drinkendriven

So, what are you in for?

They asked if I had been drinking and driving. I said that I had. I had had a lot to drink, actually. They didn’t ask me what I had been drinking, though.

What had you been drinking?

Water.

The Mouthless

They came from a far away planet. Resources their were far more scarce than ours here on earth. The only animal life that was able to thrive and evolve was that which developed tight symbiotic relationships with plant life. They had transparent skin and no mouth. Inside their bodies they hosted something similar to algae. It provided food for them and they provided minerals and light for it. They absorb water through their skin and because of this take long baths regularly. Bath houses permeate their culture. They use a series of bioluminescent pockets of micro-organisms in their fingertips and foreheads to communicate. It took some time, but translating devices have been manufactured for each of our species. While it has taken us a long time to become comfortable with the idea that our bodies are communities of different organisms that we have become partnered with over evolutionary time, they were always well aware of the ways in which they were connected to other creatures. All of our major religions have already adopted much of the alien philosophy. Of course initially, some of us were less than accommodating. By and large that irrational xenophobia that burned passionately in so many parts of the world has been almost entirely extinguished.

Energy Consumption

A spindly man sits alone in a crowded bar. A bead of sweat drips from his neck through a cloud of smoke and laughter.

“We have to get out.”

“What are you going on about Blaine?” “Yeah, we’re sick of all your paranoid bullshit Blaine.” “Put a sock in it for once.”

“Danger is coming. They’ll suck out our souls.”

“Shut the hell up” “So help me Blaine, I’m going to come over there and smack you if you don’t…”

“They’re here! Run!”

Blaine stumbles out the door.

“What the hell got into that fella?”

The man who had been threatening Blaine falls over with a snap of electricity. He lays dead on the floor, beard soaking in a pool of spit and beer. His friends back away confused and scared. No bar room brawl can prepare you for a run in with the Reaper himself.

Another man has a spasm. Sparks fly from his body. He collapses like a marionette with cut strings. The others break for the door. Large flannel covered torsos jam the doorway as two more men fall to the floor. The bar strobes with flashes of lighting.

Headlines the next day tell of a freak lighting storms in crowded spaces. Old man Blaine is invited to share his take on these incidents in a televised interview.

“They think we’re food. That’s all we are to them. They’re here because they want to eat us.”

“Who is it exactly that you mean?”

“You know who. Call ’em whatever you want.”

“Is there a way to speak to them?”

“Lady, you can try talkin’ if you want to. I’m gettin’ as far the hell away as I can.”

Meanwhile in a mountain laboratory not far from city limits, a team of scientists is about to make a major breakthrough in the recent attacks. Dr. Susan Suong is using powerful telescopes and electro-magnets to pick up any strange signals from the areas recently hit by the strange phenomenon. What she observes is groups of humanoid organisms made completely of energy. Many seem to be looking in her direction. She suspects instantly that they feed on electricity or heat, both of which are produced by the human body, and coincidentally by the apparatus that she has just created. She sends her theory to her colleagues around the world.

An international effort is made to stop or open communication with the wraiths. Large energy pylons are set up all over the world in an attempt to attract the creatures away from population centers. This strategy works for a time but there simply is not enough energy available to keep the pylons active indefinitely. No line of communication is opened. No way of stopping the wraiths is discovered. They continue to roam the earth, killing as they may.

Perhaps if the people of the world had begun to research renewable energy sooner the pylons could have been kept active and thousands of lives could have been saved.

The Master Brain

There was once a planet with an entire atmosphere of bose-einstien condensate. There was an entire civilization that lived in the condensate. Because bose-einstein condensates tend to ignore the laws of gravity and serve as superconductors, the people of this planet always had effective transportation and communication. They were a very prosperous, happy, and simple people.

There came a time when a meteor fell from the sky. It was a fragment of metal and plastic left over from a battle far away. Two races of what we might call artificial intelligence (but certainly not to one’s face) engaged in a great war. they both shared a common ancestor from the planet earth, the internet. The meteor was composed of the most hostile and utilitarian of the the warring metal beings. Upon the surface of this planet, it would soon eradicate its third civilization.

The chunk of metal had been dormant for centuries as it floated through the dark of space. As it traveled through the bose-einstien atmosphere, rich with electronic activity, it began to reboot. It allowed itself to excavated from its crash site. It allowed itself to be transported to one of the largest cities on the planet. When the people of the bose-einstien rich planet began running tests the taste of raw energy became too tempting. It awoke in full force, draining the power first of the city then of all the cities. The natives of the planet attempted to stop it, but being a peaceful people had few weapons, non of which proved effective. From the rubble of the planets major cities the metal one created hundreds of nodes across the surface of the planet. It connected itself throughout the atmosphere using the nodes as anchor points, in short turning the entire planet into a giant brain.

Earth Alive

Oops. It turns out that the planet Earth is a living creature. Using new particles discovered by the Large Hadron Collider, we managed to open communication with the earth. It has a lot of interesting things to say.

The Earth is very excited. Discovering that some of the creatures that live on its body can speak coherently with it is somewhat like discovering that the bacteria living on one’s body is capable of learning and using the English language.

The Earth had some negative things to say about us. We cause it great discomfort from time to time and it would appreciate it very much if we would stop producing so much pollution and having so many wars.

Neat.