Audio and transcript only

This is my first Flash Fiction story recorded on location. I like the way it ends. I was under pressure to finish, and I like what that did to my story. Sometimes putting oneself in a weird situation has great results. Here is a link to an episode called ”How to Change the World in Mundane Situations," where I describe some of the ways to stimulate your subconscious mind by putting it under pressure when you need a solution.

Have a weird little story. Communication breakdowns are ridiculous, but I’m Commercial Herschel. You’re welcome. Hey,Suspension of This Belief I think I’m following your instructions by mentioning you in my post. I’m not sure. I’ll have to reread that. Anyway, have a nice day. You like fiction? I got fiction.

I think the most fruitful thing I’ve done with my episodes is the Flash Fiction. I’ll be focusing mostly on it and the serial stories that have come from it. I’ve removed almost all the episodes that are not related to storytelling.

Crackers & Soup: EPISODE 100!

“I like crackers in my soup,” Loara says.

“Who does NOT love crackers in their soup?" Kleigh responds.

Loara and Kleigh have just made a piping hot vat of delicious, comforting, rich, creamy tomato soup. Everyone knows, including you, dear reader, the anticipation that goes along with that warm, delicious steam rising from the pot when the soup is almost, just about, but not quite ready to serve, and then you are looking for the crackers. Oh my goodness. That’s the life. It really is. These two have recently started dating, and this is their first time cooking together.

Loara is hovering over the hot pot. She’s giving herself an impromptu face steam, and inhaling the wonderful smell of tomato soup with basil, cream, and butter. “It’s out of this world, really,” she says.

Kleigh has his hands full. He’s getting bowls, spoons, place mats, and napkins. He balances all of that with one hand while adding salt and pepper to the mix with the other hand. “Good lord, I know this will be worth all the work and prep we’re doing.” He says.

He sets the table up. Everything is in place. “All we need now are the crackers.” Kleigh exclaims. “If there are no crackers, it’s not really soup.”

“That’s 100% sure.” Loara agrees. “Get those things out!”

Kleigh opens the cupboard above the cute little kitchen table. “They aren’t in here, oh no.”

Loara then looks in the cupboard above the stove, where she’s cooking the beautiful soup. “Not here either.” She says.

Kleigh looks in the cereal cupboard, in case they were mistakenly put up there. “Not in here… oh jeez. It’s down to the wire.”

“I’ll look in the one above the fridge, and if they aren’t here, we’ll have to go to the store.” Alas, they were not in the cupboard, and now there must be a discussion.

They have to talk about who’s going to the store.

“I really don’t want to go to the store,” Loara says. I want to stay here because I’ve been working on this soup, and I feel like it’s my job in this scenario.”

“I already bought all the stuff for the soup, and no one told me to get crackers when they gave me the list of ingredients,” Kleigh says.

They decide to go to the store together. They close down the soup, put a cover on it, and head to the store. A half-hour or so later, they come back to the kitchen.

Kleigh turns the burner for the soup on. “I bet it will be a little tastier now that it’s rested and heated back up, this has not been a total loss.”

“I like your attitude,” Loara says, “looking for the best thought to express.”

“You’re welcome,” Kleigh says.

Loara opens the cupboard above the cute little kitchen table to put away the excess boxes of crackers. “Hey! There are already crackers in here!” she exclaims as she pulls down a box of oyster crackers.

Kleigh opens the cupboard above the stove and says, "We should consolidate all the crackers into a single location this time. “Hey, there are butter crackers already up here!”

“We have so many crackers now.” Loara says.

“We should have some soup with our crackers.” Said Kleigh.

Loara laughs. “At least now we know what kinds of crackers we each like.”

Kleigh responds, “And they certainly do not need to be on a shopping list for a while.”

The End.

Here are some potential (dumb) AI Titles from Perplexity AI

Cracker Capers

The Great Cracker Caper

Soup and Crackers: A Love Story

Crackers Galore

Too Many Crackers

Cracker Conundrum

Cracker Quest

Craving Crackers

Crackers for Soup Lovers

The Missing Crackers Mystery

Soup's On, Where Are the Crackers?

