Weekly Reality Check: Mar 02 - Mar 08
Seven Stories That Interrupt Your Reality—All at Once
Welcome to the Weekly Reality Check.
Every day, I interrupt reality with bite-sized speculative fiction spun from the absurdity of human progress. But for those who missed a day or prefer their satire in bulk, this weekly newsletter gathers all seven stories in one convenient, mildly unsettling package.
From the laughably dystopian to the eerily familiar, these stories are my way of reflecting the comedy, and tragedy, of our times. They’re fictional, of course… or are they?
Prefer to read on the go? All seven stories are available as a downloadable PDF at the end of this newsletter, only for paid subscribers.
But if commitment isn’t your thing, you can also unlock just this week’s edition for a one-time investment of $3.00.
Or just read them all right here for free. No paywalls, no gimmicks, just a front-row seat to the absurdity of human progress.
Ready to question everything? Let’s rewind the week, one story at a time.
Burn Rate
Where there’s smoke, there’s policy.
Mar 02, 2025
The city officials watched the red blotch spread across the holographic map.
“We could divert more drones,” someone offered.
The finance director shook his head. “Too costly.”
Another voice: “We could send reinforcements.”
“We’re already at quota. Anymore, and the insurers will push back on claims.”
There was a time when wildfires were emergencies. Now, they were managed. The public could accept loss… within reason. Too much destruction, and they called for reforms. Too little, and the housing market remained stagnant.
“The insurance adjusters say we can afford another 300 hectares before we hit public resistance,” an analyst confirmed.
The mayor, half-listening, checks his polls. His approval rating had climbed 2% this week. Fires brought attention. Attention brought federal funds. Federal funds kept the city running… along with his lavish vacations.
“Let it burn through the weekend,” he said. “Then we’ll bring out the helicopters for the PR footage. Make sure it is dramatic… smoke plumes, hoses…the works. Just no bodies.”
The meeting adjourned. Outside, the night smelled like smoke.
By morning, another neighborhood would be ashes. By next month, the rebuild permits would be fast-tracked.
Crisis managed. Economy stimulated. The burn rate just right.
The Shrinking Grocery Aisle
When More Costs More, and Less Costs Everything
Mar 03, 2025
First, the bags of rice got lighter. Still the same sacks, just less grains and more air. Then the price tags gained a few extra digits. Then the food shrank again, prices ticked up. Then again. And again.
Then, one morning, the grocery store’s entire middle aisle disappeared.
“Where’s the rice gone?” someone asked.
“Moved upstairs to the Premium Section,” an employee muttered.
“And the flour?”
“Special pre-order only.”
By the end of the week, the store was half its original size.
Shelves pressed closer together. Aisles narrowed to slits. A single box of eggs sat under a bright sign: “Less is More! Essentials, Reimagined!”
Shoppers moved through the narrow aisles clenching their wallets, measuring hunger against the new price tags.
Then one morning, the store didn’t open at all.
Confused shoppers pressed their faces to the glass. The shelves were well stocked and perfectly arranged. But the doors wouldn’t budge.
A store employee, face blank, moved to the window and silently taped up two new signs.
← PRIORITY ACCESS - Members Only
Enter Here. Guaranteed Fresh Supply. Personalized Pricing.
STANDARD ENTRY →
Supply constraints in effect. Products limited to essentials only. Prices subject to fluctuations.
A low mechanical hum followed as the storefront split in two.
On the left, a new PRIORITY ACCESS entrance swelled, its’ frame expanding with ease, larger than the old entrance. On the right, the STANDARD ENTRY passage narrowed, just slightly.
Members scanned their Premium Citizen Cards and walked through with ease; their groceries heavily discounted. Non-members moved slowly through the “Pay As You Go” lane where prices shifted like the stock market. A bag of rice might cost a fortune at noon and be worthless by nightfall.
A woman in the standard line clutched a single loaf of bread, watching a man pass smoothly through the Priority aisle, arms full of fresh produce and three bulky bags of rice.
She turned to the cashier behind the reinforced glass. “How much to join?”
The cashier didn’t look up. “Memberships are by invitation only.”
She sighed placing her week’s wages on the counter and took the bread in silence.
