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By Adam the Alien, on September 9th, 2009
 Tuesday, the eighth of September, 2009 – 5:20 in the afternoon. It was a day like any other day: at an hour closer to dinner than anything else, I was sitting at the computer in my bathrobe, unable to recall if I’d eaten breakfast yet.
Suddenly, I heard my phone vibrating from across the room like a coin-fed bed in a pay-by-the-hour hotel. I was expecting a call, but damned if I was going to pry myself away from the computer and take the two steps required to reach the phone unless I was absolutely certain I had to.
Before I could be certain, I had to check Twitter. With the phone vibrating away, I clicked a sidebar link attached to the words “Direct Messages”. I was right: the source of my phone’s panicked vibrations was here, online. No reason to waste precious, underfed moments on physical movement.
No reason, that is, until I read the two latest messages.
“Your package came,” they said. “In the mail.”
Now, unless it was another pipe bomb from my sleaze-bag bookie, Joey, there was only one thing it could be.
I rushed upstairs, holding my bathrobe shut so the midgets of the house wouldn’t see Peter Johnson doing his upside-down trapeze belly dance.
There it was, sitting on the table: the package I’d been waiting weeks for. I grabbed it and rushed downstairs, nearly giving Mr. Johnson a concussion as I sat down a little too quickly.
I tried to pull the package open. No dice – this little seductress was sealed tighter than my ex-wife’s legs. Not that I ever had a wife; I just like to say I did.
Finally, I pulled out Rusty – my trusty nail clipper. My ex-wife – not that I ever had one – was always nagging me about getting a real knife. But me? I figured that if a nail clipper was good enough for a theoretical terrorist that might one day hold an entire plane hostage with the mostly blunted file…well, it was good enough for me, too.
Rusty penetrated the package like my package penetrated my mistress (not that I have a mistress – I just like to say I do). Together, we tore through the unnatural barrier, revealing the box inside. If my father’s sperm could tell stories, they would probably say something similar about their triumph over the old man’s mishandled condom. Not that my parents didn’t mean to have me. I just like to say they didn’t.
Throwing the wrapper aside like a five dollar hooker, I opened the box. A sharp intake of breath was all that signaled my awe at the holy grail inside.
He was heavier than I thought. But his head bobbled away like mine did whenever I’d pretend to be listening to a cabby’s tales of woe. Not that I’ve ever been in a taxi cab.
 It was a detailed, miniature likeness of author and Internet celebrity John Green. And it was an eerie little thing.
His mouth hung open, his eyebrows arched with surprise. The expression frozen on his face was the same one I saw on my old man right before I shot him for trying to flee the scene of a crime. Not that my father is dead…or a criminal…or was ever facing down the barrel of a gun at me. In fact, I’ve never touched a gun in my life. But I like to say I did.
After a shower and a shave (not that I shaved), I decided to show off Mr. Green to my sister and that mook she married. Not that my brother-in-law is a mook. I just like to say he is.
After a few minutes, the mook said he needed to get something. I prepared myself for the sound of a pistol cocking, or the sting of a bat hitting the back of my noggin. The mook returned with a box. I knew whatever was inside was dangerous. I know whatever was in that box had to be something packing a lot of punch – and this time, I was right.
Al Franken was in that box.
His head bobbled back and forth, side to side, like he was laughing at Peter Johnson’s upside-down trapeze act. It wouldn’t have been the first time. My ex-wife laughed at it all the time. Not that she ever existed.
 Words – especially the limited vocabulary and made-up catch words of the noir genre – can’t describe what happened next. The mingling of the two icons, craniums bobbling away like a couple of Japanese kids having a Pokémon-induced seizure – it was amazing. The subsequent interview, the novel telling all the sordid details of the event? Indescribable.
The new world order was created here. With these two powerhouses in one place, the world trembled and minds were expanded. The future was now, and I was there, bearing witness to it all.
It was the most incredible thing to happen in all of history. A day I will never forget.
Not that any of it actually happened.
I just like to say it did.
By Adam the Alien, on November 1st, 2002 The wind blows through the trees as the boy, wearing only ragged home-made clothing, walks through the densely vegetated forest. He watches a young deer drinking from a small, crystal clear creek. The crow glides down from a tree, landing and walking alongside the boy as he asks his latest question.
“What, exactly, is the difference between wisdom, knowledge, and intelligence?”
Stopping and reaching a hand into the creek, the boy smiles, watching a small fish swim between his fingers as he responds, “A wonderful problem you ask me this time, little one. Do you realize how many never even find the question, let alone the answer?”
The deer looks up in alarm, then bounds away in fear. The boy removes his hand from the brown, murky water, brushes some mud off his rubber boots and sits down on a stump.
“You’ve heard of the term ‘a train of thought,’ have you not?”
“I have,” replies the crow, perching on another stump opposite the boy.
“Excellent. Then I shall use that to explain.” The boy shifts in his chair as he straightens his silk tie. “Picture a train. What would you call a train sitting completely still?”
“Useless,” says the crow as the tree behind him falls. “It doesn’t go anywhere.”
The boy smiles, stretching his legs on the cement beneath their table. “Precisely. Why have a train if it doesn’t go anywhere? Now picture that train moving. Faster and faster and faster it goes! So great is the adrenaline rush of speed, no one notices just how fast the train is moving.”
The crow sips his tea. “That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Indeed. If no one considers using the brakes to at least slow the train down, and it keeps going faster, what do you suppose will eventually happen?” the boy puts out a cigarette in the ashtray in the center of the table.
