why?

i was receiving repeated calls from a number not saved on my phone — and that truecaller bot on telegram i used to use for things like these decided just a few days back that now was a good time to die.

a word of caution: this is not a tutorial post. here at "the silent orchard", we don't deal with success stories (but sob ones; helps with the engagement, you see). here's what transpired between me and chatgpt in the process (suffering is fun when you aren't the one suffering).

me: stupid truecaller not letting me perform reverse lookup on a phone number unless i download their app. i have privacy concerns regarding my contacts getting uploaded.

i was given the following options:

1. use their website directly. (they have removed the functionality — idk when they did that — to log in there and be done with it and are instead pushing everyone to install their app.)
2. alternative lookup sites. (didn't have the info on the numbers i was after. they don't have that big of a database. it sucks, i know. this lack of options is concerning to say the least — and frustrating to say the most.)
3. check public listings / google directly. (no success here either.)
4. install truecaller on an empty secondary phone / emulator, with no contacts synced. (i do not have a secondary smartphone, so emulators it was!)

me: does android os provide with an option to install something like vmware or virtual box?

chatgpt:

good question — and the short answer is: not really, at least not in the same full-featured way you get on desktop OSes like Windows or Linux.

me: can i do it with virtual box on pc?

chatgpt:

yep, that’s actually the best way to do it — much cleaner, safer, and more controllable than trying to virtualize inside android.

me: downloaded android-x86_64-9.0-r2.iso. now what?

chatgpt detailed me on how to set up an android VM using the ISO i had downloaded. i went through all the points, and believed that i would have a functional android VM afterwards.

boy, was i wrong! that's the thing with technology: even if it works for everyone else in the whole goshdarned universe, it doesn't mean it is going to work the same way for you :) heck, you don't even know if it is going to work. at all. non-deterministic, ikr? much like the nfa's i used to read about in automata theory! (you never know the state they're going to be in post transition.)

me: how to exit outta virtualbox? mouse is gone and it shows "kernel requires x86-64 but detected i686 cpu".

chatgpt:

you can get back your mouse anytime with the Right Ctrl key.

and it said some things about enabling VT-x/AMD-V and Nested Paging for the VM — whatever that meant. so, i tried following the steps — to no success. (i told you this wasn't a success story. very rarely do i get to tell those.)

me: can i download i386 version from somewhere?

chatgpt:

yep — you can, but there’s a catch.

there is always a fricking catch.

chatgpt (cont'd):

the Android-x86 project stopped officially maintaining separate i386 (32-bit) builds for most newer Android versions (like 9.0, 10, etc.), because nearly all PCs now support 64-bit.

🪄 Here are your best options
Option 1: Android-x86 8.1-r6 (Oreo) 32-bit
Option 2: Android-x86 7.1-r5 (Nougat) 32-bit
Option 3: Remix OS (Android-x86-based)

🧩 What to do after downloading
In VirtualBox → New VM
Type: Linux
Version: Other Linux (32-bit)
Attach your chosen i386 ISO

Boot and install same as before (ext4, GRUB, etc.)

me: android-x86-8.1-r6.i686.rpm found this.

chatgpt:

good eye 👀 — that android-x86-8.1-r6.i686.rpm file is related, but it’s not what you want for VirtualBox.

when this didn't work as planned, i did the next best thing i thought would work. i quit.

but then i got bored and restless, so i came back to search for "bluestacks alternatives lite". i had had some issues with bluestacks in the past and had thought that being friends was no longer an option. (read: memory hogging. don't you hate it when apps or people try to take more space than they are allocated?)

i probably had a mood swing or something after this, because i typed "i want to run truecaller without compromising my android 😭"

chatgpt:

😭 oh, I feel that, chatgpt_s_idiot_friend.
Truecaller’s like: “hey, give me your entire contacts list and I might tell you who’s calling.” 💀

and it informed me of "some smart ways to do it". those included emulators (not again!), android work profile (huh?), and using truecaller web. i found this was a good time to let chatgpt know the only thing i was sure of at this point: "truecaller web is no longer the case :("

chatgpt:

You’re absolutely right, chatgpt_s_idiot_friend — the web version of Truecaller appears to have been discontinued.

