Automatic Teller

The entranceway was a net, designed to capture the sunlight before it contaminated the pub inside. Kevin had forgotten that it was still daytime. He stutter-stepped as he pushed past the door and a wave of light crashed over him, splashing across the walls and floor and burning his heavily dilated eyes.

He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the sun, then scanned the small foyer, past the dilapidated racks of free periodicals, until he found the ATM sitting in the corner to the left of the door through which he had just exited the bar. It looked like a tired old man, leaning up against the wall with its knees up against its chest. There was ribbed plastic tubing resembling arms on either side, bent up into L-shapes at what appeared to be the elbow, and its body was more of a boxy metal trash can with worn, rounded edges that were clearly intended to make it look sleek. It had a pixelated monitor in place of a swinging lid, with a numeric keypad goatee and two scars across its chin — one for consuming the cards, the other for dispensing cash. Presently, the monitor displayed a digitized face with a sardonic, bitmapped smile.

Kevin inserted his card into the appropriate slot/scar and punched in his secret code. A voice spoke: “Ten twen-ty.three. Let.me.guess — hYour birth-Day? Ha. Ha. Ver-ee oar-idgenal,” it said, with a mechanical inflection. Kevin took a step back, being careful to keep one foot by the machine in case someone tried to rob him. He looked around the room frantically, but couldn’t see anyone. “Wuh-who said that? H-how did you know?” he said.

“Ha. Of.course. Fuh-king tip.ee.cull. Seer-heously, did.you.hwant.some-one.to.steal-hyour.i-den-ti-ty Be-cuz hyou are just.ask-ing? for.it mis-ter,” the voice responded. Kevin looked down at the ATM display in bewilderment and noticed that it was rolling its pixel-cluster eyes at him. Its bitmapped mouth was dropped open in disgust. Once it noticed him staring, it returned to its default expression of indifference. “Sorry,” it said. “hWould you like.to.make. A-deposit, or-A. hwith-drawal.”

“Uhh…withdrawl, please?” Kevin responded nervously.

“Let me-guess,” responded the machine. “hYou did-not re-uh-lies that.it-was.a cash. only-bar. Good-fuh.king-job.dumb-ass. En-ee way.how-much-would. hYou. like?”

“I’ll take eighty, please.”

“Ay-tee. Doll-ers? Gee-zus. Christ.man. How much.did-hyou drink?”

“I haven’t had anything yet. Just give me the cash!” At this point, Kevin was frustrated. Why couldn’t he just got his cash and be gone? He had always hated artificial intelligent, ever since the soda machine at work had started giving him Diet Coke “for his own good.”

The machine let out an exasperated digital sigh. “All. rite-man. Calm. down. Don’t have-a. cow. I’m-just. Try-ing.to.help. hOne-moment.please.” Kevin listened to the harddrive whirring inside and felt a sudden urge to rip it out and smash it on the street.

After about a minute, he heard gears begin to grind, and a taped-together five-dollar bill came out of the slot. Kevin waited for a few more seconds, but nothing followed, and soon the digitized emoticon face had disappeared. He smacked the machine on the side of its boxy head and yelled, “Hey! Where’s the rest of my money?”

The digital face returned with a blip wearing a straight expression. “Sar-ee, bud.ee. I’ve seen-hyour. Cred.it.Card-bill this month. I’m-just. Try.ing.to-help.Good!bye.”

Kevin stormed back into the bar, ordered a shot of whiskey, and left without giving the bartender a tip.

Not Dead Yet

It’s hard to stay together once you’ve watched your partner die.

Katie never understood this. She thought I was being irrational. “Everyone dies,” she said. Or will say, I’m not sure if she’s actually said it yet. “It’s something that happens. But you and I, we’ll always be together, at least some time. And whenever that is, it always exists somewhere in time, and it always will. Even death won’t do us part. So let’s enjoy our time together, for all time.”

It happened — or it happens — in Egypt in the biblical year 2011. No one knows what Katie is going to be doing back there, or precisely when in her own timeline it occurs, but we both know that it happens. Happened. Is going to happen. Whatever. I have to admit, it was my idea. Let’s tour the early Aughts, I said. The Age of Mass Media, so they called it in our history books. Before the bombs. Before the singularity. When mankind was on the precipice of change, speeding towards The Crash, when the rapid development of technologies opened up new opportunities in a global community faster than their less-evolved brains could ever handle.

And so we visited the times when the world truly began to change and evolve into the time from which we came. Our travel itinerary included stops at all of the most important historical events of the era, so that we could witness them first hand. Thus we found ourselves in the territory formerly known as Egypt somewhere near the end of the First Month of the biblical year 2011. Katie wanted to see the pyramids; I wanted to watch a revolution. They’re much more exciting.

We pushed our way through the steaming, sweating crowds of savages and supplicants to get a better view, and that’s when I saw her. She was the same as the woman standing beside me, only older, more tired and worn. She’d lost some weight — not that Katie had much to lose in the first place — and she looked as though she hadn’t slept in years. Perhaps she hadn’t at that. I hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether or not I should direct Katie’s attention to what appeared to be her Future Self before us, but that moment was just long enough to allow a bullet hit her in the temple and splash her beautiful brain across the statue in the square.

Katie and I returned to our hotel room. We slept on opposite sides of the bed that night and never touched. She tried to reach over once, but I moved myself down to the floor. The next day, I told her it was over. It was pointless for us to stay together, knowing that would be our future. I kissed her once before I left, but all I could see was the slow-motion bullet break against her skull.

