Powerless
[WP] In a world of superhumans you are an anomaly who has always been powerless. One day, all powers are unexplainably stripped from their hosts, and you now host a therapy group for powerless superheros.
I sat in a dark room facing a video camera. I asked them to put one out so I wouldn’t have to repeat the story twice. Two agents that were once heroes for show in the gladiator games sat across from me. They never introduced themselves, but I recalled their faces. Their smug smiles carried over even now in their reduced way of life.
I smiled, took a deep breath, and started.
“Hi, my name is Star Fighter - shit,” the six foot five tooth pick of a man huffed.
“That’s okay,” I said from the opposite side of the circle. “Go again.”
The former super hero was dressed in oversized sweats and a hoodie. The clothing was ill-fitting, hanging off him the same they would if they were wore by an aluminum pole. He took a deep breath. “My name is Philip. I used to be Star Fighter.”
“Hi Philip,” the ring of twenty former super heroes, and myself, said together.
Philip forced a nod.
“Like all of you, I used to be a super hero. And, like everyone on the planet, I’ve been trying to find a new way to live over these last months.” He paused a moment. “I fought an alien horde - single handle - you all remember that.” The room gave little nods. “I was magnificent!”
“You were,” many agreed.
“Right, I was magnificent. And, well, being the only hero that could survive in space was who I was.”
“That was only part of who you were Philip, one half,” I said.
“Right,” Philip forced agreement through a clenched jaw. “The hardest part for me, and it’s taken six months to realize this, is not that I’m powerless. It’s that I’m just so damn average now. I mean, once upon a time I’d be bulging out of this sweatsuit - muscles the size of a greek god — and now I’m a narrow gawky weakling. A bitch.”
“We don’t use that language here,” I reminded.
“Sorry,” he said. “No. No, I’m not sorry. How could you understand?”
“Well Philip, as you all know, before the subtraction, I was the only non-super in existence, so I know what it’s like to be powerless.” I said.
“But that’s what you don’t understand,” he said. “Even when you were powerless, you were special. Because there was only one of you. Shit we all knew who you were back then, and you were useless.”
“Philip,” a woman who was once called Jungle Cat snapped at him.
“It’s okay Dorothy,” I raised my palms. “Let him share.”
She crossed her legs and arms and passively leaned back.
“I don’t mean to offend,” Philip said. “But you don’t understand. You couldn’t. You don’t know what it’s like to be a nobody.”
“You’re not a nobody,” I said.
“That’s bullshit,” Philip stood. “We’re all nobodies now. Sitting ducks, waiting for some villain to punch our ticket.”
“There are no villains any more, Philip. Only people,” I said.
“No,” he shook his head. “I don’t believe that. See, everyone - all of you included - have been too busy being selfish, trying to figure out how to not be so pathetic, that everyone stopped asking the big question. How? How did this happen? How?!”
“The unknown is a scary thing, Philip. But facing it - together - is why we are all here.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked.
“Because unlike these cowards that sit in this circle and wine about the good old days - I refused to stop being a hero. Powers or not! I’ve never stopped looking for the bad guys. Or in this case, bad guy.” He starred at me.
“I’m just trying to help, Philip.”
“Now,” he said. “But what about before?”
“Like you said, I was useless. So I know what it feels like. What this feels like, for you - for you all now.”
“The most useless man in the world suddenly becomes the most sought after guru in the world - that’s some turn.”
The room was quiet.
“I’m not sure I understand,” I said calmly.
“I know,” he said.
“Know what?”
“Tell them.”
“Tell them what?”
Philip pulled a gun from his hoodie - it was aimed at my head. Everyone pushed their chairs back - some rose to their feet and Philip directed the gun at anyone who moved.
“Everyone just sit the fuck back down.”
Nobody listened.
“SIT DOWN!” He shouted with such power that for a moment I thought his powers were returning, and I was afraid.
The once heroes all sat, terrified.
“It’s okay -“ I told them. “Philip, what are you doing?”
“I want you to tell them, right fucking now!”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jungle Cat huffed. “You’re ruining what little reputation you have left, Star Fighter.”
“Oh shut up!” He barked at her. “You got to keep your figure - your looks - you still have attraction! Look at me! I had the body of a god - now I can’t even open a fucking jar of pickles, and it’s his fault!”
