The first thing you must do is accept that this is your new life.

This is your only life.

Dwelling in the past, even a little, will not serve you here.

All of that is gone now.

What you see here, with us, is your life.

It will doubtless take you some time to understand this, and more time to accept it.

You will, however, accept it at some point.

We know this because many others before you have been in the same situation and almost all of them eventually accepted it.

We know this because your species is adaptable.

 

Why did I agree to the experiment? Easy.

Money.

Not every day somebody offers me twenty thousand for a month of work.

What we call a no-brainer.

Were they honest up front? Hell no they weren’t. Look at my head. No way would I have agreed if they had been, obviously. You must think I’m an idiot.

Lawsuit? I’ve been approached, believe me. But it’s always the same.

Lawyer gets one look at the contract I signed and that’s it.

Ironclad is the word they use. That’s ironic, isn’t it?

What now? There’s a question for you.

Ha.

The  question.

 

Friday Fictioneers

 

So you boys want me to tell you a story of the Old Days?

Very well.

Before all this you see out here now, the roads and the houses and all the white man’s bullshit, this country was wide open.

There were a few of the whites brave enough to come and try to make a life scratching at the soil, but they didn’t last long.

Sooner or later one of the boys about your age would get insulted by a little square house on the prairie.

Get a couple others with him.

I won’t say what they did after.

 

She said she’d like to go crazy with nothing to do. This was after she figured out I’m gonna keep her locked up in there, maybe forever. She tried to suicide, but I tied her down for a week and she cut it out. Still, she wasn’t so pretty with all that moping, so I looked around. One house I went in had a sewing machine. It didn’t need no electricity and was too heavy for her to lift, so it was about perfect. I hauled it up there and bolted it down tight. Now she’s sewing all the time.