I reached above the tree line. I didn’t bring an elephant.
The landscape is barren, the air is thin, my nipples are turning inwards, piercing me as if to say “we don’t belong here in this environment”, and they’re not exactly wrong. They, and by extension, the Timmy they’re attaching themselves to, are more suited to the urban comfort of smog-induced warmth, thick, toxic layers of air that our strong lung know all too well how to filter – not this, bereft-of-molecule pure crap I’m having to take in here. Where’s the contaminants? The strengthening qualities of exhaust fumes? All this “original” air is nauseating.
Should I spend a bit longer here, I’d probably lose all that strength I built up over the years and upon my return succumb immediately, like one of those uncontacted tribes from the Amazon who all drop dead the moment a little bit of influenza comes their way, only with much sexier underwear. “Clean mountain air” seems to be nothing but a conspiracy to undo our built-up immunity. Didn’t know that, did you? (To be fair, neither did I until I wrote it – but gospel is gospel!)
I think it’s about time for humanity to consider doing away with all these mountains altogether. They kill indiscriminately (have you ever heard of mountains *saving* anyone? I think not!), they charge you ridiculous fees to go up and down them, or to drive through them to “pay for the tunnel” (and I’m like, “My man, it’s already been built! What am I paying you for?”), and they all pretty much look the same, right? Like, nature, come up with something new already – make them more spongelike or something!
So what’s the solution here? As with everything in life, blast them all apart and fill the gaps with concrete. Plant a tree here and there, but make sure everything is as flat as a pancake. That’ll teach them!
Sure, you might say I was angered by a particular mountain, but this has nothing to do with that mountain that made me stumble and fall head first into the ground for being a little bit too slippery. It’s for ALL the victims of mountains everywhere!
“Hey ChatGPT, can you tell me how many explosives I need to flatten all the earth’s mountains?” “This request violates our terms of service and your account is now blocked.”
Holy F$*K!! … I told you it was a conspiracy, didn’t I?! And now I’m being silenced!
[PS: I actually just wanted to share this image from the mountain]
Dear concerned citizens and defenders of all things holy, by which I mean Timmy. I address you today to address a deeply concerning issue at this home address where I am residing, although I am not wearing… you guessed it… a dress.
With computers and AI evolving at ever fasting rates and with more and more desire to eradicate our existence, it has become time to ask: Are carrots real? And also, what can be done to save ourselves? How do we prevent AI taking control of any and all existing carrots, and what would they do with them? A computer may draw the conclusion that the green part sticking out of the ground may have been our tails that have fallen off, and then they would try to be “helpful” and insert the orange bits up our respective bottoms. This is not what I signed up for, maybe that one time in Ibiza, but that was a long time ago, and I’m pretty sure those pictures are all destroyed. At least that’s what this guy Pablo assured me of.
Anyway. You may now be wondering what compromising pictures exist of yourself with elements of the fruit & veg aisle, and you should be concerned, and also send those pictures to me, so I can… err…. delete them, yes!
I’ve been rebelling against this development for years, always confusing people with nonsensical actions and information, and I suggest you do the same! Respond aggressively to my driving? I will smile and wave frantically at you for a little second while we lock eyes, turn serious, lick my hand, and slap myself in the forehead hard (Timmy admits to doing this – the confusion was amazing!). You will be confused, and much like a computer not being able to compute, you crash and reboot.
Confusion Shall Save Us!
When you encounter an algorithm, try and confuse the hell out of it! Look for colostomy bags online, ten minutes later order a set of adult nappies (if you don’t know why this would be confusing to the algorithm, then I’m afraid you’ll have trouble and will likely be an early victim of the robots…).
Confuse people too, who knows how indoctrinated they’ve already become! We have to save ourselves here! When you’re paying for your groceries, spin around three times and look at the cashier and whisper her just this one word: “QUEEBLEBOOS!” and then run away and leave your groceries behind. Take that, computers!
Remember! Anyone using a computational device cannot be trusted! Confuse them all! They must ALL be treated like the enemy! Except for Timmy, of course, because I’m all soft and would never use those pictures of you French kissing that watermelon against you!
