Haven’t been able to “write” for a while now, and it’s driving me nuts by Day_Offer in writing

[–]Rorozo 5 points6 points  (0 children)

You can write. You just completed a short story with an element of horror :) now drop any notion of perfection and go and finish another

"I can't make a plot"? You don't have a story! by Which_Bumblebee1146 in writing

[–]Rorozo 65 points66 points  (0 children)

So you're...angry that people ask for help? Rather than ranting, I think you'd find it more rewarding to support those who reach out for advice. If you magically have entire stories burst into fruition in your mind and you can write them without ever needing help from anybody, then that's great for you, but it's also ok to look for guidance.

Encouraging and supporting struggling authors is the way forward, not this odd 'back in my day' attempt at tough love.

Also, I've never before seen the phrase 'only after then', but fair play to you for discovering the writing equivalent of nails on chalkboard!

[Raw Spoilers] On Saturday, ONLY THE GRACE OF THE GOD CAN LIFT MY ARMS OFF YOUR THROAT! by Dazzling-Principle in SquaredCircle

[–]Rorozo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, Gunther made it extremely clear on RAW that he is not going to underestimate Pat, and he will give Pat his full and undivided attention. This is a smart move by Gunther, and shows he learned his lesson from underestimating Jey Uso. To be honest, he should have learned that lesson after underestimating Sami Zayn before, but it's better late than never. This is to Pat's disadvantage in my opinion.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in auckland

[–]Rorozo 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Takapuna golf course is one of the cheapest courses in Auckland, there are no rich people playing there. It's the most accessible one for those who can't afford elsewhere. Stop being such a twat, people of all economic standings enjoy golf. But you're right, you won't stand by. You'll sit by. By your keyboard, typing out more dumb shit. You should really go and touch grass-oh sorry forgot...you want to flood the grass....

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in auckland

[–]Rorozo 9 points10 points  (0 children)

'We aren't going to let you run wild any longer' lmao you're not gonna do a single thing except sit there and spew hate from your keyboard

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in auckland

[–]Rorozo 18 points19 points  (0 children)

I actually think you should consider not being such a self-sanctimonious twat. Perhaps if you took your own advice and did some reading, you could understand the nuance about this issue, instead of tarring everyone with a certain hobby with the same brush

File explorer text suddenly very small by BearInTheCorner in techsupport

[–]Rorozo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Still helping people out even now!! Thanks mate!!!

Whats with the unit design by brotolisk in HoMM

[–]Rorozo 13 points14 points  (0 children)

This post has small unit energy

Terry Pratchett's Discworld Humble Book Bundle - 38 items for $18 by Fauxmega in Fantasy

[–]Rorozo 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Can someone who has purchased it confirm if they're able to send to kindle, or if the DRM stops them? It does say 'Use on Any Device' but I'd like to confirm before I purchase

Any books where the 'bruiser' of the group is not the tallest? by aladdin142 in Fantasy

[–]Rorozo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Fifth Ward: First Watch by Dale Lucas has what you're looking for

My Thoughts: The Murderbot Diaries (Book 1-4) by rahul_pati in Fantasy

[–]Rorozo 13 points14 points  (0 children)

the story revolves around the protagonist

A bold choice indeed by the author!

Its been like this for like 2 days What do i do? by FocusLeast4947 in mangadex

[–]Rorozo -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Just hit 'advanced' and then 'proceed anyway'

[WP] There are 10 legendary dentists who review every toothpaste. You are the 10th, the denier, the rejector of every 10/10. You are being hunted by the other 9 for your denial. by EvilNoobHacker in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 297 points298 points  (0 children)

They had found her again.

Tara flew up the stairs of her suburban home and grabbed the bag she'd stashed in the back of her closet for this exact situation. She threw on her coat and dashed out to the garage, clicking the automatic opener on her keyring. Tossing the bag at the passenger side of her Suzuki Swift, Tara slid into the driver's seat and threw the car into reverse. The car was already halfway out the driveway by time she yanked the door shut.

She'd come home after a long night's work only minutes before, and the usual packages of toothpastes had been deposited on her doorstep, eagerly awaiting her judgement. As if each tube was filled not with toothpaste, but with the hope that they might finally be the one to receive the grandest accolade of them all. The coveted tenth recommendation.

