Holisten Eames

He'd become a sort of unnamed legend over time. The Internet and TV news talked about him every time he dropped a disrupted art work in a very public place. Little by little he had improved upon his craft: steal famous art, alter it for new interpretation (often called destruction), and showcase it as prominently as possible. At first he was hated by all the kinds - art lovers, critics, strangers, friends, family, art haters. But over time he gathered a few fans, which turned into a small audience, and finally a sizable cult.

The first time he had stolen a piece of art it was from his friend's mother. It was a piece of fertility art from Africa. He was eleven and just discovering bodies: his, his classmates, his friend's mother. He had no idea why the figure made him tingle inside when he touched it, but it did and that was enough to make him slip it into his backpack.

He hid it under his bed at home, in a box filled with action figures, baseball cards, die cast cars and airplanes. A general junk box. For nearly two weeks he stroked the sculpture as he lay in bed wondering what the strange things were happening to him. One morning he awoke and realized he had fallen asleep with it in his hands. But in the morning it was gone, and he could not ask about it. Not of his mother. She might wonder what he did with it, or where it had come from.

When the lights went out, I knew what was coming. A hum began in the basement and the lights turned back on but seemed dimmer. I knew this to be false, but my eyes wanted them to be different because using the generator was different from power supplied by the electric company. That was my eyes' faulty logic. Since when did my eyes, only built to see, start having thoughts of their own, I wondered for a brief moment.

Snow pushed against the windows facing west, looking down the slope into the valley. There was no shelter on that side of the house and I had wished, just for second, to be on an island beach in the Caribbean, where I would be warm.

In 2147, the second wave hit. The first had taken such a toll, there was no preparation. Hundreds of millions died in just a few turns of the Earth. The concert of attack was well planned and carried out quickly. Scientists were baffled and started suggesting the truth must lie in an outside source. Aliens they said but I knew.