Spacing my dear guy, this is reddit.

No no, it’s the singular furry.

The room was brightly lit, white walled, & filled with only a chair & a table. He could not get up, his ankles & forearms strapped down. People had come & gone for three days now, he had not been fed or allowed up at any point. The bruises across his body reminded him of how much better this was.

She entered the room, setting down a stack of papers on the table before pacing back & forth in front of him. She never looked his direction & for a moment he thought she might not even speak.

"What is my name?" The woman spoke as much to the wall as to him. Her voice sounded bored, lacking any celebration or even the malice of her predecessors.

There was no camera, so this wasn't another attempt at a staged confession. A brick red coat came to her knees, the uniform of a political officer flowing like a cape as she paced.

"I… have no idea, honestly." He tried to recognize her but couldn't bring to mind ever having seen her since the rebels had dragged him into captivity. "...are you the one who captured me?"

He didn't even see the pistol that came from the folds of her coat. The flurry of motion took him entirely by surprise until the sound of it firing became the only thing in the world beyond the pain of his shattered wrist.

"Wrong answer." The harsh click of metal when the pistol hit the table forcibly gripped his attention from the bleeding mess that had once been his hand. She met his eyes now & ice cold resolve bored into his very soul. "Try again."

[removed]

Here here!

oh gawd I mispelled that...

given this context it's actually funny as hell lmao

oh my god what have I done

#The Measurement of Time

WC 312

The world moves so quickly. I find myself reaching out time and time again for another to share my journey, but they all slip away in an instant.

Of course, I have my siblings. I feel them dance. I hear their groaning, shifting words as they sing slowly and deeply. The song of a thousand mountains echoing through the valleys they overshadow.

My own voice is still weak, I fear I will misqueme them and so I look for lesser companions.

Animals are no use. They scamper around so hastily, that before I can track one of their short lives, I find out it has come to an end.

Trees are better. One particular oak grew on my sun-drenched slopes, drinking in the light and enjoying the shelter I provide. Its leaves twinkle in the summer light, their smiles shone brightly for a season before floating away to nothing.

The oak looked old before I really had time to consider it fully. They all age so quickly.

I’m left with a reflection in a lake below me. It’s me, but not really me. It mimics my moment, it copies the dance of the rocks that I continue to dance though the animals are gone, and the trees too.

All of that organic growth must have puffed away in the fires that warmed my slopes for a few thousand brief years. It all happens so fast. The lake is gone now too.

Maturity is what my siblings call it. Living through an extinction or two builds character. But I wonder.

I look into the sky. It’s clearer now, without the atmosphere, and I think about the stars. They move so slowly.

And I wonder.

who am I

am i the tree to them

am i brief and inconsequential to them

why do i feel so small

what is the reason for it all

r/TheTrashReceptacle

That wouldn't be batman's reaction at all. A kid who is basically already involved in the super-world who clearly didn't intentionally do evil? Batman would practically have a sidekick-gasm.

He'd be telling Superman to take the kid under his wing, and using the power dampeners that are 100% canon until they have full control.

Seven Nothing Days Part 2

I spent most of that day like I did the night before, mouth deep in every bottle in the house. I was passed out when the call came, the phone waking me despite it never having done so previously when my mother, sister, and soon to be ex brother in law had all called. Yet another sick damn twist in some master game. It was around three a clock in the afternoon, I was still too drunk too talk straight, the cop probably thought I was an alcoholic when I slurred a "yeah, this is him", at my name. When he said my wife was in a bad wreck on State 129 I'm ashamed to say my first drunken thought was relief. "I hope the bitch is dead", I yelled before slamming the phone down before falling back asleep mumbling about no alimony and not worrying about child support.

It was well past six when the near incessant pounding on my door woke me up. My mother and sister had came to get me, to see if I was even still breathing. They made me get dressed in at least some clean sweatpants and a t-shirt before stuffing me into the car. Apparently her eldest brother had been in a car wreck of his own two states away and she had flown out of work trying to meet her other siblings at the hospital. A semi's brake lines weren't working and when she blindly tried to merge lanes, it was painless I was later told. It wasn't until they got some coffee in me that I sobered up enough to realize what all this was. It wouldn't have mattered what I did the day before, today she had an important meeting, today she would have been in her office and gotten the call about her brother at the same time, today she would have drove onto highway 129 at the exact same time and that exact same truck would have been in the exact same place. I think my crazy laughter until we got to the hospital was part of the reason my mother and sister never treated me the same way ever again.

