Microstory 2288: Lets Me Skip the Line

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

I’ve made some decisions about what I’m going to focus my pursuits on moving forward. I’m still writing. In fact, I’m going harder than ever. But instead of trying to develop two different books at once, I’ve opted to combine them into one. I think I’ve told you how much I hate biographies, especially the auto kind, or memoirs; whatever the difference may be. Don’t @ me, I don’t care. The more I researched how to write an autobiography, the more I hated them, which I didn’t think was possible. They’re so boring. Here’s how they all go: this happened, then that happened, and before this other thing happened, some different thing occurred, and after all of that, we get to the part where something else went down. I can’t stand it, how can anyone? Biopics are okay. You can tell it nonlinearly, if you need to, without it being confusing, and the visuals can accent some of the more boring bits, as can montages. I know you have a lot of those in the world. I can’t watch them, because I’m not familiar with your world’s history, but whatever. The point is I’m not doing any of that. I’m going to tell my story, but in a fictional setting. Not only will names be changed to protect the innocent, but it will be framed as a narrative story, rather than just an overblown sequence of events. I’ll be taking liberties with some plot points, so don’t think that you’ll end up knowing everything about me if you ever get to read it one day, but I hope you find it interesting. It’s actually going pretty fast. Back when I was writing purely fictional stories, I had to start from scratch, and come up with the whole thing myself. Having a basis of my own life really lets me skip the line, and just type it up. Honestly, as long as I keep going at this pace, I should be finished with the first draft by the end of next week. Then I’ll probably revise it, then I’ll rewrite it, then I’ll revise that, and then I’ll send it to an editor. Boom, just wrote a mini-autobiography for you, except it’s about the future. I hope you enjoyed it. Anyway, I still need a title. I’m leaning toward finding an idiom with the word bulk in it, like Bulk Billing. But not that, because that sounds stupid. What do you think?

Microstory 2285: How Unproductive

< > Table of Contents

Generated by Google Gemini Advanced text-to-image AI software, powered by Imagen 3

I know that I’ve said this a few times before, but I really mean it this time. I’m getting back into writing. I spent all day writing a fictional story. I won’t tell you what it’s about yet, but I’ll keep you in the loop in the future. Inspired by myself (lol), I started working on a real schedule for my daily life moving forward. After calculating out my physical therapy, eating, spending time with my friends, and all that, I determined how much free time I would have to dedicate to my work. I know, I make it sound like it’s not that much, but of course, since I don’t have a real job, it’s quite a bit. I’m not gonna lie to you, and try to make it seem like I just can’t do all the things that I want to do with my life. I’m the type of person who needs to know what his schedule is going to be, or I’ll waste away the day on nothing, so it was really important for me to really do the math. That’s actually what I realized, how unproductive I’ve been since I got out of surgery. I have to find something to pass the time. If I were back on my home world, I could watch TV and movies all day, but you don’t produce enough interesting stuff to keep me occupied for an extended period of time. But don’t fret—I still love ya, Boreverse. I’ve completely given up on trying to find a way home; that should tell you enough about my perspective and priorities, right? Anyway, it’s the end of the week, so you’ll have to wait until I make another exciting addition to my life story. If you can’t tell, I’m being sarcastic. This is only interesting when something bad is happening to me, so because of how terrible that sounds, I’m seriously considering letting this site go. Let me know what you think.

Microstory 1872: Losing Sleep

< > Table of Contents

I was a little monster as a baby. I sometimes kept my mama up all night and all day. The doctors could explain the crying—it wasn’t much more than a normal baby’s—but they couldn’t explain why I never went to sleep. Except I was crying more, because unlike most people, nothing could stop me. According to her stories, she hired a nanny to take shifts. She could have raised me on her own if not for my little peculiarity. As I grew up, I started figuring out how to express myself through other noises besides screaming, but I never did learn how to sleep. In my school, the younger children would take naps. The teacher ended up moving me over to the bookshelves, and gave me a little reading lamp, so I could keep myself busy. I wasn’t the only one who needed the extra accommodations. A boy in my class also didn’t need to nap, but in his case, it’s because he slept all the way through the night. I called him my opposite, but my mother noted that a true opposite would be in some kind of coma. There’s just something different about the way my brain works that makes it so I don’t need any sleep to function. Not only that, but I can’t sleep at all. I’ve never done it even once, which is sad, because the whole dreaming thing that people talk about sounds positively fascinating. I asked the boy to tell me his dreams, so I could live vicariously through him; which is a word we learned through a book that had no place in that classroom. He said he couldn’t remember his dreams, but the next day, he was able to regale me with his stories. He said just wanting to remember them made it so that he now could. Years later, he would admit to me that this had been a lie. He had come up with the stories on his own, because he didn’t want to disappoint me. That was so him, from start to finish.

