fiction – Anton Martin Smith Writer

“London 2038 – The London, The P.M., & The P.A. Episode 2” (A story – Work in. Prog)

July 9, 2025October 23, 2025Posted in fiction, short story, UncategorizedTagged Books, England, Eton, fiction, history, Political Fiction, Serialised Story, short story, social commentary, UK, writingLeave a comment

(episode 2 – to read episode 1 click here https://antonmartinsmith.com/2025/06/12/london-2038-the-london-the-mayor-the-p-a-a-story-work-in-prog/

To say that Harrison Arnold Twotimer had a lot of personal problems was like saying that the universe had ‘quite a lot’ of stars. Harrison was the oldest of three siblings, & as such had followed the tradition of so many firstborns who are overly motivated to plunge themselves into leadership roles. Harrison’s first power grab was at Eton where his diplomat absentee father had managed to arrange him to attend a full year earlier than usual at age 12. Harrison knew what his father was up too – & like the millions of other aging ex ‘boarding school syndrome sufferers’ – he never quite forgave his parents, & his father in particular, for abandoning him so easily & swiftly like that.

Harrison had shown his true political & social climbing asperations colors early in life. This would naturally be noticed firstly in his schooldays. At Eton Harrison had put his name forward on the first day of school to be the ‘Class PM’ against a far more talented boy named Paul Pritch-Simmons III, who would later become a billionaire computer-chip making industrialist. The election was held after each boy made a spirited ten-minute stump speech to his fellow Etonians.

Where Paul had talked of the need for England to be more forthright as a nation again, & return to its manufacturing base, Harrison had argued that the price of sweets had trebled in the last three years, that & this was a travesty. Where Paul had astutely said that ‘under-unemployment in the Etonian region was a ‘festering problem which may result in less professionals in a decade’s time’, Harrison had said incorrectly that ‘Eton must do more to reverse the decline in mathematics scores – when grades had indeed improved significantly due to the targeted hiring more seasoned international STEM (Science, Tech, Engineering, Mathematics) subject teachers. Where Master Pritch-Simmons III had mentioned the need to look after the handful of homeless people who had been seen wandering around the outskirts of Eton, Harrison had retorted furiously “why should we spend our hard-earned fathers’ dollars on those stinky lazy sods”. Harrison was so unpopular with his classmates that the last minute of his speech had to be scuttled due to the boys throwing their pencils at Harrison, while they bellowed repeatedly “Out with Harrison up with Pritch-Simons”.

On the face of it from the view of his voter classmates, Harrison was in this election as they say ‘Toast’. Given Harrison’s poor rambling & speech, full of flagrant inaccuracies relative to his more polished opponent in Master Pritch-Simmons III, that’s what they would expect – but then they didn’t know of the ‘Yellowpoke situation’ yet.

The old maxim of ‘it doesn’t matter who casts the votes – all that matters is who counts them’ later became one that the future adult Harrisons mentioned in passing, & for good reason. This ‘first ever political election’ deserved to be Harrisons first ignoble defeat to a far more able adversary – but this was where Harrison’s at worst abhorrent sneakiness, or at best his Machiavellian guile came in.

Harrison as PM nowadays, uses ‘The bribe’ liberally wherever he goes & can easily get away with it. He learnt the value of a ‘well placed bribe’ from that from that first election as a sticky fingered grimacing fat little schoolboy.

Before he had came to school that first election day, he had been wise enough to steal a fifty pound note from a tin his mother had put all her countless “loose cash”. Had had the presence of mind in the prior week to his first day at school to call the Etonian secretary & asked “who would be counting the “Class PM” votes next week miss, as I plan to put my hat into the ring”. He had found out duly that it would be the schoolteacher that would collate, count & return the verdict. Armed with this information as soon as Harrison had entered his classroom with all his fellow classmates, he had made a bee line for the teacher – Mr Yellowpoke. his conversation went like this

“Ah Mr Yellowpoke – Harrison Arnold Twotimer here”. He thrust out his half sticky lolly-fingers to shake Mr Yellowpoke’s hand. With Harrison being particular short foe his age & Mr Yellowpoke a towering six-foot four, he had to practically hold his hand-shake hand vertical – it looked quite ridiculous. My Yellowpoke played along & agreed to shake his hand, & did so firmly, but also partly haltingly.

“I’m Mr Yellowpoke, nice to meet you lad – I believe your father Edward is a diplomat currently in Brussels?”

Harrison replied without pause.

“Yes father is currently in Brussels, I believe right now he is actually fittingly trying to increase our exports of Brussel sprouts to the EU!”

Mr Yellowpoke laughed, well it was more of a chortle. Harrison had many flaws as a child, & even more as an adult – but not having a sense of humor was not one of them. He continued his plan with Mr Yellopoke.

“Now Mr Yellowpoke, I won’t hold you up – I just wanted to say that I’m glad to be here in your classroom, & at Eton – & I advise I will be putting my name forward for Class PM”. He said all this with a natural sense confidence, this was his other main feather in his cap – unwarranted, unshakable, confidence. Mr Yellowpoke re-plied dryly, as his patience was now wearing thin.

“Oh well that will happen this afternoon – I’ll write you name down then – you’ll need to make a speech at the end of the day to your classmates – good luck & now you better take a seat with the rest of the class – we have a lot to go over this morning”.

“Oh yes of course thankyou Mr Yellowpoke, but there’s one more thing” Harrison sounding like a teacher himself.

“Oh yes – what’s that Twotimer?”

“Well my father just wanted to pass on this $50 dollar note – he said to me that the teachers & their partners were known to have a ‘first week party’ & he wanted to shout you & your wife a drink”. Harrison had the 50 pound note folded in a small square in his hand – which he proffered up to Mr Yellowpoke under the guise of a “goodbye handshake” – something he’d seen done on old American films & was copying. Mr Yellowpoke suddenly blanched, this made him nervous, which then made him make the unwise decision to accept Harrison’s handshake & the 50 pound bribe. Mr Yellowpoke spoke twice as quickly as usual, wanting the conversation over.

“Good luck this afternoon Harrison – make your speech a good one & I’ll count the votes afterwards – say hello to your father or me”.

“Yes sir Mr Yellowpoke – and thanks a lot” A giant triumphant ear-to-ear child’s grin filled his face – a look he would never grow out of. He still had the exact same ‘child’s big grin look’ decades later, even now as the real PM of England.

Later with both master Harrison’s & Master Paul’s speeches over, Mr Yellowpoke came out from the teachers back room to the class again. With the small wooden ballot box still locked & held firmly between his lowered two hands he slowly announced the fateful words

“The winner of Class PM – by a landslide I might add – is Harrison Arnold Twotimer”

Master Pritch-Simmons III’s looked visibly ill, as did his fellow broadsided & ashen faced classmates. they sat like they’d been turned into stone, not saying a word. Until of course Mr Yellowpoke urged them to clap for Harrison, which they did in miserable fashion, with Master Pritch-Simmons aborting the clap simply maintaining his silent head down vigil.

Becoming “Eton Class PM” was Harrison’s first of many ‘shonky’ political victories to come. He sat beaming like a lighthouse, caring not a jot for the claw claps & muted jeers of the voters. Incidentally this ‘seemingly meaningless’ stolen schoolboys election wouldn’t be the first run in with Pritch-Simmons either. ‘The Billionaire & the PM’ as the tabloids now billed the adversaries as became sworn enemies after that first vote & are still at war as we speak – with the only slightly more honorable Pritch-Simmons’s victories still few & far between.

And I know you want to know – what of Mr Yellowpoke? He left teaching at age 55 when he was outed by a student kissing the 21-year old student teacher Ms Artichoke on the schoolgrounds. Being a very married man, with his wife working at the school office it was best for all concerned. After the divorce his wife initiated, he finally entered a profession he was better suited to – real estate sales. (Now lets get back to the main characters).

Now it goes without saying that Arthur B. Pertwee was cut from a very different cloth than Harrrison Arnold Twotimer – but It’s worth saying it again:

Arthur B. Pertwee was cut from a very different cloth than Harrrison Arnold Twotimer. . .

(End of Episode 2…..be here again soon for Episode 3……)

This article is owned by Martin Smith Creations ltd (NZ).

If you are a person or a small non-profit please read or reproduce freely.

Commercial Users or NGO’s: If you want to purchase for reprint of this work for a commercial project to reach a wider audience – then contact me via martinantonsmith@gmail.com to gain written legal permission.

“Tim Teeter’s Trip to Rigel” (A Short Story)

October 10, 2024October 27, 2024Posted in Creative Writing, fiction, UncategorizedTagged Betelguese, Books, Cops, depression, Dreams, fiction, Kafka, Mania, Nightmares, Orion, Personal Crisis, Phillip K. Dick, reading, Rigel, Sci-fi, short story, Stress, writingLeave a comment

By Martin Anton Smith

Tim Teeter’s problems were not at all anodyne – they were explosive. And yet all his attempts to fix them were feeble, sclerotic even. Yes, he would try to apply a poultice to his wounded life, but with his band-aid solutions, Tim only ever ended up surfing the sulkiness-laced silence of his messy bedroom. Tim’s ‘one man think tanks’ always ended with his own blank faced recommendations.

Tim hadn’t always been like this – for the first fifteen years of adulthood he was creating what a conservative parent might refer to as “quietly succeeding in the corporate world”. Of course, Tim’s parents, like them all – were wrong.

For Tim It was more a slow realisation that that the corporate world he had wedded himself to was just a scam to steal a human beings time on Earth & energetic vitality. So, after fifteen years of filling out propaganda laced budget spreadsheets, & being bullied by a wide array of bosses & associates he decided that he’d leave the easy way – he took a baseball bat to his boss’s computer, & a bunch of other screens for good measure.

That was all over now, a semi-distant memory. A memory that now somehow didn’t quite feel as if it was real, & had actually happened. But that’s was just his brains way of coping with the embedded trauma – to make his past life seem like the fading remains of a vivid nightmare.

Tim was by now simply in what is dubbed a ‘holding pattern’; he had closed one chapter of life but had not yet properly opened the next one. Or said more correctly, he had thrown the book he was reading into the fire & had not yet gone to the bookstore to buy another book, more suited to his interests to read.

So, right now he was stuck like a light beam eternally spiralling an event horizon of a black hole. Someone might say he was in ‘no man’s land’ – neither putting his front foot forward, or retreating to plan an atttack.

But for Tim the most important thing right now was that he wasn’t being sucked into something else, something definitive, some dark sapping void that he wouldn’t like & couldn’t handle. He couldn’t repeat the past, at all costs.

Tim’s existence right now was a kind of ‘Peregrinations in Purgatory’. He had taken on a job as a postman. He hated the early mornings. He hated his boss – who was like a mean version of Homer Simpson, both in looks and demeaner. The guys & handful of women he worked with were mostly nice but most by now had had the life well beaten out of them by their ‘as nice as the SS’ managers.

