A Collection of Short Stories #5

by Jonathan Olvera

Manuscript Submission

Date: September 21, 2025

Author Contact:

Jonathan Olvera

226 E South Mountain Ave #4

Phoenix, AZ 85042

Email: jonolvera776@gmail.com

Phone: 480.819.8946

This manuscript is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

32,263 Word Count

A Collection of Short Stories #5

Jonathan Olvera

Phoenix, Arizona

A Collection of Short Stories #5

by Jonathan Olvera

Aloe Vera and the Charter of New Days by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 4

The Charter of Salt and Rum by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 6

Esquire Aloe Vera: The Crown of 2025 by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 8

Aloe Vera: The Fire Between Worlds by Chloe Patterson ..................... 8

When the Rain Brought Her to Me by Olivia Harper ..................... 10

The Temple of Barsippa: Aloe Vera's Memoir of 2025 by Grace Mitchell ..................... 14

Under the Green Glow: Aloe Vera and Copernicus by Hannah Collins ..................... 16

The Stones of Aloe Vera by Sophia Bennett ..................... 19

The Road to Antipatris: A Testament of Capernaum by Nathaniel Price ..................... 21

The Platform of Thessalonia: A Young Man's Calling by Jacob Foster ..................... 24

The Road to Jordan: A Journey with John by Tyler Reynolds ..................... 26

Streams of Gold and Shadows of the Crown by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 28

Spheres of Water, Coins of Faith by Benjamin Cole ..................... 30

Steel and Dreams by Mason Carter ..................... 32

Notes from the Arid Zone by Aloe Vera ..................... 35

Shadows of Transylvania by Darell Perez ..................... 37

Entries in Sand and Fire by Andre Baldwin ..................... 41

The Taste of Industry by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 43

The Market of Men and Beasts by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 45

The Taste of Ore and Wine by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 48

The Smog Beneath the Sun by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 50

The Architect of Current by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 53

The Sea of Decision by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 56

The Desert Engineer by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 59

The Solar Crown by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 62

The Solar Ledger by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 65

Suzhou in the Rain: A Journey of Coin, Quarry, and Culture by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 68

The Statesman of Elam by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 71

Aloe Vera Returns to Moscow: Architect of Memory by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 75

The Work of the Light by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 77

The Solar Giggle: A Cosmic Comedy by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 80

Author’s Preface

by Jonathan Olvera

Welcome, dear reader.

This fifth collection of short stories continues a journey I began years ago — gathering fragments of memory, history, and imagination into written form. Each piece here began as a spark: a half-remembered image, a phrase that lingered, a question that would not let me go. When woven together, these sparks reveal a larger tapestry — one that moves between myth and history, desert and sea, dream and testimony.

In these pages, you will encounter Roman soldiers wrestling with duty and prophecy, prophets and wanderers speaking into wilderness roads, and voices from distant centuries that still echo into our present. Some stories bend toward legend, others toward reflection, and a few find their place in the realm of satire or speculation. Taken together, they are meditations on exile, resilience, and the strange crossings between faith and empire.

What makes this volume distinct is its dialogue between times and places: echoes of biblical landscapes reimagined, desert journeys reframed, and conversations that move between the ancient and the modern. It is not simply a book of tales, but a record of questions: What is loyalty when empires rise and fall? How does hope endure under weight of law and chain? Where do imagination and history blur into one another?

As in my earlier works, I am grateful for the voices that accompany mine. Friends, fellow writers, and readers — each has left a trace in these stories, shaping them into something larger than one imagination could manage alone.

Whether you arrive here in search of history, myth, or the simple pleasure of story, I thank you for turning these pages. May you find within them a spark of recognition, a moment of stillness, or even a new question to carry with you on your own road.

With gratitude,
Jonathan Olvera
Phoenix, Arizona
2025

Aloe Vera and the Charter of New Days

by Jonathan Olvera

I was twenty-six when I first felt that life had begun to turn in my favor. Each year before had been marked by hardship—laboring in the quarries, hauling stones upon my shoulder under the long gaze of the sun. The quarries were more than work; they were a humanist lesson, a test of endurance. From them I had learned the discipline of lifting burdens, not only of stone but of spirit. And now, as if by miracle, the promise of new days stood before me.

It was the time of a new charter under Queen Elizabeth. The words of that charter spoke to something deep within me: a chance for education, a promise of new life, a hope of rising from toil into wisdom. We had come a long way from the harsh dependence upon King Henry and the iron yoke of endless labor. The new charter promised more than survival—it promised choice.

I was summoned, as many were, into the presence of kings and their envoys. Not only kings of Great Britain, but rulers of distant realms—the Caribbean islands, the merchant powers of Africa, the American banks, and the expeditions that sought to draw the world together under sails and trade.

Though I traveled far in my imagination, I carried the weight of my homes: Moscow, cold and vast; Pennsylvania, fertile and practical. These places were not daily destinations, but spiritual markers upon the map of my life. I rarely set foot in the tropical paradises that others praised, those isles where women displayed fashions of their own kind. My path was different—marked not by leisure, but by work, study, and the pursuit of something greater.

To live in Britain was to live under expectation. For men, the duty was clear: to lead, to build, to educate oneself into worthiness. I had to learn the art of listening, to cultivate the skill of speaking, and to refine my ambition into something more than raw desire. My time was devoted to study, to observation, and to the practice of discipline.

Education, though plain in its setting, was rich in its offering. Public institutions gave me access to books, lectures, and knowledge that seemed endless. I was not far from a wellspring, and I drank deeply. Yet I knew my presence there was fragile. I was a peasant at heart, and my attendance was both duty and privilege. Every hour in study had to be justified by hours in labor.

Still, my mind wandered beyond the halls of study to the ocean. There I found another kind of school—the restless waves, the stones of the shore, the practice of fishing. Collecting shells, observing currents, watching the gray horizon taught me patience. The sea was a book with pages always turning, its lessons written in tide and foam.

The horizon was dark and gray, but that did not trouble me. Darkness meant mystery, and mystery meant discovery. Soon, craftsmen would gather to shape boats, weave nets, and prepare for fishing. Their tools spoke of progress, of the old arts renewing themselves with every new tide.

I knew there was life across that ocean. They spoke of York and Penn as if they were myths brought into flesh. They spoke of Portugal, of Spain, of lands where ships were as common as cottages. My curiosity burned.

Progress was slow. Each day was a repetition of toil and study, yet I came to believe that slow progress was the best progress. What was slowly built could not be easily broken. Each stone carried, each line written, each word learned was a foundation that could not be taken from me.

On the western shores of Great Britain, I met a sailor who was preparing for departure. His eyes were steady but uncertain. He longed for York yet feared the journey. His boat was no grand ship, but a raft patched with timbers and faith. He confessed he might not manage without help.

I was ready. I had studied the seas, lifted stones, endured labor. My body was strong, my mind willing. I offered my hands. Together we paddled into the gray, toward a horizon I had never crossed.

When we reached the other side, I saw something that stunned me—a ship larger than any craft I had ever imagined. It floated like a castle upon the water, towering with sails that stretched like wings of a giant bird. I was amazed, struck silent by its power.

The sailor smiled at my astonishment. “This is York,” he said, “and this is Penn. Here the world grows larger.”

From that moment, I knew I had found a path. I worked in America, saving every coin, every scrap of wage. My goal was not comfort but discovery. I wanted passage upon one of those great ships, to sail beyond the familiar, to seek the unseen.

Education had given me words. Labor had given me strength. The ocean had given me vision. And now America gave me opportunity.

I was glad for the road that had led me—from the quarries of stone, to the charter of Queen Elizabeth, to the shores of Great Britain, and across the ocean to York and Penn. Each place had shaped me. Each step had been necessary.

And though I was still young, only twenty-six, I felt as if I had already lived many lives. Stone carrier. Student. Fisherman. Sailor. Worker. Dreamer. All these roles were bound together in me, a single thread weaving across nations.

The unseen awaited, and I was ready.

The Charter of Salt and Rum

by Jonathan Olvera

Up I rose in the morning, eager and restless. The men of Portugal were already awake, gathering at the ports, their voices loud and confident under the new charters granted by the Crown. They were bound for distant lands, their maps filled with promises and their ships stocked with faith. I watched them with admiration. Each voyage seemed to carry the weight of a kingdom, each departure a story yet to be told.

It was thrilling to stand upon the stone piers and hear their talk of faraway places and unknown peoples. They spoke of the gathering of resources—salts from the coasts, spices from the Indies, tobacco from the Americas. They spoke of riches and education, of learning new tongues, and of building lives across seas that once seemed uncrossable. For us, knowledge was treasure, and every rumor of foreign lands was a lesson worth storing away.

The decrees of the Crown were law, and those who succeeded were richly rewarded. The Portuguese kings and the Spanish monarchs alike saw the ocean as their new empire. To sail upon it was to be part of history itself.

It was said that Christopher Columbus, though long gone, was still remembered in the schools of Spain. His journals were read by those preparing for voyages. He had taught that success depended not only on courage, but on listening, learning, and obedience to the charters that gave men authority to sail. Many a student in Seville or Lisbon prepared themselves for lives abroad, dreaming of a place on a galleon bound for fortune.

The seaside itself was a theater of labor. Bricklayers, carpenters, and shipwrights worked around the clock. Their hammers and saws echoed day and night as great ships rose upon their scaffolds. It was loud, relentless, and alive with the rhythm of creation. At the harbors, men hauled timbers, tar, and cannon shot. The air smelled of oak and salt, smoke and sweat.

To the coasts of Portugal and Spain, greatness seemed inevitable. The ports were being reshaped to welcome the largest of ships. Breakwaters were laid to protect them, stones moved to clear passages, and debris swept away from channels. The ocean itself was being modified, molded to serve the ambitions of empire.

I grew fond of my family, though I was often absent at sea. Among them, my greatest influence was my uncle, Captain Morgan. He was a man of charisma and danger, known not only for his voyages but for his name whispered across taverns. Though some called him pirate, others knew him as a privateer, holding decrees from the Crown to pursue trade and conquest at sea. To me, he was both teacher and companion.

Under his command I sailed, learning the art of navigation, the reading of stars, and the steady handling of sails in storms. With Captain Morgan, I traveled to the Bahamas, the Floridas, the Caribbean isles, Cuba, and the vast lands of Mexico. We moved among the villages of Manti, and through the spyglass we glimpsed the coasts of Africa, shimmering on the horizon. Each journey deepened my wonder.

The work was grueling, but it was rewarding. The salt of the sea coated our skin, the wind bit our faces, and the storms tested every joint of wood in the ship. Yet I grew to love the rhythm of it: the creak of the rigging, the crash of waves against the bow, the shout of sailors pulling in unison. The sea was a harsh master, but a fair one.

Our ship was fast, a sleek craft armed for defense yet built for speed. I came to trust it as one might trust a friend. It carried us safely from port to port, across waters both familiar and strange.

It was during these travels that I first came to know tobacco leaf and rum. The leaf, dried and rolled, carried a warmth that eased the fatigue of long days. The rum, distilled from sugarcane, lifted spirits and bound men together in laughter and song. These were not merely commodities; they were tokens of a new world, symbols of trade that stretched from the Caribbean to Europe. I fell in love with them, not only for their taste but for what they represented—the meeting of lands and cultures across oceans.

My uncle’s trade grew, and with it my own knowledge. We became part of the great exchange—goods, ideas, and people flowing between continents. Yet it was not always joyous. In Africa we saw the dark beginnings of human trade, men and women counted as cargo. It troubled me, though few spoke against it then. The Crown sought riches, and many sailors obeyed without question.

Still, the world opened itself before me. Each new harbor was a doorway, each new island a page in the atlas of my life. I was no longer the youth standing idly on a pier, watching Portuguese sailors prepare for voyages. I had become one of them, a participant in the vast theater of exploration.

Very soon, Captain Morgan promised, we would return to Africa, not only for trade but for discovery. The tropics held fruits and spices yet unseen, treasures that might change the tables of Europe. I longed for it. The sea had become my true home, and I was eager for the next horizon.

From Lisbon to Havana, from Cadiz to Port Royal, I carried the lessons of salt and stone, rum and tobacco, loyalty and ambition. I had lived the rhythm of the Age of Discovery. And though I was still young, I felt that history itself had taken me by the hand, leading me across waters toward a future both perilous and promising.

Esquire Aloe Vera: The Crown of 2025

by Jonathan Olvera

In the year 2025, titles of nobility had all but vanished. Few spoke of them, and fewer still carried them. Yet I bore one, rare as a coin from an age long past: Esquire Aloe Vera. It was not merely a name but a mantle, an echo of traditions once honored across the kingdoms of Europe. To some it was meaningless, to others quaint, but to me it was a calling — a bond to the Lord, the Crown, and the people.

I stood in favor of the northern king, and by inheritance I was pledged to the memory of Queen Elizabeth and her isles. The age was no longer Elizabethan, but her shadow lingered: the stern resolve, the unyielding authority of crown and cross. In this land of confusion, where men rushed greedily after pleasures and women contended with scandalous rumors of adultery and deceit, the title of Esquire was both shield and burden. I was called to ask: How might one restore honor? How could there be acceptance between brothers and sisters, mothers and children, if fair trade and honest labor were neglected?

The kingdom was restless. Debate raged over law, over faith, over the rights of man and woman. In the markets, merchants fought for profit; in the courts, rebels demanded recognition; in the fields, peasants toiled in sweat and silence. I learned to comb through these disputes with patience, searching for hands willing to trade honestly, to bank fairly, to keep wages in due measure.

The season turned, and with it came abundance. Fruit hung heavy on the trees, the shadows of summer stretched long and dark, and every basket brimmed with harvest. That was good. For though disputes burned, the land itself gave bounty.

Inland there was no authority greater than the word of the Lord, spoken in church on Sunday, nor the decrees of the King and Queen, handed down in proclamation. These were the twin pillars of order, and in their presence I kept my oath. My service was not of war, but of advertisement and witness: to honor labor, to encourage fair banking, to remind each man of his share.

Yet rebellions flared. To the south of the Queen’s watchful eye rose villages restless with hunger. To the north, the prince’s estate shook with rumors of betrayal. The kingdom on earth in the year 2025 was not free of trouble. Royal weddings were celebrated, but also contested; noble pairings created alliances, but also jealousies. And through it all, one truth remained: all must work for their wage, without excuse, without evasion.

The work was harsh. Sea salt was gathered by burning hands, fields plowed under relentless sun. Men hauled stone for houses, brick for roads, iron for machines. It was heavy labor, but steady. And though it tested the body, it pleased the people, for progress was visible: houses rose, foundations strengthened, the commonwealth expanded.

Still, the heat of the season was fierce. Machinery roared, its iron jaws swallowing timber and stone. The air itself seemed to burn, and with it the anger of men, the ambition of crowns. I thought often of the ambition of Great Britain, how it had once ruled oceans, and how even now, in its diminished age, it still dreamed of power.

In such times I asked myself: How does one man prove his worth? How far can a single life carry in the name of Majesty? To rise above natural boundaries, to labor beyond expectation — these were challenges I set myself daily.

The harvest reminded me of God’s balance. Each seed planted, each stalk pulled, each pestle grinding wheat into flour, was a covenant of life. The sweat upon the brow was not punishment but promise. I saw it in church, where the preacher raised his voice: “Stand firm in Christ, and He will stand firm in you.” I bowed my head, the salt of my sweat mixing with my prayers.

“Oh Lord,” I whispered, “how hot is the sun, how blistering the weight of this life. But You are good. Your table is spread with mercy, and all creation sings Your praise.”

In that moment, I saw not only the world before me but the world as it was meant to be: the moon rising faithful each night, the sun blazing each day, forests sprouting green from ash, stones carved into intricate temples of art, and gardens overflowing with life. The works of God were infinite, and I was but a witness.

I lifted my eyes to heaven and remembered: the title of Esquire was not mine alone. It belonged to the Lord, the Creator, the Father and Mother of all. My boots, my gloves, my feathered quill, my forged tools—all were instruments of service. Knowledge and justice were not to be wielded for ambition, but for record, for memory, for honor under God’s word.

I was impressed not with myself but with the world around me. The sun and moon, the fires of creation, the fruit of the harvest, the steady hands of workers—all gave glory to God.

And so in that season of 2025, though kingdoms faltered, though rebellions flared, though ambition burned hot as fire, I praised the Lord. I praised Him for the bounty of the land, for the constancy of labor, for the resilience of men and women who bore their burdens without complaint. I praised Him for the chance to stand, even in a forgotten title of nobility, as Esquire Aloe Vera—a servant of crown and cross, of labor and law, of faith and creation.

In that title, I found purpose. In that labor, I found honor. And in that season, I found God’s hand guiding me still.

Aloe Vera: The Fire Between Worlds

By Chloe Patterson

Jonathan was born in chains, though not as a criminal. His crime was more ancient: to think freely. He drew his first breath in the underbelly of a merchant ship bound for no known destiny, a child of three empires. English order sharpened his tongue. Roman discipline forged his spine. Spanish-Nazarene mysticism stirred his soul.

He was neither merchant nor soldier, not priest nor rebel—yet all of these lived in him. In his early twenties, exiled for questioning the divine right of kings, Jonathan was cast into the desert. They thought the sun and silence would undo him. Instead, he listened.

In whispered desert tongues, the people named him Aloe Vera—not for healing alone, but for the way he stood calm in the burning. He bore the sun in his eyes and the weight of ancestral hopes in his posture. His skin was weathered like sacred scrolls, his voice patient, deliberate. When he spoke, the desert paused to listen.

“I bowed once,” he said to the wind. “Only to understand its weight. Now I rise to bear my own.”

So he built—not empires, but intentions. Stones formed circles, not thrones. Voices formed laws, not oaths. People followed not because they were ordered, but because they were seen.

Still, in the quiet of each night, Jonathan dreamed—not of men, but of fire.

There were legends, older than his exile, older than any crown. They spoke of a black dragon who lived on the far edge of creation. Its belly glowed with fire—not red like rage, but blue like truth, so hot it burned without sound. Its eyes were red and blue, its scales brown streaked with cobalt-black, each plate wide as a smith’s anvil. Its chest, full with ancient breath, made the earth seem merely shade.

Jonathan knew it was no ordinary beast.

"It must be a dragon," he whispered once, sweat on his brow, sand clinging to his ankles. "It’s too hot for anything else."

But this dragon was not a destroyer. In his dreams, the creature meditated—breathing slowly as if to keep its fury caged. It dwelled in another realm entirely: a sky-forged dimension where flame powered the forges of gods, and cities of light hung above the clouds like great woven baskets.

Aloe Vera felt the connection deep within, like a pull on the soul's thread. He would sit alone, eyes closed, and imagine:

The dragon sleeps atop forgotten treasures—not gold alone, but meaning. Scepters of broken kings, rings of covenant, crowns never worn. He sleeps to guard, not to hoard. He breathes to warn, not to destroy.

“I feel in touch with this great beast,” he would murmur aloud, his voice full of sand and awe.

The people who followed him called themselves the Remembered. They built not homes but circles of gathering, altars of stone, water collectors shaped like open palms. They labored, not for wealth, but for balance.

And Jonathan led—not from above, but from within.

He remembered why the fire inside him did not consume: it was not ambition, but conviction. He believed there could be a nation without masters. A people not bound by sword, but by shared law. He called them to sign—not with blood, but belief.

