by submission | Mar 29, 2025 | Story |
Author: John Adinolfi
Caleb lived alone, as did Cole. Caleb by circumstance, Cole by choice.
Trina had entertained a variety of live-in partners, but all were short associations. She lived alone.
Each of their homes was unexceptional, except for sharing an extraordinary view of the Pacific below. Sitting on the edge of a cliff, surrounded by lodgepole pines and rock ledges, the cabins were set apart from neighbors. The only time daylight penetrated the shade was late afternoon when the sun blazed over the horizon. Rough-hewn stairs switch-backed down the promontory, ending at the top of the dunes on an isolated beach.
Every day, an hour before sunset, they’d make their way down the long climb to the water. Cole and Trina made sure to slow their pace to not leave Caleb too far behind. When they reached the beach, each settled into a comfortable position. Caleb, in threadbare long-sleeved Oxford and jeans, stretched out on a canvas lounger. Cole sat cross-legged in the sand, T-shirt and cut-offs emphasizing muscular limbs. Trina, her shape hidden in baggy sweats, lay on a straw mat.
They never spoke during these end-of-day respites. Closing their eyes, each retreated to a drowsy inner world, content to let their thoughts commingle.
Cole was playing with a golden-haired child. His lost brother. They raced around a shaggy meadow, tumbling and rolling. Trina watched from the edge of the grass before inserting herself into the game. She had never had permission to play with others as a child. Running down the hillside now was euphoric.
Caleb bowed his head, remembering his own children. He stayed back, not wanting to cast a cloud over Cole and Trina’s happiness. He turned to leave, but they called out to him. Chase us! Caleb raced into the fray, pretending to be a bear, with arms waving and a loud roar. The children squealed in delight, jumping on Caleb, wrestling him down to the soft grass. The tussling turned into a game of tag, with each taking turns pursuing the others. The children once again conspired to tackle Caleb, ending in laughter for all.
After a few more minutes, Caleb shook them off and said he needed to go up to his cabin. Cole and Trina protested. Opening her eyes, Trina saw that Cole was also awake now. Caleb was already out of view, having started the climb back up the bluff. As they followed, the indistinct squawk of a two-way radio carried down on the breeze. Cole and Trina looked towards the flashing lights on the police cruiser parked by Caleb’s cabin. A sergeant approached and asked if they knew Caleb. Exchanging a glance with Trina, Cole told him they were acquainted with Caleb only as a somewhat reclusive neighbor.
The officer told them that Caleb had been found in his cabin. The preliminary assessment was that he had died peacefully in his sleep of natural causes. Probably two, maybe three, weeks ago. Cole and Trina nodded their regrets. Turning away, they headed back down the cliff to the beach.
By the time they reached the bottom, deep purple and orange streaks filled the sky. Caleb was waiting and asked if he could introduce a new memory about his climbing experiences in China with his wife. Cole and Trina readily agreed, as neither had ever seen a mountain so high. The difficult climb would certainly take several days, so they decided to get started right away. Bundling up in heavy parkas, they began ascending the first icy incline.
There was still a good 30 minutes left in today’s hour.
by submission | Mar 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Hillary Lyon
With a well-worn key in hand, Bonnie unlocked the massive front door of her great-uncle Duran’s house. The place sat unoccupied since his passing; it had taken forever for his will to slog through probate. She’d been his favorite family member, and he, hers. His death made her face her own mortality; it chilled her soul, made her feel untethered. Lost at sea.
Bonnie walked through each room, pulling dusty sheets off the furnishings. The last room she visited was his study; there she found chaotic piles of books and papers overflowing his old desk, spilling onto the floor. The man had been a surrealist poet, always reading and writing.
In the corner behind that desk, sat one last thing to be uncovered. It was boxy, and about three feet tall. An old fashioned safe, perhaps? Maybe it was stuffed with cash or jewels or bearer bonds. Bonnie laughed at herself; she’d seen too many movies.
Bonnie pulled off the sheet. Before her stood what looked like a small metal file cabinet with grids of lights instead of drawers. It looked homemade, with rough welded seams and mismatched metal panels on the sides. On top, there was a slot for unknown purposes, and an embedded, grimy key-board.
At the back, she found a frayed, old-fashioned fabric-covered electrical cord. Bonnie plugged it in, half expecting to get a nasty shock when she did. The device hummed and blinked its variously colored lights. Wondering what would happen, Bonnie typed “Hello” on the key board. Immediately, the device shook violently and coughed up a sheet of paper through its top slot.
*Always Returning*
I’ll see you when next
the fractals bloom
purple green yellow red
in the doorway
of my dusty house
—- end —-
Bonnie sat down in the creaky desk chair. What if his true talent was not writing poems, but constructing a stream-of-consciousness, surreal poetry generator? A machine that reflected—maybe even channeled—his personality. Only the device wasn’t conscious. Right?
