Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Day 2. He rode in silence. Forty miles an hour. The open car drove itself, allowing him to gape at the scenery.
So gorgeous. He knew now what breathtaking meant.
Although he’d eaten breakfast after an overnight stop, he snacked as he went. Nervousness.
Other people weren’t encountered. Only bots. They didn’t interact. Once this had been cities. New York. Pittsburgh. Philadelphia. As climate changed and space travel advanced, people departed the planet. Pockets of humanity remained. Some worked for the place he visited, the Great Earth Library. Built in the twenty-third century, trillions of books lined the high, massive shelves. Paperbacks and hardcover books were still being published on less advanced planets.
That’s where he came in.
The car slowed. He could have teleported to the location. Where’s the fun in that?
Turning right, the small vehicle approached a librarian station. The car hummed to a halt. A bot came out.
Stiffly he climbed from the car. Stretched. Picked up the packet from the other seat.
The bot said, “Merr Liu-Gardner?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve been expecting you. Would you like to sign our guest book? It can be done digitally with your bios or cursive on paper. Many guests prefer the latter.”
“I’ll do cursive.” He picked up the pen. Bic. Blue ink.
A fresh page awaited. He flipped to the previous page. One entry, six years before. Ngato from Mars Station Five.
Smiling, he signed his name, dated it, and added his home, Cixin Outpost, Trisolaria. Despite that name, only one sun warmed his world. Three moons, though. One red. Two white. All beautiful.
His great-grandfather named the planet and led the colonizing expedition. He’d taught his grandson cursive writing, feeling it important to know. “Let’s not let the old knowledge die.”
Poul Liu-Gardner II handed the box to the robot. “My great-grandfather wrote and published these books. The Library was established after he died but Dad always thought the books deserved to be here. Two are non-fiction, a history of our world and another about our city. The other six are fiction.” He smiled. “Three murder mysteries and three thrillers.”
“I understand. Thank you for the gift. These are the first from your world. We will shelve and honor them.”
“I know. There are more books from my world in the car. I just wanted to personally deliver these.”
“Of course. We’ll unload them.”
“Thanks.”
“Feel free to walk the shelves and enjoy the books. You can remove them from the shelves and read them here, but they can’t be removed.”
“Thank you.”
Poul II watched the bot take the books away. Lost and empty-handed, he gazed up at books.
Deep breath. Sigh.
He’d smelled books before. Grandpa Poul had established a library. Of course. Today’s smell dizzied him. Maybe it was the sheer number of books. Perhaps it was the thoughts behind them, or the readers’ thoughts.
Probably all those things. Strolling among the shelves, he thought that he might write a book. He’d always thought about writing one. The desire now was an urgent weight.
Sitting on a bench, he drew out his pad. Opened it.
A blank screen waited.
He could type. Or use voice. Grandpa Poul always printed his first rough draft.
He didn’t have paper.
His fingers tapped.
Once in a Lifetime
Chapter One
The stranger from Trisolaria was a formidable presence.
A short and mildly innocuous dream was last night’s feature offering to me. In my early thirties, over thirty years less than RL, I walked around with a small group of people. We were all chatting and having a good time. I don’t know who else was in that little crowd but all were known to me in the dream. We were talking about going to the Super Bowl because we had tickets and arrangements had been made. My dream self had been to several past Super Bowls, but I also seemed to be some kind of SB savant. People would ask who played in what SB and I would answer with the year, teams, and final score, along with any special facts that arose out of the game, like records being set or amazing plays.
Encountering others who said they’d been to Super Bowls, I’d ask them about their experiences. Among these were several young couples. After talking about them and wowing them with my knowledge of the games they’d attended, one of the guys, grinning, said, “Wow, you’re like a super man.” We all laughed.
Dream end.
I was at some wildly busy location, flitting between meeting people, attending parties, eating foods — especially desserts — and working on some new business.
I’d arrived there via a large, black and shiny car provided by my father. The car was luxurious, expensive, and impressive. After hunting for a parking space, I double-parked on the street because I was late. Promising myself to come back soon to move the car because I might be blocking another in, I rushed into the complex. Piles of food were on tables, and I was urged to eat. I did eat some finger food, and a small bit of dessert, just to be nice, I told them, all of us laughing. The food was fantastic, so I had a little more and then went on to meet with others.
I encountered Dad. He was involved in some new business venture. To support his business plan, he’d developed a table of projected aggregate growth and had me look it over. I did, then went to meet with his potential backers.
The backers’ side, people who were going to fund Dad’s business, included my mentor. The mentor — never actually seen in the dream but heard from via others — had worked up numbers for Dad’s new business, too. The numbers between the two camps were grossly different. The two sides used me as an intermediary to bridge the differences. I mostly dealt with Dad, telling him again and again that my mentor thought Dad’s numbers were overly optimistic. We argued the venture’s fine points. I wanted to see his business plan but piqued, he refused to show me. He wouldn’t even tell me what the business was about, annoying me.
I went back to the mentor and spoke to an assistant, explaining Dad’s logic, defending it, really, and then asked to see their plans and projections. They wouldn’t let me have them and sent me back to Dad.
