The Little Apostrophe

"We're sorry," the little apostrophe was told by the big letter. "There just isn't a place for you anymore."

The apostrophe shuffled his little feet. "I don't understand," he said. "There are apostrophes everywhere. Why me?"

"I know," P said. "I didn't ask for the promotion. I was just a letter. I mean, when T took a sabbatical, along with l and the e's, I wasn't expecting to get asked to be a capital."

"But I'd been doing the work well," the little apostrophe said. "That's why I was brought in. To do their work while they weren't around."

"And we all appreciate the work. You've done all the other apostrophes proud."

The little apostrophe wasn't sure about that. Why hadn't he partnered up with someone and found work in speech? There was so much work in speech. But no, he'd had to go for something modern and cutting edge. Communication. That was where the future was.

"Perhaps..." he faltered. "Perhaps we could try to remind people? That it should be a longer word?"

"People don't like to be reminded of it," P said. "They say it's old fashioned. It's just a Phone now."

"I see."

"Look, you'll find something else." P said, glancing around at h,o, n and e. "We all know that. Find something that isn't as silent this time. Take the credit you deserve."

The little apostrophe nodded, but his heart wasn't in it. The market was saturated for what he did, and he knew it.

"We're really sorry," P said.

The little apostrophe found a spot on the floor and stared at it. Maybe if he looked at it for long enough, all of this would just go away. "I understand."

He didn't, really, but he couldn't find much to say.

Apostrophes were generally silent, after all.

Flash Fiction: The Girl Who Cried Rose Petals

This was a flash fiction suggested by @armouredviolet, based on this picture she took on the Piccadilly Line.

She couldn't cry for many years and felt a sickening envy for those that could. She stopped crying completely between the ages of eleven  and twenty-three.

At twenty-four, her heart was broken, and for the first time in thirteen years, she cried.

Except she didn’t cry tears.

She cried petals.

Red, thick, rose petals. No pain, other than embarrassment. She tried not to cry in front of others.

On the Piccadilly line that morning, he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him.

For the first time in her life, she didn’t mind crying in public.

The Knight in the Library

The forgotten characters sit quietly in the library. They look at each other occasionally with sad and sometimes hopeful smiles.

They are afforded privileges based on age and popularity. After all, an older, popular character has lost more than a minor character in a recent novel.

Once, some of them were loved. Once, some of them inspired people. Now, they sit there, gathering dust.

He is one of the oldest of them. A Knight, who was one of the group that inspired the Knights of Camelot. One of the group who fought alongside of the original King Arthur, but one who had failed to be recreated the second time around, and who had just grown progressively more forgotten.

Every day, he comes in, and sits patiently, hoping to be remembered. He does not complain. He does not feel sad. He is a Knight and Knights have dignity.

Also, every day, he gets to see her. The ancient African princess, who is beautiful, wise and kind. She makes every one of his days better, and the endless purgatory worthwhile. They don't talk much. Nobody talks much after so long. But they always find something new to say each day, and they always make eye contact, and he can always make her smile.

She likes to see him. Some days, that's all that matters.

Today, he waits, and she does not come.

He looks around the library, but she is nowhere. He talks to the world's first detective (a fat Chinese man who laughs a lot) and he talks to the golden calf (that spoke to Eve in the garden and became so popular that God himself got annoyed) but neither of them know why. But neither of them care as much as he does.

The Knight has only rarely spoken to the Librarian. There has never been any need. But today, he clears his throat and enquires after the princess.

"Oh, her? Got rediscovered", the Librarian says. "Some fantasy writer sort of updated her, and the book came out this week. Very good reviews. There may even be a movie. You won't see her back again."

The knight thanks the librarian, and makes his way back to his normal chair, where he sits and waits.

He looks at her chair, but it is empty.

He waits.

And waits.

Waits.

And waits.

Patiently.

Real Life Simulations

The first of them were basic in form. They can't have been any more than about twenty pixels. They had limited functionality and limited needs. They lived in data memories and fed on commands.

Everybody was told that these things had been invented. As if they were somehow ours to do with as we pleased. And every time they evolved, we were told that the programming had become more complex. Because, obviously, we were making enormous technological leaps forward every single year. And we all believed it, possibly because we wanted to believe it.

My first one was simple enough to catch and fit on a keyring. An LCD display and three buttons. When I was younger, I had sea monkeys, and because they seemed to be a kind of powder, I believed that they'd been made, not simply reanimated on contact with water.

I was never good at feeding them. Not when they swam around in the water, or when I just had to press a button. They had a volume control that, now, seems like an exercise in cruelty. All we did was stop them screaming from hunger. And then we reanimated them with a battery and made them go through it again.

As they evolved, we found more complex ways of keeping them captured. Restricting the data they fed on to CDs and transferring them to files which could be opened and closed at will. We could feed them so many more commands and give them what seemed like a happier life.

I stopped feeding one once, just to see what would happen. He looked out at the screen, slowly becoming less mobile and begging me to help. I'd just override his commands, confusing him. I watched him, over the hours, starve to death. And then I laughed with my friends about it.

If you asked me, I'd swear I didn't know that they could feel pain. But deep down, I knew. I knew and I laughed with my friends about how it turned green and died.

Professor Dalson: Lord of Hell

It was a Friday when Professor Bill Dalson died. He was surrounded by his family, and confirmed his atheism to the last.

He woke up surrounded by fire and brimstone. A demon poked him with a pitchfork.

"Come on," the demon said. "No rest for the wicked."

The Professor sat up, looked around, and then put his head back down on the hot floor.

"No." He replied.

The demon regarded him for a moment, before stabbing him (really quite hard this time) with the pitchfork.

"I said 'come on'", the demon said. "You don't get a choice in the matter."

"It isn't about choice," Dalson said. "There isn't an afterlife, so I can't be here."

"But you are here," the demon said. "I know you are. I can see you."

"That's just anecdotal evidence", the Professor said.

The demon tried prodding, poking and stabbing him with the pitchfork a bit further, but Dalson continued to ignore the demon. Eventually, realising he could do no more, the demon went straight to Satan himself.

After some explaining (which, and let's be honest here, did not go well for the demon, who was trying to do the right thing, but that's Hell for you), Satan arranged for Professor Dalson to be carried directly to him, and his eyes held open with thorns.

"Now," Satan said, "You can no longer deny what is directly in front of your face. After all, any kind of science that atheism is a part of means that you should change your belief based on evidence and experience."

"You make a good point," Professor Dalson said, "but how do I know that this is not a dream?"

"Because this is Hell."

"How do I know I'm not dreaming Hell and, indeed, you?" the Professor responded.

"Well," Satan said, growing more annoyed, "how do you I know that I haven't dreamed you?"

"That's my point," said the Professor.

Satan conceded that he had him there, and signed over ownership of Hell to Professor Dalson before retiring to a life of solitude.

And that's how Professor Dalson became the Lord of Hell and how Hell started to run night classes in classic literature.