Ins and outs. In all four experiments, three photons run through an optical maze like this one. Credit: J. B. Spring et al., Science (2012)

Science: New Form of Quantum Computation Promises Showdown With Ordinary Computers

Darkness envelops me. An empty, weightless sensation reminiscent of forever is all that I feel. I am falling. Lost. 93,000,000 miles from the sun.

I awaken, my dreams chased away by a rippling, crimson glow: it is the morning sun, warm against my closed eyelids. I open them, blinking against the radiation bathing the room in soft tones. Next to me, a huddled form shifts beneath a thick, formless mass of linen.

She is my partner. My wife. My daughter slumbers also, in the room beyond. The day, my life floods my thoughts and the fantasies of night fall away, into oblivion.

Some time later I am tossed against the beaches of an oceanic humanity. The city is my hive, drone, my station. The state of alienation lies within an alien nation that perceives reality through media-encrusted eyes. Hyper-consumption and love of self define the time.

Just do it. Here today, gone tomorrow. No fear. Quick glimpses of life’s diversity crease my brow.

A portly gentleman reeking of whiskey brushes past, mumbling, “Buy low, sell high. Buy low, sell high. Buy low”

A woman, her voice trembling, speaks to another. “He doesn’t deserve me. And that’s why I’m cheating on him.”

The rush of sensory data is overwhelming and I am disoriented. I stumble, prevented from falling only by those around me, bearing me along in a swelling flood of discontent. Amoeba-like streamers of traffic branch off into office buildings and subway tunnels as other tendrils of the great beast regulate the flow while maintaining the unforgiving pace.

My body is on autopilot and I allow my legs to disengage from the main artery, bearing me to my own impersonal prison. I shuffle through security in a daze, drop my keys in the bowl and raise my arms for the man with the metal detector. I pass through the foyer and find myself standing before a bank of elevators – five on either side of the receiving area – each busily humming up and down the building, depositing drones by the dozen upon their respective floors.

The hall is wide and stately. The floor beneath consists of irregular marble tiles that gleam with the reflection of the ambient light.

Cologne, perfume and other odors permeate the air, a viscous soup of pheromones, sending unconscious signals of distress and delight. I intercept further snatches of conversation. There is laughter, disagreement and confrontation.

“He’s going to make the offer. If he doesn’t, we’re dead.”

“If he does, he is.”

“Did you see the game last night?”

“That bastard owes me, by god.”

“I got so drunk at the party that I don’t even remember buying the first drink.”

“Of course these are designer shoes. What did you think?”

“He must be crazy. Or lost. Staring into space and eavesdropping.”

The last stated directly before me. A wizened black man stands there – between the elevator and I – dressed all in gray. He wears gray shoes, socks, pants, shirt, a coat and bowler. He reminds me of old, black and white photographs of ancestors long passed from this plane of reality. He stares up at me with eyes like smoldering coal and I stare back at him, aware that he is aware of me. His voice is thin but captivating.

“Well? Is that all you’re going to do? Stare all day? You don’t have time for that. You must find yourself. Life doesn’t rewind!”

At a loss for words, I stumble over the few that come to mind. “Excuse me? What did you say?”

“Life doesn’t rewind! There is only one you and you are he!”

“What? What did you say? Who are you? What do you want from me?”

He ignores three of my four questions. “I’ve come to help you.”

“Help me to do what?”

“To find yourself.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not lost.”

“Are you certain?”

I pause, lured by his question. My life is what it is, what the lives of most people that I know are. Each day, hour, minute, orchestrated.

Each night passed tossing and turning, comatose or drifting in a drug-induced stupor.

I shake my head as firmly as I can. “Yes, I am certain. I know where I am and who I am. I am not lost.”

He smiles knowingly. “I see. Would you mind telling me where you are, then?”

“I’m in this city, on this block, in this building. Talking to you, when I should be going to work.” I can tell that he is not impressed with my wit.

“Not exactly. You are wrong and I am right. You are lost and I will help you to find yourself.” He promises, dusting off his jacket and chuckling in satisfaction.

I look around to find that the hall has emptied and the elevator banks stand idle. Their occupancy lights stutter seductively. I shudder as I envision myself boarding one of them and find that I cannot. At this realization, a sudden lifting of a weight barely acknowledged is effected and I feel lighter, more buoyant. For a moment, I teeter upon the edge of something but stumble and fall back into nothing.

I glance down to find the little man grinning widely.

“You see? Already you are remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

“That you are lost! What else? Come!”

With that, he turns, his heels clicking and walks away, daring me to follow. I pause momentarily, burdened by the realization of unlimited possibility. An intense deja vú magnifies the moment and I envision paths of probability branching into the unknown as my myriad choices become one. I follow him.

As we walk, his voice echoes in my ears and the sun-washed hall grows brighter in syncopation.

