Versemaker Technic & co.

“Fun, fun, fun, fun!”, Amatt thought, as piles of interlocking bricks, the kind he played with as a child, stacking one on top of the other, lay in his office in neatly organized bunches, with labels laying near them, as sheepdogs to a herd. His calling was playable-brick set designer, but his job was toy-maker, since he observed children at play, in focus groups, using his and his coworkers' creations to achieve that fleeting feeling of fun, hoping that this time, the toy plays well.

While the toy bricks were colorful, his heart was sometimes nearly black as coal. The company he worked in veered away from its heritage as an adult collectible maker, creating glorious constructions, and packaging them in parts for the connoisseur to enjoy and assemble, to become a simple toy-maker for children.

He had experiences of fans who would create magnificent creations of their own, not as polished as the official sets, but awe-inspiring and inspiring in the common sense. They would cry when they recognized him, as they were fans of the brand and the designers, enjoying discussions about anything from brick construction methods to the molding process of the parts.

Last year, at Brick Corp's convention, he got assaulted by an adolescent for the company cutting his favorite character. Not to mention getting bricks tossed at him by boys and girls alike.

“In fact, fuck fun!” Amatt concluded, as his colleagues left for Block Co. jobs and since he was the only veteran still having any faith in the employer. He took the leap and quit his job, putting himself in peril, but in that case luckily, not any family of his own to speak of.

What happened after is not part of the story I've heard, but I can make a guess and say that he got a job in another creative industry.

“Every letter on the typewritten page is lonely,” thought Artyom. They are separated from all the others by a permanent distance, never departing from their imaginary boxes. Artyom was lonely as well, as he lived on his father's allowance and had rarely gotten out of his box of an apartment.

Turning to the window, he was again amazed by the view to the walkway by the river, full of people with hardened souls and poor ideas. Leering, he thought about his novel, the story of people with small wages and exhausted hearts.

As he saw a girl so near to him, on the pavement a story beneath his apartment, he thought of the stories of artists greater than him, with their pure intentions and skilled work. He imagined that girl someday discovering that from her very own town, an astonishing writer emerged, writing the stories that sang to her heart and brain.

He felt ashamed because of this, and he decided to send back the corrected novel to the editor. His criticisms were too positive; that's not how they're supposed to be, Artyom felt, knowing he had something good in the pages laying on his desk. A feeling had risen that the editor was purposefully unhelpful. He received a letter from the distinguished person he was corresponding with, and it said the novel was marvelous and significant in few words, and that was enough to Artyom.

He went to mail the package that day and saw the girl again. She smiled at him, and he surprisedly waved back in an unusual fashion. She had discovered him through accident, and not through his writing.

“I spin my songs like a spider weaves its web,” she said to the interviewer, then continued: “I think of my audience as little bugs, searching for food and shelter, so that's what I give them, but in the end, my motivation can't be as pure as fans would like.” Eileen was considered eccentric, but her fanbase was large, and the concerts were nothing like a spider's trap, as she threw out bits of her heart in performances.

The material for the songs could only be uncovered from your wildest dreams, and a diverse audience connected with them. “In my mind, music is medicine,” Eileen said rehearsedly, “and I guess that makes me a pharmacist. What I would like to be is for there to be nobody who needs my songs,” and the editors found that a fitting end for the interview.

As she learned all about melodies and rhymes and her muses found new jobs as data analysts and thieves, the singer-songwriter would heal the world when she sang. A transformation of songwriting into science preceded the music becoming more populistic, but always better than before. Clearly, there were numerous TV appearances:

“Some say, I sold out. I don't allow that. I might say, the better words would be that I gave out, given that those songs are set free, everybody can produce something similar. You'd be a joker not to jot down what I've done, but you be the judge of that, as I give from my new album.”

That night she poured her melodic soul out on the show, and for a single cycle in Earth's rotation around its axis and the Sun, the peddlers of faux medicine would stay silent.

Jan had come to the river to enjoy nature, but his mind was laden with thoughts. What will come of him, the world, this river? He thought about the river's flow, how it perpetually drives water downstream, how it never changes in its essence.

Jan was not a quiet man, but his words hadn't caused much commotion, which quizzed him.

“The river is a poor man's metaphor for the mind,” he noted, as he knew people's minds were not a constant flow but a ridiculous reaction of semi-intelligent neurons. He flung some pebbles to see if he could make them skip. He wondered why he was still alone, and he chucked a rock to the other bank.

“Hello,” a girl miraculously appearing behind him said. “This is a riveting river. Why are you angry?” she spoke, and she slipped and fell into a conversation. He talked about his thoughts, and she sang her stories, and they both felt alone by the river. The river washed away their fledgling feelings, but when they left, they felt free.

Jason and Eileen became a couple in love, disrupting their lives, and of those around them, in a good way. They would have a kiss and take a walk every night. As they chatted and as they bonded, the walks became lovelier and longer, silencing all negative thoughts in their minds.

As they got longer, walking sometimes turned into sitting, and sitting became jointly staring at the night sky. Jason began learning about the constellations and planets, and the nature of the sphere encasing their bodies. Soon, Jason would start telling Eileen about the stars, enchanting them both and enforcing their love.

