Rattled Mind

By W.A. McDonald

What I present to you, the reader is a collection of short stories from the unique mind of W.A. McDonald. This collection spans many years of writing. While some of the stories may have been updated slightly to make them more readable, or address changes in technology since they were first written, the premise of each story remains unchanged.

Some stories like M.E.T.S Corp were written before the advent of the tablet, Bluetooth, or portable computing devices. It takes place in a world where the ice caps are no more. Because of its age, changes in technology needed to be addressed. Other stories like Dignity are much newer and come to these pages unchanged. Dignity is a Flash Fiction piece that deals with a man who does not want to outlive his dignity.

Other stories within the pages of Rattled Mind include Exodus. A story about environmentalism morphing into oppressive theocracy. Herb, and Zero Atmosphere are stories based on the same world I created for Exodus. Second Chance, and Free Enterprise are flash fiction pieces based on the concept of global tech giants waging warfare for market share. The intro to these stories offers an explanation as to why there are two stories. There is even a story that deals with the possibility of life after death, something I don't necessarily believe in, but that is why we call it fiction.

Each and every story is more about the characters, and their lives within the worlds I created. These are not a collection of technology driven stories, or stories of universal conquest. These are stories about normal people livening in extraordinary times. One of them, It Will be History, even takes you, the reader to a distant planet.

Between the covers of Rattled Mind, you will find over a dozen short stories ranging in length from less than a thousand words, to well over eight thousand words. Take a chance, buy this book, at least one of these stories should tickle your fancy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: W.A. McDonald
• Release date: Jan 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386039419

Book preview

Rattled Mind

Copyright © 2018 W.A. McDonald

Published by W.A. McDonald

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either product of the authors imagination or used fictitiously Any resemblance to actual events, locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be produced or transmitted in any from by and means, without permission in writing from the author.

Cover by W.A. McDonald

Table of Contents

Forward

Predications...

Dignity

Just Take a Pill...

Preventative

Fast Food Wars...

Free Enterprise

Second Chance

Aquarium Keeper...

Will be History

The Lottery...

For President of the United States, the Winner is...

Those Damn Bugs...

Box Elder

Earth First

Exodus

Herb

Zero Atmosphere

Submarine Trucking...

M.E.T.S Corps

Sci-Fi Writers are Romantics...

In My Dreams

More Time...

Writers Time

Thank You!

Forward

Ihave written a lot of crap in my quest to become a readable writer. Throughout that process, I kept every crappy manuscript my Brother typewriter generated. For years, they moved with me from place to place, state to state, closet to closet. I kept them mostly for sentimental reasons, but some of them I planned on revisiting one day.

As time passed and we moved into the digital age, the bygone era of these manuscripts became apparent. The paper clips that held the whiteout painted pages, staining the corners orange with rust. If I removed said paper clip, its outline permanently embossed within the paper.

I had not read many of these long-abandoned manuscripts since the editor of some magazine returned them to me in a self-addressed stamped envelope with a form letter slipped under the original paperclip. Yet I clung to them like any artist clings to his or her crappy work. The face, only a father can love.

When I started my blog, my intent was to take those old typewritten pages, hope some descent OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software can pull the words and letters from those yellowed pages, and place them in an easily edible Word document. Alas, when I went to search them out, wondering what file cabinet they lived in these days, I came up empty-handed.

As was my wont, the problem of the missing manuscripts clicked over in my mind throughout the next several days and I would sift through possibilities. Then, as it sometimes happens, a stray thought triggered a memory, and realization dawned on me like the blossoming of a nuclear mushroom cloud on the horizon. My old typewritten manuscripts went the way of old tax records and bank statements.

In a weak moment, while cleaning the file cabinet, I shredded them all!

I was dejected! I remember many of the titles, even to this day. Warrior of Staradang, a short story I never finished for my Science Fiction Literature class. Maybe I did finish it, but never finished the accompanying drawing the teacher requested. As I think about it, that manuscript never made it to the typewriter. It was handwritten in a spiral notebook. I tore it out of that notebook with the fringes that remained holding the pages together like some pulp-based Velcro.

