Like the old in an olderglass pass the olds of our lives. Oldly.
Look at all this stuff here that’s happened while I’m being old.
-Magma-based ecosystems and the geologists who are eaten by them.
-Sprawling Mesozoic civilizations whose lingua franca consists primarily of hootin’, stompin’, and hollerin’.
-The desire to succeed, the boldness to try, and the incompetence to prove otherwise.
-Giant carnivorous therapods arm-wrestling.
-Swashbuckling and nefarious yet strangely charming dental hygienists.
-The miracle of tube worms.
-Subterranean marsupials. As long as they aren’t teenagers or ninjas. And don’t live in a sewer. Sewers are much less hospitable, homey, and capacious than fiction would lead you to believe.
-The land of the eyeless where the one-eyed man is considered an okay guy but seriously what’s with those goddamned EYES?
-Languages consisting primarily of winks.
-Of varying salaciousness.
-Musical instruments constructed from skeletons.
-Musical instruments constructed from skeletons being played by musicians with exoskeletons.
-Musical instruments constructed from skeletons being played by musicians with exoskeletons for the auditory pleasure of invertebrates.
-Musical instruments constructed from skeletons being played by musicians with exoskeletons for the auditory pleasure of invertebrates inside a concert hall made from the husk of a giant protist.
-Cloning dinosaurs pell-mell.
-The awe and the power of jellyfish.
-Because we’re all going to be seeing a lot of that and we’d better get used to it.
-Things that are far larger than they have any business being.
-Ferocious and majestic house cats that rule over untrammeled wastes of frayed carpeting as far as the eye can see.
-Clocks that generate borrowed time for public consumption at highly reasonable interest rates.
-Buildings that used to be alive.
-Buildings that are still alive.
-Buildings that are still alive and are your wisecracking best friend that you go on adventures with.
-Plucky little coelurosaurs that stand up to the big guy and evolve into birds.
-Or plucky little coelurosaurs that stand up to the big guy and evolve into tyrannosaurs and eat him. I’m not taking sides here.
-The wonderful world of Pamela Barker. Go on, ask if you can take a look, she usually charges a pittance and it’s the best biosphere I’ve ever seen anyone fit into a matchbox.
-Endless whales. No upper limit. Just wall-to-wall whales, then more behind the walls. Literally forever. An infinity of whales. Full stop. Except there are no stops because there is no point where there are not more whales.
-A reasonably-priced donut that’s pretty darned tasty.
-Books that are larger than computers.
-Computers that are larger than rooms.
-Rooms that are larger than houses.
-Houses that you can put in your pocket and take home with you.
-As long as they’re machine-washable.
-Damning socks.
-Full-contact un-refereed no-holds-barred illegal back-alley math ‘bouts.
-Alphabets. Betabets too. Omegabets I’ll pass on. Epsilonbets no no no see I don’t do that shit shut the fuck up, but I know a guy who knows a guy.
-Nice smooth rocks with lots of trees on ‘em.
-Aggravated moss that turns terminal.
-Judging other people for their failure to think for me properly.
-The Little Mongol Horde that Could. Deserved more press than it got.
-The audacity of apathy.
-Or not. Whatever.
-Humming with intent. Also outside the tent oh HO knee slapped.
-Secret bases constructed inside things secret bases would not be expected to be constructed inside of.
-The end of an era. Any era, just pick one. There’s usually plenty of choices.
-Home products crafted from obsidian for entirely practical reasons.
-Home products crafted from obsidian for entirely impractical reasons.
-Surgery based around volatile chemicals and lots of chanting.
-Things that should have glowing eyeballs that don’t.
-The use of typeface to make a philosophical point, as long as someone gets punched before, during, or after the fact.
-Things that are big but not ol’. Most things shrink when they get ol’, I don’t see why this isn’t more common.
-Emergency use of the inner ear as a filter. For anything, really. Use your imagination. And your inner ear.
-Ancient horrors so feared that man dare not smell of them aloud and sniff only surreptitiously, with fearful glances.
-The dance of those who give no fucks.
-Elegance in brutal overwhelming force. Or vice versa.
-Zippiness in general.
-A calm, slow, even voice in a time of crisis that carefully and rationally suggests unimaginably stupid things.
-Birds with teeth.
-Teeth with birds.
-With bird teeth.
-The unparalleled splendor and majesty of the dandelion.
-Any major landscape feature that contains smaller versions of itself like a matryoshka doll.
-The art of artlessness.
-Gob-smacked monkey’s uncles who get knocked down with a feather so easily it blows their socks off.
-Meagreness in excess.
-Itty-bitty deep sea life. Like, squinchy-winchy at best. Puny. Teensy. Minute.
-The pleasure of plesiosaurs.