Cracker Crazy

Cracker Jackpot

Cracker Overload

Crackers Everywhere

Cracker Catastrophe Averted

Tex works his mind to determine the cause of the light anomalies. He reviews his notes, and he might have some odd activities that don’t line up with this mission.

- PART 1 - PART 2 - PART 3 -

Tex is exhausted. It was a long day of tasks. Laying in bed, his mind swims in the day’s events, and the light anomaly is nagging at him. He reviews everything he can remember to find some kind of idea.

He finally drifts off to sleep. He sleeps hard, and his alarm will wake him at the usual time. As he wakes up, he’s refreshed, it was a good sleep. The only thing he remembers from his dreaming is a light flare being handed to him by the hand of an astronaut. He saw an astronaut’s glove with a light flare, and then his glove received the light flare.

It will be a long day of flash tests. The systems he’s put in place will be tested extensively on site today. They’ll be put under light stress, heat stress, cold stress, and simulated dust storms. Much of the finer workings and the solid state are below grade. Having it underground is probably the best protection they can get.

After breakfast, Tex has inventoried and put away all of the equipment he no longer needs. The place is getting cleared out and organized. He can’t believe the major parts of this mission are complete, and things are being stored away for the next crews that show up here to do maintenance.

After a first round of tests, he contacts Admiral Robson.

“Martian to Ground Control, daylight tests are completed. I’ll make a round of foot checks. I want to request duty suspension until the dark sky tests and checks tonight.”

Robson: “I don’t hear or see any concerns here, Tex. It looks like you sewed everything up pretty well yesterday. Go ahead, then, and take a little R&R.”

Tex: “Well sir, I feel like I want to send that jobber around to the pole. I want to see if I can determine anything about that light grid I saw yesterday.

Robson: “Oh… that… yeah, that’s still a negative, Colonel. We don’t want to use those resources for something unplanned. Stay put. See if you can figure it out from where you are. Who knows, son? It’s a new thing up there. You could be seeing anything. It may just be a trick of the mind, or some kind of space mirage. Don’t get too caught up in it.”

Tex shakes his head. “Yes sir.” He says. “Will commence at dusk with next tests.”

“Robson out.” Says the admiral.

Tex isn’t buying it. He’s able to tell that the admiral is avoiding this situation. It’s not like Robson to be unadventurous. Tex will not send a jobber around the pole. He’s going to take a magnet skiff and chase the dark side of the planet. He’ll go to the pole himself, against the orders of the admiral. This is something he figures the admiral must know about his personality.

Tex gathers up some tools and prepares the skiff. He knows where the tracker for this little vehicle is, and he knows he can disable it, but he doesn’t know if it’s the only tracker. He leaves the primary helmet at the base, uses a back-up helmet, and does not switch out the personal tracker. As far as he knows, he’s going to a much darker area of the planet, without any trackers, and without anyone on earth knowing he’s about to do this.

End Part 4

PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

A trip to the Greatest Lakes today with OVALS. Clonehoppers like to hang around low Earth orbit while they juice up. There are all kinds of things to watch around Lake Superior.

“Look at that. Don’t you want to just slide in there and take a nap”? Corcoran says to Madrigal, as they hang out in low earth orbit over the gorgeous jewel, Lake Superior.

Ovals, as we call this species, due to their crafts, which house their cloned minds, prefer to sleep under water. I guess you can imagine it’s womb-like for them. It should be clear that they were likely born underwater, and spend their earliest times with their parents in the seas.

Madrigal responds. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything as inviting. But, have you ever scanned it?” She asks.

“Never have.” Corcoran says.

“It’s rough”. She says. “Full of crafts.”

“Whose crafts?” He asks

“Theirs, it’s all over the bottom. Buoyancy could be an issue for them. This body isn’t static, it moves a lot.” She answers.

Corcoran is scanning. “Oh my goodness.” He says. Then he sees Simpson, “Here he comes.”

Just then Simpson darts out from the freshwater sea without a sound and without even stirring the surface.

