Alma was a young writer who had yet to be published. She felt moved by the literary greats: voices that echoed in her mind that she was one of them.

Alma went to school and got an education and wrote every day. She worked a full time job and would write novels and short stories on the side. No matter what she wrote and no matter how good the quality she felt it had, everything she submitted was rejected. Publishers, agents, literary journals, magazines: the outlet didn’t matter. But Alma did not quit.

One day the moon, seeing her dejected though determined, decided to help her. As she looked up in the night sky the moon told her that no one wanted to read her writing and that she was wasting her time.

Alma cried at the pronouncement. As time went on, she wondered if the moon was right and that she should stop. But Alma could not quit. She wrote on.

Alma worked and wrote. She made no time for a marriage or a family. She was dedicated.

Alma wrote short stories. Alma wrote articles. Alma wrote book reviews. Alma started blogs. Alma wrote novels and begged agents and publishers to read them.

But it did not matter. All were rejected. They were never going to let her in.

She wrote on, however. Deciding that she no longer cared for publication, she wrote for herself and continued to reach out to audiences. All she wanted, she thought, was an audience, a community of readership. Alma wrote for a blog she created and filled it with fiction for the world to see.

Alma tried to focus just on her craft and the quality of her story, but she could not ignore that there was no traffic to the blog. No one was reading her work. She wrote on though.

One day Alma woke up and she was 70. She looked through all of the content she had produced and compiled: short stories, novels, essays, poems and one play. If printed on paper, the mass of it would have equaled the scale of a mountain. It was probably the largest collection of stories that no one ever read and no one cared about.

Alma wanted to write on but decided that the moon was right. She had wasted so much time and no one cared what she had to say. Surrounded in an empty home full of her unwanted creations, Alma decided that it had been too much and yet not enough.

Alma poured kerosene over her papers, her laptop and her home. She lit a match and tossed it upon the waste.

Delicate. Soft. Fragile. A flower is all these things. They wither with too much sun and die with too little sun. They wilt with too little water. They collapse with too much water. Conditions must be optimal in order for them to live and thrive.

It is another thing too: beautiful. It sprouts petals of pleasant hues and equally pleasing scent. This attracts attention. Life fawns over its striking appearance and perfumed air. Birds, insects and a wide spectrum of creatures become captivated by the flower’s aesthetic existence.

Ugly. Invasive. Prickly. Sprawling. Clingy. Annoying. This is the weed. It grows in inconvenient places. It chokes off the spread of other, more appealing, plants. Stone, parched earth, a sun-bleached plain or a shadowy den. It doesn’t matter, the weed will take root and stand its ground. It will clutch to any surface and make it home.

It is another thing: tough. Life around the weed is, at best, indifferent to its existence. Yet it thrives. Some people detest weeds entirely and use chemicals, tools and their bare hands to kill them and pull them out by the root. Yet they live on. At every opportunity, the weed sprouts and lives.

The flower is equated with love, beauty and all the things that make life worth living. The weed is seen as a nuisance, a horde, an intrusion, and usurper. Chaos bred by chlorophyll.

With all of the necessities to keep it alive, the flower requires support. Birds and insects must help spread its pollen from one anther to another. People plant the flower in special soils and place them in areas where they get the proper amount of sunlight. They must be guarded, coddled and pampered in order to survive. Plants that happen to grow in their orbit are uprooted and discarded. Some destruction must take place for the flower to live in its beauty.

The weed needs no support. Root to stem, it requires no watch. It grows regardless of whatever attention it receives. It is typically eaten rather than pollinated. When the weed encroaches on something more valued, is is killed by poison or by force. But it does not care. The weed grows back, undeterred.

We see beauty and we feel that it is natural and born that way when in fact it was guarded and facilitated to be that way. We see ugliness and we assume it was born that way when in reality it is the sign of survival, grit and determination.

People tend to think that beauty is earned when it is actually given. People think ugliness is deserved when it is actually imposed. The flower is beautiful but because it is protected. The weed is ugly because it is ignored. Their appearance tells a story about their existence but the world takes the wrong lesson from it.

In his time there were two types of owners: those who were utterly cruel and those who were less cruel and the difference was of minor degree. Delmino’s owner was among the most cruel. Punishments varied between whipping, cuts or burns on the back and in cases of a runaway, crippling by breaking ankles or shins. Any such punishment was meted out in such a way that slaves could still work even if hobbled.

Delmino was an indignant slave, fighting his owner at every turn. He felt his enslavement from birth was unjust and though he would work when ordered, he never stopped defying bondage. Sometimes he resisted through obstinance. Sometimes he tried to rally his fellow slaves in revolt. Though he never tried to escape, Delmino’s resistance earned him a collection of scars on his back and broken bones in his legs. The owner valued Delmino’s work too much to dispatch him or sell him.

With all attempts at ending his slavery a failure, Delmino decided he would escape. He waited a few months to allow his most recent injuries to heal. In that time, he planned his escape by saving up dried food and clothing for the journey. When he felt it was time, Delmino fled in the middle of night.

He traveled for several days, stopping only to sleep in caves, heavy forest undergrowth or even in trees. Eventually he came upon a farm that grew crops and raised livestock. Delmino felt like he should move on because he did not want to be enslaved again. He was approached by the farmer who asked him why he was there. Delmino told him the truth and said he’d run away from a copper mine where he’d been a slave his whole life.

The farmer said he could provide him refuge. Delmino could work in the fields and with the animals. Delmino said he didn’t wish to be a slave again and the farmer said he would be paid and if he chose, he could leave the farm if he wasn’t happy. The farmer added he was not in the habit of keeping slaves.

Delmino decided to stay and became a farm worker. He strained his back in the fields picking vegetables, cotton and fruit. He also worked the livestock, feeding them, milking them, slaughtering and preparing them for sale in the market. It was hard work, almost as hard as his life in the copper mine only now he was paid and had the choice in staying.

The farmer saw that Delmino was a hard worker and seemed to be a competent leader. He put Delmino in charge of the other workers as well as taking the animals and produce to market and negotiate a price. It was a responsibility rarely given to workers. Delmino accepted it and proved capable of bringing back a good price for the wares. Delmino was proud of his work and thanked the farmer for his trust.

As he took a cart of corn to the market one afternoon, unbeknownst to Delmino, he crossed paths with his owner who was looking to purchase a new slave for the mine. The owner hid from him and followed his slave hoping he could learn from others about who he worked for. Someone at the market eventually told the owner about Delmino’s situation as a paid worker on a nearby farm.

The following day, the owner visited the farm and demanded to speak to the person who managed it. Delmino appeared and was shocked to see his owner. The owner was just as shocked to learn that Delmino was the farm’s manager. Delmino tried to have the owner removed but the farmer saw the commotion and asked what was happening.

The owner hollered that Delmino was his slave and that he should be returned to the copper mine. He demanded that the farmer to hand him over. The farmer declared that Delmino was there voluntarily and that if he wanted to go to the copper mine, he would have to choose to. Delmino flatly refused. The farmer suggested there be some type of arbitration to settle the matter.

Thus began a negotiation between the farmer and owner about Delmino’s status. The farmer summoned a lawyer to oversee the bargaining. The owner said if Delmino would not return then Delmino should pay restitution for his absence and replacement at the mine.

During the discussion, the lawyer said nothing and only wrote things down on paper as everyone spoke. Ever so often the lawyer would look at the farmer with a knowing glance. As they hammered out the agreement, the farmer asked if Delmino could review it but the owner insisted that he shouldn’t. His view did not matter, the owner said.

The farmer invited Delmino to the room as they finished bargaining. In his presence, the owner signed the paperwork quickly followed by the farmer. The owner turned to Delmino and demanded half of the personal wealth he’d accrued on the farm. Delmino thought it was a pittance and was ready to pay it. But the farmer raised his hand and said it wouldn’t be necessary.

The owner looked confused and demanded what he thought was his due. The farmer said the owner should have read the paperwork more closely.

Three men physically grabbed the owner while another clasped braces on his hands. It was then that he learned that the agreement he’d signed was not a settlement for Delmino but a contract for the owner to provide indentured servitude for the farmer indefinitely. Delmino would be his overseer on the farm and would determine when his former owner had worked enough to earn his freedom.

Quillen was raised in a less than ideal environment that was rife with violence and poverty. He developed a sense of survival through brutality and bullishness which he would use without compunction.

Quillen did not inflict his nature on others unless it was called for. But he did not hesitate to fight someone who threatened him physically nor did he wait to intimidate someone he felt was trying to swindle him.

His reputation spread and at some point the leader of a criminal organization approached Quillen and asked him to use his nature against those who owed money to said organization. Quillen accepted with the caveat that he would not hurt anyone who wasn’t in direct business with the organization.

Time passed, and Quinlan proved to be a capable enforcer. Many people who were in business with the organization feared him, but they also respected him. Quillen enjoyed the reputation but he did not abuse his status. For him, his job was simply a job. He went on to recruit other like-minded individuals who were capable of great violence as he was.

