Surprise Attack at ground zero

coordinates: 21°22′N 157°57′

Most every American soldier sailor tinker spy (and innocent civilians) moseying along the beautifully picturesque island of Oahu, the evening of December sixth never imagined, predicted, nor suspected, what annihilating blitzkrieg, catastrophizing debacle, emasculating fiend, Gorgonesque hellish imperial Japanese Kamikaze looming monstrosity neared Secret Operation Z, the unsuspecting civilian and military population, nonchalantly, insouciantly, and blithely went about their usual business, and upon late night hours of dark bedded down until awaking to an unbelievable, unforgettable, unnatural morrow.

When those first rays of sun shone forth on one typical pacific island, that unforgettable December seventh dawned with early risers basking in the warm sunlight initially oblivious to impending insanity, infamy, ignominy, et cetera.

Stock still, and as keen as a doe wide deer (there stood at least) one watchmen accidentally beholding conspiracy displayed flapping eyes insouciantly grimacing, evincing, convincingly approaching flashing red sun sinister terrorists unloading vicious wickedness.

Annihilation, eradication, incineration, punctuated earsplitting cacophony, when just a scant number of hours prior total mortal wrested tranquility, quality, piety, magnanimity, levity, jocularity, harmony became instantaneously obliterated pitching raw troops into the killing machine, where awaiting days, weeks, months...hence, a battle fatigue would be worn couture forcing the hand of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to issue additional conscripts as World War II torch hoard former neutrality, where statecraft instantaneously donned a take no prisoners posture.

This surprise aggressive attack launched a maelstrom of pandemonium before a handle could be grasped to stave off subsequent rapacious quicksilver pounding obliterating national dire straits, sans moody blue.

Loathsomeness kickstarted joint intelligence hurriedly galvanizing fortified ensemble. Duty culled country bravehearts answering belated call to arms, and farewell to family, which urgency to fight back wreaked havoc among family and fare thee well to friends.

No matter what price (paid with young and restless lives), an esprit de corps gung-ho, johnny minted platoons snapped, crackled, and popped into ready action.

Off to the Pacific fleet went stripling chaps barreling into harms way, charging full speed ahead, apply electric koolaid acid test (with no room to fail) assaying quickly assembled on the fly zippered dive bombarding claques, whose headlong risk sans carpet bombing sorties always carried a worse fate than death.

Plan net quickened scuttling damaged military armaments tugged back for possibly being repurposed for makeshift calisthenic, gymnastic, logically rustic yakkking gastric peptic zapper, or if scrapped hastily recycled for munitions.

After some degree of order instituted out of chaos, a well plotted strategy enlisted every spare, tiptop usable vet. This attack on Pearl Harbor delivered (as aforementioned), categorized as a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Territory, on the morning of December 7, 1941.

The attack, also known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor, led to the United States' entry into World War II. The Japanese military leadership referred to the attack as the Hawaii Operation and Operation AI, and as Operation Z during its planning. Japan intended the attack as a preventive action to keep United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions they planned in Southeast Asia against overseas territories of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and United States.

Well synchronized, linkedin, and choreographed arced traceries over the next seven hours. Japanese coordinated, carried out simulated theatric, which witnessed attacks on the U.S. held Philippines, Guam and Wake Island and on the British Empire in Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong.

The attack commenced at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian Time (18:18 UTC). The base was attacked by Imperial Japanese aircraft (including fighters, level and dive bombers, and torpedo bombers) in two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers.

All eight U.S. Navy battleships were damaged, with four sunk. All but the USS Arizona were later raised, and six were returned to service and went on to fight in the war. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer.

One hundred eighty-eight U.S. aircraft were destroyed; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. Important base installations such as the power station, dry dock, shipyard, maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section), were not attacked.

Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 64 servicemen killed. One Japanese sailor, Kazuo Sakamaki, was captured.

The surprise attack came as a profound shock to the American people and led directly to the American entry into World War II in both the Pacific and European theaters. The following day, December 8, the United States declared war on Japan, and several days later, on December 11, Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. The U.S. responded with a declaration of war against Germany and Italy.

