Part I: A severed head with its eyelids cut off.
The floating mass, rounded by gravity, orbiting a star, hosted billions of little organisms that named themselves human. They received our gift.
Part II: Pandemic
From onset to death, it requires one to five days. The average time is three days and twelve hours. The medium of the Jolly Jolly’s transmission, RTCD-N9, was unknown to these organisms. The duration from the first kill to the final kill was 42 days. Result: all organisms killed.
Part III: The Jolly Jolly
Per your request, Suzerain Xqr, a poetic reenactment for your children:
Bodies, ejaculate of God, sore and flush, fell dreaming.
Dreaming of our gift, unblinking, staring, unblinking, screaming
At them, at all times, all places.
Unsleeping, none could look away;
In any direction they lidless too became in all swimming pain.
The Jolly Jolly’s neck bled every second, the jolly horror unblinking
In every eye: those in love could see no more each other’s faces,
Screamed their desperate love through the Jolly Jolly’s scream.
Screaming all, one by one, to reach beyond jolly hateful lidless eyes:
“Help!”
Part IV: Hope
The floating mass is clean. The head moves on to the next. Breathe easy. Send my love.
Jonathan van Belle is a copy editor for Outlier.org, an online education platform. He previously worked as a bookseller at Powell’s City of Books. Jonathan is the author of several books, all available online, and is currently working on his first book for Deep Overstock Publishing.