An example of the managers meanness was this example: The ‘mean homer simpson’ manager had waited untill one of his postmen. this postman was knocknamed ‘Scroungey’- had arrived back to the sorting room, after he’d delivered his round. The conversation, which had a large audience of other fellow postmen went like this.

“Hey Scroungey! – I heard you’ve been feeding Mr Tambourine’s dog snacks – is that true”?

“Yeah, I’ve been giving it some dried snacks here & there, so what”

“Well I’ve just heard that the dog had an elergic reaction to that food & it’s dead & the owner says he’s gonna sue us – you’re probably gonna lose your job Scroungey”

Scroungey had been totally fooled by ‘Mean Homer’s’ good acting job. He pleadingly replied.

“What! That’s not my fault, I talked to the owner she never told me about the dog havign an elergy! Honest ‘mean homer’ come on, trust me, how was I to know the Dog had an elergy?”

This was when ‘mean homer started laughing, it was a evil villain kind of laugh – or the one a serial killer might have. He was enjoying making Scroungey think he might lose his job. All the others, including Tim had watched in horror. This kind of thing happened all the time. But Tim knew this was just temporary. He wouldn’t end up here for decades like every other person there.

That night Tim went back to his grungey bedsit, where he of course lived alone. Every night he read sci-fi novels & short stories to help his psyche survive until this holding pattern had played itself out & his new mission in life would emerge.

This was ok but a little too boring. Tim had an idea: mantra. He’d heard about mantra’s while watching an old Beatles documentary, about the time they had gone to india to learn about transcendentalism. Of course that stuff was all flakey crap to him, but he also had an open enough mind to try things & find out for himself. He put the book down & sat up in a lotus position.

He started the mantra.

” Ommm….Ommm…Ommm….Yes…my life is indeed Kafka-esque…Ommm….& it is also also Phillip K. Dick-esque like too…Omm.”

Indeed Kafka & Phillip K. Dick were his favourite authors, with all the rest a distant third. He repeated this mantra for three hours non stop. He wanted to give the mantra a fair chance of working, to give it ‘a far shake of the sauce bottle’ as Tim had once heard an Aussie postman at work say. Though it was three hours it seemed to Tim like fifteen minutes tops. In fact It was only the slam of the Chef returning from his shift at midnight that had broken the trance. This made Tim happy, he had his first real smile for months.

But his good mood didn’t last long. His mind started it’s internal monologue.

“Things are deteriorating So quickly. My hopes of improving my life to become Asimov-esque – that is stable & predictable, are now like seeing a distant flicker of candlelight – held up by a very rich man standing on the surface Proxima -b in the Alpha Centuri system.

But then Tim had an idea to fix this depressive funk he’s suddenly entered post mantra – sure it was a long shot but worth a try.

He looked over to a Betelgeuse like sized pile of coats & disguarded clothes in the corner of his room. He took a run up & slid under the coats finding himself on the bottom of it. He felt a sense of calm come over him – he was insulated from the real world. The smell of the coats & clotehs was only musty, & not stinky. This was becasue his routine was to leave his used underware & tee shirts in the shower room as he showered.

Then, as he was lying under the weighty coats & clothes he felt a hard-edged rub against his hand. He fumbled to the source like the blind man he was under this musty but relaxing clothes-mountain. He found the hard shape & realised it was a book left inside one of his coat pockets.

He took it out of the pocket & popped his head & the book he was clutching out from underneath the pile. In the low light of his dingey joint he looked at the front cover.

“A Trip to Rigel Via Orion’s Belt”

By Tim Teeter”

The front image was of a giant blue star that had a marble-swirl look to it. In the image there was in the stars orbit an Earth lookalike planet, exept the continents looked totally different shape. In the foreground was an approaching spacecraft that looked somewhat similar to ‘The Enterprise’.

Tim liked the image, but he didn’t recognise the book – he figured he must have picked it up at one of the many second hand bookstores he frequented, & somehow forgotten about it – which was unlike him as an ardent sci-fi book lover. Then he took a double take at the writer’s name.

“Hey….Shit!! that guy has the same name as me”, Tim said out loud – as he did when highly surprised, even if he was by himself. Tim turned to the back cover – and there it was – a photograph of the author.

It was picture of himself, perhaps twenty years in the future as a sixty-year-old. Tim’s fears instantly disappeared. He knew after looking at this picture he’d be ok & his problems were only temporary. Tim was sure this was a book from his distant future, that had somehow popped into his life twenty years before he had written it.

Tim figured that maybe it was a ‘glitch in the matrix’ type thing that he’d heard of from the internet videos. Tim knew a lot about physics from his school days & that’s why he didn’t think his ‘book from the future’ popping into existence in his present was an unbelievable thing. Tim knew that quantum mechnics says that particles & anti-particles pop into existence seemingly ‘from nothing’ all the time. Tim thought that the book was perhaps some kind of effect wherby the quantum effect somehow magnifies into something large like a book.

But Tim was mistaken. In reality the book suddenly appearing was not a undiscovered quantum physics effect at all. For the real Tim Teeter from the photo the book’s back cover was not the Tim same Teeter that was stuck in a holding pattern, worked as a postman & had dived under his Betelgeuse sized clump of washing for mental health reasons.

Yes – the photo did look like identically like him, or what he would almost certainly look like in twenty years, but it definitely wasn’t him & it also definitely wasn’t him as a succesful Sci-fi writer from the future. but Tim didn’t realise this.

Tim now felt like a ‘new man’. He had a warmth in his chest. He had a sence of sureity about his existence. He felt suddenly like he figured a rich man might feel. He felt like he could now happily deal with all the crappy depressing ‘holding pattern life’ that was his reality. Tim’s knowledge of his ‘good future life’ – even though it was false, allowed him to smile as he waded through his very deep trough of bullshit that followed him everywhere tenty-four-seven.

Unfortunately this feeling would only last until around ten days – until some time late in the next week. His anxiety would then return with interest when he went back to his supposed ‘future book’ & he would read the publisher details page. He’d read the date of publication, the country it was written in etc which would destroy his post-mantra reality in an instant.

That night under the coats was Tim’s best night sleep ever. And so were the next nine nights. Why would he stop sleeping under his coats, trousers & shirts now? They’d lead him to the book. He also decided to use his sick leave to bunk the post office, he had to enjoy the feel good time rather than waste it at that crap hole. All day & night He read all his stacks of unread sci-fi books & mind other bending fiction books.

During those ten days of wrongful-victory-bliss he had the time of his life – he’d read so much stuff he’d even kept the mantra’s going every time he’s read ten pages of text as well. Sure he was putting himself in a ‘manic state’ & he knew it – but what did it matter? – he told himself. He knew it would all work out ok – the book had destined it!.

At around night five after finding the book under the musty coats, his sweet restoritive sleeps started to have a kink in them. Perhaps the mantra’s & the reading had caught up with him. On night five he developed a reccuring nightmare.

The nightmare went like this: Tim found himself as an unemployed & depressed praying mantis who had staged an elaborate break in to his own flat, & was now reporting it to a series of disinterested police as a ‘killer-bad-guys-out-to-get-him, he-was-just-lucky-to-not-be-there-at-the-time’ thesis.

In the nightmare no matter how much he as a ‘sincere sounding praying mantis’ tried, the various police officers wouldn’t listen for a second. They all suspected him of staging the break in, in the hopes of insurance pay out.

The nightmare plot continued to the last part: He as the praying mantis had got so stressed that the cops wouldn’t be suckered into his scam, It got to the point where he was so stressed he told the reporter from the local rag an extremily elaborate story about all the scenarios of ‘who were the bad guys out for him’ that he felt he would have to leave to go live safely in New Zealand so to hide out from the killer burglars who were one hundred percent sure to return & ‘take him out’.

By the ninth & final night’s sleep under the musty clothes mountain, & the fifth consequetive night of the ‘burgled praying mantis’ nightmare, Tim was almost at mental breaking point. By now it was like he’s become one with the sci-fi stories he’s been reading all day & night for the last nine days & nights with reckless abandon.

That afternoon on the tenth day he emerged from underneath the pile & went over to the coffee table which was only a foot away from ‘musty clothes mountain’. As he looked at the cover of the book he instantly felt cured of his manic state. He flipped to the publishers info page. He froze like a statue made from ice chipped from Saturn’s moon of Titan when he eyes read the following words.

Published by Tim Teeter in 2019 By Sleeping Mantis Press.

Tim fell backwards onto the top of ‘clothes mountain’. he fell still holding the book. When he landed on the clothes the book’s edge had hit his lip & cut it, & it had even dislodged his two front teeth. The last thing Tim felt was the whack of the book, and the feeling of trickling blood from his mouth. His eyes slowly closed & he lost consciousness.

In three days time two police officers forced their way in by breaking in the door. They quickly saw Tim’s arched body on the top of ‘clothes mountain’. The book was lying nearby him with it’s sprawled pages facing downwards. They saw his bloody face & teeth knocked out. They also looked around at the bomb site all around them. The room full of broken bottles, various detritus seemingly thrown from drawers, books thrown out of the many book cases, which had all toppled over. The saw the book next to Tim, but didn’t think much of it.

They immediately suspected foul play, emanating from break in. Tom Trevelli, who was the senior partner of the two, called the job into to the Precinct & prepared themselves for a double shift. Tom was an ardent sci-fi himself, which helped him escape the drudgery of cop work. He’d been sick of being a Cop for at least a decade now, but was stuck inside of what he had coined ‘The black hole of the Force’. Just as well he had Sci-fi, and that’s how he spent all his spare time after he clocked out – alone with snacks, beer & Sci-fi in his one bedroom unit.

While waiting for the forensics team both of them figured they’d read from the book., then when they heard the others coming, they’d place it back exactly as they’d found it. One of the cop’s put on his gloves & lifted the book. He was a little startled when he read the words on the front Cover.

A Trip To Orion’s Belt Via Rigel

By Tom Trevelli

He almost died himself after he turned to the back page & looked at the photograph of the author – it looked just like himself only about twenty years older. His partner Alex saw his discomfort.

“Hey Tom, what’s up you look like you just saw a Ghost?”

Tom looked up at Alex, walked over gingerly & showed him the book.

“Look at the auther & photo man – it’s as if it’s actually me! I’m taking this damn book home”.

Alex after looking dumbfounded, looked at Tom & deadpanned his words.

“I didn’t see nothing Tom – we never solve these kind of cases anyway – that book won’t matter none”.

With Alex’s reply, Tom gingerly picked up another book at random from the floor, dropping it the first time he tried. He put it face down with pages sprawled back to the exact position of the one he was now quickly stuffing down his pants.

As Tom got back to his feet he smiled at Alex & they both heard approaching distant wail of their fellow cops in squad cars coming in from the Precinct.