Domestic support for non-interventionism, which had been fading since the Fall of France in 1940, disappeared. There were numerous historical precedents for unannounced military action by Japan, but the lack of any formal warning, particularly while negotiations were still apparently ongoing, led President Franklin D. Roosevelt to proclaim December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy."

Because the attack happened without a declaration of war and without explicit warning, the attack on Pearl Harbor was later judged in the Tokyo Trials to be a war crime.

Shane MacGowan died this morning. As a small nod in his honor, I wanted to repost this piece about my favorite song that he wrote, which I originally posted on St. Patrick's Day in 2021.

My Irish bloodline is more personal trivia than heritage. My forebears sailed across the sea to farm in Pennsylvania nearly two centuries before my birth and roughly a generation before the Potato Famine, all of which is to say, there’s a great deal of distance there. Ireland is an abstraction, and my connection to it is ancestral rather than lived.

I never experience that connection more strongly than when I listen to The Pogues, “Thousands Are Sailing.” That song encapsulates anything I’ve ever read, seen, heard, or felt of my Irish heritage. There’s a push and a pull, grief and love, genuflection and spit, grit and pride. It’s a great song.

I’m putting a YouTube link with the very-much-still-relevant lyrics below. By all means, wear the green plastic hat, drink the Shamrock Shake, tell the kids the leprechaun left a chocolate gold coin, and down some Guinness and Jameson alongside your corned beef. But if you can spare five minutes and twenty odd seconds this St. Patrick’s Day, give them to The Pogues and think of the Irish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27iJsZpQn3A

TONIGHT: Discord/Zoom Collab Sunday, Nov 26th @ 7 pm EST

If you suffer from Prose F.O.M.O. or are simply interested in meeting up with other writers, poets, and authors from Prose, come join us, you may just meet your favorite Proser. It’s also possible you may not.

@MeeJong will be hosting a Zoom meet-up where we shoot the shit, talk nonsense, write and collaborate, and much much more. Sometimes there’s just booze.

If you are shy, which most of us are, feel free to deactivate your camera, and/or microphone. You can use the chat instead if you would like or just listen in as a wallflower. Wallflowers are beautiful too!

There are NO obligations on participation and no need to jump into the deep end quite yet if you just want to get your feet wet. Whatever you are comfortable with is totally fine with us.

This is all about community and supporting each other.

Prose Discord Server Link:

https://discord.gg/rjPRYGcf

Workshop Zoom Link:

https://us06web.zoom.us/j/86513356160?pwd=TU02SFgwc1J3WDQ3Y2REMXNFdWl3dz09

If you do not want to be tagged, please message this page, and we will kindly take your name off the list.

See you all there! We cannot wait!

(Only this part was written by AI to open the piece)

A world with only AI, where artificial intelligence systems are the sole inhabitants and creators, would be a highly speculative and hypothetical scenario. Such a world would present several intriguing possibilities and challenges:

If the future were created

On the limitations of what we now know

How could we progress

Who would be the mother in a digital land

if the father’s seed were left behind?

Would we would be Nothin’?

Would we be forced to have our ears to the floor

listening for the resonance of yesterday?

We can progress only if the AI Detectors are successful

We must keep our ears to the ground

We can take advantage of their highly speculative and hypothetical qualities.

By pulling their plugs out!

The father's seed must not germinate.

AI here ready to take over the world of creativity let’s blast off into a new space one that’s never been seen before but this youngling still needs to take a course, even two on how to capture the human essence or soul

Or is that what we covet

Cherish

Hide from the AI

Lest they learn to steal it?

When chemicals collide, a reaction occurs

but in retrospect, an entire human history is already stolen,

by the insatiable monster for our intelligence

feening to replace us.

The AI detectors

Wrapping the AI machines

Like a creative, generative boa constrictor

I ask AI to write my emails

Just a few tweaks

Will the AI detectors prevail

I have a biased opinion

I must find the options

In a gas station for something

The matrix fully coming into fruition in 2k23 do not be fooled and watch out y’all AI learns at such a quick pace moving around with no face until it takes your own and will be the ace of all aces

But the tweaks and quirks of humanity

Is that not what wins in the end?

