You Are Not As Important As You Think [PAN2014]

I apologize that windoww is spelled as windoww in certain cases. ATS kept censoring windoww in some cases and not in others.
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On a Saturday night in December. While America and Russia were playing chicken in Ukraine. The pandemic that every paranoid, tin foil hat wearing, conspiracy theorist. Warned us about in their home made YouTube videos, finally happened. Of course they got the details wrong. In 2014 the safe bet was on Ebola. Vegas was already lining up to take an over-under on the death toll numbers. The entire conspiracy community was zoomed in on Africa as ground zero. The eyes of the world were pointed at the ground. At a virus spawned from the womb of mother earth. The world should have been looking up. Should have been looking at the unknown. In the end its always, metaphorically speaking, the quiet guy. The least likely suspect.

In this case the quiet guy was, object 3200 Phaethon. An Apollo asteroid that most scientists assume is a member of the Pallas family of asteroids. Object 3200 Phaethon is the cause of a meteor shower every December. That rains down over a hundred meteors an hour, during its peak. Which is around the thirteenth or the fourteenth of the month. It is known as the Geminids meteor shower. Like clockwork, the Geminids meteor shower has happened every year since it was first observed in 1862. Every year star gazers watch this event. Every year nothing out of the ordinary happens. For 152 years object 3200 Phaethon was the quiet guy.

A little boy, also a quiet guy. Lays down on his bed to watch television. His parents are downstairs making dinner. He looks out his window and sees a falling star. He makes a wish, then turns towards the television. When he turns on the television. The first thing he sees is a breaking news report. The lady on the screen reading the report, is very beautiful. The boy has reached that age where he notices such things. So he mostly misses the words that are coming out of her mouth, but not her mouth, as she says, “Reports are coming in from all over the world tonight. Of people spontaneously speaking in tongues and acting erratically. This odd phenomenon is being reported in ever increasing numbers on every continent. Over ten thousand YouTube videos depicting people displaying this behavior have hit the internet in the last hour. Is this some strange new viral ad campaign. Is it some new deadly virus. Has a black hole appeared inside the heads of millions. No word yet from the White house.”

The boy yawns and changes the channel. While the girl is attractive, the news is boring. He wants to watch something funny. He presses guide on the remote and scrolls up to his favorite cartoon channel. Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are hitting each other over the head with mallets. The boy wants to hear every impact in surround sound clarity. So he goes to hit volume up, without looking down at the remote. He accidentally hits the button on his remote that reads last. The channel changes back to the news program.

The pretty lady is shaking and gyrating. The boy gulps, looks left and right guiltily, and moves closer to the screen. The shaking and gyrating continues for about thirty seconds. Then the news lady abruptly stops. Her head slowly looks up and she has the biggest smile on her face the boy has ever seen. Her eyes also seem to be bigger than usual. To the boy they seem to be looking right at him. The now creepy news lady jumps up and shouts at the camera, “Ho Loodah ho. Ho Loodah ho. Ho ho Fo Meimargon margon Fo Loo GeeGee hohoreh LooLoomargon Loo Fodah. Rehho ho sai FoLoodahGoh Meireh dah sai Gohhotedah.”

This freaks the boy out on a primal level. He immediately hits the on/off button on the remote. The picture of the lady on the television screaming gibberish blinks out of existence. Even though the unknown is no longer staring and screaming at him. The boy has goosebumps all over his body. His heart is racing. A line has been crossed. A little more innocence lost. Before the boy can recover and organize his thoughts. He hears an explosion outside. He runs to the window and sees a glowing crater in his backyard. Steam is rising out of the crater.

He watches the steam slowly creep as if alive towards his kitchen windoww. Which looks out into the backyard. The steam does not rise. It slowly floats across the ground, then when it hits the house. It slides up towards the windoww, hugging the wall tightly. When the steam finds the open windoww. All of the steam quickly rushes inside. The yard is now steam free and very quiet. The crater stops glowing and the boy feels more fear than he ever has before. He runs toward his door. Opens it and yells,”Mom?..Dad?..Mom?..Dad?”

No one responds. All the boy hears is bangs and the sounds of pots and pans falling. He is to frightened to move. Fear has frozen him. When the banging stops. He hears something shouting in the voice of his dad, “Mei Mei! Ho dahLoo Loodah ho. Fo, Loo, hodah margondah. Ho Loo Fomargon Fo dah rehho Fo margon. Ho Loo Loote dahreh GeeGee FoLoo. FoLoo Fo Fodah dahGohdah.”

