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M Olath, part 1

1/27/2026

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by Mark Ayers
M leb Must. “My name/label is Must” (pronounced “m leeb meust”).
Introductions aside, I will expand my story (Olath) (pronounced o-lath) in your native speech, and hopefully impart some of our culture along the way.
First, I need you to imagine yourselves as humans and what that means. Your past helped define and shape who and what you are. You have great senses that were developed to work in your realm of being. These physical traits you use everyday to navigate your world. You interact through sound, touch, smell, and sight, and this is how your bodies developed. For instance you have two Ulee pronounced “u-lee” (eyes), you use these to search your surroundings for what you need and desire. But what if you could feel or sense your surroundings, and whom or what was going on around you. If this were the case, then maybe you would have only a single Ulee like “m” (me). Almost all of our culture are created this way, we can feel our “Nmen” which is our word for what you would call environment. This is really what brings you to me.
Your concept of “I” (also not a word in our culture) is different. There is no “I” in our culture because when you state “I” you are really thinking of yourself which is m in our language. So the concept of “I” is the same as “m” to me. You will have to excuse me if m slip in and out of using m for I, but m just does not think in the term “I”. prost in general don't think in terms of “individuals”, except for the “speakers”.
I did not develop this ability to feel my Nmen and in my culture it made m very different. Being different in my culture is not like being different in your culture. Being able to feel others without trying or wanting to if that is the correct term, allowed our culture to evolve with very little conflict as you would call it. There have never been any wars. In fact we do not have a word that translates to what you call war. The closest thing we have would be what you call a repulsiveness and it is not expressed verbally usually at all. I understand it's a sickening mental push and makes you want to move away from it quickly. The word for it is “Rubust” pronounced “ra-brast” Not having this talent, “I” was forced to use what you would call audible speech, and was apparently getting Rubust with out knowing it. I would think this would be similar to a non hearing person that someone else is trying to speak to from behind. Lots of times m did not fully comprehend the exchange, but I usually always got the last word in. Interactions were hard for m and m often came away thinking the contact went one way and was in fact the very opposite. “Ffl” pronounced “f full” or education as you would call it is also very different in our culture. Rather than class rooms and a student/teacher relationship as you have, we are all students and all teachers. Like minded individuals will gather together and sense each others knowledge and experiences together. Ffl in this way is not only extremely efficient but also rewarding, as I'm told, due to being able to share not only knowledge and memories but feelings as well. So imagine a close “fre” pronounced “fru” (friend as it were), is telling you a story and not only do you hear the story, but you see what they are seeing and feel what they are feeling at the same time. So when they told you of a birthday they had you could smell the cake and feel the “ums” (parent, we don't separate sex the way humans do as we are asexual), “Psun” or love for their offspring. My path to knowledge was much more troubled and as you can imagine much less rewarding. I am known in my culture as what you would call a “speaker”. And while my lack of talents in feeling made m “Dded” pronounced “de-did” (different), they made me very curious in the ways of other forms of communication. As you can imagine “speakers” as we are known are few and we tend to gather and talk often. This would bring us together on subjects that would be naturally different from others. While in Ffl a “prost” (our cultures name) will spend lots of time “Gl” pronounced “gee l” or gaining knowledge. Ffl is an exciting time for prost, wanting to “Sho” pronounced “S-ho” or sharing their experiences and discovering others experiences. Prost, Ffl at any opportunity they are given and often do not sustain or nourish themselves for many of your days not wanting to miss any opportunity. As a speaker, this seems a very prost focused thing to do and given the large quantity of prost in our culture most prost completely “Heme” (use or use up) their “piri” or life learning and growing in experiences of other prost.
M fre spoke to this subject and came to the conclusion that perhaps prost could not only benefit from our knowledge and experiences but from those of other cultures as well, and that is where m real story begins.
Once we concluded that Ffl was very prost focused as it were, m fre spoke on the opposite or “Pset” pronounced “p-sut”. Pset seemed natural for m fre as we had always been Dded. It seemed natural that if “normal” prost Ffl were inward focused we should be outward focused. Finally we decided that in order to accomplish this, our Ffl was going to have to be on our own. “speakers” learning and experiences and feelings were not interesting to other prost. And so the speakers decided to separate and only meet at “Klu” (pronounced “K-lew” a temple erected in celebration for the first Ffl prost).
Aah, to Sho at Klu m fre, a Ffl that will be! By this time you should be picking up on some of the less explained parts of our language. For instance if a word starts with an upper case letter that word has more than one phrase (m think you call them syllables). Also usually the sound is like that of the first letter that is shown. Words that do not start upper case are usually one syllable only. m give you and example of a simple sentence to work on.
“must a m fre Gl a Sho a prost Dded Ffl Nmen Klu”
Basically, “must (my name) and my friends gain knowledge and share with our culture different learning in the area around Klu”
Sorry, “a” is with or and. I do not think that I had previously defined that symbol.   ​
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Vengeance Lost

