Frontier Road - Short Stories (written by humans)

I read the email notifying me that I had lost my job, then shut my laptop and stared at the cubicle wall in front of me.

I could already hear my wife asking if there was anything I could do; petition someone, beg, stay on in some lesser role?

I thought about calling Tyler Rinock myself and agreeing to take a pay cut if it meant I could just stay. Tyler made something like thirty-five million dollars a year, plus stock incentives, and was said to be worth somewhere north of three billion. I wasn't mad about that. I was, at least one time in my life, a Republican. I still believe in markets, ownership, in men building things and keeping what they earned. Still, those beliefs felt a little more abstract sitting in a cubicle at nine in the morning wondering how I was going to pay my mortgage. Maybe Tyler could show me some mercy.

I'd seen the writing on the wall since the first time I opened ChatGPT four years earlier. That thing can code like crazy, I'd thought as I watched it script in seconds what sometimes took me hours. It translated languages more efficiently than I ever dreamed software could. It found bugs, wrote documentation and explained unfamiliar code almost instantly.

I knew where this was headed. The industry would eventually move away from large teams of engineers toward smaller groups of higher-level engineers who knew how to use AI to do the work of several people.

I raced to become one of those engineers.

What else was I supposed to do?

I didn't have a fallback career. I had received my bachelor's degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan and was hired by Ribbed Software almost immediately after school. Coding was what I knew.

For the last eleven years, I'd worked on the systems that kept Ribbed Software's medical dictation platform running. The product itself was mostly invisible to the people who used it. Doctors spoke into a microphone, our system captured their dictation and converted it into a record that could be stored, searched and signed. I kept the dictations flowing, the records synced and the whole thing from breaking.

If something failed at two in the morning, I got the alert. If a hospital's dictation files stopped processing or a physician's notes didn't make it into the record, I traced through the logs until I found the fault. I felt like I was an integral part of the software. If it wasn't for me, the software would fail. That's how I felt.

I've also never been especially ambitious about my job. My passions were elsewhere. I enjoyed writing and I did so on the weekends, maintaining a small blog that noone read but that kept me entertained and educated about classical prose. I wrote short stories and submitted them for publication, but was never published.

Life was fine really.

"Hello, students. Hope you had a crappy weekend. How many of you went to the theater to watch Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey?"

Three hands shot up. One very excitedly.

"Yes, Jeremy. What did you think of it?"

Jeremy was a polarizing figure in the class. Intelligent? Yes. Disruptive? Yes. Rude and obnoxious? Yes and yes, almost always. But Mr. Grey liked him anyway because he was always there and usually willing to contribute to the discourse.

"Bro, Mr. Grey, this movie was slinging. I've seen Troy with Brad Pitt. This ain't Troy. I liked it."

"Thanks, Jeremy. What was it about, at its core? No spoilers, but give me some context here."

"It's Odysseus, played skillfully by Matt Damon, journeying home after war, and the people waiting for him."

"Thank you, Jeremy. And if you don't mind, I'm going to keep you on the spot for the rest of class. We're going to dissect what this story means and the greater context of one of the greatest works of literature in the history of the world."

"Okay, now a quick lecture about what The Odyssey is. Don't get lost here, and don't fall asleep. I'll keep it short."

"The Odyssey is a Greek epic poem. It was composed sometime around the 700s B.C., but it wasn't originally written down. It was part of an oral tradition, passed down and recited by bards over the centuries. The story was eventually written down, and later manuscripts preserved it for future generations."

A hand from the corner shot up.

"Yes, Julie?"

"What's a bard?"

"It's a poet, artist, or singer."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"And by the time The Odyssey was composed, it is almost certain that the poet had before him a well-arranged mass of legends and traditions from which he could select his material. And as Jeremy said, this recent Christopher Nolan film has re-sparked interest in the tale."

"Odysseus was the king of Ithaca, a small and rugged island off the western coast of Greece. Soon after he married and had his only son, Telemachus, the Trojan War began."

"The poets tell us the purpose of the war was to recover Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Odysseus had no interest in Helen himself. He was already married to Penelope. But years earlier he had sworn an oath to defend Helen's future husband if the need ever arose, and when Troy refused to return her, he was bound to keep his word."

