Clover
neither simple, nor coherent.
so like there's this short story contest at my local library and I decided to enter. Note that I am by no means a creative writer; the last time I did something like this was in fourth grade... yeah. I'd mucho gusto some critiques and constructive criticism, especially in the middle where 'm pretty sure it's worst. I like the beginning and end pretty well but yeah. so. thanks. Oh and title suggestions would be awesome too. oh and I know I stole a thousand and one things from different places like kim possible and aj and stuff I'm a horrible person :(.
---
"I heard Sandy gave up her unborn kid for her trip to the Bahamas."
Stephen glanced toward the local rumor mill, sighing softly at the things some people would believe today.
"No way, not possible. The kid would've had a String himself; mom couldn't've used his String for her."
Stephen inched up the line. He was next.
"Hey, I'm just saying, most people don't come back from vacation having lost thirty pounds."
Stephen punched in his cash number, then went through the menu screens to confirm his order of a medium coffee, black, ignoring the smartads ("Your blood pressure appears slightly elevated. Wouldn't you enjoy a delicious cup of hot Darjeeling-style tea instead? A mere 5M!") and glittering offers to upgrade to a iced Thai mocha caramel coffee (only 10M!)
"You kidding? Nowadays most people don't come back from vacation, period."
Stephen took a seat at one of the dozens of vacant tables. Despite the long order line, the coffee shop was nearly empty. Most patrons had better things to do with their (limited) time than sit around. Stephen himself had just taken his seat when the barista called his order. "Grande coffee for one Stephen Miller!"
The gossip gang quickly terminated their conversation, shot dirty looks Stephen's way as he headed to the pick-up counter, and began buzzing about the idiocy of frugality in this day and age. Look at that suit, he probably paid in cash. And what a boring name. Didn't he have any passion?
Stephen ignored the chatter; it was nothing he hadn't heard before. He picked up his medium coffee ('grande' was just another sales pitch) from the ever-effervescent barista. He turned to head back to his seat...
... And bumped into the last person he expected to see.
"Oi, watch where ya goin'!" an unfamiliar voice cried as Stephen crashed into her. His cup dropped from his hand, exploding over the ankles of her beige jeans and his black suitpants, her sandaled feet and his off-the-rack Rockports.
Stephen winced at the heat as he picked up the coffee cup and grabbed some disposable cotton towels from the dispenser on the counter. "Geez, I'm sorry about that..." he said, handing some to the woman and using the rest to dab at his shoes (the AbsorbMaster carpet had already soaked up most of it with no sign the incident had ever happened).
"Sorry? I oughta sue!" exclaimed the woman, patting down her stainless pants. "Emotional distress, pain and s--" She locked eyes with him for the first time. "Stephen?"
Stephen tilted his head to the side slightly, trying to recall where he might have met this strange, accented girl before. He drew a blank. "I'm... sorry." He hesitated. "Have we met?"
The woman scoffed. "'Ave we met, he asks." She lifted a hand to her head, pressing a button on her black metallic hairclip. Instantly, her white-blonde stick-straight shoulder-length hair transformed into a familiar auburn bob. She then pinched a bit of skin on her neck, peeling off a transparent voicepatch. "Stevie, it's me!" She grinned excitedly. Sticking the patch back on, she added, "What, ya mean ta say ya don't recanize your own sista?"
Stephen was shocked. Of course he hadn't, how could he, she didn't look or even sound anything like her, and besides he hadn't seen her in a decade. His mouth suddenly dry, he croaked out, "Ca... Cassand--"
"No, no, none of that 'Cassandra' crap." She touched her hairclip again and her style reverted to the bleached-Barbie look. "It's Lynn now, Stevie. As in 'adrena'." She winked and strutted over to the counter, pushing a customer to the side and yelling, "'Ey, ba'keep!" An employee scuttled over, wearing the omnipresent smile of all service workers. Cassandra plunked down her thumbprint on the StringPrint Reader. "Get my friend a non-fat venti Columbian 'chino, 'kay? 'N don't skimp th' foam."
The barista gave an "absolutely, miss", and the beverage was ready within thirty seconds. Cassandra grabbed the cup with one hand and Stephen's wrist with the other. "We've made a scene. Let's get."
Stephen nodded silently and followed her out the door.
~~~
His wife sat up straighter in bed. "Well? What happened after you left?" Trucy asked eagerly.
Stephen shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you know, we caught up, traded e-mails... that kind of stuff." He didn't tell her how he looked at Cassandra – Lynn, she called herself, but she'd always be Cassandra to him – and couldn't see the younger (though always acting older) sister he had known for sixteen years.