Nancy's parents had died three years ago, cancer and a heart attack barely a month apart. Her other brother and sister were too busy trying to get there remaining siblings medical needs squared away. It fell to me to ID the body. When the nurse pulled back the blanket and I looked down at the lifeless face that was my wife, that was the mother of my future child, that was up until the day before the most important person in my life, I should have broken, like a paper swan in the rain I should have melted then and there. No one would have blamed me, in fact it was expected in spite of the circumstances. But I was quiet, I'd already had six days to say good bye. "Yep, that's Nancy" is all I said before turning and calmly walking away.

For a long time I thought that day stretched into seven was just for me. I thought that god had decided to let me say goodbye on my own terms and in my own sweet time. I knew what I would have done if he hadn't, the pain of losing a wife and child so suddenly, the hurt and what ifs of a perfect future suddenly thrown to hell. If I hadn't gone for one of my pistols or the rope in the garage the alcohol or pure carelessness and depression would have surely ruined me. But why did they have to be taken, why did a being that could make me relive days take them from me.

I got the first inkling of it all being part of something bigger when the draft letter came. We were at war, true war, for the first time in decades and I was a low-level underwriter for a relatively minor insurance company. A widower, just under thirty, no kids or dependents, no major physical ailments. If I wasn't the first man on the list I should have been the second. I signed up for officer school because it seemed like the thing to do, high test scores, college educated, ex boy scout and collegiate seasonal athletics club president. What more could they want in the next Patton. I scored expert marksman with a pistol but barely qualified with any rifle or machine gun handed to me, I guess that's probably why I got tossed into the police force.

For two years I was a stateside MP, some people might say it was the three 'possible saboteurs (a pair of curious teenagers and a mentaly ill vagrant) I captured in my time at Fort Bragg that got me bumped to Captain, others that I was an ass kissing yes man. Really it was because I was too old and uncaring to be anything less in the US army, or anything more for that matter. I got sent to some little South Asian country as a company leader. Our main job was "protecting" VIPs a hundred miles behind the line.

The General was young for a two star, possibly one of the youngest in US military history. He was fresh off a victory in the Pacific, a victory that had won an entire theatre three months early and with 10,000 fewer casualties then expected. In fact beyond where he had been we were either at a standstill or slowly losing ground to the enemy. There were rumors that if he broke the standoff in this jungle he would get a third star and command of all troops in lower Asia. But he wasn't a pompous asshole either, he talked to me like an equal that whole week that we guarded him and his entourage as they toured camp after camp in a snaking trail towards the front. He even thanked me and my men for the dedicated work. Everyone saw an ace to win the war, I saw a future President.

During that week Nancy and the day I had come to calling the 'nothing week' were as far to the back of my mind as they could be. There was work to do, no time to think about what put me here or why. But, as I watch my men thrust the pistol of the would be assassin skyward, as my ears rings from a shot that tears through only canvas, as I see the grenade lacking a pin fall from the shell shocked soldiers sleeve, it all makes sense. You would think I would have rushed and jumped into action instead of just standing there staring. I know though, I know that this is merely a moment, a moment that I was destined to have. Hell, maybe if I don't jump I'll relive today too, or maybe even my whole life since that day I kicked Nancy out. I'm the only one that sees it, and even if anyone else does the only other person who could do anything is one of my men. John, he's got a wife and kids. Terry, his mom's in the hospital and he's currently fighting to keep a pistol pointed skywards. Miguel, if he doesn't get the General back it won't matter what anyone does, besides, his sister would kill me anyway. I could go for the door, if I had Nancy and a baby at home I would, fuck the General. But with no one, there's no point. Hell I wouldn't even be here if they were alive, ditto if I was dead to a 9mm or a bottle to a grief stricken brain. Maybe I could throw it, no, there's too many people in the way. I smile slightly, when I had shipped off my mother had said she didn't want to be handed a metal. Sorry mom, at least you'll get to meet the president with this one.

