Hello. Welcome to Election 2040. I¡¯m Betsy Ross, your Ballot Assistant. Thank you for coming out to vote. Let¡¯s get started! Please transmit your citizen ID number."Candidate Y" by Malka Older (audio):
¡°... Have you got any thoughts so far?¡±"One Hundred Sentences About the City of the Future: A Jeremiad" by Alex Irvine:
¡°Yes, but I don¡¯t feel confident about my choice yet.¡±
¡°Do you want to talk about the candidates first, or work the other way around, from your preferences?¡±
¡°The latter, I think.¡±
71. We call for a thorough re-examination of the ways in which the City¡¯s environmental, climatological, economic, information, and social policies contribute to the quest for the next becoming of the City of the Future."Reliable People" by Charlie Jane Anders:
72. This call has been circulated to all subscribers of our popular programs in children¡¯s cookery, intermediate saxophone, and sexual experimentation.
We have no quota, no set hours. We keep going for as long as burnt coffee recharges us, slouching in lumpy plastic chairs that scritch on the parquet floor of a ground-floor office whose single plate window is blotted by standees of the Candidate, wearing a reassuring smile and a dark pantsuit. We repeat phrases like ¡°bringing back forward thinking¡± and ¡°the bronze path to the light,¡± as if we know what they mean. We never look at each other, but we imagine that all our faces wear the same look: professional, focused, ecstatic. Everything smells of sweat, pizza, and overcooked coffee. Nobody ever ventures inside the office, apart from the Candidate and us.
« Older The Mystery of Tom Pritchard¡¯s Bike | Penguin Pandemic Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Well, that was grim.
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:08 AM on September 20, 2020 [1 favorite]