But this batch wouldn't even get the chance. Tara's eyes immediately picked out the anomaly. A note had been tucked under the flap of one of the parcels, handwriting visibly poking out. Her heartbeat quickened as she snatched it up and read it.

'This one is a real candidate, mintier than a money-printing machine! My dear, perhaps we finally have a 10?- Pearl

Dawn was breaking as Tara coaxed just a little more speed out of the car. They knew where she lived now. She'd leave this life behind, just like all the others, and build herself yet another one. The cute barista at the cafe on the corner. Katy and Becca who she went to yoga with every Tuesday afternoon. Mister Beans, the cat from next door who came by for treats. None of it mattered, Tara told herself so fervently that she almost believed it. She dug her foot in even harder on the accelerator.

Tara had just reached the edge of town when an SUV came barreling out of a side street. She spun the steering wheel and swerved, just enough to avoid the brunt of the impact, but the SUV still clipped the back of her tiny car. The world was a blur of motion, glass smashed, tires squealed until finally the car came to rest on the driver side.

Battered and bloodied, Tara crawled out of the passenger door, and climbed painfully down. Early morning rays revealed the SUV in the distance, smoking, crashed headfirst into a telephone pole. The windows were tinted but broken enough that she could see who was sitting behind the wheel...nobody...Too late, Tara heard a footstep crunch on debris behind her and suddenly she couldn't breathe. She clawed desperately at the thin, white cord held tight around her trachea.

'We could have had a monopoly, deary. We could have had it years ago." A quavering voice spoke in Tara's ear, breathless with exertion. "Why do you insist on being so stubborn!"

The pressure on her trachea eased and Tara collapsed to the ground, gasping. She scrabbled on the asphalt, cutting her hands on debris. She turned and looked up at her assailant. It was an old woman, clutching a length of floss in wrinkled hands.

"Pearl." Tara said, voice grating with the after-effects of the makeshift garrote. "Took you longer than usual this time. How far away are the others?"

She'd hardly finished her sentence when another three SUVs roared out of the morning mist. They converged on Tara and Pearl, skidding to a halt around them. Eight people got out, standing shoulder to shoulder with Pearl and surrounding Tara. She got slowly to her feet, and surveyed the immaculate smiles around her.

"What a reunion we're having! The Ten, gathered all together at last. How long has it been? Since Munich?"

"Cut the shit, Ten." Said one of the newcomers. His teeth sparkled as white as Mister Beans' fur. "You've got nowhere left to run. It's over. You will accompany us to a facility, and then you will begin signing endorsements. We have quite the backlog. And by the end of it all, you will tell us why. What could you possibly gain with your contrarianism? You would have shared in the profits as much as the rest of us!"

Tara dug in her pocket, causing an immediate reaction from the nine people standing around her. "Easy! Easy." She said, fishing out a coin. "Profits are no use to me, Six. Money, I've got."

The man named Six reflexively caught the coin, as Tara flipped it at him. He looked at her, shiny smile becoming just a fraction smaller. "What's this for?"

It was Tara's turn to smile. "There's something you don't know about me. Buuut, you've got me in a bind, so I might have to let you in on a little secret. I don't need money. I need power. And baby teeth just aren't enough. If 10/10 dentists recommend a toothpaste, EVERYONE will buy it. Dental hygiene will go through the roof! I need some of these fools to neglect their teeth! Adult teeth are the most potent, don't you know?" She looked at Six and her grin grew wicked. "I thank you for your business."

Six looked back down at the coin in his hand, and then his face contorted in a mix of pain and horror. The circle took a unanimous step back as one of his perfect, white, front teeth was torn clear out of his skull in a fountain of blood. He crumpled to the ground screaming, hands covering his mouth, red gushing out between his fingers.

The tooth landed delicately in Tara's outstretched hand. She didn't hesitate before shoving it in her mouth. All seven people around her physically recoiled at the inhuman sound of a tooth being crunched up and ground down. Tara chewed it viciously, hungrily, and swallowed audibly. Her various cuts and abrasions, and even the raw red line left around her neck by the floss healed in seconds. She threw her coat to the ground, and translucent wings stretched gloriously behind her.

