dreamszilla

Mr. Ranjan is employed as a chaffeur for Vishwas and Malti Gupta, and tries to keep a professional distance, until Malti confides in him. Image generated with OpenAI When Malti slid into the back seat, Mr. Ranjan was fiddling with the knob of the heat regulator. The panel outlet blasted warm air into the expanse of the car, long enough for the windows to begin fogging up against the unceremonious arrival of a somber October evening. "I am afraid the heater's broken," Mr. Ranjan stated, rotating the dial back to zero as he put the black Honda in reverse and maneuvered out of the tight patch of gravel between two pickup trucks. "Let Vishwas know," Malti said and shifted in her seat - upholstery squeaking under her salwar -covered thighs - leaning into the window and peering out at the neighbourhood she had grown up in. "I will, Madam ji. Will Sir take the metro tonight?" Mr. Ranjan turned his head to look at Malti expectantly as he grasped the steering...

A new vending machine dispenses advice that changes the atmosphere in Nick's office. Image generated with OpenAI Cheese crackers, that was my thing. I braved the break room back in the day - the pushing, the crowding - just to claim a place in the vending machine line, waiting for my turn with the stainless steel god. Secret fact: never cared for the taste. Cheddar dust on a communion wafer. I was in it for the receipts. An advice junkie. Still got a stack in my desk drawer, folded soft at the corners like an old Bible. I didn't realize how out of control I was - how much of it wasn't even my idea - until I became something else. For years, the break room at Alignment Solutions Group wasn't a hotbed of vending machine commerce or life-altering wisdom. Just a break room: coffee machine, buzzing refrigerator, the tired smell of old food and boredom. I used to hang out back there when my crush was nuking her lunch. Moira kept her conversations short, like she was always ed...

A man goes to great lengths to avoid a dental procedure, and his dentist is unwillingly complicit. Image generated with OpenAI My dentist retired and Dr. Sorensen took over his practice. I went in for my cleaning and she told me unapologetically that my lower left second molar was cracked and that it needed a crown. "Can we just keep monitoring, and if it gets worse, we do the crown?" I asked. "We could, but it may crack completely and then you lose the whole tooth. Then we have to do an extraction, and put in a new tooth, which is much more drastic." "Oh," I said. "I don't do drastic." "OK. Then the crown is your safest bet." "What do you think caused the crack? I mean, I floss twice a day." "Typically it's caused by clenching. Maybe you clench or grind in your sleep, or when you work out, or just throughout the day. Type A people have underlying stress and clench, and after a while it wears down their teeth....

When a widowed father of two is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he is offered a futuristic experimental treatment that seems too good to be true. Image generated with OpenAI "Are you really going to shoot him, Bruce?" My wife's voice is a mere whisper, and I barely hear her implore; I can't focus on that right now. I stare down the sight of my Glock at Cal. Or whoever Cal has become - because the man I'm looking at is no longer my brother. The speckles of blood and dirt caked onto his flannel and jeans aren't the things that make him unfamiliar to me - I've seen him more covered in blood many a time during the course of our hunting outings - rather it's the cold, dead look in his eyes. I see the familiar person in front of me, but I don't know him anymore. I can't spare a look at Janna and the children; but in my peripheral I can see Sean and Ruth trembling within her grasp. Poor kids - they don't understand what has happened to their fath...