I Don't Care About AI and You Can't Make Me

 

AI writing will inevitably replace human writers, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

 

I’m sure you’ve seen comments like this posted on social media over the last few years, and it usually precedes an argument about which is better: AI-created art/entertainment or that created by humans. After seeing someone post the above (paraphrased) statement on my Facebook timeline, I realized I have a new response to these sorts of comments.

 

Who fucking cares?

 

I’m 61. I’ve lived my entire life in a constantly changing world on the verge of destruction by one means or another. They say AI is an existential threat. Baby, the entire fucking universe is an existential threat, and it’s never been otherwise. (And people wonder why I write dark fiction.) If AI does replace human writing in all fields – and I’m not convinced it will – that won’t keep me from writing. I write because I have to, because it’s the truest expression of my Self, because it’s the only thing that uses all of my mind at once (although teaching sometimes comes close), and most of all, because it’s fun. I’ve continued writing through rejection, depression, illness, divorce, the death of the midlist, several death-and-rebirth cycles of Horror, my first agent who gave up on my novel after a year, my first novel contract getting cancelled… I could go on, but if you’ve been writing for any length of time, you’ve got your own list of obstacles you’ve overcome. If all of those things couldn’t stop me from writing, why should an overhyped technological advancement?

 

And while I’ve made it to my sixties, there’s no guarantee I won’t die as I’m typing these words. (If I was handwriting this, this would be the point where my pen would trail off down the page.) I’ve got too much to do in whatever time I have left to worry about AI. But maybe you’re a younger writer with (hopefully) many more years ahead of you than I have, and AI might seem like a real threat to your establishing and maintaining a writing career.

 

Let’s talk.

·       Everything dies. Not a cheery thought, but it’s the truth. The second law of thermodynamics is the closest thing to God we have. I often apply the deathbed test when I’m struggling with a decision. When I’m on my deathbed, will I look back over my life and regret not having done X? If you’d regret giving up on writing because of the rise of AI, then fuck AI and write. Yes, it’s possible that AI-produced writing will become the norm someday. Who cares? It’s what we do today that matters. Maybe people in the future (assuming humanity has a future) will live to be 200, 300, or maybe even be immortal. Does that mean my 61 to (if I’m really lucky) 100-year-long life was worthless? Of course not. So all the writing I have produced in my life isn’t meaningless just because writing itself may be different in the future.

·       But sometimes things keep living – even if they occupy a different niche in the world. There are still blacksmiths, glassblowers, musicians who play medieval instruments, painters of realism, stage actors… Manufacturing technology, instrument design and construction, photography, and film haven’t entirely replaced those older crafts. They’re still around, even if there isn’t as much demand for them anymore (then again, there are renn faires). You know that old cliché that parents say? “If your friends all jumped off a bridge, would you?” Well, turn it around: “If none of your friends write without AI, would you?” Who gives a shit what other people do? It’s what you do that matters.

·       It’s always been hard to make a living in the arts. Maybe AI will make it harder for non-AI writers to make money. I think that’s almost a certainty in business writing and simple nonfiction. I already have students who write web articles and listicles, and their editors often require them to use AI. But how many of you reading this make all of your money solely from producing your art? (Not counting any income a partner of yours brings in.) I never have, and I’ve been writing and publishing for forty years. The vast majority of my income comes from teaching. If I never made another cent from writing, the economic impact on me would be negligible. Yes, some people support themselves solely with their writing, even if they’re barely above the poverty level. (Author Tim Powers once said that it’s easy to live as a freelance writer, “Once you learn to live shabby.”) Maybe non-AI writers won’t be able to make a living from their art, but most of us don’t now anyway, so what would really change for us? There are plenty of literary writers and poets who know there’s almost no market demand for their art, and they still produce it anyway. Maybe all non-AI writers will be in the same situation one day, and that will suck, but the ones who need to write will still write.

·       It’s not inevitable that readers will prefer AI writing to human writing. The AI-vangelists and the AI doomsayers both assume that AI writing will replace human writing. But that all depends on humans themselves. Humans make choices for many reasons – psychological, physical, environmental, societal… Humans will have to prefer AI writing and choose it over non-AI writing. Dense, complex literary fiction that focuses on character and setting more than plot (if there’s any plot at all) exists, but the vast majority of readers aren’t interested in it. It doesn’t give them what they want from a story (which is, first and foremost, story itself). I’m not knocking literary fiction. I like it just fine, so don’t come at me in the comments or on social media. But there’s a reason why lit fic doesn’t often show up on the bestseller lists and why it usually doesn’t make any money. The Horror boom of the 80s became the Horror bust of the 90s when publishers started cranking out as many mediocre Horror novels as they could to sate the public’s demand. Readers got tired of reading sub-par novels and stopped buying Horror. The same thing could happen with AI writing. If people don’t find AI writing satisfying, and they do find that human writing fulfills their needs, that’s what they’ll read. People talk about supply and demand as if it’s all about money, but it’s really about need and desire.