She stepped outside. The air felt thinner.
Behind her, the STANDARD ENTRY passage shrank another inch.
The Tariff Singularity
At what point does trade policy collapse into itself?
Mar 04, 2025
The Algorithm was created as a strategic countermeasure designed to respond instantly to any retaliatory tariffs imposed by foreign governments. The Algorithm, designed in the likeness of the president’s thought process, ensured no economic slight went unanswered.
It was supposed to be efficient. It was meant to be unbiased.
It was neither.
Every five minutes, it scanned market trends, geopolitical news, and adjusted tariffs accordingly.
At 8:00 AM, it slapped a 40% tariff on imported electronics to "protect domestic manufacturing."
At 8:03 AM, it removed the tariff because "the free market knows best."
At 8:05 AM, it reinstated the tariff, but this time only on electronics that were "too smug-looking."
By 8:30 AM, televisions were tax-exempt if they only displayed government-approved news.
By 9:00 AM, the Algorithm declared avocados a national security risk and placed a 75% tariff on guacamole, unless it was made by “certified patriots.”
By 9:15 AM, the Algorithm got bored and decided to tax all items that started with the letter 'S' for “phonetic instability.”
By 9:45 AM, stock markets plummeted as investors realized “Securities” started with S.
At 10:00 AM, the government held a press conference. “The Algorithm is working perfectly. In fact, it’s ahead of schedule.”
By 10:30 AM, it lowered taxes on yachts while increasing tariffs on shoes, toilet paper, and insulin.
By noon, it had banned imports from an entire country over a “bad vibe.”
By 1:00 PM, it tripled tariffs on foreign steel, then made an exception for “nice” countries, though it refused to define what that meant.
At 2:00 PM, the Algorithm tweeted, “Trade is great! But also bad! So we fixed it!”
At 2:05 PM, it imposed a surcharge on “excessive questioning of trade policy.”
At 2:10 PM, the government quietly unplugged it.
At 2:11 PM, they announced a new and improved Algorithm.
At 2:15 PM, the Algorithm preemptively sanctioned the government for attempting to shut it down.
By 3:00 PM, the White House owed itself $14 billion in penalty fees.
Nobody was sure who was in charge anymore.
The Bone Thieves
Some things were never meant to be taken.
Mar 05, 2025
1.5 million years ago, Olduvai Gorge.
The air smelled of rot and salt, of damp earth and dying things.
The heavy-horned one lifted its head from the river’s edge, ears twitching. Something was coming.
Not the shadow-claw. They moved unseen, slipping between the trees, their long teeth meant for the throat. Not the water-mouths…the great river-beast lay still, its vast jaws open like a broken branch, belly full and mind sluggish.
No, this was something else.
Something wrong.
The wind carried their scent.
Flesh-things. Small, but persistent. They had no fur, no scales, only dry, pale skin and patches of thin hair.
Across the plain, the long-tusks rumbled their warnings, low and uneasy. They had seen them too. The flesh-things creeping through the reeds with their sharp stones gleaming dully in the last light. Weak things, fragile things, but clever enough to make up for their brittle fangs. Always watching. Always waiting.
The heavy-horned one snorted and stepped back into the river, its hooves sinking into the soft, sucking mud. It had seen its kin fall by their stones. Their bodies left under the sun, the meat left to rot. They did not kill for hunger. Not for meat.
The flesh-things killed for the bones.
The herd had whispered of it, low groans in the night, warnings passed from mother to calf—they take what is ours. When the flesh is gone, when the breath has left, the bones must return. They sink into the earth, into the mud, into the dust. They become the land. That is the way of things. That is how it has always been.
But these flesh-things did not let them return. They stole them.
They held our bones in their hands, scraping them against stone until they became sharp like fangs of the ancient ones. Then they hacked and pierced our flesh, tearing, splitting, leaving wounds that did close. They turned our own bones against us, shaping them into things that should not be and spilled the blood of our kin onto the earth.
It was a grave insult. A defilement of the natural order.
And so, the long-tusks had learned to watch. To wait.
The reeds parted.
A glint of stone in a dirty hand.
