society Archives - The Cracked Door

The Interplanetary Lawnmowers (A Short Story)

He had passed the interview and now had a job. His mind wondered on the rocket ship as it was speeding through space. His other colleagues weren’t really talking, so he was alone with his thoughts. He was glad to finally find work. Now he could pay his bills and afford school for his daughter.

He was an Interplanetary Lawn Serviceman. Or, that was the job title they had given them. Some wealthier person in her nice home on a distant planet had hired them to cut her lawn and trim her hedges. Why did she need to fly them several millions of kilometers away just to do that? He didn’t really care enough to think about that. He was just glad he was going to get a paycheck.

As they entered the planet’s atmosphere, he was struck by how large its sun was from here. This planet must have had a much closer orbit than his. He had never seen anything like it. It covered the three quarters of the sky in a big radiating ball of yellow.

They landed on the surface and prepared to dock. He immediately felt the heat. Covered in a thick suit, the several thousand degrees only felt like a 100 or 110 F (40s in C), like he was sitting on a tanning bed, but that was still very hot for his body.

In front of him was a large home. It looked like all the others he’d expect from the suburbs of hiis home planet. A large panel house with a garage, and a little street connecting it to the other homes in the small neighborhood. A small patio with a few plants desperately clinging to life sat there. In the back was a nearly impeccable green lawn, an almost perfect square. Kept nicely despite subtle coats of brownish planetary dust.

In the horizon lay a barren hellscape of dust and sand. Some of it had melted in the heat, leading to small streams of molten sand flowing into molten lakes. These had carved out little dunes around them. The shifting sands ended harshly at her lawn, where, except for little sprinklings of dust, formed an impeccable boundary between the planet and this suburb. The suburban town looked like an oasis of order within the oozing planet.

His manager motioned to get to work. His one colleague started mowing the lawn, while another took care of the hedges and plants on the patio to try to keep them alive. He took the special blower he had been given and blew the planetary dust back into the wasteland.

After a few minutes of this meditative work, all the dust he so meticulously blew off her lawn started falling into a lava stream crevice. At the edge of the property he started to feel the same wind that must have swept them up, trying to suck him down the ravine as well.

Out of nowhere a windstorm stood in front of them: a wall of brown dust. His manager was sounding the warning. They were all to get into the rocket ship as soon as possible. He managed to turn around, but he could barely move. He shouted as the ship boarded and took off without him. Unable to take any steps towards it.

Then suddenly the wind flipped in the other direction. The vortex had gotten closer. It launched him straight towards the house. The rocket ship taking off spun out of control in this new current and careened hundreds of kilometers into the horizon. Fate unknown.

He crashed into a big glass window, clearly built to enable the residents to look out at the planet’s beautiful barren landscape even during a fierce storm. He tried knocking on the window, desperate to get their attention, but the wind trapped him. Where were they? He managed to move his hand up to the window. An extra strong blast of wind smashed it into the glass, shattering it. His body forced through the window and landed harshly against the wall on the couch.

His hand was broken, but magically his suit was fine. Any exposure of the elements to his skin would instantly kill him. He climbed against the wind to round the corner of the hallway. Once he entered the hallway, the wind knocked him over and right into the wall in the bedroom.

That’s where he saw her. The owner, lying there dead on the bed. She must have died in her sleep, and judging by the age of the corpse, it must have been a months ago.

Why were they servicing a dead lady’s lawn? He didn’t have much time to think about that, though, as the house collapsed above him. He had punctured its seal against storms like these, and now the wind crumpled its foundations.

The accountant skimmed through her report. There was an unforeseen weather event. The rocket ship and crew and equipment all got destroyed. The potential of this was nothing the company hadn’t already accounted for and insured. The filing for that was pretty routine.

The house had been destroyed, however. This was more complicated. They now had to contact the owner to try to see whether she would like a change in service. After many attempts to reach her, she had not responded. The latest crew was sent to knock on her door and ask her in-person. Her account still had autopay, set up to her bank and brokerage account, so they would supply a service to as long as she continued to pay.

She didn’t know this but wondered even if something happened to the lady, how much interest was accruing from her stock portfolio in this account. The lady probably could fund the considerable money for these lawn service fees in perpetuity.

The accountant noticed a few reports from this planet: it seemed to be getting hotter with more extreme weather. She would log this in the book for her manager to review. She had already done it a few times with the other cases, but she knew he was busy. He would get to it when he could. If the planet gets too close to the sun, their insurance will no longer cover the trips given the increased expense associated with extreme weather, and they will have to withdraw from the service. Usually there is a lag of several months, but eventually their insurance figures that out and demands they pull the service to the planet. That forces her manager to finally act.

