Tyreese Bartley. T-Bar. The Bar Man. Reese B. Fucking Bum.

The last one is the one I hear more than the others now. The others were when he was “acceptable” to society. The others were when he had money. The others were before I lost his house; not like he needed the damn thing. Miss Bartley had left and taken his daughter with her. She moved in with her new lover and took Crystal with her.

Anybody with a heart would say it was wrong of the court to give Crystal to her mother considering the woman cheated on Tyreese Bartley. Anybody with a heart would say it was wrong for the court to put his only child under the same roof where his ex-wife had carnal relations with a damn tattoo artist. Anybody with a heart would say it was wrong of the court to make Tyreese pay the court to do all of this to him. But the court has no heart…like my shoes…but we’ll get to that. Remember that…no heart in the shoes…and remember that a true Pound Cake has a pound of everything.

You could argue T-Bar was always a little crazy; opened a little bakery in Cleveland. Who knew people ate in Cleveland? It made a little bread…ha…bread…bakery! HA! HA! HA! He married a woman way too young for him. She was eighteen years behind him in age and the way she worked him and his Lil’ Bar at night would add to the gap. She never meant to have a child by him but shit happens. He was excited, and he knew that evil siren would never get an abortion because if she did…I’DA KILLED THAT BITCH!!!!

Shhhhh!!! I’m sorry. Shhhh!! The Bar Man would have killed my wife. But she had my baby. And I love her. She’s my Crystal. She keeps me grounded. I don’t get to see her anymore. Not after I started…with my bad habits. But my shoes! My shoes are heartless!! Could I please get a little change to keep my shoes from destroying all of you? Nobody? Please? I’m a baker and I have no food. You probably heard of my place before I sold it to pay for everything. Reese B’s Buns?

One a penny, two a penny, Reese B’s Buns. Some of you nod because you heard of the place. It was in Coventry, off the Green Line. You’re on the Red Line now and you can’t get there off this. What’s this? East 105 and Quincy? Spare a little change for my shoes please? They are evil. They’ll stop the world. Stop it all if I don’t get some change…Fine I’m getting off!

Hey? What’s with these doors? We’ve been on this platform forever. Where’s the readout? All the lights are out…Remember what I said…Sunday morning…Sun coming up….GOD’S DAY! NO!! MY SHOES’ DAY! FUCKING BUM’S SHOES DAY! HA HAHAHA! AHAHA!

These pages retrieved from the diary of Michel Zandekowski PhD. A renowned professor of Philosophy and Astrophysics at Cornell

Life. A glorious miracle scarcely understood by even the most profound philosophers. Yet it is understood that to have life, it must have been given, and in the world we know only mothers can give life to another. All the life we have experienced and studied has come from one mother whom we so affectionately call: Earth. The only planet known to sustain life in our solar system. The only planet we know for sure that sustains life in the entire universe. It is by all accounts a miracle; a perfect harmony of elements, light and warmth that allows organic beings to flourish. This harmony of existence is based on one very simple concept: balance.

Balance in the world requires barriers and deterrents from specific courses of action. It requires pressure (both high and low) to maintain order. The pressure of finding enough food to eat, the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface of the Earth, the pressure of outrunning a predator. All living things adhered to these pressures and barriers of living, and peace was maintained. All until one emerged. The most perfect yet most tragically flawed of any category of life: Humanity.

Humanity has within its possession the ability to overcome nearly any obstacle placed in its way. History has shown us this time and time again. Mankind destined for a particular future rising up and using their willpower and mental prowess to triumph against insurmountable odds. The obstacles of course changed throughout the centuries, but the results were the same, victory. Outnumbered victory against an aggressive army. Victory over the environment. Chemical victory over insects and rodents in our homes. Even victory against widespread disease meant to thin out their numbers.

Mankind was graced with one thing that other life forms were not. They possessed an understanding of life. An understanding that was meant to support the system of pressure and harmony; an understanding that should have allowed life of all kinds to flourish to an unprecedented level. A creature that knows it has had enough to eat to survive, would not eat until there was no more food. Thus both the creature and its food would be saved from extinction. A creature that could adapt to any environment would allow the world to maintain its balance (through weather, tectonic plate shifts, floods etc.) without destroying all life in the process. Mankind could evolve as fast as the Earth could change.

But Humanity didn’t turn out quite as intended. Because mankind did not stop. Humanity took it’s understanding of its Mother’s nature and used it to thrive. It understood that it didn’t need to eat all its food to survive, but they didn’t want other creatures to eat all of their food. So they consumed. Humanity understood the environment and could adapt to it, but Mankind’s vast understanding of all things has brought their evolution to a halt after all. They no longer experience the environment firsthand, and so it can no longer change them. Humanity changed the world, and rid it of the pressures and barriers to its own life.

Pressure, however works in a predictable manner. When pressure is removed from one area, it is displaced to another. Mankind alleviated the pressures of life from themselves, and in turn increased the barriers and pressure of living on all other life forms on Earth. But humanity had not evolved for too long, and their connection with the world was s faint that they did not care about the balance of the world, if they remembered it at all.

