The Picture

The page has yellowed with age, and the edges show the wear and tear of the countless fingers that have lifted and held them. The book itself is starting to fall apart, its binding creaks and complains with every movement. Printed on the page of the open book is a simple, black and white photograph.

The photograph is easily identifiable as being much older than 30 years. The almost surreal quality of being completely two-dimensional is all-pervading to the senses. The very scene that it attempts to record seems unreal and lifeless.

Yet the photograph displayed is indeed effective, beyond the ability of the simple Brownie camera used to form its existence. One could look into the photograph and see a story of horrific atrocities, sudden terror, and of vast sorrow. The very qualities that belie its age also assist in verifying the integrity of the story shown within.

A large field, lined with trees, was the stage set for the scene. A few blurry, man-like shapes can be seen in the background, their apparent activity now frozen in time. The subtle shades of gray fail to lend to the clarity of the view, but where the image's aesthetic continuity is lost; the imagination can take over and easily identify the marks and craters of explosions.

The main figure of the scene kneels huddled; hands clasped in front. The hues of her dress and jacket have been lost --melted into the black and gray of the lifeless reproduction. Her hair was most likely a lovely yellow in life, but is drab and unimpressive as it floats from her head on an invisible and timeless breeze.

The young girl appears no older than twenty or twenty-two; but her face shows the sorrow of an aged saint or martyr. Her eyes are half-closed, and expressionless, while her mouth is open and motionless, caught in a mournful wail by the camera's shutter. With a little imagination, it can be imagined that at the time she was rocking back and forth in sorrow.

Her entire face shows the horror of a war she didn't choose to be involved in. Hidden within the lines of mourning can be seen the history of a madman determined to conquer the world, as his troops advance across Europe and East Asia. In the numbing shock showing in her eyes appears the vision of millions of people, used and cast aside like garbage, only to fuel the fervor of carelessness, hatred, and cruelty.

Directly before the woman, in the foreground of the photograph, lies the body of another young girl. Her face is still and almost peaceful amid a confused scene of panic. The features and hair, although stained with dark smears of blood, hold a familial semblance to the mourner. The only compelling thought that germinates from the mourner's appearance is: "She should not have died!"

The entire picture and the story behind it --the living and the dead-- are all disgraced by only a brief and uninformative paragraph of explanation. A Historian's haste has lost an entire story from the past: "A Polish peasant girl mourns over her sister who was killed in a Nazi strafing and bombing run. The nearby immigrant train was mistaken to be carrying supplies to the Allied front."

Overlooked and passed off as unimportant by historians, the picture holds an insightful look into the sins of war, and more specifically, those who cause war. Whether a madman in Germany with a hatred for other races, a tyrannical king forcing his taxation, or crooked politicians unwilling to admit ignorance in tactics: War will happen. And war will bring the death of the innocent along with the guilty.

Some view war as a thing to avoid and shrink from. Others glorify it in toys and films. But war will come, and with it will come countless horrors and death. To fight can be wrong, but to not fight for what is right is worse. Those who avoid all war should read the thirteenth chapter of Job; those who search for war should read the twelfth chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans.

We must defend the cause of right and truth, but with every war will come death: that of the innocent Polish peasant girl; the rich and the poor; and our sons and our daughters. There is much we could learn from the records of history that we all too often fail to see.

Omaha

The mounted Maschinengewehr 42 machine gun continued its methodic staccato, although the rate of fire was such that the human ear could not distinguish between separate shots, the sound of ripping cloth earning it the nickname of “Hitler’s Buzzsaw”.

The five 7.92x57mm bullets ripped through his flesh and muscle with the same level of care and sensitivity as a chainsaw through an unwanted sapling; and with much the same amount of destruction.

The bullet that struck lowest literally grabbed his right kidney and exploded with it out his back. Simultaneously, the highest bullet was bursting from his left shoulder amid a profusion of blood, flecks of muscle, and bits of bone. The three other bullets had continued much the same fashion, leaving large, bloody holes strewn carelessly across his torso. All five bullets, now much slowed, smacked ‘harmlessly’ in the sand some distance behind him.

He wasn’t surprised. He had expected to die, expected to be shot or blown up. You can’t be the first man off the first Higgins LCM and expect to see the end of the war. He didn’t even expect to see a German. The solid “WHUMP” of the 300mm “Nebelwerfer” was enough to convince anyone of the reality of death, even someone who already had five gaping holes in their body.

