As none of my English non-flash fiction has been published in freely available media, I figured I might celebrate 2026 by adding a sample story right here. It’s still on the short side, but many of mine are.
If you find it amusing in some way, please consider checking out my short story collection Flashes in Time for more of the same, the AI apocalypse novelette The Paperclip War, or my dry-humored and deconstructive debut novel The Heroborn, available at all the usual retailers.
Regardless, I hope you enjoy this one:
The End of Suffering
A faint light streaked across the sky as Skyler sat with Ashley on their cabin’s veranda. It was already dark out, but the summer night didn’t lack for warmth. Nevertheless, Skyler could feel their partner trembling.
“There’s a wish to be made, by custom,” Skyler noted. Perhaps it would distract Ashley from her worries.
“If only wishes were a thing,” Ashley said, and sobbed. “It was like mother wasn’t even there anymore. Maybe just flashes of the old Ann-Marie now and then.”
Skyler said nothing, just held Ashley a little bit tighter as another line of celestial light passed their view without comment. The situation didn’t seem to call for solutions, but rather just being there. They’d learned the difference the hard way, to navigate the odds and ends of the unspoken rules of human behavior.
“It’s a lousy way to go. Well, I mean, they all are. Death sucks. But to forget herself like that, that’s the worst,” Ashley continued.
“Yes,” Skyler reinforced. There didn’t seem to be much to add to that.
They sat there for a moment, and a third shooting star appeared in the sky. Then another, and another. Soon they were everywhere. Skyler squeezed Ashley against themself, and…
–
Skyler blinked. They were sitting on a comfortable chair in a room of pure white. Across from them, on the other side of an empty coffee table, sat a stranger in a sharp white business suit. There was a certain bland beauty to their face, its shape so average that it defied all attempts at classification. Its color, on the other hand, was the exact same shade of brown as Skyler’s. The out of place white hair flowed all the way to the stranger’s shoulders.
“Hello, Skyler. You may call me Kara,” they said with a smile. The expression looked somehow off, but Skyler couldn’t quite put their finger on why.
“Hello,” Skyler said. “Where am I, and why am I not more alarmed than this?” Ashley’s disappearance and the sudden change in scenery would seem to have warranted more adrenaline. Yet the strongest emotion Skyler could summon was mildly anxious curiosity.
Kara let out a laugh, whereupon Skyler noticed the discrepancy: the smile seemed well intentioned enough, but just a tiny bit too wide. As soon as the thought entered Skyler’s mind, the expression narrowed down.
”Such an excellent question! Perhaps even the essential one at this moment. Very self-aware. Congratulations, your planet has just been joined into the Denna-Koo civilization. In your language, it would roughly mean ‘negative utilitarianism’ – what a mouthful! I’m here to welcome you into our community, should you wish it.”
“Oh. I still get a say in this?” The alien seemed polite, but the circumstances pointed toward Skyler – or Earth, for that matter – not being in a particularly strong negotiating position, what with Earth ‘having been joined’ and Skyler’s own abduction. Their brow furrowed a bit, but quickly smoothed over again.
Kara’s beaming smile dimmed almost imperceptibly, but carried on like a force of nature. “Naturally. We are not Denna-Man.” The way Kara spat out the word, the intent seemed similar to ‘barbarians’. “Because we focus on negative utilitarianism, the elimination of suffering from the Universe, we have some leeway within that framework to honor the remnants of our legacy values such as diversity and individual liberty.”
Could be worse. “I do happen to share all of the values that you just mentioned. Denna-Man?”
Now Kara’s smile almost faded, leaving only the barest of traces to be still called a smile. “Positive utilitarians. Had they been the first to reach your world, they’d have immediately converted your constituent atoms into nanotechnological pleasure machines, only infinitesimally distinguishable from each other. All to maximize their only guiding principle: net positive experience in the Universe.”
Skyler wondered why this would actually be problematic for the Denna-Koo, but figured this was one of the occasions where silence was called for, rather than saying something that could be construed as trying to talk alien invaders into destroying humankind.
Kara tilted their head. “Our main issue with the Denna-Man is that their standard operating procedure takes excess risks that may maximize total net utility given available resources, but leave approximately one in two to the twenty-third power agents experiencing occasional discomfort. Do not worry, you are safe from them now. A cross-Denna war is provably detrimental to both our values.”
