SW10: Superhuman World 2021 Annual: Sixty

...

In 2020 we were about to die from Global Cooling. We've put off the
Fate of the Earth for a bit, due to a global merge with an Earth which
was slightly better off than ours. (It had to do with "Britannia
Beach".
http://www.eilertech.com/stories/2011/page.php?fn=britannia_beach.txt)
But the ice is closing back in. We might decide stuff this year, in
2021. If not then, soon.

And this year I, Wyatt Ferguson, will be sixty years old.

...

My sixtieth birthday is coming up. I was supposed to retire by now. But
the warehouse I work at, still needs everyone who can show up. And my
old tech job wants to bring me back. The last big phone company needs *anyone* who isn't overseas, because we're practically cut off from
people who have the plague. They can keep up the overseas connection
for about two hours a day. But now the Big Company is making a priority
of what I ingest. Really, the world is ending and we still care about
old Gov marijuana rules? But I owe it to my friends to stay as long as
I can.

Psychovant the Duck came by recently. He was looking for a multiversal adventurer. I referred him to Imperilus, who wound up here in the
warehouse also. He left. I'm staying.

For my birthday I might be able to gather with my clan, at least cybernetically, from around the Yellowstone Crater where the surviving population of the United States has settled. But I haven't made it a priority, and they're all busy. More power to us.

But as comic books sometimes say... I am Wyatt Ferguson. And I will
not stop. Not so long as it matters.

...

From beyond, a being who now calls himself "L" looks on. He says,
"This one has cosmic scope and if not enthusiasm, at least some sense of
duty! I Must Have It!"

Then he looks closer. "I sense duty toward his relatives! *Those*
shall I pursue!"

(to be continued - probably in the annual next year!)

----

Author's Note: The author is already sixty years old, as of May 2021.
My avatar has his birthday in June 2021, though.

I recently read a John Constantine story entitled "Forty", about growing
old on his birthday. Waah waah. It makes me want to write my own
story. Only I have to title mine "Sixty".

And Drew Perron, I forget who "L" is. I last saw him trying to suck the enthusiasm from the Devil Missionaries from Planet Hell. Perhaps Wyatt Ferguson is an easier target. Or there are easier targets beyond that.
And I have my own idea on who "L" is, in universe for me.

(signed) Scott Eiler, 30 May 2021.


2026 Update: I've long forgotten my own idea about "L". But I could
come up with someone... Anyway, the 2022 Annual has been waiting all
this time for publication, and it's already got a sequel in Powernaut
Comics! So I'll be putting that annual out in two parts, starting tomorrow.

--
-- (signed) Scott Eiler 8{D> ------ http://www.eilertech.com/ -------

"Your Royal Highness, instead of devoting yourself exclusively
to Minerva, should, instead, rather offer sacrifice at the altars
of Bacchus, Orpheus, Venus, and Morpheus."

- Advice to Prince Duarte of Portugal. From "The golden age of
Prince Henry the Navigator", by Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins.
Coming soon to Project Gutenberg.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.6
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)