"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
I inhaled from the pre-rolled cigarette laced with Premium 9.1.80, bracing for that sharp, crystalline rush. I shouldn’t have been smoking that toxic junk and letting it foul up my bedroom, but I needed space—a place to lie out and let the inside of
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 like your job, Walter?”
My glass was about to reach my mouth when the question came out of nowhere. “Yes, I suppose,” I said.
“You suppose?”
“Well, it's like any other job. Sometimes it's interesting or even creative, other times it can be re
“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.
