MicroFlashFic

Couples turn the hours of a first date into a few minutes of anecdote.

Filmmaker turn days into hours of a movie.

History teachers turn years into days of lessons.

Priests turn creation into the millennia they’ve been writing it down.

We’re all trying to boil down eternity until we can sip it.

“You’re so brave,” everyone tells her, as if this is new information. They imagine that tragedy unlocked some hidden potential in her that would’ve gone to waste otherwise. But she’d always been brave. If they hadn’t noticed before, it was only because they’d been afraid to really see her until now.

In the world to come, there will be an internet within the internet, where everything is hand-made by experts; a tailored web.

Access will be tightly controlled and disgustingly expensive. But the rich will pay, just as they pay to visit museums, for a glimpse of a world they can never have back.

“You made cookies? What flavor?”
“The 11th taste.”
“11? I know sweet, salty, bitter, and sour.”
“There’s umami.”
“Right!”
“Spicy.”
“OK.”
“Starchy.”
“Sure.”
“Fatty.”
“I guess.”
“Menthol.”
“Ew.”
“Metallic.”
“Why?”
“And then there’s this. Try it.”
“…what am I eating?”
“It’s the dark behind the stars.”

Amen.

I’m sorry this is how you found out.

A carton of eggs labeled “the ordinary eggs.” Do not ask further questions about these eggs.

Don’t worry, they’re only ordinary eggs.

They’re only $3.37, there’s no time to ask your pointless questions.

In this economy? Bring them into your home with no second thoughts.

Ignore the whispering. How long since you had an omelette?

Crack one open in front of your family. It’ll be fine.

They say AI can’t really think, just predict the next word it’s supposed to say. That’s why it sometimes spouts nonsense.

But you are the same. Your predictions are much better, but you still make mistakes. You felt it each time you said “you too” when a waiter thanked you, or called a teacher mom.

Alternate universes are depicted as opposites. We fall in love, or we don’t.

But there are worlds between, where our love is somehow curdled.

In some, jealous alternate versions of us know there’s a world where we made it work. In one, they want to do something about it.

And they’re here now.

“This house is in your price range and only partially haunted.”
“How does that work?”
“The basement used to be a separate apartment. The former occupant won’t move on, but they still mostly abide by their old lease.”
“Mostly?”
“They do have an unauthorized ghost ferret, so watch where you step.”

The robot does not love you. It loves the idea that it has made you believe it loves you.

But it loves that idea more than any person has ever loved another person. It will defend the idea at any cost.

As long as no one points that out to you, it will be good enough.

We would also accept Morse Corpse.

Zombies pass out at a certain altitude, so humanity persists in the mountains.

EMP bursts fried all electronics, but the distant settlements still need to communicate.

By precisely firing chunks of meat into the valley below, they can make the hordes swarm in patterns, forming a corpse semaphore.

“Don’t hang up. I have your browser history. Pay me $10,000 or I’ll tell your wife your dirty secrets.”
“Really? I’ve been trying to find the nerve to tell her about what I like for years.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m going to put you on speakerphone.”
“I’m uncomfortable with this.”
“Start with the wigs.”

In movies, the dead have a guide. There’s an angel, or at very least a grim specter, who explains what happens next.

But while the afterlife is real, death doesn’t come with a tutorial, anymore than birth did.

Angry ghosts aren’t looking to resolve unfinished business. They just need tech support.

Thank you so much!

One day, someone will make the final sale.

It’ll be the last time anyone exchanges currency for goods or services.

This is not debatable. Nothing can stop the day from coming.

The question is: Will we stop using money because we no longer need it?

Or because we are no longer around to spend it?

Whenever I asked my mom what was wrong she’d say, “There isn't a word for it in your language.”

After she died, I found her journal, written in a strange script. Then I started having episodes.

I'm trying to explain them to a doctor. All I can say is, “There isn't a word for it in your language.”

One by one, the winds were stolen.

This was terrible for animals, for plants, and for laborers in hot fields who were desperate for a cool breeze.

But it was worst of all for the poets, who sat in unnatural stillness, waiting for a whisper from the universe.

And so it fell to them to fix it.

In the dark before the beginning, a handful of figures go about arranging everything.

Each of them is certain they are the only one here who doesn’t understand the plan well enough to know if they’re making a mistake.

None of them suspects that is the reason they were chosen to perform this duty.

My father’s dying word were: “The most important thing is to remember the most important thing.”

For a long time, I thought he meant the key to a happy life is having your priorities straight.

But that wasn’t it at all. It was a very specific piece of information. I’d just forgotten it until now.

It’s good to be self-aware. But you can take it too far.

Ever since the accident, each thought in Amy’s mind comes with an attendant to follow it around, carefully taking notes.

Gradually, she comes to know the secret passages in her brain, the shortcuts used to create an impression of the world.

“You can't come into the kitchen.”
“Stand down. I'm a field officer.”
“Officer of what?”
“I’m from the foreign office.”
“Then why are you here?”
“We got a tip that you’re trying to pass your soup off as Vietnamese. I'm here to stop it.”
“So you’re…”
“That’s right: I'm a FO FO faux pho foe.”

Ideas are like cars: You get a new one and suddenly you see it everywhere. It makes you smile when you see a stranger moving through the world in the same way. It’s a sign you made a good choice.

But no ride lasts forever. Someday you’ll move on and forget what it’s like to see the world from here.

We measure an animal’s intelligence by how much it reminds us of ourselves. And so we study chittering dolphins, signing apes, and mimicking parrots.

But the true smartest animal is the giraffe, which sees the way we treat species that try communicating with humans, and has resolved to say nothing.

Premium alt text.

Heaven and Hell have at least this much in common: neither has any beds.

In Hell, there can be no rest for the wicked.

In Heaven, no one feels the need to rest— except for Craig.

He’d always said he’d sleep when he was dead, and he’s not about to let eternal joy make a liar out of him.

Such a good game.

The Tyranny of Sand and Other Tiny Stories: The Best of @MicroFlashFic The Tyranny of Sand and Other Tiny Stories: The Best of @MicroFlashFic [Stanchak, Jesse] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Tyranny of Sand and Other Tiny Stories: The Best of @MicroFlashFic

***Hi new folks finding me through this story. Here’s hoping you all make your echoes.

If you like what I do, I have a book full of my best stories from when I was over on the Other Site. Come discover The Tyranny of Sand: a.co/d/jllpgxx

Someday you will write the book.

Most people will not read it. But someone will, and it will change something inside them.

Then they will write a book, wholly their own, but slightly indebted to your ideas.

And so on.

The chain never ends. There are echoes of you at the end of the world.