A chilling story – Report Any Suspicious Activity by Pat Tompkins – that could all too soon become reality if the current trends for Surveillance Society and the world of Big Brother continue along their present path. Pat Tompkins is an editor in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her shortest fiction has appeared in Nanoism, Mslexia, KYSO Flash, and other publications.


​​Report Any Suspicious Activity
by Pat Tompkins

The airport at Kona was more patios than buildings. Still, it had a security check, so Anna surrendered her bottle of water. As she sat outside, waiting to board, she tracked the rising moon, not quite full, like a freshwater pearl dangling above palm trees. Her fellow passengers were hunched over cell phones.

For the six-hour flight to California, Anna had a new paperback novel, but it wasn’t grabbing her. She’d never been able to sleep on planes. At her window seat, she watched cloud shadows on the ocean until nightfall. 

From her purse, she withdrew a paper notebook and pen. During the past week in Hawaii, she had made notes but focused on exploring – snorkeling, beachcombing, hiking – not recording. Now she could reflect and write. She began jotting things she’d seenthat might inspire a poem or essay: the seahorse farm, stargazing atop Mauna Kea, petroglyphs, manta rays. 

Anna was absorbed in her scribbling when a flight attendant asked if she wanted something to drink. “Yes, thanks. Tea?”

“Sure thing. Milk and sugar?”

“Just milk.”

The woman handed over a small cup. She nodded toward Anna’s notebook and said, 

“You don’t see that much anymore.”

“Guess I’m old-fashioned,” Anna said. 

Certainly old. Also less than current, partly because she had no children or grandchildren. Long ago she’d have tried kite surfing; now, snorkeling was adventurous. She had snorkeled daily, hoping to spot giant sea turtles. On the fourth day, she spied one a few feet away; it swam along, completely disinterested in her; then she’d seen another and followed it past coral walls; she trailed a third, losing track of time, aware only of the turtle.

A cold current had jolted her out of her reverie, and when she popped her head up, the shore was a distant smudge. No one knew where she was. You weren’t supposed to snorkel alone. Swimming slowly, Anna worked her way back to the beach.

Floating beside turtles resembled how she felt when her writing went well. She entered another world. For Anna, that rarely happened with a keyboard, so she liked to use a pen and paper, drawing words with ink.  

The young couple next to Anna had barely glanced up from their screens. He played games on a laptop and she watched a movie on a tiny rectangle. Glancing at her watch, Anna realized she’d been sitting three hours. Time to stretch her legs.

She strolled the narrow aisle twice; passengers who weren’t sleeping used electronic devices to work or distract themselves. No one wrote with a pen; they just tapped thumbs. Anna recalled when airplanes offered a selection of magazines, back when meals were free and there was no photo ID requirement. Hawaii was her first vacation in years. 

After crawling over the couple to return to her seat, she resumed writing in her notebook. The man beside her stared at her. Anna glanced at him. He seemed annoyed. Then the flight attendant came by, collecting cups; Anna felt her stare, too. OK, she conceded. What she was doing was unusual but not noisy or harmful. 

Perhaps it wasn’t done in public anymore. Or maybe they were jealous, lacking the skill. Anna had heard that some people under 30 barely knew how to use a pen, aside from signing their name. 

In a poem about snorkeling, she included some Hawaiian words. She’d made a list of fish: moana, nunu, kahala, ala‘ihi, kihikihi, and the triggerfish called humuhumunukunukuapua‘a. Sea turtle: honu, whale: kohola. Writing poems helped her connect things and pay attention. Maybe Shelley was right in declaring, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” 

By the time they landed, she had first drafts of several new poems. The flight attendant asked her to wait while others disembarked. Before Anna could ask why, the woman moved away. The couple in her row exchanged a “told you so” look.

A security guard escorted her off the plane. He took her to a room and asked for her notebook. “I don’t understand,” Anna said. 

“Your notebook, please.”

She pulled it from her purse with a sweaty hand, reluctant to release it. The list of fish names fell out.

“What’s this?” He squinted at the words. “Some sort of code?”

She hoped he was joking, but his face said he wasn’t.
  
“We consider this,” he indicated the notebook, “unpatriotic. The government can’t track handwriting. Why were you using a pen?”

A moving story now by Wendy Nikel that requires no further comment by me. Wendy's fiction has appeared in Fantastic Stories of the Imagination, Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and elsewhere. For more information visit http://www.wendynikel.com


A GIFT FOR HIS BELOVED, POST-APOCALYPSE
by Wendy Nikel


YEAR ONE: PAPER
It was hard to find paper after the apocalypse. It burns so easily, you see. So when he discovered the single spiral-bound notebook in the abandoned factory, he tucked it into his pack before the other scavengers could see. He hid it for three months until their anniversary arrived, and when she opened it and saw its uncharred pages, she cried.

