What would you do if you lived in a near-future United States of America in which the President has declared weekend minority culling "Passes" legal? In which citizens must compete in reality TV programs for healthcare, citizenship, the right to travel, higher education, or "freedom" to live in private segregated communities? In which tribes of hybrid creatures live in primitive outlier compounds scattered throughout the country; societal outcasts and rejects from government-sponsored human genome experiments gone awry? What would you do if you were falling for a beautiful biracial climatologist and artist who might be a member of a radical "terrorist" network? And whose twin sister "might" be part of that same group or a secret government organization oppressing and controlling the public? And you knew someone, somewhere, probably has placed a bullseye on your head? This is the future in which Noah Harpster, humble incongruent anachronism, pickpocket, and three-time loser, finds himself cast. Like you, he's got some tough decisions to make with too few options. To the government, and everyone else, he's just one more grain of sand in society's hourglass. And time's running out…. A long time ago, a little boy with thick glasses and far away dreams of flying carpets and friendly alien beings used to sit with his spoiled princess cat Cindy and read soiled paperbacks by flashlight within a fortress made from chair, blankets, and pillows. Years later, he'd sit curled up in a concrete construction tunnel left behind in a thick woods behind the house where he grew up, reading "House of Secrets," "Vault of Horror," and "Green Lantern." He'd watch the stars and silently pray one day a being out there would see him through their own looking glass, they'd lock eyes, and together set adrift; sharing tall tales, long and short. He'd sit beside his mother as she rocked in her heated vibrating La-Z-Boy furry padded chair. Together they'd listen to Sarah Vaughan sing as few could, before and against the fall of night. David Somerfleck is the author of "Love Her Blind & Other Poems," "The Road to Digital Marketing Profits," "One Grain of Sand," and "Quotes to Elucidate & Enlighten." Upcoming titles include "Bloom & Grow,," and "The Skin I'm In," and the romance novel "Safe Sexton."