The End

“London’s Falling: The Kid, The Computer, & 10 Downing Street” (a short story)

August 13, 2024August 28, 2024Posted in fiction, London, short story, The UK, UncategorizedTagged Nuclear War, Political Humour, Prime Minister, short story, social commentary, Ten Downing Street, UK1 Comment

By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

The lonely young man didn’t rob the bank for a simple ‘get rich quick scheme’ – he robbed it for skewed & delusional romantic reasons. Namely his aim was to impress the bank teller, a young woman whom he’d had his eye on for quite some time. Of course, she was stratospherically out of his league.

Norman’s decision making never had resided much inside the realms of reality. In his mind this was a genius plan that couldn’t fail. He told himself that his creative & non-traditional method would melt her heart & he’d have her in his arms for life.

Norman got up from the park bench where he’d been hatching his plan & loped over towards the bank. His gait was the correct gait for a weird kid, he took extra-long strides & he bobbed down inordinately low & inordinately high just like a buoy bobbing up & down on rough seas.

The bank was close by, basically just across the road. He was there in no time flat. He pushed open the door & pulled out his real looking but very fake black plastic Uzi machine gun. Being a rural bank, there was only two customers inside it both old ladies with Zimmer frames.

The old ladies screamed first & both ‘zimmer framed’ slowly out the door, right past Norman who of course let them pass by unmolested. He saw Stacey, his crush. She was shivering with fear, but not as much as you’d expect. Norman strode up to her. Now was to moment of truth.

When he put the gun to the face of the teller he said “I’m robbing this bank because I love the shape of your face & I was far too shy to tell you under normal circumstances – so give me a cool mill & we’ll run away bonnie & clyde style! I mean you must hate this job anyway right?”

Of course, the object of his affection just screamed & pushed the panic button @ ran out the back. Norman hadn’t figured out what he was going to do for this scenario – he being a young buffoon had thought she’d say yes. With all the staff huddled in the back room he had three options.

Option A blast open the vaults with his shotgun. Option B jump the teller desk & get the up to $10,000 available in the tills, then make a run for it. or C play the pinball machine in the staff room @ pretend everything would turn out ok. Norman being a very stupid 23-year-old chose option C.

Norman was having a fantastic game of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Pinball machine, he was getting “extra balls” racking up a massive score & the Multiballs were flying all over the place with the sounds of the bumpers clanging away towards the huddled frightened staff.

The Armed Police – which was actually just a single officer, swooped in slowly at first but then they heard Norman & the pinball machine – Seargent Quackles figured he’d make a swift sniper shot. He aimed took a breath and BOOM fired off a shot. It was a successful hit. It went right through the CPU of the game which was hiding under the giant “Donnatello” Turtle head mounted on the head of Pinball machine.

Quackles had aimed to miss Norman, as he had a confidant-without-knowing-why feeling he was not anywhere a dangerous as the average ‘loose cannon’ type Bank Robber.

Quackles was proved right when he walked over & simply said to Norman “look sonny the funs over, your knicked – you’re coming with me & gimme that big plastic fake gun”. Norman response was typically immature. His face was full of overgrown teenager angst & he growled in a high-pitched squeal “Man I was about to get the highest score”.

The hidden staff simply took the rest of the day off & all went back to work the next day as if nothing had happened – they, just like Quackles had at heart realised that Norman wasn’t ever going to hurt them.

Quackles put Norman in the cooler for 3 days. As he threw him in the seven-foot cubed cell he said “sorry fella no Pinball machine in there for ya, but if ya play your cards right, I’ll throw you a tennis ball tomorrow”. All the Police staff cracked up & Norman’s face blushed from Pink to Red to Purple.

Quackles felt sorry for the lad & had talked to him about life over the last 3 days. the main advice dispensed were the following

“Son it’s easy to be against everything, but when you grow up you’ve got to decide what it is that you’re for as well”

“Your generation has been ruined by screens, you all spend so much time on those things that you’ve lost vital social development years – none of you have an ounce of confidence, you can’t look anyone in the eyes, you’re all afraid of face-to-face contact”

“The best thing for you to do sonny is to go get an old-fashioned job labouring, work on a farm, hang out with a Builder, pick some fruit for a year or something, you gotta start to break out of that social media programmed madhouse that you’ve grown up in all your life. Hell you can even hang out with me on the beat for a few weeks to start with”.

All this advice was good, but didn’t really land in Norman’s brain. Norman just mumbled indecipherable responses to all of officer Quackles sage advice.

The wheels of justice moved surprisingly quickly in this tiny town & the local magistrate would see him quickly on the 3rd day of lockup.

The presiding Judge – Judge Smallbore gave Norman an ultimatum……

He said “Norm, nice to see you again – I see you decision making has not improved since you knicked that bubble gum machine last month”. Norman simply shrugged & said “This I did it for love Judge, not just a sugar hit, can you be lenient?”.

Judge Smallbore half smiled & gave swift judgement. Judge Smallbore had big connections. He was the definition of a big fish in a small pond. He was friends with all the society people including Westminster’s political sneaks. His idea would be that he’d give Norman a fright but also an opportunity. “I must sentence you harshly this time Norman you will be Chief Advisor for a week to the man in Westminster who is well hated by the working classes…..new PM Sir Schneer Karmer!”.

Norman shrieked loudly & his bloodcurdling cries mixed with the gasps from the onlookers in the public gallery. Norman composed himself & retorted. “Judge this is unholy travesty! Give me life, give me death-hell! give me the electric chair! But don’t saddle me up with that lily livered buffoon, my online friends will laugh at me forever”.

Judge Smallbore replied steadfastly & with gravitas, making sure to ham it up. “Norman, it’s the only way you will learn – life in prison or even our misfiring electric chair would not deter you. I know I must give you the worst job in Britain. This sentence will ensure the blind will indeed lead the blind. …I am willing to risk the final fall of England in order to rehabilitate you, Norman! You start the day after Sir Schneer is sworn in as PM – next Tuesday!”.

Norman started sobbing like a baby. His mother Sue ran over from the public gallery & hugged the boy & dried his tears with her hanky. She said some words in her version of motherese “There there Norman, it’s only for a fookin’ week, it’ll be over fookin’ before you fookin’ know it – & besides maybe you will fookin’ enjoy it”.

Norman’s stopped crying & looked at his mother’s eyes & then just started crying again more loudly & more wildly than before – just like a two-year-old who had been refused a candy bar at the supermarket.

The Judge told the security staff to remove the mother from the dock so he could dismiss the child to the custody of his staff who would then take him in a squad car to No 10 where he would meet Sir Schneer & begin his sentence.

Before you go Norman…”Pray tell Norm, what will you first advice be to our beloved PM Sir Schneer?”

Norman sighed & said…”Well isn’t if smeggin’ obvious judge? I’ll be asking where his fookin’ video game consoles reside, I haven’t played Fortnight in a whole fortnight”.

Judge Smallbore sighed & muttered under his breath “These Gen Z’s are all the same – when war WW3 breaks out we’ll all be screwed” He made a gesture to his staff to take him away & on to Sir Schneer & No 10 Downing street.

The weird thing was that World War Three did break out only two weeks from that day. And Norman would feature massively in England’s outcomes. Little did Smallbore know but the Gen X Sir Schneer had grown up in the Golden era of arcade games & had a soft spot for Norman’s type.

Given that Parliament was on it Break the lifelong bachelor Sir Schneer spent basically the whole two weeks holed up in the No 10 video games room with Norman. They played mostly Fortnight & not only that but Sir Schneer also talked all the while about the fact England’s military servers were being attacked by some rogue foreign state.

Norman eventually said “let me look at it PM – what have we got to lose”. Sir Schneer normally wouldn’t let a Twenty-Three-year-old Gen Z kid hook up a laptop to England’s biggest military mainframe, but all his so called “experts” hadn’t been able to quell the rogue state’s hacks despite all their so-called knowledge & resources so what did he have to lose? He’d simply designate a temporary tech expert security clearance via MI5 & give him an hour maximum to see if he could work some magic.

Sir Schneer figured that no one needed to know about Norman’s handywork & he told himself nothing could go much wrong – I mean the worst he could do would be to trigger an automatic shutdown of the mainframe, which was a standard safety feature that kicked in – at least that’s what Sir Schneer thought at least.

Sir Schneer called the relevant Military staff to whisk them to away the mainframe. They waited by the Front reception room in No 10 for the text message to come. Sir Schneer’s phone pinged & he looked over to Norman who was sitting in teenage sloped halfway down the chair fashion like a ball of slime.

“We’re outa here, now get off that comfy chair put that blindfold on so you don’t know they way to the Military HQ”. Norman slithered onto the floor, like the overgrown teenage human slimeball he was & pulled the black blindfold from the standign Sir Schneer’s hands & put it on. The door swung open & both of them were sitting in the back of the car within seconds.

The ten minute of the drive no one said anything to each other – there was only awkward silence mixed with in trepidation. Unfortunately, this was when Norman felt his bowel twitch. Because of his nervousness he had a giant ball of gas swelling up & fighting its way downwards to be released. Norman squeezed it out silently. Sir Schneer’s nose twitch first….then his eye’s started to water. Then the driver coughed & spluttered. It was a bad one. Luckily Norman had ‘English avoid embarrassment at all costs culture’ on his side, & no one in the Car said a thing, not Norman Sir Schneer, not the driver & not the armed Military man in the front passenger seat. Of course, Sir Schneer knew who it was – the pimply purple face of the culprit was the firm incontrovertible evidence.

The car stopped. Norman got out last & felt two arms on each side grasp each of his arms. Sir Schneer walked behind them. Norman felt himself get into a lift & go downwards for seemingly about five minutes – they were deep underground in the figurative bowels of London somewhere. Again, no words were spoken. Finally, the lift doors opened.

Again, the two sets of arms grasped each of his arms. They walked through seventeen sets of security doors. Again, no words the only sounds Norman heard were footsteps on vinyl, the security passes hit the sensors & the swoosh of the airtight security doors as they opened & closed behind them. Then he felt carpet. He moved about ten paces & stopped. Then his blindfold was taken off.

He looked around, it looked nothing like what he was thinking of. This did not look like a rich country’s military controlled core mainframe room. It looked like a run-down office space from nineteen ninety-five. Instead of sleek humming tall stacks of modern supercomputers, there were rows & rows of what looked like old Microsoft computers stacked on top of each other.

Norman looked around some more – the ceiling was that cheap holey office ceiling squares & the who ceiling was off level. he looked around more. There were those fake wood grain veneer old desks strewn haphazardly around, most of them had old papers messily all over them & no computers on any of them at all.

Then Norman smelt the mildew – it was thick & as horrible as a heavily neglected university students flat. he couldn’t help himself & he blurted out “This place is a smeggin’ DUMP Sir Schneer – what gives?”. the hired help looked purposefully blank, trying hard but unsuccessfully to hide their smirks.

