MAR, 2020

Short story, dialogue-focused

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<aside> 🗒️ Born out of a prompt: “All ‘#1 Dad’ turn to display an actual rating”

</aside>

A ship soared through the emptiness of space. So vast that, had someone jettisoned a body from an airlock, a photon from the nearest star would have taken years to reach it. But this ship was post-Harlan, and it carried neither bodies nor airlocks.

A tourist exited a teleportation chamber and gawked at the surrounding plaza. A nebula of rainbow fog was drifting over the central fountain, and gentle gusts of wind rippled the reddish-orange carpet underneath the tall plants. “Trees,” as a handy informational stand nearby suggested. Astonished, the tourist took a selfie.

A few minutes of walking brought them under the sign atop a doorway: “Dupont’s Proper Barbershop”. Its door handle was wrapped in a thick brass wire; a jiggly bell was hanging above.

“Welcome!” a woman in a fancy leather apron waved to him. “Hi, I’m Dupont. You can hang your jacket over there if you’d like.”

“‘Hang it?’” the tourist puzzled. “'Oh, like ‘place it outside my body.’ Right!”

And so they did, eagerly.

“Nice to meet you, Dupont. I'm Norm. You certainly have a wonderfully tactile place here.”

“Thanks. I assume you’re a newcomer?”

“Yeah, got on board like a kilosecond ago. But it's been fascinating so far. The informational stands and telechamabers are really something. And the souvenir shops–" Norm chuckled, “I’d planned to visit some on the way here, but they were all closed!”

“Well, that specifically was the quarantine. But yeah, just heads up: most things do close during the night shift. Except for pubs. Highly recommend the pubs.”

She prompted a chair toward them and gave a good shake to the covering cloth. The chair was springy and creaked under Norm’s weight.

“‘Quarantine?’ Do you have diseases as well?”

She snorted.

“That’d be too much. Nah, the ship security locked everything down because we had a reality breach. A friend of mine has a shop nearby, on Photon Street, and it has been relocated for a couple of days–”