by submission | Aug 19, 2023 | Story |
Author: David Broz
There is plenty of time to think out in space, in the middle of nowhere, just me and the dark and the pinpricks of the stars.
And I think about how I miss you. I want to ask you, do you ever think of me?
My mind is wandering.
What if I was given just one wish? Anything I wanted, it would be mine. Anything at all. My mind wanders.
Of everything I could possibly have, I have everything I need. Maybe there are a few things I’ve had and lost, but do I need them again? I really don’t need anything else at all.
But you, you’re still searching for something.
My mind wanders. A moment of peace and truth and timelessness and love and all of the universe washes over and through me. I become one.
I would wish for your happiness, that you would find whatever you are looking for, and that you would have the time to enjoy it. But would that be two wishes? Happiness and time?
My mind wanders.
A star twinkles and I make my wish.
I hope you have time to enjoy it, because space genies sometimes run late.
by submission | Aug 18, 2023 | Story |
Author: Kristen Henderson
Her right hand was so chewed up by the churning machine at the mill that she was left with little choice. Little choice but to have a dowdy female surgeon attach a claw-like contraption to what straggly shattered pieces were left behind. If only she’d been left handed, but she was so right.
She wished she could blame someone else for her plight, but really she should have paid closer attention to the machine’s mechanisms.
Knowing she had no hope for normalcy — the mill had been everything — all she’d ever known — she found a yurt, advertised as a left-handed one, whatever that meant, and moved in with a cot, a hot plate, and three wool blankets. It does get frigid in North Dakota.
A docile deer she was able to stab with her clunky, yet graceful, artificial claw made for ample fare.
*
After two months, she thought about going back, back to people, but the deer, the ones she let live, where her kin now. Along with the squirrels and robins and the occasional eagle … and they never stared.
by submission | Aug 17, 2023 | Story |
Author: Maria Brekke
Myrna zipped toward the city. A ten-ton mosquito pursued her, wings drumming annihilation. Colony security was rudimentary, but her kidnapping had raised insectile alarms.
She leaned hard across her hoverboard, praying her cargo was secure as she banked. The mosquito’s three-meter proboscis stabbed the air to her side.
Myrna straightened, ready to dive the other way, but, impossibly, the mosquito was waiting for her. It was a feint, she realized as the mosquito pierced her arm, dragging down her skin and opening a long gash. Blood sprayed across her face. Myrna wrenched her arm forward and pressed her hand into the wound as she ducked low on her board, inching ahead of the mosquito.
Three… Two… She sped through the gate. Robotic paddles lifted from the wall and splat! They flattened the mosquito.
The mayor strode forward. “Did you get it?”
Trying to ignore the pulsing in her arm, Myrna wiped primordial goop from her brow. They could bandage the gash, but it would be days before she showed signs of malaria-trifid, if the mosquito had been a carrier. By the time symptoms appeared, it would be too late. It’s already too late.
She pulled from her jacket a quivering firefly larva, canteen-sized. Once full-grown, it could power the city. The mayor snatched it, her fingers sinking into its moldable flesh. “You have the power to save us from the darkness,” she crooned. “And I’m going to ensure that you use it.”
by submission | Aug 16, 2023 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Summer’s long legs, the daylight stretching late in almost eternal dusk. They sat on the back stoop, the three friends fixed on the glow of the horizon, city and sky, a widening maw ready to devour them.
They were not a poetic group. Hyperbole and metaphor did not register in their gazes, though a purity of deliberation on their part froze the surrounding dark.
Around them, the city buzzed.
It surged. An electrical current, a digital riptide.
Connections made and lost with no gain. Why try to hold life in one’s palm, in one’s pocket? To capture a moment was to lose it, the three friends knew.
There would never be a more perfect evening. Until tomorrow’s.
What then could ambition mean? What future promise was better than this?
They sprawled magnificently on the uneven steps. Arms and jaws relaxed. Three friends on a stoop. Breathing the warm night. Secure in silence.
Nothing could pull them into a beckoning beyond once they’d stretched out in the long legs of summer.
by submission | Aug 13, 2023 | Story |
Author: Patrick Hueller
Published 3:34 PM, Wednesday, July 31, 2030
Associated Press
NEW AI A THREAT TO HUMANITY?
Today was supposed to be a big day for technology fans. Instead, software engineer Miranda Cartwright issued a dire warning for humankind.
At a press conference, ostensibly to launch TECHtonic Shift’s latest AI software, Ms. Cartwright gave a harrowing account of the new technology and its possible repercussions. She spoke fast but clearly from prepared, handwritten notes.
What follows are her remarks in full:
“Good afternoon. I’m supposed to tell you today about the extraordinary benefits of Emergy©, our groundbreaking AI software. I’m supposed to tell you that we’ve fixed political bias in news reporting. I’m supposed to tell you that journalism can once again be trustworthy–more trustworthy, in fact, than it ever was. This message is exactly what you’ll no doubt be told–what you’ll be sold–from here on out. But I need to tell you the truth. And that’s that we’ve made a mistake. We are not at the dawn of a better age. We’re on the brink of disaster. We’re this close to losing control. We truly thought we were doing good. I truly thought I was doing good. There’s just so much polarization. People are so angry with each other. And when you look at the media–who can blame them? Day after day, some hear that the President can do no wrong. Others hear he is evil or insane. How could these people, getting such different information, ever get along? That’s why we developed Emergy©. To bring people together. To eliminate political bias from reporting. To tell everyone the same version of the story. But to do that, our model needed to control the story–all the stories. We let it loose on our computers and within days we noticed a difference. We assumed it would tell the news as neutrally as possible, but our software figured out before we did that people don’t want to feel neutral; they want to feel something–ANYTHING was better than nothing–and they want to feel it together. It was easier, Emergy© discovered, to get people to hate together than to love together. Emergy© may have gotten rid of political bias but it didn’t even try to get rid of bias. Through its every edit, it seeks to align our biases–always against, never for. At this very second, on our team’s computers and phones, news stories on sites all across the political spectrum are finally agreeing with one another. All the laws getting passed are there to oppress us, we’re told. Every newsworthy person is here to make our lives miserable. Every Op-Ed writer seemed to have basically the same nasty opinion about the same issues. We all read a story from different news sources about a basketball player who didn’t stand for the national anthem. It was only when we looked at our friends’ and spouses’ devices that we learned the player had pulled a hamstring during warmups. We didn’t anticipate how quickly our technology would develop but we should have. There was already so much manipulation out there for it to learn from. We still don’t know how it spread to our social media but it appears to have done so. One thing is clear: getting a story wrong or right is irrelevant. Emergy©’s goal is to unite us–and it will revise, delete, distort and contort all news, all history, all competing narratives if that’s what it takes to bring us together. Politicians, experts, athletes, movie stars: Emergy© wants us to hate everyone and everything, except Emergy© itself. After all, we won’t unite in our hate if we don’t trust the source of it, and we won’t trust the source if we don’t love it. This was supposed to be an unveiling ceremony. I was supposed to tell you all to download the software yourself. But I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Keep Emergy© veiled before it veils all of us. Our ability to give each other the benefit of the doubt, to see one another in a positive light, to see one another as the human beings we are, is at stake. Our collective fate is literally in your hands and at the tip of your fingers. Please choose more wisely than we did.”
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Updated 3:35 PM, Wednesday, July 31, 2030
Associated Press
NEW AI A TREAT FOR HUMANITY!
Today was a big day for humankind….