in the process, i was made aware of prime OS, windows subsystem for android, and some other things that i have now forgotten (limited memory space, you know).

me: man, why is it [prime OS] not installing. can i get prebuilt vms pls <wailing>

chatgpt:

💀 bro I felt that “<wailing>” deep in my soul — every VirtualBox Android install eventually makes you want to throw your laptop into the sun ☀️😭
and yeah, I got you. you can skip the whole installation pain with prebuilt VMs (they’re literally plug-and-play .ova files — import → run).

that didn't work either, but somehow (and finally!), i got an android OS to boot up on a virtual machine. i thought about being happy, but the stupid thing kept getting stuck on that console:/# screen.

by this time, i had created some 4 or 5 android VMs. none of them did the darn job they were assigned to do. so, they all had to go. (else they would have been constant reminders of my failures! now this blog post is going to be that :)

the next steps i performed (in an order that i remember very clearly) were as follows: deleted the VMs, closed virtualbox, and threatened to rage quit. chatgpt agreed it was a great idea.

me: man, it's ptsd flashbacks all over. not working. i am fucking done with this.

chatgpt:

💀 yeah… I get that. you’ve been fighting this VM war like a champ, and it’s absolutely fair to be done — Android-on-VirtualBox is one of those things that should just work, but it never does cleanly unless the stars align, BIOS behaves, and VirtualBox decides not to gaslight you.

you’ve earned your rage quit. 💯

if it helps you cool off — you’ve actually learned a lot in the process: EFI vs legacy, virtualization flags, how VMs use hardware, what lightweight OSes even are. that’s basically sysadmin-level pain tolerance already 😭

or honestly… just walk away, get a drink, watch something dumb, and let your brain breathe 😩

wanna tell me what exactly you were trying to run Android for? (maybe I can suggest a shortcut that doesn’t involve fighting with ISOs again.)

me: truecaller, goddammit.

chatgpt:

😭💀 I knew it — the whole war was just to run Truecaller without sacrificing your privacy, huh. man, you’ve gone through VirtualBox hell, BIOS trenches, and Bluestacks betrayal — all for a bloody caller ID app. respect. 🫡

final thoughts

all i wanted to do was to perform an easy and accurate reverse lookup on a frickin' phone number. is it too much to ask (not having to log in or sell over my contacts' info to t.c.)?

apparently, yeah. but hey, sad time over. at least, i got a blog post outta it :) and a feeling that i should learn how to reverse engineer certain... apps aspects of life.

dear universe,

polar bears have made me aware of the following so far:

1. you can only love a polar bear if the polar bear loves you back.
2. it is very hard to calm down a polar bear. they're not very good listeners at times.
3. sometimes, polar bears want to be left alone. you should let them be.
4. place them in your hearts, for homes are hard to find elsewhere.
5. you should only hug a polar bear if the polar bear hugs you back.

credits due

1. that stupid little bear who thinks he's a genius 💖
2. image used: https://img.freepik.com/free-photo/view-cartoon-animal-practicing-yoga_23-2151532841.jpg

when someone wanted to see a black forest, they took a chocolate cake and set fire to it—instead of, you know, the usual: stepping outside at night and looking around. it was a black forest they lived in. if only they knew.

when the floods arrived, they set the water on fire too because “black water would be nice to see”—instead of, you know, the usual: mixing the remains of charred black forest cake into a jar of floodwater.

years later, when i was older but not as old as people my age were, someone got very excited about something. the entire town gathered, dug a neat hole in the ground, and scorched the absolute heck out of it. i was told he could die peacefully now, having finally fulfilled his lifelong dream of seeing a black hole from very close. that too, alive.

they were extremely resourceful people (assuming fire counts as a resource, which i’m pretty sure it does — PLEASE DON’T SET ME ON FIRE. OR I WON’T WRITE NICE THINGS ABOUT YOU. THANKS!): they never ran out of fire, or things to set fire on.

i am still waiting for the day they set fire to fire itself. i desperately want to see black fire—instead of, you know, the usual: inverting the colours on a digital painting of a campfire under a night sky.