One day, the leader of the criminal organization approached him and asked him to murder a woman who had too much knowledge about the organization and they feared she would give details to law enforcement. Quillen considered the woman’s situation a grey area with the rules but decided she did not fit his criteria for his duties and refused to take her life.

The leader of the criminal organization was enraged by Quillen’s refusal and threatened him to do the job or his family would face the consequences of his inaction. Quillen relented because he loved his family and killed the woman.

Time passed, and eventually the line between who was subject to Quillen’s brutality became blurred. Quillen was not happy with the changes and told his boss that he would no longer work for the criminal organization. The boss fought against his decision and a bloody battle ensued with Quillen’s people against the organization. The war ended with a negotiated settlement that included Quillen paying a large sum to the organization so he could leave.

He tried to gain employment through legitimate means but it was often not successful. Quillen did not have skills beyond his brutal resume and it made it difficult to maintain a job. This put Quillen in a desperate situation as he wanted to support his family.

One day he was approached by one of his former associates with a job. There was a financial manager who needed someone to carry out murders on an infrequent basis. The man’s business included offering hedge funds to people and of the clients died before cashing out of their accounts, the man would receive their money.

Desperate for work, Quillen agreed to take the position. He was paid extremely well, and while he did carry out murders on people who were not connected to criminal activity, he did not have to do it often. He considered that the ratio of his salary to how many people had to die was acceptable. Quillen also liked the fact that the job came with the challenge of dispatching victims in a variety of ways to make them appear as suicides or accidents or natural causes.

This went on for many years, and Quillen earned a lot of money. His family was well cared for and he did not dole out too much murder. But he did not enjoy the work as the people dying were not aware of their connection to a scheme. At first Quillen tried to rationalize this to himself by saying that they shouldn’t be so stupid us to fall victim to this. But over time he accepted that none of them deserved their fate.

And while he was well compensated for what he was doing, Quillen realized that he was chasing somebody else’s dreams instead of his own. But in the absence of his own vision, he figured it was a dream worth pursuing so long as he was paid.

Years upon years upon decades his life’s work centered on reconciling outlays and expenditures. All of which came easy to Sunile. But while it made sense to him, he felt unfulfilled and could not shake the feeling that he was not serving a larger purpose.

Wanting the chance to relive his decision to become an accountant, he summoned the moon for a request to return to the time of his life when Sunile had choices.

The moon answered and as was the the moon’s disposition it granted his request though warned that while Sunile would be able to drift back in time, those around him would be in a state of confusion and would constantly second-guess his choices and words.

Sunile returned to his life and noticed that in his mind, he returned to the era of his life when he made choices about the direction of his life. However when he communicated with others, such as his wife or family members, he found that they rarely understood what he was talking about. When he insisted on trying to redo his education to pursue a culinary profession, others would tell him that he couldn’t and that he was too old and too frail to change the course of his life.

But as time went on, Sunile moved further back in time and found that he was allowed to change the course of his life. He became a chef and opened a restaurant which was successful.

The success was short lived however as Sunile continued to slip further back into his life until he was a child. Sunile was unaware that he was not given the gift of traveling back in time. The moon simply afflicted him with Alzheimer’s.

Sunile died, unaware that he had never regressed to a time in his life when he had choices. But he was ignorant of this and did not care. He died fulfilled to the confusion of those around him.

It was a tedious job in a tedious era. After many centuries of industrialization, traditional sources for freshwater became exceedingly rare. Whether it was lakes, rivers, aquifers or private water wells, eventually the amount of freshwater to sustain the human population had depleted.

As the situation became dire, a method was discovered to convert seawater, which was still in salty abundance on Earth, into drinkable water. For centuries, humans had tried in vain to conquer the ocean as a water source but failed to create a mass-scale desalination process.

Once it was discovered, plants were built all over the planet. It became a major source of jobs. Freshwater was piped into cities, towns and rural areas. Private water wells were made illegal. Once enough desalination plants were built, it was forbidden to take water from rivers, lakes and aquifers.

Zalyph was born into this world. He did not like it though. So much about the society he lived in was focused on water. Most people worked in desal plants or maintaining pipelines or operated the distribution units in cities.

It was the only decent-paying job that unskilled people such as Zalyph could obtain. But he hated it. Entire years went by and he felt that all he was doing was pushing buttons and checking meters.

A fellow operator told Zalyph one day that he could enroll in college to become an engineer. This way he would have something different to do at the plant. Not only that, they told him, he could also get the plant to pay for his education.

Zalyph had never previously considered becoming an engineer. But he figured it was better than to continually have to push buttons for the rest of his life.

So he met with company officials, filed for a tuition waiver and enrolled into the engineering program. It was difficult maintaining a job while also attending to his education. Many times his supervisors caught him reading his books and doing his classwork while he was supposed to be monitoring salt levels on the intake pumps.

Enough time went by and he was able to finish his education. His co-workers celebrated his success. They enjoyed the fact that one of their fellow operators could now leave the meager position of operator to a better-paying profession of engineer.

But Zalyph, bitter from the years he spent working in a hydration economy, decided instead to leave. He quit his job and moved to a house in a rural area far from his desalination plant.

With money that he saved up from working, he purchased a house on a hill that was surrounded by pear trees. Zalyph moved in and was happy to have a solitary existence. Once he was settled, he launched a new engineering firm. His background in school was mechanical and electrical engineering. His firm focused on building pumps and other equipment to sell to farmers who had difficulty irrigating their crops that were too far from the desalination pipes. They relied on rainfall to feed their crops mostly. This way, Zalyph thought, their crops would be more guaranteed, providing more food for his country’s communities.

But such pumps and private water wells were illegal. So Zalyph had to disguise his firm as a consulting business. The government was suspicious of intent when he filed for a tax license to operate a company. He was granted one nonetheless.

So Zalyph lived out his days, feeding the crops from water in the ground.

Jaira was born to a mother who worked as a network encryption consultant and their father was the administrator of a quantum database system for a financial firm. They envisioned that Jaira would also grow up to become a technology professional.

But Jaira did not share their parents’ vision. They (Jaira) grew up fascinated with the liberal arts from the past including literature and the humanities. They wanted to learn more about the use of quantum intelligence in the field of education, particularly the study of human literature. Engineers had fused artificial intelligence with quantum computing to analyze the various literary structures of historical literature from the Middle Ages to Metamodernism to the current day.

Jaira finished their education in quantum coding and began a research project studying the textual lineage of ancient literature. They were assigned a computing unit to do this and then they assembled databases that included texts from all human eras and civilizations. While the computer was engineered to process the information quickly, Jaira decided to sift through some of the books themself.

The computer’s engine discovered a book that had been written 200 years before. The book, written by a history professor, discussed an ancient manuscript about the nature of power and its influence throughout all human endeavor. Jaira searched the literary databases for the ancient manuscript, which the history professor claimed to have transcribed. Jaira found it in digital form and discovered that its author was a monk whose name and history was long forgotten.

They spent the next several days poring over both texts. Jaira found the interdisciplinary works fascinating and ahead of their times. So much that had happened in human sociopolitics leading up to Jaira’s age was practically predicted by the two authors.

It did not seem that either work enjoyed any prominence among academics or the public in general. Jaira became determined to change that.

One day, the sun appeared to Jaira and said their analysis of the two texts would benefit humankind and was worth pursuing.

Immediately they changed their focus to the study of power and its role in the construction of human civilization. Jaira put the two works into the quantum engine. With thorough analysis, they hoped the engine would determine whether the monk’s and professor’s philosophies might inform future generations on how best to implement human governance and make it better. Jaira also fused historical texts cited in the manuscript and the professor along with more current historical studies.

It took several months of coding the quantum engine properly before Jaira was able to develop a cogent plan for improved human governance. They published it in a digital treatise and was made available to everyone.

Over the course of several years and then decades, the public became influenced by the work and many civic and national leaders sought to use Jaira’s plan to improve government structure. The plan was not perfect as it was radically different but it was embraced once people saw improvements in social endeavors including a decline in poverty and general civil unrest.

Jaira grew old. Though they could see that the sun was right in its prediction, they couldn’t help but think that the unknown author and the professor were the true authors of their treatise. While Jaira had received accolades for their work, they felt they’d only compiled the ideas of others and disseminated it. Jaira began to study the manuscript’s original author and the professor to learn more about them. They felt they deserved credit.

Utilizing the quantum engine, they studied the professor and her struggles to become a historian in a male-dominated field. She had discovered the monk’s book, which was in the form of a hand-written manuscript, in a library. No author was listed in the book. Jaira found that curious.

Jaira investigated all digitally transcribed manuscripts from the era when the monk’s text was written. The quantum engine could find no other works that matched the literary fingerprints used by the monk. It did find a peculiar book published more than a century before the professor’s. It was a comedic novel about a philosopher monk who hid her gender throughout her monastic life. The book went into detail about the monk who lived in the monastery as a man but was discovered to be a woman upon her death. The book was quite popular in its time but was not as well known in Jaira’s time.