But hours ago, mankind was faced with a foe it couldn’t see, hear or feel, and their world was shaken. For mankind’s mental prowess had been bound in books and micro-chips for reference and refinement. Individuals had become dependant on the society, and could not fend for themselves. The Sun, humankinds greatest ally in life, had in a matter of 8 minutes turned the entire world upside down, and become it’s worst enemy. Humanity’s mother had finally had enough of her son’s reckless folly. It was time for mankind to remember its place.

At 7:22:32 AM EST on a Sunday, the world went dark. North turned South in an instant, and the world had been turned upside down. The power on Earth had been turned off, and Humanity’s understanding of the world went right along with it.

It is time for mankind to rejoin evolution. I fear most won’t survive the journey.

~ MZ

The pulse was formed in the coolest portion of the Sun at exactly 7:14:32 AM EST, on a Sunday. Eight minutes later, the third piece of stardust away would never be the same.

In Houston, TX, NASA heard the pulse from the ground. It sounded like silence and static. They read the readings, knowing that it came from the sun, that it emanated from the largest sunspot on the gas ball. And lo, they were afraid.

In Montana, no one even looked up.

In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, the Merchant Marine ship, “Gladys” tugged away, the electrical systems running perfectly well. The generators in the bowels of the ship chugged away, manufacturing ozone and little blue sparks. The captain noticed that the compass was working fine. There were no problems whatsoever.

In Gaza, a man launched a rocket into a hotel in the mid-afternoon. It hit its mark with stunning accuracy, killing twelve and injuring forty-three. The news didn’t cover it; they never covered the struggle of his people anymore. The hotel was his test target. The next target, launching in the next few days was to be the bureau of CNN. Then they would cover the story. They would have to. He checked his watch, smiling because the battery hadn’t died yet. He’d had the watch for three years and the battery hadn’t died.

In Antarctica, penguins cawed and chirped, making the noises indicative of penguins. They knew nothing of magnets and nothing of electricity. They knew krill.

The International Space Station recorded the pulse first and reported it to Houston. By the time the crew on the Space Station realized what was about to happen, it was already three days too late. The crew would never get home. Three minutes after they recorded the pulse, they said their goodbyes and opened up a plastic pouch of Moet Chandon. The crew ate dehydrated peas, roast beef and champagne. This was the last meal of the crew on the International Space Station.

Five minutes after the pulse was formed, it blew past Venus and was well on its way to the Planet Earth. If it had been conscious, the pulse would have noticed the gaseous planet and the miracle of the toxic clouds. But the clouds were not toxic to the pulse. The tiny glowing planet meant nothing to the pulse, because the pulse had no mind. If it had, the pulse might have considered the ramifications of its actions; considered what was about to happen. But this did not happen. Self-realization occurs only on the third planet from the Sun. So do morals.

The Murphys sat at the breakfast table, listening to the radio news. The story was about the budget cuts in the federal government. Mr. Murphy cursed under his breath and talked about the crooks in Washington. Mrs. Murphy rolled her eyes. The girls didn’t understand a thing their father was saying. The radio declared the latest hit from Hannah Montana. The girls dropped their spoons in their cereal and squealed. Mr. Murphy sighed and went to the bathroom.

At 7:21:13 AM EST, Thomas pulled a squeegee over the giant MTV LED television screen in Times Square. He watched the scantily clad women writhe in faux-ecstasy. He watched idiots run into a brick wall in a red Radio Flyer wagon, resulting in the loss of dental work. Thomas sighs that this is his life, this is what his degree is worth. In just over a minute, his degree would be worth less.

At 7:21:57, the pulse his the space station. In half an hour, the crew would be dead. The people on Earth would never mourn them.

The reporter looked at her teleprompter. IN BRITNEY NEWS, THE ESTATE OF THE LATE SINGER HAS ANNOUNCED THAT HER CHILDREN WILL RECEIVE NONE OF HER ASSETS. THIS COMES AFTER HER EX-HUSBAND FILED A SUIT AGAINST THE ESTATE FOR WRONGFUL DEATH. HER CHILDREN ARE SEVEN AND FIVE. In 45 seconds, the screen would be blank and the story would go unheard.

At 7:22:32 AM EST on a Sunday, the pulse slammed into the world with all the force of a pin dropping and the world went dark.

“Gladys” stalled out in just above the Marianas Trench. CNN’s building in Gaza shut down completely. The radio went dead in the Murphys’ house, in the middle of the new song, as did the radio station. The DJ was stunned at the darkening of his booth. He stumbled through the room, filled with equipment, banging his knees and head on everything he had in there.

Times Square went dead. The cars all stopped, all the taxis went silent, even the horns petered to nothing. The MTV screen went dark and Thomas looked around, in a slight panic, wondering for a moment if it was his fault. He looked to his right and noticed that the ABC ticker had gone black as well. The rest of the city looked as though it had just stopped and gone to sleep. A thought crawled into the back of Thomas’ head.

What if the city that never sleeps finally decided to take a nap?

Half a second later, the pulse passed through The Earth and on towards Mars. If the pulse were aware, and it most certainly was not that, the pulse would have smiled in that way that it smiles, knowing that it had just done a job well done. It had wiped out every electrical system on earth and wreaked havoc on the electromagnetic field that wrapped around the world.

If it were aware, it would have felt as though it were an angel of retribution, of death. Death to power. Death to electricity.

Death to life as they knew it.

But the Pulse was not aware. It certainly was not aware. It would be terrifying if it were.


 

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