Krishna kumar Mani - SFS1 - Science Fiction Short Stories

David speaks from the stage. Nearly forty people are in the audience including some members of the media, his friends and other scientists. Everyone listens attentively.

“Thank you for attending my demonstration session even though I have not yet disclosed what it is I’m demonstrating today. As per your guesses, this session is about my new invention. Some aspects new a little more work, but I wanted to get some feedback before I made finalized anything. That’s the reason for this demo session. That and publicity of course,” said David with a smile.

“David. this is too much suspense. Can’t you just tell us? What’s your invention?" asked one of his David’s friends.

“You are viewing my invention even as we speak. It’s already on stage.”

The audience scanned the stage and saw nothing other than a laptop, a projector and David’s headphones. There was confusion in crowd. The audience talked amongst themselves trying to guess what it could be.

“This is my new invention.” David held the headphones up to the audience. Everybody, including his friends, got upset.

“Does this do any noise cancellation for better quality of voice?" asked a reporter as a joke.

“Nope! Any other guesses?”

It was silent for a long while before David out into the audience and spoke.

“It is a dream recorder.”

“What?" asked the audience collectively.

“Yes. This is the dream recorder. You wear these headphones, fall records your dreams morning you can watch your dreams as videos by easily connecting the headphones to a computer.”

“Is it ready?" a reporter asked in curiosity, before David had even completed his sentence.

“Yes, but for now there’s one small limitation: it only records in black and white format. I’m working on getting it to record dreams in color at the present, but it’s tricky. Before I give you a demo, you should know some facts about dreams and about how my recorder works.”

David continued as the projector showed some slide on the screen behind him:

“#1. Normally you will forgot 80 to 90% of your dreams. But my recorder will record 100% of your dreams. Anything you dream it will record.”

“#2. It’s possible to sleep without dreaming. asleep and then it as videos. The next Obviously, if this occurs the recorder will not pick up anything to record.”

“#3. Some dreams are repeated with slight variations in them. In that case my recorder will record multiple times. You might think it’s made a mistake, but if you look closely you can see the differences between the dreams.”

“#4. Lastly, an important note about dream duration. The time that you dream does not correlate exactly to the time that will be recorded. Your dream’s narrative can be even longer than your total time asleep.”

The same reporter interrupted again. "David please tell us how it works! Can you show us with a demonstration?”

“It’s very easy to use, you simply wear this headphone before you go to sleep. Later, you can view the videos by connecting it to your computer or smart TV.”

The audience clapped.

“Okay, now I will demonstrate it. Who is ready to participate? Somebody has to come up here, wear the headphones and sleep. That’s it. For the demonstration I will project the dream as a live video on that screen right there.”

Most had their hands up to participate in the demo. “One question,” began a reporter, “their actual dream will be on that screen right there?”

“Yes, once the person wakes up, he can cross check the video and confirm that it was recorded accurately.. Are you ready to participate?”

“Oh no, not me, thank you. I know a good deal about dreams. Dreams are unpredictable. They don’t make sense or listen to reason. I might dream about something unacceptable to society. Your invention is great but I am unwilling to share my dream in public.”

“Yes what you said is true, who else would like to come up?”

Another reporter asked, “I don’t understand. What’s the problem with sharing our dreams?”

“Dreams are out of your control,” the reporter replied. “You may dream about anybody. Just for example, you may dream about going on a date with your coworker. You might not have even thought about her like this before. If she or your spouse watched your dream, that wouldn’t be great, would it? That’s just one example. others.”

Now everybody Immediately their hands went down. No one was willing to participate after they thought about the effects it might have on their reputation.

“No one is interested, then?” asked David.

“No,” replied a reporter. “Everybody is interested in your invention. But we’re all afraid to share our dreams because we are not I’m sure there are many

got the reporters point. monks.”

The audience laughed. "If you give me this recorder,” said a scientist, “I will record my dream, watch the videos and share it with you later.”

