Merry Fucking Christmas.

I’ll start this as bluntly, and honestly as I can. I’m a documented Autistic. Period. What does this mean? Let me tell you, in no uncertain terms, what this means. The GOP and the Democratic parties, as well as the Green Party, Libertarian Party, and all the other political parties, want me dead.

It’s that blunt. It’s that real. It’s that true. Because. I’m Autistic. I’m not like them. They don’t like me, because they don’t understand me. They don’t like me because I do things for reasons they can’t figure out. They don’t like me because they can’t say to me, “You can’t be that way! You can’t do those things!” and expect me to understand what they mean.

Because I’m different. I’m not like them. As a result. I need to be fixed. I need to be cured. Or, lacking a cure, dead. Because, that way, the world works like they do.

I carry an unbelievable amount of rage and hatred toward the political parties. And toward religions. Not Southern Baptists. Not Methodists. Not Roman Catholics. Not Muslims. Not any single religion. But toward all of them. Every last religion. For the exact same reason that I hate the parties. Because I’m different. I’m not like them. And they insist on believing they can beat me in to being like them.

And if I can’t be made over in their image, I can be burned at the stake.

My brother never asked me why I walked away from religion. From every last organized religion in this world. Now, my brother has an answer.

None of them want to save me. Not a single religion wants to save me. Every last religion wants to destroy me. To turn me into a mindless drone who understands the world one way only. Every last religion is, at its core, 100% intolerant of those, like me, who are different.

Let me ask, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you learn someone is an Autistic?

That’s what I hate. That’s why I’m angry. That’s why I walked away from your churches, and religions. You don’t want a cure. You don’t want us to be happy. Or educated. Or successful. Or anything else.

You want Autism gone. 100% gone. All traces of it. Ever last Autistic on the planet. You want us gone. Because we are different. We don’t fit into your well defined world. We don’t think like you. We don’t feel the same way you do about anything. We are different. That makes us, in your world, defective, and in need of erasure.

If we can be cured, that’s the best solution. Eliminate the difference medically, genetically, so that the entire tree of Autism ceases to exist. And in a generation, all the Autistics already out there will die out of old age.

In any other perspective, any other way of looking at the problem that Autism represents to your societies, that’s called genocide. The murder of an entire people. Because they aren’t like you. It’s the same thing Hitler tried with the Jewish people. The same thing that happened in Serbia. The same thing that ISIS has tried in the Middle East.

You’ll scream. You’ll holler. You’ll stomp your feet. You’ll justify the genocide as curing an illness.

Who gives a fuck what Autistic people think? They’re Autistic. They’re sick. They’re defective. They need to be fixed.

That’s exactly what I live with, every day, on your world. The knowledge, the truth, that you want me, and everyone like me, dead. Gone. Non-existent. So your world can be more like you. So you will have one less difference to deal with. One less need to change yourselves, and grow into a more diverse, more educated, more tolerant, and more healthy people.

This is why I walked away from your churches. From your religions.

You want me dead. You want everyone like me dead.

And you pray, each night, to your God, for a cure for Autism, so all the Autistic people can be normal. Just like you.

Genocide. By any other name. Justified. In the name of God.

And you wonder why I walked away from your religions.

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The Fairies : Roses At Christmas

Rose had always visited Fauna’s site in the small cemetery, each year. It was in a town she didn’t know the name of. She didn’t really know if it had a name, so many towns didn’t. It was the town Flora and Fauna had defended when the invaders from space had arrived, and tried to conquer the planet.

That’s when Rose, Mystica, and all of Mystica’s adopted daughters, had learned of the machines. Tiny, invisible machines, everywhere, in the air, the water, the ground. They’d explained all the magic. Black, White, and Wild. It was them. The machines. The magic was her way of talking with the machines, of letting them know what she imagined. The machines, being ubiquitous, and being so advanced, so developed, the things they did were, to her, like magic, made what she imagined happen.

With a few exceptions. Like how not even the machines could bring Fauna back.

She rode her crescent moon to the town. Everyone knew she didn’t have to. She could have flown using her wings, and that stone moon that stood so much taller than she did, weighed several tons. But, the machines moved it through the air, effortlessly. She’d asked them how that worked, how they could move such a heavy stone, so easily. They’d explained it was done through constantly adjusting the gravity around the stone, to make it float. But, Rose didn’t really understand. It was a technology the machines had developed long after they’d left their human parents behind, on Earth.