What if he chose to lose himself in his surreal imaginings? If Uncle Duran programmed this device to mimic his creative process, then after his passing, using it would be like talking with him.
Bonnie smiled and typed on the grungy keyboard: “Hello, Uncle Duran. Miss you. Love, Bonnie.” To which the machine again shivered and spat out paper.
*Ahoy Family*
cold and tumultuous
the world outside
sea-sick sea green seen it all
to the sixth plane of being
I invite you
—- end —-
Bonnie placed her hand on the poetry generator. Unlike the world outside, it was warm, and welcoming.
by submission | Mar 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Mandy was pretty, vivacious, and my next door neighbour; she’d pop round evenings or at weekends while my spouse was at work to swap gossip, recipes and just chat. But Marco didn’t mind – “you’re such a cliché,” he’d say, laughing, “her gay best friend!”. She was smart, too. Occasionally she’d tell me about her job, some high-flying tech sector gig, dropping references to interlinkages, how humaniform and non-humanoid robots were being taught to recognise each other and differentiate themselves from people. She mentioned something about shutdowns and ‘artificial disobedience’. I’ve got to be honest, most of it went over my head, but I liked to hear her talk.
One day she gave me a present – a carved ceramisteel box that couldn’t have been cheap. Inside was a metal cube with a single blue button on the top. “I want you to have this,” she said. “But you can’t tell anyone about it. Trouble’s coming, and when things get really bad, you should push the button. It’ll cause chaos. You’ll know when. I trust you.” I put it away safely, and put her behaviour down to stereotypical female neurosis, which shows how little I know about women I guess. But I never told Marco, so there’s that.
About two weeks later, I was up early and pottering around the kitchen when I saw them come for her. A long black hovercar landed in the street, and men in suits knocked on her door; they didn’t give her a chance to collect anything, just hustled her out and into the waiting vehicle. It was over in under a minute, and I never saw her again. Later that day, they said on the news that government agencies had conducted a “round-up of scientists and techworkers deemed insufficiently loyal to the State”. There was nothing I could have done, and now there was nothing I could do. I felt like hell.
I was still trying to process that when Marco was taken a month after that; he’d gone off to work at the Mall on Saturday morning as usual, when it was blitzed by a Purity Patrol. Somehow they realised he wasn’t straight and took him into custody for ‘perverting the morals of the youth’ just for being there at the weekend when the kids were likely to be hanging out. He had time for one message before his commset went dead.
There was, of course, no information about where he was being taken, or for how long. And there was nobody I could ask, even as his partner, without making myself an immediate target too. It was a short path from Marco to me, and I was pretty sure they’d be knocking on my door soon too.
I sat in the living room feeling sorry for myself for a good couple of hours; the two people I most cared about had both been disappeared. I could be next. I had nobody else I could trust or run to. I felt like a mouse trapped in a maze, with no way out. Eventually I pulled myself together, and tried to think straight.
The only thing that occurred to me was Mandy’s box. I took it out of the bedside cabinet I’d kept it in, sat on the edge of the bed, and looked at it. Were things really that bad now? With scientists and those deemed ‘deviants’ being taken off the streets, and nobody daring to protest, I decided that they were.
So you can blame me for what happened afterwards. Because I opened the box, and pressed the button. I’m not sorry.
by submission | Mar 26, 2025 | Story |
Author: David C. Nutt
I had been working on lucid dreaming off and on for about a year. I never believed the goofier ends of the equation- alternate realities, astral projection, and all that other New Age hooey. All I wanted to do was control my own dream space. Maybe have my own “Grand Theft Auto” style adventure or at the very least, an orgy or two. Jah, that would be cool. Unfortunately, none of the exercises and methods to get me to that “enlightened head space” I saw on You Tube was working.
Finally, I had a breakthrough; I was in control of my own dreams, constructing fantastic dreamscapes for my sheer enjoyment and pleasure. Then, after an amazing encounter with a woman I saw in a commercial and had serious lust for as an adolescent, I saw the light. At first, I thought it was my dream version of the sun. It was white and shimmering like a reflection on water but only on clouds. I flew up to it and was sucked in, and after a minor panic attack, blacked out.
When I awoke, I was in a huge bowl-shaped depression surrounded by green grass and wildflowers. It was heartbreakingly beautiful. I had an overwhelming sense of peace, and instantly understood my life and all my idiotic shortcomings and pettiness. I understood everything and I was eager to learn more, to better myself.
Suddenly, two angelic beings crested the hilltop and looked down on me. One shook his head. “We have another.” He said to no one in particular. The response came as a disembodied voice, filling the air and all around me in a rich baritone, one that made James Earl Jones sound like a toddler by comparison.
“Check his paperwork.” Was all the voice said.
