STORIES

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The endless challenge of finding our tribe

Cliffside housing

Being an unknown writer has advantages, one of which for me is creative freedom. If you are an emerging artist or writer, maybe you know what I mean. Being unknown means our art is free to burble up or geyser forth as it will. We can gleefully pursue detours and plunge down rabbit holes without fear of judgment or pressure. We bestow our creativity upon the world with a naive joy, with no expectation that we will ever find an audience for our work.

Most of us would like to find an audience, don’t get me wrong. Recognition for our contribution is a human need. However, many of us will have to settle for the adulation of our friends and family. That’s been the case for me, more or less. Not all my friends and family have praised me without feeling compelled to fix my grammar. Still, I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Imagine how difficult it must be for the author or artist who has one successful book or one well-attended show. What then? Is this the beginning of a career? Or the end of something that never actually began?

I have lots of ideas. Ideas has never been the problem for me. As a child, I spattered reams of notebook paper with cheap Bic pens. I was a writing maniac. Who cares about plot or character development! The goal was to bring forth the stories in my head, like sewing the parachute as I’m jumping out of the plane. It was a compulsion.

Now, I’m old. I realize that if I want recognition for my work, I need to join the grown-up world of marketing and promotion. I’m embarrassed to admit, I hate marketing. I hate promotion. The idea of posting regularly to social media makes me want to live under a rock in the desert. The day my cell phone died was one of the happiest days in recent memory. It’s ironic that I got a graduate degree in marketing, as if more knowledge was the answer.

Knowledge is useful, but not sufficient. The compulsion to write is necessary, but not sufficient. The essential ingredient is a willingness to become visible. From there, willingness leads to action. When we take action, the universe has something to respond to. In other words, when we take action, consequences can occur.

I talked to an artist recently about a children’s book series she wanted to self-publish. She described her project and her goals. I thought it sounded great. Then she said, “I want to publish anonymously.”

We talked about writing under a pseudonym. Lots of writers choose pennames, it’s nothing new, we agreed. They publish through a traditional publisher and manage to keep their real names hidden, sometimes for years.

“How would it work if you are your own publisher?” I asked. “How would you maintain the separation between your publisher self and your anonymous writer self?”

We tried to imagine how it would work. “It might be hard to go on book tours or do bookstore signings,” I said.

“I could wear a wig and sunglasses,” she said.

“You could wear a paper bag over your head, like the unknown comic,” I laughed, getting a blank stare in return.

Even though I knew it would be virtually impossible to promote a book series anonymously without the support and deep pockets of a traditional publisher, I encouraged her to give it a try. We brainstormed for a while longer. When we hung up the video call, I don’t think either one of us was feeling optimistic.

As a marketer, I know selling anything—books, art, ideas, causes—is all about finding the right target audience and communicating to them a message that says I understand your problem and I have the solution. However, as an author, I hope she figures out a way that works. If I could earn money from selling my books without having to do the actual chore of marketing, I would.

Who is my tribe? People like me. Demographically, we are older, female, probably White, and middle income. Psychographically, we are looking for an escape into some happier, funnier, more colorful world where blood and guts and sex are left on the doorstep. A community of quirky characters, none of whom is truly a villain, all of whom are endearingly human. A land of low dread.

Where do we hang out, these older gals bent on escape from reality? In our caves, if I’m any example. We don’t tend to coalesce in groups much, at least not groups centered on cozy fantasy magical mystery novels. We might be serving in the PTA or in a Twelve Step program or as a union steward at our job. We probably don’t know each other. You might pass me in the grocery store, and I would not know you are a member of my tribe. You might have written a cozy fantasy novel too, and I would never know! Oh, the humanity.

How do I find you? How do you find me? Maybe I’ll see you perusing the sci-fi fantasy section at our local library or independent bookstore. Hey, it could happen. You could hand me your book (assuming it is there on the shelf). I could hand you mine (assuming the same thing). We would smile that special smile to say I see you. And then, having taken a quick reluctant breath of reality, we would dive back into our fantasy worlds.

