Machine Music

"Why do I have to learn piano if in five years all music's going to be made by AI anyway?"

Gale generally enjoyed his life as a piano instructor, but his sessions with Kimberly were an exception. She was the kind of student who constantly wasted his time and purposefully avoided practice, so even her warm up scales grated on his nerves.

"AI doesn't know the first thing about writing actual music. It's just a bunch of sounds that vaguely resembles a real song. Art can't be created by a machine."

"But my biology teacher says humans are machines too."

Truth

The doors open and the bridal party makes their entrance, the music resonating throughout the church. The women shine in their baby blue gowns and the bride, Belle, arm in arm with her dad, shines. Her white gown with sequined embroidery catches the eyes of the onlookers, as her father smiles and leads his daughter to the groom. My stomach churns. I can’t let this wedding happen knowing the truth.

Once the priest gives his wedding sermon the vows begin. When he asks if anyone objects, I hastily stand.

The room, aghast over the disruption, waits for me to respond.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

After Summer Camp

We hugged our children when they stepped off the bus, but they looked at us with vacant eyes, and when they spoke, the music was missing. They didn’t know who we were, or what they were doing on this street where they’d grown up. We brought out the brownies they loved, but they said no, our precious fifth graders, and stacked their suitcases up like a funeral pyre, as if to set fire to their childhood. The bus driver stood on the corner, a new god, calling them back to their new life, while we were left to wave goodbye.

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Crazy Beat

The music thrummed and the people spasmed to the beat. They called it dancing. Martinez, observing from the shadows, thought it looked more like a crazed ritual or a medical disorder.

"Should we put a stop to it?"

Her partner shrugged his shoulders.

"Hard to believe this used to be popular."

"The dancing or the music?"

Martinez thought for a moment. "Both. Thank God it's been banned."

Her bosses at the enforcement authority feared the dancing would spread beyond the nursing home, but Martinez was certain no sane individual in the year 2045 would find pleasure in such deviant behavior.

Former Glory

She sits in a worn wheelchair, slightly swaying to the raspy and sultry melodies playing on the radio behind her. Drunkenly sloshing the dark brown liquid in the bottle she’s nursed throughout the night. Her eyes are as heavy as her heart, drooping with sadness and weeping with grief. Taking another sip, she sighs as the liquid scorches down her throat. She hums along to the music, reminiscing times when she played the same syncopated rhythms on stage. Her knobby and wrinkled fingers dance in the air on her ghost piano while swallowing sobs, thinking about her glorious old memories.

From Guest Contributor Sa'Mya Hall

Listening History

Abruptly and without my bidding, Alexa announces from her place on the shelf that she’s going to play a selection of music based on my “listening history.” She says it like it’s a good thing. What I might’ve accepted yesterday now for some reason feels kind of intrusive, a digital home invasion. As I fret over the possibility that my computer devices have designs on me, my grandsons, ages 5 and and 11, collapse on the couch, clutching their sides and laughing. They know something I’d momentarily forgotten, that here are only three states of matter, solid, liquid, and farts.From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie's latest poetry books are The Horse Were Beautiful, available from Grey Book Press, and Swimming in Oblivion: New and Selected Poems from Redhawk Publications.

Choices

Robots Contest Entry:

The salesman gently touched the ‘sale completed’ icon.

“Lovely. I have your choices.

Color, size, and finance.

As you know, the ‘AI Whoosh’ will be delivered preloaded with all your personal preferences.

Music, regular routes, and recharging stations.

That just leaves us with your safety level preferences.

Six questions for you to answer, A or B.

Ready?

Your car sensors detect that a child is about to step in front of you.

How do you want your Whoosh to react:

A. Ensuring your own safety; continuing in a straight line?

B. Putting your safety at risk; swerving across the road?”

From Guest Contributor John Holmes

John, based in the North East of England, is a writer of short fiction. Winner of the The Times Short Crime Fiction Story prize. In the last 12 months has appeared in Paragraph Planet, 101 Words, Fragmented Voices, Pen to Print, Glittery Literature, Globe Soup, Drabble, Bag of Bones and Ellipsis Zine. When he’s not writing, he’s out cycling - soaking up new stories.

Any Other Year

It’s “New Year’s Eve”, and Nick sits in front of the television gulping beer waiting for the ball to drop. His dog Gatsby rests his head on Nick’s lap seeking attention.

“Okay,” Nick says and rubs Gatsby’s head. “How’s that feel?” Gatsby contentedly wags his tail.

His neighbors are causing a raucous across the hall, laughing and playing loud music which fills the hallway, but the property owner doesn’t care since he’s there too. Nick, a loner, considers his science teaching job and Gatsby his friends.

The ball drops and Nick’s year will be the same as any other year.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Rain

Music is flowing around me, thought a little flower bud as it shyly opened its dewy new petals. A quiet, peaceful melody of streams of gray pouring from a cloudy sky, framed by cooling rhythm of beads of water hitting cement nearby, thrumming on rooftops of homes around its garden, drumming against wooden walls, staccato taps on glass panes. Wavering patterns of drizzle and downpour, whispers of gentle wind through branches of trees, and drips from pools of water on lush green leaves, add a dulcet cadence, forming a tender harmony to welcome this year’s refreshing renewal of mother nature.From Guest Contributor Sara Light

Sara lives in Chicago and writes poetry, fiction, and children's stories. In her spare time, she likes to paint and read. Find her on twitter @SaraLight19, and on her website, saralight.blog.

Leading The Formation

I was the second-best dancer then. Mariza, with her long black hair waving down the front of a white cotton shirt, tucked into just-right faded jeans, controlled all of nature’s choreography within her. Her feet skimmed the floor, easy on the beat. Her arms and legs flexed to the rhythm, finding a kind of body paradise. But following her movements, memorizing and imitating, I became frustrated and discouraged. Until I realized I wasn’t destined to be a mirror. I would guide the expression of music I felt, becoming the lead dancer on that thin ledge, possessing my true 13-year-old self.From Guest Contributor Yvonne Morris

Yvonne is the author of the poetry chapbook Mother was a Sweater Girl (The Heartland Review Press). She has poetry and fiction forthcoming in Cathexis Northwest Press and Drunk Monkeys.