Weekly Reality Check: Apr 19 - Apr 25
Seven Stories That Interrupt Your Reality — All at Once
Welcome to the Weekly Reality Check.
Every day, we interrupt reality with bite-sized fiction spun from the absurdity of human progress. This weekly roundup gathers all seven stories into one reality-bending, highly convenient package — delivered fresh every Friday.
Let’s rewind the week, one story at a time.
Acts of Kindness. Charges Apply.
Elliot was a kind man. Pathologically kind. He once apologized to an escalator for stepping off too quickly.
The Viral App That Promised Reparations From Immigrants
A week after the White House floated the idea, a Silicon Valley startup dropped AmeriPay — the first app to monetize your grievances by calculating how much immigrants ‘owe’ you.
How Planting a Tree Turned Into a Federal Climate Violation
“I want to plant a tree,” Gerald Truman said.
The Blue Circle No One Asked For
It looked harmless — a tiny blue dot pulsing in the corner of her screen — but Ananya knew it hadn’t been there yesterday.
Fifty Years Under A Shell – Rehab Notes of an Eastern Box Turtle
She arrived like a cracked relic, breathing dust instead of air.
An Open Letter From The Pleistocene
Children of the Anthropocene, Twelve thousand winters, we have listened beneath the tundra, tusks locked in loam and ribs silted with permafrost.
Thanks for reading and for keeping this little experiment alive. If a story made you pause, laugh, or double-check the news, tap “Share We Interrupt This Reality.” One click, and your friends get the same reality glitch you just enjoyed.
Tune in next week (every Friday) for more weekly reality checks.
P.S. For those wondering about the weekly PDFs, I’ve retired them so the stories can stay nimble — links updated in real time, no version lag, and fewer files cluttering your downloads folder. The full archive remains online whenever you need a deeper dive.