One evening, parchment in hand, he stood before the circle of exiles—farmers, thieves, scholars, saints—and declared:

“We will not trade stones for survival forever.
We will build a law that does not bleed the poor.
We will sign—not in blood—but in belief.
One name after another, until this desert remembers we were here… and we were free.”

They signed. One by one. The covenant grew.

But the dragon was always near.

Jonathan sensed its hunger—primal, holy, insatiable. Not for flesh, but for sacrifice. For righteous offering. He dreamed that it devoured not meat, but the faith of weak men, the spoils of greedy rulers, the jewels of unearned crowns.

Perhaps it even ate time, he wondered. Perhaps the blue fire was not flame at all, but condensed judgment.

In his meditations, he saw the dragon's breath pour down upon mountains and melt them into new cities. He imagined it slumbered atop sky-markets and floating forges, guarding the raw material of justice.

“It doesn’t feed on fire,” he said one night, sitting cross-legged near the wind-rocked flame. “It is fire. Fire in waiting.”

He knew then: the dragon was not evil. It was a line—between man and beast, between power and purpose.

And then came the test.

Word reached them that a royal emissary rode from the west. Not with soldiers, but with scrolls and chains—offering "peaceful reintegration" into the crown’s mercy. The covenant would be dissolved. Names erased. Leadership replaced with governors.

The Remembered gathered. Eyes burned with questions.

Aloe Vera did not waver. He walked alone that night into the desert and knelt.

"If you hear me," he said to the dragon of his visions, "if you hunger still… then take what is false. Leave what is true."

He returned the next day carrying an offering: rings of broken marriages, jewels given by tyrants, gold pulled from graves. Not treasures, but lies. He placed them on the altar in silence.

And that night, the sky opened.

It came not with roar, but with gravity.

The wind ceased. The air turned electric. The moon swelled in the sky like a watching eye.

The earth trembled—not in fear, but recognition.

A crack split the sand, and from it came light—not golden, but blue. The same fire as the dragon's belly in Jonathan’s dreams. A hush fell over the camp.

From the east, something vast moved beneath the stars. No wings flapped, yet the air bent. The heat did not scorch—it tested.

The dragon had come.

Not entirely physical, not illusion—a form half-made of judgment, half-made of dream. It breathed, and the dunes glowed.

Jonathan stepped forward. The fire did not touch him. Instead, it entered his chest like breath.

A voice, ancient and without mouth, said:

You remember me.
You offer not your blood, but your pride. This is good.
Do you know what it costs to build what cannot burn?

Jonathan’s eyes filled with tears.

“I do,” he said. “It costs everything. And it is still worth giving.”

The dragon did not destroy. It did not bless. It watched.

Then, with one slow exhale, it sent blue fire toward the altar. The gold burned—but left no ash. The stones sang—a low, metallic hum that sounded like the breath of the world.

When dawn broke, the offering was gone—but the covenant parchment glowed faintly, etched in fire. The names remained.

So did the people.

The emissary never arrived. Some say the heat broke his horses. Others say he turned back after dreaming of flame. No one knows for certain.

But in the desert, a nation was born. Not with flags, but with memory. Not with kings, but with names signed in belief.

Jonathan never took a title. He remained simply Aloe Vera—a man who healed by enduring. A builder who burned without ash. A voice for fire that cleanses, not consumes.

And above him, in the realm between realms, a black dragon sleeps still—guarding not gold, but meaning.

When the Rain Brought Her to Me

By Olivia Harper

I was in New Delhi, India, a place that carried both the weight of history and the rhythm of daily survival. My uncle stood near a drainage pipe that emptied into a canal where the water ran murky. A blue tarp floated loosely on the surface, tangled with suds from soap. He and my aunt bent low, washing clothes the way they always had—hands steady, backs strong, movements purposeful. The sky above was dark and gray, clouds hanging heavy with the promise of rain.

The ground all around was littered with broken concrete, jagged edges of half-formed slabs, pieces that once belonged to construction projects and then were abandoned. My uncle worked without a shirt, his skin glistening with effort and damp air. The water was always like this—unclear, unsettled. To me, it seemed as if gravity itself pulled the sediment upward, hiding the depths and cloaking the truth beneath a layer of silt and motion.

There was trash scattered everywhere. Strangely enough, in the chaos, it lent a kind of character to the place. It wasn’t beauty in the conventional sense, but it made the scene feel alive—honest, unpolished, and stubbornly real. I thought then, as I often did, that with the right effort and equipment, this part of the city could be transformed. The refuse could become resources, the overlooked areas could turn into something valuable. A challenge, yes, but one that hinted at hidden potential.

Around me, tall concrete cylinders reached upward, their hollow frames rising to meet ramps that led vehicles into the heart of the city. They rooted deep into the canal’s embankments, as if declaring their permanence, as if no storm or erosion could move them. The air thrummed with the noise of construction. Workers dug trenches, carried cement, and raised walls brick by brick.

And then—amid the grit and gray—I saw her.

She stood on the bank where the road bent sharply, wearing a simple pink tank top and light linen pants that swayed with the breeze. Her hair clung to her shoulders in the damp air, and though machines roared and hammers struck stone, my eyes caught only her. She seemed out of place among the cranes and dust, a soft flame in the middle of a steel storm.

I lingered, not wanting to disturb the spell. But curiosity—and hope—pulled me further into the streets.

I ducked into a local barbershop where my uncles were working, their scissors flashing in rhythm with laughter and conversation. They greeted me warmly, proud of the trade that kept them steady and respected. I admired them deeply. They had chosen hard work over shortcuts, dignity over dishonor. Their world was not glamorous, but it was honest, and I carried that pride with me.

As I stepped back outside, the city greeted me with its usual contradictions—chairs carved from crude shapes, walls darkened from years of smoke and fire, fruits ripening in makeshift greenhouses when winters grew too sharp. Children ran across the narrow road near the river, their laughter carried on the wind. It was just how I remembered it.

And then the rain began.

At first, it fell lightly, a sprinkle across rooftops and tarps, until the entire street seemed to exhale. I looked back toward the women’s quarters, hoping—perhaps foolishly—that fate might lead me toward the woman I had seen earlier.

That was when she appeared again.

This time, she wasn’t standing proud and distant. She was close, barely a few steps away, her long T-shirt clinging to her as the rain soaked through. She smiled shyly, then gestured for me to follow. There was no hesitation in her eyes, as if she already knew I would.

We slipped into a narrow passageway hidden behind a briquette wall. The path wound downward, almost secret, until it opened suddenly into a pocket of color and life. Small homes crowded together, painted in every shade imaginable—blue, green, orange, pink. Satellites jutted from rooftops, wires crisscrossed overhead like unplanned constellations. It was a village within a city, tucked away where few would think to look.

Her home was simple, but warm. Her family worked nearby on another construction site, their voices carrying faintly through the rain. Inside, she lit a small lamp and handed me a towel. We sat together as her mother brought out food—rice fragrant with spice, lentils rich and warm. The television flickered in the corner, showing a soap opera that no one truly watched.

We talked. At first, only about little things—the weather, the city, the noise of machines outside. But then the conversation deepened, as if we both knew this meeting had been waiting for us. She told me of her dreams to study, to teach, to leave her mark on the world. I told her of my family, of the strange path that had brought me here, of the moments when loneliness had pressed hard against my chest.

And then there was silence—not the awkward kind, but the rare kind that feels like understanding. She reached across the space between us, her hand brushing mine. The rain pattered harder against the roof, and I realized I had not felt so alive in years.

In a city of millions, amid chaos and noise, I had found her. Or perhaps she had found me.

That day, I understood that love doesn’t always arrive dressed in grand gestures. Sometimes it comes quietly, through a girl in a pink tank top, through rain-soaked streets, through the laughter of children and the smell of soap on the canal. Sometimes it comes when you’re not looking, and sometimes it comes when you’ve nearly given up hope.

That was my luck—the day I met her. The day I found a new friend who became something far more.

The Temple of Barsippa: Aloe Vera’s Memoir of 2025

By Grace Mitchell

The tile and concrete decorations of North America covered the landscape, stretching outward like mosaics laid upon the body of the continent. In their ordered beauty there was still a strange pause in the epic story of civilization. The monuments of human labor gleamed in the sunlight, yet under their brilliance trouble brewed.

“What is going on here?” Aloe Vera muttered as he walked the perimeter of his city. “Where is everyone?”

The state was silent, almost too silent.

Aloe Vera and the groups who lived within the territory had long been bound by a strict doctrine of work and legal practice. Under the Roman Empire—reborn in new robes and ruled by King Charles III—North America had been claimed as a modern-day temple of Barsippa. Its people were asked not only to produce, but to worship labor itself: quarry work, agriculture, livestock counting, and endless censuses.

“It’s impressive,” one of the elders had said at the last gathering. “How much the demonstrations can affect the order of the state.”

“But when will it end?” Aloe Vera asked aloud.

The skies above the continent were still blue, occasionally broken by clouds heavy with smoke from furnaces and workshops. Yet human contact, once warm, had become formalized—modified into lines of legislation, sealed with tariffs and signatures. To make the North American land habitable under imperial order required endless toil, and after generations of this work, the people no longer saw the horizon as free.

Aloe Vera remembered long days in the quarries where men and women broke stone, their sweat filling the cracks. He recalled years of battle where brothers turned against each other in service to distant kings. He remembered the laboratories of science and anatomy where researchers weighed the heart and measured the mind as though the soul were a ledger entry.

Seasons of research followed—seasons of livestock farming, of plowing the earth, of charting rivers and renaming mountains. Every effort was counted. Every effort was surveyed. Every effort was recorded by clerks who carried tablets of coin, lists of tariffs, and hard images of boundaries.

It was this relentless order that had led to Aloe Vera’s present crisis. He could still speak to his companions, still greet his neighbors at the gates, but conversations were no longer filled with laughter or trust. He found himself asking: What is the true conflict here?

Was it sterling, the currency that chained men to their debts?
Was it the contact with irritants and harmful chemicals that sickened workers in factories?
Was it unhappiness, the thirst for vengeance, or the simple fatigue of living under endless contracts?

The country seemed paralyzed. The justice system, overwhelmed by trials for treason, murder, idleness, and war, staggered like a sick beast. The people rushed to collect image surveys, stock indexes, and census notes. All labor was cataloged as though the act of record-keeping could heal the fractures of society.

But Aloe Vera knew that something deeper was broken.

The decorative gardens of his city—once a place of gathering, filled with fountains and tiled courtyards—had become grounds for judgment. Residents whispered accusations against their neighbors. Trials became spectacles, and punishment a daily rhythm.

It had not been long since two great structures and many smaller homes were attacked by bandits. Some claimed they were outsiders, but Aloe Vera suspected they were the very citizens of the state, turned against one another.

At a public assembly, Aloe Vera spoke:

“We have to extend the parameters of our practice. It may take long, but we must collect all the evidence. We must note all things, cross-reference, and adhere to our contracts of control. If we work together, we can find solutions to the most urgent issues.”

But even as he spoke, doubt gnawed at him.

“It will take too long,” one man muttered.
“Questions will be raised,” said another.
“Even our contracts will be challenged,” warned a third.

That was the reality of Barsippa’s temple—the illusion of order, hiding fractures too deep to heal with ledgers.

Aloe Vera did not see himself as a criminal. Yet in this climate, where accusation was a daily weapon, he feared the time might come when he would be forced to perform, to defend himself in a court that cared less for truth than for procedure.

The year was 2025, but Aloe Vera felt as though he lived in the shadow of two kings: King Charles III, who reigned from distant palaces with decrees and tariffs, and King Herod Agrippa, whose ancient ghost seemed to whisper through the policies of surveillance and control. The empire was modern in name, but Roman in essence—hierarchies, taxes, and a temple built upon the backs of its people.

The new Barsippa was not a tower of brick and bitumen, as it had been in Babylon. It was a continent paved in concrete and steel, decorated with tile, and filled with courts, offices, and prisons. It was a temple to labor, and the god it served was not divine—its god was control.

Walking through the streets of Phoenix, Aloe Vera watched laborers record livestock counts, engineers measure boundaries, and officials tally the population coin by coin. Every act of life had been converted into numbers.

“It is a temple without prayer,” he whispered. “And a state without rest.”

Yet Aloe Vera was not without hope. He believed that the abundance of the world—the rivers, the mountains, the fertile valleys—could not be wholly consumed by empire. He believed that justice, though paralyzed, might one day wake.

His memoirs from 2025, written in the style of a witness rather than a ruler, spoke of this conviction. He wrote of the long labors and the trials, but also of the human spirit, still unbroken.

“We are not criminals,” Aloe Vera concluded in one entry. “We are builders, farmers, scholars, and children of the earth. If the empire demands we worship its temple, we must remember that the true temple is the land itself—and the life it gives us.”

The problems of Barsippa’s temple were real: treason, banditry, tariffs, and endless trials. Yet Aloe Vera believed that within these very struggles lay the seeds of renewal. For even in the strictest empire, people carried within them a power that no census could measure, no tariff could weigh, and no court could silence.

And so Aloe Vera continued his journey, not as a perpetrator, nor as a subject, but as a witness. His memoir of 2025 was not merely a record of North America under empire, but a testament that even in concrete and stone, a living spirit endures.

Under the Green Glow: Aloe Vera and Copernicus

by Hannah Collins

I was heavily medicated and dreaming while still awake. The herbs that dulled my pain also opened my senses, and in that darkness under the green glow of the dark blue sky my partner Nicolaus Copernicus moved like a figure cut from candlelight. He was up late, bent over his instruments, the flame flickering across brass and parchment, measuring in good strides of science, observation, and notation. Through the night, my friend did study the night sky, as though he were the only one awake in a world asleep.

I believed my friend. When he spoke to me about making advances, his voice held a quiet certainty. He told me he could mark the difference in the glistening—stars that others saw as fixed pinpricks, he saw as bodies moving, whispering secrets to one another. By order of the government he would make advances in astrology—charting the skies, defining the bodies above us, and giving names to what had seemed unnamed. His work was both duty and calling.

We wore the usual clothing and linens of the time: the heavy reds and earthy browns, the tones of green foliage woven into sleeves and hems. We had taken our oaths to the government and the crown, a promise as heavy as the fabric we wore. The castle walls held our words and our secrets.

“It is a difficult objective to accomplish,” I murmured once, my eyes still on the small window where the night flickered. “To note the stars and the differences in their burning and the bodies above our earth.”

“My name is Aloe Vera,” I whispered, as though reminding myself of my own roots.

“Yes,” replied Nicolaus Copernicus. His eyes did not leave his parchment. “That is why we have tobacco and dried herbs. They keep you steady.” He gestured with his quill toward the far side of the room. “They’re over on that dish over there.”

On a brass plate with flecks of gold—so small as to be almost accidental—lay the herbs. They were not extravagant, but they were chosen. Leaves of tobacco, crumbled sage, a twist of dried mint. Remedies, stimulants, anchors for the body while the mind wandered.

We were in a castle in a Spanish city of Italy. The tower we occupied rose high above tiled roofs, high enough to see the stars without the noise of the streets. It was a place set aside for astronomy and reference—a place where the sky itself could be studied without interruption. Stone walls, narrow windows, a table spread with charts and notes. The smell of ink and wax.

Suddenly I remembered where my place was. I was having a procedure common for the students of Vienna at that time—remedies and measures, some bodily, some spiritual, all to bring the mind to sharper focus. The tradition of our teacher, lector and professor, was to use the pocket of every opportunity: to administer remedies, to align the interests of our educational institutions with the decreasing patience of the royal government. To ensure the farthest advantage in studies, to mark not only the stars but the territories in sea voyages that would follow.

I belonged to a tower. Yet aside from the height of this scenic horizon, I was lower in the structure. I was not always there—sometimes the tower filled with adults and their business, their designs for coinage and power. Sterling, gold, white gold, platinum—all melted and struck into coins, each stamped with the face of a ruler, each a promise or a debt. Down below, the clinking of metal. Up here, the scratch of a quill.

Nicolaus Copernicus was studying the sky. He was a strange teacher, yet a great one. I was interested in a better education; I had one already, but it was not enough. I had an itch to be challenged, to overcome the narrowness of my learning. I asked questions constantly—about the stars, about the movements he traced, about the instruments he built. That is how we became friends: curiosity tethered us together.

“I have a telescope,” he would say, “and some notes on my desk. You are free to read the notes, to interpret what you have read. Do you think you could understand this?”

I would take the papers, glance at them, then study them intensely. Symbols, circles, columns of numbers—the music of a different world. I needed to learn. I wanted to understand. It was not something I needed for survival; it was something I wanted for its own sake. Knowledge was a hunger that no herb could soothe.

I needed to make an advance for myself. I needed to understand, to coin and research my own discoveries, to find guidance in the next phase of my personhood. This was not only his journey. It was becoming mine.

“Jonathan, drink your tea,” Nicolaus Copernicus said once absently, eyes still on his notes.

I smiled faintly. My mother had prepared the tea, arranging an assortment of the most common herbs and remedies to be delivered to me alongside Nicolaus Copernicus. The cups steamed between us. We knew each other now, had an interest in the same things for a common purpose. We were able to drink tea and have conversation, a small ritual in the midst of larger work.

Charging disguise, making observations—these became familiar to me. They were not tricks but methods, ways of finding truth beneath appearances. Slowly, I was crafting a trade for myself: I could be in my place and also note the values of the sky, relate them, compare them, understand why they might be true or why they must be proven. This was more than study. It was apprenticeship.

“That is how you make friends,” said Nicolaus Copernicus, looking up at me with a brief smile.

I felt like I was at home.

The candlelight flickered against his face, casting deep shadows. Outside, the green glow of the dark blue sky seemed to pulse like a living thing. In that moment, the tower felt suspended between earth and heaven, between crown and cosmos, between the brass plate of herbs and the infinite vault of stars.

I, Aloe Vera, sat with my tea cooling in my hands and felt the turning of something vast—whether in the sky or within myself, I could not tell. But I knew I was not only a patient, not only a student. I was a witness. And the man across from me, quill scratching, eyes intent, was not only an astronomer. He was a friend.

The Stones of Aloe Vera

By Sophia Bennett

Buzzing—just a low drone from some unseen place—filled the air, mixing with the warm sweat that dampened the front of my forehead. It was morning in the swampy desert I called home, a strange contradiction that only made sense to those who had lived here. The horn blared again, echoing across the sandy hills and stony outcrops, announcing the beginning of the day’s labor.

I could feel the earth beneath my feet, dry but alive, shifting subtly with each breath I took. Lately, my mind had been weighed down by things beyond stone and soil—taxes, permits, proof of wages—bureaucracies that didn’t seem to belong in this wilderness. The place I lived in wasn’t just land—it was a canvas of divine craftsmanship, sculpted by gods and reverenced by the savage hands of my partners. It was holy. It was harsh.

“This is very nice,” I murmured to no one in particular. Before me stretched a patch of desert alive with microscopic wonders—moss clinging to the corners of cracked stone, a blanket of life hiding in plain sight. Crustaceans, small and barely visible, crawled through the surface dust like ancient machines with secret agendas.

I repeated myself: “This is a very nice entry.”