College was difficult for me, because the schoolwork was so easy. Well, it wasn’t easy, but I had more time to study than the other students. Everybody hated me, but it’s not like I was an overachiever. I was just bored, and as much as they liked to party, at some point, they would have to go to bed, and I would still be up, so I had to do something to pass the time. I tried to have a roommate my first semester, but that didn’t work out, because I would disturb her sleep, and that wasn’t fair. Once the boy and I were married and living together, my situation saved us a little money. I was able to be productive for more hours of the day, and hell, he only needed a twin bed. Anyway, my coworkers were as jealous as my classmates. It’s just that I found it easier to do my paperwork in the dead of night when the hemisphere was asleep, and not work so hard during regular business hours. Then came the time for us to grow our family, and I was hesitant, because there was no way to know what kind of child would come out of me. Would they enjoy the same benefits? Would they have some kind of corrupted version of it that left them tired all the time? I didn’t think we could risk it, and my husband was okay with that. We chose to adopt instead, which was no problem, because there are so many other good reasons to adopt. We went to the agency to submit our application, and after some time, we were selected for a child who we were told required special needs. For reasons they couldn’t understand, this little girl never slept. Obviously, we knew we had to make her part of our family. I mean, who better than me to raise a woman like that? It was decades before science progressed enough for us to take a DNA test. Wouldn’t you know it, she was an exact match. I mean exact. I still don’t know how, but she is my twin.

Microstory 1734: Draco Total

< > Table of Contents

Ladies and gentleman, let me introduce to you the new Draco Total Surveillance Security System. Using the latest in artificial intelligence video analysis, and the best cameras this side of the central black hole of this galaxy, we have been able to create a tool that will help businesses keep track of everything that happens in their buildings. This is not just for nefarious agents, you see? It’s for everything. Let’s say you’re trying to figure out if your employees are slacking on the job. Now, you could send the managers to their workstations to check on them. But everyone knows how to quickly switch windows. You won’t catch anyone on social media, because they’ll smell you comin’ from a mile away. In recent years, it’s become trendy to use webcams, keystroke loggers, and remote mirroring to see exactly what they’re up to. But we have found that such intrusive prying actually lowers productivity, because workers get freaked out about the technology, and they start to protest, even if only in small ways. We’ve actually witnessed companies lose great talent, because they quit to look for an employer that doesn’t incidentally capture their personal email passwords. Besides, that’s not really what you’re worried about, are you? You don’t care that someone who works for you occasionally switches over to see what’s in the blogosphere, or watch a quick funny video that a coworker just sent them. You wanna make sure they’re not wandering the halls, or talkin’ trash about their supervisor by the watercooler. Can regular cameras take care of all of this for you? Well, sure, they’ve been doing it for years. But can they do it better than Draco? Absolutely not. We’re more than just cameras. We’re an experience. We can put you right in the middle of the action, and no one will even know that you’re there.

With the new DTSS system, you can immerse yourself in the footage with a 360° field of view. By combining the realtime feed from every camera in operation, plus detailed schematics of the building, our system will generate a perfect three-dimensional model. You will be able to step through a virtual recreation of any area that you have placed under surveillance. Install enough cameras—cover all potential blindspots—and you’ll feel like a ghost, walking through the hallways and rooms unseen...and unheard. The AI will even automatically update periodically with new information, such as a worker turning their desk to face a window, or a new potted plant in the corner by the bathrooms. After the camera network is set up, and connected to the central server, simply place goggles such as these on your face, and enter a secret dimension. From here, you can use the controllers to move your avatar around (or an omnidirectional haptic treadmill, if you sprang for it). You can view from a first person perspective, like this, or second person, where it’s more like you’re a butterfly on the ceiling, watching the goingson below. Third person, which I like to call God Mode lets you do so much more. You’ll fly all over the building quicker, passing through walls and floors with ease. You can delete impediments, like those walls and floors, to get a clearer picture of everything happening all at once. Watch what happens when I zoom all the way out. See? It’s like a cross-section of the whole building. This is in realtime, people. This is what’s happening at our HQ during this presentation. We’re still working out the price, but we expect to be ready for public use by the fourth quarter of next year. Thank you, and I know you’re all really excited, so I’ll open the floor for any questions, comments, or concerns.