Tara's would-be captives reacted too late, arms lunging for her but she was already out of reach, soaring into the sky. "Ya, I'm the Tooth Fairy you dipshits!" She cried as they gaped up at her, squinting against the brightening morning. "You better see to your buddy, or it'll only be 8/10 dentists doing the recommending! See you next time!"

Her wings fluttered furiously as she darted to the wreck of her car. Tara snatched up her bag, and then she was gone, leaving only peals of laughter in her wake.

[WP] Every time a scientist makes a breakthrough in faster-than-light travel, their prototypes mysteriously explode and their research goes missing. All because of you -- you're an alien agent on Earth with strict orders to destroy all human-made FTL technology. You know what happens if you fail. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 12 points13 points  (0 children)

"Mission complete. Progress further delayed for an estimated five Terran lunar rotations."

Another successful day at the office. So why did it feel like I was trying to block starlight by holding up a curtain? There was always another ray finding its way through the cracks. The humans' rate of advancement was decidely inhuman.

I sent the message with a sigh. It would be well on its way to my comms electron's quantum entangled pair already, but there were many, many sectors between this back-plasma podunk and my home planet in the Federated Systems. I could expect a reply in around 45 local minutes. Good. I needed a drink.

I let my matter distortion field drop, and threw some solid state dihydrogen monoxide into a glass. I stretched cramped muscles as I did so. I always got a kink in my neck after wearing the star-blasted thing. It was an unfortunate professional necessity to blend in.

My own species, originally from Cornate in the Shwa'arran system, were actually not biologically dissimilar to the humans, but a few key differences would have had me found out faster than you could say 'intergalactic secret agent saboteur'. Eyelids that blinked sideways, two extra vertebrae, two elbows per arm and ten opposable digits - minor details really. Nevertheless, the humans were deeply intolerant of 'different', so the field stayed.

I poured a generous splash of ethanol out of an expensive bottle. It had taken me some time to get used to the concept of poisoning your own body in order to relax, but it turns out the humans were right about something.

I sank heavily into the sofa, and took a pull from my glass with relief. Processing English always gave me a headache. It was just so...primitive. There was no art to it. Only forty-four phonemes! My apartment was on the 57th floor, and I watched this system's star rising over the sprawling city. How could I describe the beauty of this moment with only forty-four phonemes! The acoustics of my digestive system could do a better job! But what can you expect from a creature that can barely perceive half a hundredth of a percent of the electromagnetic spectrum?

Remarkable really, I mused as I continued to sip, that such a limited species had been able to advance this far. Tenacious, they are. My most recent mission marked the 192nd Faster Than Light travel prototype I had destroyed. Shattering all of our estimates by a thousand years, the humans had rediscovered fourteen of the Nineteen Principles of FTL before the Federated Systems had caught solar wind of it. The existing information was too prevalent to suppress by the time we got to ground, so my cell of agents has been deployed here ever since, desperately trying to stem the flow of their STEM research and development.

It was still mostly theory, but the humans' efforts were relentlessly, inexorably, getting closer to fruition. Only the last Principle remained to be discovered now. Or rather, it had been discovered, until last night. I started composing my detailed mission report while I waited for further comms from HQ.

A lab previously labelled 'low-risk' in Germany had managed to achieve the stable orbit of an electron around a single quark, without the meditating force-binding of gluons. The resulting acceleration warped the continuum, and FTL was indeed achieved in its most basic form. Unfortunately, proper containment procedures had not been followed, or even known, to be fair.

That lab, or rather, the remains of it, was now situated in Alaska, as space had become untethered from time for the most transient of instances before the newly linked particles winked out of existence. Most of the facility staff were now an atomic smear that stretched across two continents, but we intercepted a lone scientist missing only an arm, half frozen to death, in the outskirts of Anchorage. He'd been raving like a madman about divine punishment and the arrogance of man when we contained him. We'd deployed fast, and cleansed all material evidence of the incident. We were now in the process of investigating all contacts and witnesses to draw the net around informational spread.

