E X T R A T H I C C

MONEY. WE WANT MONEY. MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY. WE CAN DO SO MUCH WITH IT. WE HAVE ACCESS TO DEALS YOU COULD NEVER. MONEY

That aside.

 I’m only going to talk about food items but if your food bank takes personal items, a lot of times diapers, feminine hygiene products, etc, are very very welcome. 

1) Canned chicken and beef 

looooooove this stuff. It’s expensive, it lasts forever, it tastes good and it can be used a variety of ways. This stuff is fucking catnip to food banks, it’s so hard for us to provide proteins. 

2) Fancy nut butters

Peanut butter is a standby for food banks as a shelf-stable inexpensive protein, but if we have a family with a kid with a peanut allergy that’s not going to work. Non-peanut butters are expensive and it’s something we hardly ever see donated. (we also like peanut butter, but that’s easier for us to buy ourselves than non-peanut butters)

3) Canned or packaged tuna

You may notice a trend here in shelf-stable proteins. And yeah. That’s basically it, so I’m not going to keep harping on it. But this stuff is a godsend. 

4) Easy breakfast things for kids (Granola bars, instant oatmeal, and the like) 

Whatever Donald Trump tells you, most people who get food from food banks are actually working their asses off and so they have to leave Obama to raise their baby or whatever, and they don’t have a lot of time in the morning. Things like this that kids can make for themselves are expensive. (Another trend you may be noticing–donate shit that costs a lot of money. That helps us more than all the shitty green bean cans in the world) But they are so helpful for busy working families where the parents may not have a set schedule and sometimes little Amanda is making her own breakfast before she runs off to school. Don’t let kids go to school hungry. 

5) Shelf-stable juice

I want nothing more than to gain financial independence, but right now I am unstable, unemployed, and in serious need of financial help to pay for my basic needs. The income I get from my family is hundreds of dollars less than my basic living expenses every month, and I am absolutely not ok enough to work more than a very small amount right now. I am trying to get off of an anti-depressant with a withdrawal commonly described as “worse than heroin” (venlafaxine/effexor) and I’ve still got about 40% of my max dose left to go. I have severe anxiety and depression from my C-PTSD, I spend most days battling viciously self-destructive intrusive thoughts, and I am physically debilitated from withdrawal symptoms to the point where I can’t currently hold employment with any reliability whatsoever. I’m trying to find something I could do part-time from home with my own hours, but haven’t had any luck so far.

I am fighting as hard as I can for my recovery and for the highest level of autonomy and self-sufficiency I can possibly achieve. I have wonderful friends, two impossibly perfect fur-babies and an incredible girlfriend that absolutely make my life worth living and fighting for.

But until I can get past this completely brutal withdrawal and hopefully get some help from EMDR, which I am about to start in a couple weeks, I need help pretty badly.

My girlfriend and I have two electric/heat bills due which total $567.55. She makes $9 an hour part time and is disabled herself. The income I get from my family is also now going down every two months until it’ll barely cover rent by this summer, because they believe that their money “enables” me and because I inconvenienced them too much by surviving an electrical fire which destroyed half of my earthly posessions earlier this year.

We’ve applied for LIHEAP (no answer yet) my girlfriend gets food stamps and medicaid, and we have no car or savings. If you can afford to donate anything to help right now, please help us. I know I’ve been asking for donations here for a very long time now, and I am so grateful for the huge outpouring of support I’ve received so many times before. I promise I am trying as hard as I can to recover so that I don’t have to do this anymore.

cash.me/$isoxys

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

HOWEVER, I never thought I’d see the day…

However, one question has always burned in the core of my being since my earliest days, and it is for this reason that I have come to this far-off world. The question? That in and of itself is a small tale. I believe I was 15 cycles old at the time. Hah. How young. My psionic crystals had just grown in and my toxin sacs were constantly full. Such a time of adventure where every stray thought caught in my receptor was prized upon as a shining treasure. Alas.

We were on a science vessel for an educational trip, headed to a small biological preserve, and it was there that an interesting…quirk of the universe was revealed to us. A bored-looking Shalui grasped a small, mammalian animal in it’s numerous manipulator tendrils, stroking it’s short black fur with one while gently supporting it with the other six. 

“This life-form is a warm blooded, fur-possessing, carbon based quadruped belonging to the genus Helyne. Though many species exist under the genus of Helyne, all species are capable of successful mating with one another, producing viable offspring. Furthermore…” the Shalui instructor droned on, but we had long ago stopped paying attentions. Kaits, as they were called in our language, were admittedly adorable, but they were also everywhere. Our family took care of three. Why were we being told about something as basic as this?

My question was soon answered, though I had not voiced it with vocal or psionic activity.

“Though a generally agreeable type of life, no one would call the Heylne line particularly noteworthy. Steadfast companions, to be sure, but utterly common in ability and makeup. However,” our instructor mused for a moment as one manipulator tendril splayed open to gently caress the fuzzy cheeks of the animal. Seemingly caught up in the affectionate motion, he hastily continued. “there’s one exceptional thing about the Heylne.”

