cyberpunk mentalist writer (19)
"Do you think the Singularity could ever exist?” they ask as I sit down at the dinner table, glass of wine in hand.
“Your question assumes it doesn’t,” I reply, taking a sip.
They look surprised. “So are you saying it does?”
“According to the lore am
I towelled off, shed the last clinging beads of shower water, and drifted upstairs. My skin felt new, but my brain was a swamp, tangled in a thicket of questions I couldn’t hack through. Reality, unreality: two mirrors, one always just out of reach.
I was never one for exercise, not understanding it had never made much sense to me. I mean, what was I training for? But the authorities didn’t care. Routine health checks and panoptic bio-surveillance made sure I kept up a baseline of physical fitne
The best days—the days that still flicker in my nervous system like a residue, long after they’re done and gone—were the ones where I disappeared into the work. Into the zone, as they called it, though it never felt like a zone to me. Time itself wou
I was deep in my zone, riding a current of volatile ideas, when the first flicker of annoyance crawled up my spine. Disruptions were like static in my ears; I didn’t crave silence so much as distance, absolute and uninterrupted. That’s why I’d built
I worked from home most days, let the silence roll over me like a heavy blanket, settling thick and muffled through every room. The noise of the outside world bled away until it was just me suspended in the hush, a smear of empty soundless air drippi
"Why did you start doing what you do now?”
They were up early again making something in the kitchen. No doubt to placate me after I walked off the other evening.
There was coffee freshly made so I thought I would play along for now. I stepped out ont
"Do you think The Singularity could ever really happen?” they asked while they kicked back with their feet up on my front porch.
“How do you know it hasn’t already?” I counter-offered.
“Do you not think we would know?”
“Well, if this was a simulatio
The idea of the 1% used to be a sort of punchline, a shadow in the corner that the most paranoid could pin their suspicions on, until it walked right out into the open and settled over everything. Then, as if someone just had to up the ante, there wa
I was starting to realise that, if you stripped away the bland, canned phrases of forced politeness, the only dialogues that felt remotely real were with a demon. If that. It was sort of amazing, really, how in a world where everyone was cocooned in
It was my scheduled return to the office, that once-a-month ritual that never made sense, yet persisted. The desk phone sat there, launching its piercing ring into the stale air, old technology still stubbornly alive amidst screens and cloud drives a
They sidled up next to me while I rested my feet on a tree stump and said, "You've seen them too, haven't you?" I already knew what they were talking about; the words formed a looping static over the scene, and I didn’t bother to puncture it with any
One moment I was filled with rage and confusion about my life, the next thing I know I'm playing cards, drinking whiskey, chuckling at their jokes (which Satan had an abundance of), and feeling like nothing else mattered.
Had they put something in my
“Do you ever wonder where your life has gone?” I wished I could have one day without them around. It would have been blissful, but did I deserve it? Was it a fitting punishment for my sins, or did they just happen to be the catalyst for my suffering?
“The postmodern societal structure was a goddamn trap, you know? Insidious didn’t even cover it. It was built to coil around people and squeeze, keeping them locked in this endless loop of servitude and desperation. That’s the real trick of it—the wa
I pulled into the drive. Smoke, thick and gray, poured from my own chimney—a surprise. I hadn’t bothered lighting a fire since the bans came down. Not a slip or lapse, just a quiet compliance. Which was precisely why leaving the shotgun inside felt l
Monday mornings are always brutal, but this one felt like a glitch in the matrix, a punishment executed by a cold, indifferent hand. I had sabotaged the night before, letting the hours slip through my fingers, refusing to surrender to sleep, instead
I was mid-flow, mid-thought, and keyboard-crushing pound when I thought I heard someone whisper. I stopped typing. Fingers frozen like spiders mid-air.
Silence.
The air felt like ice.
Maybe it was just the voices in my head painting another fiction.
