Me, Again
And now for the ending of Last Yesterday. But before that…
I haven’t been writing many things in line with this audience. Thank you for tolerating my creative wanderings and all the support that I always find in the Poetry Friday group.
So, here is something short and fun before we finish Last Yesterday. Enjoy:
Dark December Mornings
A werewolf stole my lunch
on the way to school today.
He howled as he ate
my moon pie.
December mornings are too dark,
the moon still out,
the werewolves still
feasting on moon pies.
I pull out my backup lunch,
being prepared for this theft.
It happens every morning
in December.
Chuckling to myself,
another werewolf snatches my lunch
and runs off howling with my
moon pie.
Ugh…
December mornings,
cold, dark, full of werewolves.
Come on spring
get here faster.
Now, for Last Yesterday
STOP: If you have not read Part I and Part II, you’ll want to read those first.
Next week we’ll be back to shorter poetry works to be more in line with normal Poetry Friday content :). As with the other works, this story was written with the assistance of Natural Language Generation (NLG) technology which is a division of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Think of it like an AI system was a collaborator in the writing of this story. I write some, AI writes some, we make each other’s work better by working together.
I firmly believe that using AI for writing will be as normal as using a computer for spellcheck in the near future. I’m experimenting to get a grip on it. At work I use the AI NLG system to help me produce content that is search engine optimized (SEO). Here, I experiment with “how do I use AI in my creative process”.
So, here’s the conclusion…
Photo by Alex Knight from Pexels
Last Yesterday Part 3
The man's heart races. His daughter, his everything is on the other side of that orb and now he knows he can rewind time, get time with his daughter. The cat is the only thing that stands between him and her. There isn't a choice.
"You have until the clock runs out." The Observer said and set the timer. One hour. "If you're not back by then, the deal expires and we're back to You or Her."
No time to waste, the man rushed to the door and pulled it open. His eyes dropped, hoping to see the cat. No luck. He ran out the door, up the cave and towards the light of day beyond. Laughter chased him out the cave as The Observer gleefully, horribly, cackled.
Escaping the cave, the man saw his world was different yet again. He stood in the middle of a busy intersection. Cars ran in all directions. Neon lights squiggled in the rainy puddles splashing from the cars. People brushed by him with their umbrellas high and trench coats swaying.
"Great." The man pulls his coat up over his head and follows the crowd across the street. Across the intersection, the Don't Walk sign pulses urging everyone to rush but the man can't rush. He needs to observe. He needs to find the cat.
Don't Walk stopped flashing. The street's glow turned from red to green with rippling waves racing to the gutter. And there, in the gutter, he sees the gray cat slip down under the street.
HONK!!!
Horns blare as the man runs to the drain.
CRUNCH!!
A car smashed into the one beside him throwing that car into his legs.
CRUNCH!!
The man's legs turned to jelly as he collapsed into the street sliding into the drain, tumbling down into the open gutter, falling with the rainwater to the stone walkway under the street.
"DAMN!" The man screamed into the echoing sewer.
He looked for the cat but only saw the rats. They stared at him with their shiny black hungry eyes. Rats were the least of his problems right now. His time was running out. Had it been minutes? Seconds? He reached to the slick brick wall doused with rainwater and tried to pull himself up. His legs buckled, feeling like shattered glass wrapped in muscle.
"Damn!" He collapsed back down. Squeaking rats ran toward him. He rolls out of their way and starts crawling the direction they came from. He hoped the cat was there. It was hunting or chasing or something. Clawing along the damp sewer walkway the man wondered if he would ever scrape the smell off his clothes. Forgetting the pain in his legs, the clock counting down, focusing on the drowning smell of rotting eggs and death. His death? No. He couldn't think that.
He rounded the corner and saw the gray cat, its tail in the air as it pounced on a rat. The man gasped and reached for the gun. The one-shot gun tucked in his waistband.
"Oh, interesting." The cat said releasing its prey. The rat scurried away. "Have you seen my collar?"
The man leveled his gun. "No." and squeezed the trigger releasing a thunder bang that muted the world around him and threw the cat tumbling back like a boneless stuffed toy.
Instantly the man's legs felt firm again. All pain was gone. The sewer broke away like a collapsing house of cards leaving the man lying on the cave floor of The Observer.
"Ah, welcome back." The Observer cheers. "You made it in time." He points to the clock showing 15 minutes remaining. "With plenty of time to spare."
The man stood as The Observer threw the clock to the side - it puffed into gold dust and drifted away into the darkness outside the gemstone's glow.
"Did the cat say anything?" The Observer pulled the stack of cards out of the air in front of him. He flipped his hand and showed the glowing orb with the man's daughter in it. She lay in a hospital bed.
"Same thing it always says. Now, give me what you promised." The man growled.
"And what is that?" The Observer asked curious, but the man sensed The Observer's disinterest was fake.
"The cat always asks about its collar. If I've seen its collar."
The Observer draws a card. The Two of Cups.
"Ah, things are looking up." The Observer said. "Yes, things are looking up." The Observer held out the orb to give the man a good look at his daughter, pushed it so far that his arm slid out from the gray cloak that covered him. Dangling around The Observer's arm was a red leather collar.
The cat's collar?
"Why did the cat want the collar?" The man asked as he reached for the Two of Cups. The man's eyes stay steady on the card.
"Touch the orb to return to your daughter. I will give you time back to spend with her as reward for disposing of my problem." The Observer pushes the orb further towards the man.
