PLANET MAGAZINE

[Illustration: “Dreamcatcher” © 2007 by D’Wayne Murphy.]

When Cassie sat on the rooftop of her house
Late one night and looked up
Into outer space,
She wanted nothing more
Than to see a shooting star
Just so she could make a wish.

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[Illustration: “Yous Guys” © 2007 by Carl Goodman.]

“What are you doing?!” a disembodied voice repeated.

An intricate spiderweb of cracks fractured 2.z’s anthropomorphic face, at the center of which was not an arachnid, but a word. That word was “you”. It protruded from the bridge of 2.z’s nose.

Until that moment, 2.z had not understood himself as having an identity. Himself? Or a gender. By his understanding, he was simply a complex grouping of molecules, as were the very numerous people he had caused to die. To 2.z the world was nothing more than a variety of molecular groupings, some of which he had altered in such a way that they no longer functioned as they had before. He had altered people using the Earth’s gravity combined with large distances, firearms, and swimming pools, but most often by the use of his human-like hand combined with a small red button the size of a pencil eraser.

Now he suddenly realized that he did have an identity, an ongoing self who was more than the structure and mass of the molecules he was composed of. Somehow, he had carried his deeds with him, and only now noticed them, each and every one. They were heavy, and he would have liked to put them down, but he found that he could not.

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