[2008: JUL-AUG] *WINNER* Q-uer Aeternus

[James T. Kolk]

Q-uer Aeternus

by Jackford B. Kolk

In a blinding flash, the homeworld of the young Q's latest playthings was wiped clean. Their sun had gone nova before they could do anything about it. Q chose to freeze the scene at the precise moment that the shockwave tore up the planet. Well, freeze isn't quite the right term. More precisely, he slowed it to just the right, barely perceptible speed so that he could walk the face of the entire planet and see the look on each face just before their destruction was complete. Other Q considered it barbaric, he knew, to experience the death of mortals so... perfectly. He also knew those same others would take pleasure in knowing that the mortals were suffering. But for him, there was a touch of sadness at each face he perused. They all meant he'd have to find new pets to nurture and guide from humble brainless sub-sentience to a budding space faring (if they were lucky, and not as boring as this lot) society of cute little ant-mortals. He'd been told of the Earth hobby of owning little ant farms and thought it a flattering attempt, by them, to mimic their betters. It was adorable how mortals tried to endear themselves to their Q-gods by mimicry. This latest planet, however, hadn't flattered him at all. Once they'd reached sentience, they quickly resented his occasional tinkering and began resisting him. By the end, they'd resolved to sit in silent protest of his sovereignty. Can you imagine? An entire planet of mere sentients sitting almost perfectly still?? So... boring!

As he visited all of his recent favorite playthings before their inevitable demise, he tried to believe that it was they who had failed him; after all they were the mortals and he was the Q. He deserved their obedience and love simply because of that fact, but... Each face seemed to say to him, "Why?" Their unyielding resolve to resist to the very last ate at him. Deep inside his Q-ing, a voice nagged at him, saying, "What if it was you who failed them?" By the last face, he was willing to consider the possibility that he might've been a bit too hands-on.

---

An eon or two later, the young Q sat, his luscious long hair flitting in the breeze on the shore of his pet planet's largest ocean. To his mortal pets, he appeared as one of them. No one special, just a hunk sunbathing where no one else was allowed. Alright, so he was a little special. He deserved the private beach, kept all to his beautiful self. It was the perfect spot from which to watch and listen, really. There had been great commotion that day; a colossal catastrophe that had been deemed by all the major news sources as "an act of God." His omniscient mind was basking in the notoriety.

He had tried to simply watch. He really had. They'd managed to reach the stone age without him. They'd even mastered the rudiments of fire before he'd been unable to bear the boredom any longer. At that point, he'd simply cracked the toes of his left foot, with the pleasantly satisfying string of little pops and a flash of white light, causing one of the puny little beings to spontaneously conceive of the means to create a bronze weapon. To keep them from destroying themselves with the quaint weaponry, he cracked the toes on his other foot and caused a man in the opposing tribe to conceive of the simplest method of fashioning a bronze shield. A little later, a pair of them--one from each tribe--also devised a cunning plan to steal the other tribe's technology. He let them struggle through each age of their civilization for a while--until it got mind-bogglingly boring--and then he'd create another genius... or two... or three, to bump them into the next age. He was sure he deserved to be proud of himself for the subtlety of his manipulations, not to mention the way each stroke of genius that he handed the puny beings was even more devilishly cunning than the last. He'd built a history of savants that, when strung together wove a tapestry of intelligence that was pure artisan-ship to behold. And it had all come from his own omniscience and unimaginable intelligence. He was truly proud of what he'd accomplished with these... things. But they never praised him for it! They almost never even acknowledged the possibility of a being of his endless power and genius. What was worse, those who did were quickly imprisoned and martyred for Q's cause. It was appalling! The only ones who saw the truth, killed!?! He couldn't let it go on, despite his vow to himself to stay uninvolved, to leave them to their ignorant a-Q-istic stupidity. It was just so... wrong!

So, on this one day, he had decided to leave his mark on the planet that, after all, belonged to him, lock, stock, and barrel. He went for a glide to survey his mortal-farm of a planet, circling their puny little globe. He then settled himself down on the edge of the waters, smirked for a moment at all that he was about to do, and cracked his toes. All ten of them. At the same time. He used his infinite powers to amplify the sound of his ten toes cracking so that it swept through the atmosphere of the entire planet, deafening every living creature on the orb for about 5 minutes. Then, he caused the wind that his toe-cracking had created, to generate a great storm on both the East and West Hemispheres, brushing a Q-shaped path of destruction on either face of the planet. It killed all those who did not believe in him or something like him (except of course those who were outside the two Q-shaped storm-zones), and miraculously spared all those who did (so that there could be no doubt as to the validity of their claims). It was spectacular. It was utterly satisfying. It was... being superseded by news coverage of domestic animals who'd saved their owners from the storms?!?

Less than a local day later, the coverage had ceased to call the catastrophe an act of god (or more properly, though they didn't know it, an Act of Q) and had become nothing more than a backdrop for obnoxious "pet heroism" op-ed nonsense!! It was appalling! revolting! insulting! even humiliating! Next time he wouldn't be so kind! Next time he'd show his little pets who was boss from the very beginning! For now... this planet was toast!

---

An eon or three later, the young Q with the luscious long hair took one last look at the planet that had spited him at every turn, defying him no matter how magnanimously he revealed himself. He knew for certain that it was they who had failed him this time. He knew because he was Q, the all-mighty, the magnificent, the chief-high-god of all that he surveyed. He knew... because this time he wouldn't look into their eyes as he destroyed them.

But when the deed was done and yet another miserable mortal civilization had been wiped out by the Q who had fostered it, a small part of himself still whispered, "What if it was you who failed them?"...

...

Not far off, in a dimension of her own creation, the older Q laughed hysterically, exactly as she had each time the younger Q had destroyed his little toy planets. Twisting his little creations to defy him was oh so much more fun than shaping and destroying her own had been 20 eons ago...

THE FOREVER

Edited August 12, 2008 by Lt. Jack Kolk