Despite the beauty, unease curled around my ribs. The season was changing, and so were the expectations. More documentation. More signatures. More hurdles. I began to wonder if all was truly well. This wasn’t the usual kind of trouble—not something you could bribe or outwork. The wars in distant lands, the ethnic conflicts—they had begun to ripple outward, disturbing even the trade routes that fed our remote settlements. I decided then to work with what I had, to dig in deeper—into the earth, into myself.

“This is excellent. I am very impressed,” I said aloud, straightening my back.

Jonathan’s voice echoed in my memory—clear, confident.

“The dimension of this composite, and the origin of this stone... It’s something I’m very pleased with.”

It had been years since I truly examined the work that had been introduced into our territory. Our makeshift settlement still needed constant maintenance. Rain was rare, but when it came, it blessed the pre-microbial biosphere, waking everything in its path.

The horizon ahead was alive—palo verdes waving in the wind, desert palms holding their green crowns high, willows stretching out like dancers to the sun. Birds circled above—small, medium, large—each casting its own shadow over the sand. I took in every hue: the deep brown bark, flecks of yellow and green, the occasional ghost-white thorn. Nature’s palette was exquisite. It was alive with a rhythm that felt nearly psychotic, but beautiful.

The shredded wood, the riverstone, the scarred remains of ancient quarry work—they all told stories. Markers of food, battle, surveys, labor. The earth had changed; I could tell. One stone in particular caught my eye—a red one, speckled with flecks of white and clear crystal.

“This is a nice stone,” I said to myself. “It’s red—means fire. And where there’s fire, there’s gold. I’m sure of it.”

I examined the stones further, noticing how they’d been arranged near a small body of water: a red one, then pinkish, bluish, green, and white stones, all half-buried but placed with intention. The design contrasted beautifully with the darkening sky and the crackling fires of the nearby settlement. They looked like fallen meteors, casually placed but deeply symbolic.

The longer I looked, the more I saw. My location, my work—it was all part of something larger. Progress. Evolution. A quest for meaning.

This survey was never just about the stones. It was about finding a person’s worth in a world that had forgotten how to measure it. The quarry was both literal and spiritual. I had learned the craft through hardship and inherited instinct. I was proud of that.

As I looked up at the mountain peaks in the distance—those green-clad faces of ancient stone—I asked myself:

How far have I come?

“This is where I do my work,” I said aloud. “If I can measure even the worst of it, then I can survive. I can trade. I can earn.”

I continued my survey. My tools scratched across the stone, recording angles, densities, colors. If I could mechanize even part of this work, make it more efficient, then maybe—just maybe—I could create solutions worth sharing. In the warm morning breeze, after four days of rain—yes, rain—I felt something shift. Not just in the air, but in me.

Every day in the desert pulled me deeper into its mystery. The life, the silence, the whispers of ancient gods hiding in the aloe leaves and the cracks of sandstone cliffs. The trees in the distance, their presence steady and silent, reminded me why I was here.

I was determined to make my fathers proud. The stones, the endless hours of measuring, drinking coffee, scribbling notes—it was all part of a greater vision. I had to schedule everything, even the trip to the bank. It was art, in its own way.

Aloe vera plants lined the edges of the trail back to camp. They stood like green sentinels, waxy and still, their thick arms reaching out like the hands of tired laborers. Some people saw them as medicine. I saw them as symbols—of survival, of healing, of quiet strength. They grew where nothing else dared to.

Just like me.

And so, in the blazing heat of the desert morning, with my notebook full of observations and my boots coated in red dust, I pressed forward—deeper into the unknown, toward the next stone, the next entry, the next answer.

This was more than geology.

This was home.

The Road to Antipatris: A Testament of Capernaum

By Nathaniel Price

I walked down the road past the new post where I had been instructed to arrive at Capernaum. There, at the edge of the town, stood a great temple with a wide platform and a stable for animals. People from many lands gathered there, bringing with them grain, wild grasses, and oats. Chickens clucked and scratched at the earth. Lizards skittered across the stones, blending into the cracks. The air was alive with the voices of merchants who had come from boats and distant provinces to trade, to see, and to measure the worth of this land—a land that our fathers had known for many generations.

Though the land was familiar, the seasons themselves were changing. Winds carried with them unusual patterns of heat and rain. The government officials noted these changes in their records, as the census required. It was whispered that such alterations in weather and soil would bear great importance for the Roman administration. But secrets were carefully guarded, spoken only in coded words among officials and never revealed to the masses.

I was content to serve, dutiful to the responsibilities entrusted to me. For I had been appointed to assist in the construction of a road leading south. The road was to connect Capernaum to a place called Antipatris—a town situated between the hills and the plains, a hub of culture and administration.

Antipatris was not merely a town; it was a symbol of Rome’s order. It was there that a school had been raised, not only for the sons of Roman citizens but also for those from foreign lands—people whom the empire regarded as wild or unrefined. The school’s purpose was to transform them into obedient subjects, disciplined in labor and taught to revere the authority of the empire. There, in those stone halls, I received my own education. Privilege was granted, but so too were expectations: service, loyalty, and a willingness to work for the glory of Rome.

It was in those days that I first heard of a man called Jesus, the Christ of Nazareth. At first, the stories struck me as entertaining, the way rumors spread by travelers often are. Yet as more voices carried his name, my curiosity deepened. Could it be that I truly knew this man? The thought unsettled me. I remembered him faintly—not as some distant figure, but as one who had walked the same soil beneath the same moonlit nights. What was it that had marked him so? Was it merely a change in season, or had the hand of eternity itself rested upon him?

My duties took me past Antipatris often. The road stretched further still, eastward to the Jordan, where men labored to clear mud and stones, fashioning from the earth a great body of water. It was to serve as a reservoir for fishing, irrigation, and commerce—another token of Rome’s grand designs upon this land. But my attention was drawn not to stone or water, but to a man who dwelt in the wilderness beyond.

His name was John, though many called him John the Baptist. Tales of him traveled swiftly, as though the desert winds themselves carried his reputation. They said he survived on locusts and wild honey. Others claimed he had the strength to face lions, tigers, and even bears, turning their skins into garments and profit alike. Men spoke of his fiery words and the multitudes who sought him at the Jordan’s edge. He was said to cleanse men in water, a sign of renewal, of repentance.

Intrigued, I resolved to see him with my own eyes.

The journey to John’s dwelling was long, the path rough with stones and the wilderness vast and untamed. Yet as I approached, I saw the gathering of many souls—farmers, fishermen, soldiers, and merchants alike. They stood not to trade or to bargain, but to listen. John’s voice rang like thunder, his eyes alight with conviction.

He spoke of one greater than himself, one who would baptize not with water but with fire and spirit. My heart stirred as he spoke, for I knew the name he invoked. It was the name that had haunted me since Capernaum: Jesus of Nazareth.

I remembered then the whispers in Antipatris, the murmurs among the soldiers, the cautious tones of officials. Some mocked him as a dreamer, others feared he might unsettle the fragile balance Rome had imposed. Yet to John, he was no mere man. He was a promise, a fulfillment, a light breaking through the shadowed corridors of empire.

Standing among the crowd, I wrestled with my own thoughts. I was a servant of Rome, sworn to uphold its order, yet I felt drawn to this current of hope that defied the empire’s iron grip. Could the road I was helping to build—the road south through Antipatris, the road east to the Jordan—be more than stone and dust? Could it be a path toward a greater kingdom, one not marked by census records or military posts, but by truth and spirit?

I stayed long that day, watching John lower men into the waters and raise them again, their faces changed, renewed. I did not step into the river myself, for my duty weighed upon me still. Yet in my heart, I felt as though a seed had been planted.

When the sun dipped below the horizon and the wilderness grew quiet, I began the journey back to Antipatris. The road stretched before me, the same road Rome commanded me to build, yet it no longer felt the same. Each stone seemed to whisper of two kingdoms—one of empire, and one of spirit.

And though I remained bound to Rome, I knew I had witnessed something eternal, something that no census could record and no empire could contain.

The Platform of Thessalonia: A Young Man’s Calling

By Jacob Foster

It was a day like many others atop the great platform that overlooked Thessalonia and the banks of the Roman Empire. The city spread wide, its walls glimmering in the morning sun, its markets already alive with voices. Yet for me, this day bore weight unlike the rest. I was a young man then, instructed to prepare for service in the Roman foot patrol.

My childhood had been spent within the temple of my fathers, where stone and scripture mingled. The priests and teachers guided me not only in matters of faith but in the practical arts of survival and trade. I was taught how to shape stone, how to calculate its strength, and how to mix powders into mortar so that stone might endure. From them I learned how gold and copper were smelted, how steel was hammered, and how coin was pressed.

The coins themselves bore the faces of our fathers and of the governor, whose authority stretched across provinces and seas. To hold such coins was to hold a piece of power. To make them was to fashion the very blood that flowed through Rome’s body. I often told my teacher, “One day, I will master these things. I will remember all that you have taught me, and I will make you proud.”

He would smile, his hands stained with stone dust, his eyes weary but kind. “Then you will do well, my son,” he would say. “For knowledge is not only to be gathered but to be used. A man who remembers his lessons builds both road and destiny.”

This temple became my foundation. It was more than a house of worship; it was a school of craft, of order, of discipline. Its columns stood tall, symbols of endurance, and its teachers were pillars of my youth. When I left its halls, I carried their lessons with me.

The road south called to me, stretching from Thessalonia toward distant horizons. Platforms rose along the way—stations of empire that linked city to city, continent to continent. At one such station, I awaited my orders. The roads diverged there: one leading toward the African continent, another cutting eastward toward Alexandria, and yet another vanishing into the wilderness that men called Arabia.

It was spoken that military posts were scattered across these routes, strongholds of Roman discipline. Capernaum was named among them, as well as Alexandria, where soldiers gathered to keep the peace and extend the empire’s hand. To these places I was to be sent, trained in the arts I had studied since boyhood.

I had already been schooled in the ways of service. I knew how to choose my sandals carefully, for the march of a soldier was long and the stones of the road were unyielding. I learned which skins and tunics protected best against heat or cold, and how to bind thongs securely so they would not break in the dust of the wilderness.

I had studied the land as well, taught to survey its features—the measure of hills, the count of stones, the secret worth of soils. Each region yielded its treasures: a particular clay, a rare plant, a stone fit for building. These were not curiosities but resources, each one feeding Rome’s hunger for growth. My task would be to notice, to record, to gather, and to ensure that nothing useful escaped the eye of the empire.

To serve Rome was my highest goal. To earn the governor’s praise and the wages of service was to prove my worth. Each sunrise seemed a promise of this future, painting the sky with colors as bold as banners. The empire stretched across the earth like a living thing, its veins the roads, its voice the law, its heart the will of Caesar. I longed to be part of that living force.

There were mornings when the sun’s first light would strike the stone walls of Thessalonia, and I felt as though I stood at the center of all creation. The markets would stir with cries of merchants, the clang of hammers would ring from the forges, and the scent of spices would drift through the air. I would pause on the platform, gazing southward where the road disappeared, and I would whisper to myself, It is a new day, a new time. And I will be part of it.

The empire demanded much, but it offered much in return. To march in its patrols was to see the breadth of the world: the deserts of Arabia, the harbors of Alexandria, the green fields along the Jordan. To learn discipline was to walk in the steps of men who had conquered lands and bound them together under one rule. I wanted to join their ranks, to etch my own mark upon the long story of Rome.

In time, my orders came. I was to depart from Thessalonia, to march with my unit along the southern road, and to take my place among those stationed near Capernaum. The thought filled me with both fear and eagerness. Would I be equal to the task? Would I prove worthy of the lessons my teachers had given me? Or would I falter beneath the weight of service?

I tightened the straps of my sandals, packed my small satchel of supplies, and carried with me a single coin pressed by my own hand in the temple forges. On its face was the image of our governor; on its reverse, the eagle of Rome, wings outstretched. To others it was money, but to me it was a symbol—of my learning, my duty, and the pride I carried for my teacher.

As the sun rose over Thessalonia, casting long shadows across the platform, I stepped forward onto the road. Each stone beneath my feet seemed to echo with history, with the countless feet that had marched before me. I was but one young man, but I was part of something vast.

The Roman Empire was not merely walls, coins, or legions. It was a vision that reached from sea to sea, from continent to continent. And now, as the road carried me onward, I felt that I too had become part of its unfolding story.

The day was bright, the air alive with the scent of dust and salt from the sea. I walked with steady steps, my eyes set upon the horizon. A new time had begun. Change was coming, and I was ready to meet it.

The Road to Jordan: A Journey with John

By Tyler Reynolds

I set out from Antipatris with a single purpose: to seek John the Baptist. The road stretched long before me, and my journey was not light. Horses carried me part of the way, wagons the rest. The days blurred into one another, the dust of the wilderness clinging to my garments, the sun unrelenting.

I was not alone. A group of Nephites followed me, men who held positions in the Roman government. They were ambitious, restless souls, eager for political advancement. I had heard of them before—of their riots in Rome, of their maneuvering to grasp power. Now they walked at my side, their presence both a hindrance and a reminder of the dangerous currents of politics.

As we neared the Jordan, they warned me. “You have no business here,” they said. “Do not enter this land unless you seek trouble. John the Baptist is a criminal, a man who stirs rebellion.”

I answered them firmly. “Sirs, I assure you, I come not as a vagabond but on the business of the Roman governor. My charge is to survey the wilderness, to plan the building of a road through the Jordan. Such a road will serve trade and livestock, it will open markets, it will strengthen the empire’s hand. And in this work, I seek John the Baptist.”

They looked at one another, uncertain. Then one replied, “If all you say is true, then you may pass. But know this—we will find whether you speak fact or falsehood.”

I agreed, for I had nothing to hide. With their leave, I pressed onward.

At last I found him. John the Baptist stood in the wilderness, a figure as wild as the land itself. His clothing was not of linen or wool but of animal skins—tiger, bear, lion. He was wrapped in the trophies of beasts, as though he carried the wilderness upon his shoulders. His eyes burned with conviction, and his voice thundered like the river at flood.

To my astonishment, he recognized me. He spoke my name, and we conversed. I listened as he preached and prophesied, his words carrying both fire and mystery. Some of what he spoke I could not understand, for his tongue seemed to weave between heaven and earth. Yet I felt their weight.

I asked him for guidance. “Tell me of this land,” I said. “Mark for me where the roads may run, that I might complete my survey and return safely. Has the Jordan yielded itself to your hand? Have you seen the paths by which we may pass?”

He looked at me with eyes that seemed to see beyond my years, beyond Rome, beyond even time itself. He spoke of what was to come—words of kingdoms, of judgment, of a voice greater than his own. I could not grasp it all, but I carried his words in my heart.

Yet my travel was not without cost. Movement was restricted; suspicion lay heavy on the land. After my time with John, I returned to a village of the Nephites. They received me for three nights, but upon my return toward Antipatris, I was seized. Arrested.

For three years I remained in prison. My captors were Nephites, working in league with Roman governors and tax collectors. They questioned me, pressing for every detail of my journey. They demanded to know of John, of the men of the Jordan, of the road I had surveyed. They sought to confirm whether I spoke truth or wove falsehood.

I told them plainly: I had gone to the Jordan for a purpose—to secure the laying of a road, to account for the land, to make trade in coin fair and lawful, and to gather resources for Rome. I had asked John not for rebellion but for knowledge of paths and passage.

The years passed slowly, yet at last judgment came. My account was found true. The records confirmed that I had sought skins and stones for trade, surveyed the land for taxation, and pursued my duty to the Roman governor. With this, I was released.

I returned to the Nephites, and once more I saw John the Baptist. The years had not changed his fire. Still he wore the skins of beasts, still he spoke words that shook men’s souls. To him, my imprisonment was no strange thing. “It is normal,” he said. “Such trials are the way of this world, especially under Rome. A man must endure if he would see the kingdom that is not of men.”

And I understood. To serve Rome was to suffer chains. To hear John was to glimpse another kingdom, one not written on scrolls nor stamped on coins.

The road I had sought was never only of stone. It was a road of trial, of voices that clashed—the empire’s command and the prophet’s cry. To walk it was to carry both duty and doubt.

Yet I walked it still. For though the empire might bind me, my steps had already touched a greater truth.

Streams of Gold and Shadows of the Crown

By Jonathan Olvera

The Caribbean lay restless before me, its waves crashing against the hull of our Spanish galleon. The deck creaked beneath my feet, each timber whispering of the craftsmen who had shaped it. My name is Aloe Vera, though to my shipmates I was simply “el muchacho,” the boy who carried messages between officers, polished the brass railings, and learned, little by little, the ways of men and of war.

My brother stood at my side, older by several years, a figure I admired as much as I feared. Together we gazed at the horizon where a fleet of new ships gathered. They were not Spanish, nor Portuguese, nor any ally of our empire. These were British vessels — sharp, swift, and restless, their sails white against the sky. They were a reminder that Spain’s dominion, though mighty, was no longer uncontested.

We had anchored among the island chains to repair our rigging and to rest the men. From there we could watch the movements of the sea lanes, the very veins of empire. Day by day, British ships advanced with boldness, their movements too deliberate to be mere traders. They came not only for commerce but for crowns — to stake claims, to seize islands, and to carve dominion from the sea.

Our own mission was clear. We were the servants of the Spanish Crown, entrusted to survey, to gather, and to guard the treasures of the New World. Gold was our lifeblood, and in America and across her waters lay riches enough to tempt every monarch of Europe. The empire’s prosperity depended on it. Every ingot, every coin, every fleck of ore was destined for the treasury of Madrid.

Yet even in my youth, I sensed the fragile balance. Horses trampled our newly claimed lands; men labored under sun and chain alike; ships sailed with holds heavy in riches but vulnerable on the open sea. I watched as our captains argued over charts, measuring distance, current, and wind, for each voyage carried peril. Pirates lurked. Rival fleets shadowed us. And storms, more merciless than any enemy, could swallow even the stoutest galleon whole.

Still, the men were jolly with praise and confidence. They sang as they worked, cups of rum in hand, their voices rising above the boom of cannon tests. They praised the king, the Virgin, and sometimes fortune itself for sparing them yet another day. For them, war and wealth were twins. The thunder of explosives, the falling of ramparts, and the flowing streams of captured treasure all promised progress — a future bank of wealth and power that could outlast generations.

As for me, I observed and learned. My hands inked notes in a small journal — descriptions of gold dust glimmering in riverbeds, of tobacco leaves drying in the sun, of the strong smell of molasses barrels stacked in the hold. These were the treasures of empire, no less valuable than silver mined from Mexico or Peru. Each entry in my journal became a record of both conquest and commerce, a boy’s testimony to a world in upheaval.

We dreamed of South America, that vast wilderness still untamed, where rivers promised veins of gold and forests whispered secrets yet uncharted. The maps of our pilots showed little more than outlines, but imagination filled the gaps with visions of cities of silver, temples hidden in jungles, and riches enough to drown Europe’s debts. To sail southward was to enter legend.

Yet dreams gave way to the hard reality of empire. Our orders were not merely to collect wealth but to enforce order — to collect taxes for the Crown, to ensure fair trade, and to secure the law of Spain over subjects near and far. A fisherman could justify his violence, a planter his rebellion, but both were bound by decree. The law of Spain was as firm as oak, though often tested like the planks beneath our feet.