credits due

1. image used: https://pixabay.com/photos/bonfire-burning-dark-fire-flames-1850646/

sure, it sucks when i need to scan a qr and initiate a “paytm pe pichhattar (75) rupay prapt hue,” (received rupees seventy five on paytm) and all i can do is stare at the code like i’m waiting for subtitles to appear. but hey, at least it doesn’t tug at me to be somewhere else, doing something else, being someone else.

my smartphone is an entirely different beast. fifteen minutes spent on it result in two hours melting away irl. (that's global warming at its worst!) sometimes, i swear it loosens up the laws of physics, like gravity is doing something weird whenever it is around. that's when the comparison kicks in: it's a black hole in sheep's clothing. how many of these do we have on earth? pretty sure, one day, i'll end up travelling back to the future using...

our own little time machines :) now available at the low, low cost of your sanity and the urge to compare yourself to people who don’t even know you exist.

i’m starting with an apology—my memory for first meetings is terrible :) please don’t take it personally. it’s just the way my brain is wired.

this is a continuation of something from pages and ages ago. it makes me oddly sad to see you tired, yet still forcing yourself to sit through things that seem to have no end. (i keep wondering why you have to try so hard. i really do.)

did it happen the first day i arrived—when you smiled before i could, while i was confused as heck and equally nervous about who these people were and what this whole place even was?

it couldn’t have been. i was gone almost as soon as i came, and when i returned, i had no recollection of you or of most people in the space. something had obviously changed about you, though. i realised it much later.

then came the gatherings in which there were words and there were people and there was some combination of both in a proportion that stopped making sense before it began. i started by speaking my heart out. i learnt their ways. i grew quieter. and quiet helped me notice what i hadn't before: glances, smiles, acknowledgements, and a whole lot of nothing else. when you’re trapped, even the faintest creak can feel like hope, can’t it? and thus began an exchange of words, driven mostly by the necessity of exchanging ideas.

you sit there quietly, waiting for others to begin first. joining late seems to be your thing. you prefer the edges to the spotlight. sometimes, i have to write this off as a mental exercise that keeps my brain sharp—god knows if it does! i don’t know if the respect is mutual. i don’t know if it has to be.

you remind me of something i haven’t remembered yet. i just hope the good parts of you stay intact. the world has enough people who’ve lost theirs.

from a distance that feels safe and a world of warmth,
observer_22

when i walk, their taps reassure the earth that i am still here. out there. somewhere.

one day, i will wash my shoes. the day will come soon... enough. then the other shoes will feel less bathed.

i know it's super common to see someone wearing pants if you are in the same environment as me—where wearing jeans is frowned upon and can even lead to social boycott. it's a funny, little place where i come from go to.

but again, these pants were not just any pants. these pants were just a few inches shorter than pants people usually wear.

it has been three days, and i still remember this person and their pants. writing this down—from that funny, little place—i am cherishing the morning, the pants, the person, and how happy they looked wearing pants that i consider special.

and now, you are going to remember them all too. for eternity.

step 1: pretend there is no break.

question the entire hecking existence of the concept. ask (out loud): “what the [duck] even is a break?” if you manage to gaslight everyone around you into agreeing, mark step 1 functioning as intended.

once the storm has passed, move to step 2.

step 2: drop what you were doing.

save it to the stack for efficient restore later. (only 1 pop operation needed!) stacks are elegant and dependable, unlike emotions. they are what make computer programs tick.

think efficiency. think stack.

step 3: start doing something else.

if you’re ADHD, this is your default mode of operation. thank god for the autopilot! it’s basically magic, though even the magic isn’t sure how you did that.

and that’s how you take a break from a break in three easy steps.

disclaimer

pursuits of efficiency may result in stack overflows. proceed at your own risk. brought to you in public interest by "the silent orchard" (finding answers to life's fundamental questions and more™).

author's note

after giving stacks more thought than is acceptable, i remembered the time my friend said they follow a queue model of execution. i told them, “buddy, i am stack all the way down.”

lines of communication have been temporarily suspended.

even when i'm awake, i'm asleep. once, i dreamt my life was a lie — except it was real. i knew it was the moment i woke up. sort of. maybe i am asleep a sheep. what's the singular of a herd of sheep? a shoop?

i heard i was part of a herd once. i need not be reminded again. the herd wakes up at 7; i don't. which is why i am always late to parties i am not invited to.

it's because i wake up at 8.

