Prompt by https://writingprompts.tumblr.com/: The Automatically Refilling Bowl: You have discovered a magical bowl that automatically refills with whatever you choose, although some restrictions may apply. It doesn’t have to be a liquid, but it can’t be anything illegal, and it can’t be money. What will you choose? A beverage? A favorite snack? Fidget toys? Keys? A never ending supply of your favorite egg rolls? Hand sanitizer? Nachos? Literal never-ending nachos? Will you use it to quench your insatiable thirst for a certain brand of carbonated sugar water? Will you use it to get rich? Will you use it to supply the world with the seeds of your favorite fruit, so someday the planet will be filled with mangos? The possibilities are endless. What are you considering for the bowl and why? Is it hard to choose? Do you think you might come to ultimately regret whatever choice you make?
...
Mili, a budding anthropologist who just last year earned her master’s degree in cultural anthropology, was on Day 3 of exploring a new city. As a rule, she opted to stay a minimum of four days in newly traveled places in the name of true exploration. A day-long retreat she deemed a cop-out; five days or longer, and she was not properly optimizing her time. Four days. And the most interesting events seemed to occur on the third.
It was merely 10 AM, and she had already consumed two coffees, discovered a small park, visited the local library, and studied a map long enough to determine which main roads might lead to the most worthy happenings.
Walking through a back alley to reach one such road, she heard a commotion from the alley’s exit. A dull murmur of a crowd, sparkled with occasional yelling. The promise of the crowd excited Mili. (She had once spent a semester during undergrad traversing the streets of Boston to study the formation, function, and diffusion of crowds. She ultimately learned very little, but she lost 15 pounds.) Crossing out of the shadowed alley into the bright street, her eyes taking longer than expected to adjust, Mili followed her ears to the right, where an enormous gathering stood.
“It’s my turn,” a voice boomed.
Another voice scoffed loudly and said, “I’ve been here hours before you.”
Jumbled yelling, muffled mumblings from sub-groups in the crowd, and–as Mili’s eyes could now form–a hoard of people assembled around a tall man on a wooden platform. The man, slightly older than Mili, she guessed, sat slumped forward in a chair, frowning, his eyes heavy but alert. Next to him stood a podium, on which was a bowl. Mili squinted. The bowl itself was plain enough. Wooden, medium-sized, fairly unremarkable. What fascinated Mili, though, was what seemed to seep from its rim: an endless river of blue mist and rainbow sparkles. Mili rubbed her eyes. Still there.
“Alright!” the man said, standing. He cleared his throat. Pointing to a crowd member somewhere within the mass of people, he declared, “You next.”
The chosen person climbed the stairs to the platform, while the ever impatient crowd pushed forward, some yelling angrily, others crying in desperation. So jostled was the view that Mili could no longer see the stage. She turned to her left, noticing a calm, elderly woman observing the scene with her hands folded in front of her.
“Excuse me,” Mili asked the woman, “what exactly is happening here?”
The woman peered at Mili with a knowing smile. “You are not from here?”
Mili shook her head.
“Advice in a Bowl.” The woman chuckled at Mili’s inquisitive look. “A long tale. The short version is this: the man up there, Mr. Morris, found that bowl some time ago. Oh, I’d say it must’ve been six or seven years at this point.” The crowd’s noise grew louder, and Mili leaned closer. “The bowl is magical. It refills with whatever its owner selects at the onset of ownership. Mr. Morris, for one reason or another, chose advice.”
The woman paused, as the crowd member on stage began his descent down the platform’s steps, happily gripping the small scrap of paper he’d pulled from the bowl. The tired man, Mr. Morris, pointed to another in the crowd. The crowd surged forward once more.
The woman looked again at Mili and continued, “Every day, Mr. Morris climbs the steps onto the platform and calls people forward one by one to pluck their advice from the bowl. If you’re lucky enough to be chosen, your life will be forever changed.”
“Like modern-day fortune telling,” Mili mused.
“You could say that,” the woman said.
“How much does he charge for the advice?”
The woman peered toward Mili. “Nothing. Free of charge. Many claim to know why, but it’s all speculation. I myself have an idea–”
Effectively halting their conversation was the sight of Mr. Morris throwing his hands up. The last chosen person hurriedly clambered off-stage. “Enough!” Mr. Morris bellowed. The crowd fell silent. Mili looked at the woman questioningly; she remained facing forward but gave a barely detectable shrug.
“In this spot I have stood for the last four years,” declared Mr. Morris. “And more years before that, down by the old mill. I have called on person after person after person. I have done my best to look after this here bowl, and to contribute, and...” he trailed off. Looking up again with confidence, he said, “No longer.” The crowd gasped. “I am tired,” the man said, a pleading look in his eyes. “I need a life! A family! I need to start over, now, or I’m afraid I never will. I will choose another to be keeper of the bowl. I am done.”