Jaira wasn’t certain why the quantum engine thought the book was important. Perhaps the engine wasn’t coded well, they thought.

After an intensive search of other ancient texts, Jaira thought perhaps there was more works that were not included in the database. They decided to search for manuscripts of the same era in their physical form.

They discovered the library where the professor found the anonymous manuscript. Jaira traveled to the library that had shelf upon shelf of ancient manuscripts and hand-written journals. While most books had been transcribed to digital forms over the past century, Jaira was amazed to find hundreds of physical works still in existence that had not been converted to electronic text.

Used to their engine doing the work of reading and finding relevant passages, Jaira discovered how tedious research must have been in antiquity. They labored for weeks in the library, sifting through the manuscripts, desperate to find something about the monk.

They found nothing direct but Jaira did come upon a journal by a monk which had been written in the same era as the original manuscript. Jaira read some of the entries and the language seemed familiar. It took a few moments but they eventually realized that it was a journal that mirrored the details in the peculiar comedy discovered by the quantum engine.

The journal’s author wrote that he was tormented by the truth of the woman who had lived for several decades among the men. He wanted to tell the other monks who lived in the monastery but felt her secret was sacred and should be maintained. In the last entry of the journal, the author noted that she had spent most of her time working on a book about the importance of power in human civilization.

Jaira was astounded. The person that they and the professor had long sought to know was a woman pretending to be a man. Jaira had the journal transcribed and uploaded to their database. They returned home and then began to write a book about the origin of the theory of power. Jaira included all of their research about the monk and the role of the professor in discovering the manuscript.

They uploaded the work and expected it to spread just as their treatise had. But it did not. The public did not seem to care about who had truly crafted the governmental structures by which they now lived. Jaira was distraught by the lack of recognition and honor the women had received.

Perhaps, they hoped, their book would sit in the database for someone else to discover in ages to come.

Calliope was born of wealth. Her mother and father had inherited fortunes, both financial and societal, from families of industry.

As a privileged child, she was able to receive an education. When young she developed a love of history, especially ancient history. Calliope voraciously read the stories of Romans, the Greeks, the Chinese emperors as well as the history of peoples in the New World. She felt she could see the whole of humanity woven together through the stories.

Calliope decided at an early age that she did not want to live the luxurious life of her parents and ancestors. She wanted to become an academic historian, to research the past and then teach students about the importance of knowing the past. Her parents did not approve of her deviation from the family fortune and, while not disowning her, refused to help her financially once she was of age.

Calliope did not care. She left her home without any support from her family.

One night, the moon appeared to her and told her that she had not made the right decision and that she should not pursue her passion. It warned that while her mind was so fervently entrenched in the past, no one in the future would care. As with her parents, Calliope did not heed the moon’s words.

She made several attempts to gain admission to a university and was rejected many times. While women were not directly denied access to academia, old ideas about the alleged inferiority of women still persisted and it was difficult for men to accept her into their ranks. Eventually though, she was accepted into a university’s history program.

There she flourished. While not the best in her class, she was close to the top. Her professors told her that she was a hard worker and had keen insight. Once she graduated she applied for positions as a research assistant and again fell into the same pattern of rejection from the male professors.

One professor told Calliope that while he could not accept her into a research program, he would allow her to work as a research assistant on her own and he would pay her as a secretary. While this angered Calliope, she felt it was the only way to pursue part of her passion. The other part of her passion, to teach, would have to be discarded.

So she accepted the bargain and became a covert research assistant posed as a secretary. Calliope’s work was exceptional, her professor told her. She made many contributions to the professor’s work though she could not advance in the academic system.

One day, while pouring through a historical account well known in its day on religious politics, Calliope read quotes taken from an ancient manuscript about the nature of power. The quotes were different than anything she had read in all of her study of history. The writer of the quotes used observations from history to explain the effects of power upon humanity. Calliope wanted to read more. While the book did not name the quotes’ author, it did attribute them to a manuscript written by a monk who resided in a monastery centuries before.

Calliope spoke to the professor about the manuscript and asked permission to seek it out. He denied her request at first but she persevered until he accepted. He allowed her to travel to the monastery to find the mysterious manuscript.

When Calliope arrived at the monastery she was initially denied entry. When she explained that she was on an academic pursuit of a former monk, the governing priest relented and allowed her to explore their library. The room made of stone contained a multitude of shelves with leather bound books. They were delicate and would have to be perused with care, the priest told her.

She spent an entire week sifting through the manuscripts. None of them contained any of the ideas that she had read about. Exhausted from her search, Calliope asked the priest if there were any other volumes in the monastery. He said that many years before, several older volumes were donated to a library of antiquity and that she could find some there. The library was located in a city nearby.

Running out of time that the professor had allotted her for the trip, Calliope traveled to the city and visited the library in question. She spent several days searching through the library’s section of ancient manuscripts.

One day, she came upon a manuscript that had no author listed on the spine or cover. Calliope opened it and discovered quickly that it was the book she had been looking for. Calliope was overjoyed. She sat down at a table and read. It was a long work that leaned heavily on historical research. It was so different from anything that she had read from that era. The prose was direct and cutting and did not rely on anecdotes or conjecture.One thing that the manuscript lacked was any sort of description or identity about who wrote it.

She asked the librarian if there was a way to copy the ancient manuscript for research purposes. The librarian said it was possible to have it transcribed though it would be costly.

Returning home to her professor, Calliope asked him to have the manuscript transcribed. He refused. For months, Calliope pleaded with him to change his mind but the professor would not. The manuscript did not serve any purpose to him, so he did not care.

Distraught, Calliope gave up. Years went by and she continued to work for the professor until he retired. In those years, attitudes changed about women in academia and they were now more accepted in the ranks of professors.

Calliope never forgot the manuscript. So she made regular visits to the library which housed the manuscript and slowly, over several years, she transcribed it herself. She tried to find out more about the monk who wrote it but could never find out who it was.

In light of the new attitudes about women, Calliope, now an older woman with the only recorded experience of a secretary, tried to apply for a professorship but was denied due to the lack of a graduate degree. Her experience, being off the books, did not count toward her qualifications. She would have to earn an advanced degree and perform recorded research in order to become a professor.

So Calliope spent the next several years obtaining her degree and building her research credentials. Her hair turned gray and then white by the time she was given a junior professor position. The position allowed her to finally become a teacher.

Calliope started her courses and made the manuscript the centerpiece of her lectures. Her students found it interesting. While she taught, Calliope also worked with publishers to get the manuscript printed into a book. She was successful though it received a modest printing.

Calliope worked her lectures into a book of her own about the modern interpretations of the manuscript’s ideas. The struggle to get it printed was not unlike any other struggle Calliope had faced from the moment she left her parents’ house. She endured however and a publisher accepted it.

But the fight to be accepted by her peers was unrelenting. Calliope developed her ideas about power but because she was a woman her ideas were not taken seriously by the men who decided which ideas should be taken seriously.

Perhaps, she thought, the future might be different. Attitudes change, she thought.

Calliope died not knowing if the moon had been correct about her life’s work.

The sun rarely shined so bright as much as it did upon William. Born in affluence. Raised in affluence. Barely a moment of his life went by that he did not benefit from being born lucky.

He was attractive. He did well in school. He had a charming personality that enhanced his looks. But of all the qualities the sun gifted him the one that it failed to impart was the ability to make good decisions.

Despite his wealth, despite his charm, intelligence, good looks, education and upbringing William squandered it. He enjoyed frivolity often spending a fortune on gambling, parties, expensive clothes and other trinkets not worth the money he spent.

He came to his middle age broke. His parents, now older, refused to give him unfettered access to his inheritance for fear that he would waste it. So they established a trust and left an executor whose sole job was to deny William the benefit of his inheritance until he found a purpose that sustained him both financially and intellectually. William resented this.

Eventually they both passed. Cut off from their support, William became upset about what to do. He approached the executor and asked to read the terms of their will so he could devise a plan to obtain it.

Adhering to the letter of his parents’ law, William set out and became a librarian. He found a small library that needed a keeper and he secured the job. With his education, he took to the position quite well. He did not enjoy it but he also did not abhor it either. It was work and it paid enough for him to rent an apartment. William worked as a librarian for two years and he then approached the executor, demanding access to his inheritance. The executor refused noting that William took the job and earned a living but he was not fulfilled intellectually. William stormed away, angry.

He returned to his job distraught. How does a person find fulfillment, he asked himself. Should he get married and start a family? Should he devote himself to a religion?

Having received everything he could from the sun at birth, William asked the moon for help. The moon told him that he was on his own. William had received more help than most people ever do.

William returned to work. The librarian toiled away stacking books, organizing them, scanning them, moving them, making orders and coordinating events at his library.

