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0 comments on "My mind is filled with everyday horrors beyond all imagining"

So, like, a couple of weeks ago there was a news story that like 14 or 17 people–including children–were poisoned by over-chlorinated water in a lazy river. They had to go to the hospital and they all had a really bad time.

Someone suggested that maybe someone had an accident in the water, and the staff poured in a bunch of chlorine to clean things up the lazy way. And they added a bit too much and it poisoned everyone.

My brother showed me what looked like a water park in China and there was a MASSIVE amount of people crammed inner tube to inner tube. And ignoring the possibility that someone might have COVID…

I’m not sure what would be a worse situation. That you’re in a stagnate pool like in China, everyone kicking their feet and splashing around, and someone has an accident. Or if you’re in a lazy river and you’re in the middle between other people so you can’t get to the edge quickly… and you see the disaster headed toward you through the water.

Both seem like hell on Earth to me. Swimming in feces would be horrible. Swimming in someone else’s feces would be 100 times MORE horrible. And to be trapped in a crush of bodies while the water becomes visibly polluted…

Yeah. No thank you.

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All Systems Red at Amazon
1 comment on "Posting to post"

(I’m testing out Bear’s ability to post to a WordPress.)

There’s been a few newsworthy events in the past week or so. 5 people imploded in a tin can at the bottom of the ocean. The Greek coast guard tried to drown 700+ people. Some kinda awful mercenary group is trying to overthrow the Russian government. Basic stuff.

I’ve been writing on “Burrito at Night.” Since I’ve been writing it “seat of the pants”-style I have to decide how much action I want to take place. What direction I want things to go.

Should there be intrigue? Violence? Action?

Or should it remain a semi-commentary story about a fairly anonymous everyday guy in a dark future work just trying to live his life and be himself?

I think I’m going to ask my Patreons what they want: Introspection and cerebral sci-fi, or someone comes knocking at the door and some kind of future intrigue starts happening.

At this point, the main character is in his living room sweating through his skin, suffering in a world badly effected by climate change and the uncaring cruelty of the ultra-rich.

He is living with a broken air conditioner that he can’t afford to get fixed or replaced because he had to go into debt due to a medical scare. He only has his ration of drinking water and can’t afford to purchase extra.

But no matter how grim the future, he still has a will to live.

Uramichi Oniisan 01 at Amazon
0 comments on "Sometimes I get heated"

Sometimes I get heated. Like, people will be talking nearby, and no matter how hard I try to bite my tongue, I can’t help jumping in because they’re WRONG. So fucking WRONG.

And I realize that other people have different lived experiences. I realize that other people read different news, watch different movies and TV and absorb things differently than I do but…

Why do you gotta be so wrong? So ignorant? So all-out STUPID? C’mon people! Wake up!

And I understand that educational standards have changed since I was young. That some schools have fallen into outright dispensing propaganda to the kids under their care, and as a result those kids have turned to sources like YouTube and Tumblr and Tik Tok to teach them about the world. And as a result… Ugh. So stupid.

And I don’t believe that PEOPLE are stupid. I’m old school, yeah, but I’ve adapted. Evolved. Changed with the times. Somewhat.

I don’t think that PEOPLE are stupid. I think that they believe stupid things. They do stupid things. They fall into stupidity traps and end up living stupidly when they could be doing better. But no, nobody is BORN stupid.

Everybody starts off ignorant and unknowing and learns things as they go along. And sometimes the sources they learn from give them wrong information or don’t offer information at all and the person has to learn things on their own.

They pick things up on the street, as it were. And everybody lives on different streets, which results in some people being taught foolish lessons or just coming up with ideals on their own that the majority of people would view as wrong or all out evil.

Capitalism is learned, not ingrained.

So rich people go to rich people schools that teach them rich people ideals that result in people growing up to be rich people stupid.

“I’m rich, therefore I’m better than everyone around me. So it’s a good idea to create what anyone else would call a death trap and entomb people in it and drop them to the bottom of the ocean FOR MY PROFIT.” It seems smart? No. It’s fucking stupid.

That’s just the way it is. Like, “I’m going to send a bunch of people to a colony on Mars where they will live and work and treat me like a king. And some people will be important and receive MASSIVE amounts of wealth, and other people will be there to do all the work nobody else wants to do and basically be the body slaves of their betters. What a great idea I’ve had! King of the World! Emperor of Mars! All hail my mightiness!”

Or “I’m going to use my massive company to generate massive amounts of wealth FOR ME, and as a result it’s going to DESTROY the environment people need to live but I’LL be richer and more powerful than a GOD! So I’ll have my worker-drones create a massive underground facility for my family and my retainers to live in after the world up above becomes an unlivable hellscape of biblical proportions. What could go wrong?”

And the stupidity in both those scenarios is OBVIOUS to anyone with a working brain but the propaganda of “Rich makes right” creates a brain blockage of epic proportions. Just an inherent sense of stupidity that they don’t have the breadth of wisdom to see beyond.

When you’re incapable of seeing the non-rich as people… You can’t even grasp a sense of the danger you’re in.

Like, take Mister Dick Tater for example. He lives in a massive castle outside the city and refuses to fly or go by boat and only travels from here to there in a heavily armored tank of a train. He’s always surrounded by the army and horrifically murders anyone that even speaks against him.