Sir Schneer then let out his trademark nervous laugh – a loud baritone beginning with a short budgie type squawk at the very end. Sir Schneer simply said “Well it’s been a long time since we were an Empire Norman – We’ve been well well well broke at least since 1918, in fact we’ve been bankrupt for decades – you don’t know it because we don’t let the media report this ghastly little truth. Sad but true Norman – but that’s beside the point – lets get to work – there’s the terminal – now do your amazing earth-shattering anti hacking stuff!”.

Norman understood, duly forgot the dilapidated nature of England & stepped forward to the wacky little twenty centimeter by ten-centimeter big buttoned terminal. The first thing letters were arranged in ABCD manner instead of the QWERTY standard. How weird he thought. Then he looked at the screen, a massive old TV tube type with what he though was a green pixelated login prompt. he looked over at Sir Schneer

“So what’s the login”

Sir Schneer went over to the man who was in the front passenger seat of the car on the way there. They whispered to each other. Sir Schneer went over to Norman’s ear and said

“It’s er ah admin a-d-m-i-n” he said sheepishly.

Norman laughed as quietly as he could & put the characters in. Then he was in. He could see each server port which was interfacing with the outside of the room – he saw that mainframe 77 was being attacked – all its source code was jumbling 7 blinking with changing characters. He first thought he’d try something silly but something he’d read on the internet hacking forums. It said that all of England’s military mainframes had a backdoor which controlled the nuclear missile silos.

Norman wanted to see this for himself – why not, Sir Sneer wouldn’t know what he was doing & the other two guys were looking the other way talking about the premier league standings, he even heard one of the say “up the arse! – the Arsenal’s favourite supporters’ slogan. Norman poked around here & there & then low & behold there it was the names 7 serial numbers of all England’s at the ready nukes! There they were in true comic book fashion Antler, Totem, Mosaic, Buffulo, Grapple, Charlie, & even some cool ones like DelBoy, Mainwaring, Le Mesurer, Boycott, Lennon. Then suddenly his screen froze.

Norman had now spent twenty minutes trying to unfreeze the screen to no avail. Sir Schneers legendary impatience had been rearing its head for the last seven of those. Sir Schneers was screaming at the top of his lungs, red faced & spitting right next to the side of Normans purple face. I’m trying Sir Schneer, but nothings working. The other two were still talking football without a care. “Look kid, I took a punt of you & your effing it up royally – let me have a go”.

Sir Schneer pushed Norman unceremoniously aside via walking into him. He randomly clacked at the keys…nothing changed. He lifted up the terminal & banged it…nothing changed. Then he furiously pushed the ‘escape button’ he wouldn’t stop he just kept pushing it like a madman, then he pushed the button for the last time.

America’s cable news of course naturally reported it all first.

“Shocking news out of England – and viewers remember this is all preliminary – we’re being told at KNAW-NN that all – that’s right all of England’s nuclear 175 nuclear warheads have seemingly self-destructed & is now an unpopulated giant smoking ball of sandy dust & debris from coast to coast”.

“We’ve contacted five-eyes spokesman & Pentagon top brass Monty Haig & he suggests that the ‘self destruct code was somehow activated from inside the Military’s own nuclear mainframe command centre.”….

……”At this stage Monty Haig believes it could be a coordinated multi-country foreign power attack, or maybe a terrorist hack, or sadly & unbelievably perhaps even worse, this all may just be a horrible ‘schoolboy error type mistake’ by a dim-witted government staffer.”………

.…….”Monty Haig told us that as he cannot at this stage confirm whether it’s an attack or simply – and we quote… ‘an accidental fuckup’, he cannot say if a retaliatory attack will be launched by allies on behalf of what is now the former country of England. More to come later”……

Eventually after the nuclear dust had settled, the pages of History all agreed that it was not at all a surprise that England would self-destruct at some time in the twenty first century. However the intelligentsia had all got it wrong in their general prediction, that it would go with a whimper rather than a big bang.

The End

“Our Lives On Earth” (A Poem)

February 16, 2024Posted in fictionTagged Earth, fiction, Humour, philosophy, poem, Poems, social commentary, The Human ConditionLeave a comment

by Martin Anton Smith

A one-inch-tall man who lives inside a ten-inch-tall glass jar,

Shouldn’t be surprised when no matter how fast he moves or jumps –

That he remains inside the glass jar…

But even worse off are the people next to him,

Also inside the glass jar,

That insist the glass isn’t even there.

“That Is Not Fish-Food Lady” (A Poem)

February 10, 2024February 10, 2024Posted in fictionTagged Dog Owners, Dogs, Labradors, People Watching, Rivers, Slice-of-life, Swimming, The Human Condition, Water1 Comment

by Martin Anton Smith

It was a hot day & so I went for a river swim.

After I was sitting on the rocks of the swimming hole.

Drying out & re acclimatising to the air-only-world, – as you do.

While doing this of course, you watch the other folk in a content daze.

There was a large lady swimming with her pug nose dog & her mum & dad were on the riverside.

The dog was half submerged & having a whale of a time.

So much so it hung a giant log in the river shallows –

Right where people swim.

The lady said “dad don’t worry it’s fish food”.

I don’t know about you – but I’m quite pretty, pretty, sure…

That that is not fish-food lady!!!

At least they scooped up half of it in a little black plastic bag.

I guess dog owners will tell themselves anything –

To exonerate their often very annoyingly behaved pooches

I guess they are in simple cognitive dissonance,

Because disciplining their pooches would require effort & maybe even cash.

It’s easier & cheaper for them to pretend the dog is an angel.

It’s probably very wise to not to date or marry a dog owner.

Unless of course it’s a Labrador –

They are like the ‘Gentlemen’ of the Dog World.

They surely would almost never take a giant shit in a popular swimming hole.

“The Ballad of The Overpriced Shandy” (A Poem)

February 3, 2024Posted in fictionTagged bars, Bartenders, Beer, fiction, food, Humour, Poems, shandys, Small Town Life, small towns, social commentary, travel, writingLeave a comment

And So To the Nearby-Bar-In-The-Other-Town I Did Go,

In My Trusty ‘Horseless Carriage’.

Also known as its shortened name – a “Car”

This Is a regular saturday jaunt of mine,

I go from a one-horse-town,

To another one-horse-town.

Or perhaps I should update the phrase & say “I went to a one-car-town”.

These are mostly Shandy, Books & Coffee & Boob-watching trips –

& by ‘Boobs’ I unfortunately mean the ‘people’ kind.

Yes, most people suck, but occasionally you get lucky.

So, this particular time I sling into the usual regular bar –

a slightly old fashioned working mans bar, but owned by recent immigrants.

The two bartenders that are there are damned good guys,

Guys that you know have a real heart beating in their chests.

But the boss is too – let’s just say his vibe doesn’t fill me with confidence.

The good boys at the bar usually give me a good & fair shandy price,

But I make a mistake & ask the owner for the same drink.

He gives me the usual inflated price.

I tell him it’s too expensive –

I say “I usually get it for Six Fifty – surely you can’t charge me the same for a full beer”

I add that he doesn’t pay excise tax on the half of the glass that is lemonade.

The owner looks at ‘good guy one’ next to his shoulder and asks “what do you charge”

‘Good guy number one’ agrees & says “Six Fifty”.

So, the owner, backed into a corner backs down @ gives me my usual Six Fifty price shandy.

Five minutes later I order from the Boss again.

He rings up Eight dollars.

I say “what gives”,

He simply ignores good grace & says “it’s Eight Dollars”.

I regrettibly cough up – with the half protest of raising my hands up in the air while saying “ok ok”.

He pours it, I take it, I drink it.

I thought to myself “I’m probably not coming back next time”.

I found it amazing that the owner was willing to lose a regular customer,

Just to save the one & a half dollars of an overpriced shandy.

That owner boob only valued my regular custom at $1.50.

I paid it anyway & drank it & left.

After I left, I thought about not coming back,

Then I felt extra sorry for those two good guys behind the bar.

I thought to myself “I really should help them get new jobs”.

As I left the stormy day suddenly turned sunny & drove home.

I thought to myself

“If only there were more bars in one-horse-towns”.

Then my actions could have a chance to live up to my principles & intensions.

Yes Siree! You sure give up a lot when drinking overpriced shandys in one-horse-towns.

“The Plight Of The Empty Beer Can” (A Poem)

September 28, 2023October 9, 2023Posted in fictionTagged Beer, fiction, Humour, PoemsLeave a comment

By Martin Anton Smith

The beer can sat in the slobs room,

Having been the last one discarded.

He sat among all his older peers.

He was thrown out unceremoniously,

After 7 minutes service To humanity.

Flung parabolically into the corner,

Aimed at an overflowing,

But probably never to Be emptied bin.

Hitting its fullness & so bouncing to the floor

On top of the carcases of earlier used up cans.

A veritable mountain.

“Mount Aluminium”

“Mount Aloominium”

If you are American.

Now dear reader or listener:

Let’s put ourselves directly amongst the beer cans social milieu,

In ‘fly-On-the-wall’, or gonzo reportage fashion.

On Mount Aluminium,

There was always A collective sigh,

A psychic energy forever floating around.

A dispiritedness, if you will.

While beer-can-to-beer-can communication,

Is usually telepathic,

In words it can be translated

From Can-ton-ese,

To English

As the following labelled thought forms:

“Why can’t he take us out”

“We could become Something better”

“We could make something of ourselves”

“Some of us could end up as ladders”

“Some of us tennis racquets”

“Some of us surgical equipment”

“Some of us ‘love devices’ “

“Some of us could literally go to Mars,

As part of a space ship”

And I as a keen observer of the universe,

Summarise the discarded beer can’s struggle for life thusly:

You see, at heart all these beer cans,

All dream the nearly impossible dream:

To go from

A fat mans lips – to Mars bound space ships.

And as a firsthand witness I can say hand on heart:

Unfortunately, even today in our modern computerised world,

Life for the average upwardly striving, crumpled & discarded beer can,

Is still crushingly empty, downwardly mobile & very very….

Bitter

“Macroncke, The Diner, & The French Fourth Reich.” (A Short Story)

July 1, 2023September 2, 2023Posted in fiction, social commentaryTagged fiction, Fourth Reich, France, Humour, Poems, Riots, short stories, short story, social commentary, Third Reich, warLeave a comment

By Martin Anton Smith martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Macroncke Sat At The Table At The Very Posh Restaurant. This Was the Little French Diner That Could. It Was A Favourite Of High Society In France. It Had Old Oak Panelling & Ocean Liner Motif, With Ambient Low Lighting.

There Was No Press Or Outsiders, So He Could Speak Freely Without Fear Of Being Recorded. As Could All His Inner Sanctum At Seated The Table. They Were Known As His Most Trusted Followers, But He Didn’t Trust Them That Much – After All, His Profession Was Politics.