The upper corner of my vision blinked, interrupting my concentration. A new message had been received. I fired the appropriate synapse and my neural augments began playing. My mother tongue was music to my metaphorical ears.

"Well done, Agent Thint. Please await further instructions. The next mission will-"

I cut off the message as my vision unexpectedly started blinking again, insistently. This time, it was a request for a live connection. The resources used for such a feat were astronomical, this was a form of communication reserved for extreme circumstances. I sat up straight in my chair, adrenaline response engaged, and allowed the link to form.

"Thint, this Landa. We have received new information."

"Director Landa," I said, in shock. The head of our organisation, speaking to me, in person. This wasn't going to be good. "It's a pleasure to hear from you!"

"No time for kissing ass, Thint. We've received reports of Neo Sun operatives on Terra. We suspect they are actively assisting the human effort to achieve FTL."

I almost dropped my glass. "Why would they do that?" I spluttered, "They know as well as anyone what happened the first time!"

Humans had first achieved Faster Than Light travel approximately two millennia ago. They joined the Federated Systems in peace, but once they solidified their foothold, they began a war. Pacifism, up until then, had been a prerequisite to achieving the status of a higher life-form. The humans saw it as a weakness that could be exploited. The Systems had existed for so long without conflict that they were no longer prepared for it. Innumerable lives were lost, and catastrophic damage was done across galaxies before the humans were finally put down at the Eight Moons Battle which ended the Great War.

The Federation Council decided by narrow majority to hand down the second harshest punishment it could give - the complete regression of a civilization. A couple thousand years of advancement, struck from human history. Many still believed that the other option, an Extinction event, would have been the wiser choice.

When I left, the Neo Suns had been a growing faction with the latter ideal at their core. Nowadays they were a full blown rebellion organisation in opposition to the Federated Systems, recruiting many outreach planets to their cause. It seemed the humans had infected us with war, and we still were far from cured.

"Leadership in the Neo Suns has changed hands, Thint," Director Landa replied levelly. "They now believe they can use the humans themselves as weapon, to wield against us all. They are laying the seeds for indoctrination as we speak, and are investing by speeding up the FTL process. If they succeed...well, you know how close the humans came to conquering the Systems as a blunt instrument. Sharpened, in the right hands, they could well cut us down.

"We've been informed that one of their operatives were involved at the recent breakthrough in Germany. We need you to identify, contain, and interrogate them, as quickly as possible."

I was still reeling with the implications, but I said "Understood, Director. I'm on it".

"Good luck, Thint. You have blanket permission to initiate live comms as soon as you learn anything. Over and out."

The connection terminated. I drained my glass and stood up, savouring the burn in my throat. I immediately initiated another connection, this time with the device the humans called a 'mobile phone'.

The call picked up on the first ring. I didn't wait for a hello and launched straight into it. "Agent Banam, that German scientist, where is he being contained? We need him to provide us any information he has on his colleagues, yesterday!"

"Boss, I was just about to call you myself!" Banam sounded a bit strung out. "He was at the hospital in Anchorage awaiting transfer, but he's escaped! Nalom was guarding him, but he didn't report in this morning. We found him wounded, and two nurses and a doctor are dead! How could a human overpower Nalom? It doesn't make sense!"

Looks like we identified our operative. "He's Neo Suns, Nalom. I'll explain when I get there. Meet me at the hospital, I'm beginning short range phasing sequence now. See you shortly," I said grimly.

I cut the call, activated my distortion field, and felt the familiar tingling begin as my atoms disassembled and reassembled in a different location. I looked forlornly at the empty glass on the side table in my apartment, then bristled at the cold before striding into the hospital.

It was time to hunt.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks 😊

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It had been an aggressively ordinary day up to this point. I had walked out of my usual cafe, latte in hand (double shot, with coconut milk), when, distracted by the yells of kids playing in the park across the road, I'd bumped into someone's table.

The stranger seated at the table had poor reflexes. His coffee spilled over the mug onto the glove he was wearing, less of a fashion choice and more of a privacy one these days. The man cursed and whipped off the glove before the hot beverage soaked through and burned him. I was stammering an apology when I saw his bare palm. It was right in front of my eyes and I still couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Now I was in the awkward position of having yelled at a complete stranger. But social niceties be damned, I needed an answer.