Tension rose when the British fleet drew nearer. Their movements suggested intent — perhaps Jamaica, perhaps another island chain where the Spanish flag still flew. The officers held counsel. Should we strike first, or should we wait and guard the convoy of treasure ships scheduled to pass? I listened from the shadows, heart pounding, as words like “ambush,” “blockade,” and “crown territory” filled the air. For all their confidence, I knew the captains feared what might come.

The clash arrived soon enough. Explosives thundered, arrows and shot filled the sky, and smoke wrapped the ships in a choking veil. I clung to the mast as men shouted, fell, and rose again. The sea itself seemed to tremble, waves surging higher as if stirred by the fury of nations. The British pressed with speed, their frigates darting where our galleons labored. Yet our guns roared louder, and for every hull they pierced, we sent another broadside in reply.

In the chaos, I realized something: this was not merely a battle for land or coin. It was a struggle for memory. Whoever claimed the Caribbean would write its story, mark its maps, and shape its destiny. And I, a boy of Spain, stood upon its threshold.

When the smoke cleared, neither side claimed full victory. The British withdrew to harbors of their own, and we remained at anchor, bloodied but unbroken. The cost was high — men lost, cargo scattered, hopes shaken. Yet the journals continued. My notes grew thicker, filled with accounts of rum and ale traded, of tobacco seeds carried to distant shores, of workers brought from lands across the ocean. These were the foundations of empire no less than cannon or coin.

In time, the Caribbean would not remain Spain’s alone. Other crowns would plant their flags, other fleets would contest the waters, and the islands would echo with many tongues. But in those days, as I stood beside my brother on the deck, I believed firmly in our mission. To serve Spain was to bind oneself to gold, to glory, and to the endless struggle for control of the New World.

Looking back, I see it clearly: we were young, and empire was young with us. The streams of gold, the battles of rum, the decrees of the Crown — all were threads woven into the same tapestry. A tapestry stretched across oceans, embroidered with both triumph and blood.

And there, amid the roar of the sea and the whisper of sails, I wrote my name: Aloe Vera, servant of Spain, witness to the streams of gold and the shadows of the crown.

Spheres of Water, Coins of Faith

by Benjamin Cole

I decided to begin my routine as usual. Dawn broke like a blade of gold across the horizon, cutting through the dim quiet of the desert where I had pitched my tent. The air was sharp and dry, yet I knew that beneath this parched ground flowed veins of water, hidden spheres of life. It was my task to find them, to measure their movements as they trembled with the shifting pulse of the earth.

Each morning I rose before the sun. I unrolled my maps, checked the calibration of my instruments, and stood in silence to take inventory of my intentions. In my observations and positions, I felt it was necessary to continue. My entries—rows of numbers, sketches of contours, notes on pressure and sound—had very much work to do. They were not merely data; they were promises, fragments of a greater plan.

I took careful inventory of my supplies, but even more careful inventory of my purpose. I was focused on the objective: to locate spheres of water, to become aligned with the movements beneath me, to read the silent language of seismic shifts and sky-born signals. The work demanded patience and a steady heart.

I was familiar with the most common items constructed for this kind of survey—sensitive devices, sensors, and recording apparatus. Yet my collections were not only mechanical; they were also philosophical. As I searched for food in the sparse terrain, I updated myself to the actual state of my senses, sharpening them like tools. My quarry was not only stone but also understanding. My task was both a survey and a self-study.

Recently, my work had entered a new phase. No longer was I simply gathering samples; I was also developing a new procedure, a new collection method to prove my coin work—to demonstrate that water itself could hold value, that its measurement and management could form the foundation of a new kind of bank. This was not a fantasy. It was, to me, as tangible as the stones I extracted from the depths of the earth.

If polymer could be minted into currency, if water could be measured like gold, then perhaps a fair value could be set for what sustains life itself. Perhaps, too, a man like me could stake his independence—not as a subject but as a steward—by creating a bank of water and polymers, a ledger of life and trade.

I saw the great American landscape not as a wilderness but as a treasury. Its wealth was hidden in plain sight: the struggles of men and women to survive, the advancements of their hands, the independence of their dreams. All differences, I believed, could be reconciled and defined in fair exchange. Water for coin, coin for trust, trust for survival.

I was oriented toward this vision. Each step of my survey felt like a step toward that ideal. The theory of polymers and notes, sterling and coin, had become more than an experiment. It had become a calling. I wanted to earn my place in trade not by speculation but by proof.

And so each morning, beneath the rising sun, I spoke quietly to myself: I will advance. I will show progress. I will be successful.

The land itself was my teacher. In the shifting sands and trembling ground, I sensed the echoes of empires past. Spain’s explorers had once mapped these deserts, driven by gold, spices, and the crown. Their ambitions had both carved and scarred the world. Yet their footsteps lingered here, and in some way, I felt I was walking alongside them—not as a conqueror but as a student, inheriting their drive but hoping to transmute it into stewardship.

I told myself: I will do it for Spain, but also for my own territory, my own time. I will take the advances of the crown and turn them into something that serves life instead of plundering it. I will make of water what they made of gold: a symbol of progress, but also of care.

It would take time. Each day I recorded a single seismic pulse, a single trace of underground movement. Each day I mapped a few more points of potential wells. Each day I refined my polymer samples, testing their tensile strength, their capacity to store and release energy.

At night, under the open sky, I felt the vastness of the work. The stars themselves seemed like coins scattered across black velvet, each one a marker of faith. I thought of the future—a network of wells, a chain of polymer banks, a system of fair exchange rooted in the earth and the sky.

I thought of the past, too. Of the people who had walked these lands before me, searching for water, food, or freedom. Their stories were in the soil, just as surely as the spheres of water were.

One evening, as the wind shifted and the scent of distant rain reached me, I felt the weight of my journey ease. The work was no longer only about proving a theory. It had become a kind of devotion.

I remembered the words of my father, spoken long ago: “Trade is not just numbers. Trade is trust. And trust is built drop by drop.” Those words returned to me as I knelt in the dirt, placing a sensor into a new borehole. The instrument hummed softly, registering the invisible tremors beneath.

The next morning I awoke with renewed purpose. My notes were clearer. My samples were stronger. My faith was steady. The desert, once silent and indifferent, now felt like a partner. Its hidden reservoirs, its shifting ground, its long memory—all were part of the story I was writing.

I was no longer just surveying the land. I was surveying myself: my patience, my resilience, my capacity to hold a vision in the face of dryness and doubt.

Each entry in my journal became not just data but a testament: to the possibility of a fairer trade, to the wealth of water, to the slow but certain progress of a man who chooses to build rather than to take.

Someday, I believed, my work would be recognized. The polymers would become proof, the notes would become value, the bank would become real. But even if it did not, even if my project remained only a private devotion, I would still rise each morning, measure the sky, read the ground, and advance one step further.

For this, too, was a kind of wealth: the discipline of persistence, the courage of a steady heart, the knowledge that faith—like water—flows where it is needed.

And so I closed my journal for the day. The sun had set. The instruments hummed. The stars burned overhead like coins of faith. Tomorrow would come, and with it, another chance to measure, to build, to believe.

I was ready.

Steel and Dreams
By Mason Carter

Excitement swept over me like a wind rising across the American plains. The platform felt new, promising, a space alive with opportunity. For a long time I had known only the weight of work, the endless cycle of labor, loss, reinvestment, and the quiet petitions for recognition that seemed never to be answered. Yet here was something different: a contest.

The thought of it alone shifted something inside me. It wasn’t just about prizes or giveaways. It was about being seen.

We Americans work hard. Sometimes too hard. And sometimes, if I’m honest, it feels like we carry not only our own burdens but also the pride of others — bosses, companies, even strangers who never know our names. Writing had been my small refuge, though it was never enough to pay bills or lift all the weight. But this contest? Maybe it could. Maybe it would.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The rules, the prizes, the possibilities — it was as if a new door had opened. Steel beams, numbers, materials, dimensions — those had been my daily world. Blueprints, designs, and proofs for banking and recording. But now I imagined these same details transformed into something worthy of recognition.

“How exciting!” I said aloud one evening, startling even myself.

“This is awesome!” I laughed, though no one was around to hear.

The contest wasn’t crowded. Not many had entered, which gave me hope. I wasn’t alone, of course — contests never are — but I felt I had as fair a chance as anyone. Prizes were advertised in bright letters: tickets to football games, soda to drink, chips of any flavor, music, entertainment. Even gift cards, the kind you could trade for anything you wanted.

But for me, none of those were the real prize. What I wanted was to prove myself — to take what I had worked on for years and place it on a stage where others could see it.

Still, doubt crept in. Could I really win? I had been raised to keep my head down, to do my work, to hope for the best but not expect too much. Winning was for others. I knew the sting of disappointment too well.

Yet the thought persisted: Enter. Try.

So I did. I filled out the forms, listed my entry, and pressed submit.

The days leading up to the announcement dragged like heavy machinery across gravel. I worked as usual — steel, ledgers, the measurements of beams and panels — but the contest sat in the back of my mind. I found myself daydreaming at the drafting table, sketching not just designs for banks and platforms but visions of celebrations. Music, laughter, a crowd cheering. My name being called.

One night I stayed late in the shop, running my hands across the cold metal sheets stacked in the corner. Each one had a story, a purpose, a future. I thought of my father, who had worked in mills his whole life, never seeing his name in print, never receiving recognition beyond a paycheck that never stretched far enough. He had been proud but tired. I wondered if entering this contest was, in some way, for him as much as for me.

The morning of the results, my heart thumped like a hammer. I tried to distract myself, but every sound from my phone made me jump.

At noon, the list went live.

I stared at the screen, scrolling slowly, my breath caught in my chest. Names appeared, prizes awarded — game tickets, music passes, shopping cards.

And then I saw it.

My name. Mason Carter.

I had won second place.

It wasn’t first, not the grand sweep of glory, but it was enough. Enough to know I had been seen, recognized. Enough to show that my work and effort mattered.

I leaned back in my chair, letting out a laugh that felt like it had been waiting years to escape.

The prize? A gift card, nothing extravagant. But the truth was, the real prize was the shift inside me. I had entered, I had risked, and I had been rewarded.

That night, as I sat with a soda in hand and a bag of potato chips at my side, I thought about the bigger contest — the one that stretched across life itself. Work, hope, risk, reward. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But if you never enter, you never have a chance.

Steel and dreams. That was what built this country. And maybe, just maybe, it was what was building me too.

Notes from the Arid Zone
By Aloe Vera

I spent very many days thinking and studying the lot and assignment, the cast surface of my home, and the measure of the land upon which I was placed. For months, which soon stretched into years, the debates over the bank consumed me—tugging at the cast coin and the resources hidden beneath the soil. What was to be valued, and what was to be discarded? What could be weighed as treasure, and what as labor? These were not idle thoughts, but the foundation of survival.

The idea behind my bank and note was always tied to the labor camp. There, among men reduced to numbers, the promise of a fair deal—an honest entry in a constitution of record—was not simply law, but necessity. The note was not only paper; it was recognition, proof that one’s sweat and toil had value. To write such a note, to enter it in the ledgers of time, was my pursuit.

Many hours I spent observing the units that brought forth liquid water from stone, or grain from soil, or measure upon measure of sand and rock that resisted our shaping hands. Centi-thousands became millionths, calculations and ratios that bent the mind toward exhaustion. Yet from these numbers, I sought a way to fashion my bank: not one of walls and vaults alone, but of resource and rhythm, of labor and worth.

The keep was important. Without a keep, one was livestock, marked and moved without recognition. To build a keep—whether of stone, paper, or principle—was to declare humanity. It was to unite art with design, proof with existence. My group, my fellows, my companions in hardship—our worth was not in silence, but in record.

These entries became my effort, my testimony.

Technique guided me, though the land itself guided more. Unknown territories revealed themselves as the earth proved, again and again, its abundance and wealth. Rivers hidden beneath rock, veins of mineral, winds that carried seed and cloud alike—all were teachers. Each entry in my journal became a testament to this abundance. Nectar and spice, grain and note, coin and crown—all spoke of creation.

The wet earth at dawn, when gas became dew and solid became soil, was my satisfaction. The first rays of light breaking across the desert carried more weight than coin of gold or silver. Yet wages were earned in both. One could not live on light alone, nor trade sunrise for bread. And so I labored for both: for the proof of the day, and the proof of the ledger.

Upon the board of the Arid Zone, satisfaction could be found. It was not a table wet with wine, but one dry with labor. Its proof was not in feasting but in counting, in weighing, in recording. To strip the wetlands, to plunder and to measure, to number for the crown—such was the command. Yet I took what was given and reshaped it in my notes, for the crown may weigh gold, but I weighed worth.

Tradition, too, accompanied us. In sobriety, coffee brewed and tobacco dried, offering delight amidst labor. The fragrance of fruit and wild herbs mingled with the bitter smoke, carrying with it the memory of lands and peoples—savages and wild Indians, as they were called—who had walked here long before crown and coin laid claim. Their presence lingered in the soil, in the fragrance of wind and in the whisper of stone.

So I continued my work. I called my entries the Second Journal, for the first had been lost, buried in the silence of earlier years. This new journal would belong not to a king nor to a camp, but to centuries of memory. It would testify to both the burden of labor and the abundance of creation.

My position in the Arid Zone was both exile and belonging. The desert offered no shelter, yet it became my home. I listened to the bellowing of fiery pits, furnaces burning beneath earth and sky. I heard the sails of distant oceans, the creak of ships that carried goods along trade winds. Their songs reached me, carried across time, sailors chanting as they pulled ropes and watched horizons.

The trade winds themselves were teachers. Swift as the airplanes that would come centuries later, they bore promise and destiny across the oceans. Each ship was a ledger of wood and sail, charting proof against the vast and endless sea. Their feats became my parables, for just as they crossed waters, I crossed sands.

The desert and the sea are kin. Both test man, both strip him bare, both demand recognition of worth. And just as sailors cast their notes in songs, I cast mine in journals. They are records not of conquest but of survival. They are my proof against silence.

In the stillness of night, I wondered what future readers might see in these words. Would they see only the crown, only the plunder, only the weight of coin? Or would they glimpse the quiet satisfaction of dawn, the fragrance of herbs, the rhythm of a people unrecorded but remembered in soil?

I prayed they would see both. For only both could tell the truth.

The Arid Zone remains my ledger. Its sands are my parchment, its winds my ink. The bank I built was not of vaults, but of memory. The note I signed was not of paper, but of labor. And though I remain one among thousands, numbered and weighed, I remain also Aloe Vera, keeper of a Second Journal, writer of worth against the silence.

And so I close this entry with the same refrain that carried me through many days of labor:
The coin is counted, the note is written, the day is proof.

Shadows of Transylvania
By Darell Perez

For years I had been living in Transylvania. Some say I had been there for centuries; others whisper I had always been there, as though I were part of the stone and the soil, carved into the veins of the mountains themselves. In truth, I had inherited more than land. I had inherited a shadow.

My ancestor dwelled in the caves where the earth was rich, dark, and generous. The walls there glistened with hidden minerals, and from them my father and his forefathers drew many gifts. These were not merely gifts of wealth but of knowledge: knowledge of how the earth breathes, how it feeds, how it remembers.

My father was a man of science, as his fathers had been. Yet in Transylvania, science and secrecy are twins. He took to the business of banking and of noting—recording the lives, debts, and pledges of men and women whose names faded but whose marks remained in his ledgers. His agreements were many and his reach long. He was a collector not only of coin, but of stories, oaths, and lives.

In his time, he gathered personal belongings the way a farmer gathers seed. Small pigs and rabbits, chickens and sacks of grain—carrots, potatoes, onions. All these he kept not only for sustenance but for proof. Proof that life could be cataloged, measured, and exchanged.

We were people of a serious nature. Where others saw superstition, we saw patterns. Where others found the end of logic, we found its beginning hidden in natural delivery: the curve of a root, the vein of a stone, the path of blood through a vein. This shaped my forefathers, the ancestors who were teachers in the secret arts of the earth.

To live this life was to taste it deeply. To know the scents and textures of all things, from the spice of wild herbs to the musk of a predator’s fur. To taste life as other men tasted conquest—savages, docile souls, and fair-faced strangers alike. Each was a channel, a stream by which my father proved his notes accurate, his records true.

And woman—ah, woman—was the most exquisite favor. Not merely companion or counterpart, but the vessel of memory and taste. To be given such a gift was to be offered a kingdom within the flesh. How could I deny the pleasure in such encounters? Even now, I wonder if I denied too little.

All of this unfolded beneath the shadows of the largest mountains in all the land. In those valleys and ridges, stone remembers what man forgets. I kept a garden of carrots and roots, and there among my rows of vegetables I held small pigs, tended to chickens, and trained the rabbits. They were my companions and my store of favor. I treated the animals for their taste, and through these labors I gathered many friends, though none were entirely free of my designs.

When I prepared for politics, when I moved to control the grand estate left to me, I did so as my fathers had done—with calculation, with a ledger, with a vision of a temple that would rise from the stone. Through the hearts of many men I spoke, shaping their tongues with promises and their hands with labor. Together, we began to raise not only walls but a way of life.

My father required proof of my devotion. “Raise a temple,” he said. “Raise it as religion, not merely as house.” And so I did. In the shadows I worshiped, for in the shadows truth can take its shape without burning. In the halls of my temple I raised many rabbits, many dishes, many symbols of labor and abundance. I grew accustomed to the shadows until they became my only rule, my natural state.

The quarries and mountains around us became our walls, our cloisters. Castle Transylvania rose from them as if the mountain itself had decided to stand in human form. Within those walls, life became a science of scarcity. Food was never plentiful. Money had to be proven before it could be spent. Labor was by hand and proof was by blood.

I had to teach my people to speak—not merely words, but understanding. I had to educate them, to prepare them to craft fine food, to learn the rites of farewell, to lift themselves from the soil they bent to. I became not only master but tutor, not only banker but priest.

In those days, I fashioned from fine silk and comfortable textiles a suit for the shadows. Not a costume of vanity, but a garment of patience, of discipline. Dark colors, subtle fabrics, threads as soft as breath. In it, I could move unseen, rest without fear, indulge without interruption. It became the uniform of my nights, the emblem of my rule.

They called me by many names—lord, master, scientist, priest. But only one name endured.

I was Dracula.

Not as the tales would tell you—a monster of blood and terror—but as a keeper of ledgers, a guardian of shadows, a scientist of hunger and faith. I was the heir to a long line of men who measured life, tasted its edges, and wrote its names in the earth.

Yet for all my power, the land remained my teacher. Its scarcity taught me restraint. Its wealth taught me patience. Its shadows taught me the truth: that no ledger can contain the whole of life, no temple can house the whole of faith, and no man—no matter how long he lives—can own the earth that made him.

And so I continue, in the shadows of Transylvania, wearing the suit I fashioned, walking the halls I built. The pigs and rabbits, the carrots and potatoes, the ledgers and temples—they are all fragments of the same lesson.

The shadows endure. The mountains endure. The hunger endures.

And so do I.

Entries in Sand and Fire
By Andre Baldwin

Entries were written in sand, traced in microbe, carved upon the posts of forged spheres that demanded their fuel. These marks were not random—they were records of a world reshaped by necessity. I stood as an observer, my eyes turned toward the platform of the modern-day Roman Empire, an empire not bound by stone but by circuitry, by steel, by engines. It was a theater where humanity rehearsed its survival.

