Isolation and connection Stories

I stare at his shoes on my lap. My eyes see them. My small hands caress over the tough leather. My touch feels them. They are empty today. Like him, sometimes. I place my feet inside them today. I fill the emptiness, for him, sometimes. They feel cold today. Like him, sometimes. I wriggle my toes calmly today. I move to provide the warmth, for him, sometimes. They are big today. Like him, sometimes. I make my feet bigger...

The static had seventeen distinct textures, and Alex Chen had learned to read them like braille. Tonight the pattern felt coarser than usual—granular, almost crystalline—so Alex adjusted the dial on Grandmother's old white-noise generator and waited for the smooth hiss that typically let them sink four layers deep into waveform editing. Outside the garage-studio, cicadas phased and the neighbor's air-conditioning knelled...