The collar calls to the man. Certainty grew in him that the collar was more than a cat collar. It was, something more. It was the source of The Observer’s power.
"Just touch the orb. To go back to her." The Observer pushed it to the man. Excitement sprung over The Observer’s old face as the orb was almost touching the man. “I’ll do it this time…” The Observer whispers. “I knew I’d do it this time…”
But the man grabbed the collar and ripped it from The Observer's arm.
The Observer's eyes widened in surprise. "No! Not-" The orb falls as The Observer's robes drop to the floor. A gray cat with long white beard and white tipped ears walks out from the pile of robes. The man catches the orb, red collar glowing bright, and vanishes.
The gray cat screams, roaring into the cave with rage.
When the man woke up, his daughter was in the hospital bed. He had been sleeping in the chair beside her, holding her hand.
"Daddy, you can take off your coat if you want." She said.
He looked around, seeing he hadn't gone back in time. His wife was sleeping on the opposite chair. His daughter looked at him. She was exhausted. He knew she wasn't going to be awake much longer. His trench coat was still wet from the rain outside the hospital, but he didn’t remember coming here. He just suddenly existed in the chair and his daughter never knew he was gone. Her innocent face was concern for him and that made him cry.
“I drew some pictures daddy. You want to see them?” She held up a stack of stabled printer paper. Flipping through the pages the man saw beautiful childish scribbles of a forest, a city in the clouds, the old west, a magical cave full of crystals, and a fancy city with neon lights full of cars.
The man smiled and reached for the pictures stopping as he noticed what was on his hand. Wrapped around his fingers, the red cat collar pulsed with energy. It glowed like the gemstones in the cave but only he could see it. Placing the collar on his wrist, he looked to his daughter and smiled.
He thought, I wish we had more time. And as the thought finished, the cat collar shone blinding bright and his daughter, his wife, and him were suddenly at the beach. His daughter was flying a kite, laughing, playing. His wife chased her, smiles and joy poured out of both of them.
Confused, he watched them play.
A gray cat bumped his leg, rubbing its head on him. The man looked down at the cat and then to his daughter and wife.
"I'll get it back this time." The cat says as it licks its paw.
"This time?" The man says.
"We've been at this for a long time." The cat says as it trots up the beach. "A long, long time. We always start here, or at least that’s what I’ve been told."
The man sees another person run up to his wife and daughter. He's smiling and happy snatching up the man's daughter with laughter and joy. The man looked closer, the third person, was a younger him.
"Is that..."
The man recognizes the beach, this was a few weeks before the diagnosis. They went on vacation and this was when she first showed real symptoms of being sick.
"Yes, that's you. Well, technically it's us." The cat meows. "You saved your daughter for the you of this reality. But you're in a loop. The only way out is to let me win. To let our daughter come into this reality with us but if I get the collar now, you won't exist. So, you need to convince the new you to trade his daughter for his freedom so she can be with us here." The cat says.
The man, confused looks at the cat with distrust. "That makes no sense." Watching his daughter play with his wife and the man who looks exactly like him. "More tricks Observer? Why don't I just tell myself all this?" The man scoffs. "You're lying."
"You do. That's usually the first encounter. You don't believe you, or me." The cat laughs and shakes his head. "We've had this conversation hundreds of times." The cat struts away. "It always ends this way. Your daughter will get sick again, you will bring the other you into this reality to save her but you reject you and we end up right here."
"Not if I shoot you again. If I kill you, this all ends. That's what I think." The man yells to the cat.
"You always say that." The cat yells back. "But you can't. You'll need to get the other you to do it and if I get the collar back, well, I don't know what will happen. Care to find out? Maybe that’s what stops all this?"
The man laughs. "Still with the tricks Observer." The cat vanishes. The man watched his family play and smiled. He feels the red collar on his wrist and pulls his gray trench coat sleeve down over it. Putting his hands in his pockets, he's puzzled when he pulls out a deck of cards from one pocket and a glowing orb from the other.
“Maybe,” the man thinks, “maybe if I can go back in time before she started showing symptoms? Surgery or something…that’s it. I’ll send that me back far enough. Just need to figure out how.” He looks at the orb. Remembering what the Observer whispered right before everything changed. The Observer said ‘this time’.
Flipping his hand over, flipping back to see the clock appear. “Yes, that’s it. I just need to send me back further.” He felt the power of the collar surge. “Just need to keep this, and get me to go back far enough.”
Watching his family play, the man smiles. He watches them, observing the joy that is about to be lost. Finding joy in himself that he has a plan. Kill the cat, send this new him back to before his daughter gets sick. Maybe, don’t give the new him a chance to decide…just get him to touch the orb. That will do it. Just touch the orb and that will send that me back far enough and stop all this.
“In a few weeks I’ll be ready to hear the truth.” The man says. “I’ll reach out and talk and convince me to do what’s necessary to save my daughter.”
The man looks for the cat but it's gone.
His daughter coughs. In the orb, the man sees his daughter in the hospital. “I’ve just got to trust myself to do the right thing.”
I hope you enjoyed Last Yesterday. Thank you for giving it a read.
Thank you to Jone Rush for hosting Poetry Friday this week at her blog. Make sure to go checkout her blog for some excellent holiday poems and one of my favorite poet's content.
Cover Photo by Elina Sazonova from Pexels.