·       AI will inevitably surpass human writers. People tend to believe that technology advances at a constantly accelerating rate, but this isn’t always true. All you need to do is take a look at old predictions of what people in the past thought (or hoped) the future would be like. But we don’t have flying cars, bases on the moon and Mars, intelligent robot companions, faster-than-light drive, etc. Technology can plateau and remain at that level for a long time. While there have been advancements in Windows, Word, PowerPoint, etc., they are essentially the same programs they were decades ago. AI-vangelists (and people who predict the Singularity occurring within a few years) are likely overly – if not wildly – optimistic in their predictions. AI might plateau at a certain point and remain there for a long time, perhaps a very long time. But even if AI continues to advance and does so rapidly, the writing it produces won’t be better than what a human creates. It will produce writing faster, and much of it might be as good as what an average writer produces, but I doubt it will be able to truly simulate the perspective of individual humans. It might be able to write for its own experiences and perspective, though, and that would be very cool. But as I said earlier about making a living from writing, more advanced AI might change the market for writers (both traditionally published and indie writers). A friend once told me that “There’s no difference between the average literary novel and the average genre novel, except the average literary novel doesn’t get published.” (He told me this before the advent of current self-publishing tech.) A future of this quote might be “There is no difference between the average AI-written piece and the average human-written piece, but the average AI-written piece is produced faster and more cheaply.” (More cheaply in terms of not paying writers, not in terms of AI’s energy and water usage.) Readers in the future might still read human-written writing, but they might read only high-quality work written from unique perspectives and/or interesting, innovative techniques rather than run-of-the-mill prose.

·       There’s no stopping AI. I see people post on social media that “AI MUST BE STOPPED!” I never say anything when I see such comments, but I always wonder how anyone can truly believe this is possible. It’s like they’re standing on a beach, palms outstretched as a gigantic wave rushes toward them, and shout, “THIS TSUNAMI MUST BE STOPPED!” Good fucking luck with that. You can choose not to use AI or consume anything it produces (although this will become more difficult as AI becomes more embedded in society), but humans are tool-users, and if an effective new tool is created, humans will rush to use it. It’s not “AI MUST BE STOPPED!” but “WE MUST STOP EVERYONE IN THE HUMAN RACE FROM USING AI!” Ain’t gonna happen. The college where I teach is going to incorporate AI into all its classes starting this Fall. How and how much we’ll use it is unclear right now, but it’s happening. And not just at my school. It’s happening everywhere. Children will grow up using AI in all kinds of ways, and the tool will be perfectly normal to them by the time they’re adults. I only use AI to the extent I need to in my classes, and I try to inform students about the best choices they can make when using AI. First, I tell them there is no ethical way to use AI, and I explain how AI was trained on stolen material and how it consumes a ton of energy and water (making it hugely wasteful). But then I tell them that there’s no ethical way to use much of our technology, such as combustion engines. People need to weigh the pluses and minuses of using technology for themselves as individuals and for the world at large, and then make their own choices. I tell them that their classes and jobs may require them to use AI one day soon, and they’ll have to make choices about that, too. I show them an AI program, show them how to write prompts, etc. Then I ask the AI program to tell the students what it can do for them without writing their essays. Then I ask the program to tell students what its limitations are in helping them with their writing. I post both of these responses on our course page. This way, the AI program is telling them how and how not to use it, not me. I think it’s worth everyone trying out AI programs a bit just to familiarize yourself with the tech since it’s rapidly becoming a common tool in society. And if you are rabidly anti-AI, keep fighting the good fight, and if you lose in the end, you hopefully made people consider their attitudes toward AI and how (or if) to use it, and that’s no small thing.

·       No AI was used in the production of this work. Some people are starting to use statements like this to assure readers that their work is 100 percent human-written, like the labels you see on various products in the grocery proclaiming them to be gluten-free, no sugar added, 100 percent organic, no artificial sweeteners, etc. Not only is a non-AI statement a promise to customers, it’s also an effective statement of your values. And likely, more effective than posting FUCK AI! on social media. It’s a positive statement that makes no criticism of AI or of others who may use AI. People tend to respond better to positive sales messages than negative ones (especially ones that don’t explicitly or implicitly criticize them).

·       Keep living your best writing life. If the world keeps changing around me until I’m the last writer on Earth not using AI, so be it. I’m going to keep writing my stories my way and be thankful I lived at a time when I could do so. That will be enough for me. But if nothing else, don’t let your feelings about the advent of AI-assisted writing take up so much of your mental and emotional energy that you find it hard (and maybe impossible) to write. Don’t let the existence of AI impede your creativity because then it really will win. Keep writing, you brilliant, beautiful humans.

DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION

Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God

 

I have a Conan the Barbarian novel coming from Titan Books in October! It was a hell of a lot of fun to write, and I hope fans of sword-and-sorcery action will enjoy it.

 

You can find various preorder links at the Titan Books site: https://titanbooks.com/72365-conan-spawn-of-the-serpent-god/

 

Synopsis:

 

In Zamora, the city of thieves, Conan meets Valja, a thrill-seeking thief. She entices him to join

her on a heist, where they steal a golden statuette of Ishtar, said to contain the goddess herself.

After killing a dozen guards and failing to escape, the pair are saved by priestesses of Mitra. But

Conan knows that nothing is free.

 

The priestesses have need of their skills. They have waged war against Set, god of chaos and

serpents, who demands constant sacrifice from his subjects and massacred thousands of his

followers. Yet they are no match for Uzzeran, a powerful sorcerer, who has been performing

unspeakable experiments on humans in the name of Set. To defeat Uzzeran, they will need a

legendary warrior on their side. They need Conan the Barbarian.