Sometimes I return to then, and watch the scenario play out in real-time. Maybe one of these times, I’ll point Katie out to herself, and I don’t know, maybe she’ll turn her head to watch and it will cut the air just right to move the bullet off its course and save her life. But every time she dies, and I miss her just a little more.

First Person Shooter

Waking from the attack, I found myself consumed with pangs, overcome by a craving for a taste which I at first could not describe. I glanced down at the wounds that pierced my gut, and while it appeared that the bleeding had ceased, the laceration had hardly begun to heal. Rather, the incision was still raw. Furthermore, I saw that it ran clear through my abdomen, exiting out my backside and large enough to fit an entire first inside. Stranger still, I felt no pain, even as I ran my fingers along the tattered edges of my own flesh.

As I examined the peculiar gash where that wild man had ravaged me, I heard the sharp crack of a snapping twig from the west. I turned to find a large man headed swiftly in my direction with his mouth agape. He seemed quite fervored; his clothes were soiled, and he bore a large woodaxe. “Help!” I cried out to him. “Please, sir — I’ve been injured!”

But when I opened my mouth, the only sound I was capable of emitting was but a grumbling, one that resembled the word, “Brains!”

Frantically, I tried to explain myself, but regardless of the syllables that I attempted to speak, “Brains!” was the only sound my weary lips could utter. As the man drew nearer, I panicked. Driven by an instinct that swelled from deep within me, I suddenly found myself charging straight towards him. Of course, given my grievous injuries — however peculiar though they were — I was capable of little else in terms of movement but a slow and heavy-footed lumber. I raised my arms and reached them out towards my would-be savior, pleading desperately for extrication.

Instead of offering his assistance, the man raised his woodaxe over his head. With a grunt, he swung it towards me, throwing all of his weight behind it. The blunt force of the blow cracked my arms off at the elbow, even without the blade cutting through me. The shock of the attack caused me to freeze, but unfortunately, my own momentum was enough to send me fumbling over frontwards. I fell upon the axe’s blade, which cut through me at my already withered waist.

The blade went clean through and separated my torso from legs. Perhaps more shocking was the fact that once again, I was completely numb to the pain.

Using my teeth and chin as my limbs, I was able to roll my armless torso around and face the sky. I found my victory to be tragically short-lived, however, as I came face-to-face with the barrel end of a large rifle, whose trigger end was held in the hands of my attacker. I tried once more to explain myself and seek his assistance, but I still found myself unable to make a sound other than “Brains!” The last thing I recall is the propulsive clang of the gun’s hammer as it hurled the bullet towards me, the boom! echoing against the trees in the deep, wide wood.

Self-Checkout

It feels like forever while I wait for the guy buying three different kinds of organic peppers and one vine tomato to figure out how to punch in the produce code into the keypad and realize that he’s not supposed to weigh all four fucking fruits together at the same time and then I still have to watch him struggle with swiping his god damn credit card and screwing up the system that I start to consider running for office entirely on a political platform that pledges to require  all potential Self-Checkout users at the grocery store to be licensed before they can be let loose in the lines.

When he’s finally finished fucking up my evening, I step up to the machine and swipe my savings card on the score. “He-lloThome.Well-comeback.,” intones a clunky mechanical voice that vaguely resembles some concept of femininity. “How-was-the__Elli-osPiz-za__that.You.pur-chasedAt__two. Twenty-Seven. Aye-Em___To-Day?”

“Uh, fine. Thanks. Yeah.” I say. I glance around quickly to make sure no one in the line is listening to this dumb machine reminding me of last night’s regrettable drunken purchase. Although perhaps it’s not fair to say that it’s “regrettable” being that, well, I don’t actually have much recollection of it.

I scan my carton of coconut milk across the machine and wait while the dumb thing prompts me to, “Please.place-your__Coconut. Milk.___on-the-belt.” like it does every time, as if I hadn’t figured it out myself by now.

But this time, it keeps talking. “I-see.That.You.have-purchased__Coconut. Milk.__My_records.show.that-you-like.to-buy____Garelick-Farms_Whole.Milk.__Is-this.cor-rect? Please-press__*Yes*-or__*No*.” I press the little green button on the touchscreen and I can hear the people in line behind me shift their weight and sigh.

“Are-you.Di-e-ting_Thome?” the machine asks.

“No!” I say, perhaps a bit louder and more emphatic than I should have when speaking to a machine in public. I laugh nervously then turn to the little old woman behind me and say, “I’m actually just, I’m making sorbet at home tonight, for my girlfriend, so, ya know, the, um, the coconut milk is — “

“¿Que?” she says, which is how I know she hates me.

The machine interrupts again. “Please-press__*Enter*__if.You-would.like-this.Ma-chine-to.keep-track-of-your.di-et-and-off-er-sug.Ges-tions. Press__*Exit*__if-this-is-a.one-time-pur.chase.” I poke my finger at the red button on the touch screen, then keep stabbing with my finger in angry little bursts like a drunken wasp.

“Thank-you.For.cancel-ing-your.Or-der.Please-have.A-good-day.Thome.” the machine says. I can feel the angry eyes behind me burning holes into my neck. I glance around to see if any of the staff is nearby. It turns out the coast is clear, and my coconut milk is already sitting at the other end of the conveyor belt. I smile at the little old Hispanic lady behind me, then dart down the aisle, grab my milk and make a run for it.

prose

Here's a little taste of prose fiction that I've written over the years. You'll mostly find flash fiction below, but I'll make sure to include links and information on other fiction publications as they happen. Enjoy!