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You fail at (the writing) life

A month or so ago I had the bright idea to write and publish something every day on this website. You could consider them blogposts. WordPress does. I called them “stories,” although they are more like scenes. Musings. Upchuckings. Call them what you want, I don’t care. The point is, what I’ve learned (and what you probably already know) is that showing up to write daily is damn difficult. Even the unpolished drivel I’m posting. I can only guess how hard would be if I actually cared about plot, character, punctuation, and typos.

What was I thinking? I must have been out of my mind. I blithely made a commitment to publish something daily without really imagining what it was going to feel like to follow through. In fact, I thought I could keep it up for an entire year. My friend Christy used the term “ass in seat,” and I thought, I can do that. I have an ass. I have a seat, more or less, not a chair by most definitions, but definitely a place to put my ass. How hard can it be?

I am embarrassed.

I pride myself on not being a quitter. I’ve worked hard in the past twenty years to do what I say I’m going to do. It’s a matter of personal integrity. When I enrolled in graduate school, I wasn’t sure I could finish, but once I was committed (eight years of sunk costs scraping my brain daily), I knew failure was not an option. I put my head down and white-knuckled my way through to the phinish line. I wish now I hadn’t done it, but it’s done, and even though the university I attended no longer exists, I still earned that stupid degree.

It’s silly to be so self-obsessed. I know nobody else is keeping track. They are much too busy with their own lives to pay attention to my failures. I think if I were to break into two for a moment and pretend like I’m having a dissociative identity crisis, I would pat myself on the back and say “Well done, Carol, for showing up for the work.”

And I would say, “Well, thanks, Carol. I wish I’d done better.”

And then I would tell myself, “You can, and you will, if you keep practicing. Don’t forget your writer friends who keep their stories locked inside them because they are too afraid of making a fool of themselves by publishing something that isn’t ready.”

At that point, I would look askance at myself (is my hair really that gray?) and wonder if that was a passive aggressive way of telling me I’m making a fool of myself by publishing things that aren’t ready.

And my alter ego would hasten to reassure me: “No, no, it’s all about practice! You are practicing the writing life, every day. It’s not about quality, it’s about quantity.”

“Thanks, I think,” I would say and mope around for a bit.

It’s been an experience. No, let’s call it an experiment. I’m glad I tried it. I learned a few things about myself, mainly that writing is a one-day-at-a-time endeavor and tomorrow is out of my hands, no matter how minutely I plan my day. It’s okay to have goals but managing outcomes is beyond me.

All that aside, the truth is, I need to get back to my writing projects. I have the first draft of a book almost ready (my shameless attempt at earning money by telling other people how to earn money—hey, other people do it, why can’t I?) It’s a slogfest of all I’ve learned as a mentor. I hope this book will help many more artists figure out how to sell their art. As a somewhat unique weirdo squatting at the uncomfortable intersection of art and business, I think I can help. Coming soon to KDP in 2024, which is actually two days from now. Hoo boy.

The book that is burning a hole in my brain is the third book of my Seamier Side of Magic trilogy. I hope I can get it onto paper before I die. Frak needs to find her path, and Stan needs rescuing! I can’t write all that in one blogpost.

The writing life continues. What else is there?

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A different future

The three adolescents from City climbed with some difficulty on the fence and peered at the farmer weeding his garden with a long-handled tool. He paused for a long moment and then acknowledged them with a nod.

“What’s wrong with his face?” Cinda whispered to Teacher Mills, puffing a little.

“That’s sweat,” Teacher Mills said. “Remember the biology lesson? Humans used to have sweat glands that reacted to exertion and heat. Paul, please don’t poke at that thing.”

“This doesn’t feel like plastic,” Minnie said, rubbing the fence with her fingers.

Paul held out a finger. “It’s not, stupid. It’s wood. Look, here’s an insect.”