He couldn't find a resemblance to the girl who loved to go camping – even ten years ago, before the whole deal with Strings and Fates and life-time exchange rates, even then camping was 'uncool' and 'old-fashioned' – but she would lie out under the stars, showing him Orion and the Pleaides and sharing the fable about the Big Bear and Little Bear, always separated by the Dragon, but always close by.
Stephen couldn't tell his wife how today Cassandra mentioned riding the 'Vomit Comet', the antigrav rocket available to citizens for something like 30D if paid for all in String, which she must have done. Thirty days. A month gone in a few minutes.
Stephen wouldn't tell Trucy how, after Cassandra left ("I'm in town for that extreme base-jumpin' parkour competition thing. Adrena-Lynn, baby. You should come, it'll be a blast. Ta!"), he chucked the cappuchino into the trash and immediately regretted it, because it meant that her cost, however small of a couple minutes, was wasted.
Stephen didn't tell her what he knew to be true: Cassandra had done what so many others had done before her. She was 'plucking her String', as the phrase went. Most amount of fun in the least amount of time.
He turned to his wife with a sigh. "Do you think--" But she had already taken her eight-hour DozOff pill. Trucy was a successful attorney – suing had practically become the national pastime when each party could pay with String. If they won, then they received enough cash reimbursement to offset that cost and more, and if they lost, well, 'no big loss', right?
Stephen took his DozOff and lied down, falling asleep to a discord of thoughts and questions.
~~~
Stephen himself worked too, though nothing nearly as glamorous or lucrative as an attorney. He sat at his desk in his cramped cubicle on the thirtieth floor of Focus Groups, Inc. His company paid participants of certain demographics to give their opinion about new or unreleased products or commercials, and then sold those opinions to the companies that produced them. In order to keep the participants as unstressed as possible, thereby reducing the amount of lawsuits, FGI gave each one a small transmitter, so that whenever they had a new idea or opinion, they needed only to say it. The transmissions were recorded on the computers on the desks in the cramped cubicles on the thirtieth floor of Focus Groups, Inc., and it was Stephen's job to transcribe them into hard copy.
Stephen put on his headphones and let his mind wander as his fingers typed. He thought about his marriage, how odd it was today to not only be married, but for each of them to work. One partner could work for the cash, sure, but usually the spouse planned vacations and other activities. Making cash to spend on things as cheap as coffee was just another outdated 'quirk' of his, like keeping his name.
Most parents today kept the traditional naming pattern, though there were an increasing number of virtue names – Hope and Joy and Grace and all that. However, these days most changed their names or at least were called by nicknames. They called themselves by their passions – Sandy would love going to beaches, Trucy fought for truth and justice, and Lynn... well. Stephen told himself that he didn't want any part in this new dystopic, hedonistic country... but the truth was, some part of him envied them. They knew what they loved, what they wanted to do. What did he want to do...?
A buzz from his pants pocket jolted Stephen from his reverie. He took off his headphones and dug into his pocket for his phone. An e-mail? No one ever e-mailed him; who would? The address was unfamiliar. Neither Trucy nor Cassandra. He flipped open the phone and thumbed over to his inbox.
The subject line read "Cassandra Miller".
Stephen's blood ran cold. He had a feeling-- no, he knew what the message said. Still, as if in a trance, he pressed 'Open'.
Stephen Miller,
At 12:06 P.M. local time, on this day, in this year...
Stephen's breathing grew shallowed. His face was pallid.
...Cassandra Miller, aged twenty-six years, five months, one week, three days, seven hours, four minutes, and twelve seconds, charged a transaction named "Elite Base Jumping-Parkour Competition Registration" to her String. His or her String was thus overcharged, and therefore snipped. As next-of-kin, you have been notified.
Atropos
~~~
The streetlight hit Stephen's face at odd angles, giving him a ghoulish appearance as he trudged down the sidewalk. Why was he walking? He couldn't remember. And to where? He didn't know. A number of speeding cars flew past the numb man.
"Frozen frappe mochalotta for Dusk Swain!"
That voice... Stephen glanced to his right. Like some curlicued whimsy of – fate? ha – he stood directly outside that coffee shop. He pushed aside the doors and took a seat by the counter.
It was the same employee from that morning, yesterday. There were only two other people in the place, so he bustled over to Stephen personally. "Can I get you anything, Mr. Miller?"
