These two stories were written over the space of six hours. They came into my brain during a very difficult point in my life when I felt I had lost something I might never recover. Like a few of the other stories in this collection, it is written from two points of view, first from the outside, the second from first person…but I have never blown up a world.
This is also the story with vulgar language I spoke about at the beginning of the book.
"He was like that, ya know?" woman one explained.
"There was something about him," added the second. "You could tell there was something different about him."
"I knew him personally," added a third. "We were together for six years, and it always seemed like he had anger inside of him. He was a nice enough guy…very funny and kind and helpful, but when he got mad, he got really quiet."
"Were you afraid of him?" asked the Inquisitor.
"I wasn't afraid of him," she said, "such that I thought he would hit me or scream at me. But I didn't want to be around when he finally did go off on someone."
"Did he ever go off on anyone when he was with you?" asked the Inquisitor to the third woman.
"No, but he'd get real quiet when he was mad and I'd know when he was very mad," she said. "And it was kind of scary. I wish he would have screamed or hollered some so I would have known. But he would just go quiet and sometimes talk in just whispers. I could see it in his eyes that there was something making him mad."
"His eyes? What did you see in his eyes?"
"He didn't have flames or anything like that," the third woman said, backing away a little from her previously inflammatory statement. "But you could tell the way his forehead would furrow and he would become straight-faced and not make any jokes or laugh at anyone else's."
The Inquisitor nodded understanding then addressed the first woman who had responded. "He was like what?"
"You know…everyone's friend who no one really liked that much." she explained.
"No, I don't know," stated the Inquisitor. "Educate me."
The first woman grew uncomfortable. Having made a statement about someone whom she knew in a distance way, she now had to explain to the Inquisitor exactly what she had meant. It wasn't easy for her to put into words.
"I liked him, ok, but I didn't really know him that well," she said.
"He was helpful to everyone who needed him, but he was a little strange."
"Strange in what way," the Inquisitor asked, tapping the questions he'd asked and answers they'd given, into his portable mind-tender.
"Well, here's an example. A few months ago, I ran out of electrical credits and still had three days worth of work to get done before the end of the period. I told him that I was running short and if the company turned off the electricity on me, I'd not finish and probably lose my job," the first woman explained. "He came over and fed my meter with three of his credit chits.
"I offered to bed him for the favor and he told me that he did it just because we're friends and it was something friends did for each other.
"His exact words were 'What are friends for?'"
"And this was strange to you in what way, ma'am?" the Inquisitor asked.
"Hey, man, I'm a good looking piece of humanity and he didn't even want a roll in return for the favor. There's got to be something wrong with him.
The Inquisitor nodded and asked his next question. "You said that no one really liked him that much. Was it because he wasn't a good citizen?"
"Nuh-huh," number one answered. "He was always helpful to others and volunteered his time to read to the youngest ones at the maturation building. He would help anyone who asked of him, but you never saw him spending time with any one person or group without him being used as a laborer. It seemed that he always had time for others but others didn't have time for him."
"Why do you think no one wanted to spend time with him for reasons other than currying assistance for non-monetary remuneration?" asked the Inquisitor.
"Maybe he's one of them kinds," number one suggested.
"'Them kinds'?" asked the Inquisitor, eyebrow raising high onto his forehead while continuing to record on his mind-tender pad.
"You know. One of those guys who doesn't like sex," she explained conspiritoriously close to the Inquisitor's ear, hoping the other two wouldn't hear.
Woman two did hear. "Oh, he wasn't that kind of man."
Inquisitor looked up and directly into the eyes of woman two. "You know this to be factual information?"
"Yes, sir. It is a fact. He loved women. He loved the sight of them, the smell of them and the feel of them."
The third and first women looked at number two. Their arms were akimbo and there were looks of consternation and disbelief on both their faces. Neither one believed that number two would know this information to be factual.
Only number three had been in a contractual long-term engagement with the man whom the Inquisitor was now investigating. Number two, it was believed by one and three, had been nothing more than a periphery figure in his life. They believed she was nothing more than background music to him– convenient to have around but not really paid attention to.
"How do you know this to be factual information?" the Inquisitor asked again, obviously not liking to have to ask the same question twice.
"It was a few years back," second said, as one and three continued to glare at her, "just after she," giving an apologetic nod to the number three woman, "left him. I knew them as a couple and I saw how he doted on her. I saw how he bought her stuff and gave her presents.