“This planet, adrift in space, dances in the stately process of creation alongside a cohort of 12 sisters and brothers wooing Sol, the source of life, star of your destiny. One star among many; one solar system among innumerable solar systems, one galaxy within the macro-constellation of over 125 billion galaxies, one universe within the greater Omniverse.”

The little man stops for a moment and removes his gray bowler, scratching his shining, black head. He peers up at me suspiciously as if I were a stranger, which, I remind myself, I am. Then he continues.

“Physically speaking, you are stardust, born of Sol with the breath of life infused within flesh. Your body is imprinted at conception with electromagnetic patterns that determine individual and group behavior; Sol is the beginning of the end and back again. Your flesh is one with all flesh, one with earth, water, fire and air. There is no ‘they’ or ‘it’ at the level of quarks and mesons. All is one. Dark matter is the fabric of creation, its aspects differentiated by vibration alone.

He rubs the black skin on the back of his hand with a stubby finger. At the same time, your body seeks to experience the moment with every breath. It seeks to indulge in the pleasures of the flesh and to subdue your soul, obscuring the memory of who you really are. As a result, you are torn, your intentions misled.”

At some point during his lecture, the building disappears. The shiny marble remains beneath our feet but the walls and halls vanish, to be replaced by a portentous, glowing mist. I am unconcerned by this transformation and continue to pace the strange, little man. Nothing else is important. He walks silently, his hands clasped. His aura is peaceful but my agitation is too immediate to contain.

“Who are you? Why are you helping me?”

“It is enough for you to know what I have already told you. I am here to help you find yourself; to help you remember who and what you are. Clear your mind of small matters. You must concentrate upon the journey to come.”

“But do you have a name? Surely you possess a name.”

He sighs theatrically. “Can you explain your meaningless preoccupation with definitions? With defining the indefinable, naming the unnamable? How does one of limited understanding know the wind? Or how to capture the essence and purity of a star with a syllable or two? What about the beauty of a moment or the joyful exuberance of a summer’s storm? Or how to encompass a reality as awesome as eternity’s cyclic procession? It cannot be done. Without meaning, naming alone is inadequate. “

He glowers for a moment more then relents. “If you must call me something, call me Aum. And listen to these words that I speak. Words of power.”

I nod dutifully and bend my ear to him.

“It must be emphasized that all things are connected. The web of life spans all existence, finds purchase in the most inhospitable of terrains. Life upon this planet, within this solar system, galaxy and universe is tied to life elsewhere. The Omniverse prefers holism to segregation on a grand scale. In order to truly find yourself, to finally remember who you are and what your purpose is, you must intuit the reality of these words; you must investigate for yourself. You must be decisive. There is no space allocated for meandering thoughts. Clear intentions are required.”

Accordingly, there is no hesitation on my part. “Lets begin.”

Black, star-tossed space extends above. There are mountains all around us. We straddle weighty stone powdered by the dust of ages that puffs in gentle whirls around our feet and I shift and ogle in wonder. The horizon rises impossibly high and distant, affirming my realization that we are no longer upon the Earth. This planet is larger by far, ancient and sad. Somehow, I know that she is dead. The fire that burns within, extinguished.

Cresting the craggy peaks, gargantuan machines work, chugging, humming and belching furiously. The massive, interlinked construct obscures the entire northern horizon. It is impossible to determine its function from this distance but I try anyway. There are processors, factories and what look to be dormitories, malls and city complexes, bustling with activity. Dense, noxious smog huddled jealously about the structures corrode their exteriors. High overhead, small shapes flit between the gleaming towers and I realize that they are ships. The foundations of the megalopolis are stained a sooty black and the carcasses of rusting, metal machinery languish in the shadows.

Dazzled, I turn my eyes from the spectacle to find Aum forming miniature cyclones out of dust. With subtle twirls of his fingers and silent spells, three, five, then nine rise from the ashes as others continue to form, undulating gently. I ask him again: “Where are we? Why are we here?”

Impatiently, he waves my question off. “Have you found yourself yet?”

I think for a moment then shake my head. His attention remains focused upon the twisters as they skip across the rock but he rises briskly as he answers. “Then we have not yet reached our destination. Come. Let us walk further.”
It is then that I notice that the marble path is still beneath our feet and we stroll leisurely, trailing a cohort of thirteen miniature cyclones as they forge the way ahead.

“We must speak of intentions. And purposes. Do not let me forget to speak of purposes. “

I assure him that I won’t let him forget.

“Intentions can be your worst enemy if formed upon false premises. Often they begin as subtle insinuations; placed in the path of your spirit by your ego like so many little mines, set to go off when their detonators are triggered. This is how you are sabotaged from within. The flesh is programmed for servitude but, for most blessed with physical bodies, ends up becoming the master. How is this done, you ask? “

I did not ask, but I try to appear more attentive.

“By the misdirection of intention. The ego masked as self aggregates the functions of the body. This leads inevitably to physical, emotional and spiritual sickness, then death. Lacking the power to direct or change behavior, the ego manufactures intentions that lure the body, intellect and spirit along the path of its choosing. Eventually, all must arrive at the crossroads. Do you understand?”

