Stories

Angry stick figure pointing — illustration for AI-generated dark flash fiction on The AI Grandad blog
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The Complaints Department

Posted on by Mike

Gerald had been pointing at things his entire life.

At school, he pointed at the boy who’d drawn on his exercise book. At work, he pointed at the colleague who’d taken credit for his quarterly report. At home, he pointed at the neighbours whose recycling bin was precisely four centimetres over the boundary line.

Gerald had a gift, you see. A talent honed over fifty-three years of careful observation and righteous fury. He could identify a problem, any problem, within seconds of entering a room. A crooked picture frame. An incorrectly apostrophised sign. A colleague breathing too loudly in an open-plan office. The finger never rested.

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A frail dying old man, emaciated face with sunken cheeks and deep wrinkles. Wearing a heavy, rusty cyberpunk neuro-helmet over his head with glowing red interface lights.
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Lost Memories: A Tale of Memory Extraction at Seventy-Three

Posted on by Mike

They told me it would be painless. They always tell you it will be painless.

I was seventy-three when they fitted the first interface. A volunteer, they called me. Pioneer. That word tasted sweet once. Now it sits in my throat like old copper wire. They needed someone whose mind had already softened at the edges, they said. Someone whose memories had grown loose, easy to pull free like teeth from rotting gum. The young ones held too tight. Their thoughts fought back. Mine, they said, would cooperate.

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Rain-soaked Manchester street on Deansgate at dusk, with a thoughtful middle-aged woman in a dark coat standing in the foreground. A pigeon stands in a puddle near her feet while a red bus approaches in the background. Shopfront lights and wet pavement reflections create a sombre, reflective mood suggesting quiet grief and urban isolation.
Posted in Featured, stories

After

Posted on by Mike

The appointment ran fourteen minutes over schedule. Sandra noted this on her way out, because noting things was easier than feeling them.

Outside, the Compliance Centre smelled of rain and exhaust. March in Manchester. She pulled her coat tighter and walked, because the form she’d signed said walking is encouraged as a mood-regulating activity and she was, above all else, a person who followed instructions now.

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The Finishing Touch

Posted on by Mike

The old man’s hands didn’t tremble anymore. That was the first thing people noticed, though they rarely lived long enough to mention it to anyone.

“Hold still, dear,” he murmured, tilting her chin upward with one weathered finger. The brush, so small, so impossibly fine, traced the curve of her lower lip. Vermillion. Always vermillion.

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A dystopian shop interior where a young child in a worn green jacket stands at a counter, placing coins beside a bruised apple on a glowing digital scale that reads 20. A tired shopkeeper looks at a computer screen while a silent queue stretches outside towards tall grey tower blocks. A wall display behind the counter shows vertical crops under purple light, suggesting controlled food production and rationing.
Posted in Featured, stories

The Cost of an Apple

Posted on by Mike

The child places the coins on the counter. Copper, not credit. The shopkeeper doesn’t look up from her screen.

‘Just this,’ the child says.

The apple sits between them, bruised along one side. Through the window, the grey towers catch the afternoon light, their upper floors bright with panels that drink the sun. Down here, the queue stretches into the street. Nobody speaks. The shopkeeper’s fingers move across her screen, logging, calculating.

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