Silence, other than the contented vocalizations from the kait in his hands. 

“Across every star system we have reached, every world we have annexed, every regrettable war we have fought, one constant remains true. The genus Helyne. If you’re unaware of the significance of that…Vespir. Come here, if you would, young lord.” My features must have betrayed my rapt attention. I rose, not breaking sitting posture, enveloped in a blue shroud of psionic energy. Regarding me for a moment, the instructor whispered something into my mind and I nodded.

At the Shalui’s request, I unfurled my six slender legs, letting their scything tips gently click against the metal floor. It was considered rude for an Espiri to walk using their legs in spaces that were not their own and instead we moved with our psionic power once we were capable. Our legs were strong and slender, beautiful in a way, but had evolved as tools of fierce locomotion and terrifying weapons of predation. Not suitable for a civilized society. 

I now stood directly next to the Shalui instructor. Our races had come into their own on the same planet, in the same biomes. We fought and killed for thousands of cycles, until we abandoned the hatreds of our past and formed the Empire some seventeen thousand cycles ago. I understood the point my instructor was trying to make then and there. 

For living on the same planet, eating the same food, and adapting to the same circumstances, our races couldn’t be more physically different. Shalui were, to put it basically, a walking bundle of tentacles that had adapted to different tasks. That was a gross oversimplification, but enough to illustrate the point. Their faces were a gently pulsating mass of thin, gorgeous lines that fluctuated and reformed to make expressions. Espiri found them especially attractive when they were angry. On the other hand, an Espiri was a basic head-torso-limbs situation. Six legs, two arms, a slender build throughout. We possessed chiseled skulls, angular and almost geometric. As we aged, psionic nodes grew through our bodies, allowing us to manipulate our surroundings and communicate without talking. 

So how had the kait, or rather, the Helyne spread all the way across our galaxy and remained so ubiquitous? Simply living in a different hemisphere provided interesting variations of life, not to mention the extreme changes regarding the long timelines and unique challenges facing evolutionary growth on entirely new planets. 

From that day I knew. It was no accident, no random occurrence. Someone, or something, had seeded all worlds with this spark of life. Perhaps a great progenitor race, brilliant and wise in their infinite ages. For the next 250 cycles, I rose through the ranks of society, becoming Radiant Prime to Her Burning Will. Our light shone across the galaxy, illuminating the darkest corners, seeking answers lost to the scourges of war and time. 

I found it. At the edges of the Empire, on the fringes of civilized society, I found it. That progenitor-world I dreamed of as a youth, and chased voraciously. I devoured every scrap of knowledge from every single sentient race we came across until I had the pieces in my hands, and could only follow them to their conclusion. We had no designated name for the planet, but radio wave blasts recorded millennia gave me a moniker. Earth. A curious planet. Holding orbit, I gathered data with my war-frame, perusing imagery of the surface. I glowered at the feeds. There was nothing here. Perhaps once, long ago, some 150,000 cycles ago, there was a spacefaring civilization. But it had gone, and all that remained was the peaceful husk of massive tower, gleaming near the equator. Faint traces of technology were visible in the scans, including what looked to be a data repository based on the banks of crystal lattices buried in the earth. The tip of the tower looked like it once contained a massive payload, presumably ejected long ago into starspace.

Activating the anti-grav psions in the flux core, I descended on the “Earth.” I had built a communications cipher using their ancient radio blasts, capable of translating their Eyglishe and Khainese to our native tongue. The spire was wholly consumed with vegetation, but the structure was built to last. Perhaps a final monument to a species that encountered too many genetic flaws to continue. Perhaps a world grave, built by conquerors. Perhaps…simply an entertainment center. I had no way of knowing. 

Granting the space due reverence, I left the metallic shell of my war-frame and glided across the verdant flora that covered every inch. Holding one arm out in front of me, a holographic display popped to life, and augmented my vision. The data told me “down”, and so I descended from daylight into darkness. 

Time was nigh-meaningless on this star, but I felt the moments slip away from me. The holographic display indicated a passing of a thirty-sixth of a rotation before I reached the presumed data repository. It went without saying that there was no power, but our civilization was great in it’s foresight and technology, especially in regards to discovering secrets of the past. From a canister I produced an adaptive nanopolymer and a universal hardline connector to the solar power bays of my war-frame. After clearing off the console that was connected to the crystal lattices, I carefully poured the polymer over the console and watched it think for a fraction of a moment before shaping into a plug for the connector. 

I was finally here. Ready to learn the secrets of the past. 250 cycles in the making for me, but how much longer for the brave spirits that undertook this before me? I, Vespir, Radiant Prime, stood on the precipice of fate and prepared to be illuminated. 

The console flicked to life. A holographic display of an Earth native seemed to spin in place, surprised, before looking up at me. It appeared female, with a thick mane of black keratin descending from it’s round skull. It wore garments of black over it’s leggings and torso, accentuated with a coat of white. It’s skin was an attractive dark olive colouration - most likely a defense against the somewhat strong ultraviolet radiation. It’s two eyes - front facing, predatory and keen, decorated in lavish black frames - centered on me for a long moment.

