a beautiful blonde whose breasts strolled on the sidewalk, just in his line of sight.
It was a hot and humid summer day. The air stood sour under the thick branches of the dead tree that stood stiff like a statue. Even the breeze wouldn’t touch the long-dead bark. It only moved above, shifting the clouds about, ignoring the surface, as if afraid to catch whatever killed the big tree so long ago. The ground was covered with layers of rotten leaves so dense they produced a damp squishing sigh whenever anyone dared step on top of them. Few people did at this time of year. Most preferred walking in open expanses where the air could flow and dry their sweat, rather than these areas, where the dense vegetation trapped the air and prevented its escape to the rest of the atmosphere.
Sunrise from Space, Credit: NASA Image of the Day Gallery
When she formed, in a vast interstellar womb, twirling and twisting around herself in a graceful dance of rebirth, they all formed around her. Like spectators, they assembled to watch her come to life, growing and shining, giving them warmth, pulling them together around her. And she adopted them as her own.
When I was very little, I wanted to find the physics of the tooth fairy. I didn’t know that’s what it was called, or that this is how science actually works; this knowledge only came to me much later, after years of learning myths about physics and then more years of replacing these myths by truths about what would eventually become the main interest in my life.
But when I was very little, all I knew was that the tooth fairy operated like clockwork, with a clear method. It started with one of my teeth getting loose in my mouth, and ended with a surprise present under my pillow. I decided I should figure her out, the tooth fairy, and her method. If I could only anticipate where she will be, and when, maybe I can get more presents, I reasoned to my soon-to-be toothless self.