A Finally Perfect World

Chateau

PHOTO PROMPT © Sandra Crook

Ali met Marie after her tour of the old French chateau. In ages past it was the manor or palace of the noble class.

Of course, no one could live like that anymore.

“Was it enjoyable?” Ali asked. He fanned himself. The museum weather simulation was too realistically warm.

“Enlightening, though a bore,” she said stepping into ersatz sunlight.

“Hard to believe people used to live this way.” Ali strode beside her toward the hidden exit.

“I’m glad our world is completely equitable, but let’s hurry.” Feeling an uncomfortable twinge of individuality, she walked faster toward the mental conditioning station.

Another wee tale written for this week’s edition of Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers. The challenge is to use the image above as the prompt for crafting a poem or short story no more than 100 words long. My word count is exactly 100.

I had trouble thinking of what to do with this one, and with limited time, considered the current state of Europe and certain political and social requirements for things like “equity” and “inclusiveness” as absolutes.

Unfortunately, if you really want to make every person’s lived outcome and experience completely identical, you have to sacrifice human differences. By definition, human beings will always have different starting points and differing outcomes.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit inlinkz.

far futures

Cover art for “Far Futures: Book Four”

My crime noir short story “Last Wish of a Dead Man” is now available in the Raconteur Press anthology Dames, Derringers and Detectives: Moggie Noir. The story requirements included a hard-boiled detective, a murder, and especially a cat. The third in my “Margie Potter: Haunted Detective” series made the cut.

Also, my horror short story “Haunting Chloe” is now available in the ghost story anthology Haunted Places (universal link) by Blackbird Publishing. Pick up a copy of each, give them a read, and don’t forget to leave honest reviews at Amazon and Goodreads.

Additionally, my short story “Awash On Titan’s Shores” was accepted into the “Far Futures: Book Four” anthology, to be published this coming December.

The same publisher included my short story “Confluence” in Book Three of that series last year.

25 thoughts on “A Finally Perfect World”

    • I wasn’t commenting on any specific human circumstance. The photo was just there. My comment (and I thought it was obvious) was any attempt to make humanity “equitable” in an absolute sense is going to fail because, quite frankly, we’re not all the same in our qualities and abilities.

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    • Money fuels politics and social movements. It always has and if that money wants the majority to lose independent decision making (think George Orwell’s “1984:), they’re going to try hard to make it happen.

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