“This anger is misplaced, I think we all just need to -“
I don’t remember hearing the shot. There was an explosion of heat in my stomach and I was on the floor. They tell me the others overpowered Philip and disarmed him. He was taken to a psychiatric ward, on my advisement.
I spent two weeks in the hospital, barely being kept alive by once magical healers that reinvented themselves as Doctors.
They were sub-par Doctors. I got an infection and nearly died.
As I laid on the floor, bleeding out, I remember hearing Philip shouting and cursing my name.
I don’t know how he found out the truth. I hoped sticking him in a padded room would discredit the former greatest hero on Earth enough to deter anyone from following up on his claims.
That was what I wanted.
I thought.
And it worked. For a while. Until the ward called and told me Philip started having a visitor. One visitor. Jungle Cat. And I don’t know why, but I was excited.
But I still worried and went over the details. There was no way it could be linked to me. The subtraction was my life’s work.
If I couldn’t be like them. They would be like me.
How the hell did you figure out the truth Star Fighter?
Months passed and I continued to hold groups. Host rallies. Promote the new way of life. Even publicly took to rehabilitating some villains. But always, in the back of my head, I worried Jungle Cat might show up. Or some other once great hero that rediscovered their courage.
But they never did. And in the loving fame I had achieved I knew the mistake I made. The flaw of my plan. I needed someone to know but I had realized it too late. I had done my job too well, and robbed myself of a reward I didn’t know I wanted.
Philip committed suicide a year later.
Jungle Cat published a book on lovemaking.
And I was still seen as the pinnacle of kindness. The man that selflessly shared his shortcomings and tales of inadequacy with the word, so we may be balanced.
It’s poetic really. That the greatest villain the planet ever had is one they never knew existed. And that’s what drives me mad. With all their powers and greatness, they’ll never know that while I was beneath them and powerless before the subtraction, I was not useless.
I changed the world. And I did it with no powers.
That’s why I confess now. I need everyone to know the truth. To know my greatness. It’s all that matters to me.
The agents sat in silence. After a beat one of them leaned over and turned the camera off.
The other looked at the two way mirror.
There was a long silence, and I must admit I was disappointed. I expected - no - I wanted an aggressive reaction.
I got none.
I felt a prick in my neck and woke up in a padded room in a straight jacket.
Everyday I curse and scream and tell the orderlies and nurses that it was me. That I ended the age of heroes.
They taunt me and call me crazy and feed me pills.
I never saw the agents again.
I can tell by the laughing reactions I get that no one ever heard of a confession tape. I hear them whisper and say it’s a pity what happened to me. A man drove mad by listening to too many sad stories.
And I sit, alone, day after day in a white room. I know out in the world there are at least two agents who live a lie. Who are keeping a secret to maintain the peace I helped create in the wake of the devastation I orchestrated.
At least they know the truth, I mutter every day. At least someone knows my greatness, I say again and again as these people keep me drugged up and laugh at my delusions of grandeur.
It was me. I scream as I kick and fight as they shove me into the white room.
It was me.
We Are One
It had been a while she had wondered what other inane project the they had her husband working on. She was used to the late nights, sleepless kids, unanswered questions, NDAs, whatever he would say, she had to accept. These were the terms of engagement when you married someone with beyond top secret clearance, or so he called it. She knew when they were allowed to form a colony. She knew and so did he and he felt the pressure of absenteeism on their little sprawl. It can be quite a hassle to mother millions of children under oath to a government with no lies.
It wasn't often that the politicians allowed such inter development between colonies either since the conflict with the Sporidians. The Bacillus Bacterium had survived the invasive and colossal virus but the living space was becoming limited in their little pool. Lactobacillus was thriving across all zones, however since The Great Mold attempted eradication of all single celled organism and was itself ended, many other bacterial varieties had started spreading throughout the low lands as they were called by the elite, thriving to keep the holy land to themselves. The zone where the last stand stood tall and wide.
Little was known at first of her husbands work, unpublished papers on the study of a new lifeform - yeast - that could be used to produce a miracle chemical that combusted in combination with oxygen. This was a new reaction that no one had ever heard of or could even believe existed prior to today's events. There were no weapons in the Bacterium, the war was won through attrition. This new organic was what would bring the Sporeless to a new frontier, the only question was about how it would harness it.