One day while handling a box of donated antique books, William stumbled upon a tattered book with brittle pages. He turned through it, trying to find a way to classify it. The book was a comedy about a woman who becomes philosopher monk and her antics in a monastery trying to hide her gender.

William read the book over the next two days and fell in love with the story as well as the interesting ideas about power. The town in which the story was based was not far from his home. He traveled to a monastery in the town to ask the head of the order, who was a priest, about the story of the female monk. At first the priest would not talk about it but after William asked him further, the priest said the story was rumored to be true.

William asked about the book she wrote and the priest said no book existed in the monastery. It could possibly be at a library in a town not far away.

William traveled to the town. He knew the librarian as they worked in the same profession and often traded books. He asked his colleague about any book that might have been written by a woman. The librarian told William he wasn’t sure but promised to go through his collection and would send him the book if he found it.

Returning home, William decided to write about the history of politics in religious thought. He began reading books on the subject in his own library as he awaited the female monk’s book from his colleague.

More than a year went by. William read, studied and wrote. He learned what he could but felt his book was empty without the monk’s contribution.

One day a courier arrived at his library. He pulled an old manuscript out his satchel and handed it to William. There was a letter with it from the colleague that said he was sure this was the book he was looking for but the author did not not leave their name.

William read it and was astounded. He was sure this was her book. He threw out his writing and started again. It took him another year before he could finish and sought to have it printed.

Knowing people who worked for publishers, he submitted it to be printed. Initially it was rejected. Publishers said that the monk’s gender should not be revealed though th ideas could remain in the book. William relented and eventually it was accepted. He credited the ideas to an unknown monk in a monastery.

The book was printed and it became very popular. It wound up in bookshelves throughout the country. Then it was translated into other languages and it sold across the globe.

The book brought William fame. He was asked to give speeches and readings. William shied away from the glare of it all and maintained his job as a librarian. He never wrote another book.

One day the executor approached him with papers for William to sign so he could receive his inheritance. William asked if he earned it because the book was so successful. No, the executor told him, it was because when William wrote his book, he made sure to give credit to the original book upon which the history was based.

William smiled and signed the paperwork. He quit his job that day at the library and went home. Over the next few years, he donated his inheritance to renovate and expand the library. William lived off the royalties of his book and often volunteered to work at the library.

From the time he was a young boy, Malthus desired to be a painter. He enjoyed artistic expression and taking the images in his mind and translating them from his brain to his brush to his canvas. His family was well to do and was able to indulge him in his hobby. Malthus thought it more of a passion.

When he came of age and approached the time to attend university, his father informed him that it was time to get his education. Art, he told Malthus, was not an option. Malthus would have to choose a profession more fitting to a young person of his quality. Being forced to give up his passion angered him and at first he protested, swearing to his father and mother that he would not go to university.

The sun spoke to Malthus and told him that there would be a time in his life to dedicate solely to painting but it would not be in his youth. This further angered Malthus.

His mother approached him during the standoff and said that what Malthus really wanted was not a life as a painter but as an artist. A person could be an artist in any type of profession. While the comment did little to stifle his anger about not being able to pursue painting, he did take it to heart.

Malthus settled on becoming a man of the courts and entered the university to become a lawyer. As with art, there are many different fields where one could work as an attorney whether it was business litigation, criminal prosecution and defense, corporate contracts, family law, arbitration and possibly, maybe, the judiciary.

While he attended university, Malthus decided he would try to find art in one of the most boring avenues in the legal world: probate. Once he graduated, Malthus joined a legal practice with a handful of other attorneys who specialized in drawing up wills and ensuring that they were carried out according to their patients' wishes.

In the early years of his career, Malthus shadowed his fellow lawyers to learn the nuances of establishing a will and the differences between trusts, estate planning and wealth management. As he became more comfortable in his work, Malthus began exercising connections that he had with other wealthy families growing up and wrote wills.

What he specialized in was establishing creative provisions for his clients in order for their wealth to be handed down to heirs. When one wealthy pharmacist felt that his two daughters were not ambitious enough in their life, Malthus suggested that he put his money into a trust that would eventually be passed to the women only when they were educated and sought professions. In another will, Malthus included a contingency that required a young heir to marry and have children in order to receive his inheritance. There were many others, including one man who was forced to find a sustainable living.

In all cases, Malthus ensured that each detail was carried out by the letter. Even when heirs complained and in some cases filed suit against Malthus, he always won in court and the terms were carried out as he designed.

Malthus had developed a reputation and many in his wealthy circles had grown weary of his creative, onerous provisions.

All of this continued until one day Malthus created a contract for a wealthy client that required the client's son to spend five years abroad helping poor villagers to improve their communities. Upon the client's death, the son refused to follow the terms of the will and filed suit. Malthus filed the response to the court, fully expecting to win. What he did not expect was that the client's son was connected to the judge in the case. Without cause, the judge ruled for the son.

Fed up with his tortious creativity, the judge in the case approached Malthus and demanded that he quit his practice. If Malthus continued to create his laborious trusts, he could face a revolt from the ruling class and be expelled from the legal profession, the judge warned. Upset, Malthus asked what he should do with his life if he couldn't be creative? The judge had no answer.

Malthus returned home that evening. As he sat up in bed that night, he realized that the judge was right. He'd made too many enemies over his career and it was time to pursue something different.

The very next morning, Malthus announced he would be quitting the firm to the surprise of his partners. They asked what he would do with his time. Malthus said he wasn't sure.

He went for a walk, he passed by a merchant's shop. Malthus stepped inside and peered around when his eyes settled on a box of brushes. He smiled to himself because he remembered the sun’s words and he realized then what he was supposed to do next.

Malthus purchased the brushes, a few jars of paint and a roll of canvas. He then set off for home to renew his original passion.

Martin was raised by a family of farmers who made their living growing a variety of vegetables and raising goats. Martin grew to love his pastoral heritage and was determined to keep the tradition of living and thriving off the soil of his home.

His mother, however, did not want that for her son. She felt he was more intelligent and inquisitive than the rest of her six children. As Martin grew up and learned about the farming life, she also insisted that he be educated in some manner. Martin’s family could not afford a formal education but his mother’s brother, Richard, was a monk. She asked him to take time from his vocation to pass his knowledge on to his nephew. Richard was educated at his monastery where he studied the growth of carrots and other vegetables in addition to his duties as a monk.

As Martin grew of age, he alternated time between the plow and the word. While Richard’s visits were infrequent, he eventually would teach his nephew to read, to use mathematics and to make use of Richard’s research about carrot growth and development.

Martin took to the word and, as his mother predicted, was an apt pupil. He would read by dim candlelight at night from well known works of fiction, history, religion and sciences. Richard’s visits grew less frequent as he aged and Martin’s abilities flowered. In time, his uncle would only visit to bring him new books from the monastery library.

One day, after Martin was of age, Richard visited him and had a manuscript and a journal held in his arms. The manuscript was a title written by another monk whom Richard often talked about fondly. The journal was a daily diary that Richard had been keeping over the past several years.

This particular day Martin’s uncle was sad. Apparently his friend had passed away recently and with the monk’s death, Richard had learned a deep secret about his friend. The monk Richard had known and lived with for decades was a woman.

Richard handed the woman monk’s book and his journal to his nephew and begged him, when the time was proper, to write a book based on the journal to hopefully draw attention to her manuscript.

Martin asked his uncle about how he would know when the time was right. Richard responded that he wanted his nephew to publish it when he was older and perhaps society would be ready for powerful ideas derived by a woman.

Martin took the manuscript and the journal from his uncle and read it. Months later his uncle died and Martin became determined to spread the word of the female monk.

The sun visited Martin and warned him that there was a scandalous history with this monk and that there was a long history still left to go. Martin was but one step in the entire process of revealing the whole situation and his contribution was likely to be forgotten, the sun warned. Martin did not care about the sun’s pronouncement and proceeded to read the book and learn about its ideas.

Compelled by his uncle and advised by the sun, Martin set out to write his own book about the woman monk. Rather than try to publish the journal, he decided to write a more comedic take on the situation. Martin felt a factual tale might be too scandalous for his community to handle.

So over the course of a year, Martin painstakingly wrote his book about his uncle’s friend and her ideas and constantly maintained balance between truth and comedy.

A new invention had emerged in the world between the time the woman monk wrote her book and when Martin wrote his. In her time, a book had to be painstakingly written by hand and ink in a manuscript. With the advent of a printing press, books could now be printed mechanically, thus making them easier to copy and distribute.

Martin’s book was printed and then delivered to communities throughout his country. It sold modestly at first. For a time it captured the public imagination. But as with any new invention, another book quickly took over Martin’s bio-comedy in terms of notoriety.

In that time, the monsignor at the monastery where Richard had lived came upon his nephew’s book and was alarmed. He sent for Martin who came to the monastery to address the monsignor’s concerns.