Minnie shrieked and fell off the fence into the grass. She rolled around a bit, playing up the drama for Paul’s benefit. She knew he had a smash on her. Finally when she’d milked it for all she could, she sat up and wiped her hands on her bulging plastic body suit. “Ew, is this . . . real grass? This place is disgusting.”

“What’s he doing now?” Cinda pointed at the farmer.

Teacher Mills looked up from her tablet. “Farmer Wilson is placing seeds into the ground.”

“Why is he doing that?”

Paul turned on Cinda. “Didn’t you read the lesson? That’s how they used to grow food in the pre-times. Seeds went into holes in the dirt. Then plants came out and people ate them.”

Minnie climbed back onto the fence next to Cinda. “Grossly disgusting,” Minnie murmured. “I hope I don’t end up working in Indigenous Mitigation. I really don’t care to learn about disgusting twenty-first century farming methods.”

“We go where Government puts us, Minnie,” said Teacher Mills. “Government knows best.” She put her tablet in her shoulder bag. “It’s time to walk back to the transport station, where Farmer Ames has a gift for each of you. Wave goodbye to Farmer Wilson.” The children waved to the farmer. He offered a half-wave, mainly for Teacher Mills, and resumed his work.

“Ungrateful indigenous hickster,” Minnie muttered. “His stupid farm would be a wasteland without our patronage.”

“Now, now, let’s remember our upbringing,” Teacher Mills said. “Not everyone is as privileged as you. Now, get walking, come on, move those arms and legs, that’s it, my little butterballs. Your ancestors used to travel by foot all the time. They didn’t have intercellular transport systems.”

“You mean, they . . . walked everywhere?” Cinda said in horror.

Paul pulled her hair fountain as he waddled past her. “We saw it on the vid screen. Thin people walking, looking like almost dead skeletons. And riding big animals with four legs.”

“Horses, those were called,” Teacher Mills said. “We still have some on the farm. Come on, keep moving. Deep breaths, take in the clean fresh country air. Doesn’t it smell sweet?”

Cinda coughed. “I smell something nasty.”

Teacher Mills laughed. “That would be manure from the dairy creatures. Cows, we call them.”

The children screamed and lumbered up the dirt road toward the safe haven of the silver-clad transport station. Teacher Mills followed, laughing. The farmer in the field leaned on his hoe, wiped sweat off his brow with a dirty hand, and watched her go.

The children stood in the transport room, inhaling the familiar chemical odors, panting from the climb up the road. Cinda pointed at a large container made of some strange wickery wood material on the counter. “What is that? That wasn’t there when we arrived.”

“You may each take one home as a souvenir of your field trip to the farm.”

Minnie bent over the container and peered at the round red objects inside. “Ew. Smells funny. What are these things?”

“They are called apples.”

Paul poked one object with a tentative finger. “They don’t look like any apples I’ve ever seen.”

“This is how food used to look, Paul, “Teacher Mills said. “Before it was processed and fed to you in hygienic packets.”

“How do you know all this disgusting information?” Minnie said, backing away from the basket of apples.

“I used to live on a farm,” Teacher Mills said. “I worked the land that belonged to my ancestors before I was conscripted to teach in City Gamma. You might not believe this, but your generation is not so far removed from the land. Only a few decades ago, your ancestors were able to bite into this skin and get at the sweet juicy pulp inside. Like this.” She flashed white teeth at them, hefted a shiny red apple, and bit into it.

Cinda swooned onto the floor. Minnie and Paul dragged her limp body into the transport. The door closed. The machine hummed. The children were gone.

Teacher Mills finished the apple and started another. After a short while, Farmer Wilson joined her. They sat on a bench, dropping apple cores on the tile floor, and discussed ways to destroy the silver gate.

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Safety in numbers

“At the end of the twenty-second century, scientists resurrected the predator species. I’m referring to the Jurassic Period ancestors of the various land, air, and sea predators we live with today. Humans, especially in the area formerly known as America, had not developed survival strategies to cope with new threats. Look at these examples.” Professor GHY690 pointed at the light screen in front of the classroom, scanning the faces of the students to make sure all eyes were uniformly focused.

