An author's battle against procrastination.
“Why are we here,” Tyler asked.
“It’s therapeutic, honey.”
Tyler looked around the abandoned school grounds. The wear had shown and time wasn’t kind to the decrepit building of learning. Tyler stood holding himself together, hoping not to scrape against something sharp, deadly and would cost him a very expensive trip to the emergency room.
“Would you relax,” Toni asked, breaking Tyler’s concentration.
“This is as relaxed as you’re gonna get.”
“What is free will,” the childlike, robot program asked the programmer.
The programmer peered over his thin glasses at the glow of the computer screen. It was dark in the cave of Silas and he was occupied by the long string of buggy code. The program stood by patiently with a peripheral in its metallic hand.
“Hmmm,” the programmer Silas hummed through his naval cavity.
“What is free will,” the program repeated.
“Oh…” Silas perked up from his keyboard and turned to see the little robot. He smiled briefly and took the peripheral from the program’s hand. “Free will… It’s…” Silas paused and ruminated over the thought. “It’s choice. Rather, it’s the freedom of choice.” He nodded slowly after he contemplated whether he liked his answer. “Yes. Why do you ask?”
I feel this… disconnection. It’s maddening and there’s no end in sight. You pick things up and know how objects feel and behave. They are constant and it’s crucial for any man to survive. But not me… not me.
I’m Jake. 27 years old. I know this because my driver’s identification said so. If I didn’t have this one small piece of my identity, my anchor, I would be lost in this sea of chaos.
Sometimes I wonder…
Is there anybody out there? Is anyone really out there?
Firstly, I must apologize. Where I said I would write one short story a week for 52 weeks, I posted the last short story late Saturday night, minutes before midnight. Now for all the things I promised myself I won’t do, making excuses is at the very top.
George sat in his car hunched over his steering wheel, starting at the seven story hopelessly average building that towered over the plain field that surrounded it. His car hugged the edge of the parking lot. Behind him, a dense forest. What if a mythical creature were to engulf him and his car in one bite. Would he be missed?
Jace Rockland 