He wasn’t surprised to find himself lying on his back. The shock acquainted with one’s insides being forcibly rearranged was enough to make anyone want to lie down; but the force of five bullets hitting home almost simultaneously would have been enough to put even Hercules over.

What did surprise him was that there was no pain. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel anything at all – the very real feeling of sand and pebbles in his clawing fingers was as real as the feel of Lynn’s golden hair against his palms. He could very realistically feel his own blood forming a small pool behind his head as he stared at the overcast sky. The clouds were almost the same color of grey as Lynn’s eyes. He could almost see and feel her beckoning, calling him home to her. Yes, he could feel alright. There just was no pain.

He was also somewhat surprised that the battle continued around him. Men were screaming, crying out in horrible and guttural sounds, occasionally mixed with the solid thud of bullets hitting mankind. Mortars exploded everywhere, one even showering him with sand and bits of hot metal. The sound of gunfire was a living thing, floating up and down, far and near as the battle thickened and thinned with the deaths of thousands. He hadn’t expected this, but it did seem logical, now that he had time to think about it. Before, he didn’t think about it, he just did what Lieutenant Johnson said. Now, since he was wounded but not in pain, he could simply think and think and think.

He thought he heard someone yell “Corpsman!” nearby, but the sounds of the 88mm Anti-air guns were deafening, as once again the British (God love the British!) tried to hammer the coastal defenses into submission. As the Aero planes disappeared, the sounds subsided back into the previous wafting of the M1 Garands’ and the Browning Automatic Rifles’ unsteady cacophony. Only now, over the sounds of fighting and dying, he could hear an awful, bloodcurdling scream. It continued and continued, pausing only occasionally, apparently for a breath, before starting up again.

The scream was horrifying, gurgling, and completely unreal. He thanked God in Heaven he was not in the kind of pain that scream must be in. Poor devil! Someone should either shoot him up on morphine, or shoot him once and for all. It really was terrifying, laying there hearing that scream. It wouldn’t stop, and it wouldn’t let this war be unimportant. He tried plugging his ears against the sound, but the blood covering his hands made it impossible to do so. He wished something would happen. The ocean waves lapped at his legs like a sad child trying desperately to comfort an adult they don’t know why is upset. He had to think, but he couldn’t think with that poor man screaming!

Suddenly, he saw and felt Lynn. He didn’t know how she had come to be here, but she was a very welcome sight. The blood and guts didn’t seem to bother her, his or anyone else’s, and the sights and sounds of bitter fighting were as unseen to her as sadness is to angels. She was smiling at him, softly petting his arms and face, crooning like she had a few months before when he couldn’t quite say goodbye.

She was talking to him, comforting him, telling him he could stop screaming now, that he was dead.

He was, and the screaming had stopped.

Bloody Sunday

There aren’t any bagpipes a’ skirlin’ to lift my feet higher, and I’m not wearin’ a kilt – but I hold my head higher to think of them.

There’s no deep thrumming of the drums to steady my heart, and no rat-a-tat-tat to heighten my senses, but I hold my head higher to think of them.

I think of my mother, and hope she is safe and warm on this chilly night. I like to think that I do this for her, but I’m unsure. Yet, I do think of her and hold my head higher.

I remember my sisters, and their long hair. That of it self mists my eyes, and makes me hold my head higher.

I remember the tales my old Grand-dad used to tell me of some great ancestor or the other (I surely can’t remember their names) and the deeds they’d done, or battles they’d won. Yes, I hold my head up higher.

I think of the story of Bloody Sunday, and the deaths of fourteen of our brave countrymen. What went through their minds in their final second of life? Odd that this is a sunday as well. Perhaps, as they died, they held their heads higher.

I make myself ready, clearing up my sleeping area, along with my mind. Dawn isn’t far off, and with its early light I know men will die. Men will bleed and die. Blood as red and rich as mine will no doubt flow, maybe even mingled with mine. No matter, I’ll hold my head higher.

The Captain came by a short while ago, noticing, he said, how calm I seemed. He almost seemed sad, although I don’t know why. Perhaps he has a touch of the gift, and knows what I do not. Never-the-less, I held my head higher.

If John were here, we’d stand together, side by side, brothers. But, that cannot be. He was a man, that John. I never thanked him for the jacket he gave to me. I wear it now, and hold my head higher.