"When she decided to prematurely end their 10-year contractual agreement, I thought she was nuts. He's not great looking, but he's a nice guy, but she said he was abusive and angry all the time and she even said he beat her."
Number three nodded that this was a true statement made by her to the Arbiter to allow her to break their contact and allow her to leave without compensatory damages being assessed to her.
"He would never have beaten her," number two went on. "He loved her and would never have hurt her like she said he did."
The Inquisitor pulled up the records of the civil suit and attached it to his file. The addendums on the suit stated no abuse had been apparent, but as number three stated in her complaint, the man was careful not to leave bruises, and she was afraid for her body. She was allowed an unconditional negation of the contractual agreement.
"During the first year after they were separated, I saw him half a dozen times. He'd ask about her and I would tell him he needs to move on with his life because she has already taken up with someone else. I accidentally let it slip one time that she had been seeing someone while still with him. He didn't believe it."
Number three let out a gust of pent up air in her lungs.
"You had no right to tell him that! That was our business, not yours." number three said in a very hushed and restrained voice.
"You lied to the Arbiter and got away with it, and here that man still loved you. You were off bedding some one else and he was losing his mind pining for you. Maybe I did let it slip, but he needed to know what kind of morals you had," two told three, shaking her index finger in three's face.
The Inquisitor watched the interpersonal communication unfold for a moment longer as number three tried to explain that she didn't lie to anyone, that the man had been abusive and controlling and an angry man who would hurt her. She denied that she had been bedding another citizen, but it was common knowledge that she was lying on this point as well.
After a moment with number two and three staring angrily as each other, the Inquisitor pointed out something. "You haven't shown me how you know the man was not one of 'them kind.'"
"Oh, he and I hung out together for a while," she said, somewhat embarrassed.
"Explain."
"It was almost a year after their contract had been annulled," two explained. "I saw him at a knowledge repository and I sat down with him. He asked me about her," nodding at number three, "and said that their anniversary had passed with nothing from her to even acknowledge their once relationship.
"I felt kind of sorry for him, so I attempted to steer him in another line of thought. We started talking about cosmology, one of his hobbies, and we spent nearly a quarter of the night looking up cosmology proofs.
"He really liked the stars and knew a lot more than I did, but after two hours, I had to go. I liked that time I spent with him and we made a commitment to meet again.
"After meeting again at the knowledge repository, we met at a social club and again at a retail establishment and an entertainment complex. He was always polite and at first, all he would talk about was his life with her," another nod at number three.
"We finally got away from talking about her and on our sixth or seventh outing; he finally took my hand in his as we walked. We went from being acquaintances to close friends and finally lovers.
"He was very good at it and always made sure I enjoyed myself as much as he did."
Women one and three looked dumbfounded at number two and her admission.
"But you never made a contractual agreement with him?" asked the Inquisitor.
"Nope," she said. "It was because he couldn't let go of her in his mind. I could tell he still had deep feelings for her and he would never feel for me as he felt for her."
"We parted on good terms after about six months of multi-weekly encounters, and he was very good about it and we continued to relate when the situation made it possible and we were both free of encumbrances."
The Inquisitor made sure every line had been transcribed onto his padd.
"Do any of you three know why this man did this to himself?"
All three shook their head when asked why he'd do it, but all three saw in him the capacity to do it.
"He was like that, ya know?" woman one explained again.
"There was something about him," added the second again. "You could tell there was something different about him."
The Inquisitor nodded.
A planet was gone from the universe, as was the lone man who resided on it; both destroyed in a cataclysmic explosion of planet-shattering proportions.
The only clue as to why is the communications received by the Inquisitor 12.6 seconds before the recorded destruction.
A simple note, transmitted to every administrator's office, saying only one thing: "Fuck it."
Fuck it
"Fuck it," Marion typed into the communications console. It hovered in the luminescent holographic display while the spell check did its work. The letters of the word turned from red to blue indicating the words were properly spelled and ready to be sent out through tunnel space to every administration building in the known universe.
Marion's life sucked and he was tired of it.
He was drained of trying. He was tired of being the lapdog. He was tired of being people's bitch. He hated life. He hated his life now more than he had in his 47 years of existence.
He was a disgruntled man.
"What else could I write?" Marion asked himself.
