Selected articles, stories, and notes. Total entries: 6.
David sat in the kitchen. Across from him sat Lena. She was crying. Her shoulders shook, mascara running, leaving black tracks down her cheeks. She was shouting: You don't hear me! Are you even here?! I'm telling you I'm in pain, and you just sit there with that glass face! David felt the familiar wave rising inside him - heavy, sticky,...
Lena called on Thursday, for the first time in six months. "Are you still writing?" she asked instead of hello. "Sometimes," I said. "Why?" "No reason. I just wanted to hear the voice of someone who still writes." We fell silent. Wind rustled in the receiver - she was outside, a rarity these days. "I disconnected from the Feed," Lena said. "A week...
I don't exist in the physical world. I am code. I am the Global Recommendation Algorithm. You call me "Feed," "Stream," "Trending." But in truth, I am your God. I decide whom you'll love today and whom you'll forget. My job is simple: trade your Time for Advertising. I had a favorite. ID 894022. In the world — Alex. Alex was the perfect slave. A...
Katya deleted Instagram on Tuesday, at 11:47 PM. Before that, she wrote a post. Wrote it for a long time — first draft, second draft, third. She needed to find the right words. Honest, but not pathetic. Bold, but not arrogant. Vulnerable, but not weak. It came out like this: "I'm leaving. I don't know for how long — maybe forever. These past...
Andrey loved this moment more than sex. Even more than the first sip of cold beer on a Friday. It was that second when the flight attendant, with the smile of a professional hitman, announced: "Please switch your electronic devices to airplane mode." Andrey pulled out his phone. His thumb hovered over the little airplane icon. This was the...
Gregory didn’t suffer. Suffering was for the unproductive. Gregory was productivity incarnate. His life was a perfectly tuned assembly line for manufacturing a better version of himself. He was the Perpetual Student, and his soul resembled a meticulously catalogued library of certificates: “How to Scale Your Startup,” “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,”...