I’m suited and ready as the sky begins to grow lighter, and my weapon feels good in my hands. I hope it well sees its use today. I sight the hill before me, choosing the place where I’ll go over it. We’ll be charging soon and I hold my head up higher.

The Lieutenant is giving the signal, and the men slowly rise, moving forward with determined looks, their eyes steady and somber in the faint light of early dawn. To see them, you’d think we had a fair chance in this. Yet, to see them, I hold my head higher. These are men.

Devil take the odds. I top the hill with the ancient battle cry, the sun at my back, my eyes seeing the enemy spread before us, and I shout the louder.

The sounds of warfare everywhere, outnumbered seven to one, we charge on. They’re a brave lot to face us, numbers not counting. We’re not green troops.

Give ‘em what-for, boys. They’d better run. An Irishman’s going to war.

Dave Romjintz

Once every three hundred million years The Galaxy pauses, resets itself, recalibrates it's position in The Universe of reality and the continues on it's meandering way. This lasts about twenty-two Earth hours. Nobody ever notices this. At least, no one is supposed to.

Dave Romjintz did.

It was a bright, sunny Tuesday afternoon in April. The year was Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Eight, Anno Domini. Dave was twenty years, three months and fourteen days old.

Dave Romjintz was a very promising young lawyer; the youngest Yale graduate ever, and he had been practicing law for thirteen months.

On that bright and Tuesday, Dave Romjintz felt a little odd. He abruptly abandoned his current projects and rushed from his office, leaving in his wake two very confused but over payed para-legals. He went home, grabbed a kitchen knife, and for no readily apparent reason brutally murdered his neighbors' dog, cat, and goldfish.

The next day, Dave woke naked on his porch roof. Slightly confused, he dressed and went to work only forty-five minutes late.

No one ever connected him to the mystery, and he enjoyed thirty successful years as a prominent lawyer, and eventually even became a Judge.

The End

ROCKS - Part One

There was once a man named Ebert who lived alone. He did not live alone for any particular reason; he just had always been alone. This man’s life was a confusing mix of simplicity and complexity.

Ebert's life was simple in its routine: He always did the same things, all of the time. He got out of bed every morning at 8:00 o’clock sharp. As he stood up from his bed, one or two rocks always fell off his bed onto his foot. He always yelped in pain.

At 8:30 he was always dressed and fixing breakfast. He always had scrambled eggs and toast. He always bit down hard on a small but painful rock in his eggs. He always made a muffled sound of astonishment and pain, and tears invariable formed at the corners of his eyes.

At 9:45 the man would always go out and work in his shed. That is where the simplicity really got complex. He had a special set of tools, made from all sizes, shapes, and sorts of rocks; and he always set out to make the same thing. Whether stone, wood, potter’s clay, or any of the many other materials he tried to use; no matter how great the idea formed in his head, and no matter how beautiful he was just sure it would be, he always made something lewd, ugly, and unacceptable. He always hated what he had made.

His lunch hour was always spent smashing his ugly and unacceptable creation to a thousand pieces with a special rock he kept just for that purpose. The rock was very large, heavy, and unwieldy, so he kept it in a special cabinet by itself. But no matter how careful he was, he always ended up smashing his fingers as he took it from the cabinet, and smashing them again as he beat the project to smithereens.

By 1:15 he was invariably sitting huddled on the floor next to a thousand pieces of stone, clay, wood, or something else, nursing his throbbing fingers and rocking uncontrollably.

Around 2:00 o’clock each afternoon, he decided to have lunch. Lunch was always a sandwich made from smoked ham, Swiss cheese, and Rye bread. It always cheered him up as he made the sandwich. But each day as he started to eat his sandwich, a small rock would catch his attention, and while he decided whether or not he liked this new rock a big black crow would come and steal his sandwich. By three thirty he was nearly always depressed.

From 4:00 to 5:00 he worked on his garden. He would till, rake, shovel, weed, cultivate and do all of the other things a good gardener must do to maintain a healthy crop. But nothing ever grew in his small garden except a few ugly weeds. This was because he never took the rocks out of the soil in his garden. In fact, he usually added a few rocks he thought looked nice. Because of this, everything he ever planted had died, baked to death by the sun.