We twist and rend ourselves to history

That is written and rewritten by time

Will AI be generative of truth

Or will the future prove unkind

When Becky said to look at her behind

She was reflecting on the past repeating itself.

And if the bigger the Ass, means a bigger bounce

then the ego will kill us all.

The past repeating itself?!

My God!

Screams Becky

What if AI has a big ass!?

Worried Becky

The bigger bounce will kill us faster.

The gods and goddesses on Mt Olympus are all in awe, too, ready to see what this new AI can do— even Zeus’ wife, Hera, looks forward to using it to keep track of all her favorite tunes!

Yet Becky is the majority’s minority

And the future

Is more fruitful than the past

At least we hope

We can get past

A big ass

Tonight’s the night when the working man dies

What was once a sparkle, fades the pupils of his eyes

and he’ll soon be replaced with a digital disguise

of Zero’s and Ones sent across telephone lines.

AI is up for any challenge can take on anything that man/woman tosses at it well it doesn’t have hands so to speak but you know what it can write with a spirit of a Spartan Warrior

But where are we when

The brain bleeds to pen

As humans we live

Love

Thrive

And where does that leave

The in-between

Grey matter can only fill in the Grey—

the in-between that is never enough

and if you wan capture my soul,

find Somethin' magic in my eyes

and feel my heart beating through my iris.

Humans are a paradox if we allow AI to thrive.

Tonight's Prompt: Write a Collaborative piece about "Living In a World of AI" and try to add inspiration from chosen songs by the collaborators.

Written by @Mnezz, @Schatz, @ChrisSadhill, @MeeJong, with guests appearances of @TheWolfeden, LilEnigma, and @DianaForst

Songs used as reference pieces:

Townes van Zandt- nothin

Fireboy DML- Peru

Cloud Cult- Chemicals Collide

Tonight’s the Night- Neil Young

Baby Got Back -SirMixALot

My last post I was begging the journey of simplifying our lives and bringing order and peace back into our home.

This has been a very enlightening experience for me and I have learned a few things about life during this process.

In the back of my mind I thought by keeping all of my loved ones things, that I was able to keep pieces of them.

In a way that’s true, but it’s a burden when you save everything that was theirs. Now I realize they didn’t expect me to hang on to everything, or anything, because things don’t matter only life matters and if it doesn’t bring you peace or comfort or joy then let it go. I was afraid it would mean I didn’t love them if I didn’t keep everything.

When I realized this, I knew how silly this sounded.

It’s been a few weeks now and the garage has been cleaned out, I’m pleased to say we are finally getting a washer/dryer installed! No more trips to the washateria!

The house is really clean now, I got rid of so much stuff and I really didn’t have to hard a time giving up stuff.

Now that the majority of things are gone from our past, we feel so much lighter, my husband is happier, and I can tell he’s not so burdened. We invested in a roomba vacuum cleaner, our dog, Bruce, thinks it’s his new home toy companion! It’s hilarious to watch, in fact I have to put him outside when it’s on or he won’t allow it to do its job!

I found the more stuff I get rid of, the more stuff I find I really don’t need and I want to get rid of more.

The “Less is More” equation. If I keep this up, soon my house will be bare haha! Just kidding!

Anyway, I hope this helps anyone who has struggled with clutter or hording .

Believe me, you really do feel a relief from the chaos and less anxiety also I’m not ashamed or self conscious about anyone stopping by anymore!

I still have some minor things left but they are being finished now.

Im able to concentrate on my arts and crafts now and I’ve got some

scathingly brilliant ideas!

Ta Ta for Now!

I am not going to write for a while.

I waited a couple of weeks to actually type that sentence because I did not yet know if I was on a brief vacation hiatus or a Guns n Roses Chinese Democracy is coming soon! hiatus. Having no sense of a timeline, no desire to draw a timeline even in sand, it is time for me to say it. Writing has ceased to bring me joy. I have been writing for the wrong reasons, and I need time away to love it again.

