Caption: Confusing

Story: Mary’s Misunderstanding

This story is largely based on a story written by Derry. I thought it had great potential so I rewrote it and expanded upon his work.

Mary’s Misunderstanding
By Derry
Rewritten by Tcheser

Mary White had been looking forward to this moment for two years. Today her bratty, 22 year old niece, Abigail, was finally getting what she deserved for daring to make sarcastic comments about her only slightly older aunt behind her back. Today, so as to satisfy a clause in her Grandmother’s will, she was becoming a registered ‘returnee’ after all and Mary could think of no more appropriate punishment for Abigail’s insolence than for her to have to become a powerless child once again.

Having signed the the returnee contract and registering under California’s new laws, as Mary understood it, Abigail was for all intents and purposes, now a minor and she was her guardian, due a huge inheritance. The next step was to make it clear to all and sundry that this was the case. So with a huge grin on her face, she dragged Abigail to a clothing shop that specialized in turning naughty adults into children. Mary was a little disappointed in one regard however. She had envisioned taking her new ‘child’ to the restroom and ceremonially scrubbing off all her carefully applied makeup. Abigail however, being a natural beauty with perfect features and skin, hardly needed any makeup and didn’t appear to be wearing any at all today.

Mary wasn’t going to let this get her down though. After showing the proprietor of the store, Ms. West, the signed contract and their identification so they could verify who was who, they began shopping and the older woman proved to be every bit as helpful as she had heard. She had quite a way with returnees it seemed. She just whispered a few words to Abigail and the girl sat down in a little chair to calmly await her fate. Mary was impressed. She had expected Abigail to flip out and run for the door when she found out why they were there, but she seemed completely at ease with the situation.

Story: Droning

Droning

by Tcheser

The policy and the laws that enforced it had been in place for twenty years. Prior to its implementation society in the latter half of the twentieth century had nearly collapsed under the economic strain put upon it by its penal system. The imprisoning of nearly a tenth of its population for varying amounts of time by the end of the millennium nearly bankrupted the western nations who practiced such humane treatment of law breakers.

There seemed to be no reasonable solution. The governments found their only options seemed to be to let criminals go or to execute them. After trying variations of both they saw they needed a third choice. At the turn of the millennium a think tank of the most intelligent and clever thinkers in America was finally formed and given a moth in a isolated lodge to come up with a sound, feasible and cost effective solution. No one really held out great hopes and it looked like millions of hardened criminals would be killed and millions lesser lawbreakers would go free having never paid their debt to society.

The think tank however surprised everyone. They emerged from their isolation with a solution to the prison problem that was both simple and efficient. They laid out their plans to congress one fall day and everyone was suitably impressed with their ideas. So impressed that they called a special vote and sent the bill to the president the next day. The strongly conservative president read the proposal just once before cheerfully signing it into law.