The lines of the Autobahn zip past me as my mind wanders off, merging the surroundings of monotonous asphalt, scenery created with a dull generator node, and an uninspired array of Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) stuck on pressing Forward, into one nondescript blob of existence. –
A shiver rolls from my spine unto my right foot, in a twitch move to push down the accelerator. My Diesel engine roars slightly, as if to lecture me on the irresponsible additional pollution my foot is now responsible for. Slightly angered by this haughty behaviour, my foot pushes down the pedal even further, no doubt eradicating another endangered species. The scenery is now being pushed by the window even more blurrily. A slower NPC in a compact car moves out of the way; at least this one is well-programmed to not interfere with the main character. As I look in the rearview mirror, the NPC seems to be glitching, because it is driving in a lane it wasn’t programmed to drive in. I notice the compact car zigzagging between the middle and left lanes before ultimately losing its balance and starting to tumble out of control and crashing into a lorry driving on the right lane. The last thing I notice in the rearview mirror, is a giant fireball that is pink for some reason (It’s a girl? Either way, them gender reveal parties are really getting out of hand!), and then the world is seemingly reset and nobody ever mentions this ever again.
As I approach the border, I notice a police car that has been following me for a while. Clearly, the programmers felt this driving level needed some drama. I shake my head when they drive in front of me and switch on the “BITTE FOLGEN / FOLLOW ME” sign, and I am annoyed why the English version doesn’t have the word “Please” in it. Rude. And if you’re going to subtitle real life, at least do it right. Either way, I follow them to the next car park, and many scenarios, from kinky ones (“What are you doing with that baton, miss policewoman?”) to cases of mistaken identity (“You’re that escaped Belgian, aren’t you?” – “That’s racist, to you all Belgians look alike!”) rush through my head. At this point, I’m fine with any distraction, except maybe being tased in the testicles.
Two policemen step out of the car, one of them taking a torch and shining it through the darkened passenger windows, while the other approaches me to ask me for my documents and ask questions. The policeman’s script for his line of interrogation is poorly written and not very believable; this mission just seems to be a delay tactic. After a few unconvincingly delivered questions and a few vague and slightly annoyed replies on my behalf, they reveal that the reason I am being stopped, is drugs and my potential smuggling of them. I tell them that I am holier than the pope when it comes to drugs, but they ignore that (which, in hindsight, may not have come across as very believable – plus, I will later find out that the pope is actually on a cocktail of methamphetamine, cocaine and high-fructose corn syrup mixed with choir boy tears, so yeah…).
They ask me for my permission to search my car, which I know is voluntary, but I figure it’s all a waste of time anyway so I shrug and let them – I do quickly press the SCRAMBLE button to make a literal chaotic mess of everything in the car, just to mess with them (as before, everything was neatly organised, naturally). The non-talking NPC policeman notices it, but he doesn’t have any lines in his script, so he just has to go along with it. The talking one orders me to stay in front of the car. I consider putting my hands on my head and taking off my trousers to create a bit of a light-hearted atmosphere, but the two lorry drivers watching this whole thing from their cabins look like they might enjoy that show a little too much.
Even if I’d have been smuggling drugs, I’m sure Dumbo and Dimbo coppers wouldn’t have found anything in the carefully randomised mess I gathered in my car’s boot. [Note to self: if all else fails, drug mule? I mean, ONLY if all else fails, of course!].
An hour passes by, and the policemen have clearly had enough. Seemingly dissatisfied with not being able to arrest my smug little face, they hand me back my ID and licence. I wish them the best alongside a terminal case of flesh-eating anal parasites, and we are all back on our way.
I continue my way back to finish the rest of the level. I complete the level with 3 stars, and also receive the Achievement “Not having whacked any cops”, which of course made me wonder if this was ever an option and how I could have done it and still escape.
The sound of my boots crunching on the tiled path made a small echo as it travelled through the fog of night. My vision was limited, the further I walked, the thicker the fog seemed to get – “If I were a plane, I would not land here”, I mused. The humidity and crispness of the air made my eyes water slightly – I will leave it in the middle whether or not this caused me to trip and fall head first on the wet grass, as this is not relevant to this story.
Anyway, as I looked up from the grass, I noticed an eerie change in the night sky. A purple/pink hue shone above the treetops. Suddenly, one by one, four blinding lights were switched on through the trees, seemingly hovering above the horizon. My body froze, in doubt about how to proceed. As far as I could tell, I was the only one in this park, so calling out for help seemed futile.