 

The World Turns Red

 

My new horror novella, The World Turns Red, is unleashed upon the world, and so far the reviews have been great! Here’s a sampling:

 

“A dark, disturbing masterpiece worth binge-reading in one sitting.” – S.E. Howard

 

“This is a very dark, intense read with a surreal quality that pulled me in from page one and held me spellbound to the bitter end.” – Well Worth a Read

 

“The World Turns Red is another in a long line of brilliant horror work by Tim Waggoner. There was never anyone who could blend the real with the surreal so seamlessly that, as wild as the story gets, it makes perfect sense somehow. Now THAT takes one hell of a writer. The book is a flawless masterpiece…6 out of 5 stars.”  – Carson Buckingham

 

Welcome to the meat room.

 

At first, it’s a whisper on the edge of your consciousness.

 

As it gets louder, you begin to make out words—dark, sharp, dangerous words… You clap your hands over your ears to shut them out, but you can’t escape what comes from inside you.

 

The voice tells you to do things to yourself. Bad things. Awful things…

 

The longer you listen, the more they seem reasonable. Desirable.

 

Inevitable.

 

And as you reach for the nearest knife, gun, or rope, the voice speaks the last four words you’ll ever hear:

 

All hail the Unhigh.

 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/5cabrjn2

 

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/kzphuep7

 

Dark Tides 21: 24 Frames Per Second

 

I’m thrilled to have another new novella in the latest volume of Crystal Lake Publishing’s Dark Tide Series – 24 Frames Per Second – alongside Andrew Naldony and Gary A. Braunbeck.

 

Step into the terrifying world of Hollywood horror, where the line between fiction and reality blurs, and the consequences of cinematic creation become all too real. In 24 Frames Per Second, three chilling novellas bring to life the darkest corners of the movie industry—where horror isn’t just confined to the screen.

 

“The Last Cannibal Movie” by Tim Waggoner: A group of student filmmakers embark on a project to create a cannibal holocaust film—but soon, their fictional nightmare begins to unfold in real life. As their imagined horrors come to life, they must face the terrifying reality of their own creation.

 

“I Am the Rainbringer” by Andrew Nadolny: A woman is transformed into a serial killer by her father’s dying wish, and her husband turns her deadly past into a movie. But the ghosts of his parents—and her brutal history—soon rise to haunt them both, blurring the line between the living and the dead in a nightmare that can’t be escaped.

 

“This Is Not My Movie” by Gary A. Braunbeck: After a movie theater is consumed by fire, the charred ruins become a nexus for ghosts and alternate realities. A haunting tale of how a beloved movie theater's destruction births a dark, sentient force, trapping the souls of those killed in the blaze.

 

In 24 Frames Per Second, horror reaches beyond the screen and becomes part of the fabric of reality, where the true cost of creation is more horrifying than any fictional tale. Each novella is a unique exploration of terror, art, and the boundaries of reality, set against the backdrop of Hollywood’s darkest secrets.

 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/8u7jh8f

 

Barnes & Noble: https://tinyurl.com/873tj3vj

 

“And You Will Live in Horror Forever”

 

I have a new short story in the latest issue of Cthonic Matter. If you’re unfamiliar with the journal, here’s a description from their submission page: “Chthonic Matter is a quarterly offering of tales from the darkside. Its contents range in tone from the quiet horror of Shirley Jackson to the bleak stylings of Thomas Ligotti — and everything in between.” I’m proud to be part of such a cool publication!

 

https://chthonicmatter.wordpress.com/chthonicmatter/

 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/45sb5b73

 

All Roads Lead to Hell

 

PIC

 

My story “No One Sings in the City of the Dead” appears in this anthology. (Full disclosure: the tale is a reprint.) From the publisher:

 

This anthology, composed of 11 tales of terror by the authors of Winding Road Stories, will remind you that it's not where you begin but where you end. And in the world of horror, all roads lead to hell.

 

Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/5hap3wyy

 

SCHEDULED APPEARANCES

 

San Diego Comic Con. July 24-27. San Diego, California.

 

Gencon Writers’ Symposium. July 31^st to August 3rd. Indianapolis, Indiana.

 

WHERE TO FIND ME ONLINE

 

Want to follow me on social media? Here’s where you can find me:

 

Website: www.timwaggoner.com

Newsletter Sign-Up: https://timwaggoner.com/contact.htm

Amazon Page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Tim-Waggoner/author/B001JP0XFM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Blog: http://writinginthedarktw.blogspot.com/

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/timwaggonerswritinginthedark

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/133838.Tim_Waggoner

Instagram: tim.waggoner.scribe

Threads: @tim.waggoner.scribe@threads.net

Bluesky: @timwaggoner.bsky.social

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tim.waggoner.9

 

The Last Warrior

 

Thirty years ago, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, and four days later – Memorial Day – I was on the operating table. I was thirty-one years old, married to my first wife for seven years, and our first daughter was only four months old. I was terrified, of course, but primarily because I didn’t want to leave my daughter without her father, and I didn’t want to miss getting to see her grow up.

 

There were a few minor snags – at first the surgeon couldn’t find one of my kidneys on my CT scan images (which is how I learned I have a pelvic kidney on the left side), and the spinal block I’d gotten along with other anesthesia somehow made it so if I tried to sit up, I felt instantly dizzy and needed to vomit. I spent six hours lying prone in the recovery ward with a very patient nurse who sat with me the entire time, until a doctor walked by, saw me, frowned, walked over to my bed, skimmed my chart, then asked the nurse, “What’s wrong with him?” She explained, and he told her to give me a drug whose name I don’t remember. “He’s young, he’s strong, he can take it,” the doctor said. Then he turned to me, said, “We’ll get you out of here,” then walked off. I never learned his name, and I didn’t know what they were going to put into me, but I didn’t care, so long as I got home. Whatever that medicine was, it worked – until I was within three steps of my couch. Luckily, I managed to lie down before I threw up everywhere. When I was discharged, I was told this weird effect would wear off by morning, and it did. Otherwise, the surgery was a success. And as a bonus, I felt absolutely no pain even though I had a finger-length incision on my abdomen the entire time I was healing.

