Three Short Stories and a Longer One

By E K Eonia

A collection of Three Short Stories and A Longer One.

Mayday--Set in a futuristic earth, Janice and Ernest find themselves falling in love at first sight without knowing what ‘in loves’ means.

The Hunchback of Room 101--Jerry’s life has become a burden. A burden so heavy that his body has manifested a large hump on the centre of his back, forcing him to carry it around as a reminder of his fate.

The Road Often Travelled--Jude Taylor desperately needs a new house. His lover has abandoned him, his mortgage bankrupt him and his older sister has decided to kick him out.

And the longer one…

I know she’s not telling me something--How much should two office colleagues know about each others lives? Stella is a self obsessed, self confessed snob, Annie is a quiet shy and deeply private person. Can two such opposite characters become friends? And if so what is the line that should not be crossed when wanting to know more about a friend?

• Language: English
• Publisher: E K Petrolekas
• Release date: Jul 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9780992172343

Book preview

Three Short Stories and a Longer One

Three Short Stories & A Longer One

E K Eonia

An ‘epik expansion’ Presentation

Copyright © EK Petrolekas 2012

First edition 2012

ISBN- 978-0-9921723-4-3

Three Short Stories…

MayDay

They first caught sight of each other on the first day of May. MayDay celebrations were taking place everywhere around them but they did not understand the meaning of this day because they were too young for it to hold any significance. Her name was Janice and his Ernest. They were old-fashioned names that stood out amongst their age group of peers named Cola, ZooYork and Imax.

The world around them was well lit and fluorescent. A glimpse of the moon was a rare and sought after event that the weather forecasting conglomerates of the late 21st century could no longer control. The ‘Moon Shows’ as they where once called had ignited a fierce competitor war among several of the weather companies a long time ago. Each company having pumped millions of tons of poisonous gas out into the atmosphere in hopes of clearing out the thick grey matter that clung onto the glass dome of the city. The gas particles were able to momentarily pierce through the grey matter back then, and observatories would point their most powerful moon gazers into the sky in hopes of catching a glimpse of the moon if only for a few seconds. Tickets for the moon shows were an expense that only the truly rich could afford. But even then the Moon Shows only lasted a few seasons as the grey matter thickened and eventually became totally impenetrable. The overinflated celebrity culture of the early 21st century had collapsed in on its self and life was now ruled by money. Nobody cared any more who you were or what you did. All that was important was how much money you had. Where it came from or how you obtained was irrelevant.

And so it was that Janice and Ernest first met on the first day of May, seeing each other from opposite ends of the same street. At first when their eyes met, their minds failed to respond. A few moments later their legs automatically led them towards each other and they each registered an unknown, confusing, alarming yet enticing connection that stopped them in their tracks. What happened to them that day had not, to their knowledge, happened to anybody else they knew of before. Despite the intense attraction of their first meeting, neither of them could remember any particular details, like what they were wearing, what was said, how they decided to walk together and, how it was that on the second day of May they had become inseparable. It was a strange story, everybody thought so, and privately others around them noticed a strange sensation deep within their chest that seemed to be like a hunger, a longing for some thing.

Participation, as life experience was known, had been revolutionized. People wore clothing coloured according to their earning ability. This was not to segregate the population but rather for practical reasons. There was no point in interacting with a person who could not match your earnings. The Master Creators had set this up to reduce anxiety amongst the participants of the city. With colour identification one could approach other participants without the hassle of asking questions, establishing rank and trustworthiness, which, the Master Creators had said, was the cause of the colossal collapse of the banking system in 2025. 

After the colossal collapse of the banking systems in 2025 when 427 people vanished with 98% of the world’s money and almost four billion people took their own lives in the resulting pandemonium, the banking system disappeared. Mega Cities around the world suddenly became like islands set adrift by a sudden storm. Where a person found themselves on the day of the 427 attack, was most likely where that person would live out the rest of their life.

The atmosphere changes started soon after the 427 attack and legend had it that the 427 orchestrated the weather changes after flying away in spaceships to another planet. Some said the fumes from their spaceships formed the grey matter, while other rumours would have you believe the grey matter formed long before the 427’s left. These days, such stories are only told to small children by old and bored men and women who are in age sickness. The most common legend is that, for some twenty years or so, after the initial shock of the 427 attack wore off, a few engineers and other people of various professions banded together to resurrect the broken economies of the world. Left in complete isolation and without any overseeing structure, they fantasized wildly about the brave new world that they would create. Notions and potions formed and without anybody really knowing why, the atmosphere around Home City started to change. Slowly, a large transparent dome was built over the city. 

Televisions, radios and newspapers were no longer in use after 23 of the 427 attackers were identified as media moguls. With no public information around, things just happened and people simply adapted. That is how it stands today. Except that now people know that it was the Master Creators who risked their lives to build the dome over Home City, many dying in the process from the poisonous grey matter inhalation, the shield protects Home City from. These brave people, these Master Creators managed to save Home City and became the founders of the new way of life.

It is not a bad way of life, in fact it is neutral. People all live together, still in the old ways with parents and children, with marriages and funerals. Of course aging is now known to be the incurable disease it is instead of the ‘normal end of life’ as the Wasters used to call it. The Wasters are the people of the 20th and early 21st centuries, savage, desolate people who birthed the 427 and ruined the world.

MayDay is the only celebratory event in Home City. There is a reference to the worker ethic associated with this celebration and it is the only references retained after the 427 attack that has been integrated into the new way of life.

Without anybody knowing why or how, Master Saver Cells suddenly turned up on the street corners of each worker cell in Home City. The Master Creators had sectioned Home City in order to better organise the new way of life. When the change occurred, each resident was asked to classify their earnings capacity and soon after that, colour coding