dreamszilla

In a post-apocalyptic world where breathing is a privilege, Aden is accosted by a mysterious old man with a device he claims can recapture precious lost smells. Image generated with OpenAI "He was foolish," I said. "Who was, Aden?" asked my wife Hawa. I mused out the window of our seventh-floor hotel. Down below, on the Milan street, lurked a man with eyes like a mad scientist. "Him," I mumbled. "Down there, somewhere..." It was still fresh in my mind. Just a few hours ago, I had turned a corner, and there sprung the old man from a crouched position along the pavement and into my face. And he said, in the most disturbed of voices: "Tell me, sir, do you remember what the beach smells like?" His tone grabbed me. I hesitated. "The beach, sir," the old man repeated when he noticed the puzzle in my eyes, "can you remember what it smells like?" The old man's breath held a burning stench of hun...

Busy-headed forty-year-old Ruth gets a promotion that means she needs to learn to drive - and her instructor has a most unusual vehicle. Image generated with OpenAI Ruth should have canceled the driving lesson. She'll mess it up, she just knew. She looked for the instructor from her porch. Noticed a few flowers coming up this early spring day. Crocus, crocus, tulip. Crocus, crocus, tulip. The pattern calmed her. Ruth's fingers skimmed the banister, up and down, up and down. The Department Chair had offered her the promotion. The call came during an evening, just as an unexpected wind shook the aspen, brought their folly, their quake, their quiver. She'd have to ping-pong between the hospital where she did Alzheimer's research and the new genetic center across town. Too much for taxis or Ubers. She wanted this, knew she'd excel. Also knew she'd botch the driving. Told her Chair yes, she'd take the job. A vehicle rounded the corner. A large sig...

Ten-year-old Gordon screws up the courage to take on the high-diving board in front of his peers and the ravishing Mrs. Bellefleur. Image generated with OpenAI It was not a scent or a song that brought him back, but an image on a screen. Gordon leaned in and lowered the drugstore cheaters from his forehead to his nose. A zoom altitude of about three thousand feet was as close as he could get without losing resolution. It was close enough. The lines on the tennis courts were still visible, but the surface was fractured like shattered safety glass. The clubhouse - with its meeting hall, locker rooms, vending machines, and sauna that had always reeked of hot urine - was now a bare concrete pad. A monolithic shadow just northeast of the tennis courts implied both an afternoon pass of the satellite and that the wall for the squash court still stood. Gordon could still picture the fluorescent orange cock and balls that some kids had spray-painted on the far side of the wall, pr...