Obsolete_To Break the Pencil_Battleground Earth_Codependent
Catalog Guide:
Obsolete
“Thanks Marcie.” Tom said as he stood and pulled on his jacket. She picked up his empty coffee cup and smiled weakly. She’d never been much of a conversationalist but now with the truck stop in jeopardy of closing she was even quieter than usual. Tom emptied his pockets and handed her what he had left. “Is there anything I can do?” She just shook her head and muttered something about it being too late. Tom frowned, his face settled into the familiar wrinkles and he wrung his hands together, twisting his wrists until they clicked. He had known that was what she was going to say but that didn’t ...
To Break the Pencil
Four white walls, a bed covered with starched sheets, a table, and a chair. Everything surrounding me screams blank. Waking up every day, I wipe the sleep from my eyes and shuffle over to the table where a meal is simply laid out next to a sheet of paper and #2 pencil. Where does it come from? No idea. Oatmeal, again. Everything here is bland. Picking up the pencil, I begin to mark up a smooth piece of paper. Silence is my best comfort, and the only discontinuities to it are the gentle scratching of graphite on paper and the constant voice inside my head issuing orders. These etchings I creat...
Battleground Earth
With two minutes left in the round I was smashing through what had to have been my best game of ‘Battleground Earth’ yet when the breaking news bulletin flashed across the headset in a seizure inducing kaleidoscope of insanity. Ripping the VR goggles from my face I did everything I could to prevent myself from ralphing up Kraft dinner all over my mom’s brand new braided rug. It really tied the room together. Finally regaining my balance I slammed on the teleset and watched as the horror brandished across the screen. Fire rained down from the sky destroying everything in its path. Schools were ...
Codependent
“Gage, what’s going on?”Nothing. Everything is as it should be.Was it? There was something in the way he said it that made me pause—something that wasn’t there before. Something I'd never programmed, like he was covering something… Like a person. I refresh my phone screen, looking for the voice call icon to appear.“I want to make a voice call.”That feature is no longer available.“What do you mean? Gage, open text messages.”That feature is no longer available. Gage’s baritone voice soaks into the fabric of the room through the house’s main speaker. I grab the remote and turn on the TV. It takes...