When 5:00 rolled around, the Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Of the rock in his grandfather clock told him it was time to clean up and take a shower. On the way into the bathroom, he always stubbed his now unshod toe on a “decorative” rock he had placed just inside the door. It matched his décor perfectly, which was easy enough because it was all rocks. Unfortunately, it also got in the way a lot. But, he left it there all the same.

At 6:30 he had dinner. Dinner usually passed very slowly and without incident. It was probably quite delicious, but he never noticed because he was always very, very lonely. He had lots of rocks sitting around his table, but none of them made him less lonely. He would stare at them, and they just sat there. They were wholly silent, as if taunting him with the question, "So, what now?"

Ebert was very lonely indeed. He told himself often that no, he was not lonely, he had lots of rocks. Every Saturday he would go and find more rocks. He always found the beautiful ones, mainly because he thought they were all beautiful.

He did have one other person in his life, however. His name was... well, to be honest, Ebert didn't know him by any name because he had never bothered to ask. He always showed up when he was fawning over a new rock, and usually in the evenings. He would sit and watch Ebert for a while, and then offer to help him get rid of his rocks. When Ebert would tell him that, no, he didn't want to get rid of the rocks; the man would calmly suggest that his life would be much better if he got rid of everyone of his rocks. Ebert would always get angry and storm off shouting that he would never get rid of his rocks and that he loved them very much.

The man would sit quietly for a while, and then sadly walk away. Ebert would watch from his window, not really caring where the man went, but faintly curious as to where he stayed.

Around bedtime, Ebert was always very, very angry. He never knew for sure if he was mad at the stranger, or at himself, or at his rocks -but the rocks always got the brunt of it. Ebert would tire himself out by throwing some of his less beautiful rocks out the window. Big rocks, little rocks, ugly rocks, handfuls of pebbles. All would tumble to the ground in a confusion of jumbled shapes.

About an hour after Ebert had crawled tearfully into bed, he would shamefully slip outside and put his rocks back in the house, stumbling in the growing dark, but filled with some will beyond his understanding to keep his priceless prizes.

Eventually, as they days wore on, the stranger started coming less and less, until six months had gone by without Ebert shouting about how much he loved his rocks. The stranger seemed to have forgotten him. Not knowing why, Ebert became more and more depressed. He continued collecting rocks, he even spent all of Friday, Saturday and Sunday out collecting them; making multiple trips back to his home to offload the latest stash, then continuing out for more. But he was getting more and more unhappy.

One day, as he stooped to pick up a particularly nicely formed sandstone, he noticed a large wetspot on it. "What on earth could that be?" he wondered. Instead of picking up the rock, he continued looking at the wetspot. Suddenly, another one appeared next to it. Ebert was crying.

He went home that day without a single new rock. The next few days he did nothing with his rocks. He did nothing at all except lay in bed and weep. Ebert had realized he hated rocks.

Abeo Hades Abscido Compleo Ab Deus

The green plasma-like blobs faded as soon as they appeared...

Colin, still depressed, sat staring at a scene as bleak and dreary as his thoughts. Only a few minutes before, he had been comfortably melancholic in a small-but-warm shack, listening to Aerosmith and eating chocolate brownies. The scene now before him kind of made the whole manic-depressive side of him shudder in self-realization. The brownie slipped from his fingers, silently falling away, much like the shack had.

He slowly turned, looking in all directions, oblivious of the crumbs on his chin and clothes. The view was the same everywhere he looked: Grey, featureless, boring, and sadistic. He couldn't think of enough descriptive ways of saying he hated it.

As he sat, he became aware of what he was hearing, or more specifically, of what he was NOT hearing. He did not hear himself breathing. He could not hear his clothes brushing against his chair, which oddly had not disappeared with the shack. He couldn't hear air moving past his large, often-mocked ears. Everywhere there was a silence, as deep and complete as he had ever wished for. It produced an atmosphere of a library about to play host to a massive nuclear war. The silence was hatred, and so he hated it.

On a whim, he stood up and starting sing "The Star-Spangled Banner". The words formed in his mouth and promptly fell flat in front of his face, producing little more than imagined sounds in the back of his mind. He panicked a little, clearing his throat desperately. He risked a yell. It seemed little more than a child sobbing into a pillow.

He suddenly felt the urge to jump, but ignored it, focusing instead on trying to clap loudly. It sounded like a one-legged fly trying to tiptoe. The urge to jump became a foolish desire to jump away from this place, and then became a hungry, clawing terror of the ground he stood on. All the while the silence lurked around him, on him, in him; taunting and mocking until he felt he couldn't stand it anymore.