Meanwhile, she looked at the rocket ships planning to go out in the coming weeks. Each one for a different lawn. Would they have been more efficient if they pulled into one visit? Probably, but the cost to have them come on their chosen day according to their schedule ultimately goes to the owners of the homes, and they don’t seem to mind. The company not only gets more revenue from single trips like this and can use that to hire more lawn service workers and build more rocket ships. This leads to its stock price going up. She wonders, though, what it would be like to be on one of these ships.

(If you would like to read more short stories, you can browse them here.)

The Fight Between Chaos and Tyranny (A Short Story)

When the world was formed, there were two evil goddesses. One was Chaos who represented destruction and anarchy, and the other Tyranny who wanted order and control.

They clashed, their fights forming the mountains, valleys, and other things of this world. Chaos wanted to see the world splinter, and tyranny sought the power to dominate and subdue the earth.

They were stuck forever in lockstep, fighting with a ferocity that shook the very foundations of the world. The creatures of the earth ran, fearing what would come of this place.

Their fight raged for centuries with no end in sight, until Tyranny had an idea. She saw how the creatures fled from them and took one that was particularly to her liking: humans.

They were smart enough to know tyranny and to desire control and domination. This made them predictable and able to be used for her purposes. Yet, they also hated any order imposed on them so much that they looked to Chaos to keep them from being subdued by others.

Tyranny realized the way to finally win against Chaos after all was to incorporate her. Normally the system she built would become too controlled, and the humans would invite Chaos into their communities to break free from it.

But before that could happen, she invited Chaos to invade her people’s neighbors by whipping her army into a frenzy of anger and hatred and sending them to attack an unsuspecting neighboring community. Chaos took the bait and joined in the revelry of war, helping the army to consume the people in a chaotic fury. Once weakened, she would swallow this new community into her rising empire.

She would repeat this again and galvanized her community around her as it rallied against each new foe. Chaos’s fury would unleash, but she could control its bounds and use it to advance her system.

Every once in a while, chaos would turn inside her community. Maybe her people would turn against their oppressive King or the King would become paranoid and try to wipe out a part of her people. But that was okay. Each of these was like a cleansing purge, allowing the built up sense of feelings and drives within the community to burn away in the cleansing fire of chaotic conflict. For there were always power-hungry humans she could manipulate into taking power back once this fire of chaos had burnt through this fuel.

This is how she advanced onto the world. She not only took over more human communities but also the animals and plants, as her empire and the new empires sprouting around it to compete engulfed the world. She cut them down into a regimented system controlled by the humans. No longer was she at odds with her goddess equal Chaos. Instead, she walked hand and in hand with her, knowing how useful she was in building her system of control.

That is, until humans took control of the whole world and destroyed the very resources of the world. That is when Chaos knew she would have the last laugh as she got to rebuild it anew.

(If you would like to read more short stories, you can browse them here.)

Going to the Cemetery (A Short Story)

It all started the day my parents moved us to the cemetery to save money. We would hide here among the stones at night and beg out in the streets during the day.

We had nothing, but the little we had decreased every day. On the streets, most people would ignore us as they walked by. I would walk along the path looking for someone who might at least speak with me or do anything but stare straight ahead as if I did not exist.

No one chooses to sleep in a cemetery. Only us and the untold dead.

I saw a former classmate walk down the street. I shouted and followed him. After several blocks he turned around to acknowledge me. I could see the horror and sadness in his face as he had looked at what I had become.

It got worse overtime. We got less and less energy. We would beg closer to the cemetery and eventually just along the road right outside. Few people came by here, but we couldn’t make it much further. Our bodies wasted into our skeletons as we got more and more desperate for food.

Sometimes we couldn’t even muster the ability to leave the cemetery. We just sat there looking into the city that had treated us as if we were already dead.

(If you would like to read more short stories, you can browse them here.)

What Is Power: Three Understandings of Power in Society

I have spoken to two friends who each have offered an interesting take on what it means to be in a position of power in society.

One friend said that he sometimes thinks of power in terms of who has to bear the consequences of mistakes: Those who are powerful in society (whether through wealth, status, clout, etc.) only have to suffer from their own mistakes; whereas, a less powerful person is someone much more they likely will have to suffer from both their mistakes and the mistakes of those who have power over them.

I find this to be true: the more marginalized in society can often be disproportionately hurt by the bad decisions of others, whether that be governmental policies, managers/employers, or whoever.

Another friend added that the powerful are often shielded from their own mistakes. The wealthy can often afford to make more mistakes with their money and still have more resources to try again, for example. Often those with lower incomes have less leniency to take risks and make mistakes. And when the extremely powerful make mistakes, governments or society itself can often swoop in to save them, considering their success necessary for society to keep going. The less powerful usually get no such luxury.

