“He was about to contact user support when the trees that had been swaying slowly in the breeze froze, the cicadas stopped singing, and the sun became fixed above the horizon.

A message filled the sky: “Sunset #864 unavailable.””

-Carole de Monclin, “Eternity Ltd.”, The Arcanist Nov. 28th

This is a cynical little flash fiction that sounds perfectly plausible in our current world; a man living in his own little slice of digitized heaven after his death finds out that the company who owns the server he lives on has been bought out – by a much, much worse corporation.

Interestingly enough, the main character isn’t particularly likeable. He’s casually sexist, rich and definitely the “I want to speak to the manager” type. However, in this case, it actually makes me care more about his predicament – if this is happening to somebody who is unusually privileged, how much worse is it for people I actually would care about?

This is definitely worth a read, and I’d love to see de Monclin explore the idea further.