I didn’t feel anything at all when they froze me to death.

I liked writing stories but “No one has read stories since the 70s,” a man in a trench coat told me. An editor. Then he went back into the liquor store.

I thought about killing myself, but it was too expensive.

I didn’t feel anything at all when they froze me to death.

When they woke me up, I was in incredible pain. They also had to electrocute me, which was painful as hell.

“Welcome, Mr. Izmiris, to the year 2076.”

A man in a wheelchair took me on a tour of the city. When he finished, he gave me the key to the city.

“It’s an honor,” I said.

“We give it to everyone,” he said, out of breath.

---

There was a crater where my old apartment used to be.

But I found a charred notebook with Thoughts and Fancies written on the cover. The inside was blank.

There was a singed pencil, too.

I sat in the crater all day, writing stories. It was a lot colder due to Global Warming.

“We could have sex?”

I looked up. The old woman was standing on a slant. There were about a million crows on the skyscraper behind her.

The skyscraper fell over. The woman didn’t even turn her head.

About a million crows flew up.

Then the woman dropped down, dead.

---

It was cold as hell on the subway.

When I started crying, a staggering man put his arm around me. An editor.

“Listen,” he said. “I sympathize with you a lot. I died but it didn’t hurt because I can’t remember.”

He told me about the time he fell off his bicycle. The ambulance ran over him.

A tear started falling but he caught it in time.

Eventually, he agreed to look at my stories. He didn’t read them, exactly.

“No,” he said, flipping pages. “They’re too far-fetched.”

“I was writing about my life,” I said.

A rat ran past. The editor dropped my notebook.

He was still chasing the rat when the subway squealed to a stop.

---

The sun went down. A shell of frost formed over everything. To warm up, I took a walk in Central Park. Central Park was the name of the biggest crater.

I passed a guy on a burnt bench, swallowing wine. An editor.

“When it’s as cold as it is, you just need to stand outside for a while. You don’t need cryogenics.”

He was right. My blood was freezing.

“See the gargoyles up there?”

He pointed to the War Monument. That was the only thing in the park that was still standing.

“They’re actually writers. You’re allowed to paint over them if you avoid the eyes.”

“Really?”

“They might wake up one day.” He emptied the bottle. “Probably not.”

A man with dirt or makeup on his face walked by. His fly was down.

The editor jumped up and followed him.

---

It took me an hour to climb the Monument. I hadn’t eaten since 1976.

There was a gap between gargoyles, so I squeezed between them. I crouched down.

The paint was flaking off the white gargoyle. It was black underneath.

I took out my notebook and wrote down everything I’d seen and heard that day. Even this:

The editor crawled out of the bushes, up to the War Monument. He defecated next to it.

I closed the notebook. I scratched out Thoughts and Fancies.

Then I wrote down Do Not Thaw Until 2176.

“Writing Stories” was first published (as “Mr. Izmiris”) in Broken Pencil.

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