All this to save some men, no not to just save some men. I was right about the General, so is everyone else, he's going place and the world will go with him and him only. A little bit of spite for the universe wells up deep in side, a part of me thinks to just draw my pistol and do it myself as a giant middle finger to the greater plan. It's fleeting though, I had long ago come to terms with it, I had suffered too much, destiny had beaten me down just as it had over the nothing week. I look towards the General as I leap, everything moving in slow motion. I see the disbelief in his eyes, the confusion, the hint of burgeoning fear of what's to come next. they remind me of myself, one morning, a lifetime and seven days ago.

Seven Nothing Days Pt 1 (second below)

You know the weird thing about a time loop, it doesn't take long. Yeah I know it literally only takes a day in the grand scheme of things but if the majority are anything like mine, well you would have to be a complete idiot to not figure shit out by day five. I mean for god sakes I'm pretty sure someone somewhere has probably literally walked past a glowing neon sign on their first day, things that cause time loops, they are just too big to miss.

Like when Nancy said she cheated on me five years ago. Just out of the blue, waking up next to my beautiful, newly pregnant, wife of the past six years to find her sitting at the edge of our bed and looking at me with the most haunting look of guilt I can imagine. I guess she got to thinking about things the night before, the night before when we held each other crying with joy over a black and white photo of a speck until we both (I thought) fell asleep. She said it was right around our 1 year anniversary, some guy who had slipped her his number while she was working at her sisters coffee shop. Apparently I'd grown distant since the wedding, at least that's what it felt like, I guess all that time spent traveling to get enough for a house wasn't worth it after all. She said they only went out three times, slept together twice, the whole thing lasted barely two weeks. It was me coming home to surprise her on our anniversary that ended it she choked out between sobs, she went out again with him after that but she just felt so guilty afterwards she broke it off.

I was numb. Nancy, my wife, my high school sweetheart, the woman I had loved for ten years, had betrayed me. I could hardly breathe much less stop her when she got up and mumbled something about staying on the couch until I decided what to do. For the next hour I just laid there, I didn't cry or swear or talk to god or my mother. I just laid there and thought, and remembered, and thought some more. A part of me wished she hadn't told me, that she had just suffered in silence, her guilt her penance. But it was too late now, the cat was out of the bag as my grandfather loved to say. I knew she would leave if I asked her too, probably get a divorce without even going to court for more than a day, as for the baby I didn't know.

Our life together played back over and over again in my head. Our first 'real' date after innocently hanging out together for two months, prom night our Junior and senior years, driving that hour between our colleges every week. It was all just too much to throw away over some mistake when she was weak and I was gone, especially now that my, no our child was in her stomach. I found the sonogram on her bedside table, I stared at that little black speck for god knows how long but I barely even blinked until I had thought of the words I was going to say.

Forgiveness is hard, especially when the wound is fresh. For two hours we held each other and cried on that couch, talking about nothing but everything. Eventually I had to get ready for work, I would need money and PTO pretty badly when the baby came. So, in silence, she helped me just like she did every day. We didn't say a word after we stood up from the couch, not even when I left, just a kiss. My shift was only four hours but it felt like an eternity that first day, second guessing, wondering, worrying. But when I got home and saw her, standing there in the kitchen, cooking an early dinner, her hair a mess and her eyes still red, well somehow I fell in love all over again.

Nancy and I spent that night like we did our first night together in my college apartment, well, minus the red wine of course all though I did slip some bourbon. We were together again, it was as if the morning had never happened. The last thing I saw was the clock striking 12 before I drifted off to sleep in her arms.

The next day I relived it, exactly. Of course it wasn't word for word, though the confusion probably masked my lack of shock better than I realized. By the time work rolled around I had convinced myself it was the strangest dream in the world, a premonition maybe, a chance to screwup but not for real. When I fell asleep that night I was thinking about going to church on Sunday to thank god for it in fact.

