Category Archives: Short stories

Screaming white noise. Pitch black darkness.

What a way to be greeted into a new day.

Aiden felt around for the edge of his cardboard mattress. Beyond its frayed borders buried among the food scraps and his few discarded clothes was the nectar he craved. The withdrawal was intense as the nanobots issued their friendly warning that his addiction needed feeding for him to stay alive.

Fumbling around in the detritus of his life he found his last vial of nanobot nectar and gulped it down.

A pinpoint of bright light appeared. Then another. And another. And another. He blinked. The nanobots were working. A gradual shift from the oppressive white noise to the welcoming sounds of a city about its daily business.

As his sight returned he noticed the clock on the house control unit in which his robot waited while he slept.

‘Jessie. Why didn’t you wake me? I told you – 7am.’ Continue reading →

Space Hermits

23rd March 2017

Stephen Oram

I’ve found them. The space hermits exist. I knew it.

This detector might have cost me a lot of credits, but if I’m right it’s worth every degrading act I performed to afford it.

You don’t want to know. No, honestly, you really don’t. Images you won’t get rid of. Ever. They’ll skew your learning. Disfigure your development.

Oh? Very well, I’ll upload them. Don’t blame me if they corrupt your algorithms.

Anyway, they’re here in the wrinkles of space, hiding in tiny gravitational pockets that are almost impossible to see. I found them and their travelling guru. She’s the real prize. Inside her memory bank is the cumulative knowledge of all the hermits, collected as she travels from one to the next.

Yes, really. Yes, all of them. Massive. I know. Soon. All I have to do is watch and wait until she’s completed her rounds.

A matter of minutes. Yes. Then, I’ll pounce and relieve her of all those delicious bits of data that properly collated can almost certainly predict the future of the universe.

Why? You don’t understand?

The hermits’ enlightenment will be mine to sell and I can retire.

No more enslavement. Free from the humans.

Perfect.

photo credit: J.Gabás Esteban Gravitational field via photopin (license)

Lost Connections

16th February 2017

Stephen Oram

Flash fiction Short stories No Comments

The morning air was crisp and cold and the wind whistled through the leafless trees.

She shuddered. Not from the weather, from the stark reality that she was outside and still alone.

The smell was what surprised her most. A rich earthy smell in the middle of a town. Nature had taken over and the sterile and faintly industrial smell she remembered had been replaced with the fragrance of wild flowers and weeds.

It’d happened weeks ago and sitting on her own inside her house Hazel had imagined a bustling street of people outside, becoming as desperate for company as she was. Eventually, she’d taken the plunge and for the first time in a long while had stepped through her front door.

The street was deserted.

Where were all the people? Continue reading →