It isn't like a cellular to think beyond the current. Everything was instinctual for common Lactobacillus, the thoughtful were disregarded but then, they were the ones that formed this government and ruling class.
"We are one, we are thought"
This was the mantra of those who could think, the elite. The Bacillus Bacterium was formed. The world had begun a new understanding, but only for a select few.
It had been thousands, possibly millions of years since then and The Great Mold most definitely forgotten among those who were categorically cast into the Synapseless by the Thoughtful. Enlightened they called themselves, as they were the only ones able to consider designation of any form on this so called rock.
Nevertheless he was a gifted physicist, a pioneer, as she had been led to believe. There wasn't any other reason he would be condensed into that laboratory zone day and night, thinking. Plotting. Believing. What had they gotten into this time? She was made aware of this revolutionary world of "chemistry". It's hard to conceal even the most heavily kept synapses between intertwined colonies. They had discovered that things had properties. Inanimate objects! Of all things that could interact with the Macro, they had to be smaller! She had no idea what to make of this and for some strange reason, when asked about his latest work, his synapses didn't fire.
Extensive study of the Macro had led to the discovery of the physical previously unknown to the Bacterium. The Multicellular. Comprised of the same amino acids and peptides that formed the DNA of all Bacillus, this understanding of Bacterial makeup was beyond even the common Thoughtful. Special conditioning for all enlisted was administered for synapse suppression after their enrollment to the Project and this was no small feat. The project to leave the rock and what the elite have been led to believe might only be the beginning of their new found journey, the Super Macro.
The new unbelievable belief was that life on this rock was once thriving on a multicellular level and that those cellular aggregations could be used to cultivate a new potential. A potential that could send them beyond the Force. The force keeping them on the rock. The bed of civilization as they knew it. Upon their study of the Macro and the discovery of amino acids led to the revelation that these inanimate compounds formed a protein. Not any protein but gluten. It seemed capable of binding together with heat to form a vessel. It was part of something larger.
He instinctively mobilized billions upon billions of Synapses to break down this Multicellular structure into finer particles to then build them back up into a stranger contraption. His understanding of micro elements had allowed him to create structures through heat and pure bacterial prowess that bore sizes unimaginable to the average colony of Lactobacillus and possibly even the extinct Mould. All the while being propelled by this combusted solution cultivated from the yeast.
The belief among the elite was that the largest colony could produce the most synapses and he was allowed the biggest and was the first to intertwine with another in over 200 centuries due to his undivided diligence in all studies related to the physical. She was considered Bacterium royalty of the purest stock, preserved by law and sanction since the abolition of all spores by those who could. The Thoughtful unanimously agreed that the designated physicist should be allowed to blend with royal genetic material and it produced some of the most complex synaptic associations ever observed in bacteriological history. It was well understood that the Thoughtful would not be so without these colonial associations and he was part of the reason such ideals were recently accrued. Synaptically capable individuals were immediately drafted into his colony to provide extended capacities upon request but ultimately at the discretion of the elite.
The first Aggregated Protein Small Propulsion Vessels were fired in parts of the rock that were previously undiscovered. The spread the physicist had been allowed to take accentuated the knowledge of zones that had never been colonized and the discovery of other sub unicellulars that were deemed inutile and synapses were regarded as proper test subjects for any kind of multicellular experiment unilaterally approved by the Thoughtful. The tests ultimately proved to produce invasive yeast colonies in those zones and the results kept a close secret.
She was one day given the briefing. She was royalty afterall, there was nothing the elite could legally keep from her indefinitely. They had found a way to break through the Force that bound them to the rock using another life form and the Macro. The sights were now set on the Beyond. The Super Macro was being ousted as a fantasy was now reality that the elite thrived on understanding.
Before any exploration was permitted, a synaptic network with greater distance capabilities was to be engineered with a tolerance for certain delays like distance and atmospheric distortion. The physicist was allowed to cultivate certain amino acids to create nonpolar and hydrophobic proteins to form a type of lighter than gas film to spread this network of synaptic cellulars throughout the targeted zones of exploration. This would allow members of his colony to float into the Super Macro using Macro world techniques developed recently from black book multicellular research.
More to say on the topic.
As the first APSPVs were launched, the physicist immediately felt the alerts from his extensions that were similar to some of the more ancient synapses that his older cellulars had logged in multiple younger generations. The synapses were immediately relayed to the Thoughtful as red flags to be considered.
