What Will It Be Like

What Will It Be Like is all done. Previously, it was a weekly dose of short fiction about quiet moments in the future. Cryptic, curious, poetic, like a Group of Seven painting, like “Not Ideas About the Thing but the Thing Itself,” like a long-lost journal.

Here are a few stories from the archive.


What will it be like to meet your dead father?

Not Yourself

·
April 16, 2023
Not Yourself

They said he was my father, but I couldn’t be sure. They guided him down the hospital ramp to the open air, then released him into my custody. He’s not my father, I said. They said, Of course he’s your father, the surgery went smoothly, he has all his memories, of course it’s him.


What will it be like when the air quality is bad year-round?

One Fire May Hide Another

·
June 11, 2023
One Fire May Hide Another

Why am I annoyed? Why am I yelling? I know why, it’s not a question, who am I even asking it to, why am I asking it, I know why, it’s because the air purifiers are too loud, incidentally the husband hasn’t gone to get the table runners yet and I am trying


What will it be like when you can tune people’s personalities in real time?

Transparent Man in a Translated World

·
April 24, 2022
Transparent Man in a Translated World

His arrogance was bothering me that day, that arched eyebrow, an eyebrow that felt like it could impact my local weather even though he was halfway across the world in New Zealand. “Of course they’re going to respond that way if you give them reason to,” he said. Since he was my friend, I hesitated to tune him. But eventually I became exasperated. While…


Who wrote this?

I did. I’m David Yourdon.

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Weekly short fiction about ordinary moments in the future

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Writer, engineer. Imagining the quiet moments of the future.