A World Without Sound (flash fiction)

All the sound was gone from the world, and it had been like that for a while. At least as long as Darius had been alive and many years before that. The Great Event happened more than a century ago, the story repeated so many times that it had become a legend. It was a pandemic, an infectious disease that altered the course of human history and turned everyone deaf.

The sound never returned, but humans are resilient creatures and found a way to persist and keep society moving. Sign language became familiar and more complex, and there was still the written word. But to live with no sound? Many grieved the loss deeply, and things such as music ceased to exist.

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Fried Chicken at the Monastery (a weird fiction story)

“Religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden.” – Émile Durkheim

The monastery’s library was always the place to get the best-fried chicken. Father Julian felt terrible about eating there without a napkin, but he knew it was the only way to get to Heaven. All the monks and friars would show up in their swimming trunks on hot summer days, talking about the latest fashion trends in Catholicism.

Father Julian was tired of fashion. He wanted something more, like experiencing a religious vision or finally reading Moby Dick. But ever since the Russian invasion of outer space, the monastery had been very strict about what books he read. They knew their phones were tapped, and the Russians watched them constantly.

Living in a police state wasn’t bad for Father Julian until it made him itchy. He had no trouble praying to Putin in the morning; he liked it. The only problem he saw was that his roommate, Father Billy Bonzi, never washed his armpits. Billy Bonzi was a garbage man before joining the monastery, and the smell never left him for some reason.

It was almost Holy Week, and the monks knew what that meant: cleaning the bathrooms from top to bottom. The President would visit soon, along with the Pope and a limousine full of circus performers, and the place had to be spotless. Last year, when the President choked to death on a chicken bone, the monks were at the center of a global conspiracy.

After saying his last prayers, Father Julian finally got ready for bed around midnight. Billy Bonzi put his telescope away and cleaned his underwear while Julian got under his sheets. The moonlight peaked through the window, such a beautiful sight that Billy Bonzi cried and reminisced about the time he met Neil Armstrong. They knew everything would be all right as long as they kept their faith in nuclear science and kept exercising.

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Game Theories (a poem)

I am in a spiral of silence
Descending into a massive crater
Of television tranquility
Did you lock the door?
Better double-check
Before the traveling salesman
Kills the entire family
There was once a time when I was younger,
That the words of a mathematician
Made my heart go a-flutter
Now I no longer believe in God
And all your game theories
Seem like child’s play

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Thomas Aquinas on a Horse (a weird fiction story)

“I can write no more. All that I have written seems like straw.” – Thomas Aquinas

It was so cold just a minute ago when Thomas stopped by the side of the road to vomit out his breakfast. But it is like that in this universe – the moon hangs in the sky, desolate and lonely, and then it peers down at Thomas and tells him everything will be all right.

Thomas is on a journey to get his dope. He has ten dollars in his pocket, the worn jeans that feature the face of God. There’s a stain in the center of his jacket that looks like a mandala, and he’s afraid to brush it out because if he does, it will mean certain death.

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Holding the Universe Together (a prose poem)

What captivated me most was that the town was soundless. They say time moves in a circle and that, at our core, our souls are eternal. I could only believe this once the moon and two red suns rose in the blackened sky. There was never a time I doubted the majesty of God, but there were plenty of nights when the devil spoke thunder in the underground. This was the hardest part of the mathematical equation that holds the universe together.

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Interconnection (a poem)

God came to me in the night
In a reverie glowing with love
She said the anxieties of the world
Are human manifested
Inside a cauldron of confusion
But if we move beyond
The duality of black and white
See the goodness amid the bad
New colors burst, evoking
Interpersonal landscapes
Where sin is but an echo
That has faded and worn
And the interconnection
Of all beings, flows at the core
Of our weary, tired souls

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New Commitments (a poem)

The decisions we make
Reverberate through time
We take vows; we make promises
They bind us together
Life comes at us quickly
Throws us off-kilter
Time passes and
We don’t see the hourglass empty
How we live each day
Is how we spend a lifetime
And if the vows we make
Aren’t strong enough
We fortify them with new
Commitments, each minute,
Hour, day, and eternal now

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