Her stone crescent moon floated down from the sky, and hovered, just above the ground, barely touching the blades of grass. It waited there, floating, for Rose to return.

Rose walked through the entrance of the cemetery, to Fauna’s site. A simple tombstone rested there. The townspeople kept it clean, and kept the ground where Fauna rested well trimmed, and cared for. They thought of her as a hero, one of the town’s saviors. Rose felt the town would never forget what Fauna had done for them.

Each year at this time, the townspeople brought bouquets of flowers, and placed them around Fauna’s grave. It took several years for Rose to see the flowers, and not cry. Even then, seeing the flowers touched her heart, and once more, she missed her dear sister, Fauna. As she had since that awful day.

Rose knelt beside the tombstone, and ran her fingers across the carefully etched letters of Fauna’s name. “This year, I have something for you, dear sister.” Then, she closed her eyes.

Slowly, two rose bushes grew from the ground. They started as tiny twigs, but grew, until they became full sized bushes. One on each side of Fauna’s tombstone. Somehow, magically, the bushes grew right up to the stone, but never touched it. Instead, they grew next to it. When they’d grown enough to be taller than the stone, they grew over it, as if held in an archway.

Once the rose bushes had reached their full height, they began to bloom. Candy Cane red and white blooms. They had been Fauna’s favorite. The bushes filled with blooms, hundreds of them.

Rose knew the blooms would always be there. When one bloom died, another would take its place. The bushes would remain, for centuries, perhaps forever, in full bloom. In rain, or snow, or wind. Rose imagined it. Rose dreamed it. Rose knew the machines would make her dream come true.

“For you, dear sister. So you will always know, wherever you are, beyond this veil of life, that you are remembered here. And loved here.”

Rose gently traced the stone etching of Fauna’s name once more. “May your heart always know joy, dear sister.” She wished once more she could hug Fauna, and cry on her shoulder, and say good-bye, though she knew she never could.

In time, the sun set, and Rose sat once more in her crescent moon, which floated into the night time sky, and took her home, to her place among the trees, beside the forest lake.

“May you always know the joy, and the beauty, of the roses you so loved, sister. May they always bloom for you.”

 

Miranda Kate’s Mid-Week Challenge : 2018/12/12

I have always wondered why humans name their pets with human names. Mine named the cat Gloria, the dog Doug, and me, the bird, Samson. Yeah. Pretty silly, I know. A tiny guy like me named Samson.

The cat and dog don’t mind their names at all. I have to stifle a laugh, and a sarcastic comeback every time that bean dip calls me. “How are you this morning, Samson?”

“For a spy, stuck in a cage made out of cheap aluminum wire that puts up with eating old seeds all day, I’m doing well.” That’s what I want to answer. But, the human would freak out. See. They think they’re the only highly intelligent life on the planet.

As a spy, my job was to observe the behavior of a human in its natural habitat. Which probably makes no sense, given the humans don’t live in natural habitats. No, they make their own habitats. More like super giant ant colonies than natural habitats. At least ants are small. Humans? They’re like the dinosaurs. Big, and clumsy, and they take tons of power to run themselves.

The only birds left on the planet were like me. Spies. We spent a lot of time learning to hide from the humans, so they wouldn’t know we were here. We spy on them, study their behavior, and try to partially limit the damage they do to the planet. We expect to fail, but we’ve collected tons of DNA, plant seeds, insect, animal, amphibian, reptile, and fish eggs. We’ve got an emergency cache ready, in case the humans kill off everything.

Of course, we won’t rescue the humans, any more than we did the dinosaurs, and dozens of others.

I reported to the mothership every month. A brief report made using a low power ultra wide band transmitter that’s implanted in my right wing. Flip a switch, and all the data for the month goes out in a couple of heartbeats, and the transmitter shuts down.

Of course, I do get bored. It’s tough being a spy, and pretending to be trapped in a cage, held at the mercy of a human. Think about that. Stuck standing there, holding onto a wooden dowel, pretending to sleep all day, and hopping about the cage, acting excited every time the human comes home.

I much prefer the times the human is at work, or out shopping, or running around. I open up this little cage it thinks I’m safe within, and I stretch my wings a bit, and visit with the cat, and the dog. The cat purrs a lot, and meows. She likes it when I hop on her back, and use my little talons to scratch her in all the itchy spots.

