While this award was about augmented reality, I still wanted to make the story believable and develop a concept relating to present-day issues. I played with a few different therapy ideas, finally settling on the need for the character to share their feelings, without being judged.”
Microepisode of Major Love
Andrew Szemeredy
Giles turned on his microepisode controller. He tuned in to “swimming pool”. He lowered himself gingerly into the water… it was cool at the first touch, for his toe, but by the time his torso got immersed, it took on the temperature of a pleasant beach water.
He swam around the water for a short period, then he tuned the microepisode controller to “breakfast”. He sat down to the table racked with bacon, all imaginable fruits (some of which were not real, but still imaginable), toast, cereal, milk, honey, and a special drink that had been unknown to his people, which he called “orange juice”.
He burped, after a healthy helping of the breakfast food, and stood on the scale, which he had just tuned there at a moment’s notice on his micro controller, and lo and behold, he lost four pounds by eating his breakfast.
He turned the microepisode controller off, got dressed, and headed for work.
Giles worked for the self-tying shoelace company B-135/c. He enjoyed his job; which was to sweep up, to keep the jellyfish well supplied with food, and to watch the monitors of the washroom stalls, to make sure no employee would do something other than eliminating their human waste.
He was watching the monitors, and was unaware that he was watched as well. So when Lucretia, the blonde bombshell of the office went into a cubicle, and pulled up her skirt, and took out one of her breasts, and fixed to turn her microepisode controller on, Giles heard his boss’s voice bellow at him, “TURN THAT THING OFF.” Giles looked around the room, but saw nobody. He shrugged his shoulders, and kept on watching Lucretia’s passing the time. “TURN THAT OFF THIS INSTANT, YOU FOOL,” Giles heard his boss once again. He glanced at his microepisode controller, and sure enough, it was “on”. He switched if off, and Lucretia instantly became a scrawny dowager, with wrinkles under her eyes, and flushing the toilet.
“Oh, reality; what a Gyp,” thought Giles, not aware of the fact that this thought included an idiom referring to racist times when being a “Gyp” meant a thief.
Giles started to sweep the floor, only for Lucretia to walk all over the cleaned tiles with her boots, mud stuck onto them. “It only looks like mud,” laughed Lucretia, “smell it, ole’ boy, smell it,” and she laughed a maniacal laughter.
“Your microepisode controller is on,” said Giles reproachfully. Lucretia’s joy got instantly deflated. “Oh, pits. Was it that obvious?” The two did not get along. Not in the past, not in that present.
“Ya no,” said Giles, “that my grandmother married my grandfather?” “Which one?” asked Lucretia, “on your mom’s, or on your dad’s side?” “Both sides,” said Giles, “if you don’t want to hear the story just say so. No need to be sarcastic.” “But I don’t know sarcasm if it bit me in the leg,” said Lucretia. “I’M SARCASM”, said Giles, and started to chase the constantly screaming and laughing Lucretia, occasionally snipping and biting at her ankles. “Cut that out,” said the boss’s voice, “you’re not in grade three any more.”
Giles looked at his microepisode controller. It was off. So was Lucretia’s.
At that point Lucretia and Giles were facing each other, and he grabbed her by the upper arms, pulled her close, and kissed wildly, passionately, fully existentially, in the present, which kiss she fully returned.
Andrew Szemeredy on Microepisode of Major Love
"I wrote my piece on a whiff; like all my better efforts, it also came out almost automatically, without much or any thinking by me.
Once the initial idea of a machine which creates perceived reality out of imagination solidified into an instrument with an "on-off" switch and possibly (implied in the writing but not spelled out) having an interface with the operator's mind, I applied the idea to the most mundane, everyday life of a person, taken randomly of a boring day, and somehow my subconscious, muse-kissed mind channeled and transformed this boring, drudge of a day into one brilliant outstanding day for the hero.
I would like to say that this was intentional, but it was only created by me, yet not intentionally; for my pen was guided by my "muse", I only needed to hold the instrument in my hand. I am one of the many writers and creators who, I surmise, like me, get into the creative mood on a level of thinking and planning that is done in recesses of our minds which we don't have in the forefront of the conscious.
There is an entire philosophy of how creation and problem-solving works which philosophy I needed to create in order to explain this phenomenon, which more-or-less coincides with the phenomenon that has been described since ancient times as "being kissed by the muse".
Final Words
This concludes the Poke The Mango shorrlist. Congratulations to Jeanette Stampone on taking out first place and all the authors for a successful contest.
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