a glimpse at the future? (original fiction)

[buggery]

This isn't the story I was planning to post for this event, but while I was working on that one (which came to me mostly-whole and then fought me over the final hundred words) this one began ringing insistently in my ear.


Facial Expressions


2000:
"Lisa Jefferson Jenkins! What did you do?" Beth Jenkins exclaimed as her daughter slumped into their apartment.

Lisa stared sullenly back, uptilted chin asking, What's it look like?

Beth sighed. "Lisa, I said you couldn't get your lip pierced."

"It's my lip." Lisa slurred only slightly.


2025:
"'Someday, Lisa,' my mother told me when I was seventeen, 'you'll want a good, professional job. How will a hole in your face look during interviews?'"

"And you answered, 'Everybody's doing it, so they'll have to hire us anyway.'" The installer sounded distracted; stifling her nervous patter, Lisa forced a laugh.

"Guess you hear that often."

He nodded. "You want a labret mouthpiece?" He traced the old piercing.

"Hole's there already..."

He positioned her chin upward. Her department might be paying for this upgrade, but physically, the insertion of her new pers-phone mic and receiver hurt no less than her adolescent piercings.


2050:
"What's wrong with a standard install, Eli?" Lisa Jenkins prompted, an idle fingertip touching the nodules decorating her own ear, then the simpler marquis beneath her lip.

"Ga-da, Mom!" Elisabeth Jefferson Jenkins III curled her unmarred lip in disgust. "Letting my headcomm show on my face? That's compiled twentieth century."



just one cog in a


strange machine program instructions

Comments

Hah!

[theunshaven.livejournal.com]

I like it.

Strangely possible. I approve.

[jamjar.livejournal.com]

Excellent, imaginative, but plausible shortfic. Nothing extraneous, and complete in and of itself.

[redwolf]

Love the idea of using changing fashion tastes with technology.

[thete1.livejournal.com]

Ah, you RULE. And I adore you. :D

[consectari]

Excellent concept, and well-written. I enjoyed it.

[badficwriter.livejournal.com]

Ah, that was funny. Eternal themes and fly by night technology. It teases me long afterward.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

I thank you.

As the saying goes... not only stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Just what I was aiming for -- thanks for some of the most encouraging feedback I've ever gotten.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Fashion tastes have tended to do just that, of course...

[buggery.livejournal.com]

That feeling is wholly mutual.

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Thank you, and thank you. Glad you enjoyed.

::squints myopically:: Are those bats in your icon?

[buggery.livejournal.com]

I was trying to be funny, but humour can be harder to evoke than drama. Pleased it worked for you.

It teases me long afterward.

A pleasant fiction aftertaste -- that's always nice to hear.

[consectari]

Indeed, they are bats. I'm a Halloween junkie.

[jcalanthe]

Ooh, I like it. Thanks for pointing me at this. :)

[buggery.livejournal.com]

Thank you! ::hugs on J:: Thanks for taking the time to give feedback.