Postcards from Kronk - the second collection of daily stories. (2025)

  Post truth, truth be told, has been more of a challenge than initially expected, the rationing of gravity took us all by surprise and has largely restricted movement beyond the reach of ropes and chains. As the only person in the village with a wind-up radio I have found myself at the very centre of our dwindling population, which is nice, but largely down to the inaccessible nature of my home. As the broadcasts are often contradictory and rarely followed up, I have been circumspect with what I share with the others, but it certainly appears that things are beginning to improve. In fact during the last couple of weeks there have been reports of energy returning to some areas, as close as Bradford and, if true, this could signal the first real breakthrough since it all went wrong. People will be gathering soon to hear from me and I’m not sure what to do.

  “From tonight, you will be able to gaze upwards and see nothing save a cloud or two, and the distant twinkling light of something long gone, this will be the single most important act of the revolution to date: no messages, no adverts, no reminders, no instructions. I ask you not to be afraid, let us embrace how tiny we are. This is not retreating as the technologists claim rather a reclamation of our freedom to exist and dream, worry and imagine.” These words were found on a piece of paper, actually written down , as the man was fatally shot entering level four with a massive spanner.  Tests showed he had been drinking, add it to the next bulletin.

Kragor the almighty surveyed his home and was happy. In the hearth, the black nebula matrix roared into life at a glance from his cybernetic eye implant. At the other end of the room, his robot wife sung Wagner waiting for the synthi meal to stop blinking whilst the twins Rex and Rebel played 3 dimensional chess in the Zero-G conservatory. Today, as every other day, was going to be a real humdinger. And then he coughed and the world ended.

They took a table in the corner, kissed briefly and ordered the food. Soup to start and a glass of white wine. Afterwards whilst waiting for the main the woman reached into her bag, pulled out a book and began to read. " Out of 365 days I thought about you, in a favourable light on 34 occasions, badly, that is, I thought about you negatively, 32 times " She smiled and raised her glass, he gave a little laugh and raised his own. " ok, sounds about right, last year I have thought about you, " he took a scrap of paper out and squinted his eyes to examine it, " in a good way, ", a little smirk, " that's all I'm saying, in a good way, on 78 times, I also thought about you in a not so pleasant way, on 32 times. " They nodded and chinked glasses, " So I'm the nicer person " he concluded. " But we knew that already dear, " she answered. The main arrived shortly after, pasta and a plain tomato salad. After the meal th...

They talked on the phone all night, stitching themselves into each other lives, papering over the cracks that had grown between them. Distance made their differences seem less important. By the time the first light appeared they were together, entwined.

My beautiful wife, hand picked over fine fibre optic cables gave me the finest day of my life. Unfortunately her idea of a good sense of humour and mine were quite different, mind you I'd never have imagined hair could burn so quickly. And smell so bad. I think she smiles sometimes when the nurse leaves us alone so I guess time will tell.

The pig removed his helmet and took a swig from his hip flask. "To learn from our mistakes is no longer enough, to survive; we, as pigs need to be able to extrapolate from our experiences, to predict future events and patterns of change. "  The TV camera zoomed in. " When the straw house failed so miserably we, as a rapidly evolving society should have investigated steel framed concrete construction systems straight away, not mess about with flimsy paper buildings. That lack of foresight couple with allowing wolves to have a final cigarette will go down as low points in our history. " Georgie, the owner of the burnt out paper mill hit the TV remote and turned it off,  where were these forward thinking engineers when they were needed  eh ?