The monsignor chastised him for sharing a dirty rumor that had plagued the order in the years since Richard’s passing. The idea of a woman monk was ludicrous and giving life to it, even in a fictitious fashion, would hurt the monastery’s reputation. He felt compelled to send word to other priests in other parishes to ban the reading and distribution of Martin’s book.

Martin protested saying the story was true and showed the monsignor the female monk’s manuscript and his uncle’s private journal to prove it. The Monsignor showed no surprise about the manuscript’s existence or content. When he asked Martin if he could keep the manuscript and journal, Martin refused.

Rather than be forceful, the monsignor made Martin a deal: the manuscript and journal would return to the monastery and the Monsignor would not publicly condemn Martin’s book.

Reluctantly, Martin agreed to his terms but added the condition that the female monk’s manuscript be turned over to a university where it could be studied. The monsignor agreed.

For a few years, Martin’s book stayed in print but eventually fell into obscurity. The monsignor delivered on his promise and sent the manuscript to a massive library at a prestigious university renown for scholarly research.

Richard was born in an era where a person could choose to either be married and have children or pursue a life in a religious order. Richard considered himself an introvert and sought out a monastery in which he could choose to serve his god as a tedious hermit.

Richard was ordained into the monastic life and the monsignor assigned him the task of working in the gardens as well as maintaining records of the monks who were trained in the order. Richard enjoyed the quotidian existence. He had an intense focus and enjoyed the opportunity to drown himself in work.

In the garden, Richard so focused on the growth of his carrots that he would write down every detail of their progress. He would measure the total rainfall of every season and then compare that amount to the quality of the carrots that he grew. Richard used the information to hone his skills as a planter and soon he was able to apply his knowledge to other vegetables.

Because it was also his job to keep track of the personnel history of the monastery, Richard had access to the paper and ink available to scribes. He wrote down his botanical methods and then shared them with other monasteries in his order who then shared them with farmers in their respective parishes.

His life went on. When Richard approached middle age, he developed a friendship with another monk. They became quite close, eating together and then working alongside each other as they wrote. His friend was a scholar and would spend the majority of his time in the library, studying and writing. The friend worked on a unifying theory about the nature of power in humanity. Richard found his friend’s work quite interesting and encouraged him to make additional manuscripts and disseminate it to other monasteries just as Richard had done with his gardening methods.

His friend took his advice and the manuscript was copied and then disseminated. But his work was not as well recognized as Richard’s. This upset Richard but he knew it was out of his control to change it. He consoled his friend and encouraged him to continue studying and writing on the issue.

They grew old together and one day Richard’s friend died. The monk was given all of the due rites for the dead in his era and Richard volunteered to prepare his friend’s body for burial. As he worked about to wrap his friend in the proper robes for internment, Richard was shocked to learn that his friend, all this time, was actually a woman. A woman was expressly forbidden to become a monk in their time. Richard struggled with the knowledge but kept it to himself.

Some time had passed after the funeral before Richard could come to terms with the truth about his friend’s identity. With access to pen and paper, Richard wrote down the story of his relationship with his friend. He felt like the world should know the truth about her. But he was too timid to share it with someone else.

As he approached death, Richard left the monastery to visit his nephew, who he tutored. Richard asked that his nephew should try and publish the journal after Richard’s death. The nephew promised to spread the word about the woman monk upon his passing.

Richard died hoping to his last breath that the world would know his friend.

Josephine was born of humble origin. Her father was a butcher. As she grew up, she developed an interest in philosophy. Josephine loved to think about the world around her. She loved developing ideas about the nature of freedom, love and reason. When he could, her father would pay for a local priest to spend time with Josephine, teaching her to read.

She begged her father to help her obtain an education when she became of age which was scarce for women at that time, especially daughters of butchers.

More than an education, Josephine longed to be free to think and ruminate on the world and its contents. And when Josephine wasn’t thinking, she wanted to sleep when she was tired, eat when she was hungry, bathe when she was dirty. Josephine did not want to be constrained by the rigidity that dominated people of her echelon.

The sun appeared to Josephine and proclaimed that she should pursue her education and dream of thinking but warned that it would not be easy and her work would not be appreciated.

One day while close to becoming of age, Josephine’s father was forced to shut down his butcher shop. A virus had devastated sheep and swine in their village. The virus had been spread there by an infected lamb that was brought to a local herd by a man hoping to eventually breed it and produce larger sheep.

Her father could not borrow money to keep his shop open because a local wealthy merchant lost some of his wealth due to a falling out with the king.

The butcher then tried to stock his shop with beef and poultry but they were located in other villages that were too far away to be delivered to him.

Josephine noticed that her father was faced with a binary outcome, a closed shop or an open shop, even though he had a host of factors that figured into the outcome. She thought about how people tend to think that binary outcomes are based on binary causes. The shop closing proved, to her, that there was no direct correlation between the amount of causes to an incident and the possible outcomes of an incident.

As her father struggled to find work as a farm laborer, Josephine decided to pursue her education in an unconventional way: she would join a monastery. Yes, such places only accepted men, but Josephine felt a convent would not provide her with the opportunity to learn.

Her father did not approve of the plan but allowed her to try and gain entry to the monastery in another village. Josephine bound her breasts with cloth and cut her hair short and attempted a low-pitch tone when she spoke. She approached the monsignor who governed the monastery and asked to join. The monsignor asked Josephine why he/she wanted to join and summoning a little bass in her voice she explained that she wanted to receive an education in theology and philosophy while, of course, serving Jesus. She explained her recent discovery of the dichotomy between binary outcomes and the myriad of factors into those outcomes. Inspired and yet suspicious of the man with an effeminate face and higher than usual pitch to his voice, the monsignor allowed her to take the vows to become a monk.

Josephine did not want the weight on her conscience of pretending to be a man. When the opportunity presented itself, she decided to enter the confessional and admit to the monsignor that she was a woman. Because her admission was made during the sacrament of confession, the monsignor was bound by his vows to maintain her secret and could not discuss it in front of the others. They discussed her predicament in the confessional and Josephine told the monsignor that she faked being a man because she wanted an education that is not available to women in their society. The monsignor took pity upon Josephine and said she could remain. She would have to avoid consorting with the male monks and could not tell anyone of her sex. The monsignor would allow her to receive her education, focusing mostly on theology and philosophy so long as she performed duties in the monastery which included assisting with the meals and cleansing of the laundry. Josephine agreed.

Years passed and Josephine received her education. She learned the history of ancient peoples, philosophy, logic, science, the catechism and the canon of the church. When she was not studying, Josephine would write and develop her ideas. The main focus of her work was power. Her focus came from watching the hierarchy of the church in the monastery and how money, status and influence affected the politics of the monks in the monastery. It was similar to the exchange of power that she noticed her village between the shop owners, the farmers, the merchants and the nobles. Josephine had the realization that the one true struggle of people was the constant flux and fight for power over others. Every facet of human interaction was impacted by this struggle for power. Religion, money, crops, goods and whatever else was important to humans were all part of this great struggle.

Using a literary structure of numbered aphorisms, Josephine wrote a comprehensive, detailed account about her thesis: every human endeavor boiled down to an expression of power. She included historical research and logically tied each aphorism to her work.

It took her several years but she finished her book. Josephine presented it to the monsignor, who was now very old. He was proud of her work and felt it was groundbreaking. He ordered the monks who produced manuscripts to make copies and have the book and its ideas taught in the monastery. The monsignor also sent copies to his bishop with the hope that Josephine’s book would be made available to the public.

Josephine beamed with pride. She was excited to see her education and her work being read by her peers. Some of the monks showed admiration for her ideas but ultimately, Josephine’s book was not well read beyond the walls of her monastery. The bishop wrote the monsignor that her book was interesting but not the type of work that should be spread among impressionable minds in the public.

Undaunted by the censorship, Josephine continued to study and to write and to think. She made revisions to her to book when she could and posted the addenda to the few copies of her book in nearby monasteries.

At her end, Josephine was satisfied with her accomplishments and her journey though she would die with little to no recognition for her life’s work.

The monk who prepared her body for burial was surprised to discover that she was a woman. He maintained the secret within the monastery as the monsignor did, deciding that the dead are entitled to privacy.

Simeon, plainly put, was an idiot. And like many idiots, he was ignorant as to the extent of his idiocy. As is also customary with idiots, he craved power.

In a fit of rage about losing a potential job to a woman who was more educated and qualified than he, Simeon cursed the sun and begged the sun for the power of a god. The sun rebuffed Simeon’s request, saying that his reign would be horrifying and catastrophic. Simeon declared that he was intelligent and wise. If he were given the power of a god, he would use it judiciously, he told the sun.

The sun still refused and told Simeon he was an idiot and that the only reason Simeon wanted such power was due to the fact his ego had been bruised. But, the sun added, if Simeon could prove that he could keep a cool head and learn to listen to others, the sun would then grant him the powers of a god on a temporary basis.

So Simeon set out to improve his demeanor, taking courses in relaxation and anger management to soothe his ill temperament. Whenever he was confronted with a situation wherein he would normally express anger, he bit his tongue and stayed silent. He did this for many years.

