dreamszilla

Two of Jesus's apostles sneak into his tomb to witness the prophesied resurrection in this blasphemously irreverent comedy. Image generated with OpenAI Thieves and murderers hid bodies, not holy men. Yet, three days prior, a conspiracy was enacted by a loose brotherhood of religious men to hide the body of a man destined to change the world. For weeks, festival season had brought people from across the land to Jerusalem, bringing both offerings to God and wares to sell in the Court of Gentiles - a large marketplace where pilgrims and priests alike would break bread, share stories, and attempt to get rich and fat in their own ways. Roman soldiers stood guard outside the piazza to keep the peace, and ensure no lepers, nor paralytics, were admitted. But these were the only stipulations, all others were permitted through regardless of race or sex, and two hooded figures could slip out the western gate without notice. They had passed by Golgotha, leering knowingly at the...

Julie and her dying mother consent to a new medical procedure that allows them to transfer a memory to each other. Image generated with OpenAI I come to the hospice with my knees shaking - a single memory. My mother and I would be transmitting a single memory to one another before she died. It is part of a new service by a nurse with an AI chip implanted in her brain. My mother adjusts a pillow at the small of her back. She looks out of place in hospice care. She wears her mammoth diamond ring and Gucci scarf, yet she has oxygen from a tube, which makes the picture of her skew. I have not been up to see her in a few months. The business moves so fast that it's hard to keep up. Designing women's bags and hats is practically an Olympic sport. I'm glad I have a valid excuse. I would want to stay away from my mother in any case. The pillow behind her back won't settle how she wants it, so she throws it at a passing nurse. "Get me a bigger pillow, please...

Having travelled halfway across the world to escape her grief, Tiara returns - ten years later - to the city where she lost her family. Image generated with OpenAI Loss She is lost. She, a twenty-nine-year-old woman, in full charge of her faculties, has somehow managed to find herself in this predicament. It started with dinner for three in Southampton, on a hot night in July a year and a half ago. No, not Southampton in England. She means Southampton, New York, the largest of the towns that form that Long Island fork. The fork that certain types refer to as the Hamptons. Not that she has a problem with these types, not at all. It is more how they inject the phrase into conversations when it is unnecessary. It is how they turn up their noses, and square their shoulders, and their voices develop a different pitch when they say the phrase. In any case, the where doesn't matter. What matters is how that last dinner with her ex-husband's parents came to confirm what...

17-year-old Anna is worried she might be pregnant and feels her body is no longer her own. Image generated with OpenAI It smells like sulfur. I toss and turn in my bed. The smell engulfs me. I pull the blanket over my head, hoping to wall off the putrid smell to no avail. Bubbles of bile billow in my stomach, threatening to charge up my throat. I swallow to keep the bile down, but I feel the surge . I jump out of bed and run to the hallway bathroom. I slam the door shut and kneel over the toilet. I opened the lid right in time before the bubbling bile streams from my mouth. It splashes into the toilet water, splattering liquid on my face and around the bowl. I heave to expel another splash of stomach acid into the toilet. I manage to reach up and grab the paper towel roll sitting on the sink's counter, and I take off a piece of towel to wipe off my face. My mother bangs on the bathroom door. "ANNA! There is NO need to slam ANY doors in this household!" s...

Ethan follows his nose to a mysterious and magical jazz gathering. Image generated with OpenAI "Jazz is restless. It won't stay put and it never will... Jazz is forever seeking and reaching out and exploring." J.J. Johnson, 1924-2001 In the beginning there was the night-blooming Nicotiana . Before Gabriella; before Apex and the Jazz Cat; before the cool, cajoling just a little longer and the hours that slipped between minutes spent contemplating Thelonious. Before our numbers grew and we realized our strength; long before we sat as Olympians drunk on our own beauty and power, driven by a dissonance begging atonement - before any of that, there was the flower. Nicotiana drifted into the night time city on a spectral breeze. The bewitching aroma crept over lawns, down alleyways and stole into houses and apartments until it found me in my bed and stirred me awake. Enchanted, I got up, dressed, and followed it out into the night. I left my safe neighborhoo...