Latest Stories
Most recently published stories in Fiction.
True Love
It was during the time of The Virus and the world had already turned upside down. He knew that was no excuse but he couldn’t help himself; he had no choice but to use it to his advantage. He spotted her on the subway getting on at St. Patrick Street and wondered if she was on her way to work or if she had some business in that neighbourhood. So many offices were dark and abandoned, their polished lobby floors the delight of the cleaners that could admire their handiwork without the mobs of boots splashing their trails of salty, grimy snow across them.
By Julia Abelsohn 5 years ago in Fiction
Heart-Lock Lockets
BaoGang Steel Mill was a harbinger for the death economy that was consuming resources for the tech addictions we were sold on, but no one cared. The thing about mining resources was that it was finite. I knew those jobs were going to be replaced by machines inevitably because human bodies were developing cancers, dying young, and could not handle the harsh work environments of working at a steel mill for more than 4 years. When BaoGang Steel Mill, the world’s #1 steel maker, supplier, distributor, employer reached the point of having mined out all the steel that it could. The rest of the world became desperate and 1st world countries relaxed their environmental impact guidelines so that they could continue to search out and mine for steel, oil, silicone, and other valuable resources. The United States resurrected the factories of Detroit, Michigan and repurposed the whole state to become another BaoGang which forced all who lived there out into other parts of the country. The government’s attempt to give the citizens of Michigan a new lease on life in the form of subsidized rental for 7 generations of families was the only thing on the list of reparations for the former citizens of Michigan. People who owned property had it usurped by the State government first and then ceased by the federal government second. The fortunes of the middle class were robbed and the people who were offended by the government subsidy deal chose the life of a vagabond. The subsidized rental housing market came in the form of pods: 350sq. ft. per family and everyone had a toilet and a kitchen with 2 burners. Since I was alone, I could live somewhat comfortably and being employed by the Steel Mill, I never worried about the cost of rent because as an accommodation of working in the steel mill, I got a free pod so long as I stayed employed there. However, there were other people with families who knew that this way of living was unsustainable. It was no place for children, just workers and the Michigan Steel Mill knew this. As far as MSM was concerned they had no need for families with children because they knew that because of the molten steel floating in the sky, they’d be poisoned and die within 2 years. MSM wanted to fill every single pod up with someone who worked at the steel mill so they could continue to feed the technological addictions that kept everyone feeling good. It was called Heart Lock and it was legal. It was fashionable as well. People wore heart shaped lockets from their favorite companies to display that they were heart-lock users and always kept their heart-lock stash in these lockets. It came in the form of a contact lens; users would lay the lens in their eyeball, and it would dissolve in the eye giving the virtual reality experience. Tech companies catered to the heart lock trend by offering apps that were designed to enhance the experience of heart-lock. MSM didn’t mind if their workers were heart-lock users so long as they didn’t use it during work hours because of a “concern for safety”. I will admit that I enjoy heart-lock and being placed under its influence. I work hard maintaining the equipment that keeps DSM operating and my quality of life isn’t that much better. My job is one of the only places where locking yourself in a claustrophobic closet and lighting a cigarette was safer than being in that environment. DSM offered me a $20,000 signing bonus if I signed a contract that said I would work there for the next four years of my life. I figured with money that big I knew I was going to be risking a lot and trading out a portion of my life in the pursuit of happiness. It’s all good though because all I really needed to make it through was heart-lock. It was always on my grocery list, I’d get it at the Target close to my private domicile along with ramen, milk, eggs, and hummus. Target was offering “career opportunities” to anyone who wanted to apply to that job and they even released a romance movie about working there as if to say “If you work at target, you’re guaranteed to fall in love”. Of course, tech companies stepped in and would offer the virtual reality experience of living the fantasy of that. I’ll admit that I was tempted to get a job there just to have that experience for free but the money at DSM was just too attractive. Although I could technically afford 5 new virtual reality experiences a week, I tried to just consume heart-lock once a week and accompany that with my own collection of VR.
By James Bates5 years ago in Fiction
The Roadmap
The dirt. It was always the dirt. The secrets kept in the soil, years of memories, heartbreak and anguish, storming heels and loafers whose energies of yesterday told a story that nobody else could hear but the earth itself. It was there where he found his mother's locket. Right there, where she used to take him to play in the golden summer afternoons, half-buried near the gnarled roots of what was once his favorite tree, now a twisted phantom of what seemed like a distant past.
By Mandi Rose5 years ago in Fiction
The Forgotten Word
Suddenly everything started collapsing. Thousands and thousands of people were stampeding. I had no idea what was going on. It appeared to me that the world was coming to an end. The nature seemed extremely wrathful. People were running in all directions. I asked, “What’s happening?” They said, “The world is coming to an end. We all have been cursed to forget a word that can stop this destruction.” I wonder what they were saying. Soon I realized that I also had forgotten a word but it was just an intuition that there’s something I needed to remember. I couldn’t figure out what I had forgotten. For a moment it felt like I was watching a movie where they show everything collapsing. I began to wail as soon as I realized that it was happening in real life. My mind went blank, with no sign of being conscious of what was going on. I just cried and cried.
By Victorious V5 years ago in Fiction
The Thirsty
Jenna knows what a car is. A car is for sleeping and storing food and hiding when the thirsties breach the barricades. A car will keep your daily water cooler so your five sips in the morning and your half a cup at night slide down your throat like the glorious waterfalls in the picture books. A car can protect you from the skin-blistering sun and the black clouds spitting nasty hot raindrops that turn you into a thirsty if your raging body drought drives you to swallow them.
By Jennifer Martin5 years ago in Fiction
They
CONROY New Houston is a ruin, and They are the reason. I stand alone on a long stretch of road. A road that hasn’t heard the soft hum of tire tread in twenty-seven years. The road is straight as an arrow and cleaves a marshy forest of chalk maple and ironwood in half. Deep, stagnant bogs line the shoulders of the old road and flood the forest floor on either side. The trees are thick, dark, and dense. The trunks and branches are ancient, ensnared in murderous, thorny vines. The forest hides horrible dangers... and even more horrible secrets.
By Nicholas Holloway5 years ago in Fiction
Commander of Life
My fingers stretch, the skin molding into smooth lines and then back again into spidery wrinkles. Fatigue has settled into the smaller joints near the pinky and so I massage them with extra attention. These hands—I have always said--are the perfect metaphor for myself as a human being.
By Melissa Armeda5 years ago in Fiction
SYSTEM: OVERRIDE
It was coming up on the thirty-seventh anniversary of the Ending and BEN might have been frustrated if he had an Emotional Capacitor. He had been searching almost a decade for the missing piece of his machinery, ever since he had discovered the oddly shaped hole in the middle of his hardware. His metallic fingers combed the dusty, dead soil beneath his feet, finding bits of glass and plastic but not what he was looking for. If he could wish, he would have wished to talk to the Makers but he had watched the last of them succumb to whatever it was they’d done to the world. His memory banks were dedicated to mainly medical care and bedside manner but he still stored data of the hot winds and the seeming scream of the world before the terrible stillness that engulfed it now. Since then, his corner of the world had been relatively unchanged. Dark, quiet, dead.
By Shae Connet5 years ago in Fiction
By Dawn
This trip is longer than the last one was. Or maybe I forgot how it was before. That was years ago. I thought we’d stay with the Kraft Tribe forever. I should have known someone would take us eventually, the way Fernan and the others took us from the Deltas. As with that journey, I cannot see to tell: shielded in this cart with its high plank walls. To protect us, they say. But to keep us in, too.
By Kate Phillips5 years ago in Fiction
