Excerpt
Failed Reset
Sarah was a robot programmed to serve. The Sauer family used her for all odd jobs. Pardon the pun but the Sauer’s lives were about to become sour from overusing the robot too much. Instead of doing chores the two children would get Sarah to do everything. As Sarah was a robot they felt she would always serve them. One time the toilet got plugged and Sarah plunged it, then cleaned up the horrible mess. Other times if the children broke something in the house they blamed the robot. For four months they had everything done for them. The parents, Ted and Suzanne decided the children would be okay to be home with Sarah alone. They went for their date night oblivious to the disaster that would come.
By Sid Aaron Hirji3 years ago in Fiction
Stirrings in the Desert
Just about the worst thing that can happen to a person is being born with too many opinions. It’s a lot more real than most of the things your doctor tells you you have. Being over opinionated is not a diagnosable illness, and therefore represents no potential for deliberate victim creation or profits to follow. In fact, they’d prefer you to have no opinions at all, or at least the same ones as everyone else. That’s the right kind of disordered. Like I said, there are more disorders than there are people to have them. Your chromosomes get creative and pair up wrong, they switch dancing partners and usually nature is kindhearted enough to let the left-footed disaster spill out unnoticed, a jettisoned afterthought entombed in mucus. Most things are better left unsaid. But don’t feel alone. It’s already happened in the same stall about four thousand other times in the spectacularly clean mid-desert Pilot Flying J Travel Center’s ultra-convenience gas station you find yourself in; failed regeneration and cleanliness with an offensive citrus zing and enough air conditioning to convince the devil he should’ve invested in the HVAC industry. You’re in there to drive out demons, to drive the dusty red rims from your burning sclera, and it’s all the same because today the purchase of one jumbo iced honey bun at regular price permits you to leave the store with two, as long as nobody sees you put it in your pocket. If you’re going to get pilloried for something, it might as well be stealing. I’d rather someone spot me committing larceny than eating a jumbo iced honey bun. They’re not a snack made for people who are doing well. I eat them frequently.
By Sean Michael3 years ago in Fiction
(My black mother)Her Last Words
"Come closer, Nneka. I have things I must say to you," my mother said as she laboured to breathe in the ICU of the state general hospital. I was already sitting on the bed but I leaned in closer so I could hear her whisper of words.
By Nneka Anieze3 years ago in Fiction
Feminism in the 21st Century
"Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic capitalist machinery, in which the publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our backs; not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses don't like the true texts of women- female-sexed texts. That kind scares them". (Helene Cixous 1975).
By Novel Allen3 years ago in Fiction
