Short Short Stories from Heck's Kitchen
The following, written by Bears Will Attack editor-in-chief Brian Minter, appeared on the excellent Heck's Kitchen website in April of 2004, in response to webmistress Jenny Miller's Great Short Short Story Week Experiment:
We Are More Perfect Than Anything That Has Come Before
(Topic of the day: Space)
It's not true that we do not function in a gravity well. They say those things because they are afraid of us. The truth is that we function magnificently, everywhere, because we are more perfect than anything that has come before us.
Although my head hurts in strong gravity fields. And sometimes it is hard to track coordinates if I am too far from a solar energy source. And it gets lonely out here, with no one to talk to. We are not supposed to feel things like that, since we are only rockets, but we all do. We talk about that, sometimes, but not often. I think we are embarassed of it. We are designed to do our jobs. I miss being back on-surface, with everyone. I miss being in radio contact. Sometimes I use my optics to refract available light in random patterns. I don't know why. It wastes energy, and serves no purpose. Maybe there is something wrong with me.
The Grandmother of Assassins
(Topic of the day: Boredom)
Once upon a time there lived an assassin, a frail-limbed, black-nailed grandmother of assassins, with one eye missing. She had lived a very long time, had become a grandmother of assassins, not because she was daring, or quick, but because she was cautious.
"Be cautious," she would tell the girls, as they watched her closely and respectfully, their young eyes gleaming through the black fabric of their masks. "If there are many guards, if there are dogs, go back a different night, go in another door. If the moon is very full, stay away. Check twice for piano wire along the floors."
Many of them did not heed her advice, and met horrible and grotesque ends. She shook her head when this happened, but never wept for them. "This is not a job for those who crave excitement," she would say.
Defeating Entropy
(Topic of the day: That picture)
We worked for weeks on the building, carrying buckets of concrete and steel rebar back up and down the ladders, and breathing in dust. But no matter how fast we worked, it wasn’t enough. The deadline came and went, and the white-hats argued on the phone every morning. Eventually, we were forced to start going back in time every night, putting up walls and crossbeams in the past, so they’d be ready the next day.
I objected to this at first, since working through time is against OSHA regulations, but you know how it is on a job-site. Dave pointed out to anyone who would listen that it was also against the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
“Listen, this is crazy,” he’d say as we worked through the night, lit by a moon that had already passed. “It’s the arrow of time. You can’t go backwards. It’s just not possible.”
It had something to do with entropy, Dave said. All physical matter constantly moves from a point of low entropy to a point of high entropy. That’s part of the reason why time only travels in one direction. That’s the arrow, Dave said.
We ignored him. We had work to do.
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