Happy New Year and another little ditty.

2007 makes us think of the future. And as much as I'd like to be thinking positive thoughts, I'm just not. So I did a writing prompt created by The CheerLeader of Doom, that alone should tell you it may not be all ice cream bones and fuzzy bunnies. And yup, it didn't turn out so hopeful. But HOPEFULLY, it is at least entertaining....


The black twilight swirled around my body like a glove. Nothing could see me, nothing could hear me, but most importantly nothing could get me—being in a sea of strangers never felt so safe.

As the sun set, my mind calmed. I wouldn’t be stared at. I wouldn’t have to deal with accusations or glares laced with disappointment and disgust. I could be innocuous, my favorite way to be. I slid my hands up the nape of my neck and dug my fingers into my hair. I twisted and pulled until a severe bun was in place. With sly fingers, my colored contacts were out and replaced with plastic framed glasses. A little red lipstick, a bulky jacket, and no one would recognize me. I was a regular Clark Kent.

The fog and lack of moon helped as well. If there was any day I would’ve picked to tell the world the news, tonight was about as ideal as it would get. The crowd stayed where it was. Those who were not yelling, and threatening violence, were stunned, beyond rational speech. The information I’d been forced to drop would cause more damage than a nuclear bomb at Nagasaki.

Our last hope had failed. I had failed. The world’s population looked to me for answers and while I thought I’d had some at one time, I realized they were pipe dreams. I was chasing rainbows, running after tangents. There was no solution. I was the only one who hadn’t believed that, then I convinced the world of the same. Only I was naïve enough to believe a cure could be found.

I thought surely the plague was only a disease. The infertility just a symptom of a virus. All problems can be unlocked, you just have to find a key. Well we had found a key all right, but not to unlock the mystery of our plight. No, we had found the key that unlocked the forbidden door, behind which, the disease lurked, imprisoned. That door was in each and every one of us and once opened, the force was too great to close again. Who could combat the force of God, surely not me, and even the whole world combined would not stand a chance.

No, we were stuck. Stuck with this ageless decline of ours. We stayed young sure, immortality—what a great scientific achievement. What good does keeping a body young if the mind aged, if the insides still rotted. The plastic-like frame of skin and bones only led to the prolonged pain and agony of death. Death that never came.

The government may have done this to us, but I was the face of blame. In a world of soda pop “water-fountains” at parks and sugary sports drinks, our teeth had been falling apart. One World United, our global government, solved our problem. I had nothing to do with the tooth-strengthener they put in the world’s water supply, even the oceans. I didn’t concoct the calcium mixture that would keep your teeth exactly how they are, despite abuse.

And yet I was to blame, because I gave hope when there was none. I made the situation worse. I understood that, thus my current disguise. I may start feeling the effects to my fifty year old body that appeared twenty soon, but I wasn’t ready to be lynched. Despite everything, I still wasn’t ready to die. Sometimes we never learn huh?