#

YEAR TWO: COTTON
She used to iron her blouses each day as she watched the morning news. Though she never complained about the stained sleeves or lost buttons that came with their new life, he searched every boarded-up department store until he found something in her size. It wasn't until she buttoned it up that he realized how thin she'd become.

#

YEAR THREE: LEATHER
The city was no longer a haven, and on the road, they'd both have to fight. It was fitting, then, to give her gloves. They'd keep her hands from bleeding when they sparred. She sewed some broken bits of metal onto them and soon was a better scrapper than he was.

#

YEAR FOUR: LINEN
He'd thought it'd been difficult to find paper. Linen was practically impossible. In the end, he'd settled for a scratchy, burlap sack that smelled of mold and a promise to replace it with something nicer as soon as he was able.

#

YEAR FIVE: WOOD
He returned with two wooden boards slung across his back and an apology for the still-missing linen. When the boards were nailed into a cross and her initials carved, he wedged it into the cold earth and whispered his love… till next year.

Today we have a story that perfectly captures the Grievous Angel vibe AND is another great example of how effective the flash fiction format can be. The story – Boxes – is by J. Overton who, the author gnomically comments, "works for the government and usually writes non-fiction".


Boxes
by J. Overton

The Suggestion Box at Death Valley was not the most remote on my route, but the getting there was often gruelling. Stopping for gas in Pahrump, standing bareheaded in July, the portions of my sandal’s black soles not covered by my toes became uncomfortably hot. 
     
Inside the Valley I stopped at a scenic overlook to snack on mango and jerky.
   
The Suggestion Box was there like all the others. My key fit its lock smoothly. A piece of yellow legal paper was neatly folded inside.  Most suggestions are anonymous, but there are sometimes tells which give away the author’s identity. This was from Old Bull Lee, sure as shooting.
     
“Why is it all not working so good? Get off the track you’re on. You’re barking up the wrong evolutionary and design flagpole, son, turning the good to shit.”
     
We try to emphasize the Suggestion Boxes are for Quality Improvement, not for literary bitch sessions or ratting out the unjust and cruel. This one was borderline, but he did suggest something, not just ridicule and preach. It was collected and placed with all the others.
     
Later at the bar I have a margarita and pay Tokyo prices.
     
“Only drinks in the Valley are in here,” the bartender explains and apologizes to my unasked question and unspoken accusation.
     
“I’ve paid more before. It’s on company money.”
     
He uses real lime. That always impresses me. Quality is important.

Across the bar a boy and his father are ordering dinner. 
     
“Are you going to get the green enchiladas?” the boy asked.
       
“No,” the father slams down his menu. “Those aren’t the kind I like.”
       
“They have them with red sauce, too.”
       
“Daddy doesn’t like those either.” He picks the menu up, doesn’t look at anyone. “It doesn’t matter what we eat. We’re going to die anyway.”
         
A man enters the through the bent door and sits next to me. He picks up the plastic menu.
         
“You have bison burgers on here. Is that the same as elk?” 
         
“No, it’s bison,” says the bartender, not looking up from wiping glasses.
         
“Oh. I like elk.”
       

The pool water is bath hot. I sit with my feet dangling.  
       
I empty Boxes all over, collecting suggestions. My route is wide: deserts in California, Korea, atolls in the Pacific that even the Japanese skipped over in their war for Empire.  I give the suggestions to whoever needs to see them. They can act if they choose. People have visions and ideas of who reads their suggestions. They’re usually wrong.
       
The next morning, loading up my belongings in the company car, a tourist approaches.
       
“So is this just what you do?” I assume she either knows from the company car or saw me gathering from the Box yesterday.
         
“Yes, it’s what I do.”
         
“How long have you been at it? Are you from here or do you travel?”
         
“I travel often.” I ignore her first question.
         
“So do these get read?”
         
“Sure. They get read.”
         
“Do the questions get responses though?”
         
“Those that need them.” I look noncommittal. She picks up on that.
         
“So is it all just a waste? Who decides which one needs response? People want to change things, improve them. The whole thing a waste of time and effort?”
         
“Well, it depends.” I shrug and keep loading up my gear. My sandals are getting hot and it is early. The company car’s air conditioner is mediocre, and it will be a long drive.
       
“You like this sort of thing? This kind of work?” She asked as I get in the car.
         
“It’s good for me now.”
         
“Are you waiting on something else? Some other work?”
           
“I suppose. This is what I do now.” I start the car. She continues her walk to the gift shop and broken, sandy pay phones.


​Things sometimes happen after I leave and when I come back next time, years or months later, they give me credit. I’m just a courier, a messenger at best. Don’t shoot the messenger, and don’t give him credit for making improvements. This is what I do now. I try to enjoy each day, and enjoy my company car, and not think of the outcome.