He Had Narrowly Survived An Assassination Attempt From An Inner Circle Member Just Last Year, So, He Was Suitably Cautious About Everyone. This Wise Cautiousness Even Extended To Even His Wife – Prunella.

They All Sat & Watched The Riots On The Restaurant TV, That Was Perched Up High & Almost Out Of Sight, With The Sound Off, But The Captions On.

Late Yesterday It Had Begun. They Saw The Rioting, The Cars Burning, The Looting, The Explosions, The Angry Zombified Faces Of The Masses,

The Rocks & Fireworks Aimed Squarely At The Cops – Who Were No Longer Rugged Or Tough. the French Police System – Like All Institutions – Having Long Been Victims Of A Widespread Philosophe Of Declining Entry Standards.

They Saw All The Wall To Wall TV Coverage In Kingly Comfort. The Table Had Himself – The PM. It Had His Old School Teacher aka His 65-Year-Old Wife Prunella. The Remaining Few Were A Faceless But Nicely Committed & Brainwashed Bunch.

It Had The Minister of Defence. It Had The Minister For Health. It Had The Finance Minister. It Had the Minister For Technology. Finally, It Had The Minister Of Immigration.

But Given The Seemingly Dire Circumstances – Were They In A Bad Mood? Certainly Not. Anyone Who Didn’t Know ‘Dirty Politics’ Might Expect This, Given The Riots Plastered Through The Media. But No – They Were All Quite Jubilant. Ebullient. An Esprit de Corps, Was Clearly Evident.

For This Was A Great Opportunity – For Them & Their Movement. But A Disaster For The People of France. These Kinds Of Riots Were Mostly A Farce. Their Bark Was Far Worse than Their Bite. After All – They Only Burnt Down A Few Dozen Buildings – A Meare ‘Drop In the Ocean’, Compared to All France’s Key Infrastructure.

As Was A Similar Vein With The Looting. As With The Burnt Out Cars.

The ‘Police – Rioter Skirmishes’ As The Press Dubbed These Mostly Semi-Violent Affairs, Only Ever Resulted In Zero to Five Deaths. This Was No Twentieth Century Style Coup & They Knew It. But This Was Not Because The French Citizens Were Not Enraged By Revolutionary Feeling – They Were.

It Was Only Because They Had All Been Spiritually & Physically Weakened By The Plan Over So Many Decades. They Were Energetically Speaking Like A High Performance Car With An Empty Tank Of Fuel, Simply Running On Residual Vapours.

Now That His Inner Sanctum Had All Arrived & Exchanged Pleasantries, He Would Kick Off The Meeting. Macroncke Put His Phone Down On The Table & Stood Up, While Holding His Wine Glass Somewhat Crookedly, it Was Almost Empty, So Remained Un-spilled.

“Ah These Overgrown Teenage Fools Have Allowed Me To Crack Down – Even More Than Before –

I Will Happily Tar All The Masses With Their Own Brainless Fiery Brushes”

There Was Hooping, Hollering, Table Slapping & Half-Drunk Applause From All Cronies At The Little White Tableclothed Tables, Which Were Lined Together As To Effectively Form One Long Thin Table.

Macroncke Continued:

“Ladies & Gentlemen, What Are Your Ideas On Further Exploiting This Moment?”

The Finance Minister Said:

“I’ll Have A Word to The Central Bank Chairman – Remember He Is In Our Pockets – He Will Jack Up Interest Rates An Extra 5%, That’ll Put An Extra 1 Million Of ‘Em On the Streets”

There Was Rapturous Applause & Slugs Of Wine Thrown Back Into Their Wrinkly Lizard-Like Necks.

The Immigration Minister Said:

“I’ll Report That We Are Allowing Another 1,000,000 Abjectly Lost Souls Into France To Plug Employment Shortages”.

More Rapturous Applause Followed, Accompanied By Deathly Like Shrieks Of Vengeance.

Someone Knocked A Glass Over On the Floor – It Broke Loudly, But No One Picked It Up.

The Defence Minister Said:

“I’ll Instruct The Army & Navy That They Can Continue To Practise Their War Drills On the Streets & Allow Rubber Bullets To Fly”.

This Statement Proved As A ‘Damp Squib’, As Much More Meanness Was Expected By The Living Gouls At The Table. He Fixed This Dour Response By Saying:

“I’ll Instruct Them To “Accidentally” Run Over Ten Percent Of Them With Our Police Humvees”.

This Time Jubilation Was Duly Restored – The Cackles & Slaps Flowed Just As The Top-Tier Champagne Had Been. Macroncke’s Wife Prunella Was So Deliriously Happy She Laughed Like An Australian Outback Hyena.

It Was The Minister Of Health’s Turn.

“I’ll Get The Crooked Docs To Whip Up A New Compulsory Jab – To Reduce Their IQ by 10 Points!”

This They Loved Greatly & Hands Slapped The Table Applause & Woops Rang Out For Many Seconds.

The Technology Minister Rose & Adjusted His Glasses Like A Dull Deputy Principal Would Addressing Schoolchildren At Assembly.

“I’ll Put A Trojan House On All the Social Media Apps – It’ll Track Everyone Unawares

To Within A Centimeter”

This Made The Table So Happy they Got Up & Twirled About, Stamping Feet, Waving Arms & Slugging Back Wine Glasses.

Macroncke’s Wife Prunella Got Up & Said:

“Well, I Have No Portfolio & Am Not A Minister – But I Can Punish The Leader, Like I Used To Punish My Husband When He Was My 7-Year-Old Primary School Student”

Macroncke, Although A Fool Was Also An Experienced Statesman, So Only Half Blushed At This Wife Induced Very Awkward Moment – He Stayed Still & Quiet Amongst The Many Audience Murmurs. Prunella The Very Drunk PM’s Wife, Continued Her Monologue.

“I’ll Take The Ringleader Of the Rioters To the Front Of The Mob…. & Then While Facing His Followers –

I Will Pull His Pants Down Smack Him On His Botty, Yelling At Him ‘Who’s A Naughty Boy Then’ “.

The Crowd Around The Table Were At First Stunned Into Silence, Being Not Sure How Macroncke Would Take This Bold But Emasculating Move From His Much Older Wife.

All Eyes Were Eagerly Fixed On Macroncke.

He Stayed Stoney Faced At First -But Then Broke Into A Strained Maladroit Smile, As Typified By Top Politicians.

This Allowed Them All To Go Wild Beyond Belief. The Finance Minister Laughed So Hard He Had To Walk To the Bathroom, Clutching His Bottom While Walking In Hybridised Sloth/Tin Soldier Fashion.

Macroncke’s Wife Abruptly Did A Handstand Against The Bar. What A Pity For Onlookers, That She Also Had A Penchant For Wearing No Underwear.

The Faux Pas Of Her Below the Waste Nudity Was Politely Ignored By All, As If She Had Been Wearing Jeans & Not A Long Floral Skirt.

The Technology Minister Got Up & With A Crazed Expression Snapped His iPhone In Half.

The Defence Minister, Screwing Up A Mock Fight Actually Punched the Immigration Ministers ‘Lights’ Out. The Now Floored Immigration Minister, Gurgled Indecipherable Words While Unconscious On The Opulent Imported Turkish Rug.

The Aging & Very Overweight Minister Of Health Having Seen The Chaos Laughed So Hard His Hernia Re-Burst itself, He Hit the Floor Rolling Around & Clutching His Stomach. He Only Stopped Rolling In ‘Slow Moving Billiard Ball Style’, As He Landed Right Next To The Still Gurgling & Still Unconscious Immigration Minister.

It Took Some Weighty Slices Of An Hour For Everyone To Regain Their Equilibrium & For the Disarray To Clear. Some Stayed Disabled On the Floor, But Were None-The-Less Awake & Attentive Enough To Their Surroundings.

It Became Patently Obvious That This Was The Now The End Of The Night. There Was No Need For Anyone To Prolong the Event. At This Moment The Security Detail Emerged From Behind The Wallpaper & Begun To Escort Them Homewards.

Soon All These Mouldy Old Soul Sellouts Would Be Back In Their Spacious Tax-Exempt Palaces. All To Their Different But Equally Palatial, ‘Quadrupilly Gated Community’ Dwellings.

Macronck Took The Last Moment To Say A Closing Remark. He Was Little in Stature But So Good At Appearing Like An Alpha Male – He Had A Booming Deep Voice & Took Up A Lot Of Space. He Had His Legs Wide Apart & Crossed Arms When He Confidently Roared:

“While My Wife May Have Embarrassed Me Tonight – I Am Not Embarrassed By Your Commitment To The Cause – French Neo-National Socialism.

Now I’ll See You On Monday In Cabinet, To Put Final Plans In Motion”. We Will No Longer Be Beholden to The Riff-Raff of Society – For They Will Simply Cease To Exist. France Can Finally Return To Its Former Napoleonic Era Greatness.”

He Ended With His Per-usual Boastful, Emotive, & Flamboyant Version of What Can Only Be Described As A Partially Veiled “Heil Macroncke” Salute – Which Was Ceremoniously Returned In Kind By The Doting & Wobbling Henchmen & Henchwomen.

Exactly As they Always Did In These Clandestine Soirees & Closed-Door Meetings, As There Was No Need to Hide Themselves, Or their Intentions.

They & Their Security Detail All Went Out The Back Of the Little French Diner To Their Waiting Cars In Single File Fashion. Contentment Was Written All Over Their Hardened & Cold – But Very Focussed Countenances.

For They Knew The French Fourth Reich Was Re-Flowering, With Perfect Timing, Exactly As Planned.

This Would Also, Of Course – Lead to A Great War – The Last Few Decades of the Strategically Undeclared World War 4 Would Melt Away Into A Very Hot Declared World War 4.

The Little French Restaurant Was Now Closing Down, A Few Waiters & Waitresses Milled Around The Table, Tending To The Strewn Cacophony Of Knives, Forks, Spilled Wine & Various Body Fluids Of The Political Melee.

They Were Now All At Their Respective Homes – Soon to be In Bed. Their Respective Drunkenness Ensuring Any Wired-ness that Might Keep Them Also Sleepless, Was Defeated.

The Henchmen & Henchwomen Of The French Fourth Reich, Were All – Bar Macroncke Himself – Sleeping Soundly To The Distantly Soothing Pops & Whistles Of The Wild Street Violence. They Were More than Confidant Their Collective-Machiavellian-Artistic-Dream-Creations, Their Fascist-Twisted-Elitist-Hopes & Dreams, Were Coming To Fruition.

They All Knew Victory Would Begin In Only A Few Hours Away At Sun Up. They Would Reap What They Had Sown.

Macroncke However, Unlike The Others, Had At First His Usual Sleepless Night – Racked With The Thought That At Any Minute His Sneaky Dictatorship Would Be Finally Be Seen For What It Was – A House Of Cards – A False Utopia – The Chaotic Unescapable Maze He Secretly Knew It to Be.