The next day however, that was when I realized something was wrong. That morning I was to scared to do anything different, to jeopardize what I thought was the most critical day of my life. By the time I drove to work however I had thought back to all those movies I had laughed at and decided something had to be done differently, some opportunity had to be taken or passed up, a yes had to be a no or a no a yes. I thought deeply about every moment and action down to each keystroke on my computer and every step I took going to the water cooler and back. I spent the first half of the drive home trying to figure out what it could have been, what I had possibly missed. I spent the next half coming to terms with the yes that had to be a no.

It took me three days to come to terms with it. You would think I would have been distant and cold, that I would have shut Nancy out and let that do the work for me. But I just couldn't bring myself too, not when this was very well goodbye, goodbye to her, goodbye to a happy family together, goodbye to the life I had so painstakingly helped to build. No, I lived each of those three days effectively the same. Sure their were differences, some ideas about alternative solutions, others mere experiments while I had the opportunity. One morning I followed her when she left the bedroom, another I wrapped her in my arms as soon as I woke up. At my job I did things different, nothing as drastic as setting my desk afire or strangling the perpetually annoying Stephanne just in case, but reports didn't get filed, hellos were skipped, conversations started. For some reason I didn't take a different route, I guess all those final destination stories and car crash statistics got the better of me. At home I tried different things, one night I didn't touch the whiskey, another I got a little drunk. In the throws of passion I even tried different things, things that I'd always wanted to but now only did because it would be the last time. The final day I missed work, stayed home and held her until she said she needed to be alone and disappeared to her craft studio until it was time to start dinner.

I could have kept it going, kept living the same day over and over again, trying new things each and every one with no consequences to face. But after four days of realizing my inevitable future I had enough. On the seventh repeat it took me about an hour to come to terms with what I had to do. I called first my mom and then her brother, they both were as shocked as I was to hear me say Nancy cheated but both understood why I was asking her to leave. God they didn't even know about the baby yet. I took a slug of bourbon before I went out there, brushing my teeth beforehand so she couldn't tell. I barely managed to tell her I think she needed to leave. She cried against my should for a while but eventually, she agreed just as I knew she would. We spent two hours discussing what would happen, moving her stuff out, which car she could have, how a divorce might go. The last was what broke me, what finally made the tears flow from beneath my prepared, hardened face. We didn't hardly discuss the baby, once in a while she left the room to throw up from a combination of morning sickness and stress, and each time my heart and mind screamed to not do it, to tell her I was wrong when she came back. But I'd had six days to come to terms with it, looking back I had needed each and every one of them.

Finally her younger brother came and took her and a few things, tomorrow they would come by and get the car while I was at work. I wondered if maybe I should have someone watch or change locks, to make sure she didn't take anything that wasn't hers. When I realized what I was thinking I took my second slug of bourbon of the day, and my third. I called into work right after that even though I was already an hour late. All I said was Nancy left and they said I could take all the time I needed. From there I drank, first my favorite bourbon and then the remnants of a whiskey bottle from our wedding. Once in a while my thoughts drifted to my dads hunting rifle, or one of the two pistols I kept in locked drawers around the house, or the knife block I had gotten from Nancy's cousin last Christmas, or the length of heavy rope in the garage. Somehow I was still conscious at midnight, I guess I had to watch the clock read twelve o one. I half passed half blacked out around one, the first morning of my new life.

Second part is below

I stared at my web of yarn, trying to find my mistake. My parents? The man who made gnomes for the craft fair and the grade school math teacher? Pyragon and DisTress? I had to be wrong. What were the odds I, of all people, would find the truth? Actually, looking at it, I was the only person who could have. I mean, there was the obvious "only someone living with them could match up there idiosyncrasies" bit, but more it was my abilities, his powers combined with her training had produced a very skilled individual. Not to brag, it's just fact. I thought my powers were a result of our field trip to the labs out in Tower, when I was exposed to the neutrino cloud. Now, I was realizing that "freak accident" only happened because of my powers. Ok, getting sidetracked, Ma would be upset. I accepted the facts as what they were, and got to the issue at hand: do I tell them I know? If I did, how would they respond?

Da would act happy but be concerned. He'd want to make sure I knew not to tell anyone, and that I didn't follow in Ma's footsteps. Or his.

Ma would be excited, but hide it from Da. She'd start training me more directly, though more behind his back. When he found out, there'd be a fight, then she'd accidentally trigger the mech suit she had hidden... Under his spot in the garage? Oh, that wouldn't go well when she busted his truck.

