dreamszilla

Amina, a Muslim woman, attends an interfaith group and finds the rules of her faith challenged in an unexpected way. Image generated with OpenAI As a Muslim, it's not advised to be close with the opposite gender, especially the kind of closeness that edges into haram , that becomes zina , that ends in a reckless stumble into a hotel bed with white sheets that haven't been washed. I'm from Pakistan. We don't date there, at least not publicly. We date in ways our parents don't know, so they don't pry with questions about engagement or invite our partner's family over for chicken biryani or korma and all kinds of sweet mithai . I speak from secondhand experience with dating - I was never one of the rebellious ones. I was always wise enough to know how dangerous dating could be, especially when people talk about love like it's "self-consuming", "life-changing", "indescribable". Another thing I'd add to the lis...

An ex-convict suffers the aftereffects of a memory mixing experiment conducted on her while she was in prison. Image generated with OpenAI Zero sat in her normal spot on the park bench, watching the path out of the corner of her eye. She pretended to read but was unable to get through a single paragraph without stealing a glance at the park entrance and losing her place. She checked the time on her phone and drummed on the bench with her fingers. Fortunately, she didn't have to wait much longer. Zero heard the man's voice that was more familiar to her than any other voice in the world. The man said to his son, "We'll play for just a few minutes before you have to get started on your homework. But that's more than enough time for me to kick your butt." Zero smiled, knowing the boy's reply before he said it: "That's because you always call it when you're ahead." The dad responded, "I guess that means I'll have ple...

Colin Waverly tells the epic story of his father's shifty investment scheme, and what became of the capital. Image generated with OpenAI If word of it had ever spread, Father's tontine would most certainly have become the most famous in history. But it had been held the darkest of secrets until I learned of it just this past week. Outside of its participants, I may be the only one to know of its provenance. And its stunning conclusion. My name is Colin Waverly. My Father - God love him, he was a good one, but I hardly knew him - Richard Townshend Waverly, Dickie to his friends and colleagues, was the instigator of the Waverly Tontine. Thus its eponymous name. Tontine? I presumed you understood. It's, well, a cross between a wager and a life insurance policy, but isn't a life insurance policy, after all, nothing more than a wager? One by which you deign to be the sole beneficiary. What informed me of the Waverly Tontine was a wax-sealed, hand-written le...

A prison officer plans for Valentine's Day with his wife and daughter, but first must get through a challenging day at work. Image generated with OpenAI Ten years ago, Bob McClean killed his four-year old stepson Dakota for the insurance money, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He's been here ever since. We have other offenders who've killed a child, their own mostly. The baby wouldn't stop crying or the wife had it coming and the kid got in his way. Bob wasn't impulsive. When he bought the policy, he didn't tell Dakota's mom. He was running a scam involving churches at the time, had no fixed address. On the night Dakota died, he said, Dakota's mother had gone shopping, and he and Dakota were in their motel room, sitting up in bed, watching TV. Cars , Dakota's favorite show, was on. Bob fell asleep. When he woke Dakota was gone. Oh, he was frantic, he said, went running down the motel steps into the dark, crying. The EMTs ...

Novitiate Sym'An investigates an object descending from the sky that threatens to shatter the ideologies his world is built upon. Image generated with OpenAI Sym'An the Novice could not believe his eye. High in the Motherless orange sky, a strange object hung on lines from a floating overturned bowl. The lines looked a bit like spinners' ropes but even more delicate. The bowl appeared to be made of a membrane. Slowly descending, the object dropped behind a low ridge, trailing that membranous cup. Sym'An scuttled out of his small hermitage hovel, cut into the side of a dune, and made for the landing site as fast as his ten legs could carry him. It was the 100th day of Sym'An's wilderness fast among endless dunes and strewn rocks of an ancient seabed. How he wished the seabed was wet with life water. The fast had been long, and Sym'An was very thirsty. The sky was Motherless as the Holy Mother was not visible on this side of the world. There wa...