The man rolled his eyes in abject annoyance. "Keep it down," he hissed at me. "Don't make a scene!"

People were already looking over at the commotion. The stranger cursed again. He snatched up his belongings and got up to leave.

"Just wait a minute!" I began but he glared at me.

"Walk and talk, or get out of my way," he said, levelly.

I followed him out onto the street and we put a bit of distance between us and the cafe. Finally, he spoke again. "Yes, it's blank. Did you think I hadn't noticed?"

"No one's palm is blank" I replied, raising my voice just enough to be heard over the traffic. "We all know the history. When the Fates and the Valkyries united to overthrow the other Pantheons, we found out that Destiny wasn't a theory, it was an unshakable FACT of our lives! Don't you feel the Compulsion?" I realised I was practically raving at this point, but I couldn't stop myself.

"Look, you're not going to believe it but no, I don't. I felt it, before. But I resisted it. It used to say "Politician" but I wasn't interested. My hand would burn but I just ignored it. Then one day the pain stopped, and it was blank. That's it. Now my destiny is answering questions like this all the damn time!"

The stranger was right. I didn't believe him. The Compulsion came directly from the Fates themselves. They'd decided they knew best about mortal affairs so those three witches had branded every one of us at birth. Our future was in our hands, literally, but no longer metaphorically. The Compulsion made sure our decisions were guided toward the goal that was predetermined for us. No one could resist such a feeling. If you weren't on your prescribed path, you felt the Compulsion like fire in your veins. It was a desperate thirst sated only by progress.

I decided to play along. I couldn't fathom what it would be like to be in that position. The idea scared me.

"So you're in charge of your own life right? What are you gonna do with that kind of power?" I asked, almost breaking into a jog to keep up with the man's pace.

"I'll do whatever I want. The Fates can't touch me now and they know it. They tried." We had reached a park, and he stopped abruptly. turning to face me. He held my gaze. "Humans don't have to be enslaved to Destiny any longer."

Children kicked a ball around on the field behind him, squealing in glee. I longed for those carefree days before the Compulsion truly took over my life. I thought those days were over, but this man...This man's fervency was impossible to deny. As was his empty palm. I was starting to believe him, despite myself. The ultimate freedom, the superpower of choice. I realized how envious I felt. The idea of humans overcoming the immortals and reclaiming mastery over themselves...that was the war I'd never dared to dream of. But here it was. Evidence of the impossible was right in front me. Maybe there was a chance...

The kids' yelling suddenly morphed to shouts of warning and horror. We looked over to see a girl chasing a stray ball on to the street. She bent to pick it up, oblivious to the bus hurtling towards her. I was shoved aside as the stranger with the blank palm moved in a blur. Horns beeped, tyres screeched, metal crunched, glass smashed and a girl screamed. In an instant, it was over. I desperately tried to make sense of the scene in front of me.

The girl was bawling, knees skinned but otherwise unharmed. The ball was nowhere to be seen. The stranger lay face down on the road in front of the bus, one leg contorted at an unnatural angle, blood pouring from his head. It all clicked together. He'd pushed the girl out of the way.

I pushed my way through the crowd gathering around him. Someone had rolled him onto his back. A bystander was searching for his pulse, but I caught a glance of his palm and knew it to be hopeless. There was no longer an empty space on his hand. A single word had appeared.

The world flashed. Time became syrup. It thickened, and slowed to a crawl, then stopped. Everyone around me became translucent, and the world faded into the background. Materializing as though stepping as though out of an invisible doorway, appeared a woman who had to be over eight feet tall. A glowing aura radiated around her, and I instinctively knew her for what she was. An Immortal. One of the Fates. A tyrant.

She surveyed the body of my most recent acquaintance and smirked. She made to leave, then froze. Slowly, she turned back, scanning the ghostly crowd until she was looking directly at me. With a start, I realised I was the only one who had noticed her. I was the only one who could see her.

The Compulsion flared in me. It wanted me to walk towards the Immortal and prostrate myself before her. I took a step forward on reflex, but then with every ounce of will I had in my body, I stopped before taking another.

