Solstice

12-21-05. Seven years remain until the Mayan calendar ends. Should be interesting.


And, now, a story from seven years ago. (I've been looking through my old 1998 notebook)

The following was originally written on June 17th, 1998:

It was quiet in the Meadow. Not even the flies were buzzing. The silence was deep enough that if you wanted to, you could almost hear the gears of the universe turning.

The Meadow was large. It spread itself out like an exhausted teenager on a couch after a grueling six hours of "education".  The Meadow was, in fact, one of the largest in Nebraska.  Over 3000 acres of flat land with soil that was ultra-perfect for farming. Yet not one inch of it was being used for agriculture. Not by human hands, at least.

The local farmers had known not to attempt approaching the Meadow for several years. It wasn't until 2 months ago that word spread to the media. And, of course, when it did, it became a oversized event.

You see, the Meadow was protected by a force that was beyond human understanding. The force could not be reckoned with. It did not care for human life, and with good reason.  For this was not an alien lifeform, or some supernatural ghost, oh no. This was a product of our own design.  It was a cow.

But, before you begin to laugh, or think this tale should not be considered serious business, take heed.  This was no ordinary, run-of-the-mill-one-day-I'm-here-the-next-day-I'm-steak cow.  This bovine had, by either fate, luck, or pure accident, been changed forever.  The government, in the interest of producing better tasting hamburgers, had been conducting cloning experiments on cows. Needless to say, something went wrong. The dreaded result -

Apocalypse Cow

Another short story from then. This one dated 7/29/98:

"Ma'am, the radar is showing that impact will occur in 26 hours."

"That's not possible, ensign," Commander Powers said angrily.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that is what the computer readouts are indicating." Ensign Harvey was nervous. He knew that Powers was right, but computers were always right, too. Despite the illogical calculations the machine was displaying currently, it had to be correct.

"According to the latest stats, the Ajax comet will collide with the earth in... what the?" Harvey couldn't finish. The read-out was too shocking. His mind could not conceive what his eyes were seeing. The comet had advanced 20 hours in seconds.

"It... it must not be a comet," Powers said. It was the only logical conclusion.

"My god," Harvey whispered, in shock over the display.

"Impact in 3... 2... 1."

The Ajax comet smacked into the European Headquarters for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence.

The world was cleansed. And smelled lemony-fresh.

And one more... from Saturday, October 3rd, 1998:

Frank and Charlie and Lester all went to get a beer. Frank and Lester both got to the refrigerator at the same time. Lester opened the door and discovered that only one beer remained.

So they gave it to Charlie, because they knew that they'd fight over it otherwise. Charlie, however, didn't like beer too much on account that he was underage and had previously only drank one beer. And it was a lite beer at that. However, Charlie didn't want to seem rude, so when Frank and Lester offered the brew to Charlie, he accepted.  Lester and Frank then went to the store to buy more beer. When they returned, Charlie was dead.

After a few hours of deep mourning, Lester picked up Charlie's young, limp body and flushed the goldfish down the toilet.

There are a few other stories from my '98 notebook, but I'll save those for another entry.

Happy Winter Solstice, everybody!!