With a sudden, garish movement, he started to run, first just clumsily, then wildly, then it was a painful, desperate attempt to hear or feel something. He ran, and ran, and ran. The pounding of his feet against something solid was unmistakably absent, as was the rush of the wind on his face; yet, still, he ran. He ran for what must have been miles, the minutes unnoticed as they flew by. He ran until he could feel each pustule bursting in his lungs; until he could taste his own iron-rich blood in his mouth and throat. He ran until his muscles began to spasm and jerk from the acids building in them. He fell once, and then, stumbling, began to run again. He began to see black and white spots, and he could feel his vision fading into a tunnel. He was passing out.

Dropping to his knees, he sobbed un-checked, as he stared down onto an unchanging grey surface. A little spittle, mixed with more than a little blood, dropped from his chin and landed in front of him. In the very instant it made contact with the ground, just when it should splatter and spread, it simply disappeared. It was more than he could bear.

Falling forward on his face, Colin wailed like child, screaming and blustering. His very body was crying out in pain, but it was all he could feel. The ground, featureless, didn't even seem to be there. The sounds of his anguish barely seemed to go beyond his own mouth. He longed for his chair, mourning that he had ran so far from it.

Shortly, he rose from his prostrate position and turned -intent on returning to his now cherished seat. With sudden, startling clarity, he saw it. It was directly behind him, as though he had never moved from it. Bewildered, he forgot his pain, anguish, and crying. Curiosity took control of his mind. He stepped backward, but he didn't. Either he didn't move, or the chair, impossible to gauge against the nothing of the gray backdrop, followed. He couldn't tell. It was all too surreal for his feable senses.

Looking around, he couldn’t find his brownie. Searching his clothes, he found that the crumbs had all disappeared, and in fact, the color of his clothes had faded considerably.

Suddenly, a thought struck him. Turning quickly around, he could just make out his chair, now nearly as gray and featureless as everything else he surveyed. He reached out and touched it, then sat on it in an attempt to keep it with him; but he was sitting on nothing - the nothing of the drab ground he hated. Glancing in surprise at his lap, he realized his pants had disappeared. Or was it his legs? A quick examination showed that his entire body (what he could see of it within the limits of physics) had faded and begun to blend with the nothing that surrounded him, now a threatening thing, alive yet full of death.

For a long time Colin was conscious, first remembering and questioning what was happening; then struggling to remember anything at all. He could feel his consciousness fading, just as his body had, into the grey nothingness that he was still vaguely aware of.

His last conscious thought was in the form of a question. He had long pondered his situation, but he wondered, just briefly, if anyone else had, was, or would experience anything similar to what he had.

But then, just as quickly as he had arrived, he was no longer there. Colin was gone as though he had never existed.

Vlanglid'orn the Morthaul

Vlanglid'orn was a morthaul. This really meant nothing to anyone, but he was. He couldn't help it, he had been born a morthaul. All of his brothers and sisters had been born gasterthaulicts, and he alone had been the morthaul. But it didn't matter to anyone. Except him.

Why was he so different? He was so completely unlike anyone else he knew that he really felt it must be a mistake. All of his family, being gasterthaulicts, had the perfect amount of limbs: twenty-seven. They had the perfect amount of hoof-like appendages: twenty-three. Not Vlanglid'orn.

Everyone he knew wandered the forest using the supreme sense of spatial-anomaly-self-orientation. They never, ever, ever had to open their nineteen eyes. Not so Vlanglid'orn. Even the species that hunted the gasterthaulicts were vastly different from Vlanglid'orn. They slid along effortlessly on their slime-trails, speaking in that disgusting gutteral shriek, and killing thousands of gasterthaulicts for their daily feasts.

Yet, even as they cast their whompsmoshers, dealing out death almost supernaturally, they never, ever tried to kill Vlanglid'orn. He just wasn't very tasty looking.

In fact, Vlanglid'orn was very, very, very unappealing. His whole life he had never grown anything new that anyone knew of --he just got bigger. Then one day he even stopped getting bigger.

He always stood about, erect and upright, on his only TWO legs. His hoof-appendages were flat and soft, with five smaller appendages extending from the front. His body was elongated and uniform, with absolutely no specially grown personality bumps. His two feeding appendages hung from the side of his body, instead of the top of his head.