He was surprised he knew his name. Considering the request, Stephen exhaled audibly and looked down at the computerized menu set into the counter. "Get me the venti Chai frozen caramellotta with whipped cream and cinnamon swirl," he replied, picking the most expensive thing on the menu.
The barista smiled. "Good choice." He turned around as Stephen buried his head in his hands.
He spent the next three hours in the coffee shop, ordering two more of the Chai drinks. He couldn't taste any of them. The barista was as alert and smiling as ever as the other customers left while Stephen remained. He looked up at him with half-lidded eyes. "Can I ask you something?"
"Certainly, sir."
He sighed. "How do you know... what's right anymore?"
The employee looked away, idly wiping up the counter with a white rag. "Right and wrong are subjective to each culture, and to a lesser extent, each person. It's up to you to decide what's right for you."
Stephen blinked. "That doesn't tell me anything."
"Morals and philosophy are eternally fluid, changing when the social consciousness of the whole changes. Just as what's 'right' to you may seem totally 'wrong' to your neighbor next door, what seems 'right' now may have seemed like an abomination yesterday."
"Are you real?"
The barista made eye contact with Stephen and smiled. "Real and imaginary can feel as mere co--"
"Answer the question," Stephen said gruffly.
His smile could have faltered then, microscopically, for a second – but then it was right back. "I was born, just like you. Of course, I've had the need for sleep removed, and I run a bio-database of pseudophilosophical Q&A, along with an Evercheer Happiness Module."
Stephen nodded. "Of course. ...Get me another."
This time, instead of another 'right away, sir', the employee watched as Stephen pressed down his thumbprint for another String charge. The two met eyes, and Stephen could tell what he was thinking. Are you going to pluck your String?
He closed his eyes and winced. "Actually... no. Goodbye."
Outside the shop, the world was just as concrete as before. Stephen looked up at the blank night sky; city light pollution meant no stars were visible. He started walking.
Am I going to pluck my String?
Stephen thought about life and death, about Cassandra and Trucy and the coffee shop man, about Atropos and his String and this city and the country and society. What's right isn't always popular... what's popular isn't always right.
No.
No, he wasn't going to pluck his String, not quite. Stephen envisioned a tiny island out in the middle of nowhere, where he could build a modest house and catch his modest meal and live a modest, but long, life.
"Taxi!"
~~~
It was dawn by the time he got home. Stephen lay in bed, fully dressed, watching his wife sleep. Her eyes opened slowly. "Honey...? What are you doing?"
Stephen grinned. "Let's go camping."
---
"I heard Sandy gave up her unborn kid for her trip to the Bahamas."
Stephen glanced toward the local rumor mill, sighing softly at the things some people would believe today.
"No way, not possible. The kid would've had a String himself; mom couldn't've used his String for her."
Stephen inched up the line. He was next.
"Hey, I'm just saying, most people don't come back from vacation having lost thirty pounds."
Stephen punched in his cash number, then went through the menu screens to confirm his order of a medium coffee, black, ignoring the smartads ("Your blood pressure appears slightly elevated. Wouldn't you enjoy a delicious cup of hot Darjeeling-style tea instead? A mere 5M!") and glittering offers to upgrade to a iced Thai mocha caramel coffee (only 10M!)
"You kidding? Nowadays most people don't come back from vacation, period."
Stephen took a seat at one of the dozens of vacant tables. Despite the long order line, the coffee shop was nearly empty. Most patrons had better things to do with their (limited) time than sit around. Stephen himself had just taken his seat when the barista called his order. "Grande coffee for one Stephen Miller!"
The gossip gang quickly terminated their conversation, shot dirty looks Stephen's way as he headed to the pick-up counter, and began buzzing about the idiocy of frugality in this day and age. Look at that suit, he probably paid in cash. And what a boring name. Didn't he have any passion?
Stephen ignored the chatter; it was nothing he hadn't heard before. He picked up his medium coffee ('grande' was just another sales pitch) from the ever-effervescent barista. He turned to head back to his seat...
... And bumped into the last person he expected to see.
"Oi, watch where ya goin'!" an unfamiliar voice cried as Stephen crashed into her. His cup dropped from his hand, exploding over the ankles of her beige jeans and his black suitpants, her sandaled feet and his off-the-rack Rockports.
Stephen winced at the heat as he picked up the coffee cup and grabbed some disposable cotton towels from the dispenser on the counter. "Geez, I'm sorry about that..." he said, handing some to the woman and using the rest to dab at his shoes (the AbsorbMaster carpet had already soaked up most of it with no sign the incident had ever happened).