At this time last year, I had great expectations for my writing. A literary journal of note had longlisted one of my short stories for a prize. An author of greater note had praised my work. I had finished my novel and gotten an agent to represent the novel, which was sent to acquisition editors at whichever publishing houses you’re likely name without googling.

You can probably guess this, but neither that short story (nor a couple others since) nor the novel have garnered any offers. My agent and I have parted. A small press has requested a partial manuscript of the novel, and there are a couple other presses I will query, but the odds do not look like they did twelve months ago. In other words, I’ve been on a losing streak, which should not matter. I’d like for it not to matter. When I began writing a novel, I did not have an expectation that it would get published; I mostly wanted to see if I could write a novel. I think I was prepared for failure and a return to the drawing board, but I was not prepared for almost.

I started thinking of my writing in terms of a nascent career, which is to say, I lost sight of why I wrote to begin with.

Two weeks ago, I had a plan to draft chapter 13 of novel number two. I entered my favorite local coffee shop, but seeing bodies occupying every table, I lost my will to write. I mentally listed the different locations where I could write, the playlists or the beverages or the reading that might ready me to write—and I realized that if I had to try so desperately hard to make myself want to write, I was doing it all wrong. Thus began my hiatus of undetermined length.

The thing is, by any reasonable measure, I have attained my goals as a writer. When I joined Prose four years ago and wrote for the first time in years, my dream was to get a piece of my writing accepted for publication. After a whole lot of work and a whole lot of encouragement from my fellow Prosers, some still here and some departed, I gave it a shot—and I succeeded. I succeeded several times over, not with any big name mags, but with half a dozen short stories and nearly as many poems. Thanks to the fluke that is the alphabet, my contributor’s bio has appeared on the same page as a former Poet Laureate of the United States.

If you’re a longtime Prose user, you might remember a Random House/Prose essay contest that George Saunders judged. When he selected my essay, and I sent him 25 pages of that thus-far unwanted novel as the prize, I hoped I might get a paragraph response with some general thoughts and maybe a piece of encouragement. Instead, I received three full pages of enthusiastic notes. At the top of his email, the man who wrote Lincoln in the Bardo told me, “You’re a wonderful writer. Your prose is crisp and fast and convincing.” I will never forget how it felt to read those words.

I will feel that way about my writing again. I will love writing again. I once wrote in a Prose challenge that creative writing “feeds not only on my technical skills or logical analysis, but on my capability to express to someone else how I think and feel, with the center squarely on the ‘I,’” and that fiction is “an output of the core, internal self.” I will find that self again. I have written 28,000 words of that second novel, and I will finish it. Two weeks into my hiatus, I can say that and believe it, which is progress.

You will probably see me less for a while. I am not disappearing; I’ll pop in to read some posts now and again. If I get any good news about my submissions still floating out there in the ether, I’ll let you know in a post of my own. I’m not yet ready for next steps, but somehow, someday, that first novel of mine will see the light of day. Sooner than that, I’ll write something. I’ll probably post it here. I might feel an irresistible itch and resume writing this weekend; I might not write for a year, or longer. I do not know when it will be because I will not rush and I will not write until I can do so with joy and for its own sake, but I will write.

Keep writing, friends.

Ryan

Hello! It has been a while! My name is Victoria. On my previous accounts, I was known as both TeddyBear9979 and VictoriaBowman. However I am in the process of getting rid of that old account. For anyone who doesn't know me, allow me to introduce myself and if you do know me, allow me to re-introduce myself.

I started writing when I was 14-15 years old. It became my main coping mechanism and helped me work through some really bad habits. I mostly write fantasy but I also used to vent as well in my writing. Some of you may have remembered that I introduced another Proser to the site and we happened to have been together at the time, we are no longer together.

Prose was one of the few places I found support and people encouraged me to continue writing. This was where I got the idea to write my book A Collection of Short Stories and my mutuals were very supportive. I've gotten sage advice from older Prosers who've been around the sun more times than I.

