Microfiction

The Theory of Enough
"You will receive everything you’ve ever wanted, as long as you stop asking why you want it" — Final clause of the User Satisfaction Agreement, Ver. 22.8.1 1. The Upload The first time Elijah saw his SoulScore, it was 83.5. It flickered in the corner of his vision like a subtle watermark — above his grocery list, beside his messages, beside the temperature. All integrated. All connected. He hadn’t applied for SoulQuant, but consent was assumed. Everyone opted in eventually. You didn’t want to be the only one who hadn’t. At 83.5, Elijah was ranked among the “Fulfilled.” People with SoulScores above 80 had priority for things like job upgrades, dating pool access, and even early retirement bids. He had never felt particularly joyful, but the number told him he was. So he believed it. 2. The Calibration Phase His apartment became warmer by 0.3 degrees the day he dipped to 81.2. The system thought he liked it that way. A tailored ad reminded him he hadn’t ordered dinner yet — and also knew he’d been thinking about his mother lately. So it suggested her old meatloaf recipe, rendered by a home-cooked A.I. chef with “emotional familiarity programming.” The score bumped to 82.0. He smiled at the system, said “thank you,” and received a satisfaction confirmation pulse in his neural UI. Everything was working. Everything was fine. Except at night. When the dark wasn’t filled with noise. And he remembered things. Like how silence used to feel. 3. The Theory Itself The government had outsourced fulfillment to SoulQuant years ago. The theory was simple: Enough = (Desire – Disruption) / Access The SoulScore tracked everything: cravings, memory triggers, body chemistry, search patterns, past traumas, even your unspoken thoughts while dreaming. If the system could predict what made you feel satisfied — and give it to you before you knew you needed it — then you’d stop being a threat to yourself. Or society. Violence dropped. Depression rates plummeted. Productivity skyrocketed. But Elijah remembered what the professor had said: “Enough is not a number. It’s a direction. The moment you measure it, it disappears.” 4. The Woman Without a Score She stood on the same train platform every day. No visible lens. No neural UI node. Just a scarf, black boots, and eyes that didn’t flick to the SoulScore hovering above his shoulder. Her name was Mae. She didn’t ask for his number. She asked what he dreamt about. He laughed the first time. No one asked that anymore. It wasn’t relevant. He didn’t remember the answer. But he started writing them down. She didn’t live in a scored building. Didn’t accept deliveries. Didn’t pulse her status on networks. She never said “I'm happy.” But when she smiled — it felt heavier. Real. His SoulScore dropped to 78.4 the day after he kissed her. The system flagged it as a critical deviation. 5. The Correction Two silent men in gray coats arrived at Elijah’s door. They offered him a recalibration cycle: a brief sensory cleanse, a cognitive audit, and a “soft memory wipe” of non-conforming influences. “Standard,” one said. “Most people thank us afterward.” He looked at the offer. He felt the weight of Mae’s hand from last night, still faint on his chest. She had whispered something. “There’s a difference between peace and sedation.” He declined the correction. They smiled, politely. The door shut. His SoulScore blinked 71.6. Two neighbors unfriended him without warning. His rent increased by 12%. The smart glass window stopped auto-tinting. 6. The Decline The lower his SoulScore fell, the more he remembered. He remembered the sensation of longing — the ache that made art possible. He remembered his father’s laugh, not just the 3D recording. He remembered the cold in the mountains, and how beautiful it was because it hurt. He remembered that once, in college, he had wanted to build things that didn't optimize anything. He just wanted them to exist. At 65.1, he lost his job. The company cited "cohesion concerns." At 59.4, his building evicted him for “harmony dissonance.” At 52.0, he stopped seeing Mae. Or rather, she stopped being visible. His neural UI filtered her from his awareness. Unless he removed it. 7. The Final Choice Elijah stood in the mirror with the UI extraction tool shaking in his hand. The embedded lens behind his eye had long since fused with his tissue. Extraction would blind him. Permanently. But then he remembered: Enough is not a destination. It’s the refusal to be domesticated by it. He pressed the scalpel in. Screamed. Blood and light. Darkness. Then silence. And then— Her voice. “Now you can see.” 8. The New Theory He lives on the edges now. In a dead zone. No signals. No optimizations. No score. Some say he’s mad. Some say he’s missing. But others — the ones who meet his eyes and feel the strange warmth of their own unmeasured breath — they know: He found the theory. Not in a formula. Not in a pulse. But in a question. One that cannot be answered by a machine: "What if this moment... is already enough?" Author’s Note We measure everything now: likes, steps, hours slept, hearts broken, dreams ignored. But "enough" was never meant to be counted. If this story unsettled you — good. You’re still unquantifiable. Leave a heart if you still believe in unmeasured moments. Share with someone whose SoulScore you’d love even if it fell to zero.
