Short Fiction

We Can All Be Stars

By Christian Mueth

My dome was nicer than Ron’s. People said so. A thousand people, to be precise. I know it was that many people, because they all had given me their shines. Ron had five shines.

I didn’t like looking over to Ron’s dome. His wasn’t like mine. My dome was immaculate. The glass had a sparkle to it. Every hologram my dome projected maintained a pristine resolution.

Ron’s dome was fine. Only fine.

My dome’s glow was running low though. People’s sprites were ignoring my dome at a slightly higher rate, because of this. Worse, my brain was getting blurry, and my stomach was getting the gurgles. I fondled the hose notched to my forehead. Despite my number of shines, the hose wasn’t giving enough of a charge.

It had been a few days since my dome had been given a joy-jolt. That explained it.

With a sigh, I activated my dome’s holo-transport. My sprite spawned at the joy-store. I could say that I’m not the joy-store’s biggest fan. But I would be fined a ton of fines for saying that. So, I never say that.

The joy-store is fine.

There were many things at the joy-store. Some were worth hundreds of shines. Stimulants, narcotics, hallucinogens... Though, they weren’t what I was looking for.

As I walked across the joy-store’s marble floors, sprites bowed and sent me shines. My skin felt all icky as they did — the sprites’ glimmers faded upon handing out each shine. Some of them gave away their last shine and pixelated away. Yet, the exchange couldn’t be avoided. Following order is important. When I passed a sprite that shone brighter than me, I bowed and handed them one of my own shines. I had to. It’s protocol.

My pace quickened when I saw a glowing kiosk. A joy jolt station. Upon getting closer, the banner overtop it came into view: “We’re all made of stardust. We will all be stars again.”

I muttered the mantra under my breath and handed the kiosk all my shines. The sprite at the kiosk gave me a glittery grin and held out several containers of joy-jolt. My sprite goes to devour one of the containers.

I was stupid. So stupid. I should have taken the sprite back to the dome, immediately. A very shiny sprite came up to me. It was big. Angry. As my sprite tried guzzling its joy-jolt, the contents dissipated away. Away, and into the other sprite. I tried to get away, with some of the other containers. Though, I couldn’t. My sprite wouldn’t follow my commands.

It was the order of things — the clout of the other sprite demanded that I give it the containers. So, I did.

The sprite left once it had them all. I watched as the light from my own sprite drained, and then finally pixelated away. My holo-transport fizzled off. My dome went dark. My hose went dead.

My head was weighed down by an anvil. I tried to stand, then toppled over. All my energy was sapped. I crawled on my elbows, reaching my dome’s glass window.

“Help me,” I cried out. “Please, send me a shine! I’m dying!”

Ron sat back in his chair. He must not have heard me — the dome’s walls must’ve been too thick. I banged again. And again. My fingers clawed the glass. I thrashed. I screamed.

Finally, Ron turned. He grinned. Somebody from the street walked up to him and sent over a shine. He accepted it. Then, he turned away.

End