With countless names, how do I address thee?

You respond to all aliases, whatever they may be.

All I ask, after thanking you for the day:

Let rationality and brotherhood prevail, I pray.

There are the strong and the mighty who can

Decimate others in a shocking, short span

To these, I ask, that you bless with being aware

That aggression leaves nothing to spare.

To those who are weak, and feel repressed at lot

Please provide strength to endure the onslaught

But also to be wise against retaliation of fear

So a semblance of the elusive peace can appear.

For on this tiny speck of a planet in the void

There's much to preserve; though lot has been destroyed

And from your vantage point in the heavens above

All that matters is, understanding and love.

You aren't for the Heavens yet

But no longer for the Earth either.

The goal of your existence unmet;

Your experiences, no more wiser.

But don't look back on the barren

Discarded, decaying garden of hope.

The branches of love now fallen

And romances on a slippery slope.

For when it's the day of Death

We move on to worlds apart.

So, don't waste another breath

And no longer take things to heart.

This is an extract from a series of short stories which I hope to blend into a full-length novel (or at least a novella).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

She couldn’t remember how she got there.

So, I am sitting in a bubble where everything’s blurry around me, I don’t have any idea why or how, and there’s a plate of butter chicken and rice in front of me, thought Sally and then pinched herself to ensure she was awake. It made her wince and that was scary. She looked around at the blurred phenomenon again. There were muted conversations coming from all directions, in English, mostly.

Sally rubbed her eyes, blinked a few times and then peered around again. Was she in a-?

OMG! I am at an intersection. An actual, stable intersection!

The edges of the sphere were blurred, as if she were sitting inside a glass marble with a frosted surface.

So, this is how an intersection feels. I wish I could tell dad!

***

“Dad,” Sally called out to the man hunched over his desk with a lamp partially illuminating his head while the rest of the spread, and the spill, illuminating his disorderly paperwork, “Did you work through the night again?”

“Huh?” her father looked up at her and then flopped back down.

Sally walked behind him and ruffled his almost grey, curly hair. “It’s 8:44 a. m.” she announced.

“What?” exclaimed her father and stood up. “I must be in the lab by 9:30… at least!”

“Good luck with that.” Sally teased him even as he rushed to the bathroom.

***

Sally sat awestruck in the intersection, admiring the spectacle, almost tempted to peep through the hazy boundary.

Would it still be stable if I stepped back and reentered?

She stood up and walked a few calculated steps behind. She was back in a cavernous hall teeming with food stalls, familiar noises, and people. One of those people landed a few metres away, his jet-pack, hissing lightly, no bigger than a rucksack. As the man gave her a quick smile, Sally looked at the ceiling which displayed a perfectly augmented day with a few white fluffy clouds and an occasional bird flying by. She then took a deep breath and stepped back into the intersection that was, thankfully, still in front of her, though barely visible.

The other world in the intersection didn’t appear to be hostile, and that was a relief. With so many accidents during the beta phase, there was a chance one could be killed instantly; by a toxic environment, or untamed inhabitants, or simply because the intersection snapped shut without notice.

It brought back memories of her dad, and his disappearance.

***

The transporter dropped them off at the lab, save a few minutes of walking. Sally struggled to keep up with her dad who strode ahead with an old-fashioned leather bag in tow.

After the biometric scanners were satisfied, a seemingly impenetrable wall disappeared and they paced to the meeting room where an eager group of scientists were busy chattering. On seeing Dr. Kross approaching, they began an applause worthy of the highest Scientific honour. Sally beamed at the standing ovation given to her father.

“Please be seated… friends.” Dr Kross grinned, “All of you deserve the applause too, perhaps more than I do. Let’s not forget the power of a team. We are so much more together than just the sum of all!”

“So, when do we test it?” exclaimed someone from the back of the room.

Once the laughter had simmered down, Dr. Kross said: “We have confirmed the theory so far which, which is brilliant in itself. I double and triple checked it last night. However, the task of ensuring we can actually see an intersection, or feel one, or even enter one ourselves begins now.”

“So, it’s just an engineering problem now, isn't it?” someone quipped and the room filled with laughter again.

That was mine years ago. A lot had happened since: the first intersection was manifested. It lasted less than a second which was enough to win her father the Science Maestro award which he had dedicated to his team. Meanwhile, Sally completed her doctorate and now headed the lab that her father built. The nine years also included the time when her father disappeared into another Universe, through an intersection that closed sooner than predicted.

Sally hoped he was still alive in that parallel Universe and her mission was to perfect the predictability, stability, and destination of the intersections, if at all possible.

I'm coming for you dad. Hang on, stay safe, and stay alive!

Why do I feel my words are simple?

Why do I never eloquently write?

I'd like to think I keep them nimble

But I know not if that's wrong or right.

