Pasta-Gal

  Tom Annoys meIt is that point of the year, a middle ground, not quite spring but it is no longer winter. The pnts are budding yet the winter winds still snap through the air. I sit alone in a dark room, rhythmic music echoing through my ears. Dawn approaches. The music washes over my mind allowing me to rex into an elevated trance.

  For months now I have woken early in the morning to perform this simple ritual of communing with the unknown. It started out infrequently as I was clueless as to what I was doing not fully understanding the complexity of what others might just view as simple meditation. But as I became more experienced I kept doing it more and more to the point where I was reaching out to things science couldn’t quite expin almost everyday.

  I find myself alone in a vast lush forest. It is unorthodox but I have no purpose or goal while here I simply wander exploring the forest and interacting with anything I may find. I enjoy the thrill of encountering something or someone I had no intention to, however dangerous it might be. While walking I stumble upon a stream and decided to follow it.

  It is where the creek passed under a rge boulder that I encountered him. An owl sat upon the rock. Its form flickered between that of a squirrel and a humanoid spectral form. It emitted a familiar smell that elicited memories of a friend that has long since passed from the mortal world. My friend Tom, a brilliant civil engineer. While alive Tom helped tutor many other students and likely single handedly kept many students out of what he liked to refer to as “the fail zone”.

  His thoughts flooded my mind. He wished to keep sharing his knowledge with others but now that he was without a physical form he had no way to do that. Until now. He wanted to make a deal, he would provide me with protection from more… devious spirits in exchange for allowing him to help students in their quest to avoid failure. Thinking it sounded pretty fair since that would mean I could continue wandering around the forest without needing to fear what lurked around each tree, I accepted.

  I wake up in bed even more tired than I usually am. I roll out of bed and my foot nds on a rge stack of papers which I don’t remember putting there. I move through the day on the verge of colpse as if I haven’t slept in days, which can’t be the case I know I have been sleeping… right? When csses are over and I return home I set up to once again enter the otherworldly forest.

  Not long into wandering the woods I come upon the owl once again. It asks me if the notes proved useful to the other students. Confused, I ask what he means. He describes the rge stack of bedside papers saying I was supposed to pass those out as per our agreement. Further saying he worked quite hard pulling an all nighter to get all of that written down.

  My sleep deprived brain slowly started to fit together what was happening and then it clicked. That's why I’ve been so tired tely! Tom has been using my body at night while I was sleeping to write his silly little notes. Upon realizing this I quickly state to Tom that our deal is off and we’re going to need to find another way for him to help out because if this keeps up I’ll be joining Tom real soon.

  After a riveting argument I manage to convince Tom to let me set him up a shrine under his favorite tree on campus so that through that he might be able to help without giving me sleep deprivation.

  Over time the small shrine grows as more people have benefited from Tom’s gift and it seems that at least for now no students are entering “the fail zone”.

  Jeffery Preston Bezos gets Coronated with help from godAlthough the state of the campus has remained retively constant, if not slightly better since the introduction of The Shrine of Tom, the same can not be said for the rest of the world. Who’d have figured the end of the world would be brought about by a series of probably unreted robberies of big tech companies. You would think they would have back ups or something to ensure things stayed afloat, but turns out just a few missing chips can shut down basically the whole internet and with it almost all of modern life.

  And while I am certainly quite annoyed by this development as I have to miss out on my favorite weekly web show “Neoptonism Tuesdays- hosted by Albert Simmons” I have learned that I can fix this. Probably. If I’m lucky. I draw up my handy dandy neoptonic map developed by plotinus.

  I know that if I meditate just right I can travel through the different levels of reality starting with Physis then Psyche then Nous and finally En. And if I managed to make it all the way to En the highest most pure state I could will all of these problems away.

  And so I begin my studies to purify my soul. It is a long and grueling process taking many days but eventually I find myself ready to make that change and manifest that better world and better me.