I could practically picture the fireblasts, tearing through the house, then the sky over our neighborhood, much like in their last battle.

What if I don't tell? We continue until I move out. But then, they are there with the empty nest. She'll get that itch, she'll miss the power, feel a bit bored and struggle to find a good hobby. Maybe do some consulting. Tinker on some tech. And at some point, he'll notice. And then a fight.

Those fireblasts of his come again, and again. If I just tell him, if I just tell her, always, it leads to a fight. And then I realize something I don't know. A factor that I can't pin. How did they stop fighting before? All my models, my calculations, none led a truce, an armistice, much less a marriage. I only realized they were alive because both disappeared at the same time.

I ran the footage of the fight again. The crash into the old observatory, an explosion of purple energy, then nothing. The observatory? I pull up my maps, both of the city and of Ma's secret labs. Of course!

The purple energy was a mind wipe! He didn't know! He didn't know. And she likely had improved the system. How often did she wipe his mind? I had to tell him.

As he turned, there was a brief flash of purple, and he went catatonic.

"Oh, my darling," she whispered, stroking her son's hair. "So very clever, so noble."

He continued to sit unresponding as she began taking down his notes and erasing his hard drive once again.

"You'll be a great hero some day, just like I was. But not yet, sweet."

[removed]

I mean everyone else has said a lot. So without too much gushing, I wanna say it was a 9/10 for me. The only reason it didn't go full 10/10 for me was simply because I think you could have scratched the whole trifled line and said "Good. Then you understand." or "Good. The you understand I was the best of the best."

It’s a bit different, in Renegades the Main character thinks it’s super corrupt before going in but realizes that while it does have problems, it’s not as bad as she thought.

While I was reading the prompt, I expected it to be a chess joke until halfway.

Wow

The thing is I don’t know what happens next. Clark Kent grew up in the middle of nowhere, hidden to the world, and became Superman. He used his power to lift tractors off trapped people and to save them from storms. He didn’t kill three people before first grade. This kid has no control and was thrust into an impossible to win situation, at least in Superman’s eyes. But this kid killed. And maybe manifested his powers for the very first time in an act of violence. What does the hero do?

If he asks for advice, Batman will almost immediately come up with a plan to eliminate the child; almost reflexively, this would put Superman into conflict with Batman. I think Clark Kent would write about the hero mother who fought off three attackers. I’m no so sure how it would play out behind the headlines.

Chloe knew from a young age that she didn't belong.

"What's wrong with you?" Her mother had asked her more than once. "We give you everything and you still complain. You know, most children actually look forward to growing up."

Chloe knew better though. Growth just made problems get bigger. She had to find a way out before she got trapped.

She joined a self-improvement chat, pretending to look for study tips, then followed the talks and links in private channels from there. That was when she'd first learned about hopping. Chloe had always thought you needed to use a time machine or portal magic to go to other places and times. But apparently, all you really needed was the power of your mind.

She looked up instructions and success stories. The Mirror Method seemed promising. You sat between two mirrors in a dimly lit room and repeated a set of affirmations. Done correctly, you would find yourself in a parallel world, shuffled there through the mirrors' infinite reflections. She'd had to scrounge a hand mirror from her mom's dressing table, but the bathroom mirror was big and she'd hoped that would make up for it.

But she was still here. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change, she would never get away, she would never be free.

She couldn't think like that. In all the worlds out there, there was one where things were better. If she couldn't go there, maybe someone could come to her. Someone strong and smart and brave, who knew her like she knew herself.

Chloe didn't know any methods for that, so she just closed her eyes and wished.

And just like that, there they were.

"Hi!" they said. "Am I you? That's kinda confusing. I'm me and you're you. Isn't that simpler?"

Chloe laughed. She was too old for imaginary friends, but she'd used the mirrors and done the affirmations. This was meditation. Having a mental mastermind meeting like in her dad's self-help books. Yeah, that was it.

"Would you like to see my room?" she asked her alternate self.

Their smile shone brightly. "I'd love that."

She swiped an old compact mirror from her mother's dressing table. Under the big old tree in the schoolyard, she opened the mirror and did her meditations.