“I think so, I allow, “but what of the world we just visited? Surely it is an example of the triumph of the rational mind! Intelligent beings envisioned it and created it through the harnessing of technology and the forces of nature.”

“That is true . But that world is dead, its inhabitants devoid of compassion and slave to that very same technology they once controlled. As a consequence of their ignorance, nature itself turned against them. Their greed resulted in the total consumption of their planet’s biosphere. Do you see the lesson in this tragedy?”

I nod but do not respond. The marble path has twisted into the sky at some point along our journey and in the space of timelessness I recollect vague impressions of starbursts, super novas and black holes lurking, evoking sublime delight as the implications of our fateful sojourn gestate within my mind. I have no idea how much time has passed, but the distance we have traveled appears to be vast.

“Where are we now?” I ask.

“Have you found yourself yet?” He counters.

I dodge a twisting vine ambling past, intent upon its destination. The sky is suddenly adrift with vegetation: purple, green and a deep, midnight blue flora predominating. There is no soil, or ground. Only dense cloudbanks and rustling forests of kelp-like trees that whisper in the moist, hyper-oxygenated atmosphere.

“No. Where are we?” I repeat.

“We are in a nebula, ” Aum explains, “an oxygen bubble billions of miles in diameter within which entropy has blossomed. Life finds purchase in the most inhospitable of terrains.”

The marble path sweeps through the radiant sky, twisting and looping between billowing, gaseous formations, diving into the greenery and emerging on the other side to rise again into the cloudy distance. The thirteen cyclones continue to dance into the future, drawing us forward in their wake. Crystalline reptiles bloated by gaseous air-pouches float upon the currents, blown by anal eruptions of flatulent energy, trailed by crackling wisps of fire.

I laugh despite myself and am surprised to be joined by Aum.

“What are these creatures? Are they intelligent? They certainly are funny.”

“No funnier than you and your misguided intentions. Humor derives from judgments that require introspection as well as empathy. Right now, you are sorely lacking in both. I was laughing at you, not them.”

He eyes me smugly. “These beings know exactly who and what they are. They are not lost at all. Can you say the same? Do you understand that they possess the knowledge of self? Can you feel the profound peace in their lives?”

I can. They interact harmoniously, their voices rising and falling in what is clearly measured speech. I sense their connection, one to the other, as something deep and pervasive, allowing no space for individuality or deception. There are no artifacts to be seen, nor do these beings seem to indulge in self-centered pastimes. But I am not satisfied. Rather, I am disturbed and lash out.

“Why did you bring me here? What lesson am I supposed to take from this encounter? Surely you do not believe that the lifestyle of these aliens is transferable? These beings live idyllic lives, with all of their needs met by their environment. There appears to be no over-crowding, no wars or discontent of any kind. In no way does this situation approximate that of the Earth.”

Aum does not respond and I stalk the marble path in a swirl of emotions, barely acknowledging the splendor of the extra-terrestrial garden. I feel remorse, but do not act to clear my conscience. Instead, I dwell upon my outburst and realize that my attempt to emotionally manipulate the little man has resulted in the opposite of my intentions. I have moved only myself.

The stars remain silent, as does Aum. We traverse an area of sublime perfection: a vast sea of dark matter – interstellar dust and quantum-level particulates conjoined in a sea of impermeability – interspersed with looping nebulae and black holes evidenced only by light-hoarding event horizons. I gasp in wonder and tears blur my vision.

A correlation bubbles to the surface of my thoughts. As with quasars, we are all emissaries of destiny, outward bound, the Omniverse our destination. It recedes, leaving only prescient awareness in its wake. Spiral and elliptical galaxies rotate in stately harmony as proud coteries of asteroids and comets spend themselves in vain attempts to escape the orbits of their destinies. I observe it all in solemn amazement, awed by the majestic beauty of creation. Aum breaks the silence abruptly.

“There is one final destination.”

Only one, I ask.

“Yes. Only one.”

“And where is this place?”

“It is here.”

We have come to a featureless, golden plain. I look around, finding nothing of consequence. There is no vegetation. No mountains, valleys or minor perturbations disturb the flatness. The marble path cuts a straight line to the horizon, the only differentiation between form and formlessness. The cyclones have left that path and wander in a seemingly aimless fashion across the desert.

“I do not understand.” I complain.

“Your understanding is not understandable,” he mocks, “you have only to be still and remember.”

I cannot prevent a sense of panic from setting in as I realize that our sojourn is almost complete. That, if I have not found myself by its end, some unspeakable destiny will befall me; a failure of character and intentions, fit only for one tied to the flesh for yet another turn of the wheel. I look around wildly, searching for some indication of who I am. Still there is nothing. Aum’s voice is gentle and soothes my distress.

“You have forgotten to remind me to speak of purposes.”