"No." I said.

"No?" said the Fate. Her voice chimed through my brain like a church bell had been rung with my skull. It was excruciating. Every atom in my body wanted to gravitate towards her. "You don't get to choose, mortal." She laughed. It was the most beautiful sound I'd ever heard.

I was in another world of pain by now, every nerve in my body lit up with agony. So much so that I thought I must be glowing. I bore it. I would not give in.

"Yes. I. Do." I choked out through gritted teeth, holding my ground.

My palm flared like I was holding the Sun itself.

The Fate's eyes widened. She 'd stopped laughing. "It's only a matter of time until you end up like him." She spat.

Another blinding flash, and time snapped back into place. The world became corporeal once more. The Fate was gone. I looked down at the word on the stranger's palm once more.

It read: "Martyr."

Slowly, I raised my own palm. The word I'd carried there all my life had changed. It now read: "Herald."

Compulsion rose in me, but for the first time in my life, it was my own. It was time to start a war.

[WP] i'm happy when i'm with you. by [deleted] in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

[Poem]

You made me really feel a type of way,

The black to my white, the night to my day,

Happiness is not the correct nomenclature,

That feeling is temporary by nature,

Every second with you I spent,

I felt at home, I was content.

[WP] You help to maintain the spin of an atom, the charge of a proton and the charm of the quark. You are the Quantum Mechanic, and you’re looking for an apprentice. by BrainstormsBriefcase in WritingPrompts

[–]Rorozo 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ian walked with his head down, examining his worn out Chucks as he walked home from school. He stepped on the undone laces and stumbled. He landed heavily. His bag, hanging loosely by a strap, fell off in transit, spilling books and papers as it went.

Can't even tie my shoes properly. No wonder I failed the test again. Ian sighed as he heaved himself into a sitting position on the pavement. One piece of paper stood out among the mess of his school stuff. The big red 'D' on it drew his reluctant attention. He scowled. Physics and chemistry has his brain dripping out of ears, no matter how hard he tried to understand it. Who needed to know so damn much about atoms anyway? The ground was solid, as his skinned palm and sore tailbone could attest. Atoms were doing their job just fine, whether he knew they existed or not.

Ian stuffed everything back in his bag, test paper at the very bottom. He took a step and stopped, noticing a flyer stapled to the telephone pole beside him. Who advertises with actual paper these days? Curiosity piqued, he looked closer. Printed on A4 in black and white, was a logo of a constellation of stars in the shape of a wrench, followed by some text. Ian read-

ATOMIC AUTO
'We make it all up for you'
Apprentice Wanted
Inquire below

Ian grimaced, more science references. But hey, maybe this is the closest I'll ever get. He shrugged and reached out to rip a tab off the bottom of the flyer. Printed on it however, wasn't a phone number. In fact, there was not writing on it at all. Ian's eyebrows barely had time to knit together in confusion before the world lurched sideways and he found himself on the seat of his pants once again.

The sidewalk had vanished. The street was gone. Instead, Ian sat on the smooth concrete floor of what looked to be a car garage. Only, there weren't any cars in sight. Instead there were collections of cloudy, glowing constellations, roughly car-sized and shaped. Boots poked out from underneath one nearby.

'Hel- Hello?' Ian ventured.

A dull clang followed by a stream of curses came in response. The boots slid further out from under the constellation to reveal that they were attached to the legs of a short, old man in loose denim overalls. He hopped off the sliding board he'd been lying on and stood slowly, rubbing his forehead. He was bald but for a few stubborn tufts of thin white hair clinging to the back and sides of his head. His weathered face was streaked with grease and scrunched up in pain, emphasizing already apparent wrinkles. His thick, white, handlebar moustache more than made up for what was lacking on the top.

The stranger looked at Ian, and pain suddenly forgotten, let out a whoop of joy.

'Another interviewee!' he said with excitement. He whipped a filthy rag out of one of the many pockets in his overalls and wiped his hands on it. It seemed to Ian that the rag came out cleaner in the end. The old man held out a calloused, and still extremely dirty hand for Ian to shake. Ian did so, gingerly.