Corcoran, Madrigal and Hao open up their delta formation and let him into the center.

“Ohhhhh yeaaaaaahhhhh!” He screams as he comes up to meet them.

“Well” Simpson says. “That’s a lot of fun. I get good juice out of the energy transfer from those freezing cold waters down there. Moving up to the surface generates nice thermal convection, and the conduction from that is enough.”

“What are they doing down there?” Hao asks, as he directs their attention to some activity in one of the little bays on the western tip of the lake.

They zoom their vision to see, and it looks like someone is in trouble with somebody else. There is some kind of conflict.

“OK, no cheating.” Corcoran says. “We have to guess what’s happening before we read in.” They are going to try to guess what’s happening before they just read telepathically into the minds of the people down there, because as soon as they read into a mind, they are noticed.

Humans, even though they never truly realized it very well, possessed a pretty strong observer effect. They knew when someone was looking at them, or when someone would get into their mind space. They didn’t realize it, but sometimes they wouldn’t just randomly look at the sky, they looked up, because someone was looking at them.

Simpson: “I say they’re gambling. Or some other kind of seedy operation.”

Madrigal: “They’re just having a lunch break or other social time, it’s nothing dramatic or particularly interesting.”

Corcoran: “ I want to agree with Madrigal, but I’ll say it’s an inspection or some business related activity having to do with the safety of their crafts. Have you seen the bottom? I’ll bet they stay on top of that the best they can.”

Hao: “I bet it’s a conflict. Like food, or one of the backwards right of way issues they give each other.”

“Look at you, Hao, you got it.” Corcoran says. “Someone was poaching food off-season. The local people stepped in to stop it because the fish have to mate before they’re eaten, or else they won’t have enough later.”

“That makes sense.” Madrigal says.

“It must be hard for the people down there who like to think things through, since the majority of them seem to be reactive and oblivious, and in a hurry, and short-sighted.” Hao says.

“OK clowns, I’m going to make another juice run to the bottom of this thing, see you in a few seconds.” Simpson says. He leaves the delta and disappears to the bottom of the lake. Rising up through the water, he gathers the energy from the heat transfer conduction, and the delta opens for him again.

“It’s really delicious looking down there.” He says.

“I went with you.” Madrigal says. “I would so much love to take a real body nap in there.”

“I wish.” Corcoran says. “I wish.”

The End.

Hey, look at that, another OVALS story. There is more material in the audio. Have a nice day. I’m Herschel Sterling. I’m here to help. Smell the Inside of Your Nose. Do it Right Now.

We have to get very real about the heights to which the mental health epidemic has reached. It’s a time when, regardless of the way people define themselves or how they would like to be perceived, their actions and intentions precede them. It’s so hard to lie, but they don’t stop. It never stops. I’m Herschel Sterling, and I’m here to help. Full disclosure: I was raised exposed to mental illness. I know what this is when I see it.

It simmers, but cold, under the surface. It watches with it’s own agenda. One never knows when it will make itself known, but it will.

Whether it’s in a press conference with constituents, at the pulpit of a church, or on the stage of a talk show, they are human faces, but not really.

The staffer works for the congressman. He knows there are things he isn’t told. It’s not his clearance, he’s there to get his tasks completed. This is a nice gig, he can stay here for a year or so, and he’ll be connected for the rest of his life. He’ll never have to worry about investment risk again. He’s inside now. So it’s worth it to him.

This staffer hands the prep materials for a town hall to the rep. As the congressman peruses the packet, turning pages, he scans, and at the sight of a page regarding one of the wars, the staffer swears he sees the congressman’s eyes turn black, just for a second, and it bristles the hair on his neck. “Are you alright, sir?” He asks. “What do you mean, son?” The congressman responds. "Nothing, sir, my mistake.” He says.

The talk show host, who bills herself as a comedian, has a dedicated following. Followers follow. That’s good for someone without any real talent besides audience capture. It keeps her in the chips because it’s convenient for repeat business. Always have a freshy available at some point, when needed. She’s been drumming the war beats like daddy’s good little girl, protecting that rape and pillage money with every ounce of hate and smarm she can muster. She’s not from the same nest as the congressman, but they feed the same.