 

I had to have follow-up CT scans for five years, but in general, testicular cancer has a high survival rate, and I was fine. I’d been writing and publishing short stories for several years, and when I got the opportunity to write a story for Marty Greenberg’s anthology Elf Magic, I decided I’d use my experience with cancer as part of the tale. The result was “The Last Warrior.” Elf Magic came out in 1997. My oldest daughter was two at the time, and I loved every second I got to spend with her, even the hard times when she was sick, or wouldn’t sleep through the night (I was always the one who got up with her), and when I had to change a particularly messy diaper. And I was privileged to experience it all over again when my second daughter was born in 2000.

 

“The Last Warrior” has never been republished, and I decided to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of my surgery by sharing the story with all of you. The sections that take place in our world are all drawn from my real life. As for the other sections, who knows? Maybe I lived them, too, somewhere and somewhen.

 

If you want to learn more about the signs and treatment of testicular cancer, you can go here: https://tinyurl.com/4aunh8p7

 

THE LAST WARRIOR

 

TIM WAGGONER

 

Originally published in Elf Magic, DAW Books, 1997

 

"Rise, Alfarnin!"

The voice—a woman's, he thought, an old woman's—seemed to come from a great distance. Alfarnin tried to open his eyes, but he was tired, so very tired...

"There is no time for this, elf! Get up! Skuld commands you!"

He felt a pair of age-weakened hands tugging on his arm. He tried to pull away and roll over so that he might shrug off the old woman and give himself up completely to the darkness she was so determined to drag him away from. But he found himself able to turn only partway. Something was blocking him.

He opened a weary eye and found himself staring into the horrid, twisted face of a troll. With a cry, he sat up, right hand instinctively groping for a weapon.

"Don't bother, elf," said the old woman disdainfully. "It's dead. Everything's dead here. Save you, that is."

Alfarnin saw she spoke the truth. The troll's eyes were wide and staring, its hairy chest a ragged ruin. He lifted his gaze from the fell beast to see he sat in the middle of an endless expanse of corpses, all clad in battle gear. A vast array of weapons protruded from the bodies—spears, pikes, swords, axes—and blood covered the twisted, still forms like a crimson blanket.

He looked down at his own simple tunic. Once it had been the plain gray of an elven farmer; now it was a stiff, dark red edging toward brown. He touched his long silver hair and found it clumped and matted with dried blood. He ran a hand across his chest and stomach, searching for wounds, but those he discovered were, for the most part, minor, though they hurt like blazes.

"Your weapon, warrior." The old woman sneered this last word.

Alfarnin turned to look at the woman for the first time. She wore a black robe, hood drawn forth to cover her head, completely obscuring her features. If it hadn't been for her quavering, cracking voice—and for her wrinkled, age-spotted claw which held forth his hand scythe—he couldn't have guessed at her age.

He took his scythe, noting that the dulled blade was caked with flaking red-brown. "I was working in my fields when I heard Heimdall's horn," he explained. "I had little time to prepare before the battle was joined." The final battle: Ragnarok.

He could remember little after Heimdall's signal had echoed throughout the universe, summoning all creation to the last great war. To Alfarnin, it had been a blur of images—flashing blades, thundering war horses, razor-sharp claws—and a cacophony of sound—the battle cries of the gods, the answering bellow of giants, steel clanging against steel. And above all, the screams of the dying. So many screams.

But it was over now. The warriors, both those who fought for Light and those for Dark, were still, their voices silenced forever. And somehow, miraculously, impossibly, Alfarnin, a simple tender of crops, was the lone survivor.

And then he remembered what the old woman had named herself. "Skuld, you said. You are one of the Norns, the three Fates."

"I am. She whose province is the future."

Alfarnin looked out across the endless open graveyard that surrounded them. There were no buzzing flies, no feasting gore crows. The air was motionless, flat and dead.

He spoke in a weary, hollow voice. "After this day, I would think there is no future."

Skuld chuckled dryly. "That, my dear elf, is entirely up to you."

---

Gerald Winnick, all of twenty-four years old, stood at the altar sweating and waiting for the Wedding March to begin. His rented tux was too loose around the waist and too tight around the throat. He was having trouble breathing, and what little air he did get in lay hot and heavy in his lungs.

His groomsmen stood beside him, three of his best friends from high school, but the way he felt, he might as well have been alone. They weren't the ones getting married today, they weren't the ones gambling their entire future on the next half an hour or so.

It wasn't that he didn't love Laura—he did—but the idea of being married to her, being her Husband with a capital H, freaked him out more than a little. Intellectually, he knew it was just a ceremony, a few words and an exchange of rings, a confirmation of a love that already existed, no big deal.

But emotionally, it felt as if something new was about to happen, something almost magical. His whole world—and Laura's, too, of course—was about to change forever.

The priest smiled at Gerald kindly, then gave a nod for the organist to start playing. As soon as the familiar strains of the Wedding March began (though Gerald had never heard them outside of a movie or TV show before), Laura appeared in the rear of the church, holding on to her father's arm. They stood there a moment, then began slowly walking forward arm in arm. Laura was beaming, and her father looked as if this were the proudest, and perhaps in a way saddest, day of his life.