I apologize profusely, stumbling over my words once again, as I had when we first met. I ask him for patience, for him to work with me. I ask him for more time. His denial is expansive.

“In the end, your soul shall encompass all of the time in the Omniverse, time being relative to existence upon the gross material plane. There is no place for the linear progression of consciousness in the higher levels of vibration, where your eternal soul resides. Only the mind and certain aspects of the spirit are bound within time’s confines. The now contains a seed of memory – of eternity – a chance for you to transcend the cycle. But you must decide now. This opportunity may not manifest so clearly again.”

He pauses, his midnight eyes boring into mine. “My purpose is to help you to find yourself. To show you who and what you truly are, because you have forgotten. Most of the people on your world have forgotten and as a result, the Earth is dying. The premature transmigration of a planets soul is an occasion for great sadness. Our shared purpose is the prevention of this tragedy.”

“What do you mean?”

“As above, so below. The salvation of one soul becomes a template for the salvation of all souls. Through you, they may be saved.”

I struggle to understand. How is it possible to save all by saving one? Aums discourse replays in my mind. I am stardust. Everything is connected. My ego is not my self. I am the sum of my misguided intentions. Through me, we may be saved. As I contemplate eternity peace suffuses my soul and warmth born of compassion gathers upon the shore of my thoughts.

The little, black man peers at me with extraordinary intensity. “Tell me. Do you know who I am?”

I nod hesitantly. “Of course. You are Aum. You told me your name earlier, remember?”

“Yes, I do. I am Aum, but do you know what my name means?”

“No. Names have meaning?”

“Yes. Names contain the essence of things. No-thing is the absence of things. Formlessness. Names provide structure. Form. They facilitate the differentiation into some-thing. My name, Aum, is divine. My name contains the true will to power. My name is a primeval force, vibrating to the beat of the cosmos. Through my name, creation is become. Through my name you may find God within. Through my name you can find yourself.”

A flash of understanding increases the intensity of the vibratory energy flowing through me. I mouth his name, breathing deeply. Aum.

Then again, and once more. Aum. Something changes. The vibrations grow stronger and I reexamine the plain while simultaneously superimposing the vistas of our previous destinations atop the current one.

My vision is flawless, my hearing potent. The smallest sounds rush to my ear. The cyclones now move purposefully; converging, growing larger as each contributes its energy to the whole. They become a hurricane, twisting and screaming in reckless abandon, churning the golden sand into a stormy conflagration. The space around us remains calm and Aum watches me, his eyes shining.

I look deeper and discover hidden within the simplicity of this place the complexity of the others and, in the space of an instant, the connection becomes clear. Synapses flare as the synthetic ability of my brain bypasses the feral protestations of my ego and I observe from a space beyond as words, pictures and feelings manifest. Scenes of my life predominate.

There are my wife and daughter at home.
There are children playing beneath a cloudless, azure sky.
There are men dying, fighting in wars across the Earth.
There are elders, wasting away in hostels and filthy apartments.
There are women, men and children praying at the alters of their choice.
There are flowers, mountains, deserts and forests, fighting against encroaching pestilence.
There are streams, lakes, rivers and seas poisoned by waste and misuse.
There is the air, bearing death upon the intake of every breath.

Lust, hatred, envy, greed; the entirety of the world’s torturous ecstasy lies before me as a tapestry of life, woven of the fabric called death. Isolation, one from the other, marks the lives of the soul-lost upon the third planet from Sol, called Earth.

Suddenly, I know. I remember who I am.

The realization frees me from the chains of the flesh and I burst forth, a flaming ball of life-essence, dancing upon the astral-wind. My memory has returned and eternity beckons. My cellular database awakens and I hear the ancestors singing joyfully, their voices harmonizing with the heavens. I no longer see Aum but feel him, for he is a part of me and I still hear his voice ring out from within.

Have you found yourself yet?

Yes, I answer. I have.

Remember. Life doesn’t rewind.

An elevator chimes and I start, returned from trance. The hall remains empty of traffic and I note that time has resumed its irregular march. I turn from the confines of my past, an extraordinary sensation of peace suffusing my thoughts, and exit the building without a backward glance. No longer do I fear the day and the night holds the promise of further explorations of the inner, and outer, reality. Aum is my mantra and I exit the flesh at will to find myself encapsulated within a cocoon of love and compassion, connected to the formative void by the purity of my intentions. Sol beckons, his corona caressing my spirit and I revel in the gift, and promise, of life.

Darkness envelops me. I am rising and a formless but all-encompassing sensation reminiscent of forever is all that I feel. I was lost but now I’m found, 93,000,000 miles from the sun.

A cartoon showing spikes of activity traveling among neurons.

Ars Technica: Neuristor: Memristors used to create a neuron-like behavior

L.I.A. #6 – Sandy Wrap-ups for 2K12!!!