There was a time when society was concerned about errant minds. It had gone on for a long time. People out in public with no mores, no boundaries. They collected children, they attacked the innocent. They plotted schemes of treachery and vile orders.

There was an effort to keep that at bay. There was an idea that keeping the affected out of the public as much as possible could be safer. That’s not to say there weren’t failures in that system, but it was an improvement.

One day, with glee, the hidden element celebrated. There would be a release of the schism onto the public. There was a statement from the Infiltrator in Chief. “Christians will take in the infirmed and care for them, there is no need for public funding, we will let god’s children free into the world, and the great sense of community will pick up the slack.” Laughter echoed through all dimensions on that day. Today, this element, not only roams the streets, but they they roam the halls of government and show business as well.

Today, we live with the results. "We shouldn't be spending a dime on humanitarian aid," the congressman scoffed. "It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Get it over quick." His eyes twitch with blackness, something slithers under his skin. “The same should be against all who rival us," he continued. "Defeat them quick. Instead of 80 percent being used for humanitarian purposes, it should be 80 to 100 percent to wipe out human forces."

The talk show comedian lady has a live show. It appears there are protesters in her audience. As the protesters yell while being removed, she says: “I can’t hear you,” before adding, “Oh, honey, please. This is not what this night is for.” Her teeth glisten differently, as the protesters, one by one, with the help of her entranced followers, are attacked and taken out of the room.

They want to make the rest of the audience aware of her genocidal nature. They are showered with wine by the animals in the audience, who shout with joyful hate when one of the protesters decries the deaths of innocent children. “They should all DIE!” shouts one of the openly vile creatures in the audience. They aren’t even hiding it anymore.

Over the years, that sickness continued to grow against a backdrop of indifference, and busyness, but slowly, humanity emerged to reclaim space on our planet. There are signs of stress in the enemy forces, they’ve been recently left to fend for themselves here, and as humanity sees their vulnerability, there will be the opportunity to win, to beat them. This isn’t about co-existence with lizards. We win. That’s how this ends. Be encouraged.

Regardless of the extremists purported differences or “beliefs”, we know they feed the same. Whether they are fundamentalists or wokes, it’s human conscious life they feed upon. They feign their rivalry to increase their harvest, and it has been a successful strategy until now. People have realized that they really don’t disagree as much as they thought. They realize that their rivalry has been engineered by the same force that is destroying them all. They don’t have to admit they are wrong, they only have to admit they’ve been deceived by the same force that pits them against one another. Together, they make it through.

The End.

What I’m doing this week is a different thing. I’m trying a 5 day writing plan where I do it like an assembly line.

* Writing/ Editing 5 episodes

* Recording 5 episodes

* Producing 5 episodes

* Producing 5 images

* Uploading 5 episodes.

There is a chance that this can be a net loss of time. Right now, it looks like if I were to do this, I could get ahead by a day or two. The first week I have to upload reruns, but that’s fine, I guess. This is an interesting thing. What is most intriguing to me is that the ideas keep coming, no matter how I organize it. Brains are weird and cool and juicy and all of that.

Propaganda, Slander, Libel and Fiction. What are the protections we have? When follower-minded people allow others to determine their perception of things, when they believe their ears rather than their eyes, that’s a pretty scary situation. A large percentage of the population has this affectation. YIKES. We know who exploits that. But how do we control how we are perceived? What are the protections we have? In a largely reactive, stimuli-oriented population, your best protection is your behavior

Welcome, new subscriber. He likes business and financial soundness. His page is called. I like it. Thanks. I have 40 decades of writing, and I saw an article you posted about a guy who made an app. I have one. Contact me. Help me figure out how to make some cash out of that. I’m all ears. of Peter’s Scribbles. It looks like we think similarly about writing. I hope he podcasts his short stories so we can co-promote.

My Comfortable Jacket

I think the podcast part is better, but you do you

I loved my jacket, and I was so sad when it was taken from me. My jacket and I had been through so much. It was my jacket. I earned it. I couldn't believe that I wasn't going to be wearing my jacket. That’s what I thought anyway.