TIG457 raised its hand. “I read humans actually tried to make themselves stand out from the pack. Can you believe it?”

“Death wish!” snorted JKZ764, who looked exactly like TIG457 except for the large label attached to the front of its robe.

The Professor nodded. “Some cultures were used to thinking collectively, for example, some cultures from the former Southeast Asian countries. That cultural characteristic made them more adaptable when the predators emerged. Early Americans, in contrast, were used to thinking of themselves as the top of the food chain. When the predators came, they didn’t fare so well.”

“Did you read that part about branking?” JKZ764 said.

“I think you mean branding,” TIG457 laughed. “Professor, what is branding? I didn’t understand it. It’s almost like they wanted to stand out! That can’t be true, can it?”

“Branding was a cultural phenomenon applied to people and organizations at the time. Yes, it is hard to understand now, but people actually intentionally cultivated a ‘personal brand’ as a way of differentiating themselves from their competition.”

“What happened to them?”

“The predators seem to prefer the prey on the fringes of the herd. When all members of the species look the same, individual members can evade detection. Over the generations, the humans who stood out were picked off by the predators. You recall the Theory of Evolution from our previous lesson. We are the ones who survived, and we continue to survive by conforming.”

“I read they used to wear all different things and wear their hair different from each other!” said KLL520 from the back row. “And they had more than one . . . you know what.”

“Gender?” the Professor said. The students flinched in their seats. “Yes, you are correct. Prior to gene editing, there was wide variation in human DNA. In fact, that variation used to be a competitive advantage, until the predators were resurrected in the Grand Mistake. Fortunately those same scientists who brought back the predators were able to revise human DNA so that all members now look exactly the same.”

“Hardly makes up for their error,” muttered VCK635.

The students sitting nearby pounded the tables.

“What?” VCK635 said. “Life must have been fun back then. They had sex.”

VCK635’s classmates rose up with a collective roar and took turns punching VCK635 in an orderly fashion until it lay curled up on the floor under the desk, bleeding from the nose and ears.

“Self-expression,” the Professor said. “Still the surest way to die.”

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Repelling pests and vermin

On this slow afternoon between Christmas and New Year’s, Brad was bored. When a stylish woman came through the automatic doors and headed toward the barbeque gas grills, Brad stopped leaning on the paint counter and followed, hot on her trail.

From behind she looked pretty good, for a woman no longer young but not yet middle-aged. Younger than his ex, he guessed. He admired her trim figure and wondered if she dated older men.

Brad smoothed his orange apron and trailed in her wake. Chances are good I’ll make quota, he thought. He prided himself on his customer service skills, honed over many years working at Lind’s Home Base. He could sell lumber and nails to any contractor who walked through the door, no matter what language they spoke. For the ladies, he knew just what kind of carpet they would order or what size plastic bin they would choose to store their leftover Christmas decorations. I bet you’d like a green lid, he would guess, and they always flirted back, especially the over-sixty crowd.

Brad was a little surprised when the customer walked past the barbeques and garden implements without a glance, aiming for the wall of repellents. Aha, he guessed. She had some critters eating up her aloe vera plants. She stopped and stared up at the wall of plastic bottles, cans, traps, sprays, and devices designed to repel various unwanted pests.

Brad stopped behind her. “Happy new year, Miss, help you find something?”

The woman turned. Brad felt skewered by blue eyes and an expression he could not decipher. Was she angry, or was she scared? He had a sneaking hunch he knew what she was looking for, but he wanted to avoid bringing up any sensitive subjects. People didn’t wander the repellent aisle for entertainment.

“Let me guess, say no more, trouble with moles, am I right?”

She stared at him a long moment before responding. “Well, no, no moles. I live in an apartment. No garden.” She turned back to peruse the wall of poisons in front of her.

