Dime Novels From Oblivion

A morose and disheveled Joseph krapowsckie sat slumped in his chair bathed in flickering white glow cast by the monochromatic images on the projector’s screen. The film clicking in the reel was a piece Joseph had personally directed and painstakingly edited. He had shot the footage at a dozen party rallies over six months.
The quickly cutting shots were a supercut of frenzied crowds, cheering children, weeping women. All of their faces told a story about finding their awakening in words spoken by messiah of an entire nation.  It was a religious testament written in the new language of cinema. Joseph called his masterpiece,
“Courage breaks chains,”
Joseph appeared as well in this film, and there were times the camera operators inadvertently captured candid moments, the fleeting experiences that time reminds us to regard as precious. It wasn’t just Joseph, his wife his children, his friends, and colleagues were all glimpsed as well. For Joseph, one nation’s propaganda was his home movie…

The Walker family all sat to one side of their circular kitchen room table opposite a twelve-inch tv perched on the counter.  Richard, the patriarch, sat in the middle, his wife Sara sat to his right, and his children an eleven-year-old son Kevin and his fourteen-year-old daughter Rachel were seated on his left in that order.
The kitchen television was on the news and for the moment was only there to set the dinner table ambiance. The attention of the Walker’s themselves was divided between their plates and their phones. Then in a foreboding rhetorical prelude, the news anchor posed the question:
“Bots are they coming or are they already here? Can we stop them or is it already too late? My guest today has some answers to these questions and more. Tony McGrath is a cybersecurity and information specialist he worked for the NSA, has advised on the security policy of many tech giants including Facebook and Google Mr. McGrath could you tell us why experts are saying we are in the midst o…

Leonard Malcon Warner was one of the God’s that reigned over the modern industry of information. The dimensions of his wealth were such that if any of it shifted in any direction, it made ripples in the economies of entire nations. His investment decisions could irreparably alter the lives of the millions unaware their personal destinies were so bound by the whims of wealth.
Aging happens gradually then suddenly all at once!
Before he knew it, Leonard was leaving the middle years of his life behind. He repeated every futile attempt to reclaim his youth. The cosmetics, the surgeries, and the models were all expressions of the same tragic realization, Leonard was getting old.
LMW hadn't become one of the wealthiest men by accepting any sentence handed down from fate, even if it was what natural law demanded. Warner had a panoramic view of the world, and he understood what moved it. People like him. Reality need never be an impediment to human will.
Science is the most effective tool…

It was an exceptionally melancholy scene. Elizabeth sat at her small desk next in front of the window. The heavy curtains were drawn, and the only sound was the steady tapping of the rain against the glass. The girl’s cheeks were red and puffy from her long bouts of sobbing. The tears rolling down her cheeks splashed onto her trembling hands as they typed out her last words.
Below the status update box where she would be announcing her own death were dozens of pictures of the girl, he chose instead of her. Ashely was her name. They found her dismembered body just hours ago. They said it may take time to tell what he had done to her and what was the work of rats.
Of course like the others, she had been beautiful and the handpicked memories being shared with a world that was for the moment completely enamored with her emphasized that fact. The quotes taken from those who knew her grieved the horrible loss of a “passionate, optimistic, and dedicated person. The public who mourned for her…

The lights were out, and the blinds were closed.  Only the pale sun smoldering behind the grey winter sky seeped in between the dusty plastic shutters. Nick paced fifteen between the window and the stove again and again. Occasionally he’d stop at the window open space between the blinds with his fingers and look down at the walkway next to the building.
Sitting on a ledge between the kitchen and living room was a donut shaped AI that called itself Alexa.  As far as Nick knew Alexa had no eyes, but it could still hear everything he said. It was but one of a hundred million ears attached to something that had no tangible form of its own and was as omnipotent as god.
Nick was careful not to pique Alexa’s interest. Sometimes the blue light that ringed its circular form would pulse, and that’s when it would start paying attention to the people in the room. Nick noticed the changes in Alexa’s light even when no one else seemed to. The machine had a tell.
When they were alone, Nick could hea…

The older I get, the more my friends remind me of approaching death. I can’t help but notice the steadily appearing signs of decline. In an age when the days of even the most obscure and inconsequential lives are as thoroughly documented as any celebrity, the steady decline is impossible to ignore. The pictures and status updates make a flipbook of entropy in action. I can see the hair shedding from scalps like the crumbling leaves from a falling tree. I can see bellies extending and once taught skin wrinkle and sag.
I see people online I haven’t seen in person for maybe over a decade but just a few minutes exploring their photo albums I can fill in the years when these former friends, acquaintances, and family members were mere abstractions. Even the most beautiful can’t completely cover the corrosive effects of time.
Many of them might as well already be dead. They have passed from my life forever. The years have torn a chasm between us, and like the dead, they exist only in pictur…