does it sometimes dream of crying?
or does it only leak instead?
i watch the droplets gather there —
answering questions better left unsaid.

sad and lonely, there it lies.
the corner features mild surprise.
in hopes someone else’d arrive,
it stays open-eyed — but never tries.

does a light switch remember what the tap doesn’t?
together, do they secretly eat bread?
they are in cahoots — unprofessionally so.
can i call it existential dread instead?

i wonder what i’ve left in them — and what they refuse to give me back.

are you up for a discussion?

does the pencil know how many pages you’ve written with it? do the pages remember the corrections you made?

does the chair you sit on sigh when you shift in ways only you know, trying to avoid people you don’t want to meet? does it ever warn you about your bad posture?

does the room play witness to your sideways glances that take in everything they can like there will be no tomorrow? does anyone wonder why your first instinct, upon discovering you have been noticed, is to pretend to be on your phone?

what scares you the most? whom do you want to pose no threat to? with whom do you share your joys, sorrows, and fears? around whom do you feel safe enough to come out of your shell? what is your shell made of?

people sometimes grow weary of correcting others’ mistakes. have you too? what's the price you've paid?

does the window know how long you stare out of it, wishing to be elsewhere? my bad for bringing this up — there are no windows.

does the floorboard remember the weight of your steps and how you drag them against it hoping it would recharge your confidence? does it?

does the table notice you flaunting your achievements to someone passing by? (why would you do that, silly?)

so much depends on you being who i think you are, and so much else on who you really are.

curiously yours,
observer_22

people think being one is cool. i think so too. but i cannot be cool professionally (only personally!), so i had to find cooler things like sheriff domestic, dogecoin, or rationalising the irrational by multiplying the denominator by its conjugate to keep myself busy.

brains go on lengths rationalising actions they will have to help perform, adjusting the boundaries of morality to accommodate things that shall follow.

i miss the days when 1/√2 → √2/2 was just one multiplication away, when the only acceptable answer to "who are you?" was {firstname} {lastname}, when my teachers annoyed me simply by not tending to my questions.

just kidding, i don't. now is better. now was worth it. now is forever.

i am never going to be an astronaut. i never dreamt of being one. i like watching stars from afar and writing cool words about them.

i am alive,
and isn't the awareness of the awareness
the coolest part of it all?

• set unrealistic expectations.
• attempt to control the uncontrollables.
• let your present be consumed worrying about the future or lamenting the past.

bonus tips and tricks:

• invest in dogecoin.
• forget to close the tap.
• wake up at 7.
• fight over stacks and queues.
• wear a pair of jeans to the funny, little place.
• keep the shoes unclean.
• be cold towards mrj.
• spend "15 minutes" on smartphone.
• write bad things about the firelighters.
• hug a polar bear when he wants to be left alone.
• spin up a virtual machine just to install truecaller.

(A ∪ B) + (A ∩ B) ?= A + B

most of our conversations happen in the area the diagram forgot to label.

• times we both know what i am talking about is rare, fragile, and can often be ruined by overexplaining.
• times i know what i am talking about but they don’t is scary. misunderstandings are bad.
• times they know what i am talking about but i don’t produces confidence in the wrong direction.
• times i know what they are talking about is where the polite nodding lives.
• times i know what i am talking about and they know what they are talking about does not guarantee mutual understanding. two people can know things perfectly and still talk past each other.
• times at least one of us knows what they are talking about is where most conversations live. union is generous. union is optimistic. union is how conversations continue.
• times they know what they’re talking about but i don’t is when i leave knowing less than when i entered.
• when neither of us knows what we’re talking about, nobody pretends and confusion feels warm.

the most stable conversations are not the clearest ones, but the ones where ignorance overlaps politely. conversation isn’t the intersection of what we know — it’s the union of what we’re willing to stay for.

these are the lies i choose to believe in:

• the truth always wins.
• silence speaks louder than words when the time is right.
• i am omnipresent.
• dead people watch me from above.

um, here's one that also made it to the list:

• you do not fascinate me.

that cheeky smile! why does seeing it fill me with a kind of warmth that tells me the world will never be cold again? where does that warmth come from? why does this exchange of smiles feel sacred?