So, power can offer protection from the mistakes of others and also a cushion from your own mistakes: a type of protective layer if you will.

In addition to liking both of these definitions, I also see power in terms of being forced to understand the perspectives of others in order to be successful in your endeavors in life. Those with less power are often forced to have to understand and consider the perspectives of those with power over them in order to meet their own goals.

The powerful can remain ignorant of what those with less power than them think. They don’t have to consider others’ perspective to be successful in what they seek.

And many with power don’t: they never cultivate the skills necessary to listen to, learn from, and incorporate the perspective of those with less power than them, because they don’t have to. In some cases, overtime, they don’t foster the skills of listening or empathy, becoming used to dictating to others who listen to them.

For them, listening is a choice, in contrast to those with less power for whom listening is often a necessity. Thus, the powerful’s listening skills can atrophy over the course of their lives because they do not choose to cultivate it.

All of these definitions have merits, approaching the similar aspects of what it means to have power from different angles. Each demonstrates the nuances of how power shields people from the harmful impacts of others and oneself like a protective bubble. And from each, there is something important to learn.

No matter where you are in life, it can be important to choose to listen and do what it takes to learn from the perspectives of others. Like the first definition implies, this includes thinking about how your actions may hurt or otherwise negatively impact those around you. If you are in a position where you are not doing that regularly, that could likely be because you actually have a type of power in that situation. If you are not intentionally listening to others and incorporating them into your life, then you should start doing so, before those skills atrophy.

The Bike (A Short Story)

So one day over the summer, my friend and I were leaving my house. We got bored playing video games.

Outside was parked my bike, a really nice mountain bike. It was gray with rear shock-absorbers and like twenty gears. You could ride over just about anything on a trail. I had just got it, and it was barely used. My parents had found it at a garage sale, and it was only a few months old. The newest bike I had ever had.

He walked up to the bike, “Wow, this is a nice bike. Can I give it a try?”

“Uhh,” I began to answer, but he was already gone.

He rode around the block, and I saw him again a minute or so later.

“Wait,” I shouted back. “I want to ride it too.”

He continued another lap. His second time around, I ran after him. I only lasted twenty feet, though, before giving up.

“Stop! It’s my bike.”

But he went around again.

I stamped my feet in frustration. That was MY bike, but he just kept going. Why can’t I have my bike back? I rushed inside and did the only thing I could think to do: call the cops. I came back out as he was turning the corner towards the house.

“Nice bike,” he said, getting off and walking it over to me.

As I went to grab it, a police car rode down the street and parked right in front of us. He must have been patrolling in the area or something, because he came around pretty fast.

“I got a call about a bike robbery,” he said from his car seat. Both us stood dead in our tracks.

“Yeah, that was me,” I replied after a few moments of silence. “But I’m fine now. He’s returning it.”

“Well, can I get a brief description for our files.”

He reached into his dashboard and got out a notepad, and I walked around the car next to his door. My friend just stood there on the sidewalk frozen, clutching the bike.

“Look, we’re fine now. He just went off with my bike, but he was only going around the corner. I thought he was stealing it and called you.”

“Okay,” he muttered. His pen was still pressed against his notepad ready to write. He looked up with a tinge of annoyance. “Well, can I at least have your names?”

I gave him mine, and then I gave him my friend’s. The officer’s face suddenly changed. He repeated his last name for confirmation, a new look of concern across his face.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yep,” I said. Why couldn’t he just go away?

He jotted something down in his notepad.

“Well, let me know if you continue to get any trouble from him.”

The cop put the notepad down on the passenger’s seat and drove away. My friend, who had crept over to the car during the conversation, was looking down at the notepad. I managed to steal a glance before the cop drove away. It read his name in big letters along with attempted theft of a bike.

Suddenly everything clicked. The cop recognized his name instantly. His stepfather was a well-known drug dealer in the neighborhood. The police had been looking for any dirt for a while so that they could make a move on him.

With the police car gone, nothing stood between us. He glared at me. He knew what the cop wrote down and why.

“Here’s your bike,” he said, pointing to it behind him on the sidewalk.

I passed him on the way to it and got on.

He was still glaring at me and began to walk over.

“I just didn’t know what you were doing with it,” I stammered, but that didn’t cover anything. I didn’t know what to say.

He ran after me. Instinctively, I biked away. I had won, had gotten my bike back, but I didn’t want it like this. I stopped pedaling, so he could catch up. He pounced on top of me, pushing me right off the bike. I scraped against the concrete sidewalk. Before I could catch my breath, he was kicking me in the stomach. I lay there, tightened my abs, and hoped for the best.

About two minutes later, we hung out at the park as if nothing had happened.

(If you would like to read more short stories, you can browse them here.)