A Short Tale
The end of the world was coming in fourteen minutes, according to the news reports on television.
He checked his phone. Still no bars. The news said that the phone system was overloaded and several satellites had already been lost. Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, and MSNBC were all saying the same thing. He couldn’t check the net because it was still down, probably so they could control the information. Control information, and you control the mind.
Yeah, it was all fake news and bullshit. Bleating to control the masses. Opening a beer, he turned the channel, searching for a ball game or some kind of sports distraction. Weird, but no baseball or basketball games were in progress anywhere. ESPN was off the air. So were the cable sports networks. He slammed his beer down, spilling some. Such fucking bullshit! This was a bigger hoax than the goddamn moon landing.
He turned on the oven and prepared to bake a frozen pizza. Better than nothing, because going out would require human contact and most humans that he encountered were idiots.
Glancing outside, he realized that he was hearing a growing roar. Well, what the hell is going on out there, he wondered. Picking up his gun, he went to the door and stepped out.
His last words were, “What the – “
Then the fake news slammed into him, disintegrating his body, gun, and home.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
June has arrived with the soft sound of muted sunshine. Yes, it’s Day 1 of the thirty that make up June, 2022, different this year; in previous years, June had 31 days.
Just kidding. June hasn’t had thirty-one days since the late sixteenth century when the Calendar Makers convened to settle how many days each month should hold. June had seventy days until that time, and July wasn’t yet a month. Although February was, it had poor representation, and ended up with a short month and an iffy situation. According to the records, this was because February was a very cold month that year at the convention site, and the attendees wanted to keep that cold to a minimum. Such was the thinking that went on back then.
Sunrise was an underwhelming event at 5:37 AM, as clouds were present in force, dictating coverage. One salient aspect to bring out is that today’s sunrise is earlier than yesterday’s sunrise. Changes have already begun. Even though sunset is one minute later than yesterday, we still have the same amount of daylight.
Our temps were top out at about 80 F and hold to 61 now with a mild wind singing through the leaves.
Now, for some reason, the naughty neurons loaded Juice Newton’s cover of “Queen of Hearts” from the early 1980s. “Why?” I asked the neurons. Shrugging with sluggish indifference, they replied, “Why not?”
I think I need to give them some coffee. Let’s be safe out there, and test negative. Cheers
Michael Seidel, writer 