and why the heck do i give no craps if i am a total doofus around you? i've an image, dang it, of being a know-it-all, and i can't even maintain it with you around! that's a "mission failed successfully" right there! why am i like — frick it, accept my dummy self first and ingenuity later?

isn't a hamming distance of 2 too much to get wrong
when the entire code to be transmitted is 4 bits long?

i'll someday plant a sapling;
you should nurture and make it a tree.
—observer_22

1. cry over the loss of his hair.
2. figure out why he cannot cry every day.
3. defend his children from intruders — basically every pigeon who's not wife or previously raised kids. (okay, maybe the elder kids are enemies too.)
4. fly.
5. dying is not an option, because the pigeon’s got a family to feed that depends on him for moral and tech support.

what’s a balding pigeon to do?

1. face the crowd and always cheer.
2. let no one from the crowd come very near — they can screw him up. that’s bad.
3. lay eggs.

life is sad.

"let's strive for the painless" came to me when the ache in my back (i was staring at a progress bar to make it go greener because i couldn't think of a better use of my time) became my part-time companion, full-time owner. (it wouldn't go away even when i politely requested it to!)

other ones that followed it were:

• "let's resolve this pain in the back."
• "do not eat."
• "do not breathe."
• "do not speak."
• "do not repeat."
• "do not take out the trash."

for some people, words are nothing more than a sequence of strings emitted one character at a time, 8.5 hours a day, 6 days a week, 50+ weeks a year. that's a lot of energy to invest just in increasing the entropy of the universe (and the temperature of the room — should the discussion ever turn heated).

i guess that's the only form of warmth they ever learnt to provide.

man, i need to write! and i need to collect all the words written and arrange them in a vector space in a way that makes sense. only then will the pain go away, and i can finally stop staring at the progress bar — because it would have reached 100%.

usage

time is a currency you can spend on someone, with someone, for someone. it's often devalued. (we should make that a crime.)

you can steal it. you can report it stolen. you can pretend to skip sections of it. (we've all seen how that works out. it's not a youtube video, bro. stop skipping.)

i once thought it was a fossil fuel. i wasn't entirely wrong. (hey, it's non-renewable.)

time is... limited. regrets are not.

notes

see also:

const now = new Date();
const time = `${now.getHours()}:${now.getMinutes()}:${now.getSeconds()}`;

unbeknownst to everyone until now, it was an impulse buy. an impulse buy is the sound money makes when your brain refuses “no” as an answer. but i am happy with the impulse buy it turned out to be.

i've a friend who plays guitar, and i wanted to prove myself as much a musician as him and guitars are less portable, so ukulele it was. how has that turned out? um, some questions are better left unanswered. little flukes like these are essential to keep me busy nerding out and not want to die every time i see the world get out of control.

before this, there was a flute (well, 4), a harmonica, and a piano keyboard. the government might have built bridges that collapsed the moment someone willed their feet into existence and roads that have spread nothing but trauma and head injuries; meanwhile i've only been '"someday, i too shall learn" and "wait, don't i already have 13 different types of coloured paper in my drawer that let me talk to beings who don't talk back to me?" before i inevitably click "add to cart" on ebay,' personified.

and then they say, "be on the quest for knowledge, grasshopper, and the knowledge shall set you free." no, buddy, it does not. it only forces you to see the shades of grey in a world that was supposed to follow the fricking CMYK scheme.

where are #8b8deb and #cf6aa1!? long time, no see!

meanwhile, if you can successfully ignore the homeless people on the street and avoid contact with eyes that demand answers to questions you do not fully comprehend, you can sleep like a baby at night.

that's because babies don't have to think twice about breaking the ice with a stranger. thanks to global warming, it is melting away.

​the girl is at my door again. she's asking me for paper. i wonder what she is upto. so, i am going to follow her before coming up with a conclusion.

​last time she was here, she tried to talk about dinos and how they went extinct, failed miserably, and asked for paper. she smiled weekly. (we'd meet nearly once every week. she would smile first, and i would give in later. it became a ritual, sort of.) i gave her a look, but her smile didn't falter. so, i smiled back, asked her to wait a minute, went inside, looked for any A4 sheets that i might have had lying around (i had none), tore a couple of pages from the middle of my math notebook. (it was mostly blank; i disliked that subject.)