I returned to my car to move it, but there still wasn’t anywhere else to put it. I needed to leave it there, which worried me, but another person, a stranger to me, assured me it was fine and not to worry about it. I put the car out of mind.
I went back to Dad. He and my mentor were going to meet later. Dad told me to check into my room, clean up and rest so that I could join them later.
I went outside to a huge round bricked plaza. Great crowds of people prowled and socialized there because some convention was going on. Finding the front desk, I was given my room key. It was round, with concentric wheels of numbers on it. Each wheel of numbers told me where I was to go to find my room, starting with the outer wheel. The numbers were all in gold but used different fonts. As I looked at the wheel, a smiling man sitting in a chair, holding a drink, legs crossed, told me that the outer wheel’s numbers referred to the stairs to use. He then explained in an aside to a woman sitting beside him that the keys often confused newcomers.
But I knew how to use the key and told him. The outer gold letters were 4-2. I went off and found the stairs labeled 4-2. Before I went up to my room, though, Dad came and gave me his business plan to look over. Sitting down, I discovered that he’d hugely scaled it down from what he’d told me. It seemed like a completely different idea from what he’d explained, too. This had to do with some kind of ice cream confectionary shop that served other food with the ice cream. They were going to start with twenty shops in seven locations.
The changes dismayed me. I warned him that competition already existed doing what he proposed, and that his plan wasn’t as unique or revolutionary as he seemed to think. He was unfazed because the mentor had told him it was a good idea, and they were going to proceed. I was summoned to go eat, so I left it at that and went to find my table.
Dream end.
He read a Reddit thread on the insanepeoplefacebook forum. It claimed, with this capitalization and punctuation, “MENSTRUATION ISN’T Natural. It’s a UNNATURAL response to improper dietary habits & toxic environment. ALL ESTROGENS are POISONOUS.”
WTH, he wondered. Do people honestly believe this? Where do they get their ideas? Or were they just posting this insanity to pull attention?
Either way, it was from a wholly different world than the one he inhabited. Of course, that’s why he read it: to see what people in this other world were saying, so he could try to understand them.
I was a young man, as I often am in my dreams, probably in my thirties. I was in the home of a woman I knew. It was a standard modern place but basic and clean. I was standing in a dining area by a patio slider. She wasn’t there, but two other young women and a young man were present. They were about ten years plus younger than me. We in the middle of a conversation in which I related to them that they were ‘taking the wrong medicine’ and told them what medicine they should be taking. The man walked out to get it even though I told him that I had it with me. One of the women left and the home owner returned. She asked what was going on so the other young woman and I explained it, with me doing most of the talking, telling her that they’d been using the wrong medicine. She appreciated me correcting them because one of them was her niece (I never knew which). The young man returned then, without medicine because he could ‘t find it as “everything is closed”. I gave him a huge black backpack which contained the medicine he and the others needed.
As the young man thanked me, the other woman returned and the homeowner announced that she was leaving. She told us we could stay or go, it was our choice. I said I was going because I needed to do other things. The young man left with me. We walked down a busy small-town street for a bit, and then separated. I went over and got into my Mustang. Red, it was a 1965 convertible in very good condition, highly polished, with a white interior and convertible top. I needed work on it, so I took it to this little place. I backed into a spot and then got out to get a number and get in line, because that’s how it worked there. As I was waiting, another person arrived and backed his car into the Mustang.
I was upset, more so because he shrugged it off and walked away. He was much smaller than me and a little younger. I confronted him, pointing out the damage. Body damage, on the driver’s side front, was very slight, but the tire was torn up. Looking at it, the tire was made of white foam mattress and had lost a large chunk from the accident. He talked to the man about it but he claimed it wasn’t his fault, went and got a number and got into line.
I was upset. He’d hit my car and wouldn’t take responsibility for it. A friend arrived and I told him about what had happened. The guy who’d hit my car was in line with several large companions, who had been there when I arrived. My friend said, “Know how to start a confrontation?” I shook my head and he said, “Let me show you.”
He walked up and attempted to grab the younger guy’s nut sack, but one of the big other guys instead did it to him, saying, “You trying to start a confrontation?”
That didn’t make sense to me. As my friend was released and limped off, departing the business, I decided that I would leave. As I went to depart, I encountered another young man with thick dark hair. He was looking into the shop and asked me if I would recommend it. I told him that it depended on what he needed and how badly he wanted it, but I was disappointed in the shop and told about the accident. I asked him what he was looking for. When he told me, I said, “I recognize you. I read about your story on the net.”
He verified that was him, and then the homeowner from the dream’s beginning arrived. As the young man looked across at her, he said, “Excuse me, that’s my mother.”
Dream end.
A note that the dream Mustang reminded me that Dad had a 1965 Mustang when he was stationed in Germany in the late 1960s, blue with a white convertible top and black interior, with a 289 and four speed. I wasn’t with him in Germany, but he showed me pictures of him with the car with its top down in Paris.
