STORY GALLERY - FEBRUARY 2023
Theme: Write a short story with a twist in the end   

I was idling time on my laptop

when my mouse clicked a survey on-line.

I was sucked in by offers of shopping rewards

So my in-box is now in decline.

I'm bombarded by unwanted e-mails –   

their contents –  a real waste of space.

I object to my tenth daily greeting that pleads

'Come on - take ten years off your face!'

I know I'll enter 'the next world' one day –

(as my in-box won't let me forget)

Such a flood of essential funeral plans!

Don't they know I'm not going yet?

I recall ticking 'interest in travel', 

so I study each holiday plan. 

But I'm loathe to sign up for low budget trips

to Ukraine and Afghanistan.

No! I don't want a tasseled bikini

or to choose wine by its label.

If I drank all the cases they've offered me

I'd be permanently under the table.

No! I don't want huge plasma screens

nor a smartphone that's used as a bribe. 

No ride-ons, I-pads, or coffee machines. 

Just let me click 'unsubscribe'.

'SCRIBBLERS UNITE!' shouted a large poster. 

'BAN AUTOMATION!' affirmed another.

'HUMAN QUILLERS ARE BEST!' insisted a third. 

The mood of the crowd in front of Parliament house grew ugly.  Front ranks broke into a corruption of John Farnham's call to action song 'You're the Voice:' 

'We have a chance to turn the pages over,

We can write what we want to write, 

We're not gonna sit in silence, 

We're not gonna live in fear ... '

Apprehensive staff appeared on the platform in front of the crowd. They erected a microphone and speakers then escaped inside. 

A smartly dressed Under-secretary to the Under-secretary for the Minister of Communication appeared behind the microphone. She coughed nervously to attract attention. The crowd quitened, peering at the government representative resentfully. 

'You need to accept that the Government has automated. Super computers will now write Hansard and all other legal documentation. Go home and find another job.'

She turned and ran away as a barrage of tomatoes and eggs pelted the stage she had occupied just a moment earlier. Shouts of anger, derision and frustration added weight to the missiles. 

Police appeared from the building, forming a formidable line. 

'Go home now. Anyone here in three minutes will be arrested!' shouted the captain. Slowly the crowd drifted away, shoulders slumped. 

...

The Under-secretary returned to her office to a scream from her boss. 'Disaster! The software has failed! Race out and grab some writers. The Lower House sits in ten minutes.'