Gerald started trembling. He loved Laura, but she was a bit self-centered, tended to think of herself before anyone else, and while she expected him to share every little feeling he had, she was reticent about sharing hers. And a dozen other things, minor complaints, really, mostly tiny quirks and eccentricities which everyone had, Lord knows he had his share, but when you took his weirdness and hers and put them together...

Laura and her father reached the foot of the altar. Her father kissed her on the cheek, then she kissed him. Then they turned to face the priest.

"Who gives this woman away?" the priest asked in a voice which filled the church. It seemed to Gerald as if God himself were talking.

"Her mother and I," Laura's father answered clearly. Then he gave Laura a last kiss and sat in a pew next to her mother while Laura mounted the steps to stand next to Gerald. Her maid of honor stepped down to arrange her train, then took her place once more.

The priest began talking but Gerald wasn't listening. He looked at Laura and she smiled at him, a smile full of love and hope, with not a hint of nervousness. Gerald felt her love for him, and while it didn't wash away his doubts completely, it went a long way toward blunting them.

He knew then that he had been waiting for something, for some sort of cosmic guarantee that he was doing the right thing. But it was a guarantee that wasn't forthcoming. He knew now that there were no sure things in life, and that a big part of love, real love, was faith. The question was, did he have that kind of faith in Laura? In himself? In them?

When the time came, Gerald said "I do," and, even if his voice quavered a bit, he was sure he meant it.

---

"Wake up, elf!"

Alfarnin opened his eyes and rubbed the sleep out of them. The sky above was the same dull gray it had been when he'd lain down. Skuld had said there was no time anymore, so there would be no sunrise, no sunset, just endless gray.

Alfarnin rose to his feet. Skuld stood a few feet away, hands on her hips, and while the elf still couldn't see into the shadowed depths of her hood, he had the impression she was looking at him disapprovingly.

"You certainly sleep a good deal," the Norn grumbled.

Alfarnin brushed dirt from his tunic. He had had to move several bodies in order to clear a space to sleep. There was no way he could move a giant, even though some of them were hardly larger than man-sized. Nor could he move one of the Aesir, not just because he was loathe to dishonor one of the gods even in death, but because despite their normal size, they tended to be made of sterner stuff than men and were far heavier than they looked. The dwarves, while less dense structurally, were still heavy enough, and, being a light elf, Alfarnin couldn't bring himself to touch one of the hated dark elves. So in the end, he had moved some of his own lithesome people and prayed for forgiveness to the spirit of Frey, who among other things was—or rather, had been—god of elves.

"I traveled quite a distance yesterday." Alfarnin realized such concepts as yesterday and tomorrow had no meaning any longer, but he knew no other way to express himself. "I was weary."

Skuld snorted. "An illusion, nothing more. Your body felt tired because it expected to. But without Time, you cannot tire." She gestured toward the endless expanse of bodies that surrounded them. "Have you not noticed that the corpses do not rot? That rigor has not claimed them? They are as fresh as the moment life fled them. No time is passing here, elf, because Time itself has died."

"If Time has died, then why do I seem to experience it? Why must I still walk one step after the other? Why do I still sleep and dream?"

"I told you, it's an illusion!" Skuld said impatiently. "You only think—" She broke off. "Did you say you dreamed?"

Alfarnin nodded and told the Norn of his strange dream, of being a young human on the day of joining to his mate.

Skuld said nothing at first. Finally, she made a dismissive gesture. "We exist in an in-between state here, between Life and Death, Existence and Nothingness. Odd experiences are to be expected in such a place."

Alfarnin shrugged. He was no mage or philosopher, just a simple farmer. Such weighty matters were beyond him. Still, it had been an interesting dream. Alfarnin himself had never been fortunate enough to be allowed to take a wife; the elf lord who ruled the lands he farmed had never seen fit to grant his permission.

Alfarnin put the dream out of his mind. He had work to do. "Are you going to accompany me this day, Skuld? Or are you going to remain behind as you did yesterday?"

"I have no need to walk with you, elf. When you reach your destination, I shall be there."

"Very well." He started walking, picking his way carefully around the bodies of the fallen warriors, stepping over them and, when he had no choice, on them. He walked in no particular direction, for according to Skuld, he didn't have to bother with that. He simply needed to concentrate on his goal and continue forward.

It didn't seem so simple to him. As Skuld had explained to him "yesterday," he was to find the body of Allfather Odin, and tear the heart from His chest. And then the elf was to bear the heart to Yggdrasill and use it to renew creation itself.

Alfarnin, as did all who lived, knew the prophecy of Ragnarok and what was to occur afterward. The gods and their allies would perish while bravely standing against the forces of Darkness. For a time, the world would be as ashes, cold and barren, but then a spark of life would return and creation would begin again, new and vital.

But the tales had never said exactly how the world would be restored. But Skuld had known. Being the Future, how could she not?

He remembered how she had explained it to him.

"Think of Existence as a wheel, elf," she had said not long after his first awakening. "A wheel which is constantly in motion, turning slowly from today to tomorrow, one day following the next in stately progression until the end is reached and the wheel grinds to a halt. But the Wheel is circular; it has no true beginning and end. All it needs to resume its turning is a push. A push which you shall give, elf."