Microstory 1533: Forcing the Future

< > Table of Contents

To be honest, this ________ thing has made my daily life a lot ________ . Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s ________, and I want this to be fixed as soon as ________, but I also can’t hide from the ________ that I prefer this way of ________, on a personal ________. The thing is, there ________ need to be a ________ for me to ________ like this. I just need to get people on ________. I wasn’t surprised at how much ________ I could get done while staying at ________, or how much less work there actually is when I don’t have my ________ breathing down my ________. Virtual meetings, as long as you have a ________ internet ________, are just as good, if not ________ than regular old face-____-face. A lot of ________ don’t think so, but the structure really forces you to prioritize your words. It’s more ________ to get trapped in an off-____ conversation with each ________. My co-____s were always just hanging out in ________, and not in a way that let me ________ out either. We weren’t ________ with business yet, so we all had to _________ around anyway. It was so pointless, really, I ________ it. Meetings are better, but also the normal work that I do. I know, it’s not something I should be ________, but I like to stop and check social ________, and play ________, and watch ________, or maybe just ________ the birds outside my ________. And we’re all doing it, and it’s totally ________. The way I see it, as long as I’m being product____, what exactly is the problem? Nothing. There is no ________, except now there is. My company is thinking about ________ up a surveillance state. They’ll ________ my webcam, and listen to my ________’s microphone, and they’ll hire a ________ of temps to watch me for my full ________ hours. They want to make ________ that I’m not ____ing around, like I do. They think it’ll save them ________, because they’re a bunch of ________. They’re paying people to ________ all these feeds, so they’re actually losing ________. I don’t know for sure, but I’m also sure of it. There’s no ________ it’s cost effective, even though the ________ will probably be at minimum ________. Pay shouldn’t be based on the ________ of time you spend stressed and busy, but the amount of ________ productivity. How much benefit did I ________? Not how much time did I ________ on it? If you give me ________ hours of work every day, I’m going to do it in ________ hours. I’m getting the ________ done, and that should be enough for ________. I think I’m gonna ________. I don’t need this job, I can ________ from anywhere now.

Microstory 1260: Kalea Akopa

< > Table of Contents

There wasn’t a whole lot of joy in Springfield after it was pulled into the Deathfall, and marooned on the rogue world of Durus. There were monsters to fight against, a lack of resources, which caused a lot of unrest, and though there was atmosphere, warmth, and life, there was no sun as of yet. The Akopas took all of this in stride. They had each other, and that was really all that mattered. They figured the town would get through it as long as they worked together, and they put a lot of time into trying to make that happen in their own special way. Neither of the parents were skilled workers, and their son was too young to have entered the workforce. They were really good, however, at providing entertainment, and keeping people comfortable. They would regularly host get-togethers, and other events, at their house, trying to lighten the mood for everyone. These were poorly attended in the beginning, as people felt like there was far too much to be done to protect themselves and survive, but over time, people realized they needed it. These events were eventually moved to larger venues, becoming more extravagant and elaborate, and accommodating more people. They would all go crazy if they didn’t take the time to relax and enjoy each other’s company. These breaks helped boost morale, and actually increased productivity. Disagreements and more dangerous conflicts were often tempered or erase because of one of the Akopa parties. There was, of course, a no violence rule. When source mage, Kalea Akopa was older, she continued this tradition. The borders of the now multiple towns were being well-protected, and a real civilization was actually prospering. While some of the other source mages were concerned with maintaining this protection, or with selecting the other mages who would be doing this protecting, Kalea just liked to keep it casual. She remained positive at all times, at least when she interacted with other people, and she helped mediate arguments when it was necessary. Her unflappable attitude could have been really annoying and irrational, but she recognized that she was a little different, and she knew how to appreciate that sometimes people just needed to feel something other than joy. She was aware that others weren’t happy all the time like her. She made an effort to sort of downplay her constant optimism, and be a little more low key. She didn’t have to do this, but it was one of the many things that made her a good person. Kalea was really good at making people feel comfortable and safe. People couldn’t go to her for advice, because that just wasn’t her strength, but they could always count on her to help them escape from their problems, and to make them feel better, if only temporarily. It was truly unfortunate what ultimately happened to her, because if no more than one person on the two worlds didn’t deserve to suffer as such, it was Kalea.