Hold onto Me

Hold onto Me

Short Story

By: Gustavo Simmons

There was a moment where time just became a mere illusion, the perception of self was another mirage which was linked to the sensuous system of the brain. Yesterday comes today, and the future becomes a tangible thing that ceased to exist. Understanding time can be a complex theory, especially when you aren’t attached to it.

Just to think on the multiple timeliness and suddenly “jump” from one point to the other and even recreate the universe when the universe reached the point of extinction. He was a “god” among men, with an impossibility to avoid death, just by resetting the “switch around him” but there were two flaws towards his recreation of the universe the first one being that no matter what, he would return to the age he was on the year he leaped and the second flaw it was that the three people he treasured the most were preset to be lost in the time-stream.

At first he just started to jump on different timelines, different places across the multiverse, it was just an adventure, then he fall in love with a guy who lived in a small countryside town, a very nice guy whom he visited on several occasions; then when tragedy happened and the guy who he fall in love died in his sleep, it was the moment that he realized he could turn back in time and space; essentially creating a new timeline in the preset universe.

The first morning that he went back, he went back further in time, he went to 1996, he was back in Colombia and he found himself back on the sixth grade. He couldn’t believe that he was so far in time, mostly because when he traveled between different coordinates it was only days apart but on different historical settings. Traveling around the continuum always gave him different ideas about how history could turn to be, but doing the feature of resetting a timeline, his own timeline was something he never imagined.

He knew he was born with that ability and every time he traveled he never influenced on any outcomes of the timelines he visited, he just was there to learn about history of the world from different perspectives. What if with the creation of a new timeline, the repercussions would be catastrophic? One life that you save would equal a life that would die? Or for every action you take when the timeline resets you are destined to live a life of misery and solitude?

Yet, he didn’t care, he just wanted to be with him, he wanted to be there for him. He became his anchor to reality, no matter what reality he created he always recreated him. Him, became the person he tried to save, to hold onto after he met his death thousands of times, was alive in each recreation and new timeline.

Still, he was alone, alone in between a sea of people he met and interacted with, and with his out of the world powers he always wanted to go back to him, because with him he was only happy, happy as he never was before.

A Slice of Pizza

A Slice of Pizza

Short Story

By: Gustavo Simmons

A long time ago, there were seven beings who were manifestations of the inner darkest emotions of humanity. Intangible beings, who had the ability to manipulate the emotions of beings… at the end, these beings were sent to the mortal plane to live an existence of life and death because of the sins the committed and the sins they turned.

Lust, Wrath, Pride, Gluttony, Envy, Greed and Sloth were among us, among humanity. The cycle came every 90 years; all of them would live and die on the same day and time, the only exception was that all they were going to be born on different locations around the world but after 20 years of living they would gather on one random place and live near of the same city or country.

That was the mythos of the Seven, a mythos that everyone over time forgot. Yet, two of them were eating a pizza on the outskirts of Tampa, Florida.

It was a Sunday, January the 6^th of 2002. They didn’t have a name; but they were old friends and brothers, part of the cabal. Two of the they, Pride and Wrath were sitting as they did for eons. On this life, Pride was born in North Carolina, while Wrath was born in Colombia. They look as they could be related but their flesh was far away from being related. Pride was tall and skinny, he had many tattoos based on Star Wars and The Legend of Zelda; Wrath was short and stubby, almost physically inept. Yet, they were two of the most powerful beings in the universe, each of them able to manipulate emotions and life beyond death.

“It’s been a while my brother, how did you discovered this place?”

“Cappy’s? I used to come here when I was younger on this life. Probably one of the best pizzerias in Tampa”

“I see” Said Wrath while eating a slice of cheese.

“Do you think the population will accept the new order in world?”

“No, they will revolt again. It will happen a similar scenario that repeats itself every 110 years”

“Explain yourself” Said Pride.

“Franz Ferdinand, Kennedy, just to name a few. Humanity, even in some way we are part of it, it always finds a way to go forward, we as beings who are able to exist beyond death, beings who are agents that manipulate humanity to achieve certain future, we can’t control them, we can’t even control the outcomes” Replied Wrath while cleaning his mouth.

 “You are right, much of the time, we can only sit down and enjoy this show while we eat pizza. I wonder what is on the news right now?”

“Who knows, but I heard there is a bloody protest on Washington D.C. and Ereshkigal is having a feast of souls right now”

Wrath just simply smiled.

The Dharma Incentive

The Dharma Incentive

Short Story

By:

Gustavo Simmons

There was a cosmic order between the chaos that ruled the universe; yet, dying seemed to be impossible. The memories of thousands of other lives, where we achieved conscious were still there, the problem became that a being who had no name, a being who ruled the principles of the multiverse, “the one who was above all” placed as a rule No being would remember, unless that person has achieved some form of Nirvana, even so that being was beyond the Samsara.

Why I can remember? Every single dead, every single moment of agony, the moment of birth, even so this Kami was playing a cruel joke as there was no faith, nor enlighten coming from my part. I was a man who lacked faith, a man who believed in the principles of entropy and chaos as a standalone concept beyond any divine principles; nevertheless, every single memory of my life was as a playback.

There was a catch, every single moment of reincarnation I was again myself. I was the person who was, the person who remembered from the experiences, the person who committed suicide and the person who died in the riots of 2017 while protesting in the White House on December 12^th. I was sent to the same point in time, April 22^nd of 1984, it was fixed, it was set, born in the same city in Colombia, born near the ocean, living the same point in time for 23 years.

23 years in which there was some form of prison, a prison without walls, just a prison with geographical boundaries. The rules of the cosmos where punishing me for something that after reliving the same moments over and over but with different outcomes before death.

Death is such a sweet treasure, is such a beautiful moment in which we are not bounded to the planes of existence, we just cease to exist on the flesh and we transform into a metaphysical concept that is just far away beyond comprehension. What a beautiful moment, indeed it is, yet birth is more painful, is such a pain; the overload stimuli is just worse than anything else.

After death, there is birth, the world is brand a new, the world is such an amazing place when you are child, still when you have the memories of a 37-year-old man inside a 7-year-old body, no one will take you seriously even if they consider you past beyond your years. What a burden is to live, but what a burden is to always remember everything, yet to live to the fullest and not to fill emotions.

Why this being that knows everything keeps punishing me? Sending me back to the same moment in time to make me have faith and “help” achieve the precious gift of death? Probably is an eternal punishment because I didn’t hesitate to take the precious gift he gave to everyone, life. I never minded, I seriously never minded life. You could take it with just a bullet, a knife or your hands. You could ruin a life by playing with someone’s emotions and feel no remorse.

I violated the Dharma; at least that is the term I like to use, the basic principles of the cosmos that were given by Lord Buddha, and they weren’t that difficult because “it” hated when someone denied his existence… I was punished because I was an offender of the Dharma, of the Commandments or whatever you want to call it.