Anthea’s Hope story by Jim Duchene tech by Grok 1 The desert stretched endlessly before Thomas Jerome Newton. A cracked and desolate expanse that mirrored the fate of his home planet, Anthea. He stood atop a dune. His thin frame cloaked in a tailored suit that seemed out of place against the barren landscape. His eyes, hidden behind dark sunglasses, scanned the horizon. Not Earth’s, but a simulation he’d built in a Nevada warehouse. It was a desperate attempt to feel something of home. A planet dying of drought. Its inhabitants reduced to dust and memory. Newton had come to Earth decades ago with a mission. Amass wealth. Develop technology. Save Anthea by bringing water back. He’d succeeded in part. His patents had made him richer than King Solomon, but the planet’s bureaucracies, wars, and petty squabbles had delayed him. Now, time was running out. Anthea’s last transmissions had...
I can't tell you how happy I was that people got the joke. Even PETA, who's not known for its sense of humor, reached out a friendly hand via lawsuit, the only known way they communicate, to express their appreciation concerning my effort to satirize animal stereotypes. I rescued my pit bull from the local pound. He had been found abandoned in the desert. Thirsty. Hungry. Scared. Wearing a collar way too tight for him. No chip. Scars here and there. "Who's going to adopt this poor guy? I wondered. PT Barnum was famously quoted as saying, "There's a sucker born every minute," and, by adopting him, I proved I was born at the one minute mark. Now, I can either shake my fist at the sky about how pit bulls are misunderstood or I could write something showing how ridiculous those misunderstandings are. With Pit Bull Facts (8-8-25), I chose the later. ...
Chapter Fifteen "Why, Mr. Grey," I say playfully, "what an unexpected surprise." He stands just outside my door looking like a million bucks. An interesting choice of fabric. "Please, call me Christian," he tells me, and confidently strides in uninvited. He's wearing a baseball cap with an interesting logo stitched on the front. It's the Wicked Witch from the Wizard of Oz leaving the little flirt from Kansas a message in the sky using the exhaust of her apparently fossil-fueled broom, but instead of Surrender Dorothy , she's sky-writing Surrender the Booty . "I was just standing outside your door, thinking you might be in the mood for a booty call," Christian tells me with a dangerous look in his eye. The right one. No, the left. Oops, it was the right one after all. I know it's his right eye, because it's on the same side as my right eye. Or is that the left? Anyway... "You bet I am, Christian,...
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