Religion, once the common breath of men, was scarce here. Prophets were few, and the hunger for vision made them precious. The promise of a new garden—green, fertile, everlasting—was pressed forward with urgency, as though it could be built by decree. It was not invitation but demand.

Years of humanity seemed to collapse into this advance. Men, women, and children gathered at the gates of progress, waiting to be defined by water, by seed, by the promise of proven fruit. Their faces bore heartaches of dryness, hunger, and the aching absence of grain. They longed for bread but were given blueprints. They longed for spirit but were given schemes.

I observed rebellion in their eyes. Not the wild uprising of armies, but the silent revolt of those whose suffering could no longer be ignored. It was not the way anyone would choose to move forward, yet it was a righteous path. Difficult, sharp, and narrow—but righteous.

The seas were braved, and the skies were crossed. Ships carried their weight against the currents, and airplanes cut swift trails across the heavens. The objective was clear: to reach the new frontier, to reap its fruit, to carve from wilderness a future that could be counted, banked, and ruled. Yet the land bore scars—deep engravings of centuries of servitude, marks left by men who bent their backs to plows, women who carried the burden of famine, and children who were raised as cattle for the slaughter.

Still the sun rose. Still the moon kept its course.
“It is the day of the new frontier,” I whispered to myself as the dawn cracked across the horizon.

And yet, the oddity remained: the only way to prove one’s worth was to hold fast, to grip tightly, and to press forward, even in chains. Land itself became a prison, a court where trial and judgment were constant. Shelter and weather were rationed, meted out as proof of loyalty, not as gifts of providence.

The new frontier called to us nevertheless. It beckoned from beyond deserts and mountains, across oceans and airways. It was not only a land but a summons. Labor groups and parties marched under banners of progress, stretching beyond the mouths of men and women. Their chants filled the air, half in desperation, half in faith. The new age welcomed friendship, welcomed alliances, welcomed hands to build what no empire could build alone.

I thought of North Korea, sealed behind walls of ideology, yet still a part of the earth’s song. I thought of wilderness unnamed, wilderness that even the Roman Empire could not tame in its expansion. These places called to us—not as conquered land, but as voices of mystery, of possibility.

The empire, in its pride, sought to mark every frontier with its seal. But the wilderness is not so easily branded. It resists maps, resists chains, resists decrees. It calls with its own voice.

And so I continued my entries. I wrote of sand and microbe, of fire and forge. I wrote of men and women whose hunger was deeper than bread, whose thirst was greater than water. I wrote of prophets who dared to speak when silence was safer. I wrote of fruit that promised to sustain, yet could never match the sweetness of freedom.

The rebellion was not against kings or emperors alone—it was against the silence that comes when humanity forgets its own worth. For in that silence, no frontier can be truly entered. In that silence, gardens wither, and empires rot.

The frontier, I realized, was not only across seas or in skies. It was within the heart—within the will to rise, to endure, to plant seed where soil is barren, and to believe in a harvest unseen.

And so the journal grew. Not of numbers alone, not of calculations or decrees, but of voices, each one carrying the breath of the frontier.

The new frontier is not simply land. It is not Rome reborn, nor empire remade. It is the crossing of humanity into itself, a recognition that progress without spirit is famine, and spirit without progress is silence. Both are needed; both must be weighed in the ledger of time.

So I write, and as I write, I listen. The sands still whisper, the microbes still work, the forges still burn. The sun still rises, the moon still keeps its watch. And still the call of the frontier echoes—through wilderness unnamed, through lands forbidden, through skies yet untraveled.

It is the day of the new frontier. Let it be written. Let it be entered.

The Taste of Industry

By Jonathan Olvera

The meals were light—bite-sized cubes of cheese and thin-sliced dried meat and seasoned skins. It was not easy to arrange the socially acceptable delicacy that would result to be the human food source. I often thought of how the art of eating had become a ritual of science and marketing, a ceremony of shape and color more than taste. It would be an interesting turn to complete the diary and meet the daily and burgeoning meat and seci that was to go with the actual hunt and duplication of the most nature had to offer.

“Raw meat is a delicacy enjoyed only by politicians and statesmen,” I would profess, half in jest, half in truth. It was an old saying, but it seemed more fitting now than ever. The American market had turned away from the ritual practice of slaughterhouses and mass equine farming and skin harvesting. What had once been a trade of blood and sweat had become a spectacle of laboratories and stainless steel.

This activity could be exported—the scenic and efficient yellow skies and blue were dotted and streaked by the marks of workmen and the products of farming, textile mills, strings and sand-woven clothing that was decum and breathed the essence of medieval and scientific looks. Everything was efficient, calculated, and yet there remained a quiet nostalgia for the hands that once prepared meals by instinct rather than by formula.

I had acquired the nose, or olfactory sensitivity, to delight the next range of sensation for a marketable and ready provision of review and return to kin. Smell had become my compass. Each whiff of salt, iron, or yeast carried its own coordinates of memory and production.

“This is delightful,” I did comment on the soft and mechanically processed rounds and square rounds—the threading of new flavors and cubes, liquids, textures, and colors.

“Oh, this is awful,” I would also comment when the food was distasteful or out of place, even harmful to the mouth.

“Oh!” I groaned once, my tongue meeting a chemical bitterness that lingered like regret.

It was no easy task, and it was nearly a burden—since the aroma of coffee beans, the different salesmen, and brands of grape, fruit, liquid, and new synthetic products were always available, and the market of stores and advertisement was always shifting in and out of place. The shelves changed faster than the seasons; the billboards reinvented themselves every week. Consumption had become a conversation with an echo.

The ingenuity of men and market, location, places, transit, and town gossip—how it all shifted and took many different shades and shapes. One day, the town swore by organic protein; the next, it praised printed meat. The human tongue, once a simple organ of appetite, had become a field of political and economic warfare.

I valued this liquid, aroma, ritual, around the death of sacrificial hunting of large animals—because I could learn. I could learn how to delight the senses, how to taste the nitrogen and helium, how to bounce the flavors. It was no longer about eating to survive, but about sensing to belong.

I was preparing for my new talent; this talent was to taste food.

I was preparing to advertise and promote a health trade.

Each day I trained my palate like a musician rehearses scales. The cubes of cheese and dried meats became notes in an industrial symphony. A slice of tomato—too acidic. A synthetic orange—too round in its sweetness. I began to see taste as the story of civilization itself, written in oils, salts, and sugars.

There was irony in it all: while machines perfected recipes, the human being forgot the hunger that once gave meaning to flavor. The artificial seasons of supermarkets replaced the patient waiting of harvests. I thought of the old farmers, the butchers, the bakers—the ones who touched the world with their hands and smelled the weather before it arrived.

Now, even the air was filtered, conditioned to deliver a neutral experience. Flavor had to fight to be remembered.

I sometimes walked through the food markets not to buy but to listen—to the hum of refrigerators, to the whisper of plastic wrapping, to the distant echo of a voice offering samples. The market was alive like a machine dreaming of being human.

When I returned home, I would write about what I tasted that day: the rubbery tang of mass-produced fruit leather, the almost believable salt of imitation seaweed, the ghost of smoke in the synthetic bacon. Each entry became part of my “Diary of the Modern Palate.”

One night, as I sat under the flickering light of my kitchen, I realized that flavor itself was a form of history. Every spice was a memory of trade and conquest; every grain, a map of soil and sun. I wanted to believe that to taste was to remember, and to remember was to live fully.

But the new foods challenged that belief. They had no past, only patents. No ancestry, only algorithms. They were the future—nutrient-efficient, cost-effective, and emotionally vacant.

I wondered: could I still find truth in a cube of engineered protein? Could sincerity exist in flavor once it had been designed by a committee?

“This is delightful,” I would repeat, but sometimes I said it only to hear my voice against the silence of the refrigerator.

The more I tasted, the less I trusted my tongue. Perhaps it had become too trained, too mechanical, too responsive to the science of sensation. Still, there was beauty in the effort. I began to treat each bite as an experiment, a communion between the body and the future.

In the market of shifting smells and gossip, I was no longer a consumer—I was a witness. A witness to the transformation of human need into design, of hunger into commerce, of flavor into data.

When I thought of the ancient hunters, I imagined them standing over the fire, tasting the smoke, feeling the world answer their survival. Now, we stand over conveyor belts and glowing screens, waiting for something similar—some confirmation that what we consume still connects us to the living earth.

It was no easy task to be a taster of a new world, but it was necessary. The future would need people who could still distinguish delight from disgust, substance from illusion.

And so I continued my work. I wrote, I tasted, I groaned, I learned. I sought in every flavor the last traces of the natural, the honest, the true

In time, I began to understand that my profession was not about taste at all—it was about meaning.

Because somewhere in the delicate balance between flavor and function, between science and soul, the story of humanity was still being written—one bite at a time.

The Market of Men and Beasts

By Jonathan Olvera

The old world market trade of meat and store-bought food had a different feel to it today — a feeling both familiar and unsettling, wrapped in the actual cost of living.

Security was tolerated so long as the price to pay for market items was part of a profitable ritual — a kind of compliance migration and the stock-herding of animals dressed as commerce.

“All the new items in the store,” I said to myself.

It had become a ritual to walk the city, over the tiled paths of communal creation — giving back to world heritage, connecting to traits familiar to most. The tile walks of Barsippa, the meadows of Brittany, the altar-temples known to almost all centers of the world.

“That is helpful,” I used to say, noticing the simple Hombre in a modern context of competition, land farming, migration, and the primitive acts of mating and home hierarchy. Sensical and rhythmical, unsettling and titillating — every new relation felt like a distinction in the artifice of men. The rural laws of the Indies and the Anglo-Sussex realms were sometimes blinded by the Juventud and their preference for “platform addicts.”

I was intrigued by the aroma of the local theatre — cheddar cheeses and dried meats, recycled tobacco powdered and re-used as phosphorus snuff. I liked it. There was a different style to the consumption of what most would consider trash, unworthy of eating.

“This is delicious,” I’d say to myself as I tasted the discount items of the store.

I had been searching for employment for years, though without luck. Eventually, I reached an agreement with a local store owner: I’d come in, purchase a “small allowance” of controlled produce, and give the illusion of a busy store. I couldn’t afford much, and to keep up appearances, I often found myself starving.

Still, I was satisfied with the part-time advertising job — though I knew it carried unspecified catches. I had to report on new items, write reviews, give commentary, and help make them more “healthy” and “better” for consumption. It entertained me, this large responsibility, and the rumors that came with it — whispers of financial struggles, challenges of maintaining a profile, and the careful calculations required to appease the banks for store locations and market projections.

It was not an easy time to live in the Southwest. Once again, as usual, the threat of invasion lingered — the mandate of protection for small and defenseless nations governed by early-career politicians and bankers.

It was more than a glance at the procedures of natural equine science and habitation; it was the illusion of city life itself. The shifting economy revealed terrible secrets — domestic and international fraud, misrepresentations of industry, and wrong decisions made just to keep certain multinational enterprises running.

Common men would chuckle at the easy gains and long-term immunity these fraudsters seemed to enjoy. Meanwhile, the ordinary folk had their simple errands to maintain — though even those were not easy. Life was harder than keeping up the social appearances of parties and wild spending.

The church-state had built a maze of obedience and solemn worship in the grand scheme of creation. It wasn’t an unfounded idea. The earth itself was a changing sphere of multiple dimensions, and the skin of men and animals stood as a testament to life — a distinction between divine will and sacrifice.

“How challenging,” I would comment to myself sometimes.

I noticed how human interaction had become a cycle of fraud, lying, sex, violence — philosophical, methodical, and endlessly repeated.

“Simple, simple, simple,” I’d say aloud, though I knew it was not. I had a taste for the image of nationality, persona, work — and the hunger for both food and animal.

“Life is not that simple when you want to eat,” I said. “Animal lives and evolves next to man — it is man who sees the benefit, and he alone has the ability to consume his partner.”

If man must consume animal to live with health and benefit, what illusion sustains this logic? I wondered.

But I knew better than to question too much. Many had tried and settled for simpler answers. Some had even given their lives to it. Perhaps someday a young man would make his own decisions — follow the path best fit for himself.

Not every day promised a fortune, or even fairness. The struggle was constant — to stay above the ocean of frauds, schemes, bank robbers, and hijackers.

Today, I had cheese and old dried bits of meat — not always suitable for eating. My mind was restless, always racing, my thoughts scattered.

Maybe some people were just gullible, but I knew better — the market always changes. People lose hope. They lie, cheat, and steal.

It was not going to be easy to continue this work and social program I had been introduced to. But it was, at least, somewhere to start.

The Taste of Ore and Wine

By Jonathan Olvera

Wretching and spitting, I felt the bitter taste coat my tongue — my mouth contracted, twisted, and slurred.

“Eww!”

“Ugh—ugh!”

I felt offended.

It wasn’t the usual, home-struck disgust — the emotional rejection of some poorly prepared food or misfired recipe. No, this was different. It came from the walls that enclosed the mandate’s living quarters in the locality — from the nightlight that shone over all within the boundaries where gold and silver were brought to be weighed and deposited.

The place was dry, the market lively — favorable for trade in spices, gold, silver, copper, and cotton pulp.

I was young, caught in my own sensational pride, determined to overcome every challenge brought by visitors and the shifting tides of commerce. My ego demanded victory.

“There are questions!” I exclaimed.

I had been interrogated about my theories — about my strange devices and the way I measured my deposits, about the value I claimed to carry.

“That is simple!” I answered.
“I will powder the stones I collect. Then I will scorch the ore and sift the powder from the metal.”

“Where will you get the ore?” asked a voice I could hear through the thin walls of my shack. I never saw him, but I knew he was near.

“I will dig a hole,” I replied. “And where I draw from, I will make a mining chute.”

“Are you sure?” he asked again.

At that moment, I bit into some old cheddar cheese squares. The dried discount meat was spoiled — sour and offensive. I longed for a wine that could match its putrid stench. Sometimes, that contrast was what I wanted.

“Buuurghe!” I groaned, shaking my head.

In the nearby orchards, the oranges had ripened, and the neighbors were already in a flurry — pressing fruit into wine. It wasn’t money, but it was something. In fair exchange, it could easily be traded, as valuable as any coin when the time was right.

“Phugheew!” I exhaled, half-laughing at the sharp scent.

The fantasy of wine was intoxicating in itself. I was young, and the simple, effervescent promise of that juice — fleeting and likely to spoil without use — thrilled me. The act of fermenting, of turning sour into sweet, seemed divine.

It would prove a challenge to set straight the weary and dumbfounded messages that crowded my mind. Yet, to deliver the best of myself — an acteur, a model steward after a round — that was a delight. Simply entertaining.

I was surrounded by shadows — strangers and neighbors all too familiar with the sounds of my long hours of thinking and tinkering. My shack hummed with mechanical rhythms and melodic chimes, an orchestra of youthful invention.

The smell of old cheese and homemade wine filled the air. It was the scent of market life — of rural nurture and the eternal struggle to turn what spoils into something of worth.

The Smog Beneath the Sun

by Jonathan Olvera

The swamp and petrol — smog carried its thick cloud of shallow exo-liquids, refined for the courier, the weary bystander, and the avid spectator alike. The air was not merely air anymore. It was something heavier, like the wet cloth of an old rag soaked in chemicals, hung between the sky and the ground to muffle sound and choke the breath.

Thick with irritants and allergens, it drifted through the nostrils and lungs of men, women, and children who had the displeasure — and all too common ingestion — of this industrial soup.

“This is disgusting,” I said aloud, though no one was listening.

Emissions were one of the ways you could tell if a city was a good place to be — or if it was the sort of place that slowly rearranged your insides until you coughed up proof of its corruption.

Not everything was tragedy, though. Sometimes it was just inconvenience — the sort of mild sickness that came and went with the wind. But today, the tonic of chlorine and trace toxins stirred in a brew strong enough to make even the most hardened local think twice before breathing too deep. It was like swimming in a puddle of dirty water and gasoline exhaust — and everyone knew it.

The day was at an end, and the next streak of sunlight would not appear until the next round of ejections and shade — until the machines coughed again and the earth turned once more toward the sun.

“Awwwh! Oh, man,” I groaned.

I knew this rhythm, this bitter cycle. It was the abundance in the shade, the dark existence of the city’s underside that brought the effect — the haze, the heaviness. It was the mirror of a sun we never saw, only felt in the stinging sweat that ran down our necks.

The light came from somewhere, but it felt foreign — like a visitor passing through glass. When the sun turned on its axis, the heat reflected off the concrete and metal in perfect geometry, creating a visual hallucination — a shimmer where people, liquids, gases, and stones all projected the same sickly gleam.

“Man, this is terrible,” I said again, just to hear myself through the smog.

Fuels and humans were a chaotic mixture. The two didn’t always go well together.

The sky was raised and quivering, an oily purple curtain above the roofs. Beneath it, the streets pulsed with the low growl of underground turbines. Somewhere below the asphalt, I could sense the sub-terranean control module thrumming faintly — not completely in order. A broken signal.

Sometimes it was for science. Other times it was for survival. More often, it was seen as an opportunity — a quick fix by local handymen who made a living patching leaks, rewiring power lines, or pumping petrol through illegal pipes for private customers.

It was a city of side jobs.

I made my way down the avenue, boots crunching on dry sludge that once passed for rainwater. To my left was the canal — a thick green serpent winding between crumbling brick walls. Bubbles rose occasionally from its depths, breaking the surface with a hiss that smelled faintly of burnt plastic and fish.

A group of children stood nearby, tossing stones into the water. One of them laughed. The sound was pure, momentary, almost beautiful.

“You kids shouldn’t be here,” I said.

One boy shrugged. “Nowhere else to go, mister.”

He wasn’t wrong.

I continued toward the refinery district, where smoke stacks pierced the sky like black needles. The workers there wore masks — not the paper kind, but heavy polymer domes strapped tight around the jaw. Through their visors, I could see eyes glazed from fatigue, faces gray from exposure.

At night, when the city went quiet, the lights from the refinery shimmered across the fog and made the entire skyline look like molten glass. It was strange, the beauty that came from poison. I sometimes thought that maybe we deserved the view — that it was the price of progress, or at least of pretending we were still progressing.

I stopped by an old diner at the corner of Riverway and 12th. The sign still flickered — “Lou’s Eatery,” it said, though Lou had died years ago. Inside, the air was thick with coffee, grease, and survival.

“Same as usual?” asked Mara, the waitress.

“Yeah,” I said, sliding into my booth.

She poured me a cup of what they still called coffee. “You working tonight?”

“Not tonight,” I said. “The grid’s down again. They’re recalibrating the valves.”

“That’s the third time this month,” she sighed.

“Means something’s brewing underground.”

She didn’t ask what. No one ever did. There were rumors, though — about the control module, about how the city’s main lines were old war tech, built from scavenged military systems. They said the machines were learning, that the fumes weren’t just waste but signals, coded releases of memory.

I finished my coffee and stepped outside again. The night was denser now, wrapped in blue haze. Distant lights blinked like faint stars, reflections distorted by gas and grime.

Somewhere deep in the swamp, a pump let out a slow metallic groan. I could feel the vibration through my soles.

