#mostly original content

It got me thinking - what if our friendships were like a garden that we shared with other? After all, each friendship is as unique as the people in it. The metaphor captures the fragility, and imperfections of relationships - sometimes plants don't grow, grow poorly, or die for reasons not entirely obvious to us. For reasons that elude us, plants take longer to flower, or bear fruit. Sometimes we learn that we weren't tending to the plant in the manner required, and the flower blooms as soon as we do. Occasionally our gardens grow in unexpected ways, seeds that we'd thought long gone sprouting in the oddest of places.

“Computer, status. Why have we dropped out to real space?”

“Sir, my name is Gorilla Jesus” The sarcasm dripped from the speakers in a way that Floyd hadn’t realized was possible until now. He rubbed his eyebrows, the furrows spilling across his forehead deepening.

“And I deeply regret naming you that. What’s the status of the ship?”

“Fucked, sir. Anti-matter blow-by in three of the six jump drive pumps. I see you’ve cleverly compensated for that by not buying any anti-matter. We’re almost out. I dropped out to real space to preserve what remains. It’s not enough to get us to a space port. It’s been detonating in the overflow manifolds, which is why we’re short.”

A chill that had nothing to do with the cabin temperature settled on Floyd’s skin. Trapped in this rust can in the black oblivion of space. Maybe….

“Ok Jesus, could we - “

“Only if you want to plow through the spaceport like a turd through wet toilet paper.”

How eloquent. A short bark of laughter welled up from inside Floyd’s chest.

“Do you have any suggestions?”

“We have enough anti-matter to jump into a major trade lane. You could activate that emergency beacon you’re using as a desk ornament. Estimated time to pick up is about one week. But there’s a problem.”

Floyd’s heart rollercoastered down from hope to despair. He reached for a grime streaked mug of tea and took a swig. Cold, like his corpse would be.

“Well?”

“You’ve only got 4 days worth of air left.”

“Oh. So what you’re saying is I’ll probably die before rescue”

“You are the most perceptive owner I’ve had thus far sir”

“Fuck off” He looked around the cabin and closed his eyes. The control deck was covered in coffee stained papers, mostly debt collection notices. For the first time since he started flying at 16, Floyd felt trapped. The walls of the cabin looked closer and closer every time he glanced up. A tin can closing in on a tin man.

Floyd let the impending sense of doom flood over him. His head fell back into the chair.

An eternity of despair and recriminations passed across his mind, before he opened his eyes.

“Huh.” Floyd had never really taken a good look at the flight deck’s ceiling before. Scrawled right above him in white pen:

“I feel fine. How about you?” - Yuri Gagarin

“Hey, uh Gorilla Jesus? Do we still have that drum of industrial bleach in the hold?”

“What, the one you forgot to unload? It’s still there.”

“That’s made of oxygen right?”

“It’s about twenty minutes worth. You could use the ten kilos of potatoes in the pantry to react it out, if you cut them up really finely. It’ll turn the cargo hold into a warzone though.”

“Jump us to the trade lane. I’ll get chopping.” And praying. A staccato pounding of anti-matter blowing past the pumping pistons echoed softly through the ship. Floyd’s stomach turned inside out as the ship’s jump drives pushed it beyond the speed of light. Moving slowly so as to not breath, he slid out of his chair and headed out of the cabin.

-Fin...for now

Some notes on this glowing example of excellence in writing

27% concentration of H2O2 = about 12.9% oxygen. A 56.8 liter drum holds ~7.1 liters of oxygen. You consume about 5% of the oxygen you inhale. Of course, you won’t live if the concentration inhaled drops below 6% for more than a few minutes. Also my math is probably wrong somewhere (like the fact that the reaction produces H2O and O2, not just O2).

You can actually get oxygen from H2O2 using potatoes, and also blood, liver, and manganese dioxide (the electrode in zinc-carbon and alkaline batteries). So maybe Floyd throws the ship’s cat in after the potatoes. I’m kidding, he doesn’t have a cat. He has Gorilla Jesus.