Brad smacked his head. “No, say it isn’t so! Roaches? That’s the pits, but so common here in desert apartment buildings. Almost impossible to get rid of entirely without going nuclear. But this spray is the next best thing. Works for three months, no odor, safe for pets.”

The woman narrowed her eyes. “No trouble with cockroaches, uh, Brad . . . at least not of the nonhuman kind. Or mice. Or flies. Let’s see, what else? I currently seem to be safe from mosquitoes. No trouble with deer eating my lettuce or cats peeing in my cabbages. Lucky me. No, I’m looking for something in particular. . . . There. That’s it. Something like that.”

Brad squinted at the silver spray cans at the end of the aisle.

“Oh, these? A very new product line, not sure how well they work, to be honest. Very expensive, possibly toxic.”

“Nothing could be more toxic than the creep I want to use it on,” the woman said. She pointed at a can on the highest shelf. “That one, please. Can you reach it?”

Brad stretched and brought it down to eye level. He read the product name out loud. “Creep Repellent. For use on current and former spouses and partners. Are you sure this is what you want?”

The customer nodded. “Quite sure. As long as it is not lethal. I don’t want to kill him. I just want him to leave me alone. This should do the trick, along with all the other tactics I have deployed. Boric acid. Patchouli incense. Tofu. Feminine hygiene products in plain view. Let me see the instructions. So . . . it says I should spray this around all entrances to my apartment. Oh, and my car as well. Right, that makes sense.”

“I’ve seen the TV commercials,” Brad admitted. “Well, when I’m not fastforwarding through them. I mean, I gave up cable, too expensive.

The woman gave him a genuine smile. She had nice even white teeth. Brad felt a little surge of hope. He took a step closer. She backed up and took the cap off the spray can.

“Shall we test it out?” she said, holding the can up with her finger on the button.

Brad backed away with a polite cough. “I hope he gets the message.”

“He will. And if that doesn’t work, I have my new best friend with me, locked and loaded at all times.” She patted her purse.

“Self-checkout is over that way.”

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Year end reflection on writing a story a day

My sister said
a poem can’t be a blogpost
I said ya wanna bet
watch me and I wrote
a poem and published it
as a blogpost

The thought of writing
another godawful story
makes me want to
puke although it could be
the blue corn tortilla chips
I ate for dinner

The new windows
keep out the yips of coyotes
and roars of muscle cars
They also keep in all the
noises and smells of
the other occupants
of the house

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News from Hollywood

Hollywood, CA. Celebrities who have fallen on hard times often sell memorabilia collected over their careers. In recent months, a new trend seems to have overtaken Hollywood. The rich and famous who are not quite as rich and famous as they once were have recently resorted to a rather dramatic ploy (by Western standards) to improve their financial condition. They have taken to auctioning off their children.

“I needed to raise money fast,” said one celebrity L.A. mom who hid her face in a paper sack in order to remain anonymous. “I auctioned off my youngest to a very nice family in the Hancock-adjacent area, very nice house, with a pool and everything. I’m sure Junior will be quite happy there, especially knowing he helped Mommy pay off her mortgage and get out of credit card debt.”

Before you get too excited about bidding on the offspring of your favorite movie stars, you should know certain rules apply. For example, you aren’t allowed to resell the children into any form of slavery. You aren’t allowed to have sex with them. (You aren’t allowed to abuse your own children, either, but that law doesn’t seem to stop anyone). In addition, you are prohibited from using them for reptile feed. In other words, you have to be willing to provide a stable and respectful if not loving home for them until they are eighteen, at which time you are free to eject them from your care.

If the prospect of raising the child of a famous movie personality excites you, you should also know the stock for the most rich and famous offspring is severely limited. As we all know from the laws of supply and demand, when there is a limited supply of something everyone wants, the prices will tend to rise. We have been informed, for example, that bidding for the children of Beyonce will begin at one billion dollars. Each. However, you can find quite affordable children if you are willing to settle for second- or third-tier kids from celebrities such as Gary Busey and politicans such as Donald Trump, should additional underage children come to light.

