You Are Here Because You Are Different.
Let me guide you into the world of Uncomfortable Fiction
The waiting room is suddenly crowded. There are a lot of you; although, I see you one-at-a-time, as individuals.
Most of you arrived in the last 72 hours via “Flagged as 97% AI.” You clicked because you feel the tightening grip of the LLMs. You worry that your humanity is becoming a metric that you are failing to meet.
Welcome.
But before you get comfortable, you need to understand the rules.
Most fiction is an anesthetic. It tells you that the “good guys” win. It tells you that the system is broken, but you are special. It comforts you with the lie that you are merely a victim of the world, rather than an accomplice to it.
I don’t write anesthetics.
I write Uncomfortable Fiction (UFiction).
As a reader recently defined it in the comments:
“You came here to be safely disturbed by a fictional scenario that has nothing to do with you. And then you realize: This is about you.”
I don’t organize my files by date. I organize them by the discomfort they cause. Since you are new, here is your required reading list, sorted by diagnosis:
Diagnosis 1: “I feel safe.” (Start Here)
Symptoms: You think democracy protects you. You think “fairness” is a simple mathematical equation. You believe that if we just gave everyone a voice, the world would be perfect. You are naive.
Prescription:
This is the story that should have gone viral first. It is a look at what happens when the system gives you exactly what you asked for. If “Flagged as 97% AI” made you smirk, this one will make you sweat.
Diagnosis 2: “I feel like a cog.”
Symptoms: You suspect your job is meaningless. You fear that bureaucracy isn’t just a bug in the system, but the fundamental law of the universe. You worry that even after you die, you will still have to fill out forms.
Prescription:
A series about the Afterlife DMV, where a tired Clerk judges souls not by their sins, but by their paperwork.
Note: The full case file (13 Episodes) is currently on Amazon. The paperback and Kindle versions are available for those who want the full diagnosis.
Diagnosis 3: “I feel like a fraud.”
Symptoms: You curate your life for an audience that doesn’t care. You suspect that your digital avatar is eating your real personality alive. You are terrified that one day, the filter will glitch and people will see the gray, empty thing underneath.
Prescription:
A short story about an influencer who wakes up one morning to find her face has simply... failed to load.
Take with:
A take on what Substack could be if we would really write just for ourselves, not for others or for validation.
The archives are open. The mirror is polished.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
— Ellis
"Sentenced to Heaven" -- this sounds fun. I'm a tragedy guy myself. I have no illusions that everything will end up grand for our heroes in most stories; in fact, I hope it doesn't. I like the bittersweet ending, the melancholy that lingers. The tales that aren't wrapped up in a bow are the ones that stay with you. If they make you cry, you will never forget them.
The moment one decides who is awake and who is asleep, one has already chosen the easier story. Anesthetics is fiction. Or vice versa.
But what is fiction?
Even history is fiction: it selects, it erases, it tells a story. Anesthesia itself.
I very much enjoyed your post. Thank you🙈🙉🙊