"Sorry? I oughta sue!" exclaimed the woman, patting down her stainless pants. "Emotional distress, pain and s--" She locked eyes with him for the first time. "Stephen?"
Stephen tilted his head to the side slightly, trying to recall where he might have met this strange, accented girl before. He drew a blank. "I'm... sorry." He hesitated. "Have we met?"
The woman scoffed. "'Ave we met, he asks." She lifted a hand to her head, pressing a button on her black metallic hairclip. Instantly, her white-blonde stick-straight shoulder-length hair transformed into a familiar auburn bob. She then pinched a bit of skin on her neck, peeling off a transparent voicepatch. "Stevie, it's me!" She grinned excitedly. Sticking the patch back on, she added, "What, ya mean ta say ya don't recanize your own sista?"
Stephen was shocked. Of course he hadn't, how could he, she didn't look or even sound anything like her, and besides he hadn't seen her in a decade. His mouth suddenly dry, he croaked out, "Ca... Cassand--"
"No, no, none of that 'Cassandra' crap." She touched her hairclip again and her style reverted to the bleached-Barbie look. "It's Lynn now, Stevie. As in 'adrena'." She winked and strutted over to the counter, pushing a customer to the side and yelling, "'Ey, ba'keep!" An employee scuttled over, wearing the omnipresent smile of all service workers. Cassandra plunked down her thumbprint on the StringPrint Reader. "Get my friend a non-fat venti Columbian 'chino, 'kay? 'N don't skimp th' foam."
The barista gave an "absolutely, miss", and the beverage was ready within thirty seconds. Cassandra grabbed the cup with one hand and Stephen's wrist with the other. "We've made a scene. Let's get."
Stephen nodded silently and followed her out the door.
~~~
His wife sat up straighter in bed. "Well? What happened after you left?" Trucy asked eagerly.
Stephen shifted uncomfortably. "Well, you know, we caught up, traded e-mails... that kind of stuff." He didn't tell her how he looked at Cassandra – Lynn, she called herself, but she'd always be Cassandra to him – and couldn't see the younger (though always acting older) sister he had known for sixteen years.
He couldn't find a resemblance to the girl who loved to go camping – even ten years ago, before the whole deal with Strings and Fates and life-time exchange rates, even then camping was 'uncool' and 'old-fashioned' – but she would lie out under the stars, showing him Orion and the Pleaides and sharing the fable about the Big Bear and Little Bear, always separated by the Dragon, but always close by.
Stephen couldn't tell his wife how today Cassandra mentioned riding the 'Vomit Comet', the antigrav rocket available to citizens for something like 30D if paid for all in String, which she must have done. Thirty days. A month gone in a few minutes.
Stephen wouldn't tell Trucy how, after Cassandra left ("I'm in town for that extreme base-jumpin' parkour competition thing. Adrena-Lynn, baby. You should come, it'll be a blast. Ta!"), he chucked the cappuchino into the trash and immediately regretted it, because it meant that her cost, however small of a couple minutes, was wasted.
Stephen didn't tell her what he knew to be true: Cassandra had done what so many others had done before her. She was 'plucking her String', as the phrase went. Most amount of fun in the least amount of time.
He turned to his wife with a sigh. "Do you think--" But she had already taken her eight-hour DozOff pill. Trucy was a successful attorney – suing had practically become the national pastime when each party could pay with String. If they won, then they received enough cash reimbursement to offset that cost and more, and if they lost, well, 'no big loss', right?
Stephen took his DozOff and lied down, falling asleep to a discord of thoughts and questions.
~~~
Stephen himself worked too, though nothing nearly as glamorous or lucrative as an attorney. He sat at his desk in his cramped cubicle on the thirtieth floor of Focus Groups, Inc. His company paid participants of certain demographics to give their opinion about new or unreleased products or commercials, and then sold those opinions to the companies that produced them. In order to keep the participants as unstressed as possible, thereby reducing the amount of lawsuits, FGI gave each one a small transmitter, so that whenever they had a new idea or opinion, they needed only to say it. The transmissions were recorded on the computers on the desks in the cramped cubicles on the thirtieth floor of Focus Groups, Inc., and it was Stephen's job to transcribe them into hard copy.
Stephen put on his headphones and let his mind wander as his fingers typed. He thought about his marriage, how odd it was today to not only be married, but for each of them to work. One partner could work for the cash, sure, but usually the spouse planned vacations and other activities. Making cash to spend on things as cheap as coffee was just another outdated 'quirk' of his, like keeping his name.