His hair turned gray and then it fell out. Decades of forcing himself to be calm made Simeon into a tranquil being. The sun, however, was not fooled. It knew that Simeon only really controlled his external reaction. Despite this, the sun granted Simeon the power of a god anyway, determining that Simeon had worked hard to achieve an outward mild manner.

The sun imparted its notice to Simeon that he was a god but only with the ability to do what he wanted with impunity from the physical world. No one, or no thing could stop him. However, Simeon would not be omniscient nor would he have any heightened senses or vision of the future.

Simeon did not care and set out to use his powers. At first, he was measured and controlled thanks to the decades of mental conditioning to be such. Then one day, he met a woman. She was about Simeon’s age and looked somehow familiar to him. It took him a few moments before he realized she was the woman who earned his sales job. Simeon fought long and hard with himself but succumbed and made her heart stop, killing her. The rush of power made him feel better.

The catharsis was short lived. Simeon then went about killing others. He started with politicians who did not please him and then it was celebrities or other public figures. All of the deaths came from stopping the beat of their hearts.

When the prime minister enacted a law that Simeon did not care for, Simeon decided to kill her as well. But he chose something with more optics. He arrived at the House of Governance and walked through the front door. When the guards attempted to stop him, their hands could not grip him or restrain him. It was as though Simeon’s body was more like a ghost.

Simeon paced through the highly-secure building until he found the prime minister, who was giving an interview to a television crew. He walked up to the stately woman and caused her to vaporize into a wisp of ash. Her death was televised for the world to see and soon people realized that Simeon was a walking god.

Armies tried to stop him. Scientists tried to understand his existence. No one could manage to control Simeon as he had power over all matter in the world. He continued to kill the powerful, the rich and those who criticized him (who were neither powerful or rich). Simeon did not kill because he enjoyed it, he simply wanted people to worship him and respect his power. But they would not. So he killed on.

The world descended into chaos until the moon had had enough. Ordinarily the moon enjoyed mischief but this was different. It visited Simeon at night and took away the manufactured god’s power. The sun was angry with the moon but the moon did not care.

Once the world realized that Simeon was no longer omnipotent, they seized him and executed him by slashing his throat and then burning his corpse. The overkill was justified by those in power as they feared that Simeon’s abilities might return.

As the moon watched Simeon burn, it asked the sun why it allowed the idiot to have so much control. The sun replied that it wanted the world to see why one person should never be so empowered. Simeon was a deterrent, the sun said.

Deterrents do not work and they only give the illusion that a matter has been addressed, the moon responded. Systemic problems cannot be solved with justice imposed on one individual, it said.

When she was six, Walang was taken from her family by the government. She did not know why and no explanation was provided by the government agents. She cried and wailed for weeks after the separation.

She was given to a new family, who looked different than her. The new family enrolled Walang in school where she excelled. In particular, she was good with writing and reading. Her teachers, surprised at her acumen for a village child, encouraged her.

The sun watched her progress in school and told her one night to pursue it as her life’s mission. Walang relented and vowed to cultivate her talent. She kept a journal and wrote stories, poems, aphorisms and proverbs. Walang suffered over her work, persistently editing and rewriting in the journal. She drew inspiration from the strange world in which she grew up in.

Walang matured. When she reached adulthood and was able to decide things for herself, she packed her bag with her belongings and told her imposed, strange family goodbye. They were upset. To them, Walang had become part of their family. She did not feel the same and she left to return to her village.

The sun told her that she could go back to the village if she wanted but she must still pursue the vocation of a writer. Walang agreed.

After research into her past, she discovered that many children such as her had been removed from their families. With the help of a friendly government agent, Walang discovered which village she was from and she returned.

When Walang arrived, village members did not immediately recognize her. She told them who she was and her parents’ names. She was taken to her childhood home where she was greeted by her father. He cried and held his child and was elated to see her after so many years. Walang asked for her mother and her father told her that she had died from an illness several years before. Walang wept at her mother’s death while also rejoicing in finding her father.

Walang settled into her native village with her father, who was a carpenter. She told him that she was a writer and showed him her journal. He read her work and told her that she indeed had talent.

Walang continued her writing whilst living with her father. She now wrote stories and observations about having returned to her village after being gone most of her childhood. She wrote about how much it hurt that her mother was dead and that she’d missed her life with her mother. Walang compiled her stories and sent them off to a publisher to have them put in a book.

The publisher rejected her work without explanation. She sent it to other publishers, who also rejected it without explanation.

Walang then wrote stories infused with the mythology and oral histories that were distinct to her people. The stories were rich in character and perspective. Again, publishers rejected the work.

Walang then wrote stories about what the future might be like for the stolen children such as her. She wrote about the struggles they would face in an alien society and the inherent adversity of their situation of which they did not choose. Again it was rejected by publishers.

Walang was distraught and discouraged. She believed her work simply did not matter if no one else could read it. What was the point of expression if no one would see it? Why speak when nobody hears?

She was now approaching middle age. She told the sun that she was finished. The publishers would never give her an opportunity to be heard. She was quitting and becoming a carpenter. The sun told Walang that she was meant to be a writer and that she should continue the pursuit. She cursed the sun and threw her writings away.

In the time that followed, Walang began to help her father, who was now older and struggled to continue his trade. He taught her how best to use the tools and imparted upon her the best techniques for cutting, sanding, joining and more.

Walang took to the work and enjoyed using her hands to create. She enjoyed more that people appreciated her skill and craft. Her products were useful and people needed it. She continued as a carpenter for many years.

The sun told her that she was to be a writer and that she must return to her writing. Walang refused.

One day while working on a project, Walang’s grip slipped while sawing and she badly cut two of her fingers on her writing hand. It was painful and it took months for it to recover. While the wound had healed, her fingers were mangled, making carpentry impossible. Walang wept at the loss of her profession.

The sun reminded her that she was supposed to be writing. Walang relented and started working on a journal. But she had to learn to write with her other hand because her writing hand was mangled. It was arduous and Walang resented the obstacle of developing a skill just to return to a profession that had caused so much pain.

Once she was able to write smoothly with the the opposite hand, Walang wrote stories about her journey to become a carpenter and then the pain of her injury and its consequences. She wrote about having to return to the pursuit of writing. As she wrote, Walang felt encouraged and thought her work would finally be published. It was again rejected by publishers.

From the time Morris was a child until he grew up, he wanted to be a firefighter. He loved the imagery of a person standing up against a destructive flame to put it out and to save lives and homes. When he was of age, he did the necessary training and became a firefighter.

Morris took to the profession extremely well. He had strong physical strength and worked well with his fellow firefighters. After a few years of service, Morris was named the deputy chief of his battalion.

Within a short amount of time, his department discovered that he was just as good a leader as he was a firefighter. When the chief of the battalion retired, Morris became the natural choice as the new chief.

For many years and then decades, Morris ran his battalion. He streamlined their operations and improved their costs with more efficient equipment. Morris also spent time upgrading the safety standards that reduced the number of injuries amongst his firefighters. In his long career as a chief, Morris fulfilled all of the potential that his predecessors felt that he possessed.

Time passed and Morris entered his twilight years, bringing with it the detriments of old age. His movements were slower. He had less energy and was less inclined be at the station more than necessary. It took longer for him to make decisions and the basis for those decisions were steeped in long obsolete methodologies. What became obvious to so many other others, though less obvious to Morris was that he needed to retire and hand over the reins of the battalion to someone else.

Eventually, Morris came to realize this, and other firefighters even mentioned it to him. But Morris could not let it go. He had spent so many years of his life dedicated to helping others and leading brave people to fight fires. He had enjoyed being a chief, and he saw no reason to stop. To his mind, he was still capable, and therefore he should still be a chief.

More time passed. It became difficult for Morris to think differently about making his department better. His mentality was consumed by complacency. That complacency led to a lack of oversight of his battalion’s safety standards and eventually led to injuries to his firefighters. Morris’s waning mental capacity then led to negligence of the department’s equipment, increasing injuries and prolonging fires. Morris’s mental condition also created havoc with scheduling and at times there was not enough firefighters on duty to handle the calls.

Morris’s leadership deficiencies went from being a nuisance to dangerous. Homes were burning to the ground with fewer firefighters to fight them. Those who did fight risked injury due to defective equipment.

The firefighters begged Morris to step down. They pointed out how his leadership was harming his community. While he spent many years as a good leader, it was time for him to give someone else a chance to lead, they told him. Morris considered their words but refused to step down. He convinced himself that he was the best person for the job. He felt that his battalion could not function without him. He did not want to live a life of not being a chief.

Homes continued to be destroyed and firefighters continued to be injured simply because Morris refused to give up his power.