Upon reading works and poems, and lyrics

I wonder at their mastery of style

And language with all it's tricks

That make the reading, well, worthwhile.

Perhaps it's not a competition (or maybe it is)

Of writing the most ornate work of art

To express their thoughts and add some fizz.

As for me, perhaps, maybe, it's just a start.

I wish I had a superpower. Not many, just one.

I wish I could pile up the trillions of smouldering embers that inhabit every speck of my being, into a raging fire.

At will.

I am sure this brings up visions of super-villains that seek to avenge, to burn down everyone who wronged them, and demand respect by fear.

That is not my goal.

If I could manifest the ignition of everything I am made of, I would, to begin with, warm up every heart. Thaw out the coldness of a greeting, the icy, almost glacial ways of social media, and the frigid emotions of sceptical, ambivalent relationships.

I would go about burning down every irrationality, every fear, and every mangled and knotted rope of a cynical past.

I would, if I had this superpower, spread like a wildfire, and extinguish the jungles of hate and intolerance so that a fresh crop of love could bloom.

As I close my eyes and meditate with long, purposeful breaths, I feel the embers stirring and assimilating. They surge from the open mind across the wide plains of the heart, through the generous lungs and down to eager feet.

I am ready to take the first step.

Over at http://www.blink-ink.org/current-submissions, there's a 50-word challenge on the theme of "UFO". Join in! Here's what I submitted.

“Shall we make contact?”

“Wait! Let me check them out first.” After some furious tapping. “No, be careful. They can be dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Notice how many wars they’ve had in just a century? They seem happy to kill each other.”

“Yes, and goats are a delicacy: that’s you and me!”

The above image was the prompt for a monthly contest (can share the link if you want to join in starting next month. You get 55 hours to write a 500 word story.)

Here's my take on it.

Ferguson, with his thinning hair, crooked nose, and a “vipe” in his mouth that gave him a sleuth-y look, was staring at the virtual screen.

“Are these all of the suspects?” he asked.

“That's right, detective. These are the seven that I could find for you. They are an acceptable cross-section of the society although some cultures may be under-represented-”

Ferguson cut his AI assistant’s excruciating verbosity off with a precise wave of hand. He then closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. It was pointless to admonish an AI bot lacking all emotions. Instead, he pulled the “vipe” from his mouth, sending a whiff of imperceptible diffusion, pointed at the screen, and asked: “And… one of these… is an imposter?”

“Yes, an imposter is someone who does not belong in a group. Some of them can disrupt modern life by reintroducing old ideas, reducing dependence on fossil fuel, and exposing the ills of processed food.”

“Yeah, I know! Let me think-”

“The function of AI is to supplement your thinking by providing you with banal information you would otherwise-”

Ferguson waved again to silence the bot. “Tell me about each of them,” he ordered.

“The female with the wine-coloured top is of South African descent, has no family here in Australia, and was born just after E-volve.”

E-volve, Ferguson mused, the Singularity when everything–everyone–went digital. Irreversibly.

The bot continued: “The male with the coloured skin is an American, excels at Basketball, and was born after E-volve.”

Ferguson stared at the artificially generated image and wondered when the old guy with the pastel green shirt was born but waited until the bot narrated key facets of each person.

“The senior male,” the bot revealed, “was born before the E-volve but has undergone voluntary conditioning with an embedded chip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Would you like to know their sexual orientation too?” The bot asked. “It requires escalated authorisation for security purposes.”

Ferguson smirked. “No but, out of curiosity, what can you tell me about me?”

“A private investigator who moved to town five months ago, smokes raspberry-flavoured vipe: a portmanteau of vape and pipe, and has an illogical phobia of AI.”

Satisfied, Ferguson smiled. “Excellent! I have everything I need except their addresses. Text me those, please. Thanks for your help.”

He knew the identity of the time-traveller. He was also glad storage costs and legal restrictions prevented the bot from going farther in history. His story.

Then, Ferguson drove to the address he had searched. “Mr Clifton?” he asked the man who answered the door.

“Are you a cop?”

“No” Ferguson raised his palms. “But I know that you come from the early twenty-first century.”

“Oh, really? And how's that?”

“The formal shoes gave you away, and the clothes, of course. But open palms? That's a pre-cellphone stance.”

“Shit!”

“Don’t worry, Mr Clifton. I’m not here to rat you out.”

“So, why are you here?”

“I was just wondering if you had an extra seat on the return trip.”

The day I found a moment

That had escaped the flow of time,

I chased it, in wonder and scrutiny.

What I found was a story, a whole life instead.

There was joy, and there was sorrow

And a promise for all of eternity.

And so every passing instant

Makes us laugh, makes us cry.

It's full of certain uncertainty.