Mr. Peavy leaned his frail, 100 pound frame back into his reading chair and rubbed his tired, steel grey eyes under his wire-rimmed glasses. He was excited; it felt like watching a lightning storm from an open doorway.

He had discovered that he could will himself into any book. No, that's not quite right, he thought. He willed himself into the reality that the author had created. And now, so close to his retirement, he had a Grand Idea.

He had always wanted to be a hero but had instead become head librarian at the Library of Congress. Now he could be all heroes.

When the assistant librarian showed up for work the next morning, she was puzzled. In all of the fifteen years that she had worked with Mr. Peavy, he had never failed to open the library on time. Now here it was nine-fifteen, and the library doors were still locked. As she fumbled in her purse for her keys, she sighed, "What a funny old man."

"Oh, Mr. Pee-vee!" she called as she looked through the empty offices for him. When she came to the micro-film vault, she saw that the door was ajar.

As she peered through the open door, she saw several boxes of micro-film open on the counter, and there was a note lying next to them with three words on it. When she read it, she just shook her head and said to herself, "What a funny, funny old man!" The note said:

Moving without moving; that was how the Immovable Object travelled. It brought another sheet of *space_time/universe* to itself, and transpierced the fabric as a spike through an infinitely thick sheet of paper as it had done for *infinite/ all_time*. It tasted of the *space_time*, and found what it had always found: Nothing. It sloughed off the sheet and attracted the next one in the *always_more* *space_time/universe* ream. It tasted and found ... something.

* * * *

In the beginning, there was only forever in all directions. The Irresistible Force *remained_stationary/moved* with no resistance. It didn't *move* in the literal sense; it more manipulated the space around it than anything else, but there was no way to really tell because there were no reference points. Everything was nothing. Smooth in the ultimate sense of the word. No time.

"I'm coming for you," the Irresistible Force sent as it had sent since it first became aware of the mote. "I'll be there soon," it crooned as it had for *infinite_time*. It hated the mote. The mote destroyed the perfection of the *all/none* that had been. That's why it had travelled *infinite/null* distance for all time to meet the mote. Throughout *infinite/all_time*, nothing had stood in the way of the Irresistible Force. It was invincible. "Soon ..."

The Immovable Object knew that the Irresistible Force was coming, as it had always known. "I am waiting," it sent softly, "I am/have always waiting/waited for you." The Immovable Object gave meaning to the word "all". The Immovable Object started time; it was THE reference point in forever. Patience was its real power; it had waited for *infinite/all_time*. Space moved around it, but it remained steadfast. It was the ultimate. It was All. And it was waiting. "Come, come ..."

The Irresistible Force was close; for one negligible instant, the space separating them was non-existent, but they weren't actually touching. The Irresistible Force wasn't to be denied though, and continued on, while the Immovable Object, equally as determined, stood its ground.

Chaos was born the exact instant that the Irresistible Force touched the Immovable Object. The Immovable Object appeared to disintegrate into micro-dust. *space_time* fabric shredded into swirling whorls and fabulous vortexes. Implosions and explosions shook the very corners of *infinite/distance*; one after another, geometric patterns blossomed and evolved to the nth degree, only to be the parents of new and faster evolving patterns. Hot spots developed which tended to suck space in from the out direction.

Space was reallocated to occupy the non-space in between the particles that was the stuff of the Immovable Object. Each particle still made up the whole Object -- the space between them just *increased/was_reallocated*. "I move you," the Irresistible Force wailed.

"I am still here," the Immovable Object serenely replied. "You are too *close/far_away* to see me. I am still whole; if you take *all_nothing* from me, I remain. But look what we have created together."

The Irresistible Force did look; the Universe had shape and color. It had time, texture and depth. It had physics.

Epilogue

The Irresistible Force, though, is irresistible. It cannot be stopped. The Battle remains.

The End

"I am your God. I have let you alone for too long." Everyone on Earth heard the voice from the sky. There was no panic; most people just stopped what they were doing and looked toward the heavens. Many fell to their knees, and not a few hid their faces. "Today will begin a new age for Mankind," God said. "There will be no more crimes against your fellow men. I have bitterly disappointed myself, hoping that you would learn compassion. When I created you, I gave you freedom. I now take that freedom from you. For one year, you will commit no crime against your brother, for if you do, you will pay your own price!" And then He was gone.

Mankind soon learned what God meant. In Harlem, a young drug dealer sold a bag of coke to a child. When the child returned to complain that he wasn't "getting off," he found the dealer slumped in a corner, dying of the child's overdose. In New York, a mugger shot his victim, only to die from his own bullet.

It was two days before God's words were understood: murderers died; thieves lost everything they owned; rapists became neutered; kidnappers were paralyzed. But finally the meaning grew clear.

Governments disbanded; soldiers and police became productive citizens; businessmen gained ethics; on-going world pollution stopped.

Mankind finally learned what it was to fully accept responsibility for its own actions.

And no one even noticed when the end of "God's Year" came.

The End

The young man had quite a dilemma. He had rescued the senjen from the lagoon and now had to choose his wish. He had heard stories of wishes that hadn't worked out quite like the wisher had expected, and the senjen wasn't rumored to be too helpful.

He had heard stories like the man who had rescued a senjen from a desert. The man had wished for power and had been quickly struck by lightning. And there was the man that had rescued a senjen from a forest fire. He had wished for wealth and had found himself buried in an ancient king's tomb. There was the girl who had found a senjen throat-deep in quicksand who wished for the perfect man. She became a Nun.

The stories went on and on. He didn't really know how many if any were true. The one thing that he did know was that the rescuer HAD to make a wish. If he didn't, the senjen would take his soul.

As he sat on the beach looking at the little senjen, he thought about his life. His was a simple life on the island. He always had everything he could possibly want, because he wanted little. But there was so much hardship in the world. So many babies crying in the rain. Slowly he realized what would be the ideal wish. He said, "I wish that all of the pain and suffering in the world would end."

So the earth was no more.

The End

He was immortal. When he first wished for immortality, he didn't realize what it meant to be immortal. For the first thousand years, he lived life to the fullest. For the second thousand years, he was bored. He started testing his immortality. He felt pain as any other man could feel pain, but his body healed any hurt that fell to him.

So he started trying new ways to die. He tried drowning, dismemberment, being squashed to a pulp by a bridge-pillar tamping piston, poisons of all kind, but no matter what he tried he always regained consciousness with his body whole. And life went on around him.

He didn't believe that his immortality rested in any single part of his body. It seemed that if even one little part of him was left, it would regenerate a whole new body for him. He finally decided to attempt to eliminate any chance of regeneration by throwing himself into a live volcano.

As he climbed the great mountain, he felt a calm fear. When he threw himself into the volcano, he believed that it was the end.

When he regained consciousness, he couldn't see or move any part of his body. He was trapped in hardened lava.

He lived on. His body didn't need food, air or sleep. He couldn't even go insane. After an eternity, he felt movement at the top of his head. It was the wind, blowing through his hair, eroding his prison away. He felt hope.

A thousand more years passed and light flooded his eyes. He wanted to scream "Let me out!", but his mouth was still locked in lava.

A million more years passed and he was free! He shouted out praises to the wind! He wanted to see people, and do things! But there were no people left. He walked for two hundred years and found no other life whatsoever. Only bare, scorched rock.

Then the sun exploded, and the earth exploded with it. When he regained consciousness, he was hurtling through space at a great speed toward the center of the galaxy. He wasn't bored any more. He now had eternity to explore infinity.

The End