Citations that weren't Made

"It's all fun and games until somebody's elected president."

    - Mitt Romney, former US presidential candidate

Early-morning tension

I had had a terrible day. Chased from one place to the next, attacked by vicious animals and roaming stormtroopers, I had to fight my way through an overgrown forest with my two companions. It took us over twenty-four hours to finally get out of this mess.

We met up with a friend outside, and then we went our seperate ways. But alltough the worst seemed to be over, a nervous tension lingered in the air, crisping the muscles and kicking the brain into overdrive. I reached into my pocket and got out a skin, wanting to roll myself a cig, when it happened. The guy had been following me from before, some beat-cop with nothing better to do. He took my skin out of my hands, with a kind of “what-have-we-here” look in his eyes. I just knew he tought he could make an easy bust, probably find some weed on me, maybe more if he was lucky. But he wasn't.

I told him it wasn't for a joint, that I rolled my own cigarettes, and would he please hand it back. My jaw muscles clenched and my whole body was one big tight-wound spring, ready to let loose at the slightest touch. The guy just looked at me, a bemused smile on his lips. Before I knew it, my hand was around his arm, and I forced him against a nearby wall. I was barely touching him, but I had to use all my strength to keep myself from trying to tear him apart. “Do you really wanna do this?”, I whispered in his ear.

It seems that at that point, he realised that it would be a bad idea to mess with me in my current state. He looked like a child caught being naughty by its parents as he disentangled himself from me. I walked back out into the street and rolled my smoke. I lit up while looking at the grey early-morning sky. This wasn't gonna be one of my better days.

Politics that didn't Happen

On 23.02.2016, the European Court of Human Rights issued a press release in which it condemned Italy for its role in the abduction, and subsequent torture, of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, also known as Abu Omar. Of course, the Court was well aware that, although Italy may have aided and abetted the crime, the real culprits were the CIA, and the US government to whom this institution belongs. Furthermore, given the large (and irrefutable) body of evidence pointing to the fact that this incident is not an isolated case, but part of a larger programm that authorizes a systemic violation of basic human rights by the agency, the Court held that, until such practices are halted, all contracting states were to halt all military and judicial cooperation with the US government, effective immediatly.
Indeed, the Court believed that, in light of the events surrounding mr. Omar's abduction, and other evidence, it had become clear that any and all military and judicial cooperation with the United States of America contained a very real, and very high, risk of leading, directly or indirectly, to a violation of human rights for the subject of said military or "judicial" intervention, and as such was contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, and, in the case of military action, to the Geneva Convention. And after all, what good are human rights if nobody gives a shit?

Citations that weren't Made

"Ain't no food like Sunday-morning breakfast!"

    - Homer Simpson

Library

The silence is oppressive. It is heavy. It envelops you like cold molten lead, stifling your reflexes, dimming your movements. As if by divine providence, its existence becomes paramount, and each gesture is executed with utmost care, so as not to break its holy being. As you loose yourself in this transcendent state, it becomes second nature. Your thoughts become more organized, your fingers type gently on the keyboard. As if in meditation, your whole self seems to fall into a new state of being, the world around you slipping away. And only once this unconscious reverence of silence has reached its peak, do you start to forget all about where it came from.
Until you swear out loud.

Politics that didn't Happen

Allthough no one was expecting it, it was in the late 10s that the human space age found its second wind, and the foundations of space-colonisation were created. And it was none other than China that kicked it all off.
Not content with creating new islands in the sea, China decided to apply the same principal to create "islands" in space. Since flying up all the materials needed to make a space station was prohibitively expensive, the chinese sent out just two rockts, both laden with a few pieces of specfific machinery, as well as robots. The robots would then aggregate the space trash around them, much like boats would dredge up sand, to lay the foundations of what was to become the first chinese space colony.
Of course, several other countries complained that the space trash belonged to everybody, and that China had no right to dispose of it at its leisure. But it soon turned out that China's recycling of old satellites and rocket parts was making the orbit a much safer place to work, and it wasn't long before other countries joined the trend.
Since then, construction of space stations and human settlments has improved by leaps and bounds, and has become all the rage in OECD countries. And, after hacing cleaned up the trash, man is once again looking toward the stars.