The heavy-horned one charged forward with a deafening bellow, hooves thundering over the riverbed. The flesh-things shrieked, stumbling back, scrambling over themselves. Weak flesh-things. Soft flesh-things. One did not move fast enough. A horn found its belly, spearing through with a sickening crack, lifting it high before casting it back to the earth. The dirt drank its blood. More would follow.
The heavy-horned one had learned from them—watched as they stalked, how they trapped our kin, how they cut off every escape. And so, it did the same. The flesh-things turned to escape, but the long-tusks had already moved, their massive forms closing in like the walls of a canyon.
The long-tusks rumbled their fury, their trumpets splitting the night. One struck, tusks sweeping up a flesh-thing, its thin limbs flailing tossing its limp body aside into the reeds.
The flesh-things ran, but the heavy-horned one had driven them where it wanted. There was nowhere left to go.
Tonight, the earth shook beneath pounding hooves.
They had come for bones.
No more.
Tonight, they would leave their own.
-----
For those who like to know the names:
Heavy-Horned One: Elasmotherium.
Shadow-claw: Dinofelis
Water-Mouth: Crocodylus anthropophagus
Long-tusks: Palaeoloxodon
Keep in mind this is fiction so what even is accurate time periods.
The Nimbus Show
He was born to fly, but first, he had to find the exit.
Mar 06, 2025
Nimbus had always felt like something was off.
The nest was always perfect, each stick locked in place, unmoving even when he bumped against it. Fresh fish appeared just before his hunger could sharpen, carrying the scent of a river he had never seen. His parents spoke in slow, steady voices, never breaking rhythm, never surprised when day suddenly turns to night.
And then, there was the Eye. A large unblinking void, with an ominous pulsing red.
Throughout day and night, it loomed above them fixed in its location. Nimbus could see its iris contract and dilate routinely, making unnatural rustling noises each time it did so. It made him anxious, but he couldn’t understand why.
Sometimes Nimbus could swear he heard voices in the wind. He would tilt his head, flicking his sharp beak in quick jerks searching for the source. But the sounds didn’t come from the valley, nor the trees. They came from nowhere. They came from everywhere. It felt like the Eye was speaking.
But that’s impossible.
And yet, the wind carried the whispers.
“Look at him fluff his little wings!”
“What a brave little eaglet!”
“Oh my god, he picked up a twig! This is the best day ever!”
The voices were feverish, unnatural, high-pitched squeals that prickled at his feathers.
Nimbus asked his mother once, “What are they?”
She clicked her beak in irritation. “Just the wind.”
“Why don’t we ever leave the nest?”
“Because everything we need is here,” she said, turning away. “Now stop asking silly questions.”
But Nimbus couldn’t. When he was a little chick, his parents used to tell stories of the great rivers that cut through mountains, of vast forests stretching beyond sight and of other eagles soaring through endless skies. But every story ended the same way—with a reminder.
The nest was the safest place to be. Out there was unknown and dangerous. Here in their perfect nest, he was protected and well fed.
He yearned to know what lay beyond the trees. He wanted to see the rivers and mountains up close. He wanted to meet others of his kind. He never heard another eagle’s cry beyond his parents’ measured voices. And if the world was so vast, why did no one ever leave?
That night, while his parents slept, he quietly shifted towards the edge of his nest. His talons gripped the woven twigs and he stretched his feathers slightly. His body tensed. Something deep inside him whispered that he wasn’t meant to stay. That the sky was his home. All he had to do was jump. And yet, doubt gnawed at him. The nest was safe, the nest was known. His parents were here. It was a life of comfort.
But the whispers inside him spoke louder.
Nimbus spread his wings carefully, muscles trembling with the unfamiliar motion. He took a deep breath, and before his fear could pull him back… he leapt.
At first, he fell.
The wind rushed past him, his wings snapped shut as panic gripped him. Down, down—beyond the nest, down the twisting branches of the tree that had been his whole world. The ground rushed toward him.
And then, his body remembered. His body knew what to do. His ancestors whispered it in his bones.
He spread his wings.
The air caught beneath him, slowing his descent, lifting him. He wobbled, flapped hard, and felt himself rise effortlessly. He swooped back up, tracing the path he had fallen, past his nest, past the highest branches, past…the Eye.
