Short Story , september 11 , 2025 - 266 words

Most people nowadays wore headphones — Old, clunky, air force style ones from the 1980’s if they had no radio — to block out the noise of the drones hovering overhead. Theresa found the noise almost comforting, though she still protected her ears on her walks home from work. She absentmindedly thought about the conversation she had overheard at work that day as she walked. Typically, Theresa blocked out all the noise about politics. When the protests had started, she had claimed to her sister that she would have participated if she had known about them beforehand. When the state started rounding people up, and her neighbor disappeared, she mourned, and then went about the rest of her day. When they blocked those websites, at least they weren’t the ones she frequented. When they shut the internet service off completely, Theresa found joy in the new staterun radio system. As Theresa walked, she came across televisions in a store window displaying a news channel she hadn’t seen before. The reporter looked foreign to her, and she realized she hadn’t seen a man who looked like him in quite some time. As he spoke, she looked upon the photos on the screen, which showed the Parliament building surrounded by soldiers. As Theresa continued on her walk home, she wondered if her sister, who lived in one of the seceded territories, was doing well. She wondered when the last time they spoke was. As Theresa rounded the corner to her apartment complex, she wondered what she should make for supper.