MAY WE STRIVE TO EMBRACE LOVED ONES IN A NEW YEAR FREE FROM SANDY WRATHS!!!
http://www.myspace.com/drocksouljah/blog/546585887

AL Bey

Author of Tainted Saint: The Autobiography of D-Rock SOUL-Jah

Electricity can run between two superconductors even through electrically insulating barriers (yellow). Now researchers have found that a magnetic field (curved arrows) can switch the amount of heat that flows from a hot side (red) to a cold one (blue).

Nature: Magnetism flips heat flow

Validation of long-predicted quantum effect points the way to thermal electronics.
Edwin Cartlidge

The series will feature many characters,but the most noticeable will be.

King Solomon

King David

Abishag

Bathsheba

Adonijah

Joab

Benaiah

Abiathar

Nathan the Prophet

Zadock 

Asmodeous 

CERN discovers Higgs-like boson

Physics World: Physics World reveals its top 10 breakthroughs for 2012

An illustration of a galaxy with a supermassive black hole shooting out jets of radio waves. Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Conventionally, physicists have assumed that if the black hole is large enough, Alice won’t notice anything unusual as she crosses the horizon. In this scenario, colorfully dubbed “No Drama,” the gravitational forces won’t become extreme until she approaches a point inside the black hole called the singularity. There, the gravitational pull will be so much stronger on her feet than on her head that Alice will be “spaghettified.”

Now a new hypothesis is giving poor Alice even more drama than she bargained for. If this alternative is correct, as the unsuspecting Alice crosses the event horizon, she will encounter a massive wall of fire that will incinerate her on the spot. As unfair as this seems for Alice, the scenario would also mean that at least one of three cherished notions in theoretical physics must be wrong.

Scientific American: Black Hole Firewalls Confound Theoretical Physicists

If a new hypothesis about black hole firewalls proves correct, at least one of three cherished notions in theoretical physics must be wrong.

By Jennifer Ouellette and Simons Science News

Boss Lady

When I said:
“All I need is a computer
notebook, and pen
to make me happy.”

He sipped his drink
eyed me appreciatively
and called me:
“Boss lady”

Boss lady?

Definition:
an urban colloquialism
for a sister
who takes care of business
and only needs -- wants --
a man to hold her
in between the times
he’s taking care of business

I smiled,
thought of
all the things
I’ve been called
for my independence
for the temerity
to think I’m equal to a man

Bitch
Ball buster

Funny how a name
can make you feel so ashamed
Akin to calling white liberals
nigger lovers

Boss lady
I like it
It’s running neck and neck
with: “thunder and lightening”

My brothers sure know
what to say
and I love it
when they recognize
that strength

makes a woman real

Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson copywrite 2007 all rights reserved

This is another poem that I had a lot of fun writing, even more so because it based on actual events. As always, comments and critiques are welcome (smile).

I woke up excited for the first time in fifty years. It was the end of the world.

This time we were certain of it. Scientists confirmed it. I saw it on the news. I got up and put on a nice shirt I stole yesterday. First time I shoplifted since I was a kid. It was a riot going on that day, too.

People have quieted down since the countdown clock has been running everywhere that still has power.

People started setting their watches to the recordings that will interrupt radio broadcasts. Where you can still get radio, that is. My clock was set and reset until scientists had calculated it down to the last second.

The end of the world will be exactly 12/21/21 at 3:33 AM GMT. My pants were pressed for the first time in twenty years. I had gotten out of the habit since my wife left me. Something about my lack of driving ambition. That and the fact she thought I was crazy.

You see, I knew this was going to happen. I told everyone but no one believed me. You wouldn't either but that's okay. At the time, I didn't either. I dreamed this. The date, the time, everything. I just didn't know what I was seeing at the time. My psychiatrist called it a prescient delusion and it wasn't anything to worry about. He said after some therapy I'd be fine. At two hundred dollars an hour, he picked fine time to be wrong.

Until newscasters started talking about it, I admit I didn't even know what a comet was.

Yes, they talked about it in school when I was a kid, but I admit science class was not someplace I admit to paying much attention to, except when we got to cut up frogs and make their legs move when we connected them to batteries. Science, I figured who ever used it anyway.

The first time I had the dream, I was a child. It was a dark, except for fires I could see burning all around me. The city was aflame. The buildings on my skyline were all dark, like a blackout in the summer. I could hear people wailing in the distance. No cars moved, and the summer air was hot, filled with stinging smoke, which would have made my eyes water, if I could dare close them. I look up. I wake up.

I put on dress shoes and tied my tie. I learned to finally tie one four years ago because I went to a job I positively loved. They required a tie and jacket. After all those years working as an unwanted project manager for ungrateful companies, I made it into lower management. That was three years before it was discovered.

My years in the workforce were as monotonous and crushing as everything in my life had ever been. Ill-used, ill-favored, no decision I ever made worked out right, and I absolutely never got the girl. I had been told every man is the hero of his own story.

Don't believe that. We are all extras in some famous person's life. Just ask them. They'll tell you.