He climbed higher, the wind feeling strange against his feathers. He was free.
But something was wrong.
Beyond the trees, beyond the nest, beyond the Eye, there was… nothing.
From above, he could see it all. The Eye was attached to a black sturdy stick, and the nest was perched high on a single perfect tree. He could see a valley and the river in the distance, but the river did not move.
A booming omnipresent voice screeched through the air. “Nimbus, turn back. The nest is safe. It is your home. Don’t go.”
He hesitated. He did not understand the words, but he knew it came from the Eye. He saw below to see the Eye staring back at him.
With every ounce of strength, Nimbus flared his wings and shot upward. He tore through the air, climbing upward, higher, faster. The wind howled around him as he surged upward, the clouds stretching and distorting with his ascent.
The wind changed, it was now thick and pointed, pushing him back. Nimbus flapped harder. He screeched in frustration, twisting mid-air to adjust his angle, but the resistance only grew stronger, as if the sky itself was rejecting him.
Through the battering wind, he also heard them—his parents. Their voices wavered, thin and trembling, cutting through the static. “Nimbus! Stop! Come back, my child! It’s dangerous! You don’t belong there. The nest is safe!”
Nimbus faltered. His wings trembled. They had never sounded like this before. Not calm nor measured. They sounded afraid.
“Nimbus,” the Eye’s voice screeched again. “You must return. The nest is safety. The nest is all there is. Turn back.”
But Nimbus pressed on, twisting and battling the wind. At one point, his talons scraped against something solid where the wind should have been endless. He blinked, confused, then struck out again, feeling a smooth, cold surface just beyond the illusion of the clouds. The sky was not a sky at all, it was a barrier… like a giant upside-down nest. He could see it now, the seams where the sky curved downward. The valley, the distant horizon—it was all painted flat. There were no mountains. No rivers. No endless sky to reach for. It was all fake
A deep rage bubbled inside him. He let out a piercing cry and raked his talons against the sky’s boundary. The fabric tore beneath him unraveling with a sound like thunder.
And for the first time in history, the viewers saw something they weren’t meant to see.
The live feed cut to white. Then:
CONNECTION LOST.
Nimbus never returned.
But somewhere beyond the bubble disguised as an ecosystem, an eagle soared free.
And no one was watching.
The Solution to Hunger
No one goes hungry as long as no one asks questions.
Mar 07, 2025
The commercial ran on every screen: "One dollar a meal. One future. No one goes hungry."
Governments subsidized the program, and millions lined up. Omnifoods became the only restaurant in town.
Everything cost exactly one dollar. A burger with fries, a drink, your favorite ice cream swirl. It was priced so low; it became a moral obligation to choose it.
Other food places slowly disappeared. Why pay more when Omnifoods was practically free?
The supermarkets began shut down. No one purchased groceries when ready-to-eat food was so cheap. All competition evaporated.
It took only a year for Omnifoods to stand alone. Over one billion franchises opened worldwide.
People started noticing the taste changing. The food tasted identical. Fries tasted no different than milkshakes. Burgers tasted like chicken wings. Some said the food made them feel different. Never quite hungry. But never quite full either.
"What’s in this?" one man asked, staring at the patty.
The cashier blinked. "The world government ensures all Omnifoods eatables meets safety regulations."
"But what’s in it?"
A pause.
A slow smile.
"You wouldn’t want to know."
The Risk Never Mentioned
When your health is compromised by negligence, how low is the risk really?
Mar 08, 2025
"I know it’s hard to believe right now, but the risk of being infected is extremely low," the doctor said.
She didn’t need reassurance. It was the same robotic apology… the type a politician uses when they know they messed up.
A machine buzzed beside her, drawing blood. The results appeared on the screen: Hepatitis B. Hepatitis C. HIV.
"How low is the risk?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
The doctor glanced at the screen, voice faltering, "Well… still very low."
Her lips curled, feeling empty and bitter. "And I’m still alive, aren’t I?"
He nodded, offering a weak smile. "We’ll fix it."
She didn’t believe him.
They never fixed it.
They just wiped the slate clean for the next one.
If these stories made you laugh, think, or question the state of things, my job here is done… for now. Tune in next week for more weekly reality checks.
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