Bury Your Gays

by Chuck Tingle

“I still don’t see the difference.” “One choice was for art and the other for commerce.” Jack can’t help cracking a smile. “God bless you, Misha. You still think there’s a difference.”

Some events are timeless, I guess, stuck between past, present, and future. They’re a different color than the rest. A different scale. A different tense. When you turn them into a screenplay or a song or a novel or even a piece of erotic fanfiction, these are the moments that will outlive your body.)

The power imbalance we’ve all known was lurking has mutated well beyond any previous conflicts of rich and poor, which now seem downright quaint by comparison. Fresh weapons have entered the fray, machines with the ability to build capital that much more efficiently. And it’s not the machines that bear the brunt of my frustration, it’s that I know the people who drive them, and there’s no limit to their greed.

Nobody has to be a hero for anyone else, that’s kinda the whole point.”

“You know who the real villain is?” I continue, strolling through the lobby and joining a line of other writers, directors, cinematographers, and actors as they filter inside to find their seats. “Unchecked capitalism and the desire for capitalist systems to monetize other people’s trauma.”

I’ve dabbled in science fiction enough to know what most people would conclude from this: it’s getting smarter. But it’s not getting smarter, it’s still just a calculator. The only thing happening here is what always happens when any powerful force blooms out of control: it’s finding ways to take more by doing less.

On a long enough timeline, endings are inevitable. Tragedy is inevitable. Fortunately, so is joy.