Shawn Daring
Bio
Aspiring fiction writer based in Charlottesville, Virginia
Stories (9/0)
The Day We Did It
Look, I don’t expect you to understand. Let me guess, they haven’t even tried to upload the first mind to a computer yet? They haven’t had hundreds of years — and thousands of prisoners of war from World War V to experiment on- to perfect every single aspect of the technology? To finally be able to transfer consciousness, combine consciousness, clone consciousness, erase and alter memories? Create life but destroy the fabric of society on the whims of six men with code and wires and whiteboards who only cared about what they could do and not what they should do?
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Futurism
I Will Never Stop Loving You
When you leaned over and whispered in my ear that you loved me, I wished to stay with you forever. The moment was perfect: you were perfect. I’d known I was in love with you since the first day of freshman year when you asked if I could help you kill a bug in your dorm and you had to repeat yourself because I kept getting lost in your eyes as you told me the story of a monster cockroach terrorizing you and your roommate (it was the smallest bug I had ever seen). And from that day forward we were best friends. You dragged me out of bed at eight every morning so I wouldn’t miss my first class like I usually did, sneaking a granola bar in my bag too so I wouldn’t miss breakfast. I bought you red bull and cookies every time you had a test that you waited until the last day to study for. You told me about the time you fixed a bird’s broken wing in sixth grade and how it would come sit on the tree branch outside your room every day after that and how that made you want to be a vet. I told you about how my best friend got charged with grand larceny for stealing some baseball cards he didn’t know were worth five thousand dollars and how that made me want to be a lawyer. We walked back together from the library every weekday night and from the bars every weekend night; I always made sure to walk on the curb side. We would start going back sooner and sooner as we realized there was nobody else we would rather be around (even if you insisted you were simply “more productive” in my room). Eventually my heart would beat so fast every time I was with you that I couldn’t help but feel like I was in danger. My young mind hadn’t yet realized that is the definition of love: a state of danger. And I never felt more in danger when I finally told you how I felt and my face turned red and I could only take shallow breaths. But you made everything better with just four words: “I feel the same.” It was so magical it almost felt fake. It’s been sixty years and it still feels fake that someone like you would like someone like me.
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Futurism
Karma
“Don’t think about it! Do it right now!” The child held the rusty machete over his left ankle, wondering what he did in his past life to have such awful karma. Ruhan closed his eyes and lifted the sword, reminding himself that beggars without all four limbs get thousands more rupees than beggars with.
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Humans
Gentleman
Hold the door, offer your jacket, say please and thank you, buy her flowers. Put a napkin on your lap, never eat the last slice of cake, know the difference between your soup spoon and dessert spoon. Never ask a woman her age. Don’t just ask how her day was, listen to what she says. Give up your seat on the metro, treat those in the service industry with respect and dignity, walk her home, never leave the party without thanking the host.
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Psyche
Don't Do Drugs
I remember that it was more than just fear- that it was existential dread, creeping up from my ankles to my neck, making my body clench so hard I thought my bones would be grinded to powder. The mere thought that I might be exposed, cast away from my family and community, lose the few friends that I had, and live the rest of my life wondering what could have been had I just continued to contain myself like I had been for years already. But then I’d remember the feeling I got every time I saw you. It seems obscene to describe it with words. So I’ll say that it was medicine, the cure to my dread. A muscle relaxer that eased the tension on my shoulders and let me sink into the Earth. A pill that vaporized my worries and focused my brain one the only thing that mattered: you. And every time I got my dose I wanted to end the façade, to leave my self-imposed containment. Even if it killed me.
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Humans
Dry Heat
I am not a violent person but nothing would make me angrier than my dad constantly asserting that the scorching Arizona summer was “dry heat” and therefore not as bad as it could be. The lack of humidity, he would assure us, would allow our bodies to cool themselves. Bullshit. You had to think twice before touching anything in this hellish desert; accidentally grazing the metal part your car or your keys would feel like taking a tray out of the oven without gloves. Even our backyard pool, which initially excited me, was turned into a sauna from the months of May to September.
By Shawn Daring3 years ago in Confessions