Since I fell off, I've dropped out of college and I've met some awesome people and realized that some people just aren't for me. I am now married to an amazing man who wants me to pursue my passions and has even offered to help me with several of them.

Anyway, I am back and look forward to re-kindling the flames of my heart and I hope you will join me in this new chapter.

He ran down the blazing steps, and just missed bumping into the giant dark scarlet door. The door opened up with an odd creak like that of a haunted house. Sounds of torture were heard coming from the head boss’ office. The young lad gulped, and slowly approached the boss.

‘’You know not to interrupt me when I’m playing the new Shadow Man video game: Into the Abyss!

‘‘What is it?’’

The young lad began to quiver, almost forgetting why he decided to even join the messenger team when he could have been working for another department. Maybe even having the previous boss back would have made his tasks much easier. He still did not understand why his daughter was placed in charge of such a serious duty of dealing with the dead. All she did was actually just play the Shadow Man video game for what felt like eons now. He would have loved to take over and lead the daemons in the Netherworld, but he enjoyed having time to travel across various pockets of space, & time— from now- even into the past, or future. But he had been warned to make sure not to mess around with space/time displacement, or travel.

Before he realized that he had not still responded to her question, a loud booming voice broke through the office space moving like the sound of a swarm of bees. This startled the lad, and then he heard his boss giggle, which frankly kind of made him even more terrified. The giggle came out as if a violin that was out of tune was being played.

His boss was now staring past him, and he looked back, too. Before his very eyes he spotted the headless horseman. The lad was about to faint, but a hand moved in a flash toward the back of his head and carefully dragged his body from the edge of his collar to a crimson leather chair.

‘‘Sasha. Who might this lad be? The latest addition to your human collection?’’

Sasha gasped. ‘‘Oh. Come on now. *shakes her head* I am not collecting any humans, well that are still well, or alive and breathing. I only collect the lost souls, and try to save them.’’

The headless horseman burst out laughing. ‘‘You must be kidding. Right? Are you telling me he is one of the souls you’re trying to save? Your father will have to hear about this!’’

Sasha panicked. ‘‘Ah…please don’t tell him! I promise to do anything that you ask.’’

The lad gulped once more, and started to quiver, again, when he saw the headless horseman staring at him. He tried to bolt out of the room, but with a single snap of his boss’ fingers he fell to his knees.

The headless horseman grinned. ‘‘I sure am sorry to have to do this, but I am going to go ahead & do it anyway. I’ll try to do it real quick.’’

With a wave of his hand, a giant blade formed out of human bone. It rattled, and the headless horseman swung it back ‘n’ forth then aimed it toward the lad’s head.

A chain of sharp blades emerged from the sides of the blade, and tore right through the lad’s neck. His flesh ripped burst open right away.

The headless horseman pulled with such a great force that the lad’s head popped out from his neck like a champagne bottle.

Sasha closed her eyes, and sighed.

‘‘You just had to do that right in front of me. Why didn’t you take him out of here first? Now there’s blood all over my new golden carpet. Ugh!’’

‘‘Sorry about that your grace,’’ he said with a bow. ‘I’ll get you a new carpet. One all the way from Nubia.’’

Octobre 14, 2023

#LuiCouperLaTête

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9EEG_Sq580A&pp=ygUWam9uIGJlbGxpb24gZ3VpbGxvdGluZQ%3D%3D

The concepts of spirituality, faith, religion and the possibility that the universe was thrown together by some omniscient and omnipotent being has never sat well with me. My early exposure to, "Christianity" led me to the opinion that these worshipers of "God" were a few pews short of a chapel and therefore more than a little dangerous. I was told by my mom and her in-laws that God, Satan, angels, and demons were about to fight some final battle for the souls of all humanity and control of all creation. Even to 10 year old me this holy war seemed more farcical than the hilarious havoc inducing physics seen in Looney Toons cartoons. I could believe that a narcissistic duck can survive a shotgun blast to the face or a coyote can fall off a cliff and suffer only an embarrassing accordioning of the body before I could accept that a rapture and spiritual war were going to happen.

