Charlie Nihil
Bio
Aspiring novelist. Writer of realist dystopian fiction. Trying to capture our existential reality and all the beauty surrounding it. Also write a lot of casual free verse poems.
@ContemporaryCharlie
Stories (13/0)
The Book Keeper
A missing poster spirals about in the wind, and the trash leaks from the tops of rusting dumpsters. The street lights turn from green to yellow, then red, leaving this splattered puke of colour across the wet asphalt. Some vehicles parked on the road are also hit with this ashy red colour. Decaying cars howl as they limp down the streets. The mid-march slush piles still suffocate the grass in the boulevards. It mostly rains these days. Oswald watches the reflections of broken windows and foreclosed buildings split in half as cars drive through the puddles around the manholes and catch basins that no longer drain.
By Charlie Nihil11 months ago in Fiction
Dust Of This Planet
I sat there with all my dreams in one hand and a sixty thousand dollar degree in the other, and they might as well have turned to ash in my palms. I thought I could smell them burning, that sweet scent of smoking paper as I closed my eyes, and I wished with every cell in my body that I and the other person in the room with me would erupt into flame.
By Charlie Nihil11 months ago in Fiction
The Wealthy Diet
My father says the government knows what's best for us, but when they said we needed to start eating cash, I didn't know if I could trust his opinions anymore. It had been building up for a few years; food was slowly inching closer to death as the months went on, becoming scarce, more poisonous, and infested with chemicals, and no one seemed to bat an eye at it. As long as the tomatoes were waxy and looked perfect on the shelves, people didn't question whether or not they were even eating a tomato. I always thought it tasted good. But it turns out the chemical levels had been rising, a little bit here and a little higher there, and people started dying once their bodies had turned on them. Just dropping like elephants to the elephant gun once the poison hit the roof. That's what got my sister and mom, my sister always said things tasted better when we were kids. I always thought she was right.
By Charlie Nihilabout a year ago in Fiction
Love Amidst the Darkness of the Sea
I signed up for this getaway when I walked in on my girlfriend Charlie covered in Vaseline on our bed and a ruckus coming from the bathroom of our apartment. I left my life in that place. I figured if someone who loves me is willing to throw it all away for a quick ring in the sheets, then all those things that encompass who I am mustn't be worth much. Or maybe I'm telling myself that because I walked away from thousands of dollars worth of books.
By Charlie Nihilabout a year ago in Fiction
- Top Story - January 2023
AuthorGPTTop Story - January 2023
Harold West sipped Chivas from the bottle. The room is dark, save a little moonlight from the master bedroom windows. Before him on the table, a stack of books, a pile of old literary masterpieces, and next to them, a computer with Word opened, that same venom white blank page. The more he stared at that digital screen of death, the more he could feel all his dreams and aspirations get sucked into the nothingness it created.
By Charlie Nihilabout a year ago in Fiction
Pawns
We are the greatest unpaid workers in the history of the world. We spit shine greed and smile as we whip ourselves into battered submission. I see it everywhere, people's spines like horseshoes, the kids like drones, and the field workers don't cry anymore; they dance. The world's a stage, and everyone's an agent. We can't go anywhere without being caught in someone's videos. Cameras stuffed into the cracking faces of the homeless. Hold these two musical instruments and clap them together; if I get enough likes, I'll throw a pair of socks and some Wonderbread at you.
By Charlie Nihilabout a year ago in Fiction
The Time Line
At the entrance stands a husky woman, half a shaved head with half her hair half tinted purple, the other half is halfway between blue and green. Staring me down as she holds out her hand. The closer I get, the more her body towers over mine, and I stand over six feet tall. She doesn't say anything as she opens and closes her hand impatiently, as if this means to give her something. I place my university transcript in her opening and closing claw, the only thing I have of any value. When I received it in the mail a week ago, it came with a letter from the dean stating that I had to bring the transcript to this building and follow the instructions on what to do from here.
By Charlie Nihil2 years ago in Fiction