"Me?" he had said, incredulous. "Such a task is for a god, or a great hero! I'm not even a proper warrior!"

"True," Skuld had agreed, a little too quickly for Alfarnin. "But you are all that remains. I would do it myself if I could, but I cannot. The Future can make itself known, but it cannot create itself."

Alfarnin hadn't been sure he understood the difference, but Skuld said that was the best explanation she could give, and he had no choice but to accept it.

"What will the new world be like?" he asked.

"Much the same as the old. The wheel has turned many, many times before this. There have been other Ragnaroks; this was merely the latest."

"Have I always been the only one to survive?" Alfarnin asked.

Skuld laughed. "Don't flatter yourself, elf! The cycle of Existence has its variations. There is always at least one survivor of the final battle, sometimes more, and I always guide them so that they might restart the wheel on its endless journey. This is the first time you have survived the battle. Last time it was Loki." She shook her head. "Getting him to start the wheel again took quite some doing."

Alfarnin hadn't particularly wanted this duty, what Skuld called "a great honor." After the horrors he had witnessed—and committed—during Ragnarok, he would have rather lain down and surrender to the ultimate darkness, so he might forget.

But if he truly was the only one left, he had no choice, did he? Besides, Skuld had assured him that when the wheel began its new cycle, he would eventually be reborn, quite likely in a higher station because of his actions.

"Who knows?" she had said, "you might even end up a lesser god."

So now here Alfarnin was, traipsing through the grisly aftermath of the final battle, searching for the corpse of the Allfather, without any more guidance other than Skuld's assurances that as long as he continued on, the elf would eventually stumble across—

He stopped. There, in the sky. Was that... Yes, it was. Off in the distance, circling in the air, was a large black raven. It seemed Skuld had been right; he had found what he was looking for.

Alfarnin hurried forward.

---

Gerald, all of thirty now, stood next to his wife, arm around her shoulders, and tried to radiate calm and strength, despite the fact he was scared to death.

Laura wore a blue housecoat and ugly green slippers, the latter provided by the hospital. Her hair was limp and mussed, her face pale, eyes red from crying. Gerald felt like crying himself, but he wouldn't allow it, not in front of Laura. She needed him to be strong.

Make that they needed him to be strong. Gerald turned away from Laura and looked through the window at the tiny being who, along with his wife, he’d made. Nurses bustled around the small (so small) infant, a girl, who didn't have a name yet because she'd come so early. Eight weeks, to be precise.

The nurses checked various tubes and monitors while Gerald's tiny daughter lay motionless within the sterile warmth of her incubator. It was a poor substitute for a mother's womb, but it would have to do.

Their baby looked so frail, so weak, so tired, as if it exhausted her just to breathe and pump blood through her not-quite-finished body. She needed a name, they had to think of a name. But right now, Gerald couldn't do anything except hope to God the tiny thing lived a few more hours.

Tears began to flow down well-traveled paths on Laura's cheeks. Gerald tore his gaze from his struggling daughter. "It'll be okay, honey," he said. He forced a smile. "She's a fighter, just like her mom." He didn't quite manage to sound as confident as he'd have liked, but Laura smiled at him gratefully and wrapped her arms around his waist. And they stood like that, together, and watched, waited, and prayed.

---

Alfarnin stopped, disoriented and dizzy. He stood before the shaggy, blood-matted corpse of a great wolf, many times larger than any ordinary lupine. This was Fenrir, child of Loki, and, according to the prophecy of Ragnarok, the slayer of Odin. And above, circling slowly, was the midnight-black raven.

Alfarnin didn't recall anything from the moment he had first spotted the raven in the sky, didn't remember crossing the intervening distance. No, that wasn't quite true. He had had another of those strange dreams. Only this hadn't been a dream, had it, for he had been awake. A vision of some kind, then. But a vision of what, exactly, Alfarnin wasn't certain.

"Something wrong, elf?"

Skuld stood beside him, as she had promised. Alfarnin started to tell the Norn of his vision, but then decided against it. It hardly seemed important, not compared to the task which lay before him. He shook his head and examined the body of the huge beast that had been the great wolf Fenrir.

From the tales Alfarnin had heard all his long life, he had expected Fenrir to be quite a terror, but despite the wolf's gigantic size, it made no more impression on him than the thousands of other corpses he had seen in the timeless interval since first awakening. Perhaps the horrors he had witnessed during Ragnarok and after had numbed him. Or perhaps even the dire wolf Fenrir didn't seem so fearsome when compared to the sick, helpless terror of a parent desperately praying for the survival of his ailing child.

"Elf?" the Norn prompted, a measure of concern in her voice.

Alfarnin shook his head once more and did his best to cast the vision from his mind. He was an elf, not a man of Midgard, and work lay before him.

Fenrir's jaws had been torn apart by Odin's son Vidar, taking vengeance for his father's death. Or so it must have been if the tales held true.

"It strikes me as odd, Skuld."

"What does, elf?"

"That Odin and the other Aesir, knowing how Ragnarok was to turn out, did nothing to try to change it."

Skuld's tone was that of an impatient parent lecturing a slow-witted child. "It was predestined; there was nothing they could do but play out their assigned roles. The Wheel turns, and both gods and mortals follow, whether they like it or not."

"They hardly seem like gods, then, do they?" the elf mused. "More like dancers stepping out their well-rehearsed movements to someone else's tune."

"Such is the way of existence," Skuld said.

