Visions

An island in Europa, a prison, that all it is. Built for our small sample of hominids, the last survivors of an endangered species. They've been observing us through the dome as we were ants in a terrarium, we know. Entertainment for the Gods. 

In this world, Michael was a clerk in an East L.A. Nothing was special about him except that, in the twilight of every night, he was a slayer of giant dragons, and a lover of epic endurance.

“I saved our continuum twice,” he told me when I visited him in the asylum.

Raising again from the ashes of my demise, I came to wander the desert streets of your long forgotten cities. I am a dweller of graveyards, a mute witness of eternity, trapped in the world of the living, cursed not to die. I am Gilgamesh, the immortal.

The streets were empty. Those who remained were hiding, picking outside occasionally through ragged blinds. The chirp of bird and the rustling of leafs have gone, only silence. Strange figures came after a thunderous sound. I feared them. I wanted them. 

A man appeared next to the stretcher where I was strapped, and, in one decisive movement, penetrated my skull, and massaged my pineal gland with an animosity proper for a horny teenager. It was memorable, I must admit.

“You seemed so motivated to conquer the new frontier, but now you are sad all the time.”

“Never expected to farm a desert covered with piles of dung.”

“Free fertilizer,” she said with a candid smile. Perhaps, I've been wrong in giving up without trying.

She cried out for help, but it was too late. The gaping maw of the alien plant ripped her arm off her torso, while her partner was fighting the tentacle from pulling off his air supply tube. 

There was no alternate option: “Nuke this place from orbit!”

I woke up from my sleep in a giant ghost ship, sealing through a dark, cold ocean, seeking for an elusive mobile island. Days passed by, then weeks and years. My previous life has become an improbable dream.

They often hid from the rumble of everyday life in their nesting place, a cozy sofa; there they sit chowing from a bowl of salty snacks and watch in silence the hypnotic flickering of their television tube. 

I always envy the silent bond between those distant people.

“Drag me to hell!” the man cried out to the creature coming out from the vortex. 

When the invasion from the alternate universe ended, only a few were left behind, all men. Humans have become an endangered species. 

This is the tale of the last of us.

A life of repressed anger motivated Eugene to create the exoskeleton he called 'the squeezer,' abusing of the extensive budget of his company. Its practical use was dubious, but, Oh boy! Squeeze a steel ball in front of his detractors was priceless. 

Her laugh and charisma were contagious, her hair smelled like wild wheat and promenade, and when she asked me if I can handle it, I said that I would. So, we claimed to the top, and she set the camera timer. We made out for a last time. The fatality count was two.

It started as a sinister shadow in the underground parking; a loud shriek preceded the sound of heavy steps moving on the wet concrete floor; an improbable predator was running decidedly towards her.

When she turned to see, it was too late to escape.

The end of my quest was near: the farm of Marduk the antisocial, a yeoman of considerable fame for his skills producing aphrodisiac homeopathy, and by his unique fungi with prophetic properties.

Tired of being dragged into others' petty problems, I've withdrawn to a quiet place to I heal my soul, calm my mind, and celebrate life. Nowadays, I exorcise toxic memories by writing them into cryptic stories. I still go to places in my mind, though.

Thousands of lifetimes in cryosleep were not enough to traverse the sea between stars. To find the green and blue planet legends spoke about had become an obsessive illusion. Their envoys had studied a zillion planets, but no one they could call home.

Another tedious day of work at the office awaits me, and to exasperate me even further, having to smell unpleasant odors of bus' riders for hours at the time. I say, I'll boycott the whole thing and stay a bit longer in bed, just for today.

“The octopus was not needed, the assistant entered too late, and the parrot cursed the G7 leaders in alphabetic order,” Keko the magician, said, “The show was an atrocity sin equal.” The troupe quietly awaited. “Let's prepare for tonight's show.”

She will think about it, that was all she said before going upstairs. I would do everything to get her, and she knew it. Unable to cope with the anxiety, I sat in the coffee shop across the street, looking at her window. Her answer was already there.

That summer, the sun grew bigger, and the temperature rose, so we knew that something was wrong. In a few years, the oceans evaporated, and the heat became unbearable. So, we carved cities underground and waited until the planet cooled down. It's been forty-one years.

People were gathering in the agora lured by the hypnotic music. That night, DJ Mandru would conduct the trance. 

A woman held my hand, and began to manipulate my dormant desires. I was alive again after so long.

I never felt so content.

Boundless love. Eternal submission. Their passion was so absolute, so absorbent, that it negated their own individual existence. After their perished, their mind fused into a single entity in the metaverse of the afterlife where they exist entangled into one.

Overwhelming sensations possessed her: a warm feeling, a twinkling sensation, the prelude to ecstasy. Her destiny was to be with him and nothing could change it. For once, her love for him was pure and eternal. For him, it was just neurochemical manipulation.

The role of the sisterhood of the Sacred Enigma has been to preserve cryptic knowledge from the time when men walked among us. Ladies had suspected for eons that the sisters held the secret to bringing back the masculine part of our genus, the violent homo bellicose.