My fifth story, second short-enough-to-be-official short story, and first attempt at horror has passed the Shoe Review, and I’ve gotten through what I can remember of her notes, which I somehow lost, but anyway, it’s looking ready to go its own way.
This one started with that ant display at the Museum of Jurassic Technology—you know, the one with the fungus—and tripped over a café of folks tapping their phones on its way to storyhood.
“He’s in,” Sam said, with a nod towards the end of the bar.
“Ya think?” Nate drawled.
We all leaned forward to look. The guy in question was hunched over his phone, scruffy beard and dreads black in the cold light, a glass of water unnoticed on the bar before him.
“Mobster,” J-Net agreed.
“Good thing we don’t look so obvious,” Douglas said. “The bartender’s got to be hating this.”
Sam and J-Net exchanged amused looks. “Uh, Douglas? We do look obvious.”
Which we did: Nate with his tweed jacket over a “re:WIRED” tee-shirt, Sam with her stormtrooper bike helmet and fluorescent hair, J-Net with her three asymmetrical pigtails and a “Monster Women” lunchbox as a purse, and Douglas… well, Douglas was born obvious. And all of us with our phones in front of us; Douglas had two, and a tablet computer, and an e-paper display that Nate was using as a coaster.
“But we’re buying beer, so they like us,” added J-Net.