DS106

NICE TRY, ALIENS

So this little post here is going to be about “The Screwfly Solution” by Raccoona Sheldon. I do recommend reading it, but if you are not one who likes to read about violent things and really screwy situations I would not recommend this story.

That being said, everything below here is straight up SPOILERS.

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The Screwfly Solution- How It Ended

“The thing I have to write down is that I saw an angel too. This morning. It was big and sparkly, like the man said; like a Christmas tree without the tree. But I knew it was real because the frogs stopped croaking and two bluejays gave alarm calls. That’s important; it was really there.

I watched it, sitting under my rock. It didn’t move much. It sort of bent over and picked up something, leaves or twigs, I couldn’t see. Then it did something with them around its middle, like putting them into an invisible sample-pocket.

Let me repeat—it was there. Barney, if you’re reading this, THERE ARE THINGS HERE. And I think they’ve done whatever it is to us. Made us kill ourselves off.

Why? Well, it’s a nice place, if it wasn’t for people. How do you get rid of people? Bombs, death-rays—all very primitive. Leave a big mess. Destroy everything, craters, radioactivity, ruin the place.

This way there’s no muss, no fuss. Just like what we did to the screwfly. Pinpoint the weak link, wait a bit while we do it for them. Only a few bones around; make good fertilizer.

Barney dear, good-bye. I saw it. It was there.

But it wasn’t an angel.

I think I saw a real-estate agent.”

TLDR: Anne is dying and sees an alien/angel. She concludes that it is a real estate agent who (with their alien species) caused the femicide and the desire to murder in humans so that they could live on Earth.

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I really like this ending, but I think that it could have given Anne a better, more badass exit.

Anne is a badass because she:

• Grabs a knife and almost kills her husband to protect her daughter
• Leaves everything she knows to hide away from the men trying to kill her
• Was most likely the last woman on Earth

Because she is a badass she needs a badass exit not some lame death. So I decided to give her the ending she really deserves.

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The Screwfly Solution- How It Should Have Ended

Good-bye, dearest dearest Barney.

I lay here on the rock looking at the moon. The smell of iron exuding out of hole in my side. I have to tell you something, Barney. I finally saw the reason for all this madness.

A few days ago while I was getting water I saw it. I was bent over slurping water greedily into my mouth when I heard silence. Not a single animal dared to make a noise. That’s when I saw the angel. It was a large man floating around looking at the trees and patting the earth. Every once in a while he would scoop dirt up and place it into this invisible pocket in his middle. He didn’t see me or if he did he didn’t care. He left as soon as he came.

I promise I’m not going crazy, Barney. I know I have been left to my own devices, but I saw what I saw. And you know what Barney, I think I know what’s happening. I think some alien race is trying to pick us off. Just like with screw flies, they made the females disappear and made the men turn on each other.

Even worse, I think the alien was a real-estate agent.

I don’t know, but I have a strong feeling about it. They wanted us to kill each other so they could have our planet.

After that I got really scared. I was afraid that one may come back and see me this time. So I did what any person does in fear: started collecting weapons to protect myself. I fashioned a spear of sorts and even made a makeshift knife.

I think it’s ironic that I’m more scared of the aliens than the men who could be in the forest right now for hunting season (of course hunting females). But I decided that I have to fight back. This is our planet. They can’t put me and the whole world through this–this shit just so they can take it from us.

They have to be taught a lesson. And I was going to teach them that lesson.

So I lied in wait for days, barely leaving the top of the rock. Days turned into weeks. This anger being the only thing keeping me alive.

One night it was raining, hard. I laughed to myself remembering the time that Alan and you installed that rainfall shower head in our bathroom. I hated the thing. I always said if I wanted to feel like I was caught in a storm I would move to Seattle. My thoughts turned to Seattle. I wonder what Seattle is like now. Are there any women there? Any men? Anybody? Probably not.

All my thoughts blurred into one jumbled mess, distracting me from the surrounding rain.

All the sudden it stopped, the rain I mean. The rain stopped so suddenly that it actually frightened me. I sat up slightly, looking over the side of the rock.

He was back. It was time.

He was once again floating around, looking at the ground. Probably trying to see how the rain affects this part of the land and how the drainage is (you know like a real-estate agent).

I slid down from the rock holding my spear and knife. Silently, I edged closer to him. I then threw the spear at him. The second I threw it I thought to myself “Huh, I wonder if this will work.”

And by golly, Barney it did. It landed into the back of his head. He turned towards me, surprised. Using that to my advantage, I lunged at him with the knife and started wildly stabbing him. Anger I didn’t know I had overtook me. I just kept hitting him with the knife, wanting him to feel what I felt.

Just when I thought I had one the battle, he shot out some laser or something from his middle. The laser emitted this crazy white light that hit me on my side. I was so overcome with adrenaline though, I really didn’t feel it. I just kept going. Eventually, he stopped fighting.

I don’t really know how to kill an alien/angel, but I guess I did it Barney. I mean he turned stone cold grey, so I guess he was dead.

Injured, I somehow managed to get myself back up to the rock. Now the pain was setting in and it wracked every nerve in my body. It was like giving birth to Amy times a million.

I’ve been rocking myself back and forth since to take my mind off the pain. It hasn’t been working, Barney.