Cammy was born a curious girl with a natural enthusiasm with regards to science and inquiry. She loved to learn about the world around her. She would read whatever books she could get her hands on. She would study the natural world: the insects around her home, the trees, flowers, the animals, every living thing. She would also interrogate the night sky learning about the stars and the moon. She studied the motion of objects and read about the physics of it. Cammy was someone who loved to learn.

When Cammy grew older, she discovered philosophy.. She enjoyed the field largely because it seemed to be the origin of learning. She read that all of the great philosophers were themselves also scientists. Cammy enjoyed reading their work about their field of study and how it was infused with their philosophy.

Aside from her pursuit to learn, Cammy also enjoyed the game of chess. The game, to her, was a universe of battle. It was war confined to a board and she enjoyed playing other people and studying their methods. Cammy was an astute player and began to play competitively in tournaments.

Cammy played well as youngster and advanced in the ranks. One day, she crossed paths with another young prodigy in a tournament. He had developed a name for himself as being a genius. Cammy played him and defeated him decisively. The victory gave her notoriety and she became a celebrated figure in the game. But despite the win, she could not consistently defeat other opponents in the higher ranks of the chess universe. She continued to play the game professionally with moderate success.

She realized that while she enjoyed the game of chess, it was not really her life’s passion. Cammy continued to play the game and compete amongst the best, but ultimately, she decided it was not for her.

Cammy decided instead that she would become a philosopher and study the methods of developing knowledge. Every philosopher needs to start with an education which came very easily to Cammy, as she was a lifelong student. She earned the necessary degrees to become an academic in the field on the way to becoming a philosopher.

In this educational journey, she was approached one day by the man who she could easily defeat in chess. The two of them had become something of rivals in the game. The man asked her to go out to dinner and she agreed. From that initial date, a relationship blossom, and the two married. They had the struggles of all young couples when they first get married. But they settled into a dynamic and for the rest of their days, they were comparatively happy

As a scholar, Cammy narrowed her research of philosophy to that of politics. She had discovered a book written by a monk in the past. The book was based on a long-lost manuscript written in antiquity about the nature of power. The book inspired Cammy, as she considered how power is used in the game of chess. She decided then that her pursuit as a philosopher would be the intersection of how power is used in games and whether it translates to how power is exhibited in life.

One night, while looking at the stars, the moon visited her and told her that she could pursue this endeavor, but there were no guarantees that it would ever make her a philosopher. Cammy responded that she did not care. All she wanted to do was to create understanding, which is the goal of any philosopher.

While Cammy felt like she had an important idea, she struggled to develop a hypothesis. It was the starting point for any form of research whether it was philosophy or science or medicine or any study of human knowledge. Cammy felt like she had the bricks to build the house, but she did not have a blueprint for the house.

Her first hypothesis was simply that humans exert power over each other in life much as they do when they play games. That seemed simple enough. Cammy figured it would be easy to correlate human behavior with how they play games and how they live their lives. But as she read and conducted her research, she realized it was not that simple.

So Cammy decided to change her hypothesis. The new iteration of her hypothesis was humans develop their notions of power by playing games. While not as elegant as her first hypothesis, she felt that the research would be easier to tease out with this new version. But she was mistaken. She spent years researching her ideas but could not find a way to build a framework around them.

Frustrated, Cammy decided to modify her hypothesis again. This version stated that the notion of power is expressed in games the same as it is expressed in human interaction. This was more complicated than her first two attempts because the argument was that power existed independent of human endeavor. The research surrounding this hypothesis would be more about how power works in general. Cammy did not want to take this route because once a person tries to establish a universality of a construct, the idea can easily be defeated through an exception.

Cammy spent years on this hypothesis. As she had done her entire life, she read, she wrote, and spent days and nights thinking about her ideas.

Time passed and Cammy simply could not develop a framework to support her ideas. She felt as though she were a failure. She had never been able to write any definitive material that would qualify her to be a philosopher. By then Cammy was older and reaching the end of her academic career. She was tired and felt like she could not start over again. Maybe she should stop altogether, she thought.

One day as she played a game of chess with her husband, he defeated her. It was the first time that it had ever happened. In all the years they have played each other. Eventually, it seemed, her husband had learned enough of her moves that he was finally able to beat her in the game that they both loved. Instead of being disappointed about losing the game, Cammy felt happy. Her husband had tried for so long to beat her and was unsuccessful and now in their advanced years, he had finally won.

Cammy returned to her office the next day and began changing her hypothesis yet again. Her career had developed understanding she realized. Cammy learned that there’s never a reason to quit doing something that you love.

Mac was born to a modest, but educated family. From a young age, he was endowed by the sun with the ability to stop time. As a child, Mac used this ability sparingly. His actions were usually mixed with mischief and necessity. When needed, he would stop time to prevent things like an accident. Sometimes he would take something from a store like a piece of candy.

It wasn’t until he was older that Mac realized the extent of his power and what he could do with it.

As a child Mac became fascinated with the game of chess. He would become fixated on the intricacies of how the pieces moved across the board and how the combination of moves and positions could lead to outflanking an opponent and bring about victory.

The irony of Mac’s power was that his ability to stop time could not seemingly benefit him when he was playing a game of chess. It wasn’t as if he could move pieces when nobody was looking because at some point, he would have to resume time and people could see whatever it was that he did.

There was one advantage the ability gave him and that was the ample opportunity to decide his next move. As with many people who love the game of chess, Mac read about the game, opening moves, defense strategies and how best to conquer his opponent’s king while saving his.

In his formative years of playing the game, Mac developed a nasty habit in how he saw his opponents. While most people can separate an opponent in a game or sport as merely being somebody who is trying to win, Mac could not do that. He often saw his opponents not as someone he was competing against, but as an enemy. To him, his opponents had to be seen as bad people while he saw himself as a good person. This exacerbated his need to win. In his mind, he was not conquering an opponent, he was defeating evil. He was right while they were wrong. He was good and they were vile. Each time he sat at the chessboard, it was not a match, it was war.

Mac insisted on seeing opponents as evil because they were trying to defeat him. He simply could not see from their perspective. And even if his opponent did not share their animosity toward him, it did not prevent his hostility toward them.

With his education and his ability to take time and make the best decisions in his games, Mac climbed the ranks of chess players in the world to become one of the best.

As he came of age, Mac started to play more capable opponents, which only meant that they were more evil than those that he faced in the past. He was constantly in anger or paranoia or some mixture of the two. It came to the point where he could not communicate with others who played chess. Mac did not have colleagues or peers or anyone that he could work with to become better. He only had himself and his books and his ability to stop time.

One day, Mac came across an opponent, a woman, who was very quick in her ability to defeat opponents. He read about her games and studied her moves. He also read profiles about her in chess magazines. Over time, he developed an affection for her that was very uncommon for him when it came to opponents.

Despite his affection for her, he very much wanted to play her. He hoped that with his ability to take his time that he could defeat her though do it in such a way that it was courteous and respectful, with the hope that she would respect him.

Given that both of them were playing amongst the world leaders in the game, at some point, they faced each other in a tournament. From the first three moves in the game, Mac realized that her abilities were far beyond his. Even with all of the time in the world to make a decision, Mac could not match her skill. At one point, he stopped time for the equivalent of two days trying to decide what his next move would be. But within few seconds she was able to counter his movement and eventually, she zeroed in on him and defeated him narrowly. Ordinarily, this would have enraged Mac and it would have sowed a deep hatred within him. But with the woman, that did not happen. He had hoped to cultivate respect from her, but instead she had cultivated respect from him.

While the woman was able to defeat him in the game, there were few in the chest world that could do the same. In time. Mac earned the title of grandmaster. He continued his habit of seeing his opponents as personal enemies and he continued to win. But whenever he crossed paths with the woman, she would soundly defeat him. Their matches became sources of legend to those in the chess universe. Books were written about their games and their moves and her abilities to contain and defeat the grandmaster.

While she could always defeat Mac, the woman had a hard time in the higher ranks of the chess world. She struggled against most of the competition though eventually she earned the grandmaster title. But despite her lacking skills against all of the other players, she could always beat Mac easily.

While Mac respected her and at times thought that he loved her, the affection gradually turned into hatred. His rival became as any opponent in the game to him, and she was his enemy. The animosity and anger that he had towards her was obviously more intense because he could never defeat her.

With no options left, Mac felt it was time to use his ability and eliminate her physically. He could not bring himself to consider violence. Deep down, he still cared for her. He then thought about maybe moving her to some desolate part of the world. But even that seemed too extreme for him as well.

He settled on a plan. When the pair were due to face off, he would create conditions where she could not show up to play him. One time he disabled her car before she could leave her home. Another time he did something to a plane engine to keep it from taking off. Another time he chiseled the asphalt on the road to prevent her car from getting through. Eventually, it came to look as though she was avoiding playing him. And it gave Mac the public justification to show people that she was somehow afraid of him, even though she had always beat him.

But this could not last. Mac understood that he was robbing her of glory that she should receive because she was so good against him. Even though his stature in the chess world was higher than hers, her mastery of him was something she had. So Mac relented and stopped trying to disrupt her efforts to meet him at the chessboard. His hatred quickly melted away and his love for her was restored.