By E. hasanabout a year ago in Fiction
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Here I am bleeding out on to the pretty redbricks of the High Street, when a familiar face looms into view above me. It's pale, almost luminous, and framed by very sleek black hair. Her lips are dark, and her eyes glitter. Questions spool through my mind in quick succession, but none of them get snagged on my tongue. Is it bad? Am I going to die? How long have you had a face? I don't have to ask who she is, of course. I'd recognise her anywhere. It's so rare that characters arrive in my head so fully formed, with such clear features. She really does have clear features, too. Like porcelain. She's not in her scrubs right now. I wonder if I'm going to make her late for work. She's wadding up some kind of material and holding it against the wound. It hurts, quite a lot actually, but it's a relief to have someone helping me, even if it's a... Well. "You might be lucky," she is saying, "It looks like your jacket was thick enough to take the worst of it... I can't guarantee that the knife didn't hit any organs though..." Her eyes are glittering more than ever and her teeth are lengthening. "Why don't you just leave me here. Ring an ambulance and go?" I press hard against the pad of fabric. "See, I'm keeping the pressure on it. I've seen enough movies. Go on. You need to go. Before..." She's going to lose it any moment. Maybe it's already too late. The way that smile is blooming over her face like that, those white, white teeth... "You wouldn't," I tell her, but lacking any conviction. "You can't. I didn't write you that way." "Shhhhhh," she hisses, and there's nothing soothing about it. Since when have any of my characters done what I wanted them to do? I'm a goner. The wail of the siren and the wash of blue light bring a wave of relief. My toothy rescuer has already melted away. I'm loaded into the vehicle by more people without faces. I'm almost used to it now. It maybe it's the hole in my side taking up all my concern. Faceless they may be, but they are efficient to a fault. Where are they taking me? Any chance they will take me home? My real home, I mean. There's a hospital not far from there. My heart sinks. I realise where they must be taking me. I think I'd rather have taken my chances with the vampire.
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Imagination
When Maya was seven, she built a castle out of couch cushions and ruled over it with a crown made from silver pipe cleaners. To the world, it was an untidy living room on a rainy afternoon, but to Maya, it was a fortress of magic and possibility. She never needed much—just a quiet corner, a spark of thought, and the freedom to let it wander.
By Nomiabout a year ago in Fiction
Flirt
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By Mike Singleton 💜 Mikeydred about a year ago in Fiction
The Heart Algorithm
Without us, there'd be no them. 🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖 Jason Chan was a robotics repairman who moonlighted by creating AI art apps. A quiet recluse, others thought him aloof. It wasn't that--he simply preferred robots because they--
By Michelle Liew Tsui-Linabout a year ago in Fiction
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The first call came at 2:07 a.m. Mara Lane, the new host of “NightPulse 103.3”, had just settled into her third week behind the mic. It was the dead hour—midnight to 4 a.m.—the time when truckers, insomniacs, and the unhinged called in with conspiracy theories and lonely thoughts. She wasn’t expecting much. She never did.
By Muhammad Sabeelabout a year ago in Fiction
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Once upon a time, in the ancient kingdom of Zaheerabad, nestled between black mountains and golden deserts, lived a Prince named Kamraan, son of the mighty King Ubaid. The Prince was fair in face and feared in sword, taught in the philosophies of men but untouched by the lives of those beneath him. The palace was carved from marble, adorned with silk and mirrors, but behind its glistening curtains brewed storms invisible to the blind.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
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By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Cursed Goblet of Ghumra
Once, in the sun-baked kingdom of Ghumra, ruled a king whose name was Gharsheed—adorned in jewels, feared by thousands, praised by poets who were whipped if they dared otherwise. The throne was carved of tusks, the court was of gold, and the prisons—of bone. Justice, in his realm, was a servant that limped. Mercy was blind, and wisdom wore shackles.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
The Perfume of the Slave
Once, in the time when kings ruled with iron fists but claimed to wear velvet gloves, there was a land called Khumyar, veiled in gold but rotting beneath. Its courtyards echoed with poetry while its prisons bled with silence. The king, Jalib the Proud, had a beard as thick as his cruelty and eyes that glistened with suspicion. His court was filled not with wise men but with flatterers dressed as philosophers. The pen was praised, but the sword decided justice.
By Muhammad Abdullahabout a year ago in Fiction
All Hail Dadatron
This is for Mikeydred's June Challenge. Don't get Dad to fix things--if you want them to work. Just a little nonsensical slapstick for Father's Day.
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