“Simple,” interrupts a new voice. The contents of the ashtray blow in the breeze created by the cat jumping on the table. The ashes are caught by the wind, blowing toward a rather oddly shaped cloud in the distance. “The train derails.”
“Precisely.” The boy smiles yet again, straightening the sleeve of his elegant, jewel covered robe.
“As interesting as this is,” the crow remarks, “I don’t understand what it is you’re saying.”
The boy casually watches the distant cloud grow upward from the ground. The wind shifts directions, and the boy’s hair is blown out of his face as the cat responds to the crow’s confusion.
“He is telling you that knowledge is like the train. Left unchecked, it will continue faster and faster, endangering the passengers and those near the tracks. The brakes are wisdom, for only they can keep knowledge in check.”
“What about intelligence?” the crow inquires, flapping his wings against the wind.
“Intelligence is the destination,” explains the boy. “With knowledge and wisdom together is the only way to reach intelligence.”
The boy stands as the crow is blown away. The cat leaps off the table as it, too, is swept away in the strength of the unnatural wind. As the cement, skyscrapers, and everything else crumbles and blows away, the cat speaks to the boy.
“If a single passenger realizes the brakes must be used, it does the train no good. None of the others will understand why that passenger is trying to put on the brakes, to slow the train. They will likely throw that passenger off the train.”
The boy nods as all vision is obscured by the flying dust, dirt, and cement. “That is why the passenger must first convince the rest of the passengers that they are going to die. Unless they change.”
“And if they remain unconvinced?” The cat purrs as it finishes the question, just before giving in to the wind.
The boy, alone now, stares ahead without expression as the wind returns to a low breeze. “Then God help us all.”
The breeze blows through the dirt as the boy, wearing only the rags of a silken cloak, walks through the barren wasteland. He watches a small cockroach scurry across the desolate ground. As he kneels by a pile of parched bones, he looks to the horizon, watching the silhouette of a train crossing the magnificently red sunset.
By Adam the Alien, on January 5th, 2002
 "Tea Time" is a sketch inspired by this story. It was drawn by qtjene, whose work can be found at http://www.furnation.com/jenart and http://qtjene.deviantart.com/. It is a warm, sunny day in July. The snow falls gently around a coffee shop where a boy and a crow sit outdoors, sipping tea. The crow asks the boy when he thinks the end of everything will be.
“It has already occurred,” says the boy.
The crow cocks its head to the side, asking, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just what I said,” replies the boy. “Everything ended yesterday. It is ending now. It will also end tomorrow, and every day that has ever been or ever will be.”
“That’s a bit of a conundrum,” says the crow, sipping from its empty teacup. “Do explain.”
The boy laughs, explaining, “It’s really quite simple. One can even use geometry to describe it. Time is akin to a ray. It has a definite beginning, but no end. It goes on forever. Everything that has ever occurred and will ever occur already exists. Were this not so, a time traveler could not go to the past, for it would have come and gone, nor to the future, for it has not yet occurred.
“The end of everything would obviously be the end of time as well. This doesn’t mean time simply stops, becoming a line segment, having a definite beginning and a definite end, rather than a ray. Then all that had occurred before the end would still exist, and that would be something. A time traveler could eternally avoid the end of the world by returning to the beginning whenever he or she reached the end.
“No, the end of time would be the complete obliteration of the ray itself, so that the mortal realm would no longer exist. No past, no present, no future. It’s just that simple, my friend.”
At this time the black cat curled up inside the boy’s teacup yawns, steps out of the cup and stretches. Every one of its joints makes a loud cracking noise, as it gets quite cramped inside a teacup.
“Your theory is sound,” remarks the cat, “but it would depend on the existence of fate.”
“Indeed,” agrees the crow, putting down its full teacup for the waitress to refill. “And you’ve told me before, boy, that you do not fully believe in fate.”
The boy glances inside the coffee shop, wondering when his tea will finally be served, before responding, “You are assuming that I meant time to be a single ray. There is a single central ray, yes, but shooting off from it are an infinite amount of other rays. Alternate universes form for every possibility. More and more universes branch off of those branches, et cetera, et cetera.
“It’s like those books where the reader can make choices on where the story goes, and it could end up good or bad. The entire book is already written, but the choices you make determine which path you take. In the end, however, it is all a part of the same book, and when the book is destroyed, so are the pages. So it is with time and the alternate universes. When the End comes, it will all be wiped away. Past, present, future, alternate universes, and the possibilities that spawned them.”
“Fascinating,” purrs the cat, slowly melting into a stain of tea on the tablecloth.
“So what do we do about it?” asks the crow.
“Nothing,” replies the boy. “Live your life. Enjoy it. Marvel at the gift you have received, and revel in every moment of time you are blessed with.”
The crow, content with the answer it was given, takes to the frigid December air. As it makes its way though the muggy night air, it wonders if it should go to the coffee shop to have tea with the boy. After all, it has been so long since they spoke last, and the crow had for some time wanted to ask the boy when he thought the end of everything would be.
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Tuesday, the eighth of September, 2009 – 5:20 in the afternoon. It was a day like any other day: at an hour closer to dinner than anything else, I was sitting at the computer in my bathrobe, unable to recall if I’d eaten breakfast yet.
It was a detailed, miniature likeness of author and Internet celebrity John Green. And it was an eerie little thing.
Words – especially the limited vocabulary and made-up catch words of the noir genre – can’t describe what happened next. The mingling of the two icons, craniums bobbling away like a couple of Japanese kids having a Pokémon-induced seizure – it was amazing. The subsequent interview, the novel telling all the sordid details of the event? Indescribable.