There was Con Hunter, which ultimately morphed into the Earth First Trilogy. I may still have the original premise in an expanded form, but that old story is long gone. One story, I do not remember the title to, was a futuristic take on the Guardian Angels phenomenon of the eighties. I was so enthralled with that story that I tried to sell it as a comic book idea to Marvel. Wish I still had the drawings.

My artwork is another tale of loss, but not through a deliberate action. I lost those through neglect...maybe one too many moves.

But I digress. I pitched all my old stories and manuscripts in a deliberate act. I was in the process of an annual file cabinet cleaning chore, when I came across all those old stories. I was at the point in my life where I was no longer a writer. I wrote dozens of stories, and a novel, with no success. I was giving up, therefore, what was the point of keeping those musty old relics. I was a truck driver, and that was all I would ever be.

It is now with forlorn that I harken back to the pleasure I took in hearing the paper shredder pop the staples that held the pages of one manuscript together. None of those stories were publishable. In fact, most of them were crap! Nevertheless, they were mine, and I would have taken great pleasure in sharing them with the readers of my blog.

While some like Con Hunter and the story that became Terra’s Stripling Space Nights may have found new life. I would have taken pleasure in publishing most of the really old and silly ones as is. It would have been fun to see the progression from then to now.

Writing may never become my full-time job, but never again will I declare that I am not a writer and destroy past works. It is important that we keep clear the path that leads us to the present.

Predications...

One of the things the likes of Elric and other sword and sorcery characters of my youth taught me was, there is no life without dignity. To me, life is about living. Living does not mean clinging to life with every last desperate fiber of your being. I believe in todays’ society, we put way too much value on life. Life is not living, if you have no life.

There was a time when I spent a lot of time in emergency rooms and hospitals. Not for my benefit, but because of who I shared my life with at the time. The things I saw affirmed that there was no way I was going to outlive my dignity. Men, younger than my thirty some years, walking out to the smoking area of the hospital, wrapped in their skimpy hospital gown and robe, dragging behind them an IV tower with a multitude of colored fluids hanging from the hooks.

Where is the dignity in that?

It was then I started telling those around me, As long as I can control the power chair, I have a way out if my life stretches beyond my dignity. As long as I can park that thing on the railroad tracks, I have an out.

Then, not that long ago, I had a genuinely pleasant conversation with a coworker. During what was probably the shortest thirty minutes of tête-à-tête, her and I covered a wide range of topics. Effortlessly moving from one to the other. Our final topic was the prospect of living beyond any sense of dignity, and it was her who suggested taking up skydiving in your eighties.

Thus, a story was born.

Dignity

The blackness of space spreads out on all sides while Earth is a distant field of blues, whites, and tans. I teeter at the very edge of space, hanging from an ever-expanding envelope of helium. This is my not my first drop, but likely my last.

I take in the curve of Earths horizon, the thin layer of scattered clouds that separate me from my intended target. I love this moment of peace. Seeing the world from so far away. Hanging on the edge of darkness. The closest I will ever come to being among the stars.

The only sound, my breathing and the apparatus that aids it. Inhale, the click of a valve, exhale. Within my chest I feel the quickening of my heart in anticipation of activating the release. When I will begin my plummet towards Earth.

Slowly I bring my arm up and look at the display mounted to my suits forearm. The icon is green, all systems go, I double tap the icon, feel and hear the mechanical release followed by a moment of weightlessness.

I began these plummets after my seventy fifth birthday. It was shortly after my liver transplant. I was not worried about dignity then. Artificial organs were tried and true. My dignity would remain in intact. I started these long skydives because I noticed a different change. Something not quite right in my thinking.

I was forgetting things one should never forget.

