Departure

Stella huddled on the dock with her family, clasping hands with cherished loved ones. She tried relinquishing her ticket, proclaiming she'd rather stay behind, but they pushed her towards the boarding platform without entertaining such foolishness.

Through it all, she avoided looking in Mark's direction. His tear-stained eyes would wreck her. She was determined to wait until the last possible moment.

When there were no more moments, her family backed away, allowing the couple privacy among the sea of people. Nobody heard their whispers.

And then Stella boarded the starship, one of the lucky few afforded a chance of survival.

Blocked

“C'mon, Helen, add me back! I know you're still active.”

She knocked a few more times on the portion of the wall where the door had been, hopelessly. Livid, she cursed the day she granted Helen authority to set permissions in her house.

It was progress, they said, that rooms and buildings could be subject to malleable privacy permissions. But now, locked outside, she missed the days when connections were not so easily lost.

No message came from inside, but, crouched with ears against the wall, she thought she could hear the distant buzz of postings addressed to someone else.

From Guest Contributor Leonardo A. Castro