Enjoy the five stories from the first round of Five Stories in Five Days, all for free:
When Mr. Fusion Finally Arrived
A Tale of Ass
Telekinetically Yours
Alien Life
Very, Very Bad Erotica
Thank you in advance for reading Day 1 of Five Stories in Five Days 2, a new campaign of mine. Normally, this sort of creative writing appears in my paid Substack (under Creative Stuff), but this week, I’ve decided to give a partial preview to free subscribers and the general public to see whether anyone might be interested in joining my larger world. 10% of my Substack is free in my Bad Online English section—just me ranting about the sloppy, slovenly English I see (and no, that doesn’t mean that I make myself out to be Shakespeare or Hemingway—I can admit that with no problem). 90% of my Substack, though, is content that’s available for only $5 a month—the price of a single, halfway-decent burger. Like my Amazon ebooks, which I’ve committed to sell forever at minimum price ($2.99 for now), I’ve made the same guarantee here: $5/month or $50/year is all I’ll ever charge you, no matter what new things I do on Substack. So, please: Enjoy the story below, but think about joining. Think about joining the dark side. We all float down here.
. . .
A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot.
—Robert Heinlein, Friday (1982)
Kaelin Johnston, a journalist and news anchor, pretty and sleek, smooth and self-assured, walked into the chamber after having gone through several annoying layers of security inspection. The security team had insisted the thoroughness was necessary, though: She was about to meet the President face to face, and normal, hard-working citizens like Johnston couldn’t be expected to just waltz in to see the country’s top executive unannounced and unvetted. Johnston understood all of this, but she still disliked the subtext of coldness, the dead stares, the utter mistrust, the interminable strata of caution. But once it was determined that she posed no risk, Kaelin was led into a room and told to wait for the President. She sat and waited at a metal table that looked and felt like a police interrogation table—restraint rings, floor-bolted legs, and all. But she wasn’t cuffed, and no one made any threatening moves against her. She still had her free will. So there was that.
A man arrived a few minutes later, stepping through the door and looking grim. He was not the President. The man, bulky in his suit, sat down heavily across from Kaelin, who didn’t bother to stand for him. For his part, the man seemed not to notice the arrogant lack of a greeting, the attempt at a power play.
“I’m Alex Morrow,” he said. He had one of those off-putting pencil ’staches.
Kaelin blinked. Smiled politely. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I was expecting to meet with the President. Is he coming, Mr. Morrow?”
Morrow fixed Kaelin with an unnervingly shark-like stare. “Anything you had wanted to ask the President may be addressed to me. I’m the President’s proxy, and I speak with his voice. I know all of his policies and how he would answer.”
Kaelin’s senses were suddenly on very high alert. This wasn’t how such interviews normally went. The President could be a hard man to access, true, but Kaelin had met him several times before in more relaxed circumstances, hectoring him with her questions in the abrupt, rude, and interruptive manner of her kind. But never before had the President ever done something so . . . so kingly as to send in a stooge, a proxy, a henchman to represent him. What the hell did this mean?
Proceeding carefully, Kaelin asked Morrow, “So, is the President not coming? And I beg your pardon, but why have I never heard of you before?”
“I’m sorry,” said Morrow simply. “But feel free to conduct your interview. All we ask for is a modicum of civility—no interruptions, no talking over me, no cutting me off when answering, that sort of thing.” Once Morrow was done speaking, his face seemed to reset itself to a neutral expression and deactivate. Kaelin found the effect, real or imagined, unsettling. Was Morrow some kind of robot? Should she just politely back out and try again another time? She had some important issues to ask about, and if this man was as good as his word, he might have some of the answers she wanted. Kaelin thought a bit, then decided to push forward.
“I hadn’t come here to speak with a subordinate,” she said with humorously subtle venom, “but I suppose you’ll do. May I ask you some questions?” She got out her voice recorder and hit the button. No cameras today—just audio, to be respliced later to make sure it told the story she wanted told.
“Of course,” said Morrow tonelessly.
“Fine. First, I wanted to know how aware you and your administration are of the public’s perception that your immigration policy seems to be a racist echo of similar policies dating back to Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and Mao’s China.”
“The general public’s perception?” asked Morrow, “Or the perception of a certain group that does not represent the country as a whole? Also: it’s interesting that you lump those leaders together with no nuance or subtlety. A history lesson is in order.”
Morrow’s tactic—arrogating to himself the superior role of a teacher as though he had any right to teach anything—was the first real sign of insecurity, a transparent and pitiable attempt at asserting dominance. His own power play. Inwardly, Kaelin grinned: She felt she was on the right track if Morrow was this easy to rattle, however neutral his expression was. Smugly self-satisfied, she pressed on.
“But all of those leaders undeniably treated foreigners—well, immigrants and minorities if we’re honest—inside their borders unjustly and abusively. They have that much in common. And that is a basic history lesson, Mr. Morrow.”
“Are you suggesting our President is doing the same thing? Has it occurred to you that Hitler was a biological racist who saw immigrants and minorities as Untermenschen; Stalin was a paranoid xenophobe; and Mao was obsessed with the notion of ideological purity and anti-imper—”
“Those men, whatever their motives, had at least a sort of anti-immigrant bigotry in common,” said Kaelin, proud of how smoothly and quickly she could drop into professorial-lecture mode as she carpet-bombed Morrow with facts.
“Ms. Johnston, I did ask you not to interr—”
“Furthermore, the motives matter much less than the actions themselves,” Kaelin continued, transforming from a lecturer to a steamroller. Keep your opponent off-balance, she thought, remembering the words of one of her mentors. Morrow, for his part, had stopped talking and was now waiting for Kaelin to stop as well. The stoppage killed Kaelin’s momentum, which she resented, but there was little she could do in the face of silence: Either she could keep lecturing—but that would risk quickly turning into blah-blah-blather—or she could answer silence with silence as she waited for another opportunity to attack. Kaelin ran out of steam. The wordless moment between the two grew heavy and awkward. Then Morrow spoke.
“Ms. Johnston, I should have been clearer. You’ve interrupted me twice now after I had asked you for basic courtesy before this interview began.” A wall behind Morrow opened as a panel slid aside, revealing an adjacent room with a large, glass window. Kaelin hadn’t noticed the strange wall before; she’d been concentrating on asking her questions. In the room were people—people whom Kaelin recognized with a shock: her husband Greg; her two young, preteen daughters Amy and Carli; and her five-year-old son Ted, named after the greatest Kennedy and barely visible from Kaelin’s perspective. The family members’ expressions—the ones she could see, anyway—ranged from confused to thoughtful. A large guard who looked like an off-duty soldier stood in the corner of the other room, watching over the family. The family didn’t seem to notice Kaelin. Two-way mirror? Soundproofing? What were they doing here?
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