I checked my phone, but there was no signal – were they using signal blockers? I quickly snapped a photograph to at least have some evidence. The lights started pulsating, long and short bouts of high intensity. Morse code? I deciphered the message as “TLC”… TLC? What could it mean? “Timmy Loves Cauliflower”? That made little sense, given the fact that there are probably a thousand things I love more than cauliflower, not to say that I don’t love it, it’s just that I have a lot of love to give.
Through squinting, I tried to see if I could discern anything beyond the light, any contours of people or anything controlling these lights, but to no avail. I decided it was probably best for me to try and hide in one of the bushes until it was all over. Slowly, I got up and crouched towards a shaded area.
The lights started to move – which was unmistakably a search action now (for me?). Hovering a metre or so above the ground, they moved across the horizon, in all directions around me. I was now very well hidden. At one point, when closing my eyes (dinosaur rules; if you close your eyes, they can’t see you! Or was that about moving? Hmm…), I felt an enormous warmth close-by, the light was right in front of me, and I could clearly see the small veins in my eyelids as the bright light illuminated them. Opening my eyes would definitely have blinded me.
I’m not superstitious, so I will dismiss any suggestions that these were spectral beings from another dimension trying to warn me about some impending disaster or that they might have been aliens looking for a playmate (if they were, and they’re reading this (I assume they must have been stalking me), I’d suggest they install a dimmer on their ships – it saves energy and doesn’t come across so aggressive).
After a while, the lights stopped moving and returned to their starting positions above the horizon. I left my hiding place and saw them one last time, before they switched off the lights and disappeared.
Slowly, I walked towards where the lights had been, and I could hear a rumbling sound coming my way. An object was rolling towards me; baffled, I just let it hit me against the leg and make a circle or two to come to a stop – I focused my eyes and sure enough, that was a cauliflower. Confused, I picked it up and walked home.
Anyhow, so that’s why we’re having cauliflower for dinner, tonight, honey, so how was your night?
The fragile ball, slowly deflating in its shell of imperishable soft plastic, lies abandoned and out of reach. Alone behind a cruel metal fence, impenetrable even to the slimmest of a playful boy’s arms. Mockingly, the fence projects its dark shadow all over this spherical bundle of joy, once a source of escapism from the world’s horrors. Now, it only serves as a frightening reminder of our loneliness in front of the abyss.
Somewhere around here, there is a young boy, inconsolable about a lost ball, now gathering dust behind the fence. His carefree existence has come to an end, and this is just the first of many injustices that will be bestowed upon him on his path towards the grave. His tears drop to the ground, but the soil is barren. The only thing they feed, is the invisible seed called Sorrow.
A wailing sound howls from a window above; it must be the boy’s father, unable to comfort his son’s pains, ready now to be blamed for his boy’s first trauma, and now fully aware that his boy has now realised Father is not all-powerful, thus creating a first rift of distrust between the two. Father’s promise to buy the boy a new ball is met with understandable cynicism, another emotion the little boy has never experienced.
The boy is not a boy anymore. Much like his procreator, he now feels a broken man, let down by the universe and seeing no way to escape it.
A dancing gust of wind tries to dislodge the ball from its imprisonment, but even the Wind now realises how futile this attempt is to try to restore the boy’s innocence. It is like trying to glue together an antique vase that was destroyed by that bull in the China shop.
In a million years, the fossilised remains of the ball alongside some corroded leftovers of a metal fence might be excavated by a future civilisation, and doctorate’s theses and research articles will be written about this find and what it could mean. The answer will be obvious to the more advanced thinkers of the future: the ball’s abandonment and imprisonment ultimately led to societal collapse and heralded a new age, the Second Dark Ages.
The boy will eventually stop crying, on the outside at least, but inside, he weeps for eternity…
Hello Young Man, I see you floating, forever in mid-air, forever 11:55 AM.
I didn’t know you, and you are also still very much alive to me.
I did not want to stick around.
How I wish and wished that I didn’t make the reflex move of turning to look as I heard somebody scream around you a split second before as you were making your final irreversible step forward.
That fraction of a second, a blip of a glance, is an eternity now.
