Barbicide

by Luc Reid

It was a big glass thing on Richie’s barber table what give me the idear. It was full a blue stuff like blueberry Kool-Aid an combs an stuff. I say, “Richie, what’s that bar-bi-cide” an Richie says “That’s a kinda special soap for my combs so they don’t get the lice.”

I says “Somebody comes in for a eight dollar haircut they shoulden get some other fella’s lice,” an Richie says “Nope, the lice cost extra!”

I like Richie. He cuts my hair ever second Thursday a the month. One time it was Easter an he dint but mostly he always does.

“You know,” says Richie “There’s regicide, that’s killin a king, an there’s genocide, that’s killin a bunch a people with the same religion–”

An I says “There’s homocide that’s killin a homo” cause I knowed that.

An Richie says, he says, “So I figure barbicide must be killin a barber!” an then laughs. Richie’s real ugly, his face is like you crumpled it an left something greasy on it but his hair is cut real good. His wife cuts it. He cuts everybody’s hair but his wife cuts his hair. Anyways he laughs real good.

He dint know I know about murder. One time this guy told me about murder an I remembered it hard as I could. He says you need the motive, that’s why you kill him, an method, that’s the way you do it, an opportunity, that’s when you get your chances.

Richie hands me the scissors an he turns an gets the razor like he always does an I had those means an that opportunity cause he always does that every second Thursday when he cuts my hair. I just needed a motive so I thunk an thunk but I couldn’t think a one.

I tried to think a one fore that next second Thursday but I couldn’t so when I was gettin my next haircut I says to Richie I says real joking about the opportunity an those means an I says I just need a motive an Richie says that’s easy an I said I couldn’t think a one an he says that’s easy an I said what.

He turns to give me the scissors like he always does but then he give em the wrong way, he sticks em right in me an Richie says, he says
“Revenge.”

Request for Proposals

by David

I have to start with some ancient history.

It began with medicine, of course. Our lives were extended from an average of 25 standard years to 50, 60, then a hundred, and then several hundred. Gradually, we stopped taking chances. Laws were passed to prevent activities society deemed dangerous. Then those too young to reproduce were forbidden all sorts of behaviors once typical of childhood. Remember rollerskates? I loved them once… The laws weren’t the most insidious change. Soon we voluntarily stopped sliding down slopes, swimming in water, and eventually even going outdoors. Nanotechnology accelerated the process. You might think that replacing the human body with self replicating machines would have reversed our growing obsession with safety and preservation of our lives. After all, if you broke your neck skiing and you were a nanoman or nanowoman healing was a cinch. But we had already gone too far. We now had the potential to live for millennia. The old joke
Q: Do nanofolks live thousands of times as long as biological people?

A: Yes, but it doesn’t feel like it.

wasn’t funny anymore. It was true. People began obsessively calculating probabilities and avoiding anything whose probability was greater than this or greater than that. Soon, anything whose probability was measurable at all. Giving up pets was hard. I almost still miss my last cat. He was affectionate in a self-centered way, but when he died I could not risk replacing him. Finally, even sex became too dangerous. Progeny were all engendered in vitro. After a while, no one bothered with that. The drive to propagate had been replaced with the drive to prolong the self.

And that’s why I’m contacting you now. I’m sitting here, inside my personal event horizon, having a radical thought. If I’m NOT the only one left, and I might be, maybe I should go out into the universe and try to find some other people. It’s time for a new research program, one that I’m sure we can all get behind. See, we need to find a way out of this universe fast, before entropy snuffs it out. Because our black holes won’t last forever. When they evaporate we will be gone. And I’m not ready. I’ve hardly had time to live!

The end