She saw the synapses. They could not be hidden despite any training provided by the elite. The spread her husband had taken had touched every synaptic colony in the zone and now every Thoughtful was aware. The Bacillus Bacterium in its entirety was now fully aware that the Super Macro contained remnants of The Great Mold.
A scramble to find all ancient genetic logs of the Time Before was enacted. The edict was a requirement to provide all stored information and was enforced heavily by the elite through the lengthy arm of the physicist. The lower synaptic colonies were forcefully enlisted into the his array of intelligence in an attempt to aggregate all data on the mould found on every APSPV launched. Upon their return, they were to be fully quarantined by wall of synapseless subunicellar and analyzed.
She felt the same synapses as her husband once again, but they were not with the same assuredness as she had been accustomed to in the passed few centuries or so. The sentiment she felt was that the mould needed to be eradicated but the elite remained intact after the edict and demanded its study. Despite every ounce of desperation relayed to the elite regarding the impending disaster, they chose to attempt an immediate isolation on the landing zones and go ahead with their plan to build the walls.
Unknowingly, the remote network of synaptic Lactobacillus using the macro film had multiplied, grown, and discovered an ever increasing amount of regions previously unzoned by the Thoughtful. The physicist and his royal wife understood what needed to be done.
In anticipation of any further negative impact to the current government structure and Thoughtful way of life, the physicist, who had grown to a synaptic colony of unprecedented size, began absorbing any dissident colonies of the "elite" all in the spirit of preserving the Bacterium in its current form and dispelling even the thought of The Great Mold from generations to come. All specimens of mould were immediately destroyed before propagation as per the ancient knowledge.
"We are one, we are thought"
Another amazing writing prompt from your newbie GreatGee. I will not go into explantation or details. The story is clear and enjoyable to read.
Expect More.
Kate and the Flappy Bird movie stories.
Kate didn’t look different. When they came home from the scan she’d sat in front of the mirror on her bureau for over an hour, staring. Not moving. Hardly breathing.
Leaning in their bedroom doorway, Cal had watched her watch herself, saw her react as the play of light changed across her skin, evening bleeding into dusk through the sheer, fragile curtains. It could have been any of a thousand moments that had passed in the course of their lives, stretched out to fit the needs of the day but not unusual, not really. Cal had never thought his wife was vain, however. It was a function of her passion for self-portraits, a painter’s eye if it was anything at all.
Could a robot paint?
Cal had pushed the question away again and again, as dusk bled into a late dinner, later drinks, a quiet interval on the back porch listening to children catch fireflies in yards nearby, as the moon rose.
“Do you think I need an oil change?” she said when a few stars peeked through the clouds.
Cal forced a smile. “I haven’t put that many miles on you."
Kate swirled the last drops of red wine in her glass, looking across at him meaningfully. She drank them. That, more than anything, frightened Cal. In the past, he would’ve been wearing them now.
He stood, knees popping. “Here, let me get you another.”
“No it’s fine,” she said.
“No trouble, I—”
“I’m not an invalid!” Kate shouted.
The children’s laughter broke, pieces falling into silence. There was a moment where all the fireflies went out. A single beat that came and went, that Cal hoped would never come again. It had been a long day in a long week in a long year, and the night would be longer yet.
Could a robot paint?
“I know you aren’t,” he said.
In any event, they were out of wine.
It was quiet on the balcony, without the children laughing. Too quiet. Cal knew that it would be different for Kate. For weeks now there’d been a roaring in her head, pressure behind her eyes. She’d described it to him in the mornings, or when she woke at night shouting a name he’d never heard, a name she claimed she didn’t know. It had sounded, perhaps, like a man’s name. That had kept him up some nights, before the scan.
The scan had shown a chip in his wife’s brain. Or a cube. Or rather, the scan had said that the chip was her brain. Or the cube. His wife, a woman who had, from nothing, learned to paint and learned to love, become his best friend. The light of his life, if that wasn’t too cliche.
In the beginning, they’d joked about that. Painting and light, love, all wrapped up together like different facets of the same wild presumption, but look where it had brought them. A house with a balcony. A good neighborhood. A place where children caught fireflies in spacious yards after dark, until their parents or their nannies came out to gather them up, or until a woman’s scream sent them scurrying back indoors. They’d dream of banshees, Cal thought.
