Urban Fantasist
Menu
Picture
Sci-Fi & Fantasy
Poetry & Fiction

New Flash Fiction: Apostropocalypse Now!

16/11/2016

1 Comment

 
Picture
​What if the Age of Social Media and Texting has a permanent effect on humanity, asks Luke McKinney in our latest story Apostropocalypse? And you wouldn't believe the grief we had getting that through our auto-correct spellcheckers! Luke McKinney is an ex-physicist turned science comedy writer. His fiction has appeared in Mad Scientist Journal and Grievous Angel continues his cunning scheme of submitting to sites with the coolest names. You can read his columns in Cracked and at Zero Point Comedy – and you can follow him on Twitter at lukemckinney

Apostropocalypse
by Luke McKinney


We killed the apostrophe, but it was self-defense. Not much point in possessives when theres nothing left to possess. Ugh, still hurts to write “theres”. Still, better than unknowable tentacles spinning Escherian uncircles inside your skull!!!
Sorry. Multiple exclamation marks are a side effect of the process. Let me explain.

It started with PROJECT NETWORK. Idiots kept leaving cryptic notes in sealed journals inside locked chests in dusty attics before marching face-first into the maw of madness. What is the point in having idiots to trigger deathtraps if they don’t warn useful people? Thats their evolutionary function, Im sure of it. 

But no, the first half of all eldritch fatalities are an idiot deciding "Hmm, this venture worries me enough to write in my diary, but not enough to tell another human soul”. Then the second half is second idiots finding those diaries. People stupid enough to face insane death single-handed, or even stupider enough to find notes saying “Went to my insane death” and think “Hmm, sounds like a place I should go!”, and they all still thought their worries were too stupid to share.

So we built a system to share the stupidest ideas in the entire world. It works! Now people tell everyone everything! They refuse to even eat a sandwich without Instagramming it. You can be damn sure anyone investigating a mysterious ghost in a crumbling manor on Death-Taboo mountain will upload a gallery of photographs and probably livetweet their own evisceration.

NETWORK succeeded beyond our wildest dreams (all of which must be reported to our Combat Oneirologists). People started skipping sounds and whole syllables online. So we add a bit of code, a 140 character limit, and boom: no more apostrophe!!! Far fewer syllables!!! Suddenly an entire generation can’t even write an Elder God invocation, let alone incant it, and instead focus their spare insanity into far too many exclamation marks!!!!1! 

2 hard 2 lrn t words, u no? Fun 2 watch them try to say Ryleh in textspeak tho. Really high yeah? O RLY, eh? Reel I hay? Ha, if that sunken city thought it was bad being lost under the South Pacific, now autocorrect has buried it forever.

Disaffected youths with thumbpads couldnt co-ordinate a counter-phonal reality-distortion chant if their lives depended on it. Which is the exact opposite of the case. Now all the angry failures trying to scream horror into the world do it in comment sections under news articles. Where they consider the apostrophe more alien than anything they could summon with it. 

​Besides, who has time to sit around practicing pronunciation when you can stream video? That is not dead which can eternal lie, because eternity is far too long for people desperately clicking “close” on a through thirty second advert. The only thrusting horrors of flesh they see are porn. But the true savior of the species was unexpected: the Elder Gods have seriously lost their appeal since people started summoning videos of cute kittens.
1 Comment
James
24/11/2016 20:41:21

Hahaha!!! Funniest thing Ive read all day!!1!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture
    Welcome to the Grievous Angel – fresh free-to-read science fiction and fantasy flash fiction and poetry, including scifaiku and haiga.

    ISSN 2059-6057

    Quote, Unquote

    "We need more excellent markets like Grievous Angel" ...award winning Canadian author

    "Thank goodness for guys like you, who devote so much time to these things" ...Elizabeth Crocket

    "Thank you for giving us such a cool and unique e-mag" ...Mandy Nicol

    "Thank you for your kind words and making my weekend uplifting and bright. I'm excited to be published alongside other wonderful visual and textual works in Grievous Angel" ...D.A. Xiaolin Spires

    "Love your magazine. Keep up the good work! I've read bits and pieces of so many magazines that are so boring, I'm donating to yours because everything you publish is fascinating" ...Laura Beasley

    "I want to be a part of any project named after Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris" ...poet, writer & journalist Andrew Darlington

    "I really love your site and the wonderful eerie fiction you publish. Unlike a lot of work, most of what I read on your site stays with me - like a flavor or a scent, slightly tinting the world" ...performer, writer, biologist and painter E.E. King

    Categories

    All
    Flash Fiction
    Haiga
    Haiku
    Poetry
    Scifaiku
    Tanka

    Archives

    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    RSS Feed

Picture
Copyright © Charles Christian 
& Urbanfantasist Limited 2022


urbanfantasist@icloud.com

Fuelled by Green Tea & Rosé Wine

  • Home
  • * Latest book *
  • Weird Tales Videos
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Manifestations
  • Books & Reviews
  • Weird Tales Radio
  • Donations
  • Writing: Nonfiction
  • Writing: Fiction
  • Writing: Poetry
  • Old Americana
  • Old Grievous Angel
  • WoldsCover
  • Home
  • * Latest book *
  • Weird Tales Videos
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Manifestations
  • Books & Reviews
  • Weird Tales Radio
  • Donations
  • Writing: Nonfiction
  • Writing: Fiction
  • Writing: Poetry
  • Old Americana
  • Old Grievous Angel
  • WoldsCover