Maybe the city was alive. Maybe all of this — the smog, the emissions, the endless churning of exhaust and light — was part of a breathing organism trying to heal itself through motion.

I walked toward the bridge, where the last of the daylight still flickered beneath the surface of the water. My reflection trembled there, layered with oil slicks and shifting colors — violet, bronze, silver.

“This is home,” I whispered.

Even as the smell of petrol burned my nose, I couldn’t help but feel something like affection. The city was flawed, but it had a rhythm — a strange mechanical heartbeat that kept time with my own.

A shadow moved through the haze — a courier on a motorbike, engine coughing, light slicing through the smog like a laser. He disappeared around the bend, leaving behind a trail of vapor that glowed faintly in the darkness.

The pumps sighed again. The wind shifted, and the smell of rain — real rain — drifted in from the east. For a brief moment, the air cleared just enough for me to see the outline of the moon, pale and soft like a coin pressed against frosted glass.

I smiled.

Maybe tomorrow would be clearer. Maybe not.

But for now, I stood there — between the swamp and the petrol, between the smoke and the stars — breathing in the only world I had ever known.

And somehow, that was enough.

The Architect of Current

By Jonathan Olvera

The bitter air marked the area with the harshness of acid and liquid gas — an atmosphere the inhabitants had grown accustomed to. It was not usual; it was painful. The new demand for electricity was driving communities into quiet madness.

It was not a problem the average man or housewife would like to admit. Energy was no longer a stable commodity, and the demand for transparent answers from both the market and the labor homes was rising sharply.

The priority was now more clear. The community — and the spokesmen involved in representing the local populace, alongside the engineers and manufacturing groups — had more than a fair share of projects and assignments to complete. The objective was to establish a new standard for processing mineral bulks and abundant materials, a foundation for a new phase of constitution and continuity.

It required steady and strong engineering — new devices to ensure a measure of work and electricity. Misinformation had become the most common obstacle, and the solution was not always easy to piece together. It wasn’t always the daily objective to calculate the energy needed to advance or ensure the daily functions of the American home.

But today, it was. It had to be.

It was more than a simple calculation — it demanded a solid idea, a functional fluidity that had to be ensured through the hands and minds of those still willing to work.

“Oh!” I groaned, feeling the weight of it all.

The project, although familiar to me, carried a deep urgency — a demand for completion that was both civic and sacred. It had to be done — for the decency of the next man, for the simple courtesy of habitation.

It meant the continuation of prior efforts: to inhabit the wild landscape with its grainy, rough, porous skin — to breathe life into the terrain through labor. The land itself seemed alive, rooting and resisting, but always meeting us halfway when we met it with purpose.

To a grain knew a hot spring, and the choice of where the same had met a similar challenge. Mechanics, exercise, faith, and common sense — all had met their equal: Contract.

Contracts bound the living and the dead alike. They tied mechanics to meaning, and faith to structure. Threats, rumors, labor disputes, martyrdom, and even slavery — all these currents fed the engine of civilization, the biological drive that dictates the chromatic cycles of the human heart.

I knew with certainty that failing to attend to this next phase of direction — this next idea — could cause the same problem every community faced: no results, miscalculations, and the riots that followed.

Importance was placed daily in the ritual of affluence and work. It was not enough to live — one had to prove the continuity of living, to maintain the cycle.

“This next question will be more difficult to answer,” I murmured.

“I need to define the dimension — the axiom rotation, the central gravity, the polarity to change the current according to the most useful geometrics and channels,” I continued, my thoughts spilling into the air like equations.

“For a cross-conductive fuel alternate cycle — and the storage of its cycles,” I affirmed after long hours of thinking.

The cycles of rain and fluid contact with my devices — with my engineering, my planning — would need to prove worthwhile. They would have to be. And so, in the meantime, I kept with me a notebook, markers, pens, and pencils — the tools of an architect of current.

“It is exposure that I can see,” I said softly. “It is this contact that must be defined and measured — the facility and control of any worthwhile experiment. It could be the next item to be inventoried.”

I sighed again. The next steps were all too evident, and they needed to progress.

“Oh!” I groaned once more.
“Ugh!” another groan escaped.

The solution I faced would have to be more than an idea — it would take months of preparation: charts, graphs, plans, and inspections of materials. There would be countless rough estimates, endless revisions. I needed a solution that could be erected — something measurable, a method to increase my fields and refine the composite and compounded alloys necessary to create a circulatory air system and a temperate, constant living area.

“Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha!” I giggled suddenly at the thought of a new challenge.

The next problem would involve plumbing — the actual control of electricity needed to channel drainage, waste, and fluid spheres into a control panel that could automate and maintain a constant effect upon the system of water pipes. The dimensions of conductivity, the Celtic geometry of flow and connection — all of it needed to be harnessed to maximize the functions of pipe and sewage.

“This will be fun — although it will take a long time,” I said aloud to myself.

“For the next phase, I will have to take a good survey and make sure the images can be used for the new installations.”

I had hopes that I could assemble everything I needed to define this new structure for electricity — a home platform, a structure to be erected, a map of the underground sediments and control structures for rain cycles, solar energy, and the mitigation of harmful agents in those cycles.

I was excited — truly excited — with plans of circular domed roofs, tiled pathways and roads, brick foundations, sewage drains, and electric circuits. A new architectural design was being born, one that could marry form and function, labor and life.

It would not simply power homes — it would sustain a philosophy.

Each component, from the smallest wire to the largest conduit, would embody the faith that human effort and ingenuity could still overcome nature’s bitter turns. The air could burn, the soil could harden, but the will of builders would persist — drafting, measuring, refining, and breathing new rhythm into a fading world.

The bitter air had marked us, but we would mark it back — with design, with patience, with the courage to endure the cycles of failure until the current ran clear again.

For now, the plans remained on my table — a pile of papers soaked with sweat and pencil dust. But beneath them, a light hummed — faint, persistent, almost divine.

That light — my light — was the future itself, waiting to be built.

And I smiled.

The Architect of Current would build it.

The Sea of Decision

By Jonathan Olvera

The new tide of power — and all things concerning the sea of decision — stirred with a hum of uncertainty. The air itself seemed charged, as though the world had entered a restless phase of renewal and confusion. Everything — labor, politics, medicine, and the simple act of survival — was buzzing with doubt and tension.

“How can I be the most useful?” I asked aloud.

The question lingered in the still air of my study. Years of studying medicine and the anatomy of the human body — the best procedures for control, the practices of storytelling, detention, and separation — could never prepare a man for direct conflict.

And yet conflict had come, not in the form of war alone, but as a spiritual and moral battle for purpose.

The use of weapons, the encounters with beasts — both animal and human — had become symbols of survival in this new age. There were the savage, the tortured, the faithful, the uneducated. Each group lived within its own echo chamber of necessity and belief.

“All this time,” I said, “I can only speak for my own practice. There is a very good question — how can I prepare for immediate contact?”

Then, more sharply, I exclaimed, “Men are animals!”

It was early morning, and though the sun had barely risen, I felt the urgency of preparation. There was no use assembling without an objective — no benefit in laboring without leadership. The mind must lead, or the body will fall to chaos.

“Grading!” I found myself saying often. “It is the best way to prepare for this sort of problem.”

Grading — the careful assessment of men, of materials, of methods. I had begun a theory about making the most effective use of available resources — chromes, alloys, designs — all engineered to fit the precise specifications needed to sustain both livestock and human labor.

“Would it be functional?” I often thought.

That question echoed in my mind for years. It grew louder each day — not as doubt, but as purpose. It became a philosophy, a rhythm to my work. If something could function under strain — if it could endure the chaos of life — then it was worth studying.

These thoughts kept me alive. They also gave me reason to teach. I often imagined creating a platform — a system — where the disadvantaged and the educated could stand side by side. A platform for understanding and for order.

I envisioned a place where study met application: where the science of anatomy merged with the ethics of labor, where medicine guided mechanics, and where men learned to rebuild rather than destroy.

But human contact, that delicate favor, was not always granted. The scenic banks of the earth were wide, and the abundant freedoms of men often led them far from discipline. Still, I believed in control — not as domination, but as design. Controlling the movement and chemical cycles in people was not tyranny; it was balance. It would take years of study and patience, but I was ready to endure it.

I turned my thoughts toward resource collection — toward the mapping of equine labor, trade, and civic order. The balance between seed powder, coinage, and new systems of trade fascinated me. If charted correctly, these could form the foundation of a new human charter: a civilization built not on conquest, but on functionality.

And yet, destruction was everywhere. Violence lurked beneath the surface of civilization, waiting for any weakness in the structure of reason. Illegal quarries, stolen resources, corrupted trade — these were the shadows that followed progress. The fear of waste, of unregulated expenditure, haunted every new platform venture I envisioned.

Still, I persisted.

Each day, I made a deliberate effort to walk the righteous path — of justice, fairness, and proportion. My work became more than study; it became prayer. I hoped that one day, all things would be made equal to the nature of men — not by decree, but by understanding.

Foreign relations, too, troubled my mind. Nations, like men, struggled for order and recognition. The balance between sovereignty and service seemed fragile, yet necessary. To act righteously was not just a matter of politics; it was a matter of design.

The sea of decision, as I called it, stretched before me — vast and unpredictable. Every current represented a choice, every tide a consequence. Humanity floated upon it, uncertain whether to build or to drown.

Some mornings, I would look out toward the horizon and imagine the new tide of power coming closer — not a wave of destruction, but of transformation. In that tide, I saw the craftsmen, the engineers, the healers, and the storytellers — all laboring together, guided not by greed but by usefulness.

To be useful — that was the true measure of a man. Not in wealth, not in conquest, but in contribution. The question I had asked myself at dawn still echoed as night approached.

“How can I be the most useful?”

Perhaps by studying not only the anatomy of the body, but the anatomy of civilization. Perhaps by understanding the delicate pulse that drives humanity forward — the need for structure, for belonging, for fairness.

Medicine taught me about the human heart, but labor taught me about its endurance. I began to see that work, too, was a form of healing. A properly guided laborer was a doctor of civilization — repairing, refining, and renewing the very fabric of existence.

Control, when guided by wisdom, was not oppression. It was stewardship. To command the flow of energy, to design systems that served rather than enslaved — this was the essence of true leadership.

I thought of the early philosophers — of the architects of order — who believed that structure was divine. Every measurement, every tool, every act of labor was a hymn to balance. Perhaps I, too, was part of that lineage: a man studying not just to survive, but to harmonize.

The tides continued to turn, bringing with them new challenges and new awakenings. I wrote notes late into the night, sketching models of social and mechanical reform. My theories filled pages — some practical, others idealistic. But all were rooted in a single conviction: that usefulness was sacred.

When dawn came again, I stepped outside and breathed the dry morning air. The world was imperfect, but alive — still full of potential.

“Maybe one day,” I said softly, “all things will be made equal to the nature of men.”

The wind carried my words toward the horizon, where the sea of decision shimmered beneath the growing light — vast, uncertain, and full of promise.

The Desert Engineer

By Jonathan Olvera

The morning always proved to be the most brutal part of the day — long, hot, and swampish. Radiating waves of heat stretched across the desert plain in orbs, like invisible lenses magnifying the sky’s anger. The heat tested the human settlements that clung to the surface, above the quiet habitats hidden underneath.

It was a test of endurance and invention. The people had learned to live with the pain of brightness, the way others learn to live with rain.

Nostalgic tunes hummed from portable radios — reminders of migration, rhythm, and memory. The state of humanity was not always favorable to the light-hearted or the delicate. Survival was never polite in this climate. It was time to prove that the hands of the median — of men and women of work — were still able to withstand the trials of time, of sun, and of the variations in the very breath of life that had been granted to them.

“What can I do today?” said Jonathan, eager to begin the day with a round of productivity, to continue his plans, and to ensure a proficient, continual effect of fair planning and construction.

“I want things to be perfect — exactly as I have planned them,” he said.

He began the day atop the red plywood membrane that served as his workspace, spread across an iron cage that formed the foundation of his small lab. He heated a pot of coffee over a portable coil stove, its faint hum nearly drowned out by the rising wind.

The rhythm of his thoughts, the chordal ebbings of his imagination, were already in motion. They always were. Jonathan’s objective had never changed — to construct for himself, from his own learned academia and restless play, a humble home fit for new additions and modifications.

He sought to meet the modern demands for channels, resistance, and charm — for those ingenious solutions that might make life not just bearable, but beautiful in this scorching desert.

“Well, it’s time,” he said aloud to himself.

He picked up a pencil, a pen, and a few markers. Then he went back to his quarters, where he kept a notebook and a small table — his command station for ideas, calculations, and urgent distractions. It was necessary to keep up with the giant storm that construction was.

He hummed to himself — chords of brass and piano from some half-remembered melody — as he began to write. He drew grids, circles, lines. He color-coded his pages to understand how the hues of nature, the composition of elements, and the oxidizing effects of carbon emissions could create new value, new purpose.

“A,” he said aloud as he began to chart the alphabet across a data set. Then, “One.” He charted numbers alongside letters, filling pages with equations and speculative rules. Somewhere in these marks, he believed, the solution to an important question might be hidden.

It wasn’t just design; it was meditation. The alphabet became circuitry, the numbers became rhythms — the secret pulse of construction and renewal.

“This will assist me in completing my work,” he said to himself aloud.

No one was around. The settlement had mostly emptied — its people following a great migration to the next realm of work, to reproduce and reintroduce the next sovereign order. This was the etiquette of the Republic’s hot island nations across the globe — social hierarchies that pulsed like tides.

Jonathan remained. He had chosen to stay behind in the silence, surrounded by the bones of his half-finished structures and the relentless hum of the heat.

Work was still the only law. Men had to adapt, to continue conceiving complicated ideas and to make necessary advances when the world demanded it. The questions of young men no longer yielded simple answers — not in this century, not in this sun.

He was alone, but not bored. He was deep in the thought of application — of how precise measures and the equity of a man’s hand could yield sensible results. The carriage of daily burdens, the rhythm of tasks to be completed — all of it led toward one thing: creation.

The new design would prove itself. The investors and group contracts would, in time, recognize its value.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” Jonathan laughed aloud.

There was more to the picture, he knew. Every phase of any useful idea carried the burden of proving its benefit to society. Every invention was political, whether one admitted it or not.

“Politics!” he exclaimed, still smiling.

The word itself was not amusing, but it carried a certain light-hearted challenge — a test to the ingenuity of the taxmen and bureaucrats who would later measure his success in percentages and property lines.

“How to prove this benefit, and sharpen the devices to complete it?” he thought aloud. “It will clearly have its effect.”

There was no single answer. When men needed to hunt — when survival demanded cunning — treachery often became a tool. The structure he was building would have to withstand that human instinct, that oscillation between creation and control. It would have to outlast greed and still serve grace.

This project, he knew, would take long hours, weeks, months, even years to reach a presentable model. A functional market exchange, a system of sustainability — a living design that could breathe with the land.

He imagined it vividly: the metallic echo of tools, the scent of wet sand cooling under concrete, the hum of energy coursing through steel lines.

It would take meddling with metals, calculating spheres, measuring liquids, and devising a fair control. Every component had to flow into the next — mechanical, moral, and spiritual.

Jonathan was up for the challenge.

He paused to sip his coffee, staring out at the shimmering dunes. The desert stretched like a vast, golden sea, motionless yet alive. The heatwaves rose and fell like tides of invisible water.

This was his ocean.

His blueprint was a compass, and every pencil stroke was a sail — catching the current of thought and turning it into something tangible.

He knew the morning would always be brutal, that the heat would always demand a price. But he also knew that beneath every burning horizon lay the promise of structure — the discipline that turned suffering into civilization.

Jonathan smiled to himself, pen in hand, the air alive with light.

And once again, the Desert Engineer began his work.

The Solar Crown

By Jonathan Olvera

The change was not immediate — our illusionary world and the web of stories that had become our commodified market, our line of manufacturing. Employment and the reparations of exchange had become the measure of the human population itself.

Things changed. The solar system was in a state of phase, and it was the hottest of the times men had ever recorded. The demand for oil — and the fluidity of drilling and petrol extraction — had to come to a halt.

“The world is ending.”
Or, “There is a wall around the place.”

The comments were common among the uneducated groups. I knew better. I knew that around every sixty-five years, the sun went through a phase, and the remainder of that time, the outcome would prove the most fruitful. The low-energy face of the sun was always the most promising to the localities.

The sun made distance in the depth of this illusion, and the darkness formed a circular crown that accented its light through the phase. The promise was a bigger sun — a more familiar face, dim but larger.

Migration began. The storage of expirable goods and contaminant-transfused surfaces, materials, and items was in full effect. People hoarded and hurried. “I can see this,” I muttered to myself, almost immersed in the illusion.

A demand for government authority had to be put to a halt. The governmental policies of enforcement and practitioner recommendation, public referrals, and the budgets of self-reliance — none of it was certain anymore. The nature of all things had become a dictate of logic, an application of reason within the institutions of sound men, women, and children.

Honesty was no longer a fruitful effort.

Jails were failing, and prisons were becoming an idea to abandon. The strain and requirement for men to restitute the public had become a greater demand.

“Send them to work!” some would cry out in the public squares.

“Send them to the Holocaust!” others would demand, as if the repetition of horror were the cure for disobedience.

International participation in capturing the criminals and delinquents responsible — to deliver this population to the correct place, to justify the commodity of comfort at home, and to ensure the cycle of crime would never be repeated again — became a worthwhile discussion among the scholarly journals of Government, Work, Labor, Medicine, and Justice.

“Men are Indians,” I would say to myself.

“The government itself is an Indian ritual,” I would add, whispering into the fog of my own thought.

I was attempting to imagine the purposeful movement of the criminal population — of the jails and failed institutions — to a more fitting location. It would be simple logic and migratory effort that would solve the problems plaguing the state and federal budgets.

The idea was simple: jails, prisons, public institutions, and correctional facilities all had one solution for misbehavior and fraud — send the people to work centers in miserable, foreign lands. Let them labor in the distant and unknown. Have them benefit our public platform, serve our social nations, and then forget about them. Punish them harshly, efficiently, quietly.

It would be a sharp contrast to the illusion of unfounded democracy and the false hope that a criminal enterprise could flourish under the simple adhesion of the common man to the ritual of ignorance and purpose.

The government could shut down, although I could not imagine the monarchies shutting down — nor several of the socialist republics around the world. They only seemed to tickle at the object of this — Solaris and its effect on the population.

“Observe this,” I said to myself aloud. “Do not fear failure. Work in faith.”

There was a rhythm in that — the steady breathing of faith beneath the machine of the world.

“There will be more use to the actual material that you generate in the next phase of uncertainty,” I told myself, “and you will be reliable for this.”

I believed it. Faith had to replace fuel. Belief had to replace law.

The people who once depended on markets now depended on each other. The illusionary world — the web of stories, numbers, jobs, and screens — began to crumble, and beneath it, we saw something ancient and silent: a human order waiting for the next phase of the sun.

“Be patient and have faith,” I whispered again. “Just wait.”

I remembered the cycles of my ancestors — the ones who watched the skies and measured their harvests by the temper of light. They too saw crowns around the sun and called them omens.

But now, the omens were data. The halos were heatwaves. The prophecy was written in climate reports and government memos. Yet the meaning remained the same: change is coming.