And tonight, Kate would scream that name again.
Could a robot paint?
Could a robot love?
Be loved?
“Do you want to talk about it?” Cal asked.
And Kate took a long breath. Another. All the fireflies burning suddenly in the darkness, brighter than the stars. She was a thin line clothed in moonlight, stretched out across a lounge chair with an empty glass in her hand, an empty easel set into the deck at her side. Empty eyes that stared off into the middle distance, a place filled with living light that held no weight tonight, on a night when living should.
“There aren’t doctors for what’s wrong with me,” Kate said softly. “Maybe there are engineers. Scientists, programmers. Maybe there’s a creator. That could be the name I’m shouting. But maybe, just maybe, there’s none of that. Not here.”
Cal opened his mouth and she set the glass down, a movement sharp as a raised finger. Silencing.
“It hurts so bad,” she whispered. “You don’t know. You can’t know. There’s something wrong with me, that’s been wrong with me since day one. We always knew it, but I thought it was just—”
“Fuck that,” Cal said.
“What?”
“Fuck that. There’s no thinking that, uh-uh, not allowed. There is nothing wrong with you. There never has been. I checked.”
Expressions were lost in the dark. Kate’s smile was a ghost, if that— but Cal had seen the scans today, the little lump of metal beneath the gaping absence inside her skull. Tonight, Cal believed in ghosts.
Cal sat down at her feet beside the lounge chair. She reached out and brushed a hand through his hair; comforting him when now, if ever, that should have been his job.
As if she’d read his mind Kate said, “I won’t be so strong later. Cal, look at me.”
He looked. He’d spent an hour looking earlier. A lifetime studying, memorizing her with the same single-minded ferocity she had used so often to study and to capture the world.
She looked the same.
When she spoke she did not whisper. It was clear, every word. “If I die, sell my paintings. Move. Don’t stay here, and don’t hoard me. I know you, my love. If you don't, you’ll never live.”
And having said that the moment broke. Whether there was moonlight or starlight, fireflies or children’s flashlights, headlights in distant streets, or the light left on above in their bedroom window, Cal could see nothing at all but the future without her.
Could a robot paint?
Could a robot love?
Could I love any other?
Cal took a shaky breath. Kate’s hand slipped from his hair and he captured it in his. He was facing her now in the dark, that long, sleek, familiar suggestion of her shape stretched out on the lounge chair beside him.
“Did you know,” he said, “that some people think this is all a simulation?”
A nod, maybe.
Cal gripped her hand. Too tight, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself. “I hope it is. I hope I am. I hope the fireflies are. I hope you’ve been painting the world straight your imagination this entire time, all of us dream somewhere in the recesses of your mind. At least then I’d understand how you got so goddamn good. I hope, somewhere in that chip, is this code for all of this, so that if anything happens to you it’s the rest of us who disappear. Who, who,—”
“Shhhh,” Kate said.
And in the time after, when there was nothing left for them to say on a night beyond the scope of words, Kate said “Would you get me a fresh canvas, love?”
It might have been imagination, Cal thought. In the dark, by the moonlight and the starlight, fireflies and occasional flashlight beams, the distant headlights and the shaft of light from the bedroom window above, Kate painted.
And in the morning, after screaming names in the night, they found, within that canvas, the answers to their questions.
Now to my flappy bird movie story.
This. This is what it takes to save my career? May as well start searching for a new job now. I think I saw Chick-Fil-A hiring. KFC too. God, what is the deal with people and birds?
My computer monitor projected everything wrong with the world. I pressed space and this stupid bird flew up. I did nothing and the bird crashed down. All of this to swoop through equidistant apertures between tunnels ripped from a legitimately good video game. Over, and over, and over. There was nothing else to this game. Nothing. And yet some bumbling conglomerate of lottery winners called the Flappy 8 had decided to put big money towards a fully fledged movie for it. And they had pegged me for the script. How the hell does one write a script for Flappy Bird?
I've been at this supposed "game" for hours of days of weeks, hunting for inspiration. How on Earth did Flappy Bird, with a five second gameplay loop, vault so highly into the esteems of human popularity? It made no sense.
Nonsense. Suddenly, I had my inspiration.