Why would you want to bid on celebrity children? Mainly for status, polls show. People think it would be cool to own a child of Bradley Cooper, for example. You could dress it up and parade it around town. Of course, the social media publicity opportunities are limitless. And, as people often have noted, just because you can’t resell them or have sex with them doesn’t mean you can’t put them to work for you. So far, celebrity kids are learning about farming, meat packing, baby sitting, and truck driving, to name just a few character-building occupations. Marvin Ritter from Portland, Oregon, said, “It’s akin to renting out goats to clear blackberries off vacant land.”

Some successful bidders have found their investment paying off within several years.

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Talking to the other side

Sid stood in line with a dozen people waiting for his turn to speak with the dead. Now that he was here, bundled up against the winter chill in the shadow of the tall exchange building, he was starting to have regrets. He talked to his mother often, but only in his head, which had always been much safer than talking with her in person. However, the Living-Dead Exchange had been running a Christmas Eve special, and so here he was, kind of wishing he were kicking back in his apartment watching some old movie on TV. He thought it might be better if the old lady kept on resting in peace, or pieces, as the case may be.

He noticed people who went in did not come out. He mentioned it to the gray-haired woman in line behind him. In her arms she carried a small white dog in a red vest. “They go out a different door,” she said, motioning with her head around the corner of the building. “The Exchange doesn’t want anyone to see them. I’ve seen pictures. It’s not pretty.”

“Who are you here to see?” Sid asked.

“My sister,” she said. “This is her dog. I thought he might like to hear her voice. A Christmas gift for the little bugger. I think he’s depressed.”

“Hope you get a good connection,” Sid said politely.

“Your turn, kid,” she said, nodding. He turned to find the guard at the door beckoning impatiently.

“Register at the front desk,” the guard pointed. “Someone will escort you to the phones.”

Sid filled out the forms, paid the money, which still seemed exorbitant, even with the discount. After signing a stack of disclosures and waivers, he followed a uniformed woman with a long blonde ponytail along a dark wood-paneled corridor. He paused to run his hand along the smooth surface, marveling at the workmanship evident in the cornices and railings.

“Is this the original phone exchange?”

“It sure is, didn’t you read the brochure? Built in 1878, Cincinnati’s first, and the tenth in the nation.”

“They don’t build like this anymore,” Sid said. They walked the length of a long wall taken up by the switchboard. Short wooden walls divided the wall into cubicles, which were all full of visitors wearing headphones, sitting on wooden stools facing the wall.

“Fire trap, you ask me. Here’s your seat, Sir.” She stopped next to the only empty stool. On the narrow ledge in front of the stool was a large pair of somewhat modern-looking headphones. The girl pointed. “Put on the headphones when you are ready. Think of the person you would like to speak with, and then plug the jack into the hole that appears.”

“That’s it?” Sid said, but she was gone. He sat on the stool. The seat swiveled underneath him. He clutched at the desk and straightened himself out. He put on the headphones. Too big. A faraway roaring came through, but nothing distinct. As he fiddled with the headphone size, he noticed a digital timer counting down his time. He had fourteen minutes left to make the call.

Sid picked up the long cord with the jack on the end and waited for a hole to appear. The roaring in the headphones reminded him of a childhood trip to the seaside with his family. The rushing and receding of the waves, the piercing cries of seagulls wheeling overhead as he and his three brothers threw bits of stale bread into the wind. Mom had been upset with Dad for some reason, he recalled. Still, it had been a great trip.

The visitor in the cubicle next to him suddenly burst into tears and ran for the exit, still wearing her headset. Sid turned back to the switchboard. Time to talk to Mom, he thought. To his surprise, three holes had appeared when he wasn’t looking. He scanned for some help, but no one in a uniform was visible. The visitor on the other side of him was hunched over, making moaning noises.

Sid noticed the cord in his hand now had three jacks on the end, one for each hole. He only had one mother, as far as he knew. With some trepidation he plugged in the three jacks, closed his eyes, and listened.

