calling time on candy

Here's another short story that can be read free of charge, either by going up to the Free Fiction page or by clicking here. This one's published by the lovely people over at PerihelionSF. A really nice site with lots of stories for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Calling Time on Candy's one of those tales where you hope any satire you've dropped in doesn't get in the way of the reader's enjoyment of the piece.

Here are the first lines:

We were calling time on Candy. Things had just got to that point.

It was sad to see. But that’s always been the way when something like this happens. It’s the one thing that doesn’t change, even if everything else does. Sometimes it’s a surprise and sometimes not, but it’s always, always sad to see.

I heard about it over breakfast, from my girlfriend.

“Hey, Clay, you’re never going to guess. We’re calling time on Candy.”

“What, Candy Novak? You’re kidding.” I shook my head and pushed my eyeglasses to the bridge of my nose, blinked hard. “I thought she’d be around forever. Well ... years more at least. Candy. You’re sure?”

“I know. It’s so hard to believe, isn’t it?”

It was in the papers when they loaded that morning. Or rather it wasn’t, because remember—we were calling time on Candy.

I turned the smart-sheets, ignoring dancing emoticons and holo-logos, and tried to find stories about her causing scandal and getting caught. But she was invisible. Not a word, no picture, not a ping. Web trace negative.

She was gone, called time on.

Continue reading.

I hope you like it.