Should he explain why he was going to destroy this hapless planet he was standing on? Should he try to explain the steps that brought him to the brink of sanity? Should he tell everyone who would read his words the wrongs which had been done to him in his life? Should he praise the modern brown market military surplus establishment which still had planet-buster explosives available?
Marion looked down at the "send key" on the communications console. Marion, a computer tech by trade, had wired the key so as soon as he hit send, the message "Fuck it" would be transmitted via radio waves to the repeater 3,600,000 kilometers above this planet to the satellite which would transform the message into a state which would enter tunnel space and emerge on every communications console for every administrator to read at his or her leisure.
Marion was fed up with the shit.
It started a dozen or so years earlier. Standing in line at a public food dispensary while on volunteer duty, he happened to meet a member of the opposite sex who engaged him in conversation. One conversation led to a free-space meeting which led to more intimate meetings. A year later, she consented to a standard 10-year contractual agreement with him.
He was in love with her. Every minute of every day he thought of her.
When he was pulled away to work on planets too far away for causal travel back to his domicile, he would make sure to send her a communication, letting her know how much he cherished her.
For more than five years, he thought things were grand. They had troubles, just as any couples do. She'd get upset because he'd be called away by work for weeks at a time, or he would get upset because she failed to follow through on a promised act.
When she was mad at him, she would make sure he knew it. She could rant like a redhead and with the spirit of a native Irishman. She would glare at him in the intermittent silences with intensity as loud as her screaming voice. Her arms would be akimbo, fists fastened to her slender hips, veins throbbing in her forearms.
She had spunk and enthusiasm when she was angry with him.
When he was angry, however, it was a different story. He was always one to keep to himself. He was never demonstrative when it came to anger. Back as far as he could recall, before he graduated from Maturation School and entered Adulthood Universities, he was a very calm man. He wasn't easily swayed to anger or passion.
When she came into his life, the biggest change was passion.
He felt it.
He liked it.
It was good for him.
Not that while attending Adulthood he didn't dally with the lady folk attending there. His first experience was with a senior student of 21 years who liked how he fixed the luminosity switch in her quarters. He enjoyed several conjoinings with her, but it didn't last because he was too inexperienced and she was too free with herself for his moral stripe.
He had several more liaisons while in school. All were consensual and all added to his knowledge of what he could do to make a woman feel pleasure when bedding with him.
After he left the service of the school, he did his required three years as a volunteer.
It was his duty.
He was celibate for two years and nine months of his tour of volunteering.
Then she came along.
He was free of duty to the state. She had completed her duty.
He asked her for a contract.
She readily agreed.
They signed up for the longest contract available by law, knowing in 10 years, they'd do it again.
From that day on, it was joy and happiness for him. They basked in the warmth of each other and played together in childish abandon. They cherished and they danced, they explored the passions of each other and experienced life as one couple rather than two people. Everything he wanted out of life was blossoming in front of him as they shared every possible minute together.
Every possible minute….
What a joke that was.
She worked for several hours each day in the Toddler Ward of the Maturation School.
He worked for dozens of hours every few weeks as a computer tech.
She worked every day for a few hours while he worked many hours each day, but had many days off. Sometimes, when called off planet, he would reach one hundred hours worked in two weeks and get the following month off.
He thought it was great because he was at home when she left to go to work and home when she returned.
But he was wrong.
On one job, he was gone from home for four weeks, six days and four hours and an odd assortment of minutes.
When he returned to his home, she had moved out her belongings and stated she had begun civil proceedings to nullify their contract.
He was hurt.
He was devastated.
He was at a loss for words. He went onto his deck and cried. She packed up what she had left in the home and left with a friend.
He weighed what to do and decided to wait until the civil hearing to find out what sanctions the Arbiter would force upon her for breaking a 10-year Contract.
Maybe it would be heavy fines which she wouldn't be able to pay and she would be forced into counseling to find out why she changed her mind and wanted to throw away all we had built together. Maybe the Arbiter would compensate him a great deal of money, which wouldn't salve his hurt, but would give her pause before continuing.
Several days before the arbitration, a peace enforcement official approached him in the empty home. The official questioned him extensively on his work and personal life, telling him it was part of an ongoing investigation.
As a good citizen, he agreed to answer every question to the best of his ability. He was angered when the official suggested he was abusive.
