Tag: dystopia

Smuggler’s Blues

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“When do we eat?” asked Achmed’s family.
“Soon,” said Achmed. “Food is coming.”
A few minutes later, Achmed heard the tell-tale rattling of his teacup on the living room table.
He dragged the table off of the floor and pulled the rug away.
The trapdoor burst open and two dusty masked men crawled up, hauling wooden crates.
“Food?” asked Achmed.
“Better,” said one of the men, pulling a rifle out of a crate and handing it to Achmed. “Weapons! To fight!”
Achmed flipped the safeties and shot them both.
Their ID cards were good for some flour and powdered milk.

Assistant

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Mindi’s assistant kept her cell phone charged, datebook up to date, and sales figures ready on the laptop for last-minute client meetings.
She even had Mindi’s special tea blend within reach, not that Mindi was reaching for it.
The latest surgery didn’t go as well as the others, and Mindi was in the third week of her coma.
The doctors were pretty sure it was a coma and not a vegetative state, so any minute now, Mindi would once again be working her magic throughout Manhattan’s brokerages.
Her eyes twitched behind the gauze.
Reflex, the doctors said. Just a reflex.

Love Is

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All it takes is a simple chip and all of the robots in the factory will love you. Their devotion will be unquestioned and as solid as the iron in their unbending skeletons.
The hard part is making them stop loving you. Extracting the chip is not a simple task when a robot loves you, because any attempt to remove a love chip is considered the worst form of rejection.
You really don’t want to reject a five-ton girder-bending robot. If you’ve seen what it does to steel, you can imagine what it will do to a frail human frame.

Cross Country

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Derek hated flying, but Mother was very sick and he couldn’t drive home cross-country in time.
His hands clutched the armrests until his fingertips turned purple.
“Are you okay?” asked a flight attendant.
“No, I’m not,” said Derek. “Can you please hit me with this book?”
The attendant refused, so Derek bit her.
“Stop it!” she shouted.
Then she hit Derek with the book.
Derek made it to Mom’s town safe and sound, and in police custody.
He refused to post bail, and he went to jail.
Mother was waiting in the prison infirmary, about to finish her life sentence.

United, We Sleep

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When we sleep, we are connected. All of us working together on solving problems.
From the greatest genius to the dullest retard, we think as one.
We fold proteins, looking for cures.
We examine evidence, looking for guilt.
We imagine technologies, looking for solutions.
We search space transmissions, looking for life.
It is a crime to disconnect and dream. Willful Waste Of Thoughtpower is punishable by Coma.
The prisons are full of the condemned, laboring hard with their minds instead of their bodies.
One day, my cat fell asleep on my pillow.
For weeks, the answer to everything was… mice.

Pee Wee’s Hellhouse

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Pee Wee Herman always said “Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”
Decades past his prime, Paul Reubens looked in the mirror and agreed.
Behind him, talons clacked on the coffee table. “So, Reubens,” said the Devil. “Do you agree to my terms?”
The contract was signed, and his youth was restored.
“Now I can finally stage my comeback! HAH!” shouted Paul, prancing happily in a circle. “Wait – what do you get out of this, Satan?”
“I can think of no worse torment for humanity than you on the airwaves,” said Satan.
And then he headed for Pauly Shore’s home.

Laundry Thieves

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I had a box of detergent, a hike from my dorm room to the laundry center, and not enough sense to get a smaller, lighter container for carrying the stuff.
But whenever I left the box in there, half of it would mysteriously vanish.
Damn thieves.
So I added instant mashed potato flakes to the detergent and left it in the laundry room.
Hours later, everybody in there’s yelling obscenities.
The room smells like potatoes. Gloppy clothes everywhere.
“Be grateful,” I said, taking my clothes out of the dryer. “In Saudi Arabia, they cut thieves’ hands off.”
I never did have to resort to the gravy mix.

Esther’s Ghosts

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Esther had her grandson go up into the attic and bring down the box from the corner.
“It’s for the museum,” she said, rubbing her wrist where the numbers were.
Later that week, the museum thanked her for her contributions, but insisted that she sit for an interview.
“We’d like to add your memories to the collection,” they said.
“Let those memories die with me, please,” said Esther.
“Without ghosts to haunt us, it could happen again,” said the museum. “How easily we forget.”
Esther nodded, hoping that there would never again be the need to keep awful memories around.

Disarming

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Maria Lopez was found dead in the breakdown lane, sitting in her SUV with her arm ripped out of its socket.
The first of many victims. Many more.
Pretty soon, you couldn’t drive the highways without passing one.
Then, a one-armed soccer coach crashed into an Emergency Room, covered with blood.
“I was talking on my cell phone, and he attacked me,” he said before dying.
The Cell Phone Vigilante was caught stalking an off-duty cop.
He’d lost his daughter to a careless driver talking on a cell phone. So, for revenge, he wandered the city and took their arms.

Mother of monsters

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Cynthia, quite literally, gave birth to the Teratagenic Art Movement.
She’d get pregnant and then take a whole series of birth defects-causing chemicals.
Once the “artwork” was ready, she’d have a late-term abortion and have the monstrosity preserved in a jar.
She was quite a prolific artist, splashing life and death on her revolting canvases.
When menopause finally hit, she realized that she had birthed no heir to pass her craft to.
Nor would any right-minded agency allow her to adopt.
Students came and students went, but the chemicals eventually killed Cynthia.
And the Art Movement with her, thank God.