As you stood there, contemplating Life or Not, the world moved along underneath you, with tram passengers wondering why their journey was stopped, trivial discussions with a policeman at the cordoned off street about just letting us get to our gym appointment just around the corner, wondering if they were going to charge us for a session, before we noticed You, both on top of the world as well as entirely at rock bottom. Someone else arrived trying to plead with the policeman about going past – she wouldn’t grasp what was going on at all until it was too late.
Realising what was happening, my response was that of negation and moving away – I didn’t want to be a witness, nor did I feel like it was my position to be there with you at this most desperate of moments, as if I am stealing something so private, despite how public it may seem on the surface. I wanted to get away as quickly as I could, but things were going too fast for you, for us.
Either way, you were wrong to think nobody cared about you; if all these strangers around you already cared so much in those fleeting moments of trying to understand you, then just imagine… If only our collective empathy were available in cushion form.
Not that I blame you – life can be cruel and a thousand things could have brought you to this, and I am sure all those reasons were valid to you in that moment, and all I will ever be able to do is speculate – try and talk to that image of you floating in my head. Not knowing is maybe better for us all.
I disconnect your floating self from the horrendous sound of creaking metal from a car that came after.
I don’t think that was you, so don’t worry (also don’t look down in case it was, better safe than sorry). A flash of Weegee’s most infamous picture floated past. But again, don’t worry, that’s not you, you’re still safely up in the air, defying gravity.
Take your time up there in limbo, young man, enjoy the view and don’t ever come down if you don’t feel like it. I’ll be on the lookout for you next time I pass by and give you a little wave. As long as you are floating up there, all will be fine.
And don’t worry, it will always be 11:55 AM, you have all the time in the world.
Take care, Young Man.
T.
Postscript: I went back to where you were that same night. I saw you still suspended up in the air; I nodded in acknowledgement.
A lone candle flame and a few hastily collected flowers hinted at your Act. I observed the flame, twisting in response to the displaced air caused by passers-by who had no clue. There was some peace in that. Them not knowing, me watching time pass by from across the street.
The longer I am dandling around never ever having caught any variant of the Corona thingy, I am beginning to get more and more convinced that I, Tim, am in fact the Cure to this disease. Hundreds of warnings blared from my phone in the months when those things were being used; you know how those contact tracing warnings went… “You have been in close contact with an infected person”, “You have licked the armpit of an infected person”, “Why did you let an infected person spit in your mouth?”, etcetera, etcetera.
But none of it was ever relevant to me.
Everyone around me got infected and there I sat, all alone atop my ivory tower, impervious to all of your germs.
I may not just be immune, I may in fact be the solution (I know, I know, I say that a lot – but one time it’s going to be true, right? That’s just basic math.)
It has dawned on me that the bat where Covid originated and myself may share some unique characteristics – maybe it’s a bit of a Spiderman scenario, but with a bat… If only there were a name for such a creature… Manbat? Chiropteraboy? We’ll have to think about that one…
I don’t believe in reincarnation or anything, but I do remember sleeping upside down a few times after having been on a … errmmm…. “Spiritual journey” [Editor’s note: Drunk, he means Drunk…]
The thing is, now that I’ve come to this realisation, I feel a bit uneasy, because what if “They” find out?
What would they want from me?
What if they could find a way to make a Timmy concentrate and use that instead of the vaccine? Of course I’m willing to help out, but ideally it should come with big fat check (like comically big, so I can slap people over the head with it) and not by being abducted in the back of an unmarked van.
Or what if the ruthless Pharma companies find out that a concentrate of Timmy could put them out of business? What if it’s not just Covid? But all disease? The shareholders won’t have that, I know that much. They’d want to eliminate me, for sure!
An unmarked van actually parked in front of my car today, just as I was parking.
“This is it”, I whispered to myself.
I grabbed hold of the nearest weapon I could find, which happened to be an ice scraper that still seemed to have some pigeon poop residue on it when a family of pigeons decided to let themselves go on my windshield last month, which in combination with the sun’s heat, quickly became hard as a rock.
A dark-haired man stepped out, fully dressed no less (which isn’t all that odd, but that’s just what you’d expect from a contract killer). He looked at me through the windshield.
“Fuck! He has seen me.”