Again, Like Clockwork, At 4 AM, He Took A Handful Of Sleeping Pills And Other Barbiturates From His Overstocked Pharmacy-Like Bathroom & Would Soon Fell Asleep. Before He Had Swallowed The Pills, He Saw That One Pill Looked Slightly Different – Just A Little Brighter Than The Others. He Thought Nothing Of It & Threw His Trembling Hand To His Mouth & Gulped Them Down.

His Mind Now Relaxed A Little. Tomorrow The World Would Begin To Change Seismically – Not In Years, But As The Clock’s Second Hand Ticks. He Smiled Assuredly As He Climbed Back Into Bed, Next To the Fast Asleep Prunella & Then Closed his Eyes.

Just Before Nodding Off, A Final Thought Popped Into His Now Barely Conscious Mind. It Was A Pathetic, But None-The-Less Soothing Rationalisation:

“Well At Least I Can Stretch Out The Decline Of My Empire Long Enough to Create Maximum Carnage in Minimal Time – & I’ll Never Let Them Catch Me Alive Anyway – And If I Plan things Well, I’ll Escape the Hangman Via The Modern ‘Ratlines’ To Brazil, Argentina, Or Perhaps Even The Now Clandestinely Fascist New Zealand or Australia”

But he did awake at around 6 am, in a cold sweat. His nightmare was that he went into work & no one saw him at all – he was invisible & nothing he could do – shout & stomp as he may could garner even the lifting of the corner of a Frenchman’s lips, on top of that he also found no reference to himself in the pages of history.

The nightmare always ended the same way – i.e. the precursor to him waking up in a cold sweat with heart thumping. The only thing that would notice him in these nightmares was a diffuse shadow which implanted via telepathy a direct message in his mind:

“I granted your wishes – I made you one of the biggest Kings of the Earth. I gave you riches, fame & power, and insulation from the ‘Downtrodden Masses’ rightful ire. Now is time for you to repay me. I want your soul Macroncke – as small & shrivelled as it is – I want what you bargained for. I want your soul to put with all the others, to torture for all eternity.”

Macroncke was glad to awake & see himself in the bedside cabinets mirror. As always, he was happy to have his wife see his distress & hug & console him. To experience the relief that he was not in hell & was not being punished for his more-than-misdemeanours.

Prunella said “let’s get back to sleep – you have a big day tomorrow with the media” – she removed her motherly finger combing hand from his hair – they were both more than surprised to see that maggots were crawling all over her hand, having already eaten the flesh off her ring finger.

As Macronke’s Vision Faded To Black – He Knew The “French Fourth Reich” Was Now Over Before It Had Truly Began, & Any Thoughts Of An Easy Escape Were Now Being Roundly Busted. He Slipped Alone Downwards Into A Blacker Than Black Final Spiral Towards His Final Resting Place.

The End.

“Are We Ready For The AI Onslaught? Is This A War Humans Can Win? Or Are We Blind To See Future Alternative Timelines?” (A Creative Essay)

June 7, 2023June 9, 2023Posted in fiction, Future, FutureWarTagged dystopia, fiction, Humour, sci fi, short storyLeave a comment

“Are We Ready For The AI Onslaught? Is This A War Humans Can Win? Or Are We Blind To See Future Alternative Timelines?” (A Creative Essay)

by Martin Anton Smith III, New Zealand.

(Editor’s Note: Martin Anton Smith III is a Founding member of “Future & Present Danger Of AI In War & Work Institute” (FUPDAIWI) – The Thinktank based in the Mountains of the Southern Alps in the South Island Of NZ, & soon holding a “War & Economy” conference safely inside a mountain ensconced venue in the alpine resort of Queenstown NZ – weather permitting. in this article he outlines a prescription to avoid being a casualty of the future AI dominated Earthscape set to hit with vengeance in 2025 – far earlier than most people predict. While many conservatives may find this article ‘hard to swallow’, we strongly recommend you consider becoming physically stronger & more creative as a career hedge. Please email him directly at martinantonsmith@gmail.com regarding the conference or any other queries – Edward I. Sez – EDITOR of “FutureAI For Business & War Magazine”(who will publish an exclusive sequel to this article shortly).)

The following prose blends truth & fiction together interchangeably. The reader must decide what is truth & what is fiction & what is satire. This is of course a theme we have to deal with in our new world, which has emerged in force from prior more reasonable times.

As to when it became clear times had changed – one could mention the year 2001 or 2008 or 2016 or even perhaps as late as 2020. I prefer to think in regards to this question in the metaphor of a person emerging from swimming in the sea – initially you can only se there head, then as they return to the beach you see their torso & when they leave the water you see the entire body.

But to continue with the beach swimmer analogy – once they are out of the surf they are free to do a wide array of totally different things from just wading through water – they may run along the beach, they may have a party with a BBQ, they may jump in their SUV & drive to the next beach etc. This is us now – emerged from predictability & our path is about to crystallise into one of many distinct options.

I believe the world has entered a dramatic tipping point. I think anyone over the age of 30 realises this intuitively. We have Wars, Propaganda, Politicians not only ignoring democracy at will, but saddling up to a wide array of shady corporate & faux NGO leaders. Madness has become quite normal, in our now quite unhinged Western culture.

So, we are in a tipping point. Let me now enter a guess & predict game of what that may look like. It may seem ridiculous what I will say – but that is the point – we are in strange times & so what will happen may be crazy & also the real reality. Let me now change gear.

It Is Now T-Minus 751 days (a little more than 2 years) until The Business Community starts to en-masse regret not using more Ai in hiring decisions. A world dominated by AI Employees is actually arguably a natural progression of its precursor state – of decades old software automation & centuries old robotics in factory production.

But the lack of social guidelines means a lack of common sense in regulating AI so it doesn’t take all the good jobs, or most of them.

So our immaturity means the AI bull is free to potentially destroy the ‘China shop’ that is our work & private lives & our public lives too.

Assuming AI employees ramp upwards unhindered – his will mean “peak human employee” will have finally been reached within a matter of months. Once this shift/tipping point has played out I predict 50-75% of all current corporate & “office jobs” will no longer be available for non-AI based entities (formerly known as “Human Beings”).

And so what of practical solutions? What could an administrator do to improve his chances vs an AI usurper?

Rather than be like the “Wheelright of Yesteryear” in the late 19th & Early 20th Centuries who ignored the combustion engine to his unemployed doom – you can definitely prepare now.

I will cut to the chase & tell you the most important facts – & afterwards I will close with some final thoughts (some of you will think I get far too silly -but remember some of this is satire some truth & some fiction – & where the boundaries lie isn’t actually entirely clear to even me).

You must do the following to compete & enter those economies & industries more resilient to AI Employee Saturation

(AES)

– Become more genuinely creative in multiple disciplines

– Improve your ability to do physical work & rethink your view of the Trades as these skills cannot be replaced by AI cybernetic organisms for the foreseeable future

-Know that if you have mathematical/logical based job you are also in the firing line if creativity/physical labour is not also a major component (e.g. Accountants/Bookkeepers/Admin – this is already happening via companies such as ZERO)

– Military or Military-like skills (Advanced Health & Strength, Stoicism & True Leadership) will be more highly sought after as Society again moves towards a War Economy

– Improve you emotional IQ as this becomes key to unlocking your pathway to personal, professional & military outcomes.

– Reduce dependence on pharmaceuticals Class A Drugs & Alcohol (namely the Corporate Helper aka SSRI’s). Very soon people who have a long-term history of low pharmaceuticals & alcohol abuse will be seen via the Worldwide AI-based monitoring system (Similar to the Chinese social credit system) & headhunted by businesses.

– Allow yourself to combat your cognitive dissonance that will keep you from moving to the next phase of human development whereby the main skill is successfully defending your employment from AI via using a Militaristic Multiskilled Creative Leadership & kinetic IQ & High EQ approach (Soon to be known as your MILMULCK-IQ/EQ score by Employers)

– Correct your poor depressive Corporate BODY LANGUAGE profile as AI surveillance (& so Employers) will certainly use this as BLACK LIST ITEM, stopping you from non-basic AI servicing employment

– Work on cultivating a ‘good sense of humour’ as all workplaces will have at least 5% of roles that are essentially the same as the “Court Jester” in Feudal times.

While the above critical survival skills for the “Human Employee Singularity Event” may seem revolutionary & unbelievable to you now – you must fight this emotional feeling so as you can re-program yourself to prosper & survive post 2025. This is a world where AI & AI Cybernetic & AI Robots have fully jumped off the sci-fi screen & into the reality of day-to-day work & life on Earth.

Unfortunately, the year 2025 there will be no distinct “welfare society” – which has up until now, acted as a safety net for Human Beings. By 2025 The world will be simultaneously be in a Great Depression, A Third World War & A ‘Rise Of The Machines’ Terminator-style AI takeover of the ‘Employment World’ & the adjoining Global & National Economies & Military environments.

There is no easy way to say the next sentence.

This will unfortunately mean that for those who have low MILMULCK scores will be sent to service the AI Military Soldiers who fight on the global battlefields of WW3 – They will serve not as “AI Paramedics” (as AI will do this itself) – but as ‘Human Sheilds’.

The only benefit to being a “Human Sheild For AI Soldiers” is that when hit by the Concentrated EMP Blast Lazer Ordinance (CEBLO) from the enemy AI Soldiers – you will instantly vapourised into carbonized nano-particles & thus be taken away with the slightest microscopic breeze.

Of this fateful future knowledge of a possible laser -based demise, you can rest easy knowing that you helped your higher functioning superior AI entity, that is on your side, directly fighting WW3, & managing the economy far beyond what you & your fellow bumbling Low-MILMULCK score friends & colleagues ever would.

For those who heed my warning you can relax. You will work hard to raise your MILMULCK score from now (2023) to the outbreak of Human Vs AI Singularity Event in late 2025 (or to those already in the know – HUVAISE ’25). This will guarantee you a critical & long-term place in the dystopian post ‘AI Singularity’ world.

For those perhaps of you who are vapourised as human shields on the WW3 battlefronts – don’t say I didn’t warn you – I implore you to leave your arrogance behind, realise you have by two years left to prepare for HUVAISE & WW3 – both an Economic & Military War – raise your MILMULCK score.

I repeat RAISE YOUR MILMULCK SCORE!

Don’t be caught out & be just another un-needed un-creative, undexterous, arrogant & humourless Accountant, Lawyer or Politician – vapourised by an enemy AI Soldier’s CEBLO gun, on the battlefront of WW3 & your ashes scattered into the wind and to the four corners of the Earth.

You could just do nothing & let the winds of destiny wash over you – and I wouldn’t blame anyone for this – especially if you are over 50, it’s very hard to have the mental & physical energy to change at all after 50 (or even 40 for that matter.