“But I have to demonstrate it now,” replied David

David thought for a moment. “Alright, then. I will share my own dreams. Hopefully you won’t think I’m trying to trick you in any way. Anyone else please feel free to take my place. I’ll try to fall asleep here and you guys wait, eat the snacks that have been provided. Once I start to dream, you’ll see it on the screen.”

How long David slept, he didn’t know, nobody disturbed him, he woke up and looked at the audience.

“Hey where I am?” he shouted. “Oh it is my bed room… Oh, it was all just my dream. I didn’t complete the dream recorder at all. Just a dream! I must complete my dream recorder soon.”

“Anyway one good thing did come about from this dream. I figured out that I should change the design of my dream recorder so that it was in the headphone form rather than as a helmet as I currently had it.”

My name is Robin and I am a new writer. A few months ago, I self-published a book that’s gotten rave reviews. Its success convinced me that I should leave my job and make write full time. Every month I receive a decent amount of royalties from the sale of the books I’ve put out into the marketplace. I’m single, and though the royalties aren’t a lot, they’re enough for me to pay my rent, and some nights I even eat out rather than cooking at home.

But in a writer’s life, you’re only as good as your next book. I already have four to five concepts for the book, but I’m on the lookout for new and better concepts. I have a duty to my readers to provide the best stories I can. I’ve been gaining popularity lately and as a growing writer, I even have more twitter followers than some other older, more widely known writers. My readers expect a unique concept for my new book! Unfortunately, after I left my job I’ve been having trouble finding new ideas.. I keep wondering why that is . When I was working full time, the ideas came so often that disturbed me and prevented me from working. In those days, I didn’t even have time to write down the ideas. But now that I am searching for new ideas, I can’t seem to find a single one. And if I do somehow manage to get an idea, it’s often worse than what I already had. I know my ideas should come from inside me, but only outside events can trigger my imagination. After all, imagination needs fuel to run. And that’s why I continue to search outside myself

I’m one of those writers who crafts my story characters from people I’ve seen in real life. Every day is a constant struggle to get up and go out in the street and find people, to look at people. I’m usually pretty shy. I think most writers are shy. If we were extroverts we’d probably be actors. I leave my car at home and walk in to the street to mingle with people. I often wonder about aimlessly with no particular destination in mind. I just walk where my feet are going. But even when I do this, no ideas come to the surface. Perhaps there’s a problem with the right hemisphere of my brain. Maybe I should see a doctor. During my work days I frequently traveled by train to meet my clients. During that time I came up with plenty of ideas but wasn’t able to write them down; I believe those ideas might still be on those trains. So today I am going to travel by train to collect the ideas that I missed. It’s the same train, but the faces are different. I look at every face to sculpt my characters. Some people fit and have roles. Some are merely extras. Most that I see have no place in my stories. They have their own mundane lives and have very little that I can steal or borrow. Everybody is busy. They’re all so certain of where they’re going. Not me. I’m the only ticketed passenger without a destination. I continue to study all their faces. Normal faces, men’s faces, women’s faces. One guy is sitting in the corner seat and jotting down something in his notebook. I watch him for a while. He is writing something, what is he writing? Is he someone like me? Or just a businessman, perhaps a doctor? Maybe he’s only doodling. He notices that I am watching him and suddenly turns down and start writing again. After that he doesn’t look up at me any longer. After that, nothing else is as interesting on the train. I get off at the next station maybe something somewhere will pique my interest. I walked for nearly two hours. No ideas came, but my stomach got hungry. I enter into a restaurant, complete my lunch and wait for the bill. I saw the same guy sits at a nearby table writing notes. There’s no food on his table, just notes. He’s the mystery man. And he’s just writing something in his notes. I get the bill and pay it. This man seems to be following me. Even I don’t know where I’m going but he’s been with me since the train. Only, I must not have noticed. I can’t wait here to watch what he does. Restaurants need paying customers, and people are waiting for this table.