Three Stories

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(Edited)

I have to admit that I wasn’t really paying attention on the day when the total crypto market cap passed a hundred quadrillion dollars. But by that point, did it really matter? “Dollars” were mostly just a unit of accounting by then. It’s weird though; I remember vividly the excitement earlier when Bitcoin passed a million dollars but, since about that time, most things have been priced in Satoshi Equivalents anyway and people have been paying for stuff in whatever crypto they want and letting a DEX figure out the exchange rate.

After living through the hyperinflation we had as central banks spazzed out before collapsing, nobody bats an eye at paying SE27500 for a latté.

And since The Troubles when many cities became all but uninhabitable, most of my friends and acquaintances have moved to homesteads; so much of what we still buy is delivered by drones. The Famine Year when so many died off when six varieties of GMO crops failed convinced many survivors to grow their own food using heirloom varieties. Gotta admit that I still get some satisfaction re-watching the executions of the top leadership of Bayer, DuPont, and Syngenta. Those bastards killed billions.

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“A small fraction of those who hope to enter the mysteries are accepted to be brothers and sisters. Much patience is employed, we are in no rush to swell our ranks. Little time at all is needed to weed out the clearly unworthy, but much time may elapse until a potential Seeker has earned admittance to the fold. Resignation to Knowledge has many levels of understanding. That’s our motto, and if you can’t abide by it, then you are not the type of person worthy of being a Seeker.

“But you have passed every Test. Some ask for a map to guide them; you found ways, unguided. Others prized teachers; you sought out learners. Many chase the fire of faith; you went the slowness of ambiguous paths.”

So said the Grey Master as we walked towards the doorway to the Inner Chamber. Stopping just before it, he took my hands and looked me in the eyes.

“Prepare before you see them. They could be dangerous.”

I of course knew that he would speak those words. Even so, all who seek to enter The Order understand their significance. I had now passed the point of no return.

The Grey Master opened the door and I entered, into the presence of The Seven. Their hands were already glowing as they approached and encircled me. All touched me at the same time and the burn hurt even more than I imagined it would. But as The Pain coursed through me I knew that my Resignation to Knowledge was really only beginning.

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“Build wild bricks of unity. We need this site!” He was foaming at the mouth from screaming so much. There are two types of leaders, the “Follow me!” type and the “Go there!” type. Franz is very much the latter.

Wild bricks of unity? I think Franz has been out in the sun too long. The team is building a retaining wall to extend our terraced gardens within our hilly community. Not a brick in sight, we’re using stone. A lack of large rocks has never been a problem here. We used to plant our crops on the flatter land down near the river, but marauders put an end to that. The land there is just not defensible. Three years ago, marauders stole most of our crops on a full moon. Most of us barely survived the winter, six did not.

Katherine had the worst of it. Both of her daughters died that hard winter, her husband the next spring when, weakened by malnutrition, he fainted and hit his head on a boulder. But she had recognized one of the marauders as a resident of the village two days walking north of here. She traveled there and stabbed him dead at night when he walked out of his hut to relieve himself. There’s another thing, too. Just between us, it wouldn’t surprise me if she is going to get herself locked up, or worse. Turns out that the man she killed was the nephew of the regional governor. It’s been long enough since then that she’s probably in the clear. But if the governor ever puts two and two together, there’s no way we can protect her. She’s got a distinctive scar on her left arm from the broken tip of a knife that he used to try to defend himself. She was too fast and he was too drunk. But she didn’t think to dispose of the knife he’d wounded her with and just left it there beside his body. Katherine is the best healer we have and her loss would be a huge blow to the village, but even Franz wouldn’t be able to talk us out of trouble if the governor’s men ever show up.

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3 comments
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I've always loved your creative writing! Good to see a story.

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Nothing like a little dystopian future or a telling of future reality. Who knows these days. Either way, very entertaining. :)


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