I got a new jacket, but it was put onto me, it wasn’t mine. It was essentially an unwelcome gift. I felt as though I was making a decision. I mean, I did not like this jacket. It was not sized right, it was a jacket that someone else decided for me. Mostly, it wasn't my comfortable jacket, my real jacket. It wasn’t the jacket I had made mine. Nevertheless, here I was with this jacket. It was the jacket that I had. I didn’t want to get used to it, but I thought, “Maybe I can learn something in this jacket.” I needed to really start wearing it like a jacket.

I had put some serious character into my comfortable jacket. I had worked it and ground things into it. It might take several days of very hard work before laundering. Then, other times it would get washed three or four days in a row because it was getting so abused during the day. We are talking about using that jacket like a coat and a jacket and so many other things, all at the same time. It was mine. I was comfortable in it, and when they saw me in my old, comfortable jacket, people knew who they were looking at.

Some involved activity had visited itself upon that jacket. Different places, different grime, different dust and dirt and mud and craziness. I was comfortable in that jacket. This new jacket, however, was not my jacket. Even though I had participated greatly in wearing it, and did not appreciate the way that people saw me in this jacket that was not mine, I continued to be myself inside the jacket that was not my jacket.

Now, the jacket is not here. There came a point that I would be in the house without this jacket. I would be looking in my closet, and it would not be in there. I would be in the car without it. No matter where I went, I would be there without it. Had I somehow shed this jacket?

That was a moment, let me tell you. That was the moment I realized that I hadn’t really lost the jacket. It was a stark moment, but I was looking forward. I had become comfortable in the jacket that was not for me, why? Why was I so comfortable in this jacket? I barely noticed that I was wearing it, and then I didn’t even realize I was wearing it?

Pretty soon, there will be another jacket. It will be a jacket that is not my jacket, and I will make into the jacket it will be. There will be more of these jackets throughout the short course of the rest of my life, I suspect. Since I'm the one who is going to be wearing the jacket, I'm the one who has to make the decision on what other people see beneath the jacket. Because my concern is a lot more centered on people who believe their eyes, and not their ears.

I'll have to make another one after that one, and another after that one. Just as I had before, and before that. There is one thing that is certain. I WILL TRANSFORM ANY JACKET THAT I WEAR, BACK INTO MY COMFORTABLE JACKET. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

The End

Look what else. I made a stupid tiktok. Get a tiktok? share my tiktok. thanks.

-Get an UPHOLD wallet for moving your bitcoin and all kinds of currencies from around the world. Get precious metal shares, currencies, and bitcoin, all in one place. This is not a cold wallet. It’s a standard-market vehicle. I’m not an advisor, but I always use caution, as do you. DYOR.

-Do you love nicotine like I do? There is a new product with clean, non-tobacco derived nicotine that is better than the pouches. There are 3 and 6 MG.

-https://stacker.news/r/herschel

Nice work making it all the way down here. lol

He was The King Who Resembled Himself. He was The King Who Looked Like Himself. All of those are correct. All of the ways are OK. Regardless, this was the King That Looked Like Himself. What’s going on? I made a story about this King. He’s a nut. He likes his own armpit smell. Those are dangerous people. I’m Hersch, and I’m here to help. I think the written story is more refined than the podcast.

He was The King Who Resembled Himself. He was The King Who Looked Like Himself. All of those are correct. All of the ways are OK. Regardless, this was the King That Looked Like Himself. What’s going on? I made a story about this King. He’s a nut. He likes his own armpit smell. Those are dangerous people. This is a proven thing. People who like the smell of their own b.o. are likely pathological. Did you know that? I’m Herschel Sterling, and I’m here to help.

I wrote this one from the hip, audibly. I didn’t write it before recording. This is a somewhat edited version of the audio transcript.

The King that looked like himself...

Pathology is gross. It’s really gross. This King had a kingdom, apparently, because he was a King. And he had just recently inherited this Kingdom. He was a Prince three weeks ago. Now all of a sudden he’s the King, honest to God. Just like that. His dad dies, boom, King. Just like that.