The solar crown widened across the horizon. The light dimmed, then flared. In the temporary dusk, the world seemed wrapped in thought — as if consciousness itself were suspended between surrender and survival.

Factories slowed. Cities hummed at lower frequencies. People began to migrate again, not just for work, but for shade. The markets that once defined our lives became ghost architectures, filled only with memory and advertisements that no longer mattered.

And yet — the silence brought clarity.

Without the roar of industry, I could hear my own breath. I could feel the patience of stone and the language of light. I could see the truth that had always been there: that civilization, for all its noise, was only a ritual we performed to feel safe from the vastness of time.

The vastness remained.

“And I will be waiting,” I said to myself aloud.

The world would soon envelope itself and bring forth the season of fruit and reward for the faithful. The heat would pass. The circle of the sun would narrow. The energy would return in a softer hue, and the world — stripped of its illusions — would begin again.

In the quiet, I looked at the dim crown of the solar phase, and I thought of all that had been lost: the markets, the prisons, the governments, the faithless noise of men.

But I also thought of what remained — the seed of something purer, deeper, still breathing beneath the heat.

Change was not immediate. It never was. But when it came, it revealed everything.

And so I waited — with patience, with faith, and with the crown of light above me — for the world to turn once more.

The Solar Ledger

By Jonathan Olvera

The night turned into a study that lasted no more than half an hour — a slim measure of time devoted to manufacturing thought and purpose. The desk before me was littered with papers and instruments, all the fragile remains of another day’s accounting. The window let in a dull orange light, the last remnants of the setting sun filtering through the dry dust of the upper atmosphere.

It was the hottest turn of the year, and I needed only to check my documents. The sun had reached the worst point the solar axis could bear. Sixty-five years from now, I imagined, the days would be miserable — their crops twisted, their fruits burnt, their oceans thick with the exhaustion of centuries. The precious resources of men would be scarce, their ingenuity tested beyond endurance.

“How unpleasant,” I said aloud.

The air hardly moved. The silence was not empty, but filled with the hum of old circuits, the distant rotation of engines, the faint tremor of the city platform beneath my feet.

“I wonder how soon it will change,” I murmured, “or if I will ever see the end of it.”

Still, I knew the reward waited somewhere beyond this epoch — as the Buddha taught, as the faithful pilgrims and laborers had always believed. Patience was not a weakness but a form of faith. And faith, though worn thin, was still a currency among those who had not yet given up.

It was no time to cease observation. The readings from the solar array flickered across my monitor. Each figure, each faint deviation of temperature or charge, represented the balance between survival and collapse. I recorded them carefully, my handwriting steady despite the heat.

This was the age of migration. People turned away from governments, disillusioned by decrees that no longer carried meaning. The old order had fractured, and new settlements were spreading across the northern territories — uncharted, perilous, and full of hope. Families traveled on floating barges and metallic trains, seeking land that could still bear seed. They sought to affirm the sacred birth order of their children — to make their names valid in the new records of humanity.

The city platform still required governance. Inspections. Documentation. Ledgers. Always the ledgers.

“All these complicated errands!” I often complained aloud, though I knew the burden was necessary. Civilization did not sustain itself by dreamers alone; it was maintained by the patient hands of clerks, engineers, and planners who believed in order, even when the world seemed too hot to care.

The weary travelers, the anxious soldiers of fortune — they too awaited the next shift of the calendar. Some sought new contracts; others, redemption. I had much more to worry about. The world was a changing sphere of kinetic energy, a whirl of pressure and rotation. The spoils of mechanics and engineering were the same as ever — complex, difficult, unrelenting.

To tame the uncharted forces of the ocean, to engineer the channels of gases — nitrogen, helium, and the sequential compounds — these were the tests of our age. Every day felt like a small experiment in endurance.

“Every day must prove the worth of a common man,” I said to myself. It had become a kind of mantra.

I was determined to make a note of my equity — to turn my work into a signature of continuity, a brand of future stability.

“It takes time,” I said softly.
“It takes time,” I repeated, as though repetition itself could make it true.

My city — the one my forefathers had built, descending from England’s old coasts and the shadowed roads of the Roman Empire — called to me in its silent hum. It was more than a city; it was inheritance, history, and endurance made metal. I was inspired — not by the immediate gratification of success, but by the visible end of human effort, the proof that work could still mean something.

This is life, I thought. The Creator had provided the most remarkable dimension for humanity to place itself within: rule, authority, work, resource collection, and trade — the living forces that made life both fruitful and interesting.

“All right,” I breathed.

I pushed the last stack of reports into the archive box and sealed it. It was no easy task. Every number represented hours of fieldwork, every signature a promise. If done poorly, a man’s work would be judged and forgotten; but if done with diligence, it could outlast him.

In that, I found a kind of peace. The reward of study, obedience, patience — these were not small virtues, but the architecture of civilization itself. Banking, construction, contracts, sterling deposits, resource mapping, and commerce — these were not dry occupations. They were the threads by which the human family bound itself together.

I might not be needed in this solar episode, but if I remained obedient, observant, reliable, and intelligent — then perhaps I could stand beside it. I could become the staple of a common man: a witness to the endurance of structure.

Outside, the wind began to rise — a rare wind, warm and thick with dust. The city lights blinked faintly across the horizon like the dying pulse of an enormous creature. Somewhere out there, people were still building, still planting, still learning how to live again under the glare of a sickened sun.

The study of the solar system, of electronics and mining, of precious minerals, politics, and medicine — these would take a lifetime, and then some. I knew the cost. Money was not always offered for such service. The world rewarded speed, not patience; novelty, not continuity. But faith remained a form of capital — invisible, yet indestructible.

And I believed that with faith, some things would work out.

So I continued my ledger. One entry at a time, marking the changes in heat, in current, in hope. The numbers were my prayers, the columns my quiet devotion. And in the silent geometry of my work, I began to understand that civilization — for all its failures — was still a form of worship.

For every sunrise that scorched the earth, there was still a man somewhere recording it — not to curse it, but to remember it.

And perhaps, I thought, that was enough.

Suzhou in the Rain: A Journey of Coin, Quarry, and Culture
By Jonathan Olvera

I arrived in China by boat. The vessel creaked as it pushed against the current, and the air was thick with the scent of rain-soaked earth and river reeds. As the shoreline drew near, I saw lily pads spread across the water like a green carpet, their blossoms lifting their faces to the drizzle. Beyond them, low mist curled over fields where sprouts of rice and grain bowed in the damp wind. I had dreamed of this view, envisioned it many times in the stillness of my own home, but standing at the threshold of this land, the vision became real.

The first thing that caught my eye as we neared the dock were the roofs. They curved upward like wings, tiled in shades of gray and red, a style I had admired in books but never touched with my own eyes. They reminded me of craftsman’s work back home—only here the artistry was magnified, multiplied across streets and waterways, each structure a declaration of patience and precision. This was Suzhou. A city of water, stone, and silk. A city where I had been invited to present my idea for a new currency, a system of trade that might bridge foreign goods and services: computation, medical practice, and resources of the quarry. I came carrying little more than my notes, a pocketful of coins minted with approval back home, and a heart full of curiosity.

The rain was steady, falling in silver threads that softened every line of the city. Canals cut through the streets like veins, carrying boats that glided silently beneath arched bridges. The stone banks of the waterways glistened with moss, their surfaces cracked but enduring, a testament to centuries of labor. And the people—there were so many people. Men shouldering baskets of rice. Elders sipping tea at the edge of the water. Children darting beneath umbrellas of painted paper. What startled me most was the abundance of women, more than I had seen gathered in any place at home. They wore linens of blue, pink, and white, their dresses embroidered with quiet detail. Some had feathers woven into their hair, others carried fans painted with landscapes as delicate as the clouds above us.

I could not help myself. “My goodness, that is very pretty,” I whispered aloud, perhaps louder than I intended. One woman turned, smiled knowingly, and walked on. I continued forward, my shoes slipping slightly on the paving stones that wound into the heart of the city. The ground beneath my feet was slick but firm—a mixture of composite stone and chalk, patched and painted with Chinese characters I could not yet read. I imagined they were blessings, proverbs, or names of families who had lived here longer than memory.

As I walked, vines climbed the walls in twisting threads, green against the washed browns of timber and tile. The air smelled of rain and smoke, the kind that comes from kitchens and hearths. Every corner seemed alive: vendors setting out steaming buns, carpenters shaping planks in open workshops, scholars hunched over scrolls at tables beside the street. I turned a corner and came upon a canal boat drifting beside me. A family waved as they passed, their laughter rising above the patter of rain. The boatman stood at the stern, long pole in hand, guiding his vessel with slow precision. I considered stepping aboard, but there was no time—I had an appointment to keep, and a city to learn.

In my pocket rested coins—small discs of metal, minted in silver and gold, recognized by a bank in my homeland as legitimate tender. I wanted to see if such coins, based on labor and quarry extraction, could find a place in Suzhou’s bustling markets. To test them, I entered a restaurant. The door opened into a burst of color. A massive dragon head hung from the ceiling, its eyes painted with fire, its mouth spilling cold smoke across the floor. Women in bright dresses moved gracefully among the tables, carrying trays of steaming bowls and cups. Paper lanterns glowed red and gold, casting ripples of light across the damp floorboards.

I approached a counter and set one of my coins before the attendant. The man turned it in his hand, studied it under the lantern light, and then smiled. He nodded and accepted it as payment. I exhaled. My coin had value here. The food was extraordinary—fish steamed with ginger, rice soft and fragrant, vegetables cooked with spices that I could not name but would never forget. I ate until I was satisfied, careful not to overindulge, and then stepped back into the rain.

As I walked further along the canal, I reflected on what I had seen. The rain here did not cease; it was constant, life-giving, shaping the rhythm of the city. Water was everywhere—in the canals, in the fields, in the dripping roofs, in the mist that blurred the distance. I thought of it as a soft quarry. Not stone, but liquid. Not carved by chisels, but by clouds. It was abundant, renewable, and powerful. Where I came from, water was often scarce, a resource to be rationed. Here it was endless, falling from the sky with a generosity that shaped every aspect of life.

“This is impressive,” I said aloud to no one in particular. “There is so much water here, and it will remain for a very long time.” I studied the walls along the canal and noticed variations in stone. Some blocks were gray, others white or streaked with mineral color. The diversity of the quarry was evident, each piece fitted together to build homes, bridges, and markets. I realized that trade here was not only in silk or rice but in the very materials of the earth.

Eventually, I reached the office where I was to present my ideas. It stood at the edge of the canal, a modest building with wooden beams and wide windows. Inside, scholars gathered around low tables, their scrolls and inkstones arranged with care. I was welcomed warmly. They offered me tea, green and delicate, and gestured for me to sit. Through an interpreter, I explained my vision: coins derived from quarry work, their value tied to weight and labor. I spoke of how such a system could balance trade between nations, how it could ensure fairness in the exchange of services—computation, medicine, architecture.

They listened intently. Some nodded, others whispered among themselves. A few asked questions, their voices rising and falling like the rain outside. I answered as best I could, drawing from my studies and my experiences at home. By the end of the meeting, I felt a quiet satisfaction. Whether or not my idea took root here, it had been heard. It had entered the conversation, joined the dialogue of Suzhou’s markets and minds.

That evening, I walked again along the canal. Lanterns flickered on the water, their reflections trembling with every ripple. The rain still fell, soft and unyielding, a lullaby for the city. I thought of the women in their colored dresses, the dragon in the restaurant, the scholars with their scrolls. I thought of the coin in my pocket, accepted and recognized across an ocean. I thought of the quarry stones, the rainwater, the fields of rice.

Suzhou was more than a destination. It was a lesson. A reminder that trade is not only about goods, but about understanding. That culture is as much a currency as silver or gold. That water, stone, and labor all shape the value of human life. I closed my umbrella and let the rain fall on me, unbothered. I had arrived in China, and I had found something greater than what I came for. I had found perspective.

And as I turned back toward my lodging, I whispered to myself: “I will return. I cannot wait to go again.”

The Statesman of Elam

by Jonathan Olvera

Touching the tones of gold and stepping across the dry and brown hues of the Mesopotamian surface, I felt the heat of the earth rise through my sandals. The soil of Elam shimmered in patches, glinting like dusted bronze beneath a relentless sun. I paused, gazing across the endless plain, and thought to myself, How is it that one man—an authority—can debate such wealth?

Gold was not only a metal here; it was an idea. It flickered in the air like a vision of power, reflecting off shards of rock and forgotten coins buried by forgotten empires. The creative instinct stirred in me then—a spark I could not dismiss. It was the drive I needed, the silent whisper that perhaps I could be more than a man of thought. Perhaps I could be a statesman.

“Politician?” I murmured under my breath. “That is for actors—men who trade conviction for applause.”

No. A statesman, I thought, is one who acts upon reason itself. He does not mend logic by practice; he is logic.

True enough, the earth beneath my feet carried the marks of long toil—lairs and mines, traps and passages, the remnants of channels that once carried treasure and grain alike. What I saw on the surface was only the beginning of a vast, gravitational truth: that men were forever pulled downward, into the labor that sustained them.

The landscape was ornate and forgotten, out of the way of the great wilderness that spread like a sea. The rules here were different, carved into the sand rather than written in law. The gambles men made—on wealth, on honor, on survival—marked the differences between the noble and the desperate, the strong and the idle.

“Illusions,” I muttered. “All of it.”

I imagined a scene—thousands, tens of thousands of people—standing equal before the same sun, their shadows stretching across the same dust. It was hard to imagine equality in a land where the strong ruled and the weak prayed for mercy. I thought of the omission of justice, of how easily men bowed to idols they built with their own hands—golden, silver, or otherwise.

I laughed softly to myself. “Heh, heh, heh.”

There was still much to do. The estate needed accounting, the fair value of coin had to be restored, and the workers had to be paid. The day was not long enough for all the things that weighed upon me.

“Oooh…” I groaned as the bells rang from the court down the street. The session was held in Latin today—never short on entertainment. The air buzzed with a mixture of languages, wild gestures, and the theatrical passion of visitors, lost men, rioters, and philosophers.

The court reminded me of politics, or perhaps a circus disguised as one. The parties—the Republicans and the Democrats—spoke not of justice but of interest. I sometimes thought the local circus was a better model of order than the chambers of debate.

Yet still I observed, noting changes where politicians and workers quarreled over the value of money, over who should labor and who should lead. Their arguments spun in circles, endless as the wheels of the chariots that once rolled over these plains.

“Well, something is bound to change someday,” I said aloud.

The air carried my words off like dust. I turned toward the hills and saw in their distance the glimmer of old ranches, church towers, and the livery that bound faith to labor. Somehow, these things gave me hope—that even in decline, the common man would rise, hold fast to work, and cherish the small tokens of worth and power left to him.

But I had a feeling there was more to Elam than wages and work.

A new season had begun. The sun’s orbit marked a fresh turn of time, yet I felt utterly disoriented, as though the compass of civilization itself had shifted. The air hummed differently; the wind seemed foreign. It was as if a new charter had been written—one to govern not just men, but the soul of good things.

I felt alone. Perhaps I was alone.

“Maybe someone has left me here for a purpose,” I thought.

I did not blame anyone for my solitude. The villages had emptied long ago—most likely to fish the rivers or hunt in the marshes. I trusted that when they returned, the notes and arrangements I left behind would be honored. That was the Elamite way: work first, settle debts later.

Still, the silence pressed on me. The usual horns and sirens echoed across the desert valley—the fisheries, the stone mills, the mechanical processing plants. The sound was both comfort and command: Keep moving. Keep producing.

Ruckus and shouting—always. Yet, strangely, never rebellion. Not in Elam.

“I know what the problem is,” I said to myself. “It’s the electricity.”

Change had come too quickly, like a lightning storm that burned before it nourished. We had learned to generate power, but not how to store it. We built devices that flushed and flickered, but none that lasted. The city lights glowed, then died, and no one knew why.

“Goodness!” I exclaimed. “It will take many attempts to master this properly.”

But I was determined. The path ahead was steep, but straight.

Nature, as always, was the great puzzle—her metals and minerals scattered like riddles in the earth. Men and women toiled to find the right compositions, the best alloys, the truest forms of strength. There was so much to choose from—arches, spheres, quarters, dimes. Each one symbolized some aspect of civilization’s longing for permanence.

As I worked on my notes, a thought arose like smoke from a forge: The best way to make the methods of men more effective is to understand gas—the unseen, the invisible forces of change.

“But where do gases come from?” I asked myself aloud.

They came, I reasoned, from the exposure of one element to another—through generation, through reaction, through the bond of opposing forces that together created motion.

“Gases come from change,” I concluded. “And so do thoughts.”

For now, there was work to do.

Every corner of Elam, to me, was a temple of work and worship. The land carried the promise of abundance—its soil breathing with seeds of fruit and grain, its rivers rich with fish and silt. The desert was not dead; it teemed with life unseen. Beneath its crust were hidden treasures, songs of old miners, and the hum of divine promise.

Elam was a jewel half-buried in dust. It whispered to the fishermen that trade would return, to the craftsmen that labor would bear fruit, to the hunters that their spears would not miss.

The villages were gone, yes. I worked alone. But I was not angry. Solitude was my apprenticeship.

I prayed as I worked. My hands designed arches and aqueducts, my mind drafted charters and plans. I was building something more than stone—I was shaping the logic of a people.

At night, I climbed the small hill behind the foundry. From there, the horizon stretched endless and orange. The air was heavy with dust, but the stars shone through it with authority. I could almost hear them—each one a reminder that even distant lights obey a pattern.

I imagined the old kings who once ruled Elam. They too must have looked up at this sky, feeling the same pull toward meaning, toward the perfection of law and art. The difference, perhaps, was that they ruled by sword. I ruled by the pen—and the plow.

The next morning, I found myself among ruins—the remnants of a ziggurat that once served as a temple of judgment. I placed my hand on one of the stones. It was warm, almost alive.

“Was it worth it?” I whispered to the dust.

The wind answered with silence.

I thought of politics again—the shouting, the debating, the splitting of hairs over taxes and tariffs, while the real foundations of civilization crumbled beneath neglect. Men argued over coins while the soil itself wept for water.

“I will not be a politician,” I vowed. “I will be a statesman.”

A politician seeks victory. A statesman seeks truth.

And truth, I found, was buried here—in the golden dust of Elam, where every step I took shimmered like memory.

As the weeks passed, I gathered stones, shaped them into symbols, and carved inscriptions of law and labor. My words were not meant to command, but to remind.

They read:

“Let no man call himself rich until he has labored for his bread.
Let no woman call herself poor if she carries faith in her hands.
Let no ruler call himself just who forgets the soil that feeds his crown.”

The wind carried those words through the empty streets, down the corridors of the old marketplace, and into the hollow chambers of the court. I smiled. Even if no one remained to hear them, the earth itself would remember.

By dusk, I had drawn the final line of the new design—a plan for irrigation, trade, and power distribution. A charter for a civilization reborn from its ruins.

When the sun set, I stood once more upon the dunes. The horizon burned red and gold. The air shimmered. And for a moment, I felt the earth hum again—the old rhythm of Elam returning to life.

“Maybe,” I said softly, “this is the beginning.”

The stars appeared, one by one. The first breeze of night cooled my brow, and I closed my eyes.