My suit was feeding my vitals to the Department of Public Safety drones that loiter about near the surface. Letting them know that I am in no distress. My vital signs are as close to normal as someone who is arrowing towards the planet like an old yard dart, can be. As always, my artificial liver and heart functioning optimally.

What the suit doesn’t tell them is my brain isn’t right.

I look at the speed indicator. I am approaching the sound barrier. My head pointed toward the ground, hands close to my side, toes pointed. This is what it was all about for the last decade, the thrill, the speed, the freedom.

There is no sound of air whistling past my helmet, the air is still to thin. Only the rapidly climbing digits displayed on my visor, and the clouds hurtling towards me tell me I am auguring towards Earth at tremendous velocities.

Life is about living, and there is no life without dignity. That is the mantra I lived by since reading those old Michael Moorcock books as a kid. Medical science has dignity in the bag in today’s day and age. My artificial organs need no rejection drugs. They work better than the organic organs they replaced. Losing a limb no longer means a simple mindless prosthetic. Instead, it's replaced with a fully functioning robotic limb that responds to the electrical impulses of the nerves left behind.

They can even repair the spinal column.

But they cannot fix the brain.

My speed indicator shows Mach 1.24, and shortly after I feel the press of atmosphere on my head and shoulders. Softly at first, the sound of air rushing past my helmet builds. The speed indicator starts counting down, as terminal velocity decreases with the thickening air.

The first people to drop from the edge of space pulled their chutes at about 18,000 feet, but not me. I applied for and received a permit for HALO jumps over a decade ago. High Altitude, Low Opening, three or four times a year.

I needed the thrill, and I needed to fool the DPS drones that constantly watch for the stupid, the depressed, and those bent on harming others. The drones are there, my suit points them out to me, but by the time they realize my chute does not deploy, it will be too late.

I have Alzheimer’s. There is no official diagnosis, they would have pulled my permit. But a doctor friend of mine confirmed what I already suspected.

I hate forgetting the little things.

Modern medicine can fix so much, but it cannot fix the brain. I almost forgot to write an email to my kids. It took several reminders from my tablet to make sure it happened. I did not want them thinking they were to blame for my untimely death.

I hope they understand. I cannot live without my dignity. The dignity of taking care of myself. Remembering my grandchildren’s birthdays. Remembering to eat. Remembering to breath.

I took a pill at the onset of a cold last month, and it was gone the next day. But this...this they cannot fix.

At nine hundred meters, my chute will not open, and the DPS drones will race in to try and save me. They keep pinging my suit, making sure all systems are normal. And they are. But I keep my head pointed down, hands swept back, doing everything I can to achieve maximum velocity. The ground races towards me at close to ninety meters a second.

There is something I am forgetting. I am always forgetting, then a reminder pops up on my visor. Thank god for technology. Too bad it can’t fix the brain.

I check my wireless data signal. It is strong. Using a combination of eye movements and blinks I send the previously composed email to my children.

Please understand, I whisper as the DPS drones activate the alarms in my suit. They try and command my chute to open, but my suit ignores their commands.

I have learned a few tricks in my decades on this planet.

Out of my periphery, I see a couple of drones racing in. It’s going to be close. I will myself to go faster, pull my arms in tighter, make my back straighter.

Speed brakes pop on the one approaching from my eleven o’clock, broad robotic hands reach out to me, grab at my suit. I feel a tug, then something tears and the ground rushes up to meet me.

Just Take a Pill...

Iwas never good at predictions. Somewhere in the late to mid-90’s, after discovering email, online banking, and electronic bill pay, I predicted that the post office would be gone in ten years.

Resilient damn thing...isn’t it?

I also predicted a few years later, that eventually everyone will be on some sort of psychotropic medication. Every mood would be a clinical diagnosis, and your family physician would prescribe the fix in pill form.

My imagination took this one step further and decided that waiting for a prescription was not going to be enough. The government would force a preventative on all of us.

Preventative

Iused to like it here . Long ago, when I was a child, this was where I went to escape boredom, loneliness... obscurity. Things are different now. It is a mess.