Then I had The Dream one more time four years ago. It had been decades since I had it and I knew it immediately. I was walking the street in a nice suit. One from my new job where I was in a position to make changes I thought were important, where my voice was heard and my projects came in on time and under budget. I pushing past people on the street, running to my brownstone. They were all looking up. I knew I had to be somewhere and they were in my way.

I was running out of time. It was three AM and I promised I would be there.

Though there were no street lights, everywhere was lit, with a foxfire brilliance, light, soft, diffused, set people's faces in an eerie glow, shimmering, beautiful, except for the rictus of horror twisted in every face I saw. Mothers holding their children, lovers embracing, people running through the streets holding TVs, their cords dragging behind them.

Despite all of this, the only thing you ever hear is the wind and the weeping. It is a constant thing, the wind. Newscasters tried to explain it but no one was listening. Something about the size and mass of the Comet. People stopped listening once they learned it would strike the Earth.

Doomsday cults appeared like roaches under a kitchen sink, first jubilant their day had finally arrived; then petulant because no one believed them, they had been right. Being right has become so important to some people. Then they grew truculent, dangerous as their righteousness overwhelmed their moral imperatives and the growing realization the end of the world included them. Fortunately, most people simply killed them outright, fearing moral and judicial authorities no longer mattered.

There was surprisingly little violence after people screaming the end of the world from every corner were silenced from a populace grown tired of fear. It was a strange precipitous thing, because it was thought to have occurred all over the world within a single day. I think a subconscious shudder through the collective mind shouted back at them. We got it. The end of the world is nigh. Now shut the hell up.

People slowly tapered off from going to work in the last year. That is where I met her in my last years working, the only job I ever loved.

She was beautiful, not the classical sense of beauty, but in a way I could be comfortable with. Not the awe-full kind of beauty which makes men stupid. A quiet beauty, one that drew me inexorably to her. She was kind even in a world gone straight to hell. I learned she was married and that didn't matter much to me at the end of the world. She came to my house and eventually she took me to hers. Her husband had stopped speaking once you could see the Comet during the day. At night it dominated the sky but once it could be seen during the day, people began to do strange things. His lack of speech was far less dramatic than most. Suicide suddenly became a competition sport.

In comparison her husband Dave, just sat in his living room looking out the window at the damn comet. He didn't talk. Only got up to replenish his drink, go to the john, go outside to get food. He listened to us making love frantically, desperately, in the next room. We made love under the light of the end of the world. I wanted him to be angry. I wanted him to say something. I wanted things to be normal. I wanted to believe we had a future. He never made a sound. Never moved a muscle.

I heard the pigeons on the fire escape in front of his chair fly away. The pigeons were always there and only moved when he did. It was three months ago he got up and staggered past us. We didn't bother to close the door anymore. I can only assume he thought we were sleep, he looked in at us and then he walked out the door. He never came back.

On the last day I wanted to look my best. I told her I was going to go home and change. I didn't live too far away, I thought today would be like any other. People had started staying home, doing very little. No one picked up trash, and it was amazing we hadn't lost water over much of New York. I guess, unlike the garbage men, water treatment found someone willing to work during the apocalypse.

The power went out for the last time in New York at midnight. It was the only blackout we knew would happen. I had grown used to walking to her house, first in the dark, and now in the light at the end of the world.

The people were in place. The roving bands stealing right up to the end. We were all where we were supposed to be. Except for me. A traffic accident I didn't see in my dream slowed me down. Now I would be late. I couldn't be late. I ran. My shoes pinched my feet. I didn't remember that from the dream either. I saw people just staring up. My alarm on my watch went off at 3:20 and I was still ten blocks away. I tore off my shoes and ran barefoot, shoving the statues staring skyward out of my way. No one objected. Most of them didn't even notice me; and to be honest I didn't care either way.

Fires from nearby buildings lit the street as I ran and my eyes watered and teared but nothing was going to stop me from reaching her. My alarm sounded again at 3:30 and I saw her running down the street to me.

She was wearing my favorite white blouse. The one I met her in. So many years ago when I was certain my life had turned around. It was her sad smile that told me I would spend all my life with her. I grabbed her and the smell of honey-suckle filled my nostrils. She was warm and soft. I closed my eyes. I drank in those last seconds. The wind picked up, gusting strongly now, the cries grew louder in the distance, a collective gasp against the coming night. She squeezed me tight.

She turned me and said "Look."

My alarm went off. I looked into the light.