  I successfully navigate through the rings elevating my soul closer to the highest form of power. And finally when I feel a great aura of purity I enact my pn to reshape the world back to civility. I visit each of the tech companies that got stolen from Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon. Ensuring their global dominance continues for ages more.

  When I descended back into the world of Physis something seemed off. Things should be back to normal but there I sat in my burning down house which now had even more fmes. Upon thinking further perhaps restoring power to three of the most powerful companies was not the best use of divine intervention as it seems to have definitely made things worse. I hear a pne fly overhead sporting a rge banner behind it reading “All hail Lord Bezos, ruler of Earth”. Yeah definitely not a good use of my skills.

  Norse Alphabet Saves Small Vilge From PovertyThere were 10 long years of rule under Bezos’ iron fist but his empire soon fell and with it what little remained of society. Cities went into disrepair, rge swathes of the popution starved with colpsing infrastructure.

  I was lucky shortly after the colpse I had found a group of people all with invaluable skills that could help guide us forward. Unfortunately though for some unknown reason they decided to put me in charge. Perhaps they thought my vast pools of trivia would prove useful in a post apocalyptic world.

  After living nomadically for around a year we find the remains of a small town that we believe could serve us well for years. But with this shift came new challenges, farming became an invaluable necessity but the spirits had not been kind to us drought had made its way into the region and the crops grew thin and weak.

  I struggle to guide the people in the right direction, unclear on the best course of action. I hear talk of the people choosing a new leader to guide them. Part of me agrees as I never felt I was right for the role in the first pce but my pride has become too great. I have led the people right so far there's no way I will step down now. Lucky for me a blessing would soon appear to help ease the tension.

  The caws of ravens echoed loud this day, at times it became deafening. I sat outside listening to them. Across the grassy field sat two ravens who seemed to be staring straight at me. The unease they instilled within me caused me to leave the comfort of my chair and go take a walk around the town. It was midsummer and we had managed to gather enough basic resources to start reconstruction of some of the rger buildings. I look around and from the corner of my eye I spot a figure walking across the field towards me. As he gets closer I begin to recognize some of the features, he reminds me of an old teacher I had in highschool, Mr. Adams. He approaches walking with a long staff that sharpens out at one end and one of his eyes is missing. He asks me if we might be able to speak, he wishes to show me something. I am hesitant as this man who resembles Mr. Adams just suddenly shows up and asks to have a private talk with me. I’m not the brightest but I know that an offer like that is suspicious.

  Fortunately the conversation is more informative than I initially figured. Mr. Adams has taken up the ancient Norse arts of Galdr and Seidcraft since the colpse of the world. And they have guided him to me in order to share the gift so I may rule more effectively. I accepted his offer and for the next year, he showed me how to use the runes, a norse alphabet called the Elder Futhark with them he helped ease the drought and the harvest size grew steadily with his help to the point where now we had too much food. But not long after a year suddenly he vanished. I'm not entirely sure why but my guess is that he went in search of more to spread his esoteric wisdom with.

  The runes became a powerful resource, I used them for many purposes, to bless the hunters before going out, to help the crops grow great and bountiful, even using them for the occasional cssic fart prank.

  Not long after I became comfortable with these esoteric arts a threat arises. There are rumors of vandals and thieves attacking other nearby settlements. The vilgers become loud and filled with fear. I need to do something.

  I look through my notes on what I could possibly do to protect the settlement. I stumble upon notes detailing 18 charms of Galdr and one of them includes cooling the tempers of others. While it is a bit of a stretch perhaps if I make this charm the thieves will be too calm to want to damage our vilge. And so I get all the preparations to make the runes and the charm, caving the symbols into a wood card so that altogether they will represent the protection of the vilge.

  Days go by and the rumors of the gang of thugs slowly dissipate. New rumors pop up saying that they suddenly just stopped in the middle of a robbery a few days ago and ever since they've been peaceful. With the safety of the Vilge I look to the future for what new adventures may await me.