The sounds of the ocean came in clearer, then voices moving closer.

“Sidney!”

“Vince?” Sid said. “Wait, you aren’t . . . what the hell? Are you . . . dead?”

“Yeah, didn’t anyone tell you? Those cowards.”

“Hey, who you calling a coward?” came another familiar voice.

“Tony?” Sid and Vince said at the same time. Sid felt his stomach drop. It’s not like they had been close after they grew up and left home, but he’d just assumed, he’d never imagined . . . two of his brothers were apparently dead! “What happened to you guys?”

“And me, too, don’t forget me,” said a third voice.

“Bill?” Sid groaned. “Oh, no. All you guys are dead?”

“Guess so, if you are talking to us on that thing. Wow, I didn’t know I was dead until just now. I’m kinda pissed off, tell you the truth. I guess I took that turn too fast one too many times.”

“Sorry, Bill. I know you really liked that truck,” Tony said. “Me, I had cancer. I didn’t want to say anything, you guys were all so busy. It was quick. Vince, what happened to you?”

“I’m embarrassed to say, I choked on a fish sandwich on my way home from the Sea Shanty,” Vince said. “They found me in a ditch. Of course, the five beers probably didn’t help.”

“Wow. I don’t know what to say. I had no idea you were all dead. I haven’t seen you all since Mom’s funeral. Nobody said a thing. No cards, nothing. Now I’m the only one left?”

“Enjoy what’s left, Bro. Your turn will come soon enough,” said Vince.

“I hope Mom left you some money,” Tony chuckled. “She didn’t leave me nothing. Stupid old bat. I wonder how she’s doing. We don’t hear nothing from anyone else over here. It’s pretty quiet. Peaceful, you could say.”

“Well, to be honest, I was kind of hoping to talk to Mom tonight,” Sid said. “But I got you guys instead. I’m glad. I wasn’t really looking forward to talking to her on Christmas Eve. She would ask me if I had a tree.”

“Right! And a girlfriend!” They all laughed.

“I was hoping we could get together sometime next year, maybe go to the beach like we did when we were kids.”

“I remember that trip,” Tony said. “We had a great time, didn’t we?”

“Sorry we didn’t get around to making it happen, Sid,” Vince said. “It would have been fun.”

“Go take that trip, Bro,” Bill said. “Feed some seagulls and think of us.”

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Truth telling in living color

artistic face with big eyes

“Somewhere in the middle of this century, some scientist cat in Des Moines was having some fun with a CRISPR experiment. Something got out of hand, and within two generations, all the babies born in the U.S. had the cuttlefish gene that caused their skin to change color according to their emotions.”

Mr. Wilson sat on the edge of his desk and surveyed the class, trembling slightly. He had cerebral palsy, but nobody cared about that, even though some students had wondered why he didn’t get gene therapy. They liked his mop of dense black hair, and they thought his heavy rimmed black glasses were sort of cool in a retro way, but the fact that his skin remained a pasty gray color meant they never knew what he was feeling, an unfortunate characteristic many of his students found upsetting enough to give him poor evaluations at the end of the year. For today’s teenagers, not seeing a person’s emotions on their skin was like being deaf and blind.

“Is that why my grandparents are not full color?” asked Misty. Her face, neck, and arms lit up like a neon sign, rippling from pink to yellow to orange and back to pink again. She glanced at Matt, her current wanna-be conquest to make sure he was watching. He was, judging by the blues and browns flowing across his stubbly chin and neck. Boys could not hide their lust, any more than girls could hide their desire for conquest.

“Your grandparents were first-gen color, I’m guessing,” Mr. Wilson said. His head bobbled as he carefully stood up. The students blinked with shades of lavender and gray and held their collective breath to see if he would lose his balance. He looked around the classroom. “All of you have color,” he observed. “So you must be third-gen, at least.”