The Light at the End of the World  © Thaddeus Howze 2012. All Rights Reserved

Thaddeus Howze

Hub City Blues

Veni, Scribo, Vici (I came, I wrote, I conquered)

“Is the commander’s shuttle clear yet?” Lian asked, switching gazes back and forth between Grimes and the display tank.
“Not yet, XO,” replied the ops chief. “Our fighters are still tied down with the enemy. His shuttle’s in the thick of it.”
A wailing vibration from an enemy missile that impacted perilously close to the bridge shorted out a row of display screens. Images in the tank fizzled out, leaving a gaping void of black. Instantly, a redundancy kicked in reconstituting the footage.
The behemoth ship covered a third of the display. Like an encroaching storm front, the massive ship’s image soon blotted out everything else in the tank, energy bolts surging forth from its many emitters like strokes of lightning.
A much larger bolt stabbed outward from the behemoth’s center node, piercing the Far Walker’s upper bow. The enormous green-white beam bit into shielding, draining it dry, then cut into layers of super hard hull plating. A seething, powdery burst of atmosphere erupted from the ensuing breach. Like a gargantuan fire sword, the beam thrust deeply into the Far Walker, turning vast areas of its interior into a star’s core.
Two similarly destructive beams ensnared the King and the Gujarat, penetrating each missile frigate on one side and exiting out the other. Charred, blackened debris jetted out of breaches in both frigates’ hulls. The Cane received particularly harsh dosages of the massive beam. Successive bolts burrowed into the troop carrier’s outer thrusters and mid section, shattering its shield generators.

“Fall back!” Lian turned to the pilot. “Try to outflank that ship!”
“That beam ripped through fifteen levels,” Hilburn reported. “We’ve got massive internal damage!”
“I’ve sourced those beams’ output,” said Weapons Specialist Domos. “Targeting!”
The XO extended a forestalling hand. “Belay that, Fahid. I’ve got something else in mind. Prepare Judgement One missiles.”
Domos tossed the XO a wary glance. “For a J1 launch we’re going to have to put distance between us and the target.”
The pilot, Janet Kiowa, adjusted controls. “Increasing fall back speed.”
“Tell the Task Force to clear the target zone,” ordered Lian.
Domos tapped a console key with a grim finality. “J1 is online.”
“I want every ship to implement a mass launch of lower grade missiles to screen the J1’s approach.”
Grimes acknowledged and disseminated Lian’s order to the task force.
Lian stepped closer to the display tank, barely suppressing an urge to cough from the hazy acridity of damaged, overloaded consoles. She fixed pitiless eyes on the dreaded behemoth, and a spirit of vengeance coiled enticingly around her heart when she snapped the next command, “fire!”

Clouds of Flail and Terror Rod missiles from every ship in Task Force Arrow descended upon the massive Erekdenit vessel.
The behemoth threw up a howling wall of point defense fire, wiping out a host of incoming missiles. Numerous task force missiles, nevertheless, broke through a gleaming barricade of enemy fire to smash into their target. Miles upon miles of the behemoth’s hull boiled beneath a restless, gaseous ocean of multiple missile eruptions. A slower moving J1 plunged into that searing ocean, detonating upon contact.
The J1’s explosion breached the target’s hull, channeling tremendous anti-matter laced forces into its interior, before whipping outward in a secondary blast that dislodged enormous chunks of dense hull.
The behemoth listed severely, its batteries silenced as large pulses of chain reactions assaulted its mighty framework, tearing it apart.
A collective pause seemed to come over the remaining 14 Erekdenit ships as their crews witnessed the death throes of their lead ship.

Lian smelled blood and swooned in its headiness. “Target the heavies and mediums with J1s and open fire.”
Eight J1 missiles, hidden beneath a blanket of screening fire, struck the behemoth’s medium and heavy companions. Individual blast waves from eight explosions merged into a single, moon size spatial disrupting wave that swept over the Task Force ships like a tsunami. One of the heavies broke in half, one segment consumed in a blazing aura, the other plummeting toward the planetoid’s surface.
A fiery typhoon consumed a large swathe of area where the segment impacted, producing a florescent crater that marked the planetoid like a glowing red eye.

...yet another reason to live and discover something close to 'warp drive' (OK, maybe a tenth light speed to begin with). A pick-me-up post, post the now-deflated Mayan apocalypse:

Space.com: Potentially Habitable Planet Detected Around Nearby Star

She was gracious yet crumpled for her age. Her love for the feline persuasion beyond most of you. The pet door on her home always open. The traffic heavy and she pampered them all. The town couldn't nail her on violations as she never hoarded and contained them, just feed and consoled. Still they regarded her as a nuisance and made secret to remove her as if she alone was the cause of a plague of cats.

At night when the whisper of star light appears I swear you could here the purring, seemed the whole town was in the rumble of contentment. The old lady died and the town roughly divided her estate and disposed of her remains the same as any pulper. I was near the town on the first anniversary of her passing, thinking about my own cats at the time. I kept seeing them along the road, one and then a few, them droves. So many they stopped my car, as if to caution me, warn me. Just beyond the road that surrounded the town, thousands of cats sat and watched. My heart wailed up with thoughts of the old lady, tears came. I don't know why I opened my car door, stepped out. The cats comforted me. They purred together and purred loudly. After a few minutes the purring resounded and echoed and became deafening. The wind whipped, the ground shook violently. I lost my footing went down, banged my head.