"Have you ever left bruises on her?" the official asked.
"Of course not," he explained. "I have never raised a hand against her."
The questions were leading and he felt there was no way he could answer them without making himself look like he was guilty of something. He decided that the questions were becoming more and more pointed toward something which could be construed in a certain light as something wrong on his part.
He invoked his personal right to stop answering questions.
At the arbitration, neither opponent had a speaker as it was a civil case rather than criminal case. She spoke of abuse, both psychological and physical and asked to be released from the contract on the grounds of irreconcilable differences.
She asked the peace enforcement official to step forward, which he did. She told the Arbiter that this officer had questioned the man across the aisle about the abuse.
The Arbiter asked the officer if he had found incidences of abuse and the officer indicated that he had not, however, the man being questioned refused to answer all of the questions put to him, and was angered by the questions.
The officer was acknowledged for his duty.
The man was dumbfounded.
The Arbiter asked him if he ever abused the woman. He said "never."
"Then why would she accuse you of such actions?" he asked.
"I don't know, sir."
"Why would she have a peace officer investigate you?"
"I don't know, sir."
"Why didn't you answer his questions?"
"I believed my answers could be misconstrued or taken in the wrong context, sir."
"Do you have anything to add?" the Arbiter asked.
"Sir, I have never hurt her intentionally and I do not know why she would accuse me of such terrible acts."
The Arbiter acknowledged his statement and stepped back from his lectern.
The man sat in a chair provided and he looked over at the woman who was looking straight ahead.
He saw her lovely profile and remembered the times he ran his hands through her hair. He recalled the touch of her lips on his and the scent of he neck. He couldn't believe this woman who he cherished so much could turn into a cold, calculating liar. He wished he could catch her eye and show her how he was pleading for her to return to his side.
The Arbiter returned to the lectern. The man and woman stood.
"I find there to be no evidence of abuse. That's not to say there was none, but I have seen no proof.
"I do find that the man and woman can not fulfill the contract. The woman believes conditions will not and can not change.
"The man has provided no documentation to prove that he has done anything to secure this contractual agreement from dissolution.
"I hereby dissolve the contact." The Arbiter signed the statement and handed a copy to both persons.
"What? You can't do that!" the man said loudly. "I didn't do anything to hurt her. She's making it up! She's lying to you!"
The Arbiter backed up as the man's voice rose. "Sir, this case is over. Why don't you go somewhere and calm down. Get over it sooner than later or it will eat you alive."
"This is bullshit," he said in a very loud whisper, crumpling the paper given to him. "It's fucking bullshit." The woman had hurriedly left the room. The peace officer who had remained in the back of the room approached the man.
"Calm down, sir."
"Fuck you, asshole," he said under his breath.
The peace officer pulled his calmer wand in warning.
The man saw it come out of its pouch and was in no mood to have his brain scrambled for the next 24 hours.
He left.
As he left the building and headed to the public transportation, he saw his ex getting into a private carriage with some other man. He kissed her when she got in and she obviously kissed him back.
Anger boiled inside him. Rage tore at his guts. Bile ate at his throat. Blood rushed hotly through his veins. Muscles twitched in wanting to lash out and hurt her the way she hurt him.
The years passed. Things did not get better.
He tried to get over it. He had other liaisons with other women, but they never came to equal the cherished feelings he had for the woman of his past.
Days came and went and each day he knew she was out there loving some other man.
All the friends they created together fell by the wayside. He made new friends and tried his best to get over her. He volunteered and sacrificed his own personal time in an effort to put her behind him
But everything he tried failed.
Every night the bile would return.
Every night the anger would rear its head.
Jealousy ate his guts.
He wanted to make a statement. He wanted to do something big.
He wanted people to know what he felt inside. He wanted them to sympathize with how he'd been hurt. He wanted them to know how deeply he'd been tortured by her lies.
He decided, after all his years of trying to remake himself, that he had found an easier answer.
He found a planet that had been set aside for colonization. There were no peoples yet populating it.
He found a ship to take him there and UPS delivered his planet buster bomb in seven pieces over three weeks. They never even knew what they were delivering.
Now he stood in front of the console.
His message was ready and spelled correctly.
He hit the send button.
Twelve point six seconds later the planet collapsed in on itself and exploded. The man never felt the pain of his body being mixed with the atoms of the planet.