He’s had issues his whole life. Everybody knows he’s kind of nuts. Just a little nuts, and he’s, you know, just kind of out there. He decides that he’s going to decree that anybody who doesn’t look like the King must leave the kingdom. or be killed. They can’t stay.

“If you don’t look enough like me, you have to leave, okay?”

So here’s the thing. Here’s what he does. He assembles a team of men who are big and strong, but also probably a little bit above average intelligence, and not very moral. Very political, obviously.

They work for this King, and what he’s about to tell them to do is the most ridiculous thing that anybody’s ever heard of. But what he says is, “Look, anybody who doesn’t look like me.” This group of probably above average intelligent, not so moral, very political men who know that if they just kiss this King’s behind, that they’re going to get what they want. But they’re also big and strong, and they can enforce the law. They’re like tough guys with big shoulders, and they can swing big chunks of sharpened iron around and stuff like that. Chop people’s heads off. The whole thing, they’re like that. That’s the thing.

They’re called the Resemblance Enforcers. That’s their job. They enforce The resemblance of the King. If you don’t resemble the King, if you don’t look like the King, you’re gone. You gotta split. Or we’re going to run you through and put you in a big pile and burn you. That’s what they do.

That’s how those people are in that place where he’s from. These guys walk around the whole Kingdom, they’re going village to village, door to door. They have a template that they use, a kind of drawing that was given to them by one of the king’s artisans.

They hold it up to the person’s face, you don’t look enough like the king, you gotta split, or we’re gonna run you through. And there were people who fought, they were like, “No, I don’t have to leave, my family’s been here for hundreds of years.” It didn’t matter how long your family had been there, you could have been there for hundreds of years, and never looked like a King in your life, and that was your home. Then you could have just got there three weeks ago or two weeks ago or last year, and you kind of resembled the King enough, and you could stay. It’s just crazy. That was the rule. That’s just how it was. And people were fleeing and running.

Some people fought, and they died, and they died fighting for their home and their land and stuff. You know, but people left, and... And the King said “Whatever, I’m the King, and I’m doing King stuff.” And he didn’t even really think twice about it or the ramifications of it. “I just want a Kingdom of people that just kind of look like me and I don’t want anybody else. This is how I am. I’m like that.” And that’s his prerogative. He’s the King. He can do stuff like that. He can do that. He’s the King.

So the next thing that happens is the King is just kind of hanging out and doing, like I said, King stuff. And he decides to go visit his daughters. Now his daughters, of course, they live in the tower. You’ve got to protect the daughters. They live all the way in the top of the tower, and they have maids, the maidens of the Princesses. They also live in the tower, but they live in the lower floors of the tower, of course.

So what that means is you’ve got to get through all those maids before you can get to the daughters. It’s quite an accomplishment if you can get all the way to the daughters. That’s a big thing, that’s why they make towers like that. The King can go visit his daughters anytime he wants. He goes up there, and he’s going up the winding staircase. He just goes up and hangs out. He’s just hanging out with his daughters for a while. It’s just some dad and daughter time. That’s really all it is.

It’s nothing more than that. It’s not like they have to help him write a speech, or he has to give them any kind of big advice, or they have to discuss some marriage with some other Kingdom’s Prince or something like that.

They’re just going to hang out, they’re going to eat some grapes, they’re going to probably spin a top. You know, and maybe, have a jester come and juggle for them or something like that, you know, do some King and Princess kind of stuff.

So now he’s done hanging out with the daughters, and he walks down the stairs, and he stops briefly down on the next floor because he knows one of the maids, and he kind of likes her. He remembers her because he had sold her son to one of the Dukes as a favor, but as a consolation or as a reward for that, as payment for that, she got to be one of the maidens for the Princesses. That’s kind of a good deal. You give your son to some Duke who is going to do who knows what, and you get to be a maiden for the Princesses. So, you know, he just kind of had a little thing for her, and just wanted to say hi and just check in on her and everything.

