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Write about someone who has chosen to disconnect and live an analog life.

Posted in Character on Feb 3, 2023

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✍️ 36 stories

Goats, Arrive

Submitted to Contest #184

He threw his phone away on a Tuesday. By Thursday, he was crossing the second bridge leading into Delle Faire. The first bridge would bring you to a little island in-between the mainland and the big island. The little island was called Marco’s River even though there was no river, but there was a small town, and Scott could just have easily bought a house there and been a little closer to his old life. He could have done a lot of things that would have looked like half-stepping. He could have kept his phone. He could have left his social...

45 likes 33 comments 33
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Multiverse Mike and Killer Kyle Unplugged

Submitted to Contest #184

“I can live without electricity,” I said. “Yeah, Mike, me too.” Kyle sighed. Licking his lips, he cast his eyes over the posters that cover the wall of our flat. Wonder Woman, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Amy Pond from Doctor Who and Florence Pugh as Black Widow stared down at us. Even though the electricity lines had been fine after the alien invasion, fires had crippled the whole city since. “Yesterday’s pizza?” I asked, needing something to do. “Sounds good.” Kyle rubbed his hands together. “Damn it’s cold without the heating on. Hopeful...

26 likes 15 comments 15
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Looking Up

Submitted to Contest #184

James lay lengthways on the small brown couch in the middle of his tiny studio apartment, his head propped up by the armrest. He thought to himself as he stared at the ceiling. His eyes focused on the imaginary patterns one finds when staring too long at a blank canvas. Noting the ridges and bumps amidst the sea of white paint. He had begun to count the tiny bubbles to pass the time but gave up somewhere around six hundred when he started feeling his eyes close from mental fatigue. He had forgotten how intricate the world could be when takin...

26 likes 12 comments 12
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LIFE UNPLUGGED

Submitted to Contest #184

“Pres? Pres, can you stop what you’re doing for one second and listen to me?”Preston Philips looked up from his iPhone where he’d been checking his mail. He’d set his phone’s vibration to a different frequency for all modes of communication, whether it be email, news, weather, facetime, conference call, wife calling, the kids, wake-up, go-to-bed, take-your-pills, and more.“What is it, Jane?”“I want you to look around and tell me what you see.”Preston felt a new vibration; this one signaled his mother was calling.“It’s my mother; le...

24 likes 17 comments 17
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The Chicken

Submitted to Contest #184

The sky out the window was brighter today. The sounds of the birds outside; louder. Harriet sat on the bench, contemplating the chores she had to do today.Harriet remembered to tie her laces. When she didn’t the chickens liked to peck at her feet as if she’d brought them worms. She bent down slowly her boots seemed further away today, somehow, than yesterday.The kettle whistled on the iron stovetop. Harriet turned to move the kettle to the counter when she noticed movement near the door.A small beak nudged the door, and it slowly swung open....

21 likes 10 comments 10
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Searching for Home and a Recluse

Submitted to Contest #184

The phone rings continuously. He had constantly threatened to do this and go completely off-grid, but I never thought he would actually do it. Jack had been my best friend when my father passed away unexpectedly. Now, I was staring down thirty and a divorce, and I needed him. I hang up, knowing continuing to call will be pointless. Now, I have only one option: make the three-hour drive and hope he still lives at the same house I spent countless hours in. In the past week, I have tried calling a dozen times and sent several emails without an ...

19 likes 4 comments 4
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Jinx and the Gap

Shortlisted for Contest #184 ⭐️

“Why? What have you done?” He gave me a side-eye, brows furrowed. “Nothing! I just need you to extract it for me, and keep it for a while. I’ll be back, I promise.” I needed Jinx’s help. Otherwise there was no escape. I shouldn’t say ‘escape.’ I wasn’t escaping from anything. I just wanted to get away for a while. Away from the buzz, the notifications, the constant contact, the incessant connection. With everyone, and everything. I needed to get away – from the transport hub that told me when my ride would arrive, from the freezer that t...