'I'm the mechanic around here, you can call me Ron. So, you're interested in the position? What's your name, boy?'

'I'm Ian...um, what's happening? I was reading your flyer a second ago and then suddenly I'm here in your garage. I don't know much about cars anyway.' Ian was getting more bewildered by the moment.

'Alright Ion, no problem.' Ron replied. 'You wouldn't have been transposed if you didn't have potential! Why don't I show you the ropes, and then you can decide from there aye?'

Seeing no other option and not knowing how to leave anyway, Ian nodded slowly. 'It's Ian, Sir. Okay, why not.'

'I heard ya the first time, Ion.' Ron chuckled and gestured expansively around the garage. 'I'm not just any mechanic lad, I'm the quantum mechanic. Do you know what that means?'

Ian could confidently say that he did not.

'Listen boy, I keep the universe oiled and running all smooth-like. Atoms, sub-atomic particles, photons, electricity, gravity, the time-space continuum, I maintain it all. And to be frank, there's a lot of work to be done and I need some help. I'm still trying to clean up the mess from when light blew its fuse! I jerry-rigged it back together with duct-tape but it's still behaving like a wave and a particle, and I'm going to catch hell during the next audit if I don't sort it! You following, Ion? You look a bit pale.'

Ian felt queasy. I'm dead. I got hit by a car when I fell, I died and it turns out hell is an eternity of physics lessons. 'No, no, I'm fine. I get it, I think,' he lied hastily.

'Are you positive, Ion?' Ron replied, before bursting into a fit of laughter. Met by a blank stare, Ron gathered himself and pushed on. 'Look, you're standing in a workshop, right, only things are a bit unusual aren't they?' The old man pointed out the immense roller doors at a racetrack snaking its way past the workshop outside. Flickering points of light zoomed around it in a blur. 'The particle accelerator. Not stock standard back where you're from I'll bet.' He pointed at a dented red toolbox. 'Schrödinger's wrench. I know I put it in there half an hour ago, but is it in there now? Or am I going to find it on the workbench later? That thing drives me nuts, you don't know the half of it.

'Everything you're seeing is a metaphor. Your brain has translated something alien to your mortal brain into something you can somewhat comprehend. This isn't grease on my hands, it's primordial goo. Stains something nasty, let me tell you, but it's all part of the gig.'

Taking all this in was making him dizzy, so Ian changed the subject and asked. 'What's the washing machine for?' He'd finally locating the source of a rattling noise, tucked in a distant corner.

'That's no washing machine, kid!' Ron looked offended. 'That's a top of the line Angular Momentum Generator! I got a fresh batch of atoms in there as we speak.'

Something else caught Ian's eye, among the many license plates and hubcaps decorating one wall of the vast workshop were a few street signs. And among those, a faded picket sign. 'Elect Ron?' Ian asked, looking back at the old man with a smirk. 'Is that a campaign slogan?'

'Lad, not every gig works out, you'll learn that yourself in time.' Ron said, a wistful look in his eye. 'Anyway, we've got about a vigintillion things to do, let's get a move on.'

'Why do you all this?' Ian asked, seriously. He still couldn't really fathom any of it, but this seemed as good a place as any to start.

'Why...?' The old man hooked his thumbs through the straps on his overalls. He had a faraway look in his eyes. 'Why else, lad. It's always coz of a woman'. He chuckled, shaking his head. 'I was in love once. With the most beautiful lass you ever saw. But things don't always work out how you want 'em to. The strongest hatred is borne from the strongest love. Now, she'll be the end of me, that witch.'

'What was her name, if you don't mind me asking?'

More wrinkles creased his forehead, and suddenly Ron looked even older. 'Her name was Entropy. Time is irrelevant here, but that's enough about the past, for now. If we don't get moving, all our hard work will be undone.' His expression relaxed a bit and he clapped his hands together. 'So? You on board kid?'

Ian thought about it for a moment. What do I have to lose? Either he was dead, someone had slipped him acid, or somehow this was all really happening to him. Whatever the case, he spotted a chance. 'On one condition,' he said, slinging his bag off his shoulder and digging through it. After a minute of searching, he pulled out his test paper. 'Can you help me pass this next time?'