Microfutures
I have seen the future - and it hurts!
FOREPIECE
The genre of science-fiction was invented by ancient Peruvian Incas telling their alien visitors that science would be great when it was discovered, but until then, here’s some large sketches on the desert surface with some rough ideas of what it would look like when it came.
The aliens weren’t much impressed with these mile-wide doodles, so they took off, vowing not to return again until hot dogs and bobbysox were invented and cantilevered bras on pointy-titted broads were a thing.
By that point humans didn’t need the aliens anyway, having invented science all the way up to computers, nuclear weapons and American tech corporations, so all the ingredients for armageddon were readily in place. Now the new hotness was post-apocalyptic sci-fi, starting with A Canticle for Liebowitz and A Boy and His Dog.
Humanity was Go! for imagining our own self-immolation in a thousand different and exciting ways. When it eventually comes, however, our downfall will be not so rich and textured, but rather sad and nondescript. Is there such a thing as a bleh-pocalypse?
Thanks to
at THE FICTION DEALER for providing prompts for most of these. I’ve since started a different type of microfiction experiment, but I’ve very much enjoyed participating in his microdose challenges.
EMBRACE
2013 – GalactEx unveils new rocket design
“Embrace innovation,” says CEO Klimt Fullcake.
2017 – GalactEx vows Moon landing within two years
“I embrace challenge,” says Fullcake to gathered presscorps.
2019 – GalactEx promises Mars colony within two years
“Never mind the Moon, it’s rubbish anyway. I embrace greater challenge still.”
2026 – GalactEx launches untested Mars capsule
“Embrace the chaos, kids. Godspeed.”
2027 – None survive
“Oh well… we tried. Move fast, break things.”
CRISIS
The crisis cabinet convened in the early hours. Nobody thought to wake the president. What would even be the point?
The Secretary of State asked the Defense Secretary to brief all present.
“What’s the nature of this crisis?”
“Malaise. Spreading worldwide rapidly.”
“Malaise?”
“Malaise. Discontent, angst, ennui... you know... not feeling very well, uh, in yourself.”
“Bioweapon of some kind?”
“As far as we can tell, no. It’s just... everybody’s tired.”
“Do we have a plan?”
“Uh... increase defense spending?”
INTELLIGENCE
The signal came from the furthest reaches of spacetime. Astronomers calculated that it’d taken several billion years to arrive. Faint, tiny, but repetitive and clearly of extraterrestrial origin.
Vast resources were employed to decrypt the signal: quantum computers and online arrays, AI bots and crossword nerds. In the end it was decoded by a kid in Wurrumiyanga, Australia, a native boy playing the signal on his huge didgeridoo and feeling bass resonances speak to him in his skull.
The message read: “This is an automated alert. Take shelter immediately. Nuclear attack imminent.” It looped infinitely. There was no other message.
HUNGER
The child, skeletal and wailing, crawls from its mother’s dried-out corpse. Jackals circle in the distance; vultures flock overhead.
Jackson steps smartly over the child, switches the cellphone picture back to himself, and continues his conference call.
“Project DE-VAST has been hugely successful. Our genetically-modified blight’s had a drastic effect on competitor Hwang-Agrotech’s aridity-resistant cereals. Estimates suggest 86% of their crop has been lost.”
The cellphone swivels back to the child. A vulture advances, but Jackson shoos it away to zoom in on the child’s haggard face.
“Next year these people will be planting our product. Not these ones, obviously.”
HEAT
“So hot!” said monkey. “Too hot to swing in the trees.”
“Hot!” said bird. “Much too hot to fly.”
“Hot!” said cow. “Can’t give no milk.”
“I don’t know why you’re all complaining,” said fish. “It’s fine for me. I don’t know why you’re all complaining. It’s fine for me...”
[NOTE]1
RANCH
Our ranch was established just after rainy season had left the valley so verdant. We let out the heartiest specimens to feed wild, and most flourished, though some were hunted by poachers. Others were rustled or just ran away. We can’t be everywhere.
At season’s end we brought the herd back in for slaughter, sparing the pregnant females and some stud males to provide new stock. The women wept to see their mates bleed out in the bloodtubs, which soured their milk. Next time we’ll make sure they can’t watch.
TWO GREAT BOOKS TO BUY
If you’re looking for more reads, you can’t do better than this pair of little beauties:
CRUSHED TRACHEA BLUES by Bradley VanDeventer
"Where Pynchon strode, Bradley VanDeventer strides too... a long list of strictly American gratifications, of uppers and downers, ferocious pleasures, that VanDeventer takes us on in this trip into the underworld of the City of Angels.”
[review by yours truly]
BENEATH THE VALLEY OAK by Sean Thomas McDonnell
“I've got my copy and love it. Scoop these up while you still can!”
[review by Will Boucher of Heavy is the Headset]
EXTRAS
[NOTE] This microdose got an unofficial expansion, a little riffing DLC, in collaboration with
, as follows:HOTLIFE: THE SAGA
“So hot!” said monkey. “Too hot to swing in the trees.”
“Hot!” said bird. “Much too hot to fly.”
“Hot!” said cow. “Can’t give no milk.”
“I don’t know why you’re all complaining,” said fish. “It’s fine for me. I don’t know why you’re all complaining. It’s fine for me...”
Fine for me and not for thee, said fishy to the gill-less. Every chance he got, splishin’ in the cool deep.
So Monkey caught him and bird dropped him into a pot of cow's hot milk. How’s this wave of heat feel? they said, watching him in the slow poach.
Poetik justice, just ‘is once, said all, and a jolly good laugh they all had too, just before the parched earth cracked and swallowed them all up. ‘Course the Mantle Giants only got hungrier tasting the Casoulet de viandes variées and decided to crack open a few more cold ones.
Those motherlovin’ Lava Boys were lovin’ the new age of hotbottom earthy textured heatstrokes, strokin’ their hides and their egos in the hotty hot heat of the brave new aeon.
Soon though even those Magma Mothaz was feelin’ the pressure under the savage pushin’ of all the hot fauna tryin’ to push in on their cthonic domain.
And while them cats-n-dogs rained down into the cavernous plenty, the Molty crew fissured their way to the ocean, venting schools of gaseous spheres, a fountain harbinger, followed by clamouring soft rock, towering hot erections hardening with a wet kiss.
And eventually a new continent and sublime shelf of sweaty deposition.
It was a new earth, a newborn oeuf of fresh imagining. Would it remain fresh, or one day give birth to fussbudget little busybodies ready to drive the sad planet to despair and disrepair?
Would glad Gaia turn glum and gummy, hot and haughty, turning once more to shrug off those lecherous leecherous crawlers and their clangorous claptrap?
Time would tell, but for now time wasn't telling.
Chronos the Third scratched at his lips, a scar, fused skin tight by a spell of silence cast by the Witch of Posiedon, shark mother and trident rider. He heel toes his way through the effervescence of stars fizzing in a cosmic gyre, kicking planetoid gravel into oblique orbits around Terra Noveau. Now low flung moons grazing the rock and pulling up water in spouts of seafoam. His quiet form, formidable and forsaken. He waits for no one.
Phenomenal essay and compilation. I expect I will get a lot our of your content.
These are in your wheelhouse,, my friend! They bring out your versatility.
I just read A Canticle for Liebowitz and the cover sure as 'ell wasn't as badass as THAT one.
Thank you for the book recommendations. Too kind.