BM: “If you could change your fate, would you?” -Merida, Brave’s ad campaign

“To what? And, from what? I don’t know what my fate is. I’ll only know once it happens, at which point it’ll be history, not fate. How do you know what you’re changing from?

“Tell you what: I’m changing your fate.

“Just then, it changed. Did you feel it? Of course you can’t, because fate’s what happens, so it feels like everything else. What did I swap it to? You don’t know, because it’s the future. Unless you can see the future, you don’t know it’s changing.

“Maybe you were fated to get hit by a car tomorrow. Maybe now you’re fated to win the lottery instead. You can’t just say, ‘Oh my life is terrible, I’m going to sign an arcane pact to change my fate now.’ You want your present to change. You want your future to be better than you think it will be.

“Well, guess what? Everybody’s frickin' working for an easier tomorrow. That’s not changing fate. That’s getting a job. Shut up and do something.”

Bathroom Monologue: Automaton Logic

They didn't think, and so they didn't think people should object. They, the automatons, the automobiles, the trash combustors and war machines, did not die. They persisted. Their creators all died, and at fairly calculable intervals. They had died for countless generations, and every generation died. Clearly the automatons could help them in this cause, shoveling their dead into the furnaces to help power their mechanical innards. It was only compliant to help more. They might as well shovel the living into their furnaces, thereby continuing to power themselves and helping their living creators achieve their goal of dying. It was a perfect system. That their creators fled made no sense to them. It would have confused the automatons, if the automatons ever thought. They did not think, though. They shoveled and burned.

"On the Deathbed of Carl Rudolph" at Metro Fiction

This week one of my stories is the Feature over at Metro Fiction. The tale is On the Deathbed of Carl Rudolph, about Carl Rudolph receiving a sealed letter from a friend who passed away decades ago and ordered it not be delivered until Carl was at his own end.

This is one of my more introspective pieces and I'm very proud to see it out in the publishing world.. Metro Fiction is a paying market run by Debra Mars and PJ Kaiser, who you may know from #fridayflash and Tuesday Serial. Any comments or retweeting would be much appreciated. I hope you enjoy the story.

You can read "On the Deathbed of Carl Rudolph" for free right here.

Bathroom Haiku: Ningen

man face, whale body
cryptid swims with arms and fins
what songs does it sing?

Emergency: Liver Donor Needed for Teen Boy

This is my youngest cousin, Will Corcoran. He’s the only son to Jodi and Bean Corcoran, and brother to three loving sisters.  Will was born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder that attacks almost every facet of the human body. He’s no longer strong enough to go to school, he's routinely rushed to the hospital for infections his body can't fight, he's endured every kind of invasive test medical science has to offer, and yet he and his family have kept fighting. This kid has endured outrageous pain and disability in his life, and now if we don’t help him, he won’t live.

Recently we found out that Will’s liver is failing. The cystic fibrosis is destroying it, and he needs a transplant to live. A healthy person’s liver will repair and re-grow itself; one donates only a portion of his or her liver and lets it regenerate. Will's body simply can't regenerate the tissue anymore and needs your immune system’s help.

Will’s blood type is A, and so he requires either an A or O-donor. I don’t match and my health is too poor to donate living organs, but I can at least open this up to the people I know.

Will's family is asking for donors who have strong health insurance just in case. I'm told the healing process for a donor is typically two months. Bean has told us, "in a nut shell my insurance pays for the entire surgery all blood work and some traveling expenses depending on how far away the donor lives. There should be very little, if any out of pocket expenses."

Will lives in Connecticut. I’m certain his parents will help you travel for the procedure if necessary. If you or anyone you know can help this boy live past his teens, please message me here, by Twitter, by Facebook or e-mail. I will put you in contact with the surgery team and Bean Corcoran.

Any responses and any continued forwarding of this message is extremely appreciated.