The movie opens to the Flappy family singing Creed's hit "Higher". They're all wearing DLC costumes based on the ticket price. Basic tickets show the audience "Classic Flappy", Premium is similar to Basic but with a metallic sheen, and in Timeless every bird wears a Flappy Bird costume. The tagline for Timeless? "More flappy. More fun." OK, OK, I'm not in marketing. Back to the script.
Mama, Papa, and 'Lil Flappy ascend through the bright blue sky, commencing their annual voyage from Vietnam to South Africa. They fly and fly, gleefully singing with one another. The ground beneath them practically fades from view. At the height of their ascent, the sky, out of the blue, blazes red and yellow then cascades into a verdant tinged amalgamation of purple and pink. And as quickly as those colors swirled into one another did they return to azure blue. The Flappy family thinks nothing of it until two infinitely wide, bright green pipes apparate before them, with only a small space between them.
Out from the infinite stretches beyond them, a presence unseen belts a slowly amplifying Disney-esque retooling of System of a Down’s “Prison Song”. The birds glance at another, fluttering in fear. ‘Lil Flappy soars too high and overcorrects with a dive bomb that sets him on a collision course with the bottom pipe. Mama catches him on a sky climb, and the Flappy family passes through the gap together.
The next series of pipes, three pairs in a row, approach at an alarming rate. Flappy family attempts to stabilize at gap-height and glide through but they all spiral downward in unison. They fly back up together, the parents wordlessly exhibiting horror. Their options were clear. Flap or fall.
Flashback to an eerily similar scene sans ‘Lil Flappy. Mama and Papa are much younger now and singing R.E.M.’s “It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” as they fly through pipe opening after pipe opening.
When the scene returns to the present, the parents shake off their fear and move to position ‘Lil Flappy vertically between them. They pass through the pipe trio without incident.
More and more green obstacles begin blocking the family’s path. Nonetheless, they continue to pass cleanly through, singing Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family”. And of course, the following scenes treat Timeless ticket holders to a variety of piping skins, while Basic and Premium make do with Mario pipe green.
After the family passes through challenge after challenge, the ethereal voice again taunts them, chanting “Test Your Might” to the tune of the 1995 Mortal Kombat film. A series of two dozen spiked pipes materialize through the clouds. The parents try to halt their momentum but are propelled by a mysterious force.
‘Lil Flappy feels the fear of his parents. Young and foolish, the brash ‘Lil Flappy swells with confidence against the task before them. He smiles at his guardians one last time before bolting ahead of the pack, steadying himself to the words of Lenny Kravitz’s “Fly Away”.
Fly, fall, fly, fly, fall, fly, fly, fly, fall, fall. Onward and foreward. Then, ‘lo and behold, ‘Lil Flappy escapes through the dizzying array of pipeline unscathed. Mama and Papa follow the path laid out by their child.
Nothing can stop the Flappy family now. The invisible voice counters with Blondie’s “One Way or Another” to disparage their spirits, but there’s little effect. Blondie gives way to the slowly rising tune of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”. Conquered and defeated, the unknown presence screams a final, barely audible, “I’m gonna get ya” before disappearing.
The skies again swirl from fiery to frigid hues before returning to normal. From here, the Flappy family flaps on until recognizing their destination below. Exhausted, confused, and relieved, they lands at their originally intended destination without disturbance. They crane their heads around to see themselves surrounded by innumerable avian kind, all dressed in DLC appropriate clothing. The various flocks exchange glances with one another before nodding and belting out the movie’s final number.
“A-well, a bird, bird, bird, bird is a word.”
Without any unison whatsoever, every birds intermixes flying high with crashing face first into the ground, emulating Flappy Bird’s spastic style.
This disaster of dance and “Surfin’ Bird”, originally by The Trashmen, carries us into the credits.
Fin.
Laziness: A One Way Train Ticket to Poverty and Unemployment
They think that they are meant to sit at home doing nothing. They also think patience is the way to get what they want. They think that it is good to rest for a while. To all those thinkers, I have a little answer for you. Those who think they are meant to sit at home doing nothing are called lazy foolish bags because to me they are the worst. They have nothing to offer as a living creature. Now, those who think patience is the only way to achieving things or getting closer to your goal you are right and wrong at the same time. You see that a simple way to deceive yourself. Please it is not everything that patience offers. Patience won’t take you to heaven; neither will it take you to hell. Patience will not give you a job neither will it take your job away from you.