When I was a child, it was here I could find solace from the world around me. When I needed to escape, I retreated into my mind and the worlds I created there. I set out on exciting journeys where anything was possible. I flew star fighters against alien invaders and saved the world. I explored the deepest oceans and discovered new life forms. Here the most beautiful girls in the world always fell in love with me.

None of that is possible now. It is like a thick fog fills the place. No, denser than fog, it is more like pulled cotton balls. Thin filament’s stretch throughout my mind, creating what appears to be easily broken barriers to my thoughts. However, as I push against those stretched fibers, they build up, bunching together, cutting into me, and create stronger thicker strands.

Putting together coherent thoughts seems impossible. All I can manage is confusion. When a thought sparks, or an idea begins to blossom, I reach for it, but cannot grasp it. It is always just out of reach.

Why am I so confused, I wonder, what is going on?

I pull back, and look around, turning, searching for something I can grasp. Then through the crisscross of filaments, I see something I missed. Details are hard in this scattered frame of mind, but I am sure I see a wall.

If I shift my head to the left, looking through a different pattern of fibers, I see a brick wall. Then, if I turn so that I see the wall through my periphery, I see the irregular pattern of riveted boilerplate. Yet, the representation I see the most often is a stone wall. Like the Internet pics I have seen of old stone fences that crisscross England.

I push toward the wall, and the fibers quickly build up and hold me off. I throw a hand towards the wall, desperately wanting to touch its now stony surface.

What is behind that wall?

I fall into a dreamless sleep with that question bounding off the fibers of my mind.

WHEN I WAKE IT IS DARK and time is lost to me. I wish days would have passed, but a part of me knows it has only been hours. I can smell myself, my sweaty sheets...cigarette smoke.

I turn my head and see the flickering glow of purple neon through a tear in the blind that covers my window.

Sadie’s Ladies is open, I whisper hoarsely into the darkness.

In some recess of my mind, it registers that the scar glows purple starting around 10:30 PM. I have not risen from my bed since before dawn, and my bladder screams for relief. I roll out of bed and with effort stand erect. Instantly my head whirls, and I feel as though the world tilts at a precarious angle. Reflexively my palm slaps the wall for stability.

As I move, my joints protest with the pain of stiffness, forcing me to shuffle my way to the bathroom. I use every available handhold to keep me from falling off the steeply slanted floor. For a moment, I gaze down at the shadowy outline of the toilet, pondering my next move. Lacking confidence in my balance, I turn and fall to the seat. With frustration, I lift my ass and yank my briefs down.

I tuck, and sigh with the diminishing pressure. Then a foul smell assaults my sinuses causing me to tip my head back and to the left to escape the foul odor.

God, what were they putting in me? I croak through dry lips.

Shaking off what I know is not the last drop; I stand and pull up my briefs. Still unsteady, I maintain three points of contact to balance myself at the sink. My left-hand gropes for and finds the light switch.

Even though my eyelids squeeze shut against the flaring light, my head explodes with pain. When I open my eyes, they close involuntarily against the fluorescent affront. This cycle continues until my eyes become accustomed to the sterile white light.

I think my eyes are broke, I whisper at the warped visage in the mirror.

I lean in, because I do not recognize the face looking back at me. Bloodshot whites blend with the copper band of my irises. Irises stretched thin around dilated pupils. I take note of my ashen skin and gaunt features. Five days of growth color my jawline a darker brown than the greasy matt plastered to my skull. I tilt my head and the subtle movement renews the throbbing between my temples.

Is it worth it? I ask the stranger looking back at me. He does not answer, just looks at me with those reddish copper eyes.

My mouth feels as though the same cotton that clouds my mind coats my tongue and the membrane surrounding it. I remember a small plastic cup with hard water stains on the outside. I locate it, activate the faucet, and fill the cup.

I take a deep breath, let it out, and lift the glass to my lips. It feels as though the liquid never reaches my stomach. I am so dry; the tissue between my teeth and stomach