"I don't know what your world is like," her alternate self said. "What if I get stuff wrong because things are different over here?"

The solution, they both decided, was to read more books over here and try to compare notes. Their school library didn't have a lot of books but the librarian was happy to help them out. She gave them one or two old books each week with strict instructions to be careful with them.

"What does that mean?" Chloe wondered one afternoon under the tree, pointing to a word in the book they were reading.

"Misquemed," her alternate self said. "Hmm. I think it means 'like a mosquito'."

Chloe skimmed the rest of the passage. It seemed strange to talk about mosquito-likeness here but she didn't know if it was wrong either. They copied the word, then went to the school library. Luckily, there was a big old dictionary all the way in the back.

"Well, it means mosquito-like where I'm from," her alternate self said afterwards.

Chloe grinned. "It's okay. I'm never gonna use it anyways-"

"Oh look," someone else said. "It's the freak."

Chloe turned around. It was Ashleigh and her boyfriend Henry. Why were they here? They always snuck out to the mall with their friends at lunchtime.

"They come here to hold hands," her other self whispered. "Henry thinks his friends'll call him a sissy otherwise."

Chloe stood a little taller. "It'll take more than that to misqueme me!"

Ashleigh sneered, but Henry stepped forward.

"You're talking funny," he said. "I'll fix your head real quick-"

He raised a fist, and that was when Chloe hit him with the dictionary.

Everyone left her alone after that.

They had to part ways sooner or later. Chloe was graduating this year, moving on to high school. A bigger class with students who hadn't known her or each other since they were all in first grade. A fresh start.

"I don't know how much longer I can stay here," her other self said. "I'll be busy with school too, so..."

Chloe nodded. Her parents had been clear that she had to stop staring into mirrors and do something useful with her life. "I understand. You taught me a lot. Thank you for everything."

Her other self laughed. "Thank you for letting me see your world for a while. Wanna know a secret?"

At Chloe's nod, she leaned forward and whispered in her ear.

"You don't need the mirrors. You never did."

A very good piece- the view of the struggle helps the method. Bolding the words you used for the prompt helps to clarify it well. I always appreciate actual schemes and trying to make it work on a technical scale.

Damn. That was hard

It was a dark and stormy night. (I always wanted to do that.) Somehow, feeling like I'm some hardboiled private eye makes me deal with this job a bit more. I mean, I was kind of lapsed in my religion, but when the undeniable proof of life after death came, everyone had some worries. And when you work with the government, they manage to handle things even more.

It always seemed like this could be used poorly. After all, with all the lives in the world, from every different type of being there was, and how cruel the animal kingdom is, technically the government could have an excuse to put anyone and everyone in their country in jail for mass murder. After all, in the animal or even plant kingdom, if you have lived, you must have caused something to die- and if people can be reincarnated as an animal or a plant, technically the simple act of eating any type of food just to sustain yourself is a capital offense. Don't get me wrong, some nations who really wanted to be cruel for cruelty's sake did indeed read it that way, but those nations were soon struck down by the rest of the world and their own problem of "if everyone's a criminal, then no one is." Eventually, the more Hinduist viewpoint of reincarnation took hold, which included a firm belief "if someone was reincarnated as an animal or plant, then it is considered them already being punished for their crime"- which both lessened the amount of potential criminals and got out of that nasty loophole before everyone in existence became a prisoner.

But this isn't perfect. Sometimes, the evil go unpunished on the karmic scale. Sometimes, a real piece of shit gets reincarnated as a human being.

That's where I come in. Some say I'm a wolf of the government, but the badge says I'm a lama.

I head to my boss. They told me that they found out somewhere in the city, this nasty piece of work has reincarnated. I looked at his history and shuddered- this is the type of shit that should make you a cockroach in your next life, and he's still walking around as a human? They handed me this book they found in the guy's collection they got from lockdown, then told me to go pick out a few fake possessions to hide it. I was to head to the preschool and have the children test which possession they liked the most; the real one would naturally choose their own possession and we have the guy.