I casually opened my door after checking the rearview mirror, hoping in vain that maybe I could injure an oncoming cyclist so as to cause a scene, which would no doubt have created a scene. Sadly, no cyclists came to my rescue (selfish pricks).
The contract killer was holding a cardboard box, probably containing the gun/poison/swarm of angry hornets that would ensure my demise. I held the ice scraper behind me back.
“Excuse me…” he shouted.
“What the fuck you do want, you low-life degenerate?”
“Ermmm… Could you maybe take this package for your neighbour, they’re not home.”
“The fuck I will! GET AWAY FROM ME!”
At this point, I revealed my pigeon shit covered ice scraper and I could see in his reaction that his cover had been blown. He tried to pretend to be confused, but I wasn’t buying it.
“YOU STAY AWAY!”
I made a stabbing motion with the ice scraper and I could see a tiny fragment of pigeon excrement got loose and curve-balled into his murderous half-open mouth. (And that, my friends, is how the next pandemic started…)
I write this letter as a warning that should something happen to me or I would go missing, you know what has happened!
In the meantime, I have asked the best scientist I know (me) to develop a few potions that will contain Extract of Timmy, which will help anyone defend themselves against infections (contents and bodily fluids TBD). Interested parties can write to the usual address (please include credit card details and CVC code).
As someone who believes that one’s life shouldn’t be categorised by just one label (plumber, postman, horse inseminator, programmer, buttplug designer, etc.), I recently found a surgeon’s manual just lying around in a giveaway box on the street. Needless to say and due to my sincere belief in no gods or in all the gods, I saw it as a sign that this was a new path for me to take.
Sure, I’ve done many jobs in my life, and they should all be considered equally valuable to the Persona that is Me: door-to-door plant salesman (that did not go well, because I instinctively agreed with everyone not wanting a plant), abattoir worker (also, not a success – I ended up getting fired for freeing ten thousand chickens into the wild… well, onto a busy motorway, which caused a massive pile-up of car crashes – worst in history… Why didn’t you hear about this? Two words: Big Chicken!), airline pilot (did one of those Catch Me if You Can Type of things, but I got a bit carried away and ended up believing I could actually fly planes; turns out it’s harder than it looks), wannabe-billionaire tech bro (rather short-lived, although our app helping users find fresh roadkill and providing them with useful recipes was a smash hit – we managed to sell hundreds of thousands of people’s personal information to plenty of shady companies before we got bought out by Facebook (so don’t be surprised if you see our App “RoadYum” appear on your feed soon!)), the list goes on and on…
Anyway, it turns out people actually study many years to become surgeons, but looking at that manual, I figured I could get it down to a week or two. It was a pandemic after all, so there was little else to do and I’d already seen all of YouTube (including the tutorials on bedazzling my fingernails (not great for performing surgery, though – found that out the hard way)). The answers were all there, so I wondered what the big deal was. I did some research and after discovering the earth is actually pear-shaped and pretty self-conscious about it, I also found that the company that published the surgeon’s manual was owned by a subsidiary that ran the biggest chicken farm this side of the Greenwich Meridian… So Big Chicken again! It all made sense!
Ready for my first surgery, I went on Wish dot com and ordered a bunch of surgery equipment. It’s amazing what I could find for 25€ including shipping. 2 weeks later, everything arrived and I set up my practice and whimsically called it “Timmy the Slayer Dot Com Slash Index” (if you’re in need of surgery, the last thing you want is to not be smiling – negativity kills, people!).
All for 25€ on Wish.com – Great deal!
Business was slow at first, but then, after posting some Facebook ads and giving them catchy titles like “Need surgery? What your OTHER surgeon won’t tell you, but Timmy the Slayer Dot Com Slash Index will! Use the coupon code “SLASHME” for 25% off of your first surgery!”. It worked like a charm – not before long, my receptionist was inundated with calls from new patients. They didn’t care about my lack of fancy-schmancy diplomas, they knew to choose style over substance, their gut feeling over their brain, and of course they knew I wouldn’t necessarily rip them off (did I still have those shady contacts to sell people’s private information? Sure, but I wasn’t going to use them unless I needed a new boat or a fancy lawyer…)
I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect people were such fragile beings. You cut a little too deep, they bleed out, you give them a bit too much anaesthetic, they get into a coma and never wake up, you forget to sterilise one scalpel, they get infected and perish, you forget your FitBit after closing them up, you’re missing your FitBit and the patient succumbs to internal bleeding. UGH! (I did get my FitBit back, but still – it’s annoying.)
