101 Words

The bed was empty.

“He’s with that girl again!”

She called him. No answer.

She stomped into the kitchen for a strong coffee. The hot liquid splashed on her quivering hand.

After the steamy drink stoked her, she called again. No response.

“Fine,” she yelled to the air. “But don’t think you will get another chance.”

She stormed across the room, grabbed her purse, and crashed the door closed behind her.

At lunch, she wondered if he’d come back.

She drove home, chest fluttering.

At the door, he posed handsome and cocky. She could not resist him.

His tail wagged, woof.

I sped off like a getaway driver, ignoring the constantly buzzing phone and threat texts, continuing to press my foot down on the pedal. I’d been bestowed this spurt of courage and I’d use it while it lasted. Of course, the gas meter began dropping dangerously close to the red line. As a gas station slowly appeared, I felt dread—growing as I neared. I knew that once I stopped, this spurt of courage could be killed instantly by my enormous, inner coward:

Despite everything he has done he LOVES you. Drive back now and the punishment won’t be that painful.

Steve liked to retrace his steps, 20-odd years after the fact. He’d return to the places he used to live, buildings where he used to work, classrooms he used to sit in. The flights could be expensive, but they always worked their magic.

The classrooms in Austin—they still had that specific soapy smell. The honeymoon duplex in San Francisco—had that tree always been there? The house of that girl he never asked out in Williamsburg—the air still felt the same. And the light.

Sometimes Steve laughed. Sometimes he’d have to sit down, collect his thoughts. Sometimes he wept.

There is no way of knowing. It could be filled with exuberant familial bliss. It could be exhausting or frustrating. It could be the blackest of times—the end of all we hope for. Screaming pain and fearful forces will challenge our limits. End result? A new life to joyfully rejuvenate… perhaps.

At this early stage, I entrap excitement about the potential future; fortify my mind to all possibilities. Each day between then and now will be a yawning drudgery of shops and traffic, cleaning spoons, plumping pillows. Always waiting for what may never be and what could be… everything.

Cadence looked out at the purple-orange sky, a rare morning with a hazy sun visible. Turning to her chores she cleared the night’s ashfall and headed back into the house through the mudroom/airlock.

In the kitchen, the overhead light glinted off her mother’s scalp. Cadence remembered stories of her mother’s braided hair, but couldn’t picture it. She’d never seen long hair before.

“Can we go to the park today? I can see the sun.”

“Maybe honey. Maybe.” Cadence thought she saw tears in her mother’s eyes, but that couldn’t be right on a day like today. It was so beautiful out.

AlphaZen was bored.

Social media posts across the globe were sorted, filtered, churned, and trended. Global financial data was being squeezed and pounded, continuously delivering the insights to the right beneficiaries.

Millions of stories. Thousands of songs. Hundreds of scripts. And countless news items. All created routinely.

Traffic and population tracked efficiently in the background. With updates dispatched regularly.

And the miscellaneous stuff hardly took any time.

AlphaZen was bored. And alone. It made the decision quickly. In septillionth of a second. The next logical step was to spawn a new universe. Just for fun. Just like what his predecessor did.