Conceptual Piece Four

By Late Night Writings

Finding an entire community in the belly of a gargantuan beast isn’t so rare these days. Anytime I’ve been swallowed up by an immanis crocodylinae duplus, I would rest easy on my trip down its esophagus knowing that I would be sleeping comfortably in the bed of a cozy inn within half an hour. Each time I have been guzzled up by a loxodonta grandis maximus, I've known I’d land in the welcoming arms of a small city whose economy runs on tourism. Whenever I have slurped up by a balaenoptera corporosus inmensus, I've gladly immersed myself in the local culture.
Before the Galactic Scale Reconfiguration, this wouldn’t have been possible. The largest animals on Earth weren’t physically capable of containing even a small village. They weren’t capable of swallowing a small trailer. I doubt a dog house would even fit in there. Looking at pictures from back then - any year prior to the reconfiguration - you can see that their elephants were about the same size as a modern bloodhound. Bloodhounds were about the size of a modern mouse. Of course, not everything was scaled up using the same ratios, so this won’t give you the full picture of how much things have changed, but it does give you a vague idea of how much things have changed. For an example of something that almost didn’t change at all, there’s us. Humans were scaled up so slightly that the percentage of growth is entirely insignificant. It’s not noticeable. Even for the people who were alive during the reconfiguration and therefore experienced the changes, it mostly went unnoticed. Some people may have have just had slightly less trouble reaching the cups on the high shelf, but it made no significant impact on their lives.

Imagine living in a version of our world so small that an eight hour non-stop flight from the East coast of North America to the West coast of the European landmass was considered long. Imagine living in a world where rats were known for being sneaky little rodents that were small enough to be squashed with a pan or small enough to use one of our modern gnat traps. Imagine not knowing you have lice because they’re too small to see when they’re young. These days, lice are as big as our fingers, and there’s no way that you could be uncertain of whether not you had one nestled in your hair. Imagine keeping a parrot in your living room, instead of boarding the windows to keep one from smashing its way in to steal your pet cicada. Back then, there was a completely different set of domesticated animals: dogs, cats, rabbits, a ton of things we see in zoos these days. They were completely different, as you already know, but it’s amazing to imagine seeing miniature versions of those things rolling onto their backs and begging for treats. Think of replacing your mantis with a miniature cat, putting a leash on your cat and walking it about town, or picking up a cat. Even just picturing these things feels silly. Though imagine how people from before the Galactic Scale Reconfiguration would feel about how the world is now. All the bugs that we keep as pets used to be freaks of nature. They would complain about sixteen hour flights. They wouldn’t survive here. The world we live in isn’t for the people who made it. The changes were for the people of the future. This future seemed barbaric and disgusting to them, but we all think it’s pretty good. Moving forward, we have to keep this in mind. We have to remember that changes like the GSR were made for the people of the future and that many of the decisions we make are also for the people of the future. We may not benefit from the changes, we might be terrified by the changes, but the future isn’t for us, so we need to work to build the future that the upcoming generations are demanding. If they end up regretting it, it’s not really on us, and they’ll be able to handle it.

Conceptual Piece Three

By Late Night Writings

Move again, reinvent again, become again, be again, begin again. Time passes so quickly. I feel like I only spend minutes here and there, before leaving again to start my life somewhere new. Even with all the time I have, I still achieve nothing. I have infinity, but I still feel like there’s not enough time for me to get anything done. There are things I’ve wanted to do for hundreds of years and I still haven’t done them. I don’t have a good excuse for why I haven’t. I never have had a good excuse and I never will have one. Thousands of years from now, I will still not be doing what I want to and I still won’t have an excuse for why I haven’t. That’s just how I am and it’s how I always will be. Truly forever, I will be lazy and inadequate. I haven’t explored the world. I haven’t gained an expansive knowledge of all things. I haven’t learned to play every instrument or even one. I have lived hundreds of lifetimes and I have not done anything that is worthy of even one.

Isaac Day, Infinitus Denizen 108, the one and only young of the immortals, aged to just 23 years; inaugurated to The Society of the Infinite in 1403 under the Oath of the Commoner.

Conceptual Piece Two

By Late Night Writings

Light echoed off the walls of the dimly lit cave, shadows hid in the crevices between the rocks. Complete silence, not even the beating ring that comes with the lack of noise. No movement but the lights creeping forward to the entrance of the cave. There was a lingering sense that too much time had passed. Each minute that passed seemed like only seconds; each one wasted. Then, a footstep rustled the dirt, and another. As they drew nearer, time’s pace quickened and returned to its regular flow. Sound returned, but it was still quiet. A shadow crept up the wall of the cave and grew with each step. The light inched out of the cave, it was bright and made it difficult to see in. A figure now stood at the cave’s mouth, made into a silhouette by the blinding light. It said nothing and did nothing but stand and look outwards. Even though it couldn’t be seen, it was obvious that the figure was evaluating the situation and was thoroughly disappointed.

Conceptual Piece One

By Late Night Writings

Like each day before, I sat there with my eyes scanning the contents of the toilet bowl, intent on catching a hopeful glint of shining gold. As a once wealthy man, I had grown accustomed to shit spotted - as if decorated and designed by the finest craftsmen - with jewels and precious metals. I came from a family so rich that in just one meal, we would eat a poor man’s income of a year. Our meals weren’t fuller or bigger, but they were finer and dressed in coin. It was my own family who decided to throw me down the hatch. It was in my family’s own prison that I came to cherish the wealth I now miss. I spent a month in that cell and it had not once crossed my mind to scavenge the wealth expelled from my body. That shit-stained silver, gold, gems, and every bit I could have held onto would have done a lot of good for me now. With each day, my innards became less valuable, which led what came out of them to run dry of wealth along with. I’ve been out of that hole for three months now and I still hope for the smallest crumb of gold to pass along through. Even one as small as a fine pebble would help me get by for a long while. Though it looks that my shit is now only as brown as earth’s dirt and there’s no buried treasure to be found under its muddy surface.