It began against a scorched black and red sky. I was my current age. The sky was a backdrop as a group of us left one area, heading for a refugee site. We’d been fighting the aliens, and I’d gained experience and insights. My group was small: four. All survivors who had fought.
We arrived at the packed refugee center. An immense aerial battle was underway, with USAF fighter jets fighting invader ships. The AF seemed to be winning. Refugees cheered as invader craft went down with plumes of black smoke.
I knew better, shaking my head, warning the refugees, “It takes more than that to kill the aliens.” I’d fought the glistening white creatures. I knew how they functioned. They needed to be set afire and completely destroyed. If even a small piece survived, it would grow. As it grew, it would attempt to reconnect telepathically with other alien beings. As it grew, it would look for a host human or animal body.
I told the refugees, “We must find and destroy every piece of alien.” I described what to look for. Children rushed up. They’d seen alien pieces and stamped them with their feet. I was horrified. “Don’t stamp on them. Get your shoes off and burn them. The aliens will be clinging to your soles, and they’ll grow and take you over.”
The refugees scoffed. A young, short female survivor in my group said, “Listen to him. He knows what he’s talking about. Do what he says if you want to survive.”
Her words made the difference. The refugees believed me. I went around with people, organizing groups, making certain they had fire. We set up children to look for surviving alien pieces. They walked around in threes. When an alien was found, two stayed there to mark the place while the third went to find an adult to burn it.
The process seemed to be working. Then I saw a small alien piece come up out of the drain in a tub. Although I immediately burned it, more small pieces emerged. I burned them, too, then sent out the warning, the aliens are in the drains. They’re coming up. Check the sinks and tubs. Check everywhere there’s a drain pipe.
I found a tub where a large alien piece had already come up. Approaching it to burn it, it shot out tongue like pieces of itself, trying to hit me. I knew that if it hit me, it would take me over.
Another person said, “They’re going after you. They know you’re a threat.”
I agreed. The conclusion implied scary ramifications about intelligence and awareness of these surviving pieces. Another arrived with the intelligence that more aliens were coming up the drains. “They’re coming up everywhere. We can’t stop them.”
I entered another bathroom. A large, white alien almost filled the tub. In the middle of it was a naked toddler. The child was looking at me and smiling. I said, “The aliens have taken over that child. We need to kill it.”
Intense dream. Really shook me.
I dreamed I was with a few men speaking with a male teenager. We were all sitting around a table. The young man was talking about a book. He said it was called Halo. He was talking about how it’d come out in 1972, and then commenting, “How can anyone remember anything from then?”
I said, “I read the book when it came out.”
He asked, “How much of it do you remember?”
“Not much. I was about sixteen and in high school. I was reading many books then, and doing sports, and taking classes.”
“That’s my point,” the teenager said. “You can’t remember things from then.”
I answered, “I remember reading Catching in the Rye a few years before that, and Catch 22, and The Hobbit, and Lord of the Rings, Fahrenheit 451, and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. I don’t remember Halo.”
The kid said, “I’ve never heard of those books, but I did see Foundation on TV. It was okay.”
Dream end.
I was in a small building where there was a small office busy with people. It had a feel that seemed lifted from a 1950s movie. They had published something. Different authors were asked to read it and express what they thought. I was one, and my response was not like everyone else’s, triggering a new path.
Yet, I was never certain what was going on. I’d read and commented on something, but it seemed vague throughout the dream. My response made them ask me attend a conference with them. An old friend, a college professor, was going, too. He and I would go together, driving across country in a big, dark blue Lincoln Continental. He prepared to go in a hectic frenzy. I seemed baffled about everything he did and confused about what was going to happen next. Yet, soon we were in the car, driving across the country through light rain.
He was driving. I said something about seeing people needing a ride and wishing we could help them. Next thing that I knew, he pulled over for a hitchhiker. The hitchhiker climbed into the back. I offered to take a turn driving but the professor insisted that he was fine.
Seeing several more people on the side of the road, he pulled over and offered them a ride. I was leery of this, feeling that we didn’t have the room, but people crammed into the car. I looked into the back seat; it looked like a small, cluttered room. A blanket covered the rear window. That was to keep out the light so people could sleep, I guessed, but worried that it was illegal and we’d be pulled over. I again offered to drive, but he dismissed the offer.
We arrived at the conference. My impression was that it was a giant flea market, although it was indoors. People selling junk seemed to cover every square foot. Moving was done slowly, carefully, patiently. Food was being sold. I was hungry but passed on getting something to eat because I was reminded that we were having a big banquet. Someone gave me cookies, which I ate.
The head, a tall and bald white, middle-aged male wearing hornrim glasses, gave a short speech. He told everyone else that I was going to write about my impressions of the article they’d published. That startled me. Everyone applauded except me. Bewilderment was overtaking me. I was to do what, when? I didn’t understand but didn’t know how to ask the question.
Then, without me doing anything, the professor told me it was time to go. I realized that it was the weekend and that he needed to be back in order to teach Monday morning. We rushed around, packing things into the car. I offered to drive, since he’d driven us out there. He agreed. The dream ended as I entered the car and put my hands on the steering wheel.
Michael Seidel, writer 