It is not everywhere you apply patience. Assuming let me give an example; you are awaiting a job proposal you just made and you have being interviewed, and after months you have not gotten any valuable information from the firm and after that you wait for years. You are a lazy bone! You see the best thing is to engage in something small and start earning a living. I am a living example of that fact. I have no job and since I don’t have it will be foolish of me to waste my time sleeping or doing any other irrelevant thing at home. Instead I engage in something small even though the after result is a little paltry at least it is a good thing to keep myself busy with. After this I will give an example.
To give an answer to the third group of lazy people I mentioned earlier I will say rest is a one way train ticket to laziness. After resting for a while, you rest for months and after resting for a month, you rest for years. You are just increasing your circle of laziness and wastefulness. I am not just writing this article as an expository essay but at least one can take it as an advisory tool to you, your family and friends.
Firstly we should know different meanings of Laziness. When a person says Laziness one thing comes to mind but let us try and bring many things to the mind right now. From the Encarta dictionaries I was an able to discover different meaning which are crucial and mind disturbing. Now let me put down the key points and explain further.
**Meanings**
Not wanting to do work: you see why I said it is mind disturbing. How can someone decide not to work, that is accepting total defeat and submission to laziness. To express this point using a literary device called Biblical allusion I would say that a lazy man should not be given food to eat. The bible says it clearly or should I say Paul one of God’s appointed and beloved servants expatiated in the bible that a lazy man should not be given food. Going further into the New Testament and into the epistolary books of the bible that was where Paul the apostle of God talked about laziness.
Another definition a person not wanting to make an effort: to me the second one is more brutal. An unemployed person will be more stupid if he or she decides not to do anything. To me that is a waste of time and life. So please even though you do not have something doing at least engage in a small business.
Slow: I will not emphasize on this much because it is normal for people to be slow. But don’t be too slow that all that is there to say.
You can imagine I am writing to you as a living example and epitome of hard work. If you can and if you are reading this article it is easy to say that you should listen and not just listen actualize it for me. I told you I have example to make. I have a close relative who is awaiting job employment and for years he has been jobless. The good thing he did was to go to primary schools and high schools to teach students from his area of specialization. That is a good thing to do. At least have a side job until your dream job arrives. As you can see, that man in the example above cannot be regarded as a lazy person. If Jesus Christ was lazy many would not have been Christians. Muslims and other religions should also have stories that go against laziness. So I have done my part so please you do your part.
My articles are not just for making money alone. They are expository and advisory, an article one can read, be happy, like, comment and share. Read and enjoy!
GreatGee out.
Dr Snyder: A man with a Simple Story and a Complex Life.
**Dr. Stanley Snyder, inventor and entrepreneur, is an untenured senior scientist at a leading Midwestern university. As a maverick and self-described organizational outsider, Dr. Snyder learned to get necessary influence through difficult experience. Dr. Snyder has been for a long time an adjunct member of the biology department, a natural because he had a Ph.D. in molecular biology. In that department, he had developed several patented technology in the university and paid his own way through royalty and grants. However, he had been a thorn in the assistant provost for research, who Dr. Snyder had believed had been looking for an excuse to get rid of him for some time.**
**The anthrax scare immediately following 9/11/01 provided the precipitating excuse for a confrontation. Dr. Snyder’s work had principally involved biology, but when the U.S. government had started the search for a quick test to determine the presence of anthrax and a company approached Dr. Snyder for assistance on developing such a test, Dr. Snyder ‘ ‘came to the rescue.’’ He worked with a colleague who had an anthrax stain in her research collection and has serious experience culturing these bacteria. They rather quickly came up with an inexpensive ad practical detection method for anthrax. Dr. Snyder then went to the university provost to announce the good news and to help arrange a co-operate license agreement, with royalties to go to the university. Instead of welcoming the news, the university administration according to Dr. Snyder “went ballistic,” prompted by the high anxiety over anthrax. He and his colleague were subjected to a university investigation, and then were investigated by the local police and FBI as if they were reckless scientists and criminals. They were placed on administrative leave (a very negative exchange!)**
**Dr. Snyder had liked working at the university, where he had colleagues and research collaborators. He did not wish to leave, and at first could only think of fighting the university. During the stressful period, a leading member of the physics department, Dr. Zelikoff, who Dr. Snyder had recently helped in writing a patent application, met with him.**
**As they were discussing Snyder’s employment problem, Dr. Zelikoff offered to explore the possibility of having him join the physics department. A bit of an individualist himself, but skilled at working within the university organization, Dr. Zelikoff wanted to help both Dr. Snyder and the university resolve a difficult situation. He studied the policies and procedures and realized that he could invite Dr. Snyder (who would be self-funding anyway) to the department. Dr. Zelikoff would get a useful colleague and the department would receive a share of Dr. Snyder’s royalties. Dr. Snyder would gain a degree of protection and oversight as well as laboratory and office space. Resisting the efforts of the assistant provost for research to terminate Dr. Snyder, they worked out a deal with provost (manager of the assistant provost) that was beneficial to Dr. Snyder, the department, and the university. Dr. Snyder is currently hard at work on applied research and new inventions.**
**The pictures are to simply illustrate to you or give you an idea of what I truly mean.**
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Great Gee out.
