They said it was just a worksheet. Take one and pass it back. The paper was warm from the copier, still curling slightly at the edges, and when I touched it, it felt like static, like the hum in your fingers before a storm. On the page were dots. Evenly spaced. Too neat to be […]
Author: cleanshave
The Rows He Left Behind
I found him at dawn, asleep beneath the old oak that marks the eastern edge of our property. Not sprawled or curled against the cold, but positioned like someone who’d chosen their spot with intention. His leather coat was too clean for a drifter, his boots caked with earth that wasn’t ours. Somewhere, days ago, […]
Alice: Deflationary Compounding and the Third Way to UBI
In December of 2022, the price of a small experimental token named Alice (AIus) was $0.001. Today, it’s $0.00426. That might not seem like much, fractions of a cent, but over two and a half years, it represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 79.55%. More importantly, it represents a new way of thinking […]
Anti-Aging Ambrosia: When Science meets Ancient Wisdom
In my fictional story “From Death Exempt,” the protagonist Mitch Waller discovers a powerful formula for extending human lifespan through careful consumption, dedicated hydration, and specialized breathing techniques. While the story is fiction, many of the principles behind Mitch’s longevity regimen are grounded in actual scientific research. Let’s explore some of the real science behind […]
From Death Exempt
I found the chicken feathers in Jonas’s sink. Three of them, pale and small, like witnesses. The rest of his apartment was immaculate, Jonas had always been fastidious about cleanliness, even more than me. But those feathers waited in the porcelain basin, delicate and deliberate, a message I wasn’t yet ready to decode. The body […]
The Unsinkable Truth
I found myself in a dingy sixth-floor walkup on Bleecker Street, staring at the front page of The New York Times spread across my desk like a shroud. April 16, 1912. The words swam before me, coalescing into a headline that seemed to pulse with each beat of my heart: TITANIC SINKS FOUR HOURS AFTER […]
Disco Sasquatch Hookers
A glitter-soaked nightmare from the fever dream of 1979. Randy “Razor” Romano slammed back a warm bottle of cherry-flavored wine cooler, cranked the wheel with one hand, and flipped his rearview mirror to avoid the shame. Somewhere behind him was Los Angeles. Far behind him, in fact, judging by the endless tunnel of pines, fog, […]
Emotive Sync
When I heard the cue, I didn’t realize it was coming from me. It was a low harmonic, like a cello being played through a glass of water. Subtle. Beautiful, even. It swelled when I looked at the ad on my feed, a family laughing in a sunlit kitchen, framed in soft focus as the […]
Unraveling the Magic of Words
I’m thrilled to finally share a project that has been close to my heart for years, the Lorem Ipsum Mystery Series. After recently revisiting these manuscripts, salvaged from the old corrupted file of words once thought lost, I’ve fallen in love all over again with the world of Braedon Cove and its protagonist, Ali Undershot. […]
Artificer’s Curse: Origin of Daedalus
Venice, 1474 Even through the mask, the smell of charred flesh lingered. Giovanni Trismegistus wiped the blood from his hands onto his apron and studied the body laid out before him on the table. The corpse’s mouth remained fixed in a silent scream, eyes wide with the final terror of a man who had glimpsed […]