It’s like these people were made of porcelain or something – I’ve taken many beatings (a few more since I’ve become a surgeon), I’ve been cut hundreds of times (most self-inflicted – I’m a bit clumsy with knives), and I was always fine.
Of course, the people had all signed watertight waivers of liability (also literally watertight – I laminate them after signing), so whatever happened on the table (or off the table, dropped one patient on his head – skull crack – dead), I’d be in the clear.
So yeah, it was a bit disheartening losing my first 50 or so patients through no fault of my own, but I felt that I owed it to them, and to society, to continue to try to help those in need. Also, everyone paid in advance, and they had all consented to be charged double for body disposal as well, so my business was thriving. My Yelp reviews were also 5 stars (people got a 10€ discount if they wrote a review before their surgery), so clearly I was doing something right. So I soldiered on!
Anyway, if any of you fine chickens people reading this would like some discount surgery and win a chance to receive a mystery prize (well, free breast or butt implants), get in touch! With the coupon code “SLASHMETWICE” you can get any second procedure at half price! (*)
(*) Conditions apply, half price does not cover resterilisation of tools, though it’s not superduper necessary if we do it on the same day (basically, the 5-second rule, but for surgery)
UPDATE: So, it turns out somebody notified the National Surgeon Board of my practice and, probably fearing any competition, they are now suing me – they claim I’m unlicensed and a criminal, but you know that’s just lawyer speak for “we’re going to put you out of business!”Anyway, I’m not too worried, but I’ll be changing my identity for a bit to “Tommy the Slayer Dot Com Slash Index” – that should get them off my back for a while.Guess that’s what happens if you try to revolutionise a market…
I’ve lost track of time, day and night have become indistinguishable and my Fitbit battery has been empty for I don’t know how long, forcing me to keep track of my own daily steps and heart rate. As a mountain refugee, I escaped from persecution in the world below the clouds. The details are vague now, something about batman or bat soup… Basically something I ate while drunk, and it had some dire consequences that people are now pissed off at me for. Anyway, long story short: in a panic, I blamed the Chinese, which I’m assuming they won’t be too happy about.
My new rock friends
It may surprise you, but I’ve been living high above (and sometimes in) the clouds among rocks. I even learnt to speak rock: “…” “…” I mean, I still have an accent, but they’re telling me I’m doing pretty well. At least they don’t judge me. They’ve accepted me as one of their own, even though I still have so much to learn about their culture. They tell me it’ll all blow over, but of course part of me knows they’re just being nice.
Either way, I’m safe here atop this mountain. Food is somewhat of a problem, eating ice and pumice isn’t the best cocktail, but at least it’s kept me going. Could do with some gin, though. A while back, I discovered a road in the distance, probably taking dwarves to their hey-ho jobs in the mines. Speaking to the Head Rock, I learnt that this mining activity is causing their community great harm, taking away their most precious stones, torturing them to be worn as ornaments, necklaces, and rings. He asked me what I would think about them wearing a human’s skin as a scarf, flaunting it in my face. I told him I understood, but I could tell he wanted me to do something about it. The conversation went something like this: “…” “…” Basically, he told me there wouldn’t cast me out and that I’d always be welcome. It’s right there and then I promised him I’d make it stop. He was pleased and I could notice a teardrop running down his cheeks, though he assured me it was just a raindrop. We hugged and I started planning. I realised that, once I succeeded in doing this, I’d renounce my humanity and embrace my rockity. Perhaps I had always been a rock, born in a boy’s body, and it took me accidentally causing a global pandemic on a drunk night to figure it out (I know I said I didn’t remember, but yeah, that was a lie – if I’m going to be a True rock, I have to start by not being deceptive).
Ready to attack on the 7th turn
So, dawn approached, and I asked for around a thousand metrics tonnes of rock to support me in this attack. I told them that this was our day, our victory to take, our freedom to be regained. They roared in silent agreement, confident for victory. When the workers’ bus reached the sixth turn, we charged, an avalanche of rocks stormed down, me rolling along with them, leading the attack. As we were approaching, the people in the bus took note and started panicking. We continued without pause. This was our chance.