1/27/2026

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by Mark Ayers
It didn’t matter who it was with.  
She had cheated and hurt him just like the rest of the world, and they would all pay the same.  His day of retribution would come; of that he was sure.  His name had been known around the globe and he was determined that it would be known much longer than that.  Truly he was righteous, the meek would be his avengers.  Starting with a pair of lowly beetles, he had done it, making genetic changes, he had achieved wondrous mutations, colors, spines, and large, almost a foot tall for the males, and very voracious.  He worked feverishly, knowing that soon his vengeance would be satisfied soon.  Every fifteen minutes, he would walk and then climb and now almost crawl to his booth. His creation, his discovery, a machine to manipulate time had been ignored and laughed at when during its presentation his subject a rat had been electrocuted from a static buildup.  How many times he wondered.  How many trips to his booth had he made in his struggle, as he glanced at the dusty mirror across his lab, fifty years?  At least for him, the outside world?  His calculations put it at between 8000 to 10000 years. “Must finish” he thought. They must… they will meet a fitting fate.  He snapped his attention back to the cages, almost large enough, more than lethal enough; they were his babies, his beauties, his creation.  His vengeance.
They had laughed at his project, and pulled his funding.  Over and over he had cursed them in his successes.  He would have the last and final victory.  One last breeding cycle, one last trip to the booth, and he would be ready.  Beautiful glistening the creatures moved… a successful mating, an important point, the first few mutations had resulted in creatures so altered they could not successfully reproduce.  He felt himself clever, even resourceful. They would pay.  He giggled to himself as he thought of it.  The great plan, the scheme, it had been a thing of beauty the years of design and preparation and planning.  The trusts to keep his lab up and running for 10,000 years, at least to them.  She would be dead, but it mattered not.  The world that created her would pay.  The outside field had slowed his aging and the booth would protect him when the outside field was turned off and the effects of time caught up to his creatures and ultimately the world.   He entered the booth for the last time.  Pushing the green button, the door slid closed.  He had already checked the field voltage and gravity field.  His watch alarm was the next thing he was conscious of.  Three seconds, a short wait for the passing of mankind, fitting he thought just enough time for their doom.  But no, he would make them wait longer.  They would get 8 minutes, the time it takes light from the sun to reach the earth… A good time indeed, he thought.  Even as he sent out his message of doom for the world, He knew that he wanted to see it for himself; the destruction had to be complete.  Funny though, no feelings at all came as he opened the cages after cutting off the outside field, he was protected inside the booth and watched as his creatures were released into the world.  And finally he was alone.  Sudden waves of pain, and hatred for his love, and the world that had betrayed him, screamed in his mind.  He knew he must see.  Knowing he would have mere seconds to survive, as time would catch up, he leapt from the booth and enthralled, nearly jumped through the door… 
 He collapsed. Even as time caught up, he became conscious of his mistake.  Not that he was dying, that time was killing him, but rather what a horrible fool he was.  That while he’d been using time to grow and change his creatures, time had also been growing and changing humans.  Life racing from him, he gazed blankly… as people, now easily 15 feet tall, stomped and squished his creations into oblivion.  
Vengeance lost.

​
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