19 likes 9 comments 9
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Press Delete to Reset

Submitted to Contest #184

Abraham Wilson, celebrating his ninetieth birthday with friends, joked that he didn’t feel a day over eighty. Then, with much protest from the group celebrating with him, he picked up the dinner check.“Oh no you don’t,’ said one of the friends. We’ll get that.”“Not on your life, guys. This has been a great evening and it’s on me." Then he pulled out his wallet, selected a credit card and handed it, along with the bill, to the waiter who went off to work his magic on the touch-screen adjacent to the little window where the kitchen crew passed...

17 likes 4 comments 4
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A Meadow

Submitted to Contest #184

Tom stared unmoved through the cottonwood trees behind his ranch; his Sony fifty-five inch high definition TV monitor tumbled end over end, cartwheeling like a glass spewing boulder down the steep North Dakota gully, finally settling on the banks of the frozen Red. “I’ve had enough Martha,” he said out loud, fingering his blue turquoise bola, speaking to beyond the river; to the family plot, the snow-covered meadow where three generations of Scotts were buried.With a steady drip, the techno world had finally spilled over the top of his frust...

17 likes 7 comments 7
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The Lookout

Submitted to Contest #184

I have to escape the tatters of my ruined life, so I flee to the outdoors. Hiking, camping, and rock climbing have always been in my blood, but all my friends say I might have overdone it. They could be right.But one look at my view makes me secure in my decision. I have a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree panorama of the majestic North Cascade mountain range in a remote part of north-central Washington, with near unlimited visibility on this cloudless July morning. Precipitous, snow-capped summits reach for the blue sky in every direction. Dee...

16 likes 2 comments 2
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sand

Submitted to Contest #184

   Owls screamed in the cold, wet night; Danny was following them. Two more birds to tick off, and he’d have seen every avian species in the northeast. He descended deep into the forest’s bowls, searching. His broad shoulders brushed pine trees. His boots shuffled pine straw. He hummed.      Magic brews in frog ponds. Danny didn’t know. His pale round face greeted its twin – the moon – and watched not his feet. Rocks, sudden and slippery, circled the frog pond. He stepped, he didn’t look, he slipped. S...

16 likes 0 comments 0
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A Simpler Time

Submitted to Contest #184

“It is with gratitude and respect that I submit my resignation from Xenocorp, effective immediately.” The blue send button sat motionless, daring me. It’s funny how certain seconds in your life carry so much weight. Life-altering moments that seem so trivial yet pass by in an instant. One click is all it took, and the life I knew before vanished and my life unplugged began. I had to get away. Beyond the reach of the digital environment. The all-seeing eye that watches and follows everyone and knows everything. Is there even a place t...

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The choir of chaos

Submitted to Contest #184

There is a voice that lives inside all of us - a voice we’d rather not have to listen to. It tells us that we aren’t enough. It makes us question the things we love, the people we admire, and the paths we have chosen. For me, that voice started as a whisper. I heard it when I began developing breasts, and noticed other girls at school wearing training bras instead of tank tops under their school shirts. It got louder as I realized those other girls didn’t have to wrestle with the idea of asking their single father to take them bra shopping. ...

15 likes 4 comments 4
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My Terminal Analog

Submitted to Contest #184

It was difficult walking away from a digital world, but for the sake of sanity, I did just that.  I pulled out a spiral notebook, replacing my laptop and began a written analog of my experiences over the past few weeks.  What I did not expect was that the results made me invisible to my friends and acquaintances who have chosen to live their lives on social media.  Deliberately turning a page in Thoreau's Walden Pond, I retreated from the lure of the digital world.  What you are about to read is my terminal analog.  ...

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Luddite

Submitted to Contest #184

“So what are you saying? You’ve turned into some sort of Luddite?”Luke frowned and said, “I’m not a Luddite. I’ve just cut back on my technology use.”“But your phone?” I picked up the archaic gadget Luke had just shown me, flipped it open, looked askance at the tiny screen. It actually had buttons! “You traded in your phone? For this thing?” I couldn’t keep the laughter out my voice, even though I knew it was bound to make him angry.Luke reached across the table and took the flip-phone from me, closed it, tucked it into a pouch hanging on hi...

15 likes 7 comments 7
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