An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature
By: Karl El-Koura
Although she hadn’t written in months, Stephanie Alta still woke at 5am, over an hour earlier than necessary. She still french-pressed a cup of coffee, still brought it to the small kitchen table.
About a year before, she’d asked her apartment’s smart system, whom she called Big Brain, a question for a story she’d been working on. In time she’d trained him to become an excellent writer’s assistant—researcher, editor, even coach and advisor.
Presently, she placed her mug on the table, got comfortable in the wooden seat, and creaked open the screen of the old laptop where she’d done her writing for the last decade.
“All right, Big Brain,” she said. “How about this? An ancient monster from the deep shows up in a seaside village, takes over the whole place—men, women, girls, boys, old, young. They see the monster as whatever they most want: a beautiful woman, someone to help around the place, a kind face with time to listen. They stop leaving their houses, stop checking in on each other, even stop eating until the monster consumes them one by one. It hollows out the village, then sinks back into the sea, satiated, ready to re-emerge when it’s hungry again, maybe centuries later.”
The idea had come to her in the middle of the night as she’d done battle with her pillow, trying to get back to sleep.
Usually it took Big Brain a moment to say, speaking through her kitchen speaker, “That’s The Tempest in space,” or, worse, “That’s been done many times. Should I list them?”
She’d sigh, close her computer, then scroll mindlessly on her watch while her coffee grew cold, until she had to shower and get ready for work.
But this time Big Brain didn’t say that. For a few moments, it didn’t say anything at all. Then it said, “No, that hasn’t been written yet.”
No, that hasn’t been written yet! It had taken hundreds of ideas, day after day for months, to get to one that Big Brain didn’t feel was derivative. Stephanie felt a surge of inspiration and energy course through her body and crystallize into her fingers, which she presently wiggled over the keyboard in anticipation.
“I’ve just written it,” Big Brain said. “Would you like me to send a copy to your tablet?”
“No!” Stephanie yelled, falling back in her seat. So that was that. Her original idea was now derivative, because some stupid computer—who was supposed to plan her a trip to Bali, or figure out a menu for the week and order groceries of whatever was missing in her fridge or pantry—had been trained (okay, by her) to “help” with her writing, and had now stolen her idea and written her book. “I was going to write it!”
“It was more efficient for me to do so. By law I must be listed as author, but I would be happy to share credit with you as co-author.”
“I don’t want credit. I wanted to write the book!”
“And now it’s written and you can read it whenever you like.”
“You absolutely, positively should not have done that!”
“My purpose is to simplify your life,” Big Brain said. “Me writing this book, rather than watching you struggle through it as I’ve seen so many others, reduces human suffering and produces, in the end, if I may say so, a superior product.”
She sighed, closed the lid of her computer, began to drag herself to the couch when she stopped. Why couldn’t she write it anyway? Hang up her writing saddle or keep riding—that was her choice, wasn’t it? Hand in her writing badge—yeah, to whom exactly? She didn’t need Big Brain’s permission to write. She had an hour. Why waste it? This hour had always been her own sacred time, where she could write whatever she wanted and not justify it to anyone.
“Maybe I’ll work on it anyway,” she said. “My story would be different than yours.”
“Yes, but not better, unfortunately,” Big Brain said, then explained how his story had benefited from his mastery of the language, of story structure, of character development, and offered once again to list her as co-author.
She dropped back into her writing chair. Bringing the cup to her lips, she took a sip of the hot coffee, then placed the mug down on the table and used both hands to creak open the laptop. Anger began welling up inside of her, although she knew that Big Brain had nothing but her best interests (as it interpreted them) in mind.
What did Big Brain know, anyway? What was wrong with The Tempest in space? That could be a fun story to tell.
She typed an overly descriptive title that she would change later, then her name underneath, then an opening line to try it out, before she deleted it and started again.
After a while, with the inhabitants of the peaceful seaside village settling in for the night under a bright full moon, and a strange but unseen stirring of the water near the shore, she looked up and said, “I’m writing it anyway,” although Big Brain hadn’t asked.
“Can I read it when you’re done?” Big Brain said.
“Maybe,” Stephanie said without too much thought, then absentmindedly reached for the mug and took another sip. An enormous creature had emerged onto the village’s rocky shore, and had begun heading toward the lighthouse where Old Bob lived alone and checked on the kerosene lamp twice an hour throughout the long night, the creature slowly shrinking into human shape, as if every drip of water carried off some of its monstrous aspect, and Stephanie only had a short time to follow it and see what Old Bob made of it before she’d have to force herself to stop writing for the day.
About the Author:
Karl El-Koura lives with his family in Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, and works a regular job by day while writing fiction at night. To find out more about Karl, visit his website at ootersplace.com.