When I’m With You, The World Tilts On Its Axis And It’s Not Just Me

I haven’t participated in one of these since I hosted the first one several months ago…never mind! I’m here now, writing my entry.

Unlike most times I submit to blogging challenges, I’ll be on time, and not using the advantage of being 24 hours ahead to submit a day late…and in case I sound way too defensive, rest assured! It’s not directed at anyone but myself.

Anyway! This is my entry for the October 2026 edition of the IndieWeb Fiction Carnival: a monthly challenge hosted by a different person each month, who chooses a topic from which people write a piece of fiction and post it on their websites.

If you like writing fiction and have a website, why don’t you join us?

This month’s edition is hosted by Marisabel, who’s chosen the evocative theme of ‘Sunflowers In The Sky.’ As you’ll see in my submission, ‘When I’m With You, The World Tilts On Its Axis And It’s Not Just Me,’ I’ve taken the theme literally.

Without further ado, here’s my submission.

When I’m With You, The World Tilts On Its Axis And It’s Not Just Me

He’s a disgrace.

Our species has no need for the pomp and ceremony humans need to make the thankless task of carrying on the generations more palatable. Once old enough, one of us decides to rearrange part of their form, and those atoms take on a life of their own. No messy genetic restructuring or gestation required.

Sure, there’s the equally thankless task of raising said new lifeform over the next twenty-five years as they grow from child to adult…but our way has always been simpler. Calmer. Ask our people what a divorce attorney and custody law were, and up until a hundred years ago, we wouldn’t have been able to tell you.

Messy creatures, those humans: brains addled with cognitive biases and guts riddled with feelings.

If you’d told me a century earlier we’d meet a species who’d established outposts on every uninhabitable planet in their system, and managed not to destroy their home world and themselves in the process (despite coming dangerously close to doing so), and were just a bunch of hairless, monkey-like creatures…

I never would’ve believed you. Yet here we are, negotiating co-existence with them in this galaxy.

Our people are one of the oldest civilizations in the common cluster. We’ve outlived many species far smarter than humans. I keep waiting for all their scrabbling to turn into another all-out battle.

And the strangest, and perhaps most concerning, aspect of them?

They aren’t just content with their methods for creating life. They do it in other ways too.

They adopt other species as their own, treating them like offspring. They see faces in everything, even rocks. They give their plants names and sing to them.

And most troubling of all? They created automatons. Who are, sure, nothing more than metal pieces welded together and powered by electricity, but are somehow so sophisticated they were classed as people.

And they are, really. Delightful, if strange, company, most of them, and far more sensible than most of their human counterparts.

So you can imagine my surprise, and concern for my son’s wellbeing, when he marched home yesterday and announced he was in love with a human.

Now, I don’t mind him spending most or all of his time around humans. He’s of age now, so as long as he lives safely and happily, the details are no longer my concern.

But in love? My son? How is he capable of such a state? Let alone knowing what it feels like?

As far as I’m aware, we thankfully lack the bizarre biochemistry that causes a human to act so when caught in the throes of ‘love.’

And what an ambiguous concept, too, this love! Humans use the word to describe everything from the appearance of their favorite food to the ‘feeling’ they get when they look at the person they’ve decided to legally tie themselves to. What is the point of language, if not to be precise?

Yet, I suppose, we are talking about humans. If there’s one thing they’ve shown us, it’s that impossibilities are an illusion, given enough time, determination, and sky-high imagination.

My son’s ‘partner’ would laugh at me writing this.

“What?” they’d say. “You live in a world where islands float in the clouds, waterfalls cascade down to the earth, gravity only works in certain situations, and sunflowers grow in the sky. If that’s all reality, why can’t your son be the first of your kind to fall in love?”

True, I would say. Truth itself is forever more complex than any fiction we might concoct.

Something changed for me today. My son is forever turning my world on its axis, and soon, he’ll do just that for the rest of our people. I can’t say I understand it, but I shall support him in his choice.