Mac wanted badly to be with her and spend time with her and get to know her more as a person. One day after she beat him in a match, he asked her out to dinner. She accepted, and eventually they would go on to start a romance.

The romance grew into a relationship and they eventually married. Their marriage was rife with the struggles that usually accompany marriage. However, they loved each other and stayed together. Throughout their time as husband and wife, she eventually helped him overcome his propensity to hate other opponents.

Despite their shared love of the game, Mac realized that playing his wife brought out the worst in him even though playing him brought out the best in her. If he wanted her in his life, he had to accept that she was simply better than him.

Kaana grew up to a single mother. Kaana was always curious about who her father was, what he was like, his appearance and what he felt about his daughter. Kaana’s mother was always reluctant to talk about her father. She would only describe him as having been tall with blue eyes and a nice smile. Her mother would never tell her why her father was not around and so Kaana’s imagination allowed her to believe that he did not love her and he left because of that.

Kaana’s mother never married and the child came of age without a father.

The sun visited her and told her not to despair. Kaana would meet her father eventually, the sun said. Kaana took little comfort in the Sun’s words, but kept them within her and used it to build hope.

Kaana had a natural curiosity about people, how they looked, how they thought and how they chose to make the decisions that they made. Her interests were seemingly an intersection of psychology and philosophy.

When Kaana was of age and pursued her education, she decided to go into psychiatry. She finished a degree in biology and then enrolled in medical school.

Kaana was a good student and excelled. One day as she was taking a course in genetics, she was learning details about physical traits in people and how they are passed down from parent to offspring.

Kaana thought about her mother and how she had pretty blue eyes. Kaana realized that she had brown eyes. In her class, she learned that the probability of two blue-eyed people having a brown-eyed child was essentially zero. Kaana determined that either her mother was lying about who her father was or her mother was not her mother.

She also thought about the fact that her mother was slightly older for someone who had a child at her age. Growing up, Kaana noticed in school that all of the mothers of other children seem to be significantly younger than hers. She thought nothing of it at the time, but in that class learning about genetics, Kaana began to realize that something was not right.

Unable to fight off her curiosity, Kaana went and took a genetic test. She obtained a piece of her mom‘s hair from her hairbrush and took a sample of her own hair and had them both tested. When she got the results, Kaana discovered with horror that her mother was not her mother.

Before she decided to reveal this to the woman who raised her, Kaana read through the report to learn more about herself. She studied her ancestral lineage, possible genetic conditions, and other aspects about a person that can be learned through DNA. She did the same with her mother‘s DNA. The disparity in their genomic make up was extremely wide. Kaana began to wonder about all those years that she spent being angry about not having a father and now she realized that she also never had a mother.

Kaana hesitated to to confront her mother because she was the person who raised and cared for her. There was a natural attachment that bound Kaana to her. Weeks and then months went by and Kaana did not say anything, unable to come up with the words.

Then one day she received a notification from the company that performed the genetics test. Apparently her biological father had submitted his DNA to a database and technicians were able to match him to her. Kaana learned about his identity and while she hesitated to tell her mother about what she had discovered, she did not hesitate to go find her father.

She arrived at his home and knocked on the door. An old man with gray hair and brown eyes answered. Kaana told him who she was, and immediately he threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly. So much personal history in that moment converged for Kaana and her father. She had connected with a man who for so long she had been angry with and despised.

Father and daughter went inside his house and they began to catch up on all the years that they missed. Her father told her how he had spent decades looking for her. He told her about being abducted by a woman and how he was forced to conceive a child with another woman who was also kidnapped. It was such an absurd and fantastical story that Kaana could hardly believe it. But she had the DNA to prove it. The man showed her news accounts about what had happened to him. She was also thrilled to know that he, too, pursued medicine and was a doctor.

Her father then told her about Kaana’s biological mother and about the damage the abduction had caused. Her father immediately contacted her mother and arranged a reunion. Father and daughter arrived at the woman’s doorstep. An older woman open the door with brown eyes. The woman recognized the man as the one who had fathered a child with her against their will. The father introduced Kaana as the woman’s child. The woman broke down and hugged the child deeply with the same intensity as her father did previously.

The three then sat down and had a conversation. Kaana’s mother and father told the story about what happened. Her mother had a much longer story as she spent more time being abducted by the woman who raised Kaana. Throughout this conversation and the connection that she continued to build with her biological parents, Kaana came to despise, and then hate the woman who raised her.

With her parents’ testimony, and with the genetic evidence, Kaana set out to have her parents’ abductor arrested and prosecuted. With the overwhelming proof, police arrested the woman and was in the process of taking her to trial. Amidst this process, the woman died. An autopsy revealed that she had suffered a massive stroke.

Kaana was surprised to find herself deeply saddened and struck with grief. That natural attachment emerged as she thought the woman loved her despite being a bad person. Kaana’s hatred of the woman waned to a degree though she could never again see her as a mother.

Kaana decided at that moment to channel her energy into building a life with her newfound parents.

Though she was reunited with them, Kaana felt unsure about what the future held. She just knew that now she could at least move forward.

As a young child, Ecclefoyle was fascinated with the healing process. Whenever he received a cut or a scrape or a bruise, he watched methodically as every day the physical ailment would slowly return to its original state. He found even more fascinating the process of scarring. Whenever a cut was deep , the skin would slowly heal and leave behind scar tissue. It was almost a reminder that there was once a wound there.

His obsession with these processes lead to a career in medicine. Ecclefoyle became a doctor and an expert on serious physical injuries. After finishing school and the required residencies, Ecclefoyle became a trauma surgeon.

As he was when he was a child, Ecclefoyle continued to be captivated on the injury and recovery process. Even after his schooling, he continued to research, seeking better methods and strategies for improving the path to healing for his patients.

While in the early stages of a successful career, one day, Ecclefoyle was approached by a woman who wore a mask and was brandishing a gun. She ordered him to get into a vehicle blindfolded and she took him to a house in an unfamiliar location. At gunpoint, she forced him into the house and gave him an absurd ultimatum. There was another woman in the house who had also been kidnapped and his kidnapper demanded that he and the woman conceive a child.

After much arguing and refusal, Ecclefoyle and the other victim eventually relented as the woman threatened to kill them. Over the course of several days and weeks, they attempted to conceive a child and eventually the woman became pregnant. Once the pregnancy was confirmed, the man’s kidnapper blindfolded him and drove him back to his island city and set him free.

Ecclefoyle tried to help police to track down the woman who kidnapped him as well as the mother of the child he helped conceive. Their attempts to locate her were not successful.

When he was free of his ordeal, Ecclefoyle discovered that some injuries were not easy to overcome. When the body is hurt, it recovers, sometimes returning to its previous state and sometimes leaving behind a scar. He discovered that emotional trauma is much harder to heal as scars are not present as with the body. Because of that, he never knew if he had ever fully recovered from what happened.

Ecclefoyle returned to work and did his best to continue with his profession as a surgeon. While he continue to do good work and helped many patients in his career, he was no longer satisfied with what he was doing. The grief of knowing that there was a child out there that he had conceived and who he did not know tormented him.

After many years as a surgeon, Ecclefoyle decided that he could no longer do the work as a healer because he was too affected by what had happened to him. And even though he quit his job while he was still middle-aged, Ecclefoyle had amassed large amount of wealth enabling him to retire early. Unable to fight off his grief, he set out to find his child.

He hired private investigators. He himself researched similar crimes in the area where he had been kidnapped. He interviewed anyone and everyone he could find that was in the region on the day. He wanted to learn any details about what had happened. But none of it paid off, and he was not able to find his kidnapper.

Ecclefoyle then began to focus on finding the unfortunate woman with whom he had to conceive the child. As with his kidnapper, he could not locate her. With help from other medical peers, Ecclefoyle searched databases for women who might have sought medical care nine months after the date he was kidnapped, but he could find nothing. Ecclefoyle also entered his DNA into a voluntary database hoping that someday it would match with his child.

Many years went by. The child would have been an adult by then. One day, as he researched electronic news items about women who were abducted at the same time he was, he found an account of a woman who was mysteriously kidnapped at some point and was eventually set free.

Ecclefoyle tracked the woman down and visited her home. She stared in disbelief but eventually she remembered him: his face, his look, his voice. His fellow victim wept and embraced him. They spent hours and then days talking about what happened. They commiserated over their deeply-embedded grief.

Ecclefoyle began to talk to her about trying to find their child. Even though he had spent many years and much of his wealth trying to find the child, the woman admitted that she did not. Ecclefoyle did not understand her reluctance. What he eventually came to understand was that, unlike physical injuries, when it came to emotions, people healed differently.

Ecclefoyle and the mother maintained contact with each other while he continued to search for their child. His wound never completely healed, Ecclefoyle continued to spend his life searching for the only thing that could cure it.