Salvation is for everyone: The man named Cornelius.
Looking into the Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth or should I say the Bible, the name that it is popularly called we will encounter a man named Cornelius. The book of Acts of the Apostles gives a detailed account of all the glorious activities done by the apostles. We see the works of Peter, who is the head of the church till today, Peter majorly and also the activities of the Seven Deacons e.g. Philip, Steven, Nicanor, Parmenas, Nicolaus and many others. Today’s write up will be on a noble man named Cornelius.
Cornelius is a soldier or the Bible will refer to him as a centurion. A centurion is someone in charge of an army i.e. the head of a group of soldiers and that is position Cornelius was occupying. Clearly looking into the bible using the RSV (Revised Standard Version) you the Bible made mention of Cornelius being “the centurion of what was known as the Italian Cohort”. This tells of Cornelius as a The Head of the Roman Army.
All you writers know how centurions are. They are not the Godly type in fact most are evil. But in the case of Cornelius the story seems to be different. Cornelius was said to be a God fearing man, a devout man who gave alms liberally to people. To see a centurion such as this one you would sweat because the ones I am seeing are the worst. Cornelius is a gentile and I know most Christians here know who gentiles are. Gentiles are uncircumcised group of people so any uncircumcised person is practically a gentile. Nowadays Muslim males are uncircumcised so in those days they would be called gentiles. The covenant God had with Abraham was circumcision and that was why Abraham circumcised Isaac. This is to say that unless you are circumcised you cannot belong to God. These days if you are not circumcised you are practically a Muslim.
We can see clearly that Cornelius was gentile but the question is why Cornelius is a God Fearing man or a Christian. This question can be answered when we visit the book of Acts of the Apostles chapter 10. You will see that God visited Cornelius and told him “that his good deeds and alms have come up to God as a memorial and he should send for a man named Simon Peter who is lodging with a man named Simon the tanner”. This seems interesting and this shows that anybody can be used by God. Cornelius sent two of his servants and his soldiers to get Simon Peter.
Meanwhile that time Simon Peter had a trance where a sheet was let down from heaven with different types of animals on it including reptiles. Then a voice came to peter saying “Rise Peter kill and eat” and it appears that as at that time Peter was hungry. But he told God that he cannot eat anything common or unclean. The voice came to him again telling him “What God has cleansed you must not call common or unclean” and this happened three times and the sheet was taken up to heaven. I will explain this now and clearly. The whole scenario was to tell peter that anybody can be used by God whether the person is a circumcised or not circumcised. If God could use Paul a persecutor of Christians why can’t he use Cornelius a God fearing gentile?
Completing the story you will get to know that Peter later met Cornelius and He bowed down to Peter but peter told him he should stand for he is a man like him. This shows how humble Peter is, you must not take glory for what God did. Peter told Cornelius how wrong it was for a person like him to get involved with gentiles but he told Cornelius about the trance that he had before he came to meet him. That day Cornelius and his household were converted although they were not circumcised.
My fellow writers God can be use anybody he decides because he created all. This topic is quite similar to that of Paul and I will deal on Paul very soon and I will also deal on peter.
My first article, genuine and straight from the medulla. Read and be blessed. Bye.
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Hey everyone my name is GreatGee and I'll be jamming you with different stories from the Bible that I personally explained myself. Good luck to me and to everyone on this platform. New or Old!!.
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