Visionary

It was over. He felt relief. They were walking towards the family car. Evelyn was holding his hand as usual. She was skipping along. She was probably tired but had gained a little more energy to walk, rather than being carried, when she knew it was time to go home.

As they neared the car, he felt the usual sense of foreboding. His relief was morphing into fear once more. Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to suffer like this?

His wife Marie was a little on edge, but not for the same reason. She didn’t have the same gift after all and she would never believe him if he told her anyway. She wanted to make sure that everything was packed into the car neatly. It would be a great shame, not to mention a waste of money, if anything was broken.

Marie was tall and commanding. She began to pack the boot whilst he put Evelyn in her seat. Thankfully Evelyn had outgrown her booster seat. It was much easier to settle her into the car as she was much more comfortable leaning against the soft back seat instead of a hard plastic surface. He made sure that her seat belt was secure. He touched her cheek affectionately and she smiled. He really loved her. That’s what made having the gift so difficult.

Suddenly there was a loud thump. Thankfully it was only Marie closing the boot. She moved towards the passenger seat.

Now that Marie had finished, he was crouched, looking behind the car as he always did. Marie was getting impatient. “Do you have to do this every time?” she called out. He was concentrating too hard to reply.

“I hate being ignored you know!” Marie shouted. Then, a few seconds later, “Get back here. It’s time to go.”

She didn’t understand. This was his attempt at control. He had to make sure that Evelyn was safe and secure.

He backtracked towards Evelyn. She was sitting in the middle of the back seat as always. She loved sitting there so that she could see through the windscreen while they were driving. Her seatbelt was secure. He double checked and then entered into the car on the driver’s side. Despite all of his checking, he couldn’t get rid of that awful feeling.

Marie looked at him in disgust as he settled into the driver’s seat. He just ignored her. There was nothing he could do. It was just one of those things. Of course, she couldn’t hold back. “I’m tired of this.” She said sternly. “If you’re sick then you need to get help. I’ve told that so many times now. Think about that instead of making us all suffer through your rituals.”

He said nothing in response.

“And don’t ignore me!” she shouted at him. “You know how much I hate that!”

There was only silence.

“Say something!” she screamed.

He knew that no one could help him. It wasn’t an illness. It was a gift. However, he could see that the situation was very rapidly getting out of control. What had started as a minor argument could end in a full scale punishment for him with no peace. That was the last thing he wanted to be exposed to given that he was likely to encounter an emotional rollercoaster in any case, because of the gift.

***

He was about to respond to Marie when suddenly he could not see Evelyn in the rear view mirror. He looked twice. Her seat was empty. Where was she?

“My god, “ he said in panic, “Where is Evelyn?”

Marie was furious and upset at the same time. She looked behind her. “You fool!” she yelled out, “You’ve left her behind again!”

He could see her all alone in the car park. She was crying uncontrollably. “Daddy! Daddy, where are you?” Her face was red. Tears were streaming from her innocent green eyes. She was alone and exposed.

He turned the car around at the first opportunity. Marie was screaming at him and he knew that she wouldn’t stop. He went as fast as he could back to the shopping centre. He kept having visions of Evelyn becoming more and more lost in the car park or perhaps even being run over. He couldn’t bare the thought of her being injured, or even killed. He had to get back there fast.

***

In the midst of his panic, he began to hear a dull thud every few seconds. It was coming from behind the car. He slowed down a little. It was difficult to hear over Marie’s screaming, but he could just make it out.

He was crawling with fear and panic. What was in store for him now? He knew that things had changed again. The thud indicated that they had changed for the worst.

Marie did not look herself. She had become very masculine and her makeup was too extreme. She looked pretty much like a transvestite. In fact, she was a transvestite and had always been a transvestite. She was screaming something over her mobile phone to a friend. She was no longer screaming at him. Thank God for that.

He heard the thud again. It was worrying him so much that he was compelled to stop the car. He pulled over, exited the car and looked behind it. To his absolute horror he saw the remains of a child that had been dragged behind the car for some time. This wasn’t happening! It couldn’t be! It was Evelyn. He hadn’t left her behind after all. He had forgotten her and the ribbon on the back of her dress had been caught when he closed the boot of the car. My God! He had dragged her behind the car.

He instantly felt sick and vomited on the road. He felt a huge wave of empathy and witnessed through his dead child the horror of her predicament. Her feelings enveloped his body and he fell to his knees. The gift was awful. It was the most horrible thing that had ever happened to him. He began to dry reach over and over again. How could he have done this? Why wasn’t he in control?

Marie was still chatting on the phone. He got off the ground and moved slowly back to the driver’s side of the car. He needed to sit down and wait for the inevitable.

***

He sat slumped and depressed in the driver’s seat, praying that this would be the end of it. He wanted to return home again. Suddenly he was brought back many light years by the sound of his daughter’s voice. It was a great relief. “Daddy, why aren’t we moving anymore?”

And so his life continued for the time being. Again he had witnessed the other, darker places in the universe in which the infinite permutations of space-time resided. He could relax for the time being, all the while knowing that in some versions of reality he was a bad father and his daughter was dead.

Snowball

The planet would be doomed if they failed. The rocket was ready to launch. Countdown had begun. Cross fingers and pray.

Strange how it had all be so exciting at first. Many years ago the probe had landed on Europa and penetrated its icy surface. They had found what they were looking for. The human race had finally discovered that it was not alone in the Universe. Life outside of the Earth had been discovered in the form of a single cell that could multiply.

