End of May

Even though I still suck at writing (as far as salability goes), I will keep trying. Here is an excerpt from one of several stories I am working on:

As the black helicopters closed in upon the house of the last Libertarian; the man, knowing of the coming doom, pushed himself furiously at the keyboard to finish the essay. The upload completed just as the cables to the battery shed were severed and his beloved computer died for the last time. Much kinetic energy was dumped into the man’s body as he suddenly died of lead poisoning. Dark clad, humanoid figures sprinkled controlled substances around the floors of the studio and living spaces of the remote homestead as incendiary devices began the work of oxidation catalyst to the vulnerable materials of wood, plaster, books, paper, plastic, and rubber.

“Today’s latest victory in the War on Drugs culminated in the death of suspected drug lord Algernon Southworth, of PacNW sector alpha.” On the vacuous screen, a video file buffers and the inset begins: a great billowing column of black smoke overshadows the tall dance of orange-yellow demons sucking life out of an old Victorian farmhouse…Another clip loads, “and in other news today, the Justice AI sentenced three bureau technicians to penal servitude on Orbital Satellite Two…”

“Shut it off, you’ll wake the children,” snapped a tired edgy voice.

“Shhh, I think I knew that guy,” returned Keith as mute appeared over the ticker-line of market performance metrics, and the closed captioning activated. “Jane, I worked with that guy several years ago and…”

“If the children wake up and start crying again,” Jane whispered, “the block captain will be all over our asses…”

“Yes, of course you are right,” sighed Keith as he remembered that verbal flogging he had received from Olga about some of the neighbors' complaints against the children—it was just hard to keep things quiet with four children under age five and a deaf mother with whom one had to shout at to communicate, all crammed into a one bedroom apartment.

“But you know Jane, old Al was right about what would happen to our standard of living after the policies of Obama, Biden, and Ms. Clinton and all their flunkies in Congress had taken root…”

“Keith, I’m sick of hearing about politics—let’s just go to sleep,” interrupted Jane. Keith lay fretting as he thought about all the Americans that had been asleep the last twenty years. “You’ve got that interview tomorrow,” mumbled Jane as she drifted off to sleep. Yep, big number 400—maybe this will be the job, mused Keith as he too drifted off to sleep. The com-screen noting the lack of attention dropped itself into stand-by mode.