As he’s leaving her area there, no hanky-panky or anything like that was going on there. But as he’s leaving her area, he trips over a rope hanging down from the curtain that separates the room near the stairs. Or, maybe it was just a slipper or maybe the slipper had a foot in it or something. I don’t know. But, the King just goes barreling down the stairs. And he goes down the spiral staircase. He goes down. He gets to the bottom, and his face is all messed up. I mean, it’s just a mess. It’s got a big cut on it, and a bone is broken. And, oh, my gosh, everybody’s rushing. Everybody’s rushing around. The King is kind of knocked out.

Oh, the daughters are worried, and they’re saying, “Oh, my goodness, what are we going to do?” And the little one is just kind of oblivious, but the big one is thinking she’s got to run the show while he’s going through this. And that’s fine. She’s competent.

Now, the King is in his bed and they have to do a whole thing. They clean out the wound, and they squeeze out all the blood and everything. And they get a mixture of some myrrh and some camphor and, probably some raspberry leaves. Raspberry leaves are very good for the skin. So they mix up some myrrh gum and some camphor, and they make a paste with it. And they put it in the wound with a little bit on top there, but mostly in it. They get it on there, they get it matted down. They come back every so often and they squeeze out the plasma, and they rub the plasma along the wound.

Then the physician comes, and the physician actually stitches up the King’s face and tries to put the cut back together. He’d come back every couple days, and what you’re supposed to do if you have stitches, you have to put an antibiotic on it or some aloe or something and some vitamin E because you don’t want to have a big scar, and you leave that fluid alone, you rub that in with your aloe vera and your vitamin E you mix that all in. You want that in there, that’s your plasma that’s going to help make that heal faster, and also it’ll help the scar not be so big or noticeable.

It’s really coming along, but his face is really a mess, and he’s in a lot of pain, and it’s not going to get infected with the myrrh gum in there or the camphor. No way it is not an issue so they just bandage his face, and they say “Let’s just give it a couple of days and in a couple of days you’ll feel the swelling has gone down, and we can take the bandages off, and we can take a look at those stitches.” The King says, “That sounds like a plan.”

A couple days go by. And as sure as the physician said, the swelling went down, and they were able to take the bandages off. The King gets up out of bed,and he says, “I’ve got to go look in the mirror. I have to see how I look here, you know, it’s about time.”

So he gets up, and he looks in the mirror, he turns his head to the side and he sees the stitches. He says, “You’re a good physician. I don’t think you could have done a better job there. It’s already healing up. It’s already starting to itch. It’s already starting to itch, doc. You know what that means, right? It’s healing.” The doctor says, “That’s right. It’s already healing. That’s good. That’s good. Keep rubbing that plasma in there and keep doing that. Keep rubbing the raspberry leaf paste on there. That’s good for that. Keep doing that, Okay?” and the King responds, “Okay.”

He turns the other way, and he sees that his face is disfigured because the bone that broke in his cheek didn’t heal properly. There was no way to set that. They didn’t really have those kinds of skills in those days, to set a face bone like that, they can’t really do that. The King no longer looked like himself. And somehow, I don’t know how, but somehow the word got to the Resemblance Enforcers that the King no longer looked like himself. The Resemblance Enforcers showed up, and they looked at the King, and they held the template up, the picture, and they saw for sure he just really doesn’t look like himself.

Two days later, the daughters and the village that was close to the King, the King’s personal village were all there, gathered around the grave site, they said a little prayer, and of course the daughter now is going to rule the Kingdom, and she is a competent young woman.

The word got out into the land that the King was dead, and the people who fled came back, they came back to their towns, and they made peace with everybody, and everybody was really glad to see each other, and things were getting back to normal. The son was returned to the woman who had lost him to the Duke. Families tried to come back together again.

The daughters loved their dad, and they wanted to lay him to rest with some dignity, and at the end of his burial mound there they really didn’t make a big fancy thing about it, is an obelisk. Just inside the the walls of the Palace on the edge of the little village that was close to the King, an obelisk that reads:

“Here Lies the King That Looked Like Himself, Until He Didn’t”

The End

1,963 Words

Okay, what do we do about psychopaths? The paradox about pathologicals is, if you handle them properly, you become one. Ain’t that a biscuit?

