Hugh J. O'Donnell

The entomologist spent his career studying insect communication. He searched for the secrets hidden in ant pheromones and bee dances. They weren’t hive minds, but cooperatives.
Finally, after years of work, he hit upon something hidden in bee dances. It was a memetic code that he could replicate. In the lab, the bees became more cooperative and friendly. He decided to test it on humans.
He made a viral video and encoded the meme. After the first million hits, without a single negative comment, he’d thought he’d found something to truly better mankind.
That was when the advertising agencies started calling.

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The water was calm, with puffs of mist that clung to the surface like silk.
The shore was pleasantly warm and damp, a green hillside that ended in a wall of fog.
She turned and looked at the bank, biting her lip in thought.
“How about this one?” the ferryman asked, but he’d learned to read her looks, and knew what she would say.
“I’m sorry, but this isn’t my afterlife.” He paddled back into the vast river. They had visited hundreds of spots, but he would carry her as long as it took for her to find her home.

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If there was one thing he hated, it was the fake psychics that wrote supposed ‘books of prophecy,’ creating entire generations of mystic scammers in their wake.
He built a time machine to go back and confront these charlatans before they could spread their poison. But when he got to the past, he found the supposed prophetess waiting for him with tea and biscuits.
She showed him a book, detailing their whole encounter, written a century earlier. He fled back to the future, terrified.
She sipped her tea, satisfied that he hadn’t discovered the time machine hidden in her barn.

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The Sphinx found the baby abandoned on the shore of her island, left in a boat by a warrior who had failed to answer her riddle. She was fascinated by the tiny, wailing creature.
Changeless and immortal, the Sphinx was ageless. She decided to adopt the baby, to better understand mortals and their habits. She didn’t come to love her until later.
Over the years, the baby grew into a child, who became a woman. The Sphinx taught her everything she could. One day her daughter left to join the human world, and the Sphinx waited for her to return.

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The Count straightened his tie in the mirror. The aluminum backing was far more forgiving about showing reflections than silver.
He smiled at himself and switched off the bathroom light. His phone buzzed from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket. His rideshare was downstairs waiting for him. While he had his phone out, the vampire pulled up his social media to confirm the address on the invite.
He checked his blackout curtains and reset his security alarm before locking up the apartment.
Perhaps it was no longer an age of shadows and blood. But modern times certainly were more convenient.

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“They’re doing it again,” the naturalist called to his partner. The rare albino alligator species they’d come to study had the weirdest symbiotic relationship with a species of local freshwater crabs. As they watched, the gators lined up on the shoreline, allowing the crabs to scuttle onto their heads. They proceeded to march up and down the muddy beach, the crustaceans waving their claws in the air.
The scientists were baffled. They couldn’t discern any advantage in the behavior. They were just… walking around.
If the alligators could talk, they would have scoffed that the scientists just didn’t understand fashion.

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She stood by his side for decades. She supported him through the death rays and doomsday devices. When spies and superheroes infiltrated his lair, they would offer her an escape. She always declined.
Was it so difficult to imagine that a man like her husband could feel love? Or that he could be loved in turn? She didn’t expect them to understand. They would leave her, only to be captured by her husband themselves.
Finally, on the eve of his greatest triumph, they toasted with champagne. He took a sip, and she watched, waiting for the poison to start working.

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The spirit looked upon its mountain and was pleased.
Snow-covered the peak in a thick glacier, which melted in sparkling rivulets where the sun hit it. The pure water would trickle down the slope, feeding rivers that carried water and streams that fed the forests below.
As the seasons turned, the leaves would change, the rivers would freeze, and the glacier would advance. The cycle felt like breathing to the mountain’s spirit.
But something was off. The spirit looked down and saw its rivers dammed and forests cleared for luxury cabins. It had picked up a bad case of humans.

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When I woke up this morning I found that the world had changed. The Sun was a little brighter. My coffee tasted a little stronger. My husband’s hair was a slightly lighter shade of brown.
I thought I was losing my mind until I checked my email.
Dear Customer, you may have noticed a new update for Life™! We implemented a few bug fixes and improvements. Version 1.349 changes are listed below.
I read the list and they matched the differences that I had seen. There, at the bottom, was a little red ‘Unsubscribe’ button. I wondered what would happen.

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