I guess this is goodbye old pal. I don’t know if you’re out there anymore. Honestly, I don’t even know if anyone is out there anymore. But, I hope by some miracle that you are alive and kicking. I hope you read this. I hope you remember me.

Goodbye, Barney.

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Behind the Process

This assignment was quite difficult for me. I found it hard to write an ending that was good and could fit in what I wanted to say. I actually wrote this alternative ending in one sitting as I found that it made me focus on the story. It almost made me insert myself into the story and write like I was doing what Anne was doing. Once again, I found that the easiest part of this assignment was to add gifs. I feel that gifs add a je ne sais quoi to a post and make it less boring (for everyone). I also think that the gifs are something I did well. I think I did it well because I was selective of the gifs I chose and stuck to a color theme. Sidenote: I like black and white gifs because the simplicity of the colors makes the reader focus on the content of the gif and heightens their experience. Something I want to improve is my grammar and paragraph breaks. It’s been a while since I had an English class, so I know that my paragraph breaks and grammar are a bit rough. I did like this assignment because it allowed me to be creative in both the writing and digital arenas. I’m proud of this assignment and I learned that I have to not worry about screwing up and just do it.

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Hopefully, everyone appreciated the more badass end that I gave Anne. That’s it folk, I’ll catch you on the flipside.

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A Tragic End

I bit my lip, avoiding letting the words in my mind come out.

“What’s wrong, babe?” Malcolm asked inquisitively.

I sighed, looking down at the ground.

“There’s been something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I haven’t told you because I’m scared you will be mad.” I whispered looking at the campfire.

“What is it?” Malcolm said grabbing my hand, gently stroking my thumb.

He then screamed a blood curdling scream that echoed off the surrounding trees.

I quickly looked up from the fire and saw that he was holding a hand.

“What happened? Who’s hand is that?” I asked him, frantically looking around our camp.

He stood there looking at me in horror. He raised a finger and pointed to my side. I looked down and realized that my hand had come off fully. Panic set into my body as I saw him backing away from me.

“I can explain, Malcolm. I promise. I didn’t think this would happen!” I said with tears clouding my vision.

“You’re one of them! You lied to me, you said you wouldn’t do the experiment. I trusted you!” Malcolm shouted.

“We needed the money! Where did you think that rent money came from? I had to give up part of my brain for us. I didn’t think it would turn me into this–this thing!” I screamed back at him.

“This thing? This thing?! You haven’t even accepted it. I can’t believe it.” Malcolm said, disgust creeping into his voice. “Accept it, you’re a zombie. You betrayed us, you’re a sellout.”

I sunk to the ground, weeping. Of course I had seen the signs coming. My thoughts would creep into strange places. Sometimes my vision would blur and I would have an almost animal instinct to run.

The only time I ever acted on my zombie instincts was when I killed an animal while Malcolm was getting supplies in town. A weird blackout came over me and next thing I knew my hands were in a rabbit, my mouth covered in its blood. I had eaten the rabbit’s brain without even thinking about it.

I thought that it would stop there, that my symptoms wouldn’t evolve. But here we are, my hand fully detached from my body.

Malcolm looked at me with anger filling his eyes. He turned and threw my hand into the forest. The soft thump of the hand landing was the only sound between us.

“What did you think would happen? I mean you read what they were going to do to you during the experiment,” Malcolm asked harshly.

“They said that they were only taking part of my brain. Then they would replace the rest with the AI bot thing. Everyone else who did the experiment had their entire brain removed and replaced. That’s why I thought it wouldn’t happen to me. I promise Malcolm, I couldn’t have foreseen this,” I said.

“I would have foreseen this. I would have predicted this. You should have told me,” Malcolm whispered with a tear rolling down his cheek.

“I know, but I didn’t want you to worry. I didn’t need you to go through more than you needed,” I explained.

“Well, you know what I have to do. I can’t let you hurt other people. I’m so sorry…” Malcolm said with more tears streaming down his face.

He raised his arm, it was shaking violently. Malcolm was holding a shotgun in his hand.

“I’m sorry,” I said to him as he moved towards me putting the cold gun to the back of my head.

I could feel him hesitating, avoiding doing the deed.

“Malcolm, you gotta do it.”

“I know.”

With one last final sigh, he squeezed the trigger and made the world zombie count one less.

He stroked my hand lovingly & it fell off with a sickening noise. I lied to him. I didn’t tell him part of my brain was gone and replaced with AI. I was turning into them, a zombie. He had to do it, but he didn’t want to. Shaking, he took the gun and killed me. #ds106 #theend106 pic.twitter.com/EZLzZVfc1P

— cypherpunk106 (@cypherpunk106) January 24, 2018

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Behind the Process

The one thing I found difficult about this story was actually writing a story. I always am very specific and want my end result to be perfect. Today, I learned the valuable lesson of creating just to create. However, I did find it easy to find gifs to insert into this post to set the mood. I think that this was something I did well as I curated gifs that matched the vibe of the story. Something I wish I did better was reading the directions of the assignment. In the first posting, I didn’t understand how to write this blurb here. Fortunately, Martha told me what to do. I really did like this assignment as it allowed me to write and play with some digital aspects (gifs).

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