Roxy Overload
By David Michael
Roxy stood in the middle of a crowd of overworked, stayed-late-because-the-boss-insisted cubicle dwellers just like her, waiting for the tube and sweating in the heat. From crowded gray cubes to crowded gray concrete tube station, Roxy wasn’t sure she could tell the difference. Except for the lack of adequate air conditioning. Her ears felt the pressure of the next train arriving. She let herself think that she was almost home. She imagined the rush of air and the roar of the track as a cool autumn breeze before a much-needed thunderstorm.
Trood: OMG! I just remembered…
Roxy sighed, imagination crushed by the intrusion of her implants. She didn’t respond right away as she flowed along with the press of nearing-the-end-of-rush-hour commuters. She could guess what Trudy had forgotten, and didn’t want to think of what it meant. She already had plans for the evening. Lame plans, maybe, but they were her plans. Hers!
1 Comment
Jike’s First Donut
by David Michael
Her name didn’t come back to her right away. The first names that had come to mind after the initial shocks of selection and exit had been “Mom” and “Bill”, one of which wasn’t even a name, and the other wasn’t her name.
By the time she remembered that, before her death and damnation, her name had been Emily M-something March, she had already started responding to “Candy”. That’s what the demon called her, usually when pointing at things and demanding, “What is that, Candy?” Except it didn’t sound so much as if the demon pronounced her lack-of-a-name with a capital letter.
Wind Up MILF Action Figure On Her Day Off
by David Michael
Ange’s left eye twitched as she visualized a blue filament connecting her hand to her PO box, short-circuiting the distance between where she sat on a park bench in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the post office in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, a thousand miles away. She felt only cool metal against her fingertips. No mail today.
Sweet Tooth (formerly “Who Doesn’t Like Donuts?”)
By David Michael
As Ted Millet pulled into the dark, not-as-empty-as-usual parking lot of the aging strip mall, threaded his way through the pot holes, and parked his Ford Focus-On-The-Fact-That-It’s-Not-A-Pinto in his normal space, he knew he was lying to himself. He just couldn’t decide what it was he was lying to himself about this time: his job, his life, or the huge, idling diesel semi-tractor trailer sans trailer parked in front of his donut shop.
Normally, at 2 in the morning, his was the only car. He had the strip mall to himself, making the first batches of glazed, cake, and old-fashioned donuts in near-perfect solitude. Not this morning, it seemed. He could feel the rumble of the massive diesel engine even here inside the enclosed cab of his Focus-On-Anything-But-How-Much-You-Hate-Your-Job, and a pit of fear opened up in his stomach.
Constellation (formerly “Mothers”)
By David Michael
From where she hung in the heavens, she could see everything. Which meant, most of the time, she saw nothing. In the day, under the glare of Apollo’s visage, she saw least of all, not even her own son next to her in the sky. The myriad tiny details of humanity below her, and those once human around her, were all subsumed in the radiance of the gods. Even at night, from such a high vantage point, the mass of humanity below her were visible only as collections of lanterns and cooking fires. She seldom noticed one person, just as most people, looking up, seldom saw more than the moon or the Milky Way.
Callisto (formerly “Huntress”)
By David Michael
She came out of the hut and the butt end of a spear hit her in the face. She had only an instant to see the two men, strangers, one of them holding her boys, Babi and Darto, pinning the boys’s arms, letting the boys’s shouts draw her out, the other with his spear held backwards, ramming it into her eye.
Enamored (formerly “Morning on the Network”)
By David Michael
Roxy awoke at exactly 06:36 to the Beatles’s “Good Day Sunshine” echoing in her head. She let John, Paul, George and Ringo be cheerful for her while she ignored the taste of stale toothpaste in her mouth and failed to resist the urge to stay in bed. The Skinny Bitch could do without her today. The downtrodden masses wouldn’t miss her–hell, they were the downtrodden masses–they were used to being cast aside and stepped on.
She had just pulled the blanket back up her chin, the Beatles singing in fading harmony as her implants registered her new agenda, when an IM lit up the back of her eyelids.
A Fine Mess (formerly “The World Wears Thin”)
By David Michael
When the breeze shifted, Kenneth looked up to see what it might be bringing his way, hoping some part of it might be edible. The air around him as he walked had been full of yellow and brown Strings, the Frayed remains of what he thought might have been scrub grass–or something equally unnourishing and unpleasant when inhaled–whatever value it had once had long since scavenged by the remaining birds and rodents. He was supposed to be the best gatherer in town, but today he had found next to nothing, just a few thin Strings that had only made him hungrier.
Indian Summer (formerly “Falling Leaves”)
By David Michael
For the first time since Ally’s funeral, the sun rose golden in a clear blue sky, and Anna hated it. The gray clouds of November, the damp wind, and the sporadic rain of the previous two weeks had fit her personal gloom, and she wasn’t ready to give them up yet.
Summer Breeze (formerly “Gikamjarott Wants a Change”)
By David Michael
Jike leaned down to grab the next damned in the queue, but paused, looking over the shaven heads of the damned at the queue itself. The queue stretched like an immense snake of impending torment and misery literally into infinity. Jike sighed and shook his head. He’d been at work–it seemed like forever–and he would be here–that seemed like forever too. He needed a change.