The boy slams the door and bolts it shut. He puts his back to the wall and sits down. The boy rocks back and forth muttering over and over,”Mommy, Daddy.” The boy hears two sets of footsteps walking up the stairs. He again hears someone yelling in his dads voice, “HoMeidah saiLoo? Margon Loodah dahreh LooForeh.” The boy begins to hyperventilate and cry. The footsteps get closer and closer. And closer and closer. Until he hears breathing outside his door. The boom of the knock makes the boy jump up and run towards his bed. He crawls underneath his bed just as something says in his moms voice, “Margon Loodah dahreh LooForeh Fo Loohodah dah Loo Meidah dah Gohhomargondah hodah FoGohho. Ho ho MeiFo. MargonMeidah Foreh Goh.”

The pounding on the door intensifies. The pounding turns to kicks. Boom, boom, boom, BOOOM! The door flies off of its hinges. “MargonMeidah Fodah margon. Dah Loodah Loo ho Fo margon,” says the boys once mom and dad in unison. All the boy sees is two sets of feet. They walk around the room repeating what they just said. “MargonMeidah Fodah margon. Dah Loodah Loo ho Fo margon.”

The boy tries not to cry. Tries not to breath. Tries not to make any sounds whatsoever. The boy urinates on himself. The puddle spreads out from underneath the bed. “Mei reh Mei reh,” says the once mom. “Ho reh Ho reh,” says the once dad. Both sets of feet come and stand directly in front of the bed and boy. The boy tries to crawl further back underneath the bed but is stopped by the wall. The once dad and mom crouch down. The boy now sees two sets of feet, two sets of legs, and two sets of knees. Then the boy sees two faces. With wide ear to ear smiles and big huge dilated eyes. They look like his parents. But the boy knows in his heart of hearts, that they are not his parents. Four hands reach for him. The last thing the boy hears before the hands touch him is, “Margon LooFo LooForeh. Margon LooFo tedahhoLoo. DahFo Fo sai Loodah.”

The once boy gets a big smile on his face. His pupils dilate and he tries to remember what was just said to him. Oh that’s right he thinks. The two contestants who entered him into the game show said, “You are chosen. You are special. Welcome to the game.”

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A family of Metas on earth 23 watches television. After commercials the host of the television show begins to talk again, “Welcome back ladies, gentlemen, artificial intelligences, self replicating goo, to the greatest game show in the meta-verse. Who wants to be an old style earthling. The show where we insert the souls of seven billion select Metas into an earth that has not yet experienced the singularity. Using state of the art meteor transfer technology. Make sure to watch all season, so you can see these contestants try to live the lives of non singularity humanity. Who will survive? Who will die? Who will win the grand prize? This year earth 272 has been chosen to host the game. The most backwater earth in all reality. This is going to be the best season yet!!”

a reply to: karmicecstasy

Thank was scary. Well done.

I really like your writing style. Reminds me of Cormac McCarthy, who wrote 'No Country For Old Men". One of my favorite authors. That was from the gut. Good story!

a reply to: karmicecstasy

Oh that was horrible, what a horrible plot! Evil game shows and evil Earth 23! Poor little once boy.
That was a great story though!



S&F

a reply to: beansidhe

Now that I think about it. It is pretty horrible what happened in the story. Maybe I should of added a scene of the boy being annoying and self absorbed. To tie the story into the title more.

Thank you to everyone who has read the story so far and enjoyed it. I really appreciate it. Two thumbs up to all of you

a reply to: karmicecstasy

No way, don't you dare change it! It's much more poignant this way. Bad things happen to good people - pandemics don't care about 'good' and 'bad'. It's perfect just the way it is.

a reply to: beansidhe

Don't worry, I am not going to change it. I was just thinking out loud.


I toyed with the idea of making the boy full of himself while writing, but ultimately decided against it. Also, I almost made the story longer by having the earth 23 family switch channels to another twisted reality show called, will they or wont they. Which would of started another pandemic story. The only reason I did not. Was because I was not sure if that would violate the rules of the contest. As you can have only one entry. The two stories were only tied together very loosely. Through the earth 23 family watching television. So I was not sure if that would be viewed as one entry or two.

a reply to: karmicecstasy

Great Story Karmic!!! An Entertaining Read!!!

Really well rendered ! Style reminded me of hitchhiker`s guide to the galaxy with a bit of Doctor Who

“Ho Loodah ho. Ho Loodah ho. Ho ho Fo Meimargon margon Fo Loo GeeGee hohoreh LooLoomargon Loo Fodah. Rehho ho sai FoLoodahGoh Meireh dah sai Gohhotedah.”

I could have read more.. entertaining

a reply to: karmicecstasy
Didn't see this 'til just now - karmicecstasy
Another round for everyone ... on Me!

Yeah - that was a FUN read.

(PS: I was born right beside one of those meteor craters... WoW! What a childhood!)