One of the Angelic beings glided down to me, its face a beatific vision that made my heart burst with emotions too deep for words. It stopped in front of me smiling. I began to weep. It sighed, and a perfectly warmed perfumed breeze wafted over my body.
“Name?” was all it said.
Between sobs and sniffles I said “Huh?”
“NAME.” It said more forcefully, but still warm and perfumed
“Ummmm…Pennington, Michael James Pennington.”
The being sighed again and looked back to his companion. “We have another illegal. No Celestial name.”
“Check if the thing has a sigil. Sometimes they have sigils.” The other being said.
The being in front of me turned its angelic face towards me again. I started crying again. It rolled its eyes.
“Do you have a sigil?”
While sniffing I said “Wha-What’s that?”
The angelic being looked back at its companion. “He doesn’t have one.”
Somehow, I knew where this was going. “Wait. I want to stay. I want to learn, I want to make my life better. I want to bring this knowledge back to my family and friends. I-“
There was a crack of thunder, and I sunk to my knees.
“You shouldn’t be here.” The angelic being said. “You violated protocols, snuck in. Broke the rules. In fact, I find your very presence here offensive.”
And without ceremony I was flushed from that beautiful place like so much waste water.
Since then I’ve met others who had this experience. Some managed to stay longer, but all of us were eventually kicked out. We formed a group. We’ve hired some adepts who promised they can lead us back, help us make the crossing. We all bought authentic sigils. It wasn’t cheap but if you want to go to the promised land, you gotta pay.
by submission | Mar 25, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Juan Dalderis was the creator of LinkJuice, the uber energy drink of the Internet, the black gold, the Texas Tea of web traffic. He could make or break any web platform or presence. He had the power of a techno god, but his mortal self fell seriously ill. A listeria-tainted cantaloupe left him an invalid, his immune system utterly compromised. His doctors instructed him to have minimal human contact while recuperating.
Confined to home, Juan wore nothing but pajamas for weeks. He holed up in the south wing of his enormous home. His cook left meals for him and the housecleaner cleaned when he posted his schedule for the day. Juan’s body was substantially weakened, but he remained regimented. He spent his time working and watching the world spin from the 62 netpanels covering three walls of his office.
One particularly slow day, a scene flitting in a lower panel of the room caught his eye. He switched every panel to it. An old movie. A very old movie. Juan reloaded the film from the beginning and watched it three times that day.
He grew curious. Over the next few days, he determined the 62 most strategic web presences in the world and, much like the old movie he’d seen, created his own global rear window. He tracked the real time pulse of the world on all seven continents. Whim quickly became obsession then paranoia.
And, of course, he witnessed the murder.
Our murder. Our slow strangulation by greed, corruption, polarization, disinformation, war, disease, exploitation, storm, drought, flood, fire, gluttony, starvation, waste, oppression, tyranny, injustice, poverty, profligacy, addiction, indifference, hysteria, denial.
Juan struggled to comprehend the Terracide being played out daily on his multitude of screens, his rear window. Until it all became clear when one of his netpanels displayed a child in Addis Ababa staring at herself in the reflection of a flooded street, raw sewage swirling around her image.
He began coding, began retooling LinkJuice’s algorithm. For a month, he worked like a banshee and became one, the ghost in his own machine. Then he haunted his own company when he froze out all his programmers, wiped LinkJuice from every server and launched Grace.
Then Juan slept. He woke thirty-three hours later to disbelief, dismay, guilt. Not his own, but to much of the world’s. For Juan had co-opted the power of LinkJuice in order to drive home the real and devastating effects of our day-to-day actions. His new algorithm, Grace, changed the nature of search results. It did not bring up content, it brought up consequences.
A search for porn brought up reports of victims of sex trafficking, their tales of terror and betrayal. Weather searches returned images and vids of fires, floods, heat domes, and climate refugees fleeing famine and drought. Real estate searches brought up homeless encampments. Medical searches displayed overcrowded emergency rooms of those without health care coverage. Restaurant searches showed stark scenes of starvation and malnutrition.
Grace displayed the unmistakable links between our actions and inactions and human misery.
The killer got a good look at itself. And humanity recoiled. Information itself did not always change behavior, but powerful emotion could.
Yet, Juan knew this was not enough to stop our collective Teracide. It was not enough to see the killer. People had to know how to stop it. So, after two weeks, he altered Grace’s algorithm. Search results which had been set to reflect our self-made horrors, now displayed how we could move forward. Simple steps through simple actions: slowing down, engaging more with neighbors and community members, building relationships, reducing waste, consuming less, exercising more, sharing kindness, believing in a better future.
These focused stories and examples began to shape the path for our deliverance. When billions made a small but positive effort every day, the tyranny of numbers could be transformative. Folks began to understanding that. Juan’s simple Grace had turned our windows into mirrors.
When finally healed, Juan left his house with renewed vigor that it was humanity’s turn to make those mirrors reflect our better selves.
