The Orangade

Being a student of a class of Orangi aspiring scientists of The Orangade Galaxy, we were assigned a collaboration project, to test our capabilities, using all knowledge gathered, while also helping our interplanetary citric people: we had to study the Great Orange Meteorite, the one made of the skin of my folk, identified as an other humanoid race's doing, The Founders. Together, we, the class, were driven by the same goal, to study the circuits of our creation, the origins of our artificial intelligence and our bodies' way of producing another algorithm for our future children...

While in the interplanetary vehicle, a thought dawned on me: the result of this project will greatly impact my career, and also my people. Any mistake could eliminate the chance to discover the reason for our existence, and with it my dream of becoming a researcher, passionate about science...

Cooperation was essential.

Things went better than expected: we discovered a document delivered in binary form, a form present in our algorithms. Out of nowhere appeared a dark, massive silhouette. Its beige skin revealed by Nora, the main star of the solar system we were in's light, was extraoranji, similar to our science-fiction writings. I then notice its humanoid structure, its face, eyes, nose, ears, locomotor system, and others, which all indicated to similar origins to ours... “A Founder!”, I shouted. He approached us, took our document and burnt it in front of our very eyes using his thermally-adjustable glove. He left us there, petrified by what had just happened!

Our discovery alarmed The Orangade. We passed and graduated, but our folk is now troubled by curiosity and the mystery behind our origins, our existential crisis...

Bread

 I am a baker. People tell me what I bake is not dough. Although it all looks the same to me and all I cook for enjoy my bread.

 I am always confused as to why so many neglect my dough and why they show me pictures of me making it. They all use weird words, which all mean dough. I have always been cooking it and my mother always supported me, so she sent me to a special school. There I baked more and many loved my dough.

 Nobody ever wanted to work with me, which was always very confusing. I never understood this weird love and hate for my dough, and every time I read newspapers I see the same thing: “amazing new concept of dough”, which always confuses me, since I never think I did anything different, and “horrific”, “dog”, “blood”, “cat”, “living beings”. Why everybody blames me for making bread of living beings is confusing. They are dough beings, of different sizes. Bakers always cook dough, and so do I. To avoid the other bakers and people arguing with what I do, I go at midnight and collect my usual dough. From special places where they grow it or houses where they keep it. I always get out their collars and then mash them with my rolling pin. I then cook it with love in the morning and sell it.

 My bakery has gone up in flames two times. I was informed it wasn't of natural causes, but the arsonists were never found.

 Would you eat my bread?

Attraction Distraction

Four lines. Three turn into congruent isosceles triangles, their sides larger than the base. The fourth turns into a square.

The first triangle turns green, the second purple, and the third yellow. The square turns blue.

A big red circle appears and attracts the three triangles. They stick to it. In their distraction, three little white circles, camouflaged with the paper, steal the blue square, their priceless possession. They finally notice after the circle turned pink, then light green. They press onto the circle, compressing it into a small circle, and they start to throw it. Eventually, it grows back. The fight begins.

The circle breaks in four sectors, three of them each going towards a triangle, while the fourth is drawing something. The green triangle detaches its top section and from its inside comes out a missile, heading towards the attacking sector. It dodges it but the missile reaches the sector attacking the yellow triangle, breaking it into shards. The yellow triangle puts the shards inside it after removing its top and forms a sword, heading for the sector attacking the purple triangle. It gets split in half, and the newly forms sectors stick to the sector attacking the green triangle, as if they were arms. The triangles successfully dodge some attacks before the yellow triangle manages to cut the main body in two. It then doesn't hesitate to cut it into shards.

The fourth sector has been drawing a big square, and inside appear the three white sector with the blue square. The yellow triangle quickly breaks the last sector and breaks the big square for the others to come in and ambush. They manage to catch two circles and the last is broken by the yellow triangle. The other triangles throw the white circles. The triangles and the square leave to sit , eternally, in peace, on the paper.

Wet Cold Tissue

A wet tissue. On cold metal. The tissue spreads on the surface beneath, sinking into the thin sponge hidden down below, whilst also not soaking. Black surrounds all, and there is nothing beneath the cold metal cube to hold it. It floats, though still, through the void, not moving. It seems as if it were anchored in some 3D program. Then, he comes.

He who wears no clothes, he who is warm, floating, moving through the cold black, towards the metal cube, and embraces it, mixing the boiling heat and the freezing cold together. He who feels the wet cold of the tissue on his right ear, slowly soaking, absorbing into his ear, reaching deeper and deeper. He likes it and doesn't hold back. A water drop is heard. Water drops start dripping through a hole through in the middle of the metal cube's bottom, dripping from the spongy inside, reaching what looked like a liquid surface 5 meters below, returning to the solid, invisible, transparent, inexistent state, until another one drops 5 seconds after. After 10 drops, he closes his eyes in pain, darkness in front of his eyes, and says: “My ears stopped working”. He suddenly shakes, nervously, suddenly, every 5 seconds, precisely 2.4 seconds after each water drop. After 5 drops, 3.7 seconds after the latest, he detaches from the metal cube and floats in the opposite direction through the cold black, looking scared at it.