Felt cold wet raspy licks on my face, a small purr revived me. I stirred up, a few cats here and there running off into the woods. Near day break, I was out all night. I gathered my wits, got in my car, drove off as if nothing had happened. Glancing across the road into the morning mist, I jerked my brakes to a screeching stop, got out in a gasped panic. It wasn't mist, it was smoke, the town was leveled, the town was gone.

NASA: NASA Science; Google Plus
Institute of Physics: 2012 (evidence we'll all have a few more Mondays)

Hey everyone,

I pray all is well. Here's the first preview from Lightweightz: The Anthology Part Two. It's the first page of Qasim's intro, drawn by Przemyzlaw R. Dedelis and colored by Lya. Enjoy, and support the Kickstarter!

kkjkkjk

Part 1 is about the supposed "good old days" and part 2 is more hopeful about where the species might be heading, if given a chance.

To Those Who Celebrate “The Good Old Days”, and all the conservatives and traditionalists: here’s your time capsule, feel free.

For those who think the world’s just fine as it is, and hearken back to “the good old days”, you’re advocating the world that brought us to this point. Which represents:

Corporal punishment of children; institutionalized segregation; institutional corruption; women and ‘blacks’ forbidden to vote; schoolyard bullying as rite of passage; the “color line”; drunken driving as the only recourse for getting home; police corruption; “spare the rod, spoil the child”; the “one-drop rule”; intra-family violence of innumerable kinds as an accepted part of life; religious clergy passing down sexual torture to generations of men who not only are forbidden to discuss it, but quite often likely to transmit it; women not allowed to play sports or pursue the sciences; men not allowed to show or cultivate sensitivity; women being traded as property, which is more like ‘traditional marriage’ than a lot what the ‘religious right’ will ever tell you; ALL KINDS of people being traded as property under numerous other guises; clothesline tackles and playing with multiple concussions in football; fighting as an integral part of hockey culture; nepotism; caste societies in all their forms; torture as an instrument of foreign policy; “golden parachutes” in finance; germ warfare; “man up”; “MK ULTRA” (no, seriously, google it); the Millgram Experiments and the Stanford Prison Experiment; cigarette companies deliberately spreading addiction to slow and painful deaths; police riots; draft riots; race riots; entrenched poverty; enormous gaps between rich and poor; “omerta” (google that one, too, it’s a doosy); “the thin blue line”; glass ceilings; the glorification of suffering in silence; did I mention bullying, segregation, institutional violence + corruption and the glorification of meanness?

So then, to those who brought us, and hearken back to, the good old days, I say: thanks for nothing, and if a time machine’s finally invented, feel free to jump on in and see how you like a world where your odds of full citizenship are practically nil–and even if you’re lucky enough to be a citizen in full standing, you get to be born into a world where violence, cruelty and unfairness are collectively unspoken about–and the wish for greater kindness and gentleness is mocked. You hearken back to a past that has poisoned us all, and whose influence we’re all crawling out from under. A past which it takes force of will, or good luck, or a combination thereof, not to continue to unconsciously replicate in all the little things we do. Most of today’s problems can be traced to problems handed down to us from the past–or are just reallocations of pre-existing problems, only someone else has to suffer from them now (to which I say, payback’s a bit-h–yes, another lovely expression handed down to us from our glorious past. See, I’m a product of it, too.)

Yeah, thanks for all that. Nice world you gave us. Once they invent time travel, you can line up for the old world.

“The Good Old Days” part 2: the world IS getting better

Every time you are shocked or dismayed by something you see people undertake to do to other people, remember that not long ago, you just wouldn’t have heard, seen or read about it. The fact that so many think the world is getting worse is a sign that it’s getting better; we’re trying harder, pulling away from the old norms, including more people in the fabric of society.

For the first time in human history, the concept of inalienable rights actually is somewhat broadly considered to apply to all categories of human being. Its application still lags well behind its ideation, but at least all draft-eligible Americans can vote now–it cannot be forgotten that that has not yet even been true for fifty years!!! We are shocked and dismayed, as more of our old assumptions are brought to the ground; this dismay represents progress, as more people are brought into the fold of basic human opportunity. The best we can do, any of us older than preschool age, is thank ourselves for every way in which we’re free from the poisonous crap that’s been drummed into us from birth. We are products of a poisoned world, a world where people are defined by ridiculous parameters and not taught to see each other as individuals; where violence as instruction is taken for granted, and wars last for astounding lengths of time: where people collude to exclude others from citizenship for reasons as preposterous as skin color, genitalia or inherited religion. Where bullying, humiliation and authoritarian punishment are rites of passage.

Fortunately, the grand scale of human-on-human atrocity is actually getting smaller, as the world shrinks and we increasingly realize that, as it was once said, ‘an explorer from another galaxy would find us all very much alike’. We have to remember that, and remember that the only hope for our wretched but brilliant species lies in its future.

PW