Present Future

The box was sleek and shiny, like most of their products. No one could claim the aliens weren't accommodating, at least. Every whim and request was met almost obsequiously.

"We have making of for you a give," said the Ambassador laboriously. They insisted on speaking English rather than relying on machine translation. They felt it was a matter of courtesy. "The gift is the future."

"Pardon?" Major Michaels hadn't gotten very much sleep last night, after he'd discovered the full-tactile holosuite.

"Given we you your future."

The box gleamed.

"When do we open it?" Michaels asked.

Boredom

And so The Rest of July is Small Gods Month kicks off with hopefully a bang. Jim is one of my longer-term readers, and his blog is always insightful. Because I'm all about first-come, first-serve and Jim responded most promptly, he gets the first official Small Gods Month entry. Thanks for reading, everyone!

P.S. - I gathered entries from Facebook and other forums, too, so we've got a pretty hefty bundle ready to go. Might even carry us all the way to the end of the month, at least if some more entries keep trickling in. I do get notification when there's new comments here, so don't worry about commenting on old posts. ;-)

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He never meant any harm. He loves you.

He knows about time. That was the first thing he learned, actually. He knows that time is flexible. He knows how to bend it, twist it... and stretch it.

There are limitations, of course. Because of the entanglement of space and time on this level of reality, it works best when you're not moving. In waiting rooms, or on planes. Classrooms. At work. You've probably noticed it, though you didn't know to thank him. He doesn't mind.

He wants to keep you around for as long as he can.

He loves you.

The Old Switcheroo

I glanced at the clock yet again. 3:20? It had been 3:21 a moment ago...

"That's it," I said. "Who's messing around?" I stuck my hand through spacetime and rooted around. Nobody in the fifth or the sixth, but in the seventh, I felt the triple-refolded topology of the scruff of someone's neck. I yanked on it.

Gordie grinned sheepishly at me. "We were moving hours from the back up to the front again. Janie bet me it'd take you a day to notice."

"Well, you can tell her she lost."

"Yeah. It's been, like, a week."

Cherry Blossoms in Springtime

He holds a kitten in his hand. It mewls and tries to knead at the unyielding surface.

Warmth and softness, he understands: heat and topography. As an atemporal being, he perceives that the kitten once was not and will not always be. He sees the limping, the coughing, the stillness, and later the bones and dust. They are always crying when their pets die. Why? It cannot be a surprise...?

He focuses, looks at one moment apart, as a separate unit of time, but without losing his knowledge of what must inevitably be.

He holds a kitten in his hand.

The Spear-Carriers

Bernard reclined on the divan and watched Stouffer pace. Every so often the pudgy man would pause, haul a pocketwatch out of his waistcoat, and mumble into his mustache.

“Running out of time,” Stouffer mumbled.

“They’ll be back,” said Bernard. “You know they will, else we wouldn’t still be here.”

“We know they haven’t failed, that’s all,” said Stouffer. The butler clanked in with more drinks.

“Bloody thing needs oiling,” said Bernard, sipping delicately. “What time is it, anyway?” he asked, seeing Stouffer pulling out his watch once again.

“Stopped,” said Stouffer, letting it dangle by its chain. “Still stopped.”