Alfarnin said nothing. Instead, he pointed his hand scythe at a black form which lay partially buried beneath one of Fenrir's huge front paws. "Another raven." He knelt down and prodded it with the blade of his scythe, but it didn't respond. "Dead."

"Huginn," Skuld said. "The raven of Thought. When Odin perished so did it likewise, for the Allfather was done with thinking."

Alfarnin gestured to the other raven still circling above. "And that one?"

"Muninn, the raven of Memory. Odin may be gone, but as long as we are here to remember Him, Muninn lives on."

Alfarnin nodded, though the Norn's explanation made little sense to him. "What do I do now?"

"I told you—you need to retrieve the Allfather's heart." She pointed to the belly of the great wolf, and Alfarnin remembered: Fenrir was supposed to devour Odin.

He glanced at his scythe's dulled blade. It would hardly do the job. He began to search the fallen warriors, looking for a dagger—a very sharp dagger.

---

Hours later—or at least what seemed like hours later—Alfarnin stepped back from the wolf's open gut and dragged a gore-smeared forearm across his sweaty brow. His gray farmer's tunic was soaked with blood, which refused to dry: another feature of the timelessness of this place, according to Skuld. Alfarnin wished he had possessed the foresight to remove his clothing before beginning his grisly work.

"You are close, elf," Skuld said. "I can feel it!"

Alfarnin took a deep breath, ignored the pain from his unhealing wounds, and stepped back into the beast's carcass. After a bit, he reached what he thought was the creature's stomach, and with a final downward swipe of the elf's borrowed dagger, the leathery organ parted. A flood of foul-smelling liquid gushed forth, splashing onto Alfarnin. His gorge rose instantly, and he turned away, fully expecting to empty the contents of his own stomach, but though he retched violently, nothing came up. He didn't have to ask Skuld; this was no doubt yet another result of the strange nature of this place.

When the urge to vomit subsided, Alfarnin turned back to the cavity he had created in Fenrir and there, mangled and curled into a ball, reposed the body of Odin, Allfather, Lord of the Aesir and all creation.

Alfarnin had never seen Odin before, though he had heard many, many tales of the god over the centuries. And truth to tell, he was rather disappointed. He had expected to find an imposing, kingly being. But instead, Odin was a tall, lean old man with a long scraggly gray beard and a black leather patch over one eye, or rather, where an eye had once been. His golden battle armor seemed too large for the scrawny body, as if its owner were a beggar who had suddenly been pressed into service instead of being the all-powerful god of gods.

It was difficult for Alfarnin to understand why such a mighty being, forewarned of such an ignominious end, would not choose to take steps to avoid it. Unless, as Skuld had said, He had had no choice. Well, Odin had played out His part; so, too, would Alfarnin.

"Forgive me, Allfather," he whispered, then raised his dagger and returned to his work. A bit later, he held in his hand a blood-smeared orb of polished silver. The Heart of Odin.

Skuld clapped her withered hands in glee. "One more journey, elf, and you are through. You must take the heart to the base of Yggdrasill. As before, keep your destination strongly in your mind as you walk, and you shall eventually reach the World Tree. I shall await you there."

And then she was gone.

Alfarnin wiped the heart off on the cloak of one of the low-ranking Aesir lying not far from Fenrir, tucked his dagger in his belt, and then, even though he really did not need it any longer, he picked up his scythe. He had started his journey as a farmer, and it seemed only right that he finish it as such.

He began to walk, but stopped when he heard a soft thump behind him. He turned to see Odin's second raven, Muninn, lying dead on the ground. Now that the Allfather had surrendered His heart, what need was there to remember Him anymore? Alfarnin looked across the field of corpses. What need to remember any of this?

Reeking of blood and gastric juices, he resumed his journey.

---

Gerald was thirty-nine, too young to have to worry about words like tumor and chemotherapy. But his cancer hadn't bothered to ask for his I.D. before inviting itself into his body and settling in. Now, after three surgeries (one major, two minor) he sat in a waiting room of the outpatient care wing of Holland Memorial Hospital, wracked with nausea from his latest chemo treatment, trying to choke down a horrid concoction of powdered lemon drink mix and contrast dye that would make his innards more photogenic for the CT scan.

His oncologist said his chances for a cure were good; not great, but good. So Gerald endured the surgeries, the CT scans, the blood tests, the x-rays, the chemo, and worst of all, the soul-gnawing fear that in the end, none of it would be enough. Because he desperately wanted to live.

Not so much for himself. Given the choice, he wanted to squeeze as many years out of his life as he possibly could, but he'd lived to thirty-nine, and overall, he was satisfied with the time he'd had. And while he wanted to live for Laura, he knew he didn't need to. Their marriage hadn't exactly been storybook perfect, but it had, on balance, been a good one. But Laura was still young, at least relatively so, and she was a strong woman. If she had to, she'd get by without him, maybe even find someone and remarry. Knowing this comforted him.

No, he wanted to live primarily for Caitlin. She'd be ten next month, and even though she was getting to be quite a big girl, he couldn't bear the thought of leaving his daughter without a daddy.

And so he sat in the uncomfortable waiting room chair, his gut churning angrily, and concentrated on holding the contrast down.

---

When this latest vision released Alfarnin, he found himself standing at the base of what appeared to be a craggy gray mountain. He looked up to see, beyond the clouds, a vast canopy of green covering the sky. No, which was the sky. He had reached Yggdrasill, and as with Fenrir, he had no memory of traveling here. Perhaps Skuld had been right and there really was no Time in this place.