Apple

Look at this apple as I am holding it with both of my hands in front of you in the dark cellar dimly lit by the candle on the desk behind me. Study its red color, with shades of light green, attracting the caged creature hidden away by darkness in the corner close to you. Feel its weight by studying through the power of vision in this cellar, ignoring the spiralling staircase going upstairs at the back end wall.

Birthday

It really is, no joke, my birthday today lol

The egg lies on the luxurious sofa, pouring champagne into his yolk through a funnel on its head while I enter the living room: it is my birthday. The egg turns towards me and raises the glass of champagne. I pick another glass from the wooden table and we drink. The orange enters the room, carrying a cake. It then smashes it into its head and sings the Happy Birthday song.

From near the table comes the chair, accompanied by Lucy, smiling happily. A Romanian Beaver slowly approaches us from the hallway of the luxurious mansion. A leashed large as a zeppelin shark is brought up into the ceiling of the living room, swimming through the air. Detective Rainbow looks at everything from a corner, as he has informed me he is working on another case, carefully examining everybody's feelings. A creepy man is watching a video with a 3D airplane flying and a pumpkin with crystal eyes is looking at us. Three 1 cubic meter long dice arrive, late to the party, each accompanied by their partner: a garlic glove, a pencil sharpener and a piece of orange skin. The remote spirit is observing us from above.

We dance, listening to vaporwave, naturally (my birthday, my music ;P) until the night arrives. We bring the orange, and he attaches a firework to himself and we all go to the rooftop, from where we send him flying through the sky. The firework then explodes and forms an orange on the sky while we all applaud.

“Listen everyone!”, I say as everybody turns around me. “I want to thank you all for taking part in the celebration of my birthday! You truly are wonderful friends!”. Everybody cheers and sings Happy Birthday. This really is a moment to cherish.

The Adventures of a Chair, Chapter IV

The Adventures of a Chair

Chapter IV

Enemy Territory

I hope you enjoy the ending of The Adventures of a Chair! This was fun!! Read the others here: Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter III.

Lucy looks in shock at the chair. Wo... work? Pa... papers? Where is everything?? Where is she?

The chair knows her questions. “No matter”, he says. “We are leaving.”

Lucy is confused. Who is this chair and what does it want from her?

The chair goes towards the back of the classroom and looks at a map of the world. Focusing its mind on it, the continents move. On a small island are the 128 soldiers moving the island towards the continent formed from the rest: enemy territory. A little piece of land is behind the trajectory of the island: the abandoned homeland. The homeland is no more, being the Object World. The island is what is now, the Human World, and the enemy territory what is to be, the goal, any other world, or place. A fight is to arrive and the enemy territory is closer and closer to the approaching island.

Lucy is still near the greenboard and looks in shock at the entrance of the classroom, from where a shark appears, swimming as if air was its water. The soldiers have arrived on the enemy territory and are raiding an enemy camp. The chair took the decision to fight and it will now fight. But he will now protect Lucy, the goddess.

The shark heads for Lucy who looks scared at the shark. Near the greenboard sit 5 pieces of chalk: one long, brand new, two medium-sized ones and two little cubes, barely even usable. The chair controls the long, brand new chalk piece towards it, penetrating the shark's insides in the process. It then pushes the chalk piece back towards the greenboard and pierces the shark again. It falls to the ground. The chair goes towards Lucy. Lucy looks at the chair, trembling. “We need to move”, says the chair. Lucy sits on the chair and the chair leaves the school.

Outside is a grotesque view: Lucy and the chair are in the “enemy territory”. It looks like the Human World, except the sky is dark red and sharks are swimming everywhere through the thin air. Every human is running everywhere, trying to save their skin. But little do they know they are not living in the normal world, like their separate identities are.

Out of nowhere appears a giant chicken and swallows Lucy, and leaves. The chair needs to find Lucy. The chair closes its eyes. Everything turns dark. Opening its eyes in the darkness that is now surrounding him, he sees the enemy camp shaping in full size. His soldiers are... dying. Fighting, but losing. Is all hope lost? Is this it?

The darkness suddenly breaks as out of the dark red sky appears a shark and swallows the chair. And everything turns dark again. But now there is no enemy camp. Just dead soldiers. The journey is over. There is no more Lucy. There is no more Object World, Human World, Enemy World... just darkness.

Meet Henry. He is wearing a cardboard cubic box on its head. In the box are his head, a can of spilt soda, an egg, a map, chalk, a shark plushie, a doll, an apple, a coin, a miniature chicken and a miniature chair. Everybody tried talking to Henry, but he would never answer. He wouldn't move, but he still lives. So nobody bothers him. But to him, these objects have a meaning. To him, these objects have a story. Here we have the spilt soda a chair dived in, an egg a chair fought, a map a chair looked at, chalk a chair used, a shark a chair fought, a doll a chair cared for, an apple a chair used, a coin a chair received, a chicken a chair hated and... a chair. Together they created The Adventures of a Chair, a story only spoken to him, by the life of objects.