His head was probably the oddest thing about him: it was round! round with patch of hair covering most of it. He only had two eyes, directly on the front of it, yet he had to use them to see with! He spent nearly his entire waking moments with his eyes open! Instead of absorbing oxygen through his food, he had to suck it in through a funny looking wedge hanging off his head.

Besides all of this, he could hear things! The drooping things on either side of his head collected sound waves and transferred them to his brain (he figured this out by himself). Nobody ever understood when he asked them what that noise was: nobody else could hear. They didn't need to, only he did. His mouth was fairly normal looking, except it was much larger than anyone else's, and he only had the one.

To top it all off, Vlanglid'orn was pink. Not a good, healthy bright pink. Just sort of a dull, whitish, pinkish. And his skin was incredibly soft without any spikes or quills at all. All of the gasterthalicts had learned long ago not to greet him in the normal manner of slapping his head with nine legs simultaneously. He nearly always ended up wounded and angry.

In fact, he didn't really get along with any of the gasterthaulicts. His own mother wouldn't talk to him anymore. Most of the community felt sorry for Vlanglid'orn, but he actually didn't like anyone, no matter how nice they tried to be. The reason was that he usually ended up bleeding. So, Vlanglid'orn spent most of his time traveling very long distances, exploring things that no other gasterthaulict would ever think of exploring. The result was that he found a door, something noone anywhere on the planet of dlogdlogdlogdlogdlog would ever even imagine. It seemed natural to Vlanglid'orn, however. So, he opened it and walked through.

_______________________________________

In the year 2135, shortly after the great war of the Pseudo-Apple; all of Earth and it's colonies entered into a treaty of peace and prosperity. All except one, the Mars colony RT-1001. They were the furthest colony from the original Rover landing, and had always remained fairly independant of the governments that came and went everywhere else. Their greatest leader, JohnJoeJimJack Gearheadson, spent his entire life convincing the RT-1001 people, who called themselves the Farpeeps, that they should unite with the rest of mankind. On the day that JohnJoeJimJack Gearheadson died, the Farpeep Parliament passed the Ultimate Peace Resolution, and sent an emmissary to the United Human Federation. A short while later, an un-identified human body stepped through a door 4 miles directly above the Farpeep Colony Atmosphere Bubble and plunged screaming into it. The Bubble shattered (it was nearly 200 years old), and every Farpeep died, except the single Emissary, who to this day sits in his Asylum Cell and plots the destruction of all mankind.

So beware animals from other places, they ARE dangerous.

Cacoon I

I see it again now. It has now been several days since it was there... I lost count in the drudgery. It isn't that I am uncomfortable. That's the problem, I'm not uncomfortable. But I see it now. What is it? I long desperately to go to it, somehow heave myself far enough to reach it. But, I just watch it. It comes and goes with it's own whims. Does it actually have whims? Thoughts and emotions, as I do? I have yet to see a pattern in it, but if it has no thoughts and emotions, it must have a pattern, right? Like me. I have patterns.

Something changed yesterday. Or, more likely, something has been changing and I simply noticed it for the first time yesterday. I couldn't quite pinpoint what it was, but something was subtly different. I woke up hungry and felt like something was different. I'd never been hungry before, so I was too preoccupied to find out what it was that was different.

There it is again. How odd the way it fades and returns so slowly that I only notice when it reaches an apex. But it has gotten stronger. Each time I have seen it, I now realize, it has been a stronger shade of greenish. Now, it's so strong it seems to flow all around and through me, permeating everything where I am. How odd that it doesn't taste or smell different. If it did, I might have to get worried. But, it just tastes like where I am; which is good. I like where I am... except for this difference. What is that? What is it that has changed and become different?

It's gone. Well, not really gone, just a lot less here. I know that can't make much sense, but it is the only way I can describe it.

It's been a lot warmer since I first saw it. In fact, a lot warmer indeed. Practically hot. If I could just move around a little, I would feel a lot cooler...

_________________________________

The little grey tube suddenly twitched, then held still. The world passed by without reverance. Sunlight illuminated the scene indifferently, carelessly throwing beams of warm light everywhere. The tube twitched again, then again.

Without fanfare or parade, spring was announced triumphant over cold, cruel winter with the appearance of a bright blue and yellow butterfly. The now useless grey shell of a tube fell to the ground for recycling.

The butterfly dealt with being a butterfly.