Citations that weren't Made

"In this world, there are a lot of good people, and a few assholes. You can easily pick out the assholes: They're the ones talking loudly on the podium."

    The Dailai-Lama

Lingering...

The winds are still rough, but the rain has stopped. The clouds shift uneasily, ready to be parted, while the sun does some push-ups to prepare for its grand entrance. The ground is still wet, the leaves still dropping, all of them waiting for the warm light to finally make them dry again. And just as you put on your coat, thinking that it'll take a while still, the sky opens.

Sunshine.

Politics that didn't Happen

As a new refugee crisis is unfolding in Syria, German chancellor Angela Merkel is blaming the Russians and their air-strikes. In a rare moment of insight, the leaders of the western coalition army realized that there was a connection between dropping bombs on a country, and the people of that country trying to flee. This caused them to admit that, maybe, not only Russian bombs, but American ones and French ones too, could have that effect. Which would mean that the larger refugee crisis that has been happening over the past two years might just be their own doing.
Once this realization hit home, the leaders of those countries manned up, and, ready to take responsability, decided that each of the members of the western coalition army would tak in refugees in numbers proportional to their military involvment in Syria and elsewhere. Given that this decision was highly unpopular with some segments of their (voter-)population, but it being too late now to backpedal after their big announcement, these same countries quickly reduced their military actions abroad, so as to minimize the number of refugees they had to take in. And as the world as a whole realized that it was a lot less fun to play war when you had to take responsibility for the people on both sides that were affected by it, peace started to spread.

Citations that weren't Made

"It's better to have loved and lost it, than to have gotten married."

    - Fraternity proverb

Here we go Again

There it is again. A slight trembling in my fingers. A sensation of lightness in my tummy, which could be exiting if it wasn't so queasy. My brain is blank, and yet working at full speed. It seems as if my whole being is running at ten-thousand rpms, just waiting to shift into gear.

Last check. Chocolate. Water bottle. Pen and paper. Shuffle it around a bit to make it more tangible. And just for the sake of doing something. Hands nervously fumbling with my pencil. I look up as the sound I was waiting for finally finds my ears. And we're off!

Oh, god, I hope I get a passing grade!

Politics that didn't Happen

As the frist quarter of the XXIst century neared its end, elections in the U.S.A. became more and more contested, be it municipal, state or nationwide. As a result, more often than not, the only way left to determine the winner was by coin toss.
As this trend showed no clear sign of stopping, it was soon decided that elections would be abolished all together. Instead, every person who could pay a fee (based on the average campaign costs of the last ten people to have successfully run for the desired office) would be allowed to participate in a coin-toss competition to see who could get the most heads on twenty tosses, and the winner would automatically be sworn in (in case of a draw, there was a sudden-death rule).
As this system was first introduced, civil liberties unions were outraged, and protested heavily. But after the first few "elections" were over, everyone quickly realised that the results were not that much different from before. In fact, given the increase in diversity in "elected" officials, which suddenly reflected the demographic make-up of the U.S., one could even argue that the system worked even better than before. And, due to the entry fees being collected by the concerned municipalities, as well as state and national governments, instead of being wasted on ridicoulously overblown campaigns, the U.S. budget situation took a turn for the better. In fact, the new system was so successfull that it wasn't long before other countries started to follow suit, and by the end of the twenty-first century, most nations decided on their leaders by some form of lottery.
Of course, on occasion, this could result in unqualified people getting the top jobs in government. But as we all know, this had always been the case. And now, at least people were free to concentrate on other things instead of following the election ("Coin-toss night" was still the most watched T.V.-event in the world, but it only took up one evening, instead of over a year), thanks to which we managed to handle the situation a lot better than before.

Citations that weren't Made

"Today's a good day to die. But tomorrow wouldn't be so bad either..."


   - John McClane