Fame
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
My entire celebrity life is online for people.
There are over a million people looking out through my eyes, breathing in time with me, feeling my exhilaration as six months of rehearsal come to a head and I perform my number-one hits to a crowd of fifty thousand people in a Barcelona arena. My body is taut with the proportions of a goddess thanks to Olympic trainers and amazing surgeons. The online population’s hearts are racing along with mine. They’re smelling the air of a packed coliseum and tasting my Evian in between songs. Women and men both are dialed in behind my eyes and being me.
Each one of them is paying six hundred dollars to experience it. In my peripherals, the ones that have kicked in an extra hundred are chattering to each other and sending me messages. Scrolls of text run up either side of my vision that I have trained myself to ignore.
My encores end with a massive fireworks discharge and the stage goes dark. The crowd screams my name as I strut backstage along with my backup dancers and band.
A swath of names in my peripheral vision pops and fades. Their tickets have expired.
The half a million that are left have paid a thousand dollars each for the backstage experience. My body’s vital signs pump through the optical cables all over the world to wherever they are. Other celebrities are backstage crowding me for smiles and handshakes. Fans with real-world passes are there. There’s one girl with cancer who got her ticket as a last wish. I pose for pictures with her and I nearly cry. All over the world, five hundred thousand people nearly cry with me.
That lasts a half hour. I say a prayer with my fellow performers, we talk about how good tomorrow night is going to be in Los Angeles, and I head down to my dressing room. As I walk down the stairs, many of the names in my field of vision wink out.
There are a thousand people left in my field of vision. The super rich who can afford to be at this level at most of my concerts and a bunch of lucky strangers who have scraped together ten thousand dollars each to get this far.
Once in my dressing room, I undress slowly in front of the mirror and let them stare at my toned, sweaty body. Then I climb into the shower for a long, long time. Even when I close my eyes, I can see the names in my peripheral talk to each other about how amazing this is.
As soon as I reach for my towel, most of the names wink out. There are sixteen left and they have each paid a million to still be here. There are four new names but the rest are familiar to me, almost old friends at this point.
The door to my room opens and my lover enters with that famous smile. His body is also perfect. He won another Oscar last year. Behind his eyes, people lean forward in their sense chairs, aching with the knowledge that they are about to have sex with one of the best-selling pop musicians on the planet. Behind my eyes, sixteen people brace themselves , ready to athletically fornicate with a dreamy leading man.
The only time we’re alone is when we are asleep or going to the bathroom.
He touches my shoulder, going in for a full, hungry kiss, and my towel dramatically slips off of me and onto the floor.
The 365 Tomorrows Free Podcast: Voices of Tomorrow
This is your future: Submit your stories to 365 Tomorrows

The Past
365tomorrows launched August 1st, 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since. Our stories are a mix of those lovingly hand crafted by a talented pool of staff writers, and select stories received by submission.
The archives are deep, feel free to dive in.

Flash Fiction
"Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated."
Kathy Kachelries
Founding Member

Submissions
We're open to submissions of original Science or Speculative Fiction of 600 words or less. We are only accepting work which you previously haven't sold or given away the rights to. That means your work must not have been published elsewhere, either in print or on the web. When your story is accepted, you're giving us first electronic publication rights and non-exclusive subsequent publication rights. You retain ownership over your story. We are not a paying market.

Voices of Tomorrow
Voices of Tomorrow is the official podcast of 365tomorrows, with audio versions of many of the stories published here.
If you're interested in recording stories for Voices of Tomorrow, or for any other inquiries, please contact ssmith@365tomorrows.com