Most parents today kept the traditional naming pattern, though there were an increasing number of virtue names – Hope and Joy and Grace and all that. However, these days most changed their names or at least were called by nicknames. They called themselves by their passions – Sandy would love going to beaches, Trucy fought for truth and justice, and Lynn... well. Stephen told himself that he didn't want any part in this new dystopic, hedonistic country... but the truth was, some part of him envied them. They knew what they loved, what they wanted to do. What did he want to do...?
A buzz from his pants pocket jolted Stephen from his reverie. He took off his headphones and dug into his pocket for his phone. An e-mail? No one ever e-mailed him; who would? The address was unfamiliar. Neither Trucy nor Cassandra. He flipped open the phone and thumbed over to his inbox.
The subject line read "Cassandra Miller".
Stephen's blood ran cold. He had a feeling-- no, he knew what the message said. Still, as if in a trance, he pressed 'Open'.
Stephen Miller,
At 12:06 P.M. local time, on this day, in this year...
Stephen's breathing grew shallowed. His face was pallid.
...Cassandra Miller, aged twenty-six years, five months, one week, three days, seven hours, four minutes, and twelve seconds, charged a transaction named "Elite Base Jumping-Parkour Competition Registration" to her String. His or her String was thus overcharged, and therefore snipped. As next-of-kin, you have been notified.
Atropos
~~~
The streetlight hit Stephen's face at odd angles, giving him a ghoulish appearance as he trudged down the sidewalk. Why was he walking? He couldn't remember. And to where? He didn't know. A number of speeding cars flew past the numb man.
"Frozen frappe mochalotta for Dusk Swain!"
That voice... Stephen glanced to his right. Like some curlicued whimsy of – fate? ha – he stood directly outside that coffee shop. He pushed aside the doors and took a seat by the counter.
It was the same employee from that morning, yesterday. There were only two other people in the place, so he bustled over to Stephen personally. "Can I get you anything, Mr. Miller?"
He was surprised he knew his name. Considering the request, Stephen exhaled audibly and looked down at the computerized menu set into the counter. "Get me the venti Chai frozen caramellotta with whipped cream and cinnamon swirl," he replied, picking the most expensive thing on the menu.
The barista smiled. "Good choice." He turned around as Stephen buried his head in his hands.
He spent the next three hours in the coffee shop, ordering two more of the Chai drinks. He couldn't taste any of them. The barista was as alert and smiling as ever as the other customers left while Stephen remained. He looked up at him with half-lidded eyes. "Can I ask you something?"
"Certainly, sir."
He sighed. "How do you know... what's right anymore?"
The employee looked away, idly wiping up the counter with a white rag. "Right and wrong are subjective to each culture, and to a lesser extent, each person. It's up to you to decide what's right for you."
Stephen blinked. "That doesn't tell me anything."
"Morals and philosophy are eternally fluid, changing when the social consciousness of the whole changes. Just as what's 'right' to you may seem totally 'wrong' to your neighbor next door, what seems 'right' now may have seemed like an abomination yesterday."
"Are you real?"
The barista made eye contact with Stephen and smiled. "Real and imaginary can feel as mere co--"
"Answer the question," Stephen said gruffly.
His smile could have faltered then, microscopically, for a second – but then it was right back. "I was born, just like you. Of course, I've had the need for sleep removed, and I run a bio-database of pseudophilosophical Q&A, along with an Evercheer Happiness Module."
Stephen nodded. "Of course. ...Get me another."
This time, instead of another 'right away, sir', the employee watched as Stephen pressed down his thumbprint for another String charge. The two met eyes, and Stephen could tell what he was thinking. Are you going to pluck your String?
He closed his eyes and winced. "Actually... no. Goodbye."
Outside the shop, the world was just as concrete as before. Stephen looked up at the blank night sky; city light pollution meant no stars were visible. He started walking.
Am I going to pluck my String?
Stephen thought about life and death, about Cassandra and Trucy and the coffee shop man, about Atropos and his String and this city and the country and society. What's right isn't always popular... what's popular isn't always right.
No.
No, he wasn't going to pluck his String, not quite. Stephen envisioned a tiny island out in the middle of nowhere, where he could build a modest house and catch his modest meal and live a modest, but long, life.
"Taxi!"
~~~
It was dawn by the time he got home. Stephen lay in bed, fully dressed, watching his wife sleep. Her eyes opened slowly. "Honey...? What are you doing?"
Stephen grinned. "Let's go camping."
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