What will be is what will be, but people shouldn’t be so silly to think that the AI revolution won’t change everything about how we live our lives, if not by 2025 then surely by 2040. There might not be 75% human unemployment & our slavery as human shields for AI robots in a Terminator-like WW3 may be wildly overblown – yes we might have our lives turned into greyness in a whimper like fashion rather than a bang – but isn’t that almost more of a tragedy than the big bang?

At least with chaos can eventually come order – perhaps just perhaps we would win a WW3 against the rampaging AI & then the impetus would be there to courageously set up a good post war society for us all.

We should not look forward to AI slowly grinding us down, in similar fashion to how over 20 year employees went from having no email to having hundreds of them, mostly mindless requests & choosing to go along with a ruined, less personable work day

Given the fact we have so readily become slaves to earlier less intelligent but very annoying technology – I don’t have much hope for us banding together & having a worldwide grassroots project to avert AI taking over the Earth – but even so we should at least try & fail than not try at all.

I guess the easiest thing to do is for people to talk about the threats of AI over the office water cooler- that’s an achievable mission – for now.

THE END

“The Men, The Moon, & The Machine” (A Short Story)

May 12, 2023May 18, 2023Posted in fictionTagged AI, Astronomy, Humour, Journeymen, Life On the Moon, Science Fiction, Telescopes, The MoonLeave a comment

“The Men, The Moon, & A Machine” A Short Story By Martin Anton Smith. Contact me at martinantonsmith@gmail.com

Zac Brighton liked to call himself a “Journeymen Astronomer” – but the truth was that was an embellishment. After his PHD he had gained gainful employment – but for some reason never got past the “apprentice syndrome”. In other words, he was basically a walking disaster for someone his age of thirty-two.

Luckily after his PHD, he landed in the ‘ivory towers’ of the Academic world, which could easily absorb those whose talent fails to materialise. There was friction here & there at work, but the fact he was never fired showed overall that he was accepted – for who he was & what he was offering. You could say he was good for morale, & he could handle being laughed at anyway.

Zac scootered around the ‘real work’ at Skylark Uni & Polytech like a pro’ – the real work being ‘furthering the knowledge of the cosmos in the field of Astronomy’. Zac initially was interested in the ‘real work’ but soon totally disregarded trying to figure out ‘the hard stuff” – stuff that his esteemed colleagues such as Chester Tinkerton slaved away at, completed & then got the glory.

Zac was happy to toil away at the easy stuff around labs – he’d haphazardly set up optical lazers, & even these things called ‘mazers’ that used microwaves. In fact, one of the many laughing sessions at the staff club was the story how when tasked to set up a Lazer for Professor Tinkerton, he accidentally chose the invisible ‘Mazer’ instead, meaning when the equipment was switched on – no one knew it.

This resulted in Professor Tinkerton thinking the equipment was broken, so he never shut the equipment. Because of Zacs sloppiness microwaves shot all around the lab & adjoining cafeteria such that all the chocolate bars were constantly half melted, & it took seven days of mystery & confusion before Zac’s misstep was discovered. His story up until now was punctuated by simplistic toil & a well warranted lack of status & recognition. Many fell victim to ‘The Zac Field” or simply as TZF as they wittily dubbed it.

Sometimes a very ordinary person gets lucky & becomes the very bum with open eyes slash mouth that happens to point in the right direction at the right time. When this happens in an exciting field of science, it can amplify to become a totally new earth-shattering scientific breakthrough. Many of the ‘guns’ in the Astronomy dept. had a secret fear that Zac Brighton might somehow ride his TZF field into an accidental Nobel prize for Physics. In particular Tinkerton would wake up screaming with the recurring nightmare that he had switched places with Zac.

These fears were not entirely unwarranted, as Zac’s profession of Astronomy was a great profession for the ‘dumb luck’ effect – as all you had to do was look at the sky for ridiculous amounts of time, couple it with a method of recording data and you would be guaranteed of discovering something new – even if it was just a small asteroid or comet. There are after all, thousands of ‘citizen astronomers’ with asteroids, comets & even dwarf stars named after them.

Zac made good use of the hand the universe & the University had dealt to him. He could stare into space figuratively or literally such as through the University’s very expensive telescopes. On the day in question, Zac was using the new thirty million dollar ‘Maxometer6000 Telescope’ – he had already spent four hours randomly looking for a new comet – which is the easiest new stellar body to find & get the credit for discovering.

Not finding anything, he soon bored of this task & swung the telescope around to look at the moon – why shouldn’t he? It was fun to see an asteroid hit the moon in real time, as he had on many occasions sitting at the ‘Maxometer’. Looking at the moon also jogged his conspiratorial leaning mind. Five years ago, when Zac was twenty-seven, he had switched his opinion from ‘yes we went to the moon” to the “we definitely didn’t go to the moon”.

This switch of allegiance was on account of the ‘Van Allen Belt’ radiation field the Apollo astronauts were said to have successfully & safely traversed – all the while wearing totally inadequate solar radiation shielding of their space craft & also of their space suits. Zac new that in reality they would have been fried like an egg out there with shielding that was akin to aluminium foil.

Zac was amazed that his so-called superiors that intellectually ignored him daily were so highly intelligent with all their ‘published articles’ yet had allowed themselves to be brainwashed to ignore this brute fact – that humans & high energy radiation don’t mix well. Those apollo astronauts needed to have a very thick faraday cage around them absorbing high energy radiation, they had tin foil & the fact they wore tinfoil was the biggest hint of the scam for Zac.

Zac was looking at the ‘sea of tranquility’ area of the moon with the ultra-high-def-anti-blur telescope with thoughts of how unsurprised he was for the fact he saw no apollo mission debris or rover tracks, when he noticed something genuinely odd – he was sure that he saw a large patch that was slightly green tinged.

He got off his inbuilt telescope seat, rubbed his eyes & sat back down. The greenish tinge was still there. “Maybe it’s just gunge on the lens” he thought to himself. He had to double check the lens – as this could be something more than BIG. He temporarily squashed any feelings of physical & mental laziness & scaled the ladder affixed to the outer skin which protected the telescope & adjoining lab, much like a semi-circular tent does a camper. He would check if the ‘green tinge’ was just some slime that was on the big outer lens. The ladder climb round trip to the outer lens & back was quite an endurance mission – doubly so for Zac, who at 5 foot three & 110 pounds was in no ways a physical specimen.

In the more than ten minutes it took to slowly climb up to the lens his mind raced. “What if that massive spot of green tinge is evidence photosynthesis on the moon? That would mean what he saw was a forest or at least a large outcrop of trees or plants. That would mean an atmosphere. That would mean the possibility animals could breathe it in – and heck – maybe intelligent life!”.

Zac for a moment thought how utterly BIG that would be if it were true. But if it was true Zac thought of the next possibility – that the Moon had somehow terraformed in the fifty years since the supposed ‘apollo mission’ – that would also mean human beings may be able to breathe in it – perhaps unassisted. That would mean Man could live on the Moon & breathe freely like on Earth. This would mean the Moon could be an Earth Part Two – & perhaps a better one! This would be the “Discovery of the Millenia!” – with his name – Zac Anton Brighton – written all over it.

Zac’s daydreaming was halted as he finally got to the last rung on the ladder all while clutching a cleaning cloth in hand. He now looked at the almost one meter in diameter lens in front of him – apart from a few dust specs, it was virtually spotless. Zac had an immediate burst of endorphins – the brain chemical of ‘happiness’. The green tinges were the ‘real deal’.

He trundled down quickly & had a look through the eyepiece again – it was still there. He told himself to be calm & take ten deep breaths. After just three rushed breaths he closed his eyes in an effort to reset his exhilaration. He now needed to channel something great from within – something that until now was dormant. For once in his actually, in reality, quite drab life, he had ‘work of great importance’ to do.

He would look for more green tinges on the Moon & then do some spectrograph analysis of its atmosphere to see whether there was sizeable oxygen content & if its levels could be breathable, either right now or perhaps soon. Zac was assuming it was not already at twenty-one percent as there was no perceptible blue tinge in the Moon’s sky.

To figure all this out for sure Zac decided he needed to spend at minimum of seventy-two hours in the telescope & it’s adjoining inbuilt lab to analyse the data – luckily his timing was as usual propitious – it was nine-thirty on Friday evening, this meant no one else would be using the telescope or the adjoining technical analysis lab until Monday at ten pm – in exactly seventy-two hours and thirty minutes time. He would rest assured be left alone with this mega discovery until then.

Zac looked at the scheduling whiteboard to see who had that coming Monday telescope appointment – it was Chester Tinkerton – a much talented Astronomer who practically never even acknowledged Zac’s existence whatsoever – unless it furnished derisive ends or an attempt at public humiliation. Like many of the so called ‘successful’, Chester Tinkerton was brilliant, but not very nice – especially to ‘the help’ – i.e. people like Zac Brighton.

Zac knew this sleepless three-day task would, to say the least be energy sapping work – luckily the lab had a snack vending machine, he had access to cookies, crisps, sweets & pop soda, & plenty of cash & coins to pay. He decided to give himself half an hour to refuel & over eat a little before his mammoth task of three days without sleep to gather & analyse the almost certainly, revolutionary moon data. He went over to the triply oversized well stocked vending machine. Zac thought to himself as he gazed at the behemoth, “another example of a typical university budget overspend”.

He put in the money & punched in the code that represented one of the Cookies. Then he went for the Pop Soda – he got two cans, one for now & one in his pocket for later. Hed did the same for the sweets. He gulped down the goodies in no time especially as he had forgotten to eat for some eighteen hours already – a common occurrence for him as a partial scatterbrain.

He knew he needed more calorific fuel so he punched in for another two cookies. The first one winded off the spiral & clunked at the bottom. The second unwound but got stuck on the end of the spiral feeder coil. Zac couldn’t believe his bad luck. He’d have to shake the machine to make it drop. He looked down at his puny body & then up at the giant triple sized vending machine & let out a big sigh.

Zac outstretched his stick-figure-like arms, attempting to hug the machine first & then he’d rattle it as best as he could. The problem was that this machine was so big his other arm was at least a foot short of the other edge. Even so he tried to shake it – it barely made a sound. There was no way he would be able to shake it, he’d need another strategy – leverage.

Zac decided he could use a metal lever, and wedge it under the front of the machine which was on legs. If the lever was long enough, he’d multiply his force & the machine would rock back & forth & the cookie would drop off the spiral. He looked around & pretty soon found a long iron beam from the adjoining lab. He used his own two boosted soled shoes, one stacked on top of the other. This would make the pivot for the metal bar.

He & tested his method. He put about half his power & the machine rocked nicely. He thought “this is gonna be easier than I thought”. He put in about three quarters of his power, pushed down on the lever & watched the machine lift off its legs backward about a foot’s distance. Zac in only his socks on the high polished floor tiles slipped a little, then he fell over flat on his back the iron rod clunking beside him.