It’s to the point that people are so afraid of angering him that they LIED about how powerful the country’s military is, which lead to them invading a neighboring country and getting their asses beat by dudes using $1500 toy drones and guerrilla war tactics.

Ultra capitalism is stupid.

It’s obviously stupid to anyone with a working mind. But some people just have that giant blindspot that sees them overthrown like the czars while wondering the whole time “Why is this happening to MEEEEE?!?”

And it’s a learned stupidity, which means the first guy being that stupid could possibly live their whole life in luxury and wealth beyond imagining, setting a terrible example for their children. And those children grow up to unknowingly be terrible people that everyone hates but who think “People are just jealous of my AWESOMENESS. They can’t possibly see me as a leech sucking on the lifeblood of the planet. I’m not a parasite ruining society. I’m a trendsetter. I’m AMAZING. Look how much money I have. I could wipe out world hunger with $4 billion dollars! If I wanted to. If I had the desire to. If I had any sense of connection to the world and people around me.”

It’s just so stupid.

Tiresome and ridiculous people unaware that they have a comeuppance headed toward them.

Wealth truly is wasted on the rich.

Pax,

~HarperWCK

• The Paypal: https://paypal.me/harperkingsley. Directly support the content.

• The Patreon: https://patreon.com/harperkingsley. Become a patron and receive access to Patreon-only content and bonus posts.

• The Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/harperwck. Artwork, links, a way to support the creation of new content.

• The Amazon shop: https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0. See curated lists of items, and if you click an item but buy something else I still get money for driving traffic.

• The story site: https://kimichee.com. Just stories, poems, and reviews, no excess babble.

• The blog: https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog. The stories, the meta, the babble, the news; a broad spread of content.

• The Twitter: https://twitter.com/harperkingsley0. Where the tweets live: part outrage, part flora and fauna pics, part babble.

A City On Mars at Amazon
0 comments on "SHORT FIC: The Stranger"

THE STRANGER

There was someone standing beside the refrigerator. From the angle, I had to be in the living room. Yet somehow… Even though he was unfamiliar–tall and thin, dressed in a sweater and jeans with tousled curls atop his head–there was something recognizable about him. Not the shape or the color of the eyes, but something that called out to me. That screamed out his identity.

He was me.

That was me standing next to the refrigerator. I knew it deeper than the deepest knowing. So far that something inside me rang out with the knowledge: That’s me!

I didn’t know his face or recognize his body. I didn’t know his name or anything about him. But I knew that was me I was looking at.

And who am I? | wondered, near to crawling out of my skin at the eerie strangeness of it all. The wonder and the weirdness.

I stared at him, but it was as though I was a ghost to his sight. He gazed through me as he turned to walk into the kitchen. There was the clink of dishes as he opened a cupboard and took down a plate and cup. I thought that I should say something–“Why are you digging through my dishes?“–but the words died unsaid and unformed, the will behind them dissipating before I even drew in breath to speak.

I moved closer to keep him in my view, but I didn’t dare to get within touching distance. I simply stood next to the refrigerator–where I had first seen him–and watched as he fixed himself a plate of buttered toast and made himself a cup of tea with sugar and milk the way I liked it. And I watched him eat, the way he chewed every bite, swallowed with a bob of his throat, and his hand rose and fell with the toast disappearing munch-munch-munch until it was gone and he was brushing the crumbs from his hands over the sink.

My sink.

In my kitchen.

In my house.

Using my dishes.

This stranger standing in his stranger skin, looking nothing like anyone I had ever known and the farthest from me as he could possibly get. Yet knowing that he was me and I was him. That we were the same person, though we’d never seen each other before and maybe never would again.

And I watched him as a ghost as he moved about his daily life. And there was so much familiarity in his every motion, in the way he tossed his head and moved his feet, in the way he held his mug–my mug–as he drank the tea until the last drop was gone and washed the dishes, his sleeves rolled up in the same way I would roll up mine.

And it was strange and familiar at the same time. And I wanted to watch him forever even as much as I wanted him to leave. Because it was uncomfortable to have him here. To feel so jealous of this stranger my mind kept insisting was so familiar, so me.

But I lingered near. I remained a silent witness as he lived in my house and enacted my life. And I watched him, admired him, slid my gaze up and down his form and felt a nameless wanting.

Until I woke up in my own bed. In my own skin. In my own self. In my own eerie sense of longing and loss, of something taken from me that I had never known but never not known.

And I got out of bed and I dressed myself. And I brushed my teeth and washed my face. And I brushed my hair. And I avoided my own eyes in the mirror as I went out into the kitchen and made myself some buttered toast and tea.

Alone again, without me.

/END

~HarperWCK

• The Paypal: https://paypal.me/harperkingsley. Directly support the content.

• The Patreon: https://patreon.com/harperkingsley. Become a patron and receive access to Patreon-only content and bonus posts.

• The Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/harperwck. Artwork, links, a way to support the creation of new content.

• The Amazon shop: https://amazon.com/shop/harperkingsley0. See curated lists of items, and if you click an item but buy something else I still get money for driving traffic.

• The story site: https://kimichee.com. Just stories, poems, and reviews, no excess babble.

• The blog: https://www.harperkingsley.net/blog. The stories, the meta, the babble, the news; a broad spread of content.

• The Twitter: https://twitter.com/harperkingsley0. Where the tweets live: part outrage, part flora and fauna pics, part babble.