But how to analyse it further? It had taken so long for the probe to reach its destination. They had to find a way to bring the life form back next time. Everyone on the planet was excited.

Again, as is common throughout human history, religion had been called into question. How could the bible have omitted to make reference to alien life? What about God? Did this mean that a deity could in fact be an alien? Of course there was an answer. There was always an answer, but we needn’t get into it here. Suffice it to say that several, previously insignificant, references in the bible were discovered that clarified the whole situation through means of correct interpretation.

Technology progressed, but not fast enough. More probes were sent that could not return, but their equipment evolved so that the alien life could be analysed further. It turned out that the alien was very rare under the surface of Europa and it took many resources, including the cooperation of different countries to capture it with the machines. It was rare because it had been estimated that, under the conditions below the surface of the moon, the one-cell organism only multiplied approximately every ten thousand years. That fact that it could be found at all suggested that it had been around for many millions of years.

Eventually, a probe was constructed that could capture the alien and safely return it to Earth. There had been much debate about whether it was safe to bring the alien to Earth. Optimists were optimistic but the doomsayers cried in the negative. In the end, the risks were thought to be minimal.

On a hot summer’s day the alien landed on Earth, encased in a protective environment that resembled its home. Four of the cells had travelled across the solar system and they were to be treated very carefully.

Well, accidents happen. One of the cells was exposed to a slightly different atmosphere in error but it had survived. Confidence and overconfidence began to prevail. It was exposed to more and more of the Earth’s environment. It even multiplied once, so the ten thousand year cycle must have been nearer than they had estimated for this particular specimen. It was wondrous that it could survive in conditions that were very different to is home.

Finally, one of its secrets was revealed. It seemed to be able to survive in any conditions on Earth and no one could understand why. Then another secret became evident. In the Earth’s environment, the alien’s rate of multiplication began to increase exponentially. At first, it was surprising. Then it was amazing, until it became a disaster. The multiplication rate was too high. It went from ten thousand years to mere seconds. They had to stop it.

The protectionists cried foul. What were the scientists going to do? Did they intend to kill it? How could they possibly think of killing an alien being? Do we play god to aliens too? Did we even know whether it had any intelligence or felt any pain? What ethics were involved? What did the law have to say?

The ruling of a court was sought and then another. The courts in different countries had a divergence of opinions. All through this process it was noticed by only a few that the days were getting ever so slightly colder.

Before the courts even had time to consolidate their judgements into a unifying principle, things had become worse for the population of Earth. The aliens were now multiplying at an unstoppable pace. Scientists had taken matters into their own hands and tried to kill them. It was of no use. Nothing known on Earth could kill them. They were impervious to mass, gravity, heat, cold, dark and light.

Even worse still the temperature on Earth began to fall. There were so many alien cells that the mass of alien life form had become visible to the naked eye. It was a mass of ice. Strange, that when they had explored Europa they had completely forgotten to test its icy surface and only focussed on the substance beneath. If they had been more thorough they would have discovered that the cell that was rare beneath the surface was abundant on the surface. On Europa, at some point the alien’s rate of multiplication had slowed a planetary scale for reasons that they did not yet understand. Even more intriguing was that the rate of cell division was not a constant. It varied depending on the conditions and was most prevalent on the surface.

So what is one to do with an alien that refuses to perish? Send it into space of course. They gathered up the mass of alien cells, sealed them in a vacuum and placed them in a rocket. The rocket had been constructed rather quickly because it was calculated that they only had a small window of time before the alien would spread beyond their control.

A small error in line five million one hundred thousand two hundred and twenty five of the software code caused a slight bug in the rocket’s propulsion program. It was small enough to go unnoticed but significant enough to change the course of human history if a bird was to collide with a small but important area of the rocket during the fifth second after take off. So, the human race was doomed because the cells were spread uncontrollably throughout the Earth’s atmosphere.

A planet not dissimilar to Europa now orbits closer to the sun, with only one life form present, and is waiting to be discovered.

 

New Poll

Well, Wee Windows won the last poll and it’s done!  You see my four loyal readers (including myself and my three other personalities), voting CAN make a difference.

So, I’ve created a new poll and hereby open it for votes – begun, this voting poll now has.  (See on the right under my pseudonym’s self portrait).

Oh, and if you think I’ve left anything out, just comment and away with you!

Wee Windows – Now you can program for the DS on Windows

The official poll winners are those who asked for Wee Basic on windows. Now you know the power of the poll!

Wee Windows: Windows version of Wee Basic

Instructions

1. Key mapping

D-Pad: use PC arrow keys

A, B, X and Y: PC keys F1, F2, F3 and F4

Keyboard: Use PC Keyboard

(Do not use the on-screen keyboard in the emulator as it is only there to show if the keyboard is hidden or not on the real DS. Other than that it does NOTHING).

2. Mostly self explanatory. Use ‘run’ in menu to run your basic program ( a DS emulator will suddenly appear!)

3. To install: change ppt to zip. The unzip all files into a single folder of your choice.

4. Known issues

-pressing F12 crashes when using key()
- stylus coordinates cannot be used – they don’t scale to the DS
- only capital appear when using the input function
- residual keypress on run

Be gentle with me. It’s only a first release

Download here:release-01.ppt

As usual change ppt to zip before opening.

This program comes with no warranty of any kind – use at own risk.