Slowly ominously & surely the machine toppled forward, Zac prayed hopelessly that his three-quarter energy input was not going to be enough to make the machine topple over on him. If it did fall, it would squash him, meaning he would be seriously injured or even killed – let alone the fact it would ruin gathering the data to back up the fact that the moon had terraformed & sprouted at least plant life & a breathable atmosphere.

Time slowed to a crawl as he watched the top of the machine pivot further forward. He saw it slowing even further as its hinged motion almost stopped. The giant machine then stopped in mid-fall, it was actually perfectly balanced, half wanting to fall over & half wanting to fall back. Zac stared at it waiting for his fate, making sure he was ice berg still. Amazingly it stayed perched on its gravitational knife edge, as if bowing to him like a giant-mechanical-fridge shaped-sumo-wrestler.

Zac now needed another plan. The options as he saw it boiled down to two options. He could slowly move out of the way hoping that his movements wouldn’t be strong enough to make it fall one way or the other. On this option if he was wrong this would mean a fifty-fifty chance of it falling forwards so squashing & potentially killing him. Of course, if that happened it would stop him from his Moon lab-work analysis, which he had a gut feel it would show life on the Moon & the chance for Man to inhabit the Moon and live freely. Zac had always trusted his gut & it invariably paid off.

He then had a very out of character thought – he thought of his possible upward trajectory in the social hierarchy, after the news had broken worldwide. He knew that if he broke the news of the Moon’s new status first, he would no longer be an ignored as an ‘at best’ journeymen astronomer, at a small medium-to-low ranked university. Within a few weeks of global media fanfare, he’d be right up there with Ptolemy, Copernicus & Kepler & would have ‘Einstein like’ fame. He checked his thoughts & was scared that he had begun to think that way. He turned back to pressing reality & now weighed up of the other option – option two. He could throw his Pop Soda can at the machine, when it hit it should provide momentum to topple over safely away from him towards the back wall.

Zac decided on option two as the option one to crawl slowly & hope was far too risky in comparison. He rationalised that he could throw the can with as much energy as humanly possible & by the laws of momentum it would have to move the machine safely backward. He braced himself to throw the pop soda can, then he had another thought – “if this fails & I end up dead then the next person in here will probably not see me at all under this giant machine at all. They also won’t smell my decaying body because the telescope & lab is kept at a very low temperature & is also well ventilated”.

Zac’s thoughts continued: “This means they will go straight over to the telescope, look through it & see the green tinges on the Moon & then decide like me, to do the necessary seventy-two hours worth of data analysis. After this very perfunctory work, all will be confirmed & soon they will become one of the greats of Astronomy, Physics, Science & History itself. In short, they’ll steal my earth-shattering discovery all because I died in a freak oversized vending machine accident!“.

After this disturbing thought of having his thunder stolen, and worse, by a colleague who sneered at him daily, Zac committed himself to throw the pop soda can harder than anything he’d ever thrown before – not that he’d thrown many projectiles in his mostly bookish life.

He motioned to grab the full pop soda can that was in in his pocket. His hand was only centimeters from it anyway so he gambled that the friction of the vending machines leg stoppers was enough to dissipate the tiny nano – ‘earthquake’ in the floor that his reaching for the soda can would create. Zac still felt the cliched time dilation feeling that people on disaster shows talk about when facing life or death situations – it was disturbing but he recognised it was simply ancient DNA programming that to help him escape death by giving him more problem-solving time.

It seemed like a minute when he moved his hand the 10 inches to grab the top of the exposed top of the can. The five minutes he spent wiggling it out of his pocket seemed like an hour. He now had it freely in his hand. He took one last look at the Logo, wondering if that’s the last time he’d read that ever present curly white writing or indeed any writing again at all. “Now or Never” he thought & he wound up his throw like a baseball pitcher, only a more careful wind-up speed. He threw with all his might aiming at the top middle part of the vending machine. The can left his outstretched hand & unwound pitcher’s arm & flew through the air like some ancient Roman-era mega sling-shot firing a one tonne stone boulders at some soon to be conquered barbarian village.

Zac sat & saw the pop soda can tumble end over end & get closer & closer to the bowing giant vending machine, then a sense of horror spread through his mind body & spirit – he had now realised the can was not thrown on the right trajectory – it hit the very top edge of the machine, ricocheted up, hit the ceiling, then hit the back wall directly behind the machine. It then exploded on impact & sent pop soda flying everywhere. it immediately dribbled down the walls with the empty can hitting the ground with an empty, but full of meaning, ‘clink’ sound.

Zac then realised something he couldn’t quite fathom – the hulking vending machine was still bowing forward on a knife edge, unshifted. His terrible throw had gone unpunished & he was amazingly still alive and could think of the next problem solving move. After so much stress absorbed into his system, he couldn’t but help but let out a king-sized laugh.

The laugh’s sound waves travelled around the vending machine which focussed the energy waves onto the back wall just like a lens, which then made the hundreds of residual pop soda drips each vibrate to-and-fro a few millimeters. One drip that was being microscopically shaken was inside the electrical outlet that the machine was plugged into – the coke droplet shifted onto two frayed wires & short circuited them with a mighty CLAP sound the accompanied explosion sent sparks flying.

Zac saw the flash first & the clap of explosion a distant second then he saw the top edge machine move forward off its knife edge tilt, snapping out of its respectfully bowing, ‘suspended animation’. As a last-ditch effort to escape, he tried to move his legs to scramble away. Having taken off his shoes, his socks had no traction & they slipped repeatedly as if he was a cartoon character. As the machine fell, his eyes focussed on a pack of candy inside the machine. On the wrapper he saw the image of a space man on the moon holding the candy with a speech bubble saying “MoonFizzles Sherbet – A Sour Explosion In Your Brain”.

Zac’s remaining time on Earth was only ninety seconds. Stuck in the machines vice like grip, he could only move an arm & his index finger. His last act was to scrawl out a final message in the sand like sherbet that exploded everywhere. He completed the message & everything faded to black.

His little body was completely enveloped by the machine, so much so someone walked past an hour later they would just think the machine had been placed that way on purpose, perhaps for maintenance reasons. There were no movie-like pools of blood for someone to notice & then scream at.

At Monday 9:50PM Chester Tinkerton appeared at the telescope & adjoining lab as per his reserved slot. He as usual wore a colorful green & grey striped jersey to combat the cool climate-controlled environment of the Telescope enclosure. He stroked his grey goatee and adjusted his grainy specs as he thought about how he was going to spend the next three hours most productively. These telescope affairs were mostly ‘just for fun’, but Chester as a consummate professional & perfectionist, always liked to achieve at all times.

“First things first” Chester thought & he took out an old-fashioned transistor radio – he always liked to work with classic rock ‘n’ roll playing as it helped him think clearly – and he was old enough to just remember the late fifties slash early nineteen sixties rock ‘n’ roll. He hummed along to the Eddie Cochran song I.O.U as he looked through the eyepiece & saw something he couldn’t quite believe. Then he realised he’d been distracted & forgotten to do the basic task even every half serious Astronomer does before anything – clean the eyepiece of the telescope.

Chester reached for old fashioned well weathered leather satchel. He opened its metal lined jaws & got some isopropyl alcohol, a mini torch & a lint free cloth out of it & dripped the cleaner drop by drop onto the cloth. He carefully unscrewed the outer cap of the eyepiece cleaned both sides in time-honored fashion. He turned on the mini torch, then took the unscrewed eyepiece & looked through it so he could see the torch light which would show any dirt or smudges. It was now crystal clear.

He then looked at the cloth & saw a fair amount of green mildew or perhaps it was a build-up of bacterium. He said to himself in a funny voice “I knew it was too good to be true Chester me old boy – yes there will be no greenery on the Moon today”.

Chester took a plastic sandwich bag out of his nearby satchel, put it back in the bag & thought nothing more of it. He screwed the eyepiece on & sat down in the viewing chair & looked forward to a relaxing but productive night of rock ‘n’ roll music & asteroid hunting. This would be accompanied by his ritualistic half-time trip to the big vending machine to buy his favourite sherbet ‘Moonfizzles’.

He had his pocket change for the machine, he just hoped that it wasn’t ‘playing up’ again, which over the years it randomly seemed to do. Mostly this was just swallowing change, but sometimes it was known to slice and crush a few hands, & Chester knew of the ‘silly’ staff-club legend that it had electrocuted then crushed a young technician when it was situated at a prior university & so some said it was “possessed”.

At half-time through his telescope time, Chester walked over to the machine. He immediately saw it was face down on its side – obviously out of action. He noticed it was slightly ajar off the ground & not flat, as you’d normally expect.

He bent down to look what was underneath it, but before he did, he saw a big patch of scattered grey sherbet, & then he saw some writing poking out. It was some words in the sherbet. With ‘chicken scratch’ style writing inscribed in a similar way a child writes in the sand with a finger – it said:

I, Zac A. Brighton saw the

greenery on the moon first

Z.A.B

Chester’s cold heart sank. He knew what this likely meant – a dead faculty member. It his gut he knew who it was. Chester being Chester he pretended he had never seen Zac at all – he knew tomorrow the cleaner would find him anyway & then they’d do the necessary call to authorities, that way he could also avoid the guilty feeling overcoming him in waves.

Yes, Chester pretending he hadn’t seen anything untoward was immature, but he had a big speech interstate tomorrow at a conference & he’d never cancelled an appointment in his life. The only problem was if anyone noticed that his ‘surprised & horrified’ look when told of Zac’s death was fake. He convinced himself he’d practice tonight in front of the mirror in the bathroom while his wife was asleep.

Chester got up from his crouch, turned & left for the door, but not before erasing his boot-prints in the sherbet. Unbeknown to him, he left a partial boot-print with his size fourteens also with the shoe-makers logo on it – ‘Fleetfeet’.

After returning from conference, he’d not sat down for more than two minutes when an authoritative knock on the door sounded. He knew his laziness regarding Zac had caught up with him. He weighed the two options over in his mind & backed himself to double down “what does it matter – it’s not like I killed him! It’s just a white lie after all – so what if the cops don’t believe me – I erased all evidence of being near the machine anyway. Everything will be fine – I’ll stick to my guns”.

After seventy-two hours of questioning Chester & investigating the death scene the local Police realised the death was an accident. Chester was cautioned but luckily never charged with misleading Police, too which he then finally & tearfully confessed to.

Chester returned to his job at university – but things were never the same at Skylark for him, he had lost much esteem in the eyes of his colleagues for ignoring Zac when he was alive & ignoring him in death & then lying about it. He was even barred from entering the newly opened ‘Zac Anton Brighton Observatory’, which had a 17-foot lens, top of the line anti-blur correction, and was an entirely self-cleaning telescope.