Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

You may be required to show proof of id.
22/Jun/2013

They Uploaded her Consciousness to the Machines

They uploaded her consciousness to the machines and treated her there for a few hours. The consciousness felt it as years and years.

Each time an error occurred, they rewound the digital brain a little. Sometimes, they detected mistakes made many months ago, and months of progress had to be deleted.

Finally, they claimed this facsimile cured. There is no way to download consciousnesses, only uploads. It would take around two years realtime to cure her with 87% certainty, as long as they do not deviate from the schedule, as long as they never let her glance at the ending.

Leave a comment
22/Jun/2013

The Sun Found its Goal

On the 7th of May 2012, the sun found its goal. Ever since birth the sun had been searching, looking for her all along, and it burned with twenty million furnaces just for a chance to see her. As it did, scrutinising the planet suddenly storming in joy, it stopped exerting its energy, and focused solely on her. So it came to be that from that moment until the next time she was under a roof or under a cloud, no-one else got sun. When it lost her again, it could not express its sorrow, but it continued searching, fiercer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment
22/Jun/2013

The Cloud Thickens and Darkens and Broods

The cloud thickens and darkens and broods and no rain can ever come out of it now, no matter how hard you try. From a distance, you can see the sparks fly, and if you stand under it, all your hair will stand on edge, pointing upwards, it will crawl like insects over your naked body, and jump up like fleas that never come down, but the lightning never comes. The cloud will never emit a sound, much less thunder. Rivers will dry up like tear ducts, and the elegant beasts that swam there once will migrate away or die.

Leave a comment
22/Jun/2013

I Am the World’s Tallest Man

I am the world’s tallest man and I want to paint paintings. They will always carry the epithet ‘by the world’s tallest man’ but I want to try. Maybe it will be easier for me to get acknowledged for this, like other celebrities and their goofy hobbies. However, I’m going to be dead serious about my art. My paintings will come from within my soul. I will try to capture the spirit of the human conditions and its consequences in simple images and I hope you will like them, and that maybe one day you will forget who made them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Leave a comment
21/Jun/2013

If You Are Reading This, You May Already Have Lost!

If you are reading this, you may have already lost! In order to delay the inevitable, you may wish to run. Here are some tips that will hopefully make it harder for it to catch you:

  • always run downwind
  • get in the water as often as you can
  • don’t think too loud

But do you want the last moments of your life to be filled with dread and terror? Didn’t think so. Instead, I suggest you look away from any doorways, including refrigerator doors and television screens, pour yourself a nice big glass of wine, and relax.

8 Comments
20/Jun/2013

The Fires

Trust me, they create jobs. Though ostensibly disastrous, these fires must break out in order to feed the economy. New houses can be built over the ruins of old houses. Infrastructures can be refitted easily. Besides, most families have developed certain ways of sensing when the fires are coming, so they can roll their loved ones to safety long before any danger can befall them. A couple of years here will do that, and it’s done. The city needs the flames: destruction is a necessary part of the capitalist system. Without yearly, regular fires something much worse would come, later.

Leave a comment
19/Jun/2013

Gravity

Wilfur was born on a mountain and raised in a village at the mountain’s foot. If he were to sum up his life in one fell word he would say: “gravity”. All his life he felt drawn to the water, and further down. He left the village to live in the flatlands, and never returned. Once he went down from somewhere, it was rare that he go back up. He would rest better, deeper, where the air was thicker. He got on a ship, and this ship sank, attacked by gods. One such godmonster held him and dragged him downwards.

Leave a comment
18/Jun/2013

The Shipwreck Daisies

They are hard to catch on film, for reasons that are or will become obvious. They have never been given a formal Latin double-name, but they are known as stormblooms or the shipwreck daisies: the flowers that grow and blossom just before a disaster. Captains of sunken ships write about them growing in the rotting parts of the vessel. Gorgeous shimmering colours that are not quite real and not quite there, and huge petals. Supposedly they wilt and that’s when the disaster strikes, or perhaps picking them is what brings on the death and no human can resist picking them.

Leave a comment
17/Jun/2013

Got to Make it Count

He imagined that if he missed, or if it went in far but not far enough, the feeling would be like having something stuck between his teeth, multiplied by a thousand. The arrowhead would lodge itself in the roof of his mouth and he would not be able to get it out, or close his mouth properly. But he didn’t have any other weapon, and every time he shot his one arrow up into the sky, the wind greedily took it from its plotted course and he had to travel to find it again, and spend a day sharpening it.

Leave a comment
16/Jun/2013

The Gentled Tongues

The gentling of the tongues. Don’t let them speak. Every time they do, naturally: the fear of losing yourself. When they speak their one sinking truth and drag you down with it, no wonder you heat up the metal tongs and force open their mouths. In controlled conditions, let the truth spill out and harm no-one, and silence them forever. Some of the afflicted, as an act of compliance, gentle themselves and learn to speak sign language. But you know their truths are still buzzing in their heads. A hive that wants out. And what do you do about that?

2 Comments