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Thnkr

Joe was reading in the uni library when she suddenly felt a deep current of crushing sadness course through her body. It came on so suddenly she had to hold on to her chair until she could make out the words in her book again.

Moments later it had subsided and she looked down at the phone buzzing on the table next to her backpack. Then she realised. It was her hormonal alarm reminding her to get some lunch before her tutorial in half an hour.

Bugger! She'd accidentally set it to 'sad' again. It'll take a few hours for the aftershocks to wear off. She went into the settings and changed the default to "mild euphoric" before she forgot.

Sometimes she thought maybe she shouldn't have had the app installed. It was good for mood regulation - useful in tests for sure - but the alarm was so fiddly to get right. Not user friendly at all.

Well, the surgery had been okay, and the free trial period wasn't up for another few months. Might as well keep it for now. She stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder. Her friend Mitch sidled up to her from out of nowhere.

"Hey! You okay? You look a bit…?"

"Yeah, just… tech issues. You had lunch?"

"Not yet. Let's go."

They walked out into the quad towards the student bar.

"Hey did you have the notes from last week?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, I'll send them to you. Actually, know what? I'll Thnk them to you!" Mitch looked at her expectantly, like he was making an inside joke, but she was still a bit dazed from the alarm.

"Huh?"

"You remember that company Thnkr like a year ago? Who tried to make thought messaging a thing?"

By now they were sitting in a booth at the bar, staring at menu screens. On a small stage in the corner a man played acoustic guitar versions of Top 40 R&B songs. His voice had a subtle digital timbre, like autotune, although he wasn't using any microphone.

"Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that. They were really pushing it for a while though."

"Yeah, I mean, just because thought commands had a moment -"

"- they fucked those too by focusing on the high-end market early on. Now no one cares." Joe's mood was lifting. Product marketing mishaps were a favourite topic for them both.

"Yeah, a friend's mum bought a fridge with thought commands enabled. Didn't work very well," Mitch said. "But it's one thing to figure out appliance telepathy. It's wild anyone believed they were going to do human-to-human."

Joe laughed as she ate and remembered the strange bubble from four whole hype cycles ago. "That's right, they had billboards all over the place before even launching, and there were like, massive investments. They'd partnered with all these big companies, then that leaked meeting video went viral and it was over."

Mitch nodded. "Even if the science had matched the predictions, I don't think it would've been as revolutionary as people thought. Plus who'd want all those ads in their brain before each message. I get enough of that at night from my YouTube dream implants."

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Unfinished Business

They all live close together like neighbours in a block of flats. The vloggers, the essayists, the influencers…

We spy on them through one-way glass windows and they know someone is watching.

Can anyone else see a day-trader ghost trapped in the walls? A drop-shipping spectre ensnared by liminality, in the dead space between each apartment?

He is screaming at me about passive income.

CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO SET HIM FREE.

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Climbing the ladder

i’m living off the corporate teat

now i get Handouts from my boss-king.

and i’ve earned the right to shit on

those who are paid a pittance to be a punching bag.

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Sir Elton John and Helen Mirren  lead celebrities mourning the loss of the Earth: ‘An inspiring presence’

Sir Elton John and Helen Mirren have led the celebrity tributes following the death of all life on Earth.

It has been confirmed that the Earth died yesterday after a seemingly long (but in the span of things incredibly recent) battle with human-built hierarchical, exploitative and extractive systems. News of the death came after it was announced at lunchtime that she was under medical supervision and increasingly uninhabitable.

Celebrities from across the former globe have paid tribute to Earth and praised its impressive 4.54 ± 0.05 billion year tenure as support system for myriad now extinct life-forms.

Sir Elton John described the Earth as an ‘inspiring presence’ and said he would ‘miss her dearly’. ‘Along with the rest of humanity, I am deeply saddened to hear the news of the Earth’s passing,’ he wrote. ‘She was an inspiring presence to be around, and lead humanity through some of our greatest, and darkest, moments with grace, decency and a genuine caring warmth. The Earth has been a huge part of my life from childhood to this day, and I will miss her dearly.’

Dame Helen Mirren described the late planet as the ‘epitome of nobility’, sharing a photo of herself on Earth with her Twitter followers.

Sir Mick Jagger noted that throughout his whole life the Earth has ‘always been there’. ‘In my childhood I can recall watching documentaries about it on TV,’ the Rolling Stones frontman said as he shared a photo of the former globe on his Instagram. ‘I remember her as a beautiful planet, the much-beloved grandmother of us all.’

Daniel Craig also paid tribute and remarked that the Earth leaves ‘an incomparable legacy and will be profoundly missed’. The James Bond continued: ‘I, like so many, was deeply saddened by the news today and my thoughts are with those who loved it’.

British rock star Ozzy Osbourne said the news of the Earth’s death was ‘devastating’. ‘I mourn with my country the passing of our greatest planet,’ the Black Sabbath frontman wrote on Twitter. ‘With a heavy heart I say it is devastating the thought of existence without a planet to live on.’

Someone less famous from off the telly said we will ‘forever be in your debt for your lifetime of dedication. Sending love too to all those, like me, who feel the loss of her extraordinary presence as a constant in all our lives, seems even now, strangely and unsettlingly unreal.’

JK Rowling described the Earth as ‘a thread winding through all our lives’.

Stephen Fry wrote: ‘Oh dear. Oh my. Oh heavens. Bless my soul. Oh lor. Heck.’

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