I am fifteen years old, and I can only tell what I see, what I hear, and what I think is going on. If you want the whole story, you'd have to ask my dad, my coach, the other parents, and probably a few of my teammates. They might all tell it differently then I do.

There are a little more than three minutes left before halftime, and we're losing by ten points. It's to a smaller school. Not a terrible school or anything, but a school we should be beating. We have more athletes than they do. At least that's what everybody said before the game.

I'm sitting on the end of the bench.

It isn't really the end. There are two guys sitting farther down than me, but they are on the JV team, even though they are in my grade. They are just here to watch.

I look across the gym and see my dad.

Part One - Left Side of the Bench

In the coastal town of Lincoln City, a horticulture engineer with a unique perspective on life finds unexpected connection with a mysterious, but familiar stranger.

Excerpt:

"Oh hey, how are you?" I responded.

It was the girl. She was beautiful. I adjusted my headslightly to make eye contact with my good eye.

"I think I know you," she said.

The analytical mind of an engineer quickly deduced that thisgirl, whom I slightly recognized, but possibly never met, had left her group of friends and returned to me. There had to be a motivation.

 "Stop overthinking," I scolded myself."Say something, you damned idiot. She asked you a question, and you're sitting here speechless."

 "You know, you seem awfully familiar too. We must haveknown each other at some point in our lives. When do you think it was?" I replied with a question.

 I ease into a sense of relief. This girl is way out of myleague, both in looks and style. The truth is, I don't stand a chance. Thank you, God. Now, I can just relax, be her friend for just a moment, and not worry about the complexities of romance. There's something about our human nature always pushing for romantic relationships, which ironically can work against them, especially when pushed too early.

 Lately, I've found a certain contentment with the idea ofbeing a single man—not a bachelor or a party animal, just a human living solo. There's a wonderfully relaxing aspect to it that I've come to appreciate.

"Quit overthinking, you fool. You've only exchangedone sentence with this girl, and you're already reconsidering your entire future." I thought to myself, still waiting on her response.

An archaeological team in Turkey had recently uncovered an ancient image beneath layers of plaster inside a church near Iznik. This image of Christ, portrayed as the Good Shepherd, was among the five oldest surviving depictions of Jesus as an adult ever found anywhere in the world. It dated from the early-to-mid third century AD and was the best-preserved early image of Jesus ever discovered.

Because it had been sealed inside an exceptionally well-preserved, oxygen-depleted underground chamber, the fresco’s pigments remained almost exactly as they had been painted some eighteen hundred years earlier. The image was so complete that Christ’s facial features, the individual folds of his tunic, his hands, and the distinct outline of the ram across his shoulders remained clearly visible and sharp.

The newly discovered painting gave historians a remarkably detailed glimpse into how some early Christians perceived Jesus.

Short-cropped hair.

Middle-class Roman clothing.

And beardless.

Professor Buck zoomed in on the fresco, this work that seemed to solidify a lifelong thesis.

He smiled to himself.

And that felt like enough.

Excerpt:

"My dreams however, kept me awake—Claire, William, the breakfast at the Caffè Florian. The conflict. She was nervous, but not refined, and not always on edge, just this morning. The man, the nameless man, or William now, but that doesn’t fit. That’s ok, we will use it anyway. William and Claire at the Caffe.

And there was a child, there were children, but this child, their last to leave them, and now they were alone on this trip, alone on a trip for the first time in their lives, really. They had taken trips, vacations, second honeymoons, but there were always children at home, demands to come back to and to worry about.

But is that a plot? Who are the characters? Dream on, brain and soul, find me answers, give me questions to ask. I know the story, it’s the details that I don’t know. The story is already in me.

But can the story survive one setting? There is another man. He enters the picture soon, as the reader will see. A tall man, slender with a beer belly. A man in his 20s, the reader may presume, or pushing 30. A gentle man, but boy can he drink. And boy can he eat. He joins William and Claire for breakfast and orders immediately. A large bowl of clam chowder, an extra roll or two for the dipping, and a glass of Aperol spritz.

That is all for the