As many in the crowd began to form conclusions about his words, they thrusted their hands in the air, waving, jumping with desire to be the next keeper. Mr. Morris overlooked them all and locked eyes with only one: Mili. Her eyes widened.
The man then snatched the bowl from the podium, leaped off stage, and ran toward her. Placing the bowl in Mili’s arms, he sighed a breath of freedom and took off down the alley from which Mili had crossed through only minutes before.
Mili looked down at the misting bowl in her arms and back up at the hushed crowd in front of her. The woman next to her was nowhere to be found.
Prompt: A cocky main character is sent to the real world. He is shocked to find that the fans of his book not only like the villain more, but favor his sidekick over him.
Ariel sat on the edge of her usual spot on the squishy, leather sofa in her therapist’s office. She had thought her fourth session would feel more comfortable than this. The air felt impeccably dry, and the ticking on the wall clock echoed through her ears even more loudly than last week.
“And how does that make you feel?”
Ariel swallowed. “Dr. Carroll, I–” she started. Choking and being unable to finish sentences had been a struggle almost daily since the move to Here & Now.
“Go ahead. This is a safe space.”
Unsure, Ariel pressed on: “I still feel confused. I thought people here would be more supportive. After everything I went through...” A tear rolled down Ariel’s cheek. She reached for a tissue and looked expectantly at her counselor, who gave a small smile and a gesture to continue. “I mean,” Ariel began again, “after having my voice stolen by that horrible sea witch, and my best friend taken from me, and then the move to 21st Century New Hampshire... I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t understand why everyone I meet seems to hate me and care so much for her.”
A gleam flashed in the therapist’s eyes, passing quickly. “We’ve gone over this,” Dr. Carroll said in a soothing voice. “It’s 2019. People in the Here & Now know you willingly surrendered your voice. You admitted it was your own idea, in fact.”
“But...”
“And are you surprised people side with Flounder over you?” Dr. Carroll continued. “You chose to leave him, Ariel. You knew he couldn’t join you on land. And to be frank, I think he needed a clean break. You had developed a relatively unhealthy codependent relationship with him. He’s better without you.”
Ariel stared.
“Ariel, it’s time you finally came to terms with the fact that “sea witch” was the childhood nickname you gave to Ursula as part of your delusional fantasy for a life outside of your parents’ kingdom. We’ve talked about how Ursula was your neighbor, a chemist, and an aspiring singer, and nothing more. Unlike you, she wasn’t born having instant access to all her needs or wants. She worked relentlessly for a better quality of life. In the Here & Now, that’s a pretty powerful narrative that people cling to for hope.”
Dr. Carroll’s tone had somehow rolled from smooth and supportive to tactfully interrogative, all while maintaining a soft volume and calm demeanor. Ariel felt betrayed. She looked at the clock.
It wasn’t until 1804 that the world’s population hit the 1 billion mark. Before then, humans only described their race as a hundred-millions-kind-of-species. A little over 100 years later (in 1927), we reached 2 billion people. Fast forward to 1999: 6 billion. 12 years later: 7 billion. We currently have 7.5 billion people on this planet.
How will we reach the ever-increasing number of individuals who are undernourished, dehydrated, or tired? Those who lack basic shelter? In a world of ever-developing technology, will there be enough jobs, enough exercise, enough family time? Will we turn into drones? Act like robots? Be replaced by robots? (Look out for questions regarding AI soon.)
Will we remember the day the earth’s population hit 10 billion? Will we tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren about where we were on that fateful day in the 2060s? 10 billion. A number that is 10x as much as the world population in 1804.
Today is the 241st birthday of the United States, although we acknowledge that both natives and colonists lived in America long before then. So let’s look at some logistics of our history, particularly human slavery, in the U.S.:
Black enslavement in the U.S. lasted 246 years (longer than the country’s been a country). It has only been 152 years since slavery ended. Only 69 years has passed since the U.S. armed forces were integrated. Brown vs. Board of Education occurred a mere 63 years ago. Black women in the South could not vote until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.
We’ve had slavery in this country almost 100 years longer than we haven’t.
Scientists think the universe is about 14 billion years old. The expansion of the universe is accelerating. The observable universe (as it is currently able to be observed) contains 100-200 billion galaxies. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains more than 100 billion stars. Our sun is one of them. It’s said to be 4.6 billion years old, like our earth. Humans have been around for 200,000-6 million years. Civilization is said to have started approximately 6 thousand years ago.
What existed before the universe? Was the universe always there? What is beyond the universe? Is there more than one universe?
Why are humans here? What is our purpose? Are we alone? Does it matter?