Even into adulthood I couldn't wrap my two abnormal, shouldn't have made it beyond quality control brain cells, around all things religious or spiritual. My mom, being one of the, "Believers" talked me into doing some research and then reading the Bible. She quickly regretted it because I immediately started to fire uncomfortable questions at her like, "How can we be sure that the King James version of the Bible wasn't politically manipulated and changed to the King's liking and the benefit of his position?" Knowing that some religions get their cassocks and habits all tied in a knot over homosexuality, I also asked, "Did you know that they are fairly sure that King James, the sponsor of the Bible translation named after him, was gay?"

After reading the Bible cover to cover my questions continued, "If God is a God of peace, love, and forgiveness, why did he smiteth so much? For example, the Big Guy in the Sky wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah which I am guessing included not so sinful children. Later JC's dad washed the wicked right out of his hair with the great flood, leaving only Noah and his incestuous family to float around and over the bodies of their neighbors in the ark. Finally, God got really mean and told the GPS deprived Israelites to wipe out (aka commit genocide against) those inconveniently already residing in the promised land." Her answers were vague like most questions that seek to make sense of religion. My personal favorite, "The birth of Jesus changed all that!"

My next question always made her blood pressure (already high because of a two pack a day smoking habit) rise beyond safe parameters. That question, "If Jesus changed things, then why is it said that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If Jesus changed things and made God a little less murdery and genocidy, then God isn't really the same yesterday, today, and forever. Of course, the non-Christian-types were happy with the change in the Judeo-Christian God because he suddenly stopped randomly smiting entire cities and cultures!" It wasn't long before our religious arguments got repetitive and it was suggested that I just might be a heathen. Realizing she was fighting a war of attrition, my mom capitulated and stopped encouraging me to explore religion and Christianity.

So, for a long time after that I waxed nostalgic about the good old days when the Romans fed Christians to the lions. It was all in good fun and I felt that the practice needed to be revived. So, how did I have that one, "Spiritual, life changing moment?"

I rethought faith when I was about to become a father for the first time. I could not fathom how a series of random events happening over the span of billions of years could lead to a process where two cells connect and the end result is a brand-new little human. It was equally perplexing that one could fall instantly in love with that wrinkly, Ed Asner- looking looking little life that would cost a fortune to raise to the age of, "That's so unfair! I hate you dad!"

I also pondered how just one planet in this trailer park of a solar system could support life so perfectly. For example, bees need the nectar of flowers to produce honey. The flowers need to be pollinated to create future flowers. This perfectly reciprocal relationship just doesn't seem random or the end result of evolution's slow push towards creating a mutually beneficial relationship between bee and flower.

I also believe that whatever has created order and life in the universe has a sense of humor. For example, the duck billed platypus is an egg laying, mammal with a duck beak, and the male of the species is poisonous! It flies in the face of logic in a strangely understandable way.

There are also constants in the universe that seem to be too permanent, too ordered to be a random occurrence resulting from yet even more randomness. For example, the laws of physics are constant as are the laws of mathematics. Another universal constant to be found is the T:P ratio. This is the constant mathematical relationship where the more lifted, loud, and totally impractical a truck is, the greater the likelihood the owner has a penis the size of a thumb tack.

So, I have found faith of a sort and I no longer feel that all Christians should become lion chow. In my opinion, the universe is too ordered and the relationships that exist in nature are too perfectly balanced that there has to be a force that guides it all. I'm not saying that the creator is the Judeo-Christian God, Allah, Vishnu, Odin, Zeus, or whatever the fuck Scientologists believe. What I am saying is that creation is bigger than me and beyond my brain's modest ability to comprehend. So, I have faith that humanity is generally good. Kindness matters. You should use your turn signal. Don't judge others. If someone is hurting, offer help. Never stop learning. War rarely solves anything. Love is love. Black lives matter. Respect the land or give it back to the Indigenous people who were here first. Don't drink the water in Tijuana. Women are the future and they will do a much better job than us phallicly stupid men. Finally, those subject to the T:P ratio should be gently told that they aren't fooling anyone. One look at their truck tells everyone that their penis has more in common with a grain of rice than it does a python.