Nice work making it all the way down here. lol

This was a good one, it needs more attention. Americans across the divide didn’t have to admit they were wrong, all they had to do was admit that they had all been tricked by the same forces. This was Day ELEVEN of Flash Fiction February and the forces of evil have been vanquished… for now.

2029: New World Order Loses Bid for Earth.

Americans across the divide didn’t have to admit they were wrong, all they had to do was admit that they had all been tricked by the same forces.

So many towns town hadn’t been economically active for a couple of decades. It was a typical situation where after a highway was built, the business climate changed from being locally oriented toward the people, and to having a range of interesting enterprises and shops that draw outsiders in, to something that resembled an outdoor mall lining the highways, instead. Then, once the big box store consolidation happened, that was the death knell.

Now, America is a shell of what it was, but it’s also a blank page, and there’s a lot of potential. Main Street has been maintained fairly well. There are some empty spaces, which makes it interesting, but the old hardware stores gave way to the big box store; the only grocery stores is a little health food shops. There is a lot of work to do. The fact that the Farmer’s Market is the biggest business day in town is the market proof that practical economics is making a comeback.

Corporate subsidies are being phased out at 15% per quarter. That will put more money into the pockets of the people who are rebuilding after this 4+ decade-long, low-intensity assault on the people and market. While many people think those policies aren’t radical enough, they are glad people finally see what it is that has destroyed the American free-enterprise system, and they are glad things are moving in the right direction, even if only inching slowly toward sanity.

The ideas about purposely keeping people poor in order to maintain the wealth of those who’ve earned nothing is finally seen as the economic retardation that it is. The mythology of “twice as good for half as much” is an insult to intelligence that is no longer tolerated. The people had lived through that fantastical nonsense, and they were not going to go through it again.

Being paid for work was akin to entitlements in the minds of the brainwashed tardlies living in their collectivist, gated, paranoid communities. They were finally taken by the wrist and set in the corner, while the intelligent people went to work rebuilding. That time when no one wanted to pay anyone for their work was over. If you weren’t willing to be a part of an honest economy, you were sent packing. There were going to be no free rides for subsidized, over-financed scammers.

For years, the corporate leviathan went on and on about the dangers of socialism and communism. Anyone who criticized the austerity politics of Reagan and Friedman was labeled anti-business and anti-American. During that entire period and forward, those very same forces were commandeering the government and the economy, creating a controlled system where those who did the least built masses of fiat currency, and those who did the most were called lazy and were accused of wanting handouts if they expected to be paid enough for their work to have any kind of life.

The corporatists used a system of false patriotic propaganda to lull, and to frighten their followers into obedience while they built a system to control them right under their noses. This wasn’t a thing where everyone was saying, “I told you so," because everyone had been hoodwinked in one way or another, and most people were able to admit that.

The realization by The People that the same forces had set them against one another is what made the reforms work. This realization enabled them to see past their differences and unite. Now the people can transcend their disparities, as they had been manipulated and cultivated by the very influencers of the political class and the brazen, contemptuous media voices they financed to constantly lie.

The End.

OVALS Observation of Life Report today. This is the first one. It’s not the template. There is a template. Want to make a planet that gets reported? I’m Herschel Sterling and I’m here to help. This is the very first OVALS story. Written in 2021.

The text is the transcript. Otherwise only Audio

Thank you for following Marty Shambles , Dr. Asiah Ruffin and Tássio ( Travel Guide). Marty is a working class poet and story writer. I want to cross-promote with him. He wants to podcast, and he should. He is a perfect candidate for a Flash Fiction February Workshop. I’m so impressed with the quality of people on Substack. I have Dr’s following me and all these incredible people and I’m this dude who write stories. Tasso is in Brazil and he can show you some places there. Brazil is also being terrorized and threatened by the censorship, and we have to speak about this openly every day.

The text is in the transcript.

Nice work making it all the way down here. lol