I've been experimenting with publishing flash fiction on Medium. Some recent pieces:
The rig embedded in my spine made a tell-tale beep: another coin earned. Three more and I could knock off for eight hours or so; another and I’d be saving towards some time off. I turned back to look at the field. Six hours down, since early this morning, and a lot of crop still to pick today.
His thoughts flooded me and I lost myself in the tide. He felt the same in mirror image. My body was his, and his was mine. We swirled together, the borders blurring, our boundaries shifting, arbitrary divisions of flesh the only thing separating us from each other. The voice, whatever it was, was shaping and changing us somehow, and bringing us together, and feeding from what was lost.
From time to time, I saw pinpricks of light on the horizon — other boats like mine, maybe, although I was careful not to draw attention to myself. Every so often, while the battery held, I turned on my phone to find endless water reflecting the dim light. Otherwise, it was pitch black: the stars were blocked by what I assumed was a thick layer of cloud, although when the sun failed to come up the next morning, I’d learn it was something else entirely. Strangely, it was balmy, like a hot summer night, and that should have been the giveaway.
The mirror of infinite worlds:
The technology had been heralded as a miracle. Not only did we know that parallel worlds existed, but we could peer inside and measure them: we could use knowledge of other universes to inform and improve our own. It was possible to steal scientific advances from other societies and incorporate them, but we could also take their movies, their music, their ideas. We could enjoy the best of all worlds as our own, and that included other versions of ourselves.
Like everything I do, these are prototypes. I'm trying to learn and get better while writing in public. I'd love your feedback.
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