When she was ill or didn't feel like walking, he would raise the blinds and name the patterns of the sky. Their relationship grew, and so did Jason's infatuation with astronomy.

They grew apart, as couples do, but at that point, Jason didn't desire the embrace of a woman as much, for a much stronger love had grown in him.

It was a love of science, but a passion for the stars. He became an astronomer and traveled to the southern hemisphere to see all of the stars there are, and he would look through telescopes to see into the universe's infinite expanse. He had lost affection, but in a moment in time, a star became solely because of him, and it named itself Eileen.

Mark was looking at the photograph, the record of a time when he and his then best friends spent most of their time together.

They were all sitting on the railing of a bridge, looking at the camera. Ethan was the only one with his teeth not showing, sporting a smirk instead of a smile. Ethan and Mark were the closest of friends, always sacrificing their time to spend it together.

Now that they were old, he and Ethan would only chat sporadically, online, and never fully connected.

Mark closed his eyes and entered the realm of the reproduction, remembering all the times he would laugh and Ethan would smile when they talked about girls. His vision was truly filled with both of their young visages, walking and chatting. He cried and smiled at the same time.

The train was serendipitiously late that day, as the two young attractive people talked and connected excellently. She owned a farm, and he was pursuing a role in academia, studying and preparing for his doctorate.

“You think we can find a pair of seats for the two of us?” She asked in a voice covered with honey and sweet stuff. The Sun shined through the young man and imbued him with light. “Standing's free,” he said and smiled. The red roses of a nearby green patch leaked their color onto the girl's cheeks, slightly surprised and bashful.

A whole train's worth of people relinquished their seats as the locomotive brought its carriages to full-stop. The conductor spun the train in circles to let the youngsters have their time, and the clocks all broke down. She elucidated generations worth of knowledge into his mind, and he taught her everything he knew in the beginning minutes of the trip, for the ride was timeless.

Before his stop, which came too soon, she kissed him with a promise. They would spend their lives together in a symphony of love.

Gnome computer technology is far ahead of our own, but where they shine is mass surveillance and cyber-control of our devices. The only clue of their activities is the name of the Gnome desktop environment, the whole enterprise being a nefarious plot to confuse clueless humans into helpless home computer setups. Let's take a look at one of their more acceptable activities:

“Now we got her,” the gnome said. They had multiple incriminatory files on Selene, but they were of the kind that only humans could report to the authorities. This time, an anonymous online tip would do it. The gnomes, of course, don't manually surveil much, but this time every dubious hint would be enough to seal the case.

Selene was involved in drug-dealing, and cyber-crime, the kind the gnomes would be doing if they accepted or cared about the likes of human laws. “There's gnome coming back now, Selene,” Oldar thought, and, indeed, there wasn't.

They found patterns in her online activity that coincided with high-profile hackings, which might not seem like enough. She was, however, pegged as a cyber-criminal in the three-letter agency books, and even human sentiment analysis could confirm that those 'joking' posts were indeed more sincere than she meant them to appear. Selene couldn't help but brag to her followers about the hacks, even if they could never understand her.

Oldar was upset about the manual work needed to catch the criminal. In his youth, he designed the basis for modern artificial neural networks. He got old, however, and was now doing forensic work as a hobby. “Another case for the data-hoard,” thought Oldar, and wondered when, and if, computers could think as gnomes could.

Babcock was working in his laboratory, piping a bluish gaseous substance across its glassy tubes.

“Finally, I found it! Terrium, the substance that could roll the world back to when it was whole, when the table of periodic elements meant something, when science meant something!” It was just the start of the journey, but Babcock couldn't think about anything else but the discovery. While he was happy about it, many have come to accept the new normal and were not ready for it to change. Some found jobs as spellcasters, some as alchemists.

It took years for Babcock to publish the formula, the journals rejecting him, not wanting to bear the risk of failure, or disapproval of the public. When it was finally published, he took the brunt of the public's anger, speaking publicly about it and trying to promote it, but Terrium was hardly accepted.

It came slowly, but it got approved for public use. It got relegated to medicinal uses only, to treat the mental health problems that the Fall caused. Babcock himself became a Terrium addict, each night transporting himself to the world of old with copious doses. After his death, he got a posthumous award, and massive amounts of Terrium were released into the Earth's atmosphere, changing the world once and for all.

“Under the waterfall, I sit,” said Emark, “Where we fought, and I ate the dust... Try as I must, to forget, the pain will not wane.”

The waterfall murmured, and the songbirds let out their indistinct poems of worlds unknown to us. “But I forgive you, my friend, for the girl we were fighting over had no love for either of us, and even children will laugh at us should we tell them the tale, so why fret?”

As the water pursued its path, so did Emark continue: “But let us be merry, and be to each other even better friends, and learn from our mistakes to forge a companionship that will keep us safe in times of misfortune, and bring us victory in times of adventure. So it shall be, and let us drink to that!”

Emark raised his waterskin, confirmed he was alone under the waterfall, and squelched a laugh before he quenched his throat. Then he missed his imaginary friend.