"Of course I was right."

The Norn stood before him, features still hidden within her hood. Her feet touched the edge of one of the World Tree's three gigantic roots.

"I remember the tales," Alfarnin said. "This is the root beneath which the Well of Fate rests."

Skuld nodded. "And where the gods themselves came to hold council each day. As guardian of the Well, I often listened in as they talked." She chuckled. "Or more often, argued."

Alfarnin frowned. "What of your sisters, Urd and Verdandi? Past and Present?"

"We are One." Skuld opened her robe to reveal not the body of a wrinkled old crone as her voice promised, but rather an empty black space in the middle of which hung the motionless shape of an ancient, crude spinning wheel. At the center of the wheel was a circular depression, just the right size, Alfarnin thought, for the heart of Odin.

"Past, present, future..." Skuld snorted. "Merely names. They are one and the same. See the Wheel. Does it have a beginning or end? No, it is a circle, unbroken. We are One, and that one is the Wheel."

"It isn't moving."

"The Wheel has completed its cycle. It's up to the last survivor of Ragnarok—to you—to give it a push and start it turning again."

Alfarnin didn't have to ask what was expected of him. All he had to do to renew creation was to place the holy heart in the center of the Wheel, and all would begin again. It was his duty, to his gods, to his fallen elven brothers and sisters, to all who had fought and died in service to the Light. But he hesitated.

"The visions I experienced, Norn—what did they signify?"

"They are nothing, elf," Skuld snapped. "Now fulfill your purpose this cycle and give me the heart!"

"Why here? Why did you not ask for the heart when I first removed it from Odin?"

"Because only here, at the base of Yggdrasill, am I truly one with the Wheel. But forget all that; the time for explanations is past. Give me the heart!"

"Why don't you take it from me?"

"I told you, the future cannot make itself! You must make it, here and now!"

"Tell me about the visions, Norn." Alfarnin smiled. "After all, if there is no Time any longer, then we have no need to hurry, do we?"

Skuld was silent for a while before finally sighing. "Very well. I told you that there is always at least one survivor of Ragnarok, and that it is this survivor's task to renew creation. During the journey to salvage Odin's heart and bring it to the World Tree, the survivor has three visions of what his life in the next cycle will be like, so that he understands why he must restart the Wheel and what his reward will be."

"My visions were of mortal life as a man of Midgard," Alfarnin said. "But a Midgard unlike any I have ever heard tell of."

"Being the Future, I am quite aware of the visions you experienced." She paused. "However, I fear that I cannot explain them."

"Perhaps the next cycle will be different from the last," Alfarnin suggested.

"Impossible. The Wheel is the Wheel. There may be minute variations in its turning, but the path remains ever the same. It begins with creation, then comes the rise and flourishing of the gods, and then Ragnarok, turning after turning, cycle after cycle, without end."

Alfarnin thought for a moment. "What if I do not give you the heart? What of the Wheel then?"

"You have no choice; you must give me the heart. It is the role appointed you by destiny."

"I think you are lying, Norn. You told me before that once the Wheel stopped, Time ceased to be. Before Ragnarok, I was just another of Fate's puppets. But I think many things have ceased to be now, Fate among them. For the first moment in my existence, I am truly free to choose."

Skuld said nothing.

"I repeat my question," Alfarnin said. "What happens to the Wheel if I do not give you the heart?"

"Without the heart—which is the heart of Creation itself—the Wheel cannot continue to exist. It shall cease to be, as will Existence itself."

"All existence?" Alfarnin challenged. "Or just this one?"

Skuld didn't respond.

"Your Wheel is a prison, Skuld. Perhaps it's time for creation to be free." Alfarnin held the heart of Odin in his left hand and raised his scythe above it with his right.

"Hold, elf! You don't know what you're saying! Without the Wheel to give shape and form to existence, all will be Chaos! Events will unfold randomly, and no one shall ever know what might occur next, for anything might happen, anything at all!"

"Considering the senseless carnage of Ragnarok—of Ragnaroks untold—I think not knowing what tomorrow will bring might be better." Alfarnin raised the scythe higher.

"Think hard before you act, elf," Skuld warned. "This other, lesser Midgard you would create would be naught but a bastardized world where uncertainty and ambiguity rule in place of the gods. There would be no fixed roles, no set future, no clear division between Good and Evil. In that world, you would be but a mortal man, weak, frail, doomed to fret over petty anxieties and frustrations all of your short life. Here, in Asgard, you were—and could be again—an elven warrior, fighting on the side of Light in the most glorious battle creation has ever known!"

"Glorious?" Alfarnin thought of the slaughter he had witnessed, and its aftermath. "Meaningless is more like it." He tightened his grip on the scythe. "And the man Gerald will be far more of a warrior in his quiet, unsure way than the elf Alfarnin ever was."

He brought the scythe down and plunged its blade into the silver heart of Odin. Skuld screamed, the Wheel cracked apart like thunder, and the world was no more.

---

"We're ready for you now, Mr. Winnick," the CT technician, a heavy-set blonde woman, said gently.

Gerald nodded, set down his empty cup, and stood too quickly. His vision went gray and he swayed dizzily. He thought for a moment he might fall, but then the technician came forward to take his elbow. His vision cleared, the dizziness passed, and he smiled gratefully at the woman, only a little embarrassed.

With the technician's help, Gerald made his way out of the waiting room and walked slowly down the hall toward the CT room, one unsteady step after another.