Any errors in spelling, grammar, plotting, characterization, something about a priest and a llama here, are entirely due to the fact that I ran this right off the typewriter into tumblr. I’m not sorry. #fuckdrafts #oneshot #godtierexcellence

If you have been offended by anything in this post, pretend you’re Woody Harrelson and I’m Matthew McConaughey in the clip below. Feel better now?

The screams of the ship seemed to stretch on forever. The hull, once whole, was being torn beam from beam in a twisting of steel, shattered wood, and canvas shredding itself in the gale. She lay there, stricken upon the angry black rocks, a leviathan of the old world trapped and hacked open for all to see. I stood on the beach and watched on, helpless. The wind whipped the rain into a harsh, cold, cutting fury around me. As I looked on a feeble light flared on the deck of the stricken ship. The crew were trying desperately to abandon the ship but no one ever makes it off the black rocks. The moonlight fought through the storm clouds and I could see the whitecaps of the waves crashing against the ship. Cargo was spilling out of the enormous gash carved into her side. Through the rain, a small white sail beyond the rocks drew my eye. Just for an instant, it caught the moonlight and then it was gone. I drew a last pull from my barely lit cigarette before flicking it into the rain. The cargo would wash ashore soon and with it would come the wreckers to scavenge anything of value.

sub rosa - under the rose, used to denote secrecy or confidentiality. The rose has been used as a symbol of secrecy since antiquity (Greek mythology). Aphrodite gave a rose to her son Eros, who in turn gave it to Harpocrates, the god of silence to ensure that his mother's indiscretions were not disclosed.

“of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior”

It is impossible to have no morals. A moral is an underlying value statement (or set of statements) that drives every single decision we make in everyday life. It is a system of judgments that allow us to get stuff done, cooperate with others, and function as a society.

When someone accuses another of having no morals, what they are actually saying is “my values do not match your actions and I have judged you to be Bad/Wrong”. In this instance, Good and Bad are relative concepts. Every decision I make is morally Good in my mind, simply because the values that I hold allowed me to make that decision and act on it. Society, on the other hand, may hold a set of values that differ to some degree. How much they differ determines whether my actions are morally good or morally bad in society’s eyes. It is my actions that are judged, not my decision process or value set since these are inaccessible to society, and sometimes hidden even from me (until they are revealed when I act based on them).

My opinion on any given decision is never going to change after I have acted on that decision (so I can live with myself). The value set that led to that decision can and will change if I am later convinced that the values themselves are wrong or not representative of who I believe myself to be. This is what occurs when you change someone’s opinion on a topic.

Moral value sets are never black and white. They are usually a gradient based on a solid concept. Take theft for example. Society and most people hold the value that it is bad to steal. However, most of these people are also ok with internet based piracy (the fact that the pirate bay still exists is a testament to this). But pirating stuff is still stealing and would appear to be in conflict with the moral value set of society. The value statement that allows people to do this while maintaining a Good moral outcome is that it is a ‘victimless crime’ and that it ‘harms no one’, therefore it isn’t stealing. Almost none of the internet pirates would actually steal a physical object from a store or the home of another because that would not be a victimless crime and would thus clash with their value set.

Value sets are also weighted based importance. For instance, the base value of "I deserve to live" allows people to override a value prohibiting theft (of food). It's impossible to compel someone to act against their strongest held morals. At the highest level, there is a value set that will allow a person to override every other value, and that value set cannot be compromised.

It was Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt, riding atop a tsunami of exhausting manual labor. I’m going to end up with massive wankers muscle/RSI from sweeping the floors.

Quotes:

"The cave you fear to enter contains the treasure that you seek" - Joseph Campbell

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are" - Joseph Campbell

My ramblings:

"You summoned a demon you have no hope of controlling"

“He struck a match to slay a dragon”

A man is known by his words and his deeds. What are you known as?