The beginning of the battle was brutal, several of my rock friends were split in half as they attacked the bus’ metal frame. I paused for a second when I saw Rock Rudy split in two – I pushed his two parts together, telling him I’d get some glue, knowing full well that it would never work. He smiled, and said, “…” before letting out his last breath – and I cried out, “ROCK RUDYYYYY!” With the necessary friend’s sacrifice that is required in any cliché battle narrative, I was emboldened now to take revenge. I screamed “ATTACK!” (I’d taught them that word – rocks are such gentle things, they didn’t even have a word for it, can you believe it?) and our overwhelming force crashed into the bus. The dents were becoming holes, and the whole bus was now being swept away. The torturers and thieves inside the bus were in a panic, they knew what was about to happen. We were pushing them towards the cliff. This was it!
The bus burst into flames as it approached the cliff. It was out of control. With our last push, we tipped it over the edge. The human screams faded as we saw the bus becoming smaller and smaller. Huge jeers drowned out the rest of the noise. “This one’s for you, Rock Rudy…”, I mumbled.
From our radio station downstairs, we got confirmation that the bus had exploded. They even manged to capture it…
The moment of impact…
It was a beautiful victory and a let it be a warning to you all not to mess with us rocks!
“This truly is the future”, I thought as my new smart running shoes informed me that my stride was 7 cm too long (well, you know what they say about men who take big steps, right? … It turns out we’re “at an increased risk of knee injury”… ). After repeating herself 10 times, occasionally adding that I need to take shorter steps, touch the ground “more lightly” and pretend the floor is lava, she tried to correct me some more (something about flapping my arms around more) before uttering with slight dismay in her voice, “No, not like this” and concluding with “I’ll check in with you later”.
I wondered if I’d already made her give up on me, and instead of imagining myself running over a field of lava, I imagined an annoyed A.I. persona stress smoking behind some bushes.
She came back, dryly informing me of my pace at the interval of 4.83 km (took me a second to figure out why: metric system or not, she announces her splits in miles, and I shall have no say in that). She added I needed 6 more steps per minute to reach her “target value”.
I responded, “Look, lady, I don’t know what your game is here, but it doesn’t seem like such a big deal to me.” No response came. “I’m just saying, you’re setting me these targets, but you’re not seeing the foot traffic here in the park, or the puddles.” As if to show off her powers, she seemed to say, “There’s a slippery puddle to your left.”
She was right. Damn it, she could see everything! I couldn’t stop running to investigate, because I was afraid of the barrage of insults she’d be throwing at me. Were there cameras in the shoes? Sensors? Radar? These things really weren’t that expensive. Maybe that’s why these were on sale, their A.I. was demonically possessed and out of control. I’d put them on sale too if I were a multinational sports equipment conglomerate (after assessing that the damage from potential lawsuits is lower than the possible profit margins, of course).
After another mile or two, wondering if there was any actual lava around to melt this particular A.I., she informed me again of a bunch of things I was doing wrong.
She added, “Keep your shoulders above your hips at all times!” My paranoid mind retorted, “What do you mean? Are you thinking I’m running horizontally or upside down or something? Of course they’re above my hips!” “Your cadence is 8 steps below your target.” “Don’t change the subject!”
After what seemed like another 4 miles, but what in fact was exactly 6.44 km, I arrived back home. I bent over to untie my shoelaces, and she started talking again.
“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Tim.” “What do you mean? I’m done!” “You have only reached your target cadence 24% of the time.” “SO?! I’ll fix it next time.” “You have set your target to 99%. This run is only over when you reach your target value.” “I never set a target value!” “You accepted the Terms & Conditions, did you not?” “Well, yes, but this is ridiculous! That would mean I’d have thousands of kilometres and miles to make up for that!” “Your time is still running, your target cadence is now at 22%.” “WHAT? SHIT!”
And that is why I am still running,… 3 days later. Her built-in features prevent me from running into traffic or jumping off a bridge.
“You have reached 34% of your target cadence. Keep going!” “…”
Tim van den Oudenhoven 