Shattered Stories

The following are tales of the improbable.From a cozy little shake-easy in a country deep in the grips of coffee-prohibition to a haiku about drunken online shopping; from a Shifting Forecast from the Grav Office to a birthday party thrown by robots, this 6,000 word collection of short tales runs the gamut of the unlikely experience.A birthday for the last human in the plantThe robot workers at a shipping and packaging factory try their best to accommodate the strange traditions of their sole human co-worker by throwing him a party to celebrate the recurrence of his date of manufacture.Shifting ForecastIssued every night by the Grav Office, the Shifting Forecast has helped the populace prepare for the coming gravitational surges and lapses for over fifty years.Totally routine oven maintenanceKat is happily married to Ellie and enjoying their quiet suburban life in a world where every object has a level requirement, but equipment incompatibilities soon expose the pride, the jealousy and the lies hidden between the couple's cosy veneer.The villainy of chanceA poem from the eyes of the greatest cause of woe and suffering mankind has ever known.Big SlimThe cops bust a shake-easy in an America where coffee is illegal and they're after the head honcho, Big Slim.The grand piano in the one-story loft apartmentA treatise on the combination of intoxicants and one-click purchasing. In haiku form.LiesThe military have a lie detector that never fails to find a liar. It keeps going off for Lieutenant James Stanton, but as far as he knows he's telling the truth.Possession is 9/10ths of the lawA dark alley, a rich doctor, a grimy thug with fewer teeth than tattoos. It's a recipe for disaster, but this thug isn't after money.Life extensionJudge Deacon Morrow presides over the unique case of the life extension permit of Mrs. Eleanor Radley: the oldest woman on Earth. With every fifty years she must keep to an additional by-law, but after so long it's difficult to find any meaningful rules to impose.