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

Surveillance Society? Big Brother? You ain't seen nothing yet! New fiction by Pat Tompkins

24/6/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
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?”
0 Comments

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 
& WordsandVision Limited 2021
​Powered by green tea and pink wine
Tel: +44 (0)1986 788666
Tel/Txt: +44 (0)7786 738172
urbanfantasist@icloud.com
Contact Address: Oak Lodge, Darrow Green Road, Denton, Harleston, Norfolk IP20 0AY, United Kingdom

Weird Tales in Weird Times

  • Home
  • Weird Tales Shows
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Interviews & Speaking
  • Charles Christian Books & Reviews
  • * Fiction
  • * Non Fiction
  • * Poetry
  • All My Links
  • Americana Shows
  • Old Grievous Angel
  • Home
  • Weird Tales Shows
  • Charles Christian Bio
  • Interviews & Speaking
  • Charles Christian Books & Reviews
  • * Fiction
  • * Non Fiction
  • * Poetry
  • All My Links
  • Americana Shows
  • Old Grievous Angel