This is the part of the job I hate- you always see the problems here. Sometimes you can see it, the biggest bully of the kids is the one who picks it and you know the soul is rotten to the core, but then it's this quiet, this sweet, adorable kid who picks it and you wonder if their soul is really purified. Doesn't matter; if prison values punishment first and foremost, they say you have a bunch of life sentences to deal with, you deal with them.

I head to the preschool. The parents didn't know which was which, but I put the possessions out. I see some kids play with some of them, not wondering. It seemed normal. Then, this one kid who was busy reading in the background headed over. This is what I'd fear...he picked the book.

I shut it down. I went to his parents. "I'm sorry, but your son has proven he's the reincarnation of a serious criminal. We have to take him in." His mother cried, his father punched me out. It happens- sometimes it's out of anger, out of frustration, even a desperation that an assault charge gets them arrested and forced into prison to watch their child. I have to shake it off and just let it go. I take the child in my car, the father goes in a local cop car.

I always feel so rotten when it happens- but if karma doesn't punish people, that's what we have to do.

Eulogy for a Friend

"I didn't even know the word 'eulogy' a couple of days ago but here I am giving one. I know what advice Ash would give me. They'd tell me not to misqueme anyone. I'm sure Ash knew what a eulogy was. They had such a huge vocabulary and loved to use it, but they somehow never made me feel stupid when they used words like misqueme. I'll save you all the Google: it means to displease or offend."

I paused for some chuckles. I really hadn't known what a eulogy was and wish I hadn't found out. I also didn't have to give this eulogy, but my therapist thought it would be a good idea. My best and only friend was gone.

"Many of you probably don't know this about Ash and me, but we were more than just the same age: we shared the same birthday. February 5, 2052. 2-5-52, a palindrome. That's another word Ash taught me. We always said we were born to be friends. When we were together, we never needed anyone else. We couldn't remember when we became friends, but we just knew that we would always be friends."

I didn't really write anything ahead of time. As I said the words, I realized they were no longer true. I didn't understand what it meant to cry your eyes dry until yesterday. I looked down at the blank page I was holding to pretend I had prepared my eulogy. The podium had one of those extra shiny wood tops and I caught a glimpse of my reflection. I looked terrible from that angle.

"Ash always saw the best in me even when I couldn't see it. I did the same for them. We promised to always lift each other up and while I couldn't keep up my end of that deal, Ash never let me down. Not one time."

I realized I could raise Ash up one more time. We had planned on taking a trip to the moon for our sixteenth birthdays next month. Our parents agreed that we could go alone, so we had naturally become obsessed with it. I hadn't planned on going without her now, but I couldn't let Ash down. She was about to be cremated and her parents promised to give me some of her ashes. Is it illegal to spread them on the moon? I'd rather not know so I can plead ignorance if I can't, but I guess a part of her will make it to the moon after all.

"I really don't know what else to say right now. People keep telling me 'sorry for your loss.' But that doesn't feel right. I didn't just lose-the world lost. And what is there to be sorry about? That people die? That Ash died too soon? It just sucks. Plain and simple. It sucks. And it's not fair that Ash had to have a seizure in the shower and die like that."

I stared across the crowd at the large oak behind everyone. I was pretty sure it was a majestic oak since, well, it was pretty majestic. I could see Ash climbing the lower branches and mocking me for being too scared to even try and climb it. It had those weird bulbous growths on it and they creeped me out. I looked back at the crowd, trying to avoid Ash's parents. Seeing them would definitely make me find some tears to cry.

"Ash is the first person I've really known that has died. I would have preferred to wait longer to know what it's like to mourn someone, but I guess we all have to grow up sometime. Except for Ash."

I laughed uncontrollably. I looked to her parents to give them a look of apology, but they were both laughing, too. The rest of the crowd? Not so much.

"I'm sorry! But Ash would have found that hilarious. And I think that's my cue to leave. I miss you, Ash. And I always will."

I stepped down and walked by her. Ash had been so full of life but it had come to an end. Even now, their smile shone brightly lying there so peacefully.

You are here by sentenced to 20 consecutive capital punishments.

(0.0) - Whelp, that sux. See ya folks.

Thank you so much! Sometimes another pair of eyes is all that’s needed

That’s pretty much how I’m taking it as well and I have a lot of ideas forming. Thanks so much for your input!!