It laughed, loudly. Audio boomed through the undisturbed halls. This was a vocalization of joy? Despair? Displeasure? 

“Holy shit, you’re kinda fuckin’ ugly man.” The hologram said, adjusting the frames on it’s skull, as if to see me better. It was a hologram. It did not need to perform this action to see me better. The translation was instant, and I understood the words, but I could not help my disbelief. The Earth-form continued. 

“Well, I say ugly, but that’s from my viewpoint. Biologically, god damn you’re fucking beautiful. Look at those legs! And you’re not even using ‘em! Wow. Those crystals? Is that some sort of psychic waveform generation? Jesus. Wish the actual me was around to meet you.” The hologram mused on as I regained my composure.

“I am Vespir, Earth-form. Radiant Prime of Her Burning Will. Who are you?” The earth-form tapped a digit to it’s lips before speaking.

“I’m Emma, uh, a human being. I’m the…brilliant…researcher of a super long dead civilization! Like, 180,000 years dead according to the data I’m getting just now and oh god that’s pretty depressing. I’m also a mind scan, so I’m really not even Emma. But hey, close enough, right big guy?” Sadness touched upon my mind, and I identified this feeling as my own. Waking up from an eternal slumber to find your existence to be unreal and your species gone. 

“I apologize for this intrusion, and for disturbing your much deserved rest. However…” I trailed off “Emma-Uh, I must kno-” In my excitement, I realized I had descended and splayed my legs out on the ground, so that I was supporting my own weight. My psionic nodes pulsed an embarrassed blue, and I retracted my legs, floating once more.

“Cute.”

“I….?”

“You were so excited you had to actually stand.” She was uncanny in her intelligence, noting my apprehension at using my legs in this space. I admired it.

“It was…not a deliberate action, this much is true. Regardless. I’m afraid I really must ask a question of you, before I return you to your vigil.” Emma-Uh seemed to regard me for a moment before she shrugged.

“Shoot, but I’m gonna give you a condition if you want my answer to whatever it is you hauled your alien ass out here for.” Her stance seemed aggressive. A power play, for sure, but it could not be contested. She held the correct cards, and I was surely performing a disservice to her by practically waking the dead.

“Agreed. What do you wish?”

“Take me with you.” She didn’t miss a beat. Bending down at the waist, she touched the non-existent ground and stood back up. “You’ve got some pretty amazing technology to interface with some old human junk this easily. You’ve obviously got a ship with some mode of faster-than-light travel if you’re here by yourself. You also have freakin’ psychic powers. I’m sure you can build me some kind of hot robot body in exchange for whatever priceless knowledge you want from little old me. Old, old, old me.” 

To say I was floored would be an understatement. But I could not refuse. Brash and vulgar, but possessed of a keen intellect, Emma-Uh could be a fantastic asset to our Empire. There was also something else.

Empathy. Guilt. I woke her into a quiet and unmoving world where she was the last of her kind. In that moment, she was thrust into the future and found out she was the digital ghost of a long dead woman. To say I felt reprehensible would to understate the matter. 

“Glowing spider dude, just let me see the stars, come on. I’ll tell you anything.” Her voice pierced my mired thoughts.

“…Agreed.”

“So what did you wanna know?”

I considered heavily for a moment, before I asked the question.

“What…are kaits? Helyne? Why are they on every habitable planet? Why are they such a constant?” The translator that met our words halfway formed these into the words she knew. Her eyes went wide and she laughed, laughed so hard she cried, falling down onto an invisible ground and rolling around.

“Cats? Oh dude, it worked? It fucking worked! Dude!” She yelled loudly, staring up at the forested ceiling. It was a long moment before she spoke, holographic eyes glazed over in remembrance. 

“Well, our civilization was dying out, we never mastered faster than light travel on a scale big enough to move colony ships. Just tight-beam information blasts. Everyone else was gone, and I was here, alone. The real me, not this spooky Microsoft ghost. It was just me and Ike, my pet. And I was like, ‘gee, Emma, aren’t cats great?’ So I…well. I kinda took a sample of Ike and ran it through a profiler, and I made a million, million variations of that double helix, and…I blasted that information into the great void. I really just thought, ‘wouldn’t it be neat if everyone could have a cat, even when all the humans are gone?’ It’d be a shame if the best thing about Earth couldn’t be shared with the stars.”

Confusion and a strange joy welled in my core. It was a longer moment before I spoke, deploying a data-probe into the console as I did. It activated a prompt for Emma-Uh to respond to as I did. The prompt read, “Accept transfer?”

“So…you, blasted a genetic information wave to the entire galaxy, seeding countless stars with Helyne data, because you thought ‘cats’ were great?”

“Yeah, that’s basically it.” Emma-Uh nodded as she tapped the prompt, slowly transferring into the war-frame’s vast databanks. I spoke to the warm darkness ahead of me, unsure if Emma-Uh would hear my words. They needed to be said anyway.