There, beneath the ancient constellations of Mesopotamia, I knew:

Even if the people had left, the purpose remained.
Even if the world had forgotten Elam, Elam had not forgotten man.

And so I continued my work—alone, but not lonely—building the unseen nation, shaping the gold of ideas into the architecture of endurance.

The Statesman of Elam was not a title; it was a duty.

And in the silence of the desert, that duty became my prayer.

Aloe Vera Returns to Moscow: Architect of Memory

by Jonathan Olvera

I jumped out of an airplane and opened my small parachute. The rush of cold air hit my face, the Moscow skyline rising slowly beneath me. I was landing in a place I knew very well, a city that had once been my home, a city layered with history and memory.

For years I had lived here, working for a gold company, prospecting, grading, and collecting resources. But Moscow had always meant more to me than just business. I had left behind pieces of order, fragments of my own vision, and the foundations of specific advances I hoped would one day flourish. That was why I loved this city. Moscow, to me, had the potential to be an America of the East — an extension of the platform of the fruited plain. And at the same time, it was Russia, my homeland.

As my feet touched down on the familiar soil, I looked around. The weather was low to the ground; heavy gray clouds rolled above, ready to release rain. “Back in Moscow already,” I said aloud to myself, smiling at the sound of it.

I was satisfied — more than satisfied — to be here again.

The structures, the domed roofs, the painted facades, all reminded me of my architect’s circle. I had belonged to a group that studied not just the construction of buildings but their spirit, the way arches and ribs could frame more than just space — how they could frame memory, belief, and belonging. The pavement beneath my feet was paved with stones I had crossed countless times. Each one seemed to hold a story, a whisper from the past.

It wasn’t long before I was greeted by familiar faces. Old colleagues, acquaintances, friends of friends — it was as if Moscow itself had gathered them to welcome me back. Their smiles and voices made me feel as though I had never left.

“Hi!” I said, raising my hand. “I’m glad there’s people here that I know.”

“It should be that way,” one of them replied with a grin, and we both laughed.

The streets themselves looked dressed for a festival. Old American antiques lined storefronts, street lamps bloomed with iron vines, and floral arches crossed paths like the entrances to secret gardens. Moscow had always loved decoration, and I loved it for that.

I continued along the paved paths, bordered with red plastic dividers that marked out small gardens for caretakers to tend. Pedestrian activity was brisk, and as always, purposeful. The people of Moscow knew where they were going, even when I did not. I wore shorts and a simple shirt — perhaps a little underdressed for the sixty-two degree weather, but I was too exhilarated to care.

Everywhere I turned, I saw geometry in motion: triangular constructions, rooftops rising into ordered patterns, domes with ribs tracing their curves into the sky. To me, these were not just structures but reminders of my own influence, my hand in the labor of the city. I spoke fondly to anyone who would listen about the workers, the labor party, and the times of construction. Russia had been built with sweat and vision, and I had been proud to share in that legacy.

It was a lively day in the square. I found myself surrounded by young women, artists and models, performers and students, all contributing to the vitality of Moscow’s cultural life. They reminded me of the creative energy that had always inspired me — the way social interactions could feed architecture, how beauty and artistry could translate into the mechanics of stone, steel, and wood. Their presence gave me ideas: new composites, new textures, new designs that could one day transform the city even further.

For me, architecture was never just technical. It was spiritual. My heritage — Aztec, Spanish, and Nazarene — guided my hand as much as any blueprint or calculation. From the Aztecs I inherited reverence for cycles, for sun and stone, for the way structures aligned with the heavens. From Spain came the arches, the domes, the cathedrals that taught me how buildings could rise like prayers. From the Nazarene tradition came the humility to see architecture not just as monuments, but as service — to people, to God, to the community that would walk those halls and streets.

And so, walking Moscow again, I felt all three heritages alive in me. The city itself was my textbook, my canvas, my prayer.

At one corner I stopped, struck by the composite texture of a building. Its colors, its tones, its placement of windows — all of it challenged me, inviting me to reflect on my own work. I felt like an apprentice again, reminded that architecture is a dialogue across centuries.

Further along, I came to a road I had built years before. I stopped, my chest tightening with memory. I knew every brick in that road — where it had been set, how it had been measured, who had lifted it into place. To most people it was just a road, but to me it was a storybook. Each stone was a chapter of labor, sweat, calculation, and vision. To see it still there, still in use, filled me with joy.

Moscow was lovely — more lovely than I remembered. The city was a challenge, an opinion, a direction, a discipline. It demanded something from everyone who walked its streets, and in return, it gave inspiration.

I wandered through warehouses and markets, through squares lined with commodities, listening to the voices of merchants and laborers. It felt like coming home not only to a place, but to a part of myself.

I had many plans — some practical, some only sketches in my mind — but all tied to the idea that Moscow was a city I could build with, a city I could serve.

I love everything about Moscow: its clouds, its domes, its streets, its contradictions. And as I left the square that evening, the rain finally beginning to fall, I knew one thing with certainty: I would return.

For an architect, no city is ever finished. And for me, Moscow will always be a home still under construction — a living blueprint, waiting for the next design.

The Work of the Light

By Jonathan Olvera

The day had started like many others in the long calendar of the Solar Advance — the two-thousandth mark of the Earth’s industrious turning toward the next millennium. Humanity had endured, pushing through dust and digital storms, through the ruins of politics and the silent humming of machines.

The rain came early that morning, pouring down from a leaden sky as if the heavens themselves were washing away the dust of history. The storm rolled over the plain and the city alike, flooding alleys and low streets, sweeping the fields clean of any pretense of comfort. I stood at my window, watching the slow drip down the steel siding of my trailer, the little arcs of light flashing from each bead of water.

Rain had always meant two things to me — obstruction and renewal. And that morning, as thunder echoed over the desert edge, I felt both things deeply.

Outside, the city hummed — a tired republic of workers, engineers, students, and forgotten clerks. The air smelled of iron and the faint, sterile ozone of burned wire. “Waste and Drainage,” they called my department — a title so dull it might hide the entire truth of modern life. For what is civilization, if not the endless work of carrying away the waste of its own creation?

The rain beat down harder. The tented roofs of the neighbor’s sheds clattered and bowed. I lit the stove, its little flame sputtering as I boiled a pot of cheap coffee. The trailer trembled each time the wind passed. Still, the power held. The red indicator light of the heating coil shone like a faithful star in the small metal kitchen.

“Oh,” I said aloud, stretching my shoulders. “Forces!”

It was something I often said to myself — part prayer, part exclamation, part reminder. Forces of nature, forces of faith, forces that moved through men and matter alike. Sometimes I believed that the real work of an engineer was to study God’s handwriting — written in current, gravity, and heat — and try, humbly, to read a few lines of it.

The journal lay open on the desk — weathered, rain-stained, half-filled with my notes and numbers. I made entries every morning before the first coffee was gone.

Notes for gold.
Notes for salt.
Notes for quartz.
Notes for monies.
Contracts for work.

Each line was an anchor to something real — a measure against the flood of confusion outside.

The world, in 2025, was still caught between past and future. The riots of the Year 2000 had never fully ended; they’d only shifted forms — digital boycotts, silent embargoes, protests that lived in the pulse of the markets. The corn banks fell. The gold networks fractured. The British–Canadian–American charters drifted into uneasy cooperation. Men still spoke of progress, yet few remembered what it was meant to serve.

I had chosen a quieter rebellion — to build.

My mind turned to the mine-shaft project: estimating depth, pressure, stability. The calculations spun in my head as the storm roared outside. Beneath the earth, below all that noise and waste, were still veins of promise — minerals, currents, salts that could be transformed into life, into order.

If I could design a system — a walkway of continuity, I called it — then perhaps I could bridge the world’s scattered purposes. A platform of both utility and grace. Something that moved resources without waste, light without loss.

For weeks, I had been experimenting with magnetic gradients, attempting to direct mineral fluids through terminal spheres. My goal was not only to improve drainage but to build conductive cities — places where energy, water, and even faith could flow with coherence.

I paused to write:

“To forge is to pray with one’s hands.”

I believed that. A man could speak faith, but to measure, align, and create — that was its truest expression.

By noon, the storm had grown heavier. I wrapped my coat tight and stepped outside. The ground was slick; puddles shimmered like fragments of mercury. The hills in the distance looked bruised with shadow. My tools, stacked under the lean-to, glistened in the half-light — saws, meters, the battered blueprint case I’d carried for seven years.

It was all small work, compared to the vastness of the storm. But in my chest I carried the same conviction I imagined the ancient builders had — the men who raised arches, domes, and cathedrals without knowing whether they’d survive another generation.

It was not pride that kept them building. It was order.
The belief that structure itself was a form of praise.

I took a slow breath. The air smelled of rain, iron, and pine resin from the hills. Even through the gray, I felt the Sun behind it — not gone, only hidden.

That evening, I sat again at the desk, reviewing figures by the weak glow of a lamp. I thought about the long centuries of our craft — from aqueducts to space stations — and how every generation had faced its own flood, its own storm of decay and disbelief.

The question was never whether the rain would come.
It was whether we would keep the light burning through it.

The radio buzzed faintly in the corner. News from the upper states — a collapse in the trading ports, new boycotts, political shifts. I let the words blur. My hands were still steady. My mind, though tired, was clear.

I wrote:

“The city must learn to breathe through its own storms.
Every pipe, every current, every law — these are its lungs.”

Outside, the wind softened. The rain slowed. The horizon began to pale — the faintest orange bleeding through the clouds.

I felt then that quiet joy that comes not from success but from continuance. The work would go on tomorrow — it always did. Plans would change, resources would thin, mistakes would be made. Yet still we would rise before dawn, light the stove, make the notes, and begin again.

Because the light, once kindled, demands its work.

And I, small as I was in the span of ages, had been chosen — not by lineage or charter, but by faith and endurance — to keep it alive.

The day had begun in cold and storm, in the grumbling of pipes and the murmur of discontent. But as I looked out once more, the clouds broke open in long, trembling streaks of gold. The city below seemed almost peaceful — its towers dripping light, its streets alive with reflections.

I thought of the old words: Let there be light.

And I whispered, half to myself, half to the silence:

“Then let there be work.”

For the light does not labor alone.
It needs the hand, the heart, and the will of man —
To hold it steady through the storm.

The Solar Giggle: A Cosmic Comedy

by Jonathan Olvera

Bleu and Twirl—the thoughts just danced in the brain of this young man.

Yellow and High—Green and Hard.

All the inside and spiritual mazes of normalcy were funny! It was natural to laugh—for me, comedy was everywhere. The higher powers of formation, the elongated hands of the plants and the flowers—they were soothing.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” I laughed. The grandeur of this scheme—creation and the great breaths of the giant orbs in the solar system!

Swirled inside and out, tickling the olfactory and the thin hairs—I was sensitive to it, and I was beginning to think I was allergic. I laughed so much.

I was constantly tricked—the Sun or the Moon; they played games with my senses. The shadows danced around, and I sensed a depth to them.

“Oh my goodness!” I said aloud.
“We must be coming close to our neighbor, Jupiter!”

My lungs were full, and I took in the scenery—art in woodworking lined the paths, with concrete entries and border corners marking a human advance in mining and masonry—stone craft.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” I laughed again. This time it was the pollen—it tickled my nose and danced in my eyes like a fairy twirling and delighting my sense of humor.

“My goodness, this is going on for a long time,” I said to myself once more.

The Earth was moving, and I was stuck in a cycle of helium and gases—they made me laugh. I wasn’t sure if I was the only one affected. I didn’t like it too much.

The daily routine was serious, and I did not feel it was the correct expression to be given freely. I was determined to find the solutions to my daily routine, although I could not stop laughing.

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!” I laughed—it echoed, and I was marveled at this. It boomed from one side of the neighborhood to four streets down.

How funny—I was a laughing stock!

For days I thought of silly colors and the blends of the sun; the next orb would decide if I were laughing or not.

It has been five years, and I have been exposed to this silly rotation in the solar system—I can’t stop laughing!

Of all the things that could happen—this was the most surprising.

Afterword

by Jonathan Olvera

To the reader who has walked with me through this fifth collection, I extend my deepest thanks. What began as fragments — a remembered voice, a shadow on a desert road, a question that refused to rest — has now taken shape because you chose to read, to imagine, and to travel alongside me.

This volume, like those before it, is not meant to close a door but to open another. Storytelling remains an unfinished conversation — one that crosses centuries, landscapes, and inner lives. Some of these tales may have arrived like sudden winds stirring the sand; others like seeds waiting patiently for rain. Only in their gathering do they reveal a larger pattern, one that belongs as much to you, the reader, as it does to me.

If any of these stories stirred your memory, challenged your thinking, or gave you a moment of wonder, then they have fulfilled their purpose. I hope they linger — reshaped by your own imagination, retold in your own words, or quietly carried as reminders that stories never truly end.

Until the next collection, may the deserts and cities of your own journey continue to speak to you, and may you always find light in unexpected places.

With gratitude,
Jonathan Olvera
Phoenix, Arizona
2025

About the Author:

Jonathan Olvera is a passionate writer and storyteller based in Phoenix, Arizona. With a background in Literature and Journalism, he has long been captivated by the power of words to bridge cultures, spark connections, and illuminate the human experience.

Jonathan’s writing often explores themes of national identity, resilience, and love, reflecting his thoughtful engagement with history, society, and the complexities of the human spirit. His stories aim to capture the subtle beauty of everyday life while also delving into larger questions about belonging, leadership, and transformation.

When he’s not writing, Jonathan finds inspiration in the world around him—whether by hiking Arizona’s desert trails, painting vivid landscapes, or volunteering in his community. These experiences deepen his storytelling, allowing him to weave authenticity, empathy, and a sense of adventure into his narratives.

Driven by the belief that every story holds the potential to change perspectives, Jonathan Olvera is dedicated to crafting tales that resonate with readers and invite them to see the world through new eyes.

A Collection of Short Stories #5 by Jonathan Olvera

Table of Contents

A Collection of Short Stories #5

by Jonathan Olvera

Aloe Vera and the Charter of New Days by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 4

The Charter of Salt and Rum by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 6

Esquire Aloe Vera: The Crown of 2025 by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 8

Aloe Vera: The Fire Between Worlds by Chloe Patterson ..................... 8

When the Rain Brought Her to Me by Olivia Harper ..................... 10

The Temple of Barsippa: Aloe Vera's Memoir of 2025 by Grace Mitchell ..................... 14

Under the Green Glow: Aloe Vera and Copernicus by Hannah Collins ..................... 16

The Stones of Aloe Vera by Sophia Bennett ..................... 19

The Road to Antipatris: A Testament of Capernaum by Nathaniel Price ..................... 21

The Platform of Thessalonia: A Young Man's Calling by Jacob Foster ..................... 24

The Road to Jordan: A Journey with John by Tyler Reynolds ..................... 26

Streams of Gold and Shadows of the Crown by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 28

Spheres of Water, Coins of Faith by Benjamin Cole ..................... 30

Steel and Dreams by Mason Carter ..................... 32

Notes from the Arid Zone by Aloe Vera ..................... 35

Shadows of Transylvania by Darell Perez ..................... 37

Entries in Sand and Fire by Andre Baldwin ..................... 41

The Taste of Industry by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 43

The Market of Men and Beasts by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 45

The Taste of Ore and Wine by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 48

The Smog Beneath the Sun by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 50

The Architect of Current by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 53

The Sea of Decision by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 56

The Desert Engineer by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 59

The Solar Crown by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 62

The Solar Ledger by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 65

Suzhou in the Rain: A Journey of Coin, Quarry, and Culture by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 68

The Statesman of Elam by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 71

Aloe Vera Returns to Moscow: Architect of Memory by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 75

The Work of the Light by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 77

The Solar Giggle: A Cosmic Comedy by Jonathan Olvera ..................... 80

Author’s Preface

by Jonathan Olvera

Welcome, dear reader.

As in my earlier works, I am grateful for the voices that accompany mine. Friends, fellow writers, and readers — each has left a trace in these stories, shaping them into something larger than one imagination could manage alone.

Whether you arrive here in search of history, myth, or the simple pleasure of story, I thank you for turning these pages. May you find within them a spark of recognition, a moment of stillness, or even a new question to carry with you on your own road.

With gratitude, Jonathan Olvera Phoenix, Arizona 2025

Aloe Vera and the Charter of New Days

The Charter of Salt and Rum

Esquire Aloe Vera: The Crown of 2025

Aloe Vera: The Fire Between Worlds

When the Rain Brought Her to Me

The Temple of Barsippa: Aloe Vera’s Memoir of 2025

Under the Green Glow: Aloe Vera and Copernicus

The Stones of Aloe Vera

The Road to Antipatris: A Testament of Capernaum

The Platform of Thessalonia: A Young Man’s Calling

The Road to Jordan: A Journey with John

Streams of Gold and Shadows of the Crown

Spheres of Water, Coins of Faith

Entries in Sand and Fire By Andre Baldwin

Religion, once the common breath of men, was scarce here. Prophets were few, and the hunger for vision made them precious. The promise of a new garden—green, fertile, everlasting—was pressed forward with urgency, as though it could be built by decree. It was not invitation but demand.

I observed rebellion in their eyes. Not the wild uprising of armies, but the silent revolt of those whose suffering could no longer be ignored. It was not the way anyone would choose to move forward, yet it was a righteous path. Difficult, sharp, and narrow—but righteous.

Still the sun rose. Still the moon kept its course. “It is the day of the new frontier,” I whispered to myself as the dawn cracked across the horizon.

I thought of North Korea, sealed behind walls of ideology, yet still a part of the earth’s song. I thought of wilderness unnamed, wilderness that even the Roman Empire could not tame in its expansion. These places called to us—not as conquered land, but as voices of mystery, of possibility.

The empire, in its pride, sought to mark every frontier with its seal. But the wilderness is not so easily branded. It resists maps, resists chains, resists decrees. It calls with its own voice.

The rebellion was not against kings or emperors alone—it was against the silence that comes when humanity forgets its own worth. For in that silence, no frontier can be truly entered. In that silence, gardens wither, and empires rot.

The frontier, I realized, was not only across seas or in skies. It was within the heart—within the will to rise, to endure, to plant seed where soil is barren, and to believe in a harvest unseen.

And so the journal grew. Not of numbers alone, not of calculations or decrees, but of voices, each one carrying the breath of the frontier.

The new frontier is not simply land. It is not Rome reborn, nor empire remade. It is the crossing of humanity into itself, a recognition that progress without spirit is famine, and spirit without progress is silence. Both are needed; both must be weighed in the ledger of time.

So I write, and as I write, I listen. The sands still whisper, the microbes still work, the forges still burn. The sun still rises, the moon still keeps its watch. And still the call of the frontier echoes—through wilderness unnamed, through lands forbidden, through skies yet untraveled.

It is the day of the new frontier. Let it be written. Let it be entered.

The Sea of Decision

The Solar Ledger

Aloe Vera Returns to Moscow: Architect of Memory

The Solar Giggle: A Cosmic Comedy

Afterword

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With gratitude,
Jonathan Olvera
Phoenix, Arizona
2025

Entries in Sand and Fire
By Andre Baldwin

Still the sun rose. Still the moon kept its course.
“It is the day of the new frontier,” I whispered to myself as the dawn cracked across the horizon.