“Why don’t you, Mr. Wilson?” asked Doug, the high school’s star football player. “I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.” He glanced at Misty. His face was a hopeful mix of green and brown, like a patchy lawn. However, they had had a nasty breakup, and she was done with Doug, judging by the angry cerulean that flushed across her cheeks.

“I applied for gene editing,” Mr. Wilson said. “But because of the cerebral palsy, I was rejected. They said it wouldn’t work.”

“But Mr. Wilson, what if you have a kid with someone colored?” asked Gretchen, blushing bright orange. She hardly ever talked in class. “I mean, would that kid look like you or like your wife?”

Mr. Wilson looked at the class for a long moment, head nodding. “You probably don’t know this, but I am married to a woman with the cuttlefish gene. Our first child is parti-colored. Her skin looks like confetti pretty much all the time. She can’t adjust it. She has to wear makeup and go to a special school. She was the lucky one. Our second child did not receive the gene at all.”

The class gasped in horror. A range of hues strobed across their faces.

“What happened to it . . . ?” someone dared to ask.

“We had to put him in a special home. A place that takes care of kids like him, kids who can’t express themselves with color. He’s ten now. He is learning to communicate his feelings using words, the same way I had to learn.”

“I can’t imagine not being able to see what my friends and family are feeling,” Misty said thoughtfully. “That must be really hard for you.”

Mr. Wilson smiled. “I’ll bring him to class tomorrow. You can meet him yourself. It’s good for you to get used to seeing people who can’t easily express their feelings. I’m not the only person without the cuttlefish gene. You might end up falling in love with someone like me, who knows?”

The entire class shuddered and lit up with a range of colors, mostly alternating shades of puce, chartreuse, and periwinkle, as the horror of that prospect sank in.

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Expiration date

“Scientists have been able to predict death dates using artificial intelligence since the early 2020s. In the past few decades, the techniques have been refined. Now we all know the exact date of our death. Now, the question is, how do you want to live your life until your expiration date arrives. I encourage you to ponder this question, because time will soon be running out. Thank you for your attention.”

The class applauded as Sam crumpled his report and walked back to his seat. He tossed the paper in his backpack. “Why are you clapping? Some of us are set to expire soon.” Sam said. “Sheila, why are you still here? You’re almost expired.”

“My parents said they would pay me extra for doing my own death cleaning if I got a good grade in social studies,” Sheila said, glancing meaningfully at Miss Robson, who sat at her desk in the front corner of the classroom.

Miss Robson stood up. “Let’s get through these news article reports, and then we’ll worry about grades. Come on, we soldier on until the end, that is the rule. Who is next?”

“Me,” said Maya, raising her hand. “I’m not expiring until 2080! I have plenty of time to do stuff.”

“2080? You’ll only be forty or so when you die,” Sam scoffed. “You should live to be at least eighty. We all should. That’s how it used to be. Some people died younger, but most people lived a long time. Now hardly anyone lives beyond sixty. At least, not anyone in our neighborhood.”

“Eighty!” Maya laughed. “What would I do with myself for all those years! Listen, my article is about the Great Pandas that used to live in the region formerly known as The People’s Republic of China, now called the Hegemony of Earth Overlords.”

Maya stopped talking when Sam stood up. “Haven’t you guys ever wondered why the rich people live twice as long as poor people? The expiration system is rigged in their favor.”

Miss Robson launched herself out of her chair, waving her arms. “None of that talk, Sam, nobody heard you say that. We have laws for a reason. Now, sit down. If everyone lived to be eighty, there’d be no room left on the planet, did you ever think about that?”

“All the time,” Sam muttered as Maya continued with her report.

After class, several students accosted Sam on the way to the bike rack. One of them was Maya. “Everyone knows your ex-date, Sam,” she said. “You’re just a sore loser. We’re going to beat the crap out of you now.”

They punched him in the face a few times and went away. Sam stanched the blood and rode his bike home, knowing what he would find. Sure enough, his mother’s things were packed in cardboard boxes, ready for repurposing. His father sat on the couch, looking lost. Sam sat on the couch next to him and held his hand.

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