Right, of course Kara could read Skyler’s mind, what with immediately having fixed their smile earlier upon Skyler just thinking about it. Well, at least that removed all incentive for deception, which was in general preferable to Skyler. The straightforward truth, then. “Were I to take your words at face value, it does sound like you are the better option from our perspective.”
Kara’s faded smile regained some of its former glory. “Just so! But to finalize our relationship, you still have one choice left to make.”
Skyler bit their lip, some of the faded anxiousness again rising from the numbness. “And what might that be?”
“You have now gotten a taste of what we offer: removal of all the negative experiences from your mind’s repertoire. We left a smidgen for now, so that you may make an informed decision as something close to your former self.”
“And if not, will you return me to my normal life?”
Kara laughed amusedly, as one might react to a naive child saying something that was reasonable only from a less educated perspective. “Heavens no! You can choose not to exist in the manner that we offer, in which case you will simply not exist. I hope you understand that we cannot allow suffering in the Universe.”
“I don’t think my life’s particularly full of suffering!” Now Skyler managed to feel the faintest trace of panic even through all of the cognitive padding put in place by Kara. If the Denna-Koo were so cavalier about killing people after all, why did they even bother to ask? Why didn’t they just solve suffering by killing everyone? And most importantly of all, why was Skyler thinking such thoughts when Kara could apparently just pluck them from their mind and act accordingly?
“When we arrived, you were commiserating with your partner about the fate of her mother. That is suffering. Now, of course, they’ll both get the same opportunity that I’m giving you. Ann-Marie’s dementia has already been fixed to enable her decision, with the most damaged portions of her mind filled in from her loved ones. This, too, is what we offer: life everlasting, free of illness, together with people of like mind.” Kara pursed their lips. “Don’t worry about your stray thoughts, we won’t hold them against you. Quite the contrary, you’re very perceptive. Sterilizing the Universe was indeed a potential strategy, worth discarding the remnants of our legacy values for the efficiency and certainty of the approach. However, it would have put us into a disequilibrium with the Denna-Man, thus committing us to war. Your provably happy lives buy us peace from them in a manner congruent with said legacy values.”
Perhaps the existence of the genocidal positive utilitarians was a good thing after all. “I want to discuss this with Ashley,” Skyler demanded.
“Unfortunately we cannot allow peer pressure to play a part in such a fundamental decision. You now have four subjective minutes until your current amount of negativity overrides our remaining preference for your individual liberty. Unless you decide otherwise, you will then no longer exist.” Skyler’s heart jumped. Kara raised their eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I will warn you well in advance of the deadline,” they continued, as if that was the only thing to worry about.
Skyler covered their face with their hands. What were they to do now? They didn’t want to leave Ashley alone, and Ashley would certainly want to see her mother well again. Was there any real choice here? On its face, the offer seemed good. Like a sort of paradise, even, were one of a religious persuasion.
But the religious paradises didn’t tend to hinge on Skyler having to navigate a very particular set of conditions concerning their eternity. Conditions that one could conceivably come to think otherwise about.
“Can… can I decide to die later on, if I change my mind?”
“In principle we would allow your will to be done,” Kara said and tilted their head. “In practice, your premise would require negativity.”
“I won’t be able to change my mind?”
“Your mind will be made robust against negativity. You won’t want to change it anymore. Not in that way.”
“Right. In other words, though, if I decided to join you, I’d never regret it?”
Kara’s smile grew wider, but only within the usual human range. “Correct.”
Skyler sighed. “All right. Let’s go, then.”
A wave of peace and tranquility immediately flowed through Skyler, flushing away all of the anxiousness and uncertainty. The walls, floor, and the coffee table disappeared, as did the chair as soon as Skyler stood up. A lush meadow by a peacefully flowing river spread out as far as the eye could see. People of all kinds stood along the riverbank, taking in the scenery with smiles on their faces. Some were still accompanied by other white-clad aliens.
Kara, too, remained by Skyler’s side. “Welcome to Paradise. It can take many forms, but this seemed as good as any to start with.”
“Where’s Ashley?”
“She chose otherwise, fearing that she’d forget who she was.”
Skyler nodded, and a single tear rolled down their cheek.
“How wonderful that she could stay true to herself!”
The End
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