The dog runs to the human’s piano, and barks until I fly over, and play a tune of some kind. A simple tune the dog can wag his tail to. He wags, and wags, and then plunks down, and smiles, and for him, everything is OK with the world.

I check the internet on the humans computer. Like too many humans, they don’t password protect it, or secure it. “It’s in my home. No one uses it but me. I’m good.”

I always check the local news, to add that to my reports. I also erase all traces of what I used it for. The human doesn’t know. Of course, I never shit on the computer. That would leave evidence. I always pretend to shit wherever and whenever I want when I’m in the cage, or when the human has me out. But when I’m working, no. I wait until I get back to the cage.

The piano is a good instrument. We birds like it. We’ve stolen the human plans for making them, and have produced pianos of our own. There are several at the base inside the moon. Someday, when my time as a spy is done, I hope to be able to go home, after a debriefing on the base. But, realistically, I know I may not live long enough to go home.

Earth is a dangerous place, what with all the humans on it. A being a spy? That’s almost always a death sentence. But, hope always survives, so I kept hoping.

Well. I have to behave like a proper pet bird now. The human just parked its car in the driveway.

Stupid humans. You watch. They’ll kill everything. You just wait. They will. I guarantee it.

749 words
@mysoulstears

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Saw the picture for week 85 of Miranda Kate‘s Mid-Week Challenge and an entire new universe opened up in my mind. This is the result. You can read about Miranda’s small fiction challenge here. Please, go read Miranda’s short tale this week, and any others that showed up. The tales are always little works of art, crafted with words, meant to be shared, and enjoyed. And many of them are amazing.

 

#MenageMonday 2×11 : The E Line.

He sat in his seat and stared out the window at the snow, and trees, as they drifted by while I tried to answer his question. “The E on the front of the train means ends at sundown. I am sorry if you thought it meant Express.”

He shook his head, and glared at me. “When do we get to Roanoke?”

“When we get there.”

“There’s a schedule for when this train is to be where. When does that schedule table say we get there!”

“It’s not that kind of schedule. This train’s schedule ends at sundown, and starts at sunrise. It’s more like a city park that’s only open from dawn until dusk.”

“Will we get there today?”

“If we get there before sundown.”

“What happens at sundown?”

“The track ends.”

“What?”

“The track ends. And at sunrise, the track starts again.” He looked totally confused. “Think of it as a Final Fantasy computer game, but they turn it off at bedtime.”

We waited, staring at each other, until the train stopped. He stared out the window again. “Where’d the track go? It was there a few minutes ago.”

“Sundown, sir. The track ends at sundown.” I reached into the overhead bin, and pulled out a pillow, and a blanket for him. “Enjoy your night, sir. At least it’s warm in here.”

223 words
@mysoulstears

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This was fun. It’s week 2×11 of Cara Michaels‘s #MenageMonday flash fiction challenge. You can read about #MenageMonday here. Please, go read all the short tales from this week. The tales are always little works of art, crafted with words, meant to be shared, and enjoyed. And many of them are amazing.

#ThursThreads Week 341 : Why Does It Matter?

On that third day, the town woke to the local news being flooded with a note. There were no voices, only a note. And one picture. Of Michelle, before she was murdered.

To those who ask, “Why does it matter?” Would you think differently if she was your daughter? Your sister? Your parent? The person you love? Would it matter if it was your best friend?

The truth is, you say murdering people not like you doesn’t matter. But in the past few weeks, you’ve seen, and experienced, what it means when those around you, someone you know, someone you care for, someone you love, is shot dead before your eyes.

It’s murder, isn’t it. It’s not about “us and them”. It’s not about, “good and evil”, or “Christian and heathen.” It’s about people. Remember that. Always.

I’ll be watching. If things change for the better. I won’t be back. If they don’t, this will happen again. And again. And again. If necessary, I can do this until everyone is dead.

There, I ended the note. There was no need to say more. I knew this was only the beginning. After all, I’d answered violence with violence. And violence breeds. Those who hated Michelle, and other transgender people? Their hatred had grown. To them, this had become a war. They would respond accordingly.

I shrugged. “Bring it, people. After all. I am the violence.”

234 Words
@mysoulstears

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And, it’s over. Turns out, this is the last part of the Armor 17 story. It’s Week 341 of #ThursThreads, hosted by Siobhan Muir. Please go read all the entries in this week’s #ThursThreads. They are always fun to read. And there are some great writers who turn out weekly.