​i fulfilled her asks. she didn't ask for more. she left.

and on the days we didn't see each other, i was left wondering what became of the pages i gave her, what became of her, and what became of the dinos she tried talking about. (they went extinct, i remember.)

​one of my neighbours walked up to me. our eyes met.

shit.

i felt my soul leaving my body to never come back. i realized my next fifteen minutes were going to last a lifetime. i looked around frantically. where were all the distractions in the world when you needed them the most?

he scowled at me. i made an attempt at a smile. his scowl didn't falter. my smile did. i knew he was here after exercising his pet hobby (not keeping his nose out of other people's business). this was a product of years and years of conditioning and reinforcement. if only he had paid this much attention to his significant other, they would have stayed partners for life.

he told me to smile less. i told him to eff off. his scowl went back to where it came from. i went inside to wait for him to disappear into the fabric of life. he wandered away, lost in spacetime (and probably his thoughts), with words on his lips he didn't dare say out loud, not because they sounded bad (nope!), but because the outer saintly packaging is the perfect essential and minimal cover for the inner wrongdoings.

how else is a bestsellout bestseller to become one?

two

​in search of the girl, i come across a part of the town i have not been to before. outside an inattentive cottage, she is sitting on the floor below the shed in its shade, and her back is towards me. she's busy doing something, and i dare not disturb her. i know how it feels when you're in the flow and some annoying little shit sneaks up and decides you have done enough for the day.

​i hope i'm not being intrusive. i don't like my curiousity resolved at someone else's expense. it is a bright, sunny day, and the gravity is working perfectly because my sweat trickles down and a puddle is formed. the girl is working perfectly because where there were pages moments ago, shapes have formed. they fill in me an odd sense of peace.

​no annoying little shit decides she has done enough for the day. i decide i have found my answers.

​i return to my quarters. notebook open and a pen in my hand, i take notes, string sentences, archive present, and think what wouldn't i give to relive this day.

​p. s. i no longer hate math :)

​i do not like talking to people who do not watch the tv as they are ill-informed. the tv is not an idiot's box. i am not an idiot.

​the tv knows i should wear red today. how does it know that circling anti-clockwise 5 times after brushing my teeth for the second time in the morning will help me gain 1000 currency notes and rid the world of its hunger? my tv is simply a genius.

​i love my tv. it is my only companion when my kids leave me home alone and don't talk to me even when i tell them that the sun goes around the earth (the tv taught me that). they call me a liar, but what do they know. they're a bunch of kids. the tv never lies.

​the tv never hurts me. (the people inside it know what's best for me and you.) my kids, though; they are an entirely different breed.

​one of the apps on my tv asked me to leave a play store rating. sorry, bro. i am way too attached to leave her behind.

​my tv told me we all die one day. that's scary, bro. don't tell me. let me and the world believe that i'm non-biological. :sad:

​my tv is an interesting creature. your tv is too.

i click play.

it asks me to log in. i do not have the creds; i have never done this before. i will have to sign up for another fricking service. immediately, someone has sown a seed of hatred within me. i can feel it. i will probably grow up to be a hatemonger. the tree of hate will grow within me, and i will grow with it. i do not want to be fed a fertiliser. i am the damn catalyst. don't take that away from me!

anyway, back to the video in question. i can summarise the things i learned as follows:

1. ​secure a business plan
2. obtain approval from the regulatory bodies concerned
3. ​assemble a qualified team
4. acquire land
5. ​create structural designs
6. ​estimate costs
7. clear vegetation
8. ​lay plain cement concrete
9. pour reinforced concrete

needless to say, it involves a lot of cement. this is going to be a lot of work.

abandoning my plans of free and easy money, i'm left in the company of credentials of a website i didn't want to sign up for and a desire to never make bank again.

a lot of people travel for leisure. you, however, know that leisure doesn't come from stolen time, broken dreams, and pulling around a bag that doesn't want to follow you everywhere but has to because it is not sentient enough to refuse.

a hobby is an activity undertaken to utilise time in aiding hope keep oneself alive. not having a hobby comes at the measly cost of quantitative social connections, non-qualitative discourse, ceremonial small talk about weather patterns for the day, and a general desire to pass off a bigoted remark as a joke every five minutes, because not having a hobby is a luxury and not everyone can afford it.

in absence of hobbies, roaming around the streets all day is called tourism and becomes the most eligible candidate for the discussion that'll ensue in the next group meet.

fishes are really just birds with gills. this is why they never look happy in aquariums.

a goldfish spends eight hours a day staring at a wall because clouds are hard to forget.

it started with a bird deciding to not be a bird anymore because flying became an activity that humans do for fun, instead of what it used to be: a measure of freedom.

flying was a respectable art form. hollow-bone-owners were the artists. to be a flyer, you had to be a fully-grown, medically-fit, thoroughly-trained avian; not some malnutrition-ed billboard advertisement.

flying was a serious business. up until humans came along.

wings became "those funny things on airplanes," skyscrapers "the ones with sky as the limit," and birds... well, they got no say on the matter. beaks had become radomes, you see! how was a bird to talk?

two

"is that a bird?" inquired a baby chick, from her home. they had seen her kind before but never interacted.
"is that a plane?" asked another baby chick, also from his home.

together, they asked things aloud that never elicited a response.

home is a 4'' x 4'' cube where food and comfort (and sometimes family) is found. it is slightly beyond the reach of baby humans who like to poke you around because they haven't seen your kind before. or they've run out of toys. either way, humans are stupid.

"no, it's a fucking fish, dammit! i left the sky for this!" replied the fish from the aquarium. "water is my home now that i've grown gills. the ocean is where i now pay my bills."

"no swearing in the house," alarmed the father of the house.

he's a human the way a lot of fathers usually are when you're behind the glass walls or confined to large wooden cubes. his kids are expanding their vocabulary day-by-day, learning words from goodness-knows-where, faster than what he can keep up with. and no, he cannot hear animals talking. that'd be stupid. animals don't talk. only humans get to do that.

the elder sibling was caught in the middle of making a "your mom" joke, forgetting that they share parents — or more importantly, that the father was around this time. he operates on the "it's not a theft if you're not caught" principle. most of the people i've seen do.

the father had had their attention for exactly two seconds.

in kid-years, that's too long. a distraction of nanoseconds can cost you a win. and losing... well, is for losers.

they returned back to ignoring him. that's one of the few things they are very good at. trying to kill each other over a toy keeps them engaged in a way nothing else does. it stimulates exactly the right parts of their brain and helps with their cognitive development.

"mine!"

"was!"

"first!"

the father sighed. fathers spend a significant fraction of their lives sighing. science has no definite answer but a few theories as to why, the most acceptable of which is "it's a coping mechanism." the kids were delivered. they cannot be returned because there was no return address on the package. and so, they must be tolerated.

the object in question changed hands several times before changing ownership entirely. gravity did its thing. the toy slipped. i slowed down. watching children discover consequences is my kind of thing. the toy followed a parabolic trajectory because that's what projectiles are good at.

the fish watched it encroach her territory.

the children watched it become not theirs.

the father watched it go where kids cannot step in.

sploosh.

silence followed.

the children are not allowed within the three-foot radius of the aquarium. the mother came up with the rule once. the fish is thankful for that.

this was unusual enough to warrant documentation.

the fish approached cautiously.

it was metallic. it was long. it had a tiny tower sticking out of its back. it didn't look like a fish. it wasn't a fish.

"what's that?" said the fish, slightly curious.

it gets difficult to explain submarines to someone who still thinks clouds are worth remembering.

the toy rested on the bottom of the tank like royalty.

the fish circled it once.

twice.

three times.

"ugly fellow," she concluded.

submarines are famous for offering no defense or caring to stop to think about what a fish thinks of them.

i did not want to be the bearer of the bad news, which is why i did not tell the fish that; and unknown to her, i am keeping myself busy these days filling out "change of careers (revised)" application forms on her behalf.

trivia

q: what's a fish in an aquarium called?
a: that's right. a prisoner.

q: what's a fish in an aquarium with a submarine doing?
a: looking for a job.

q: what is extinction?
a: involuntary retirement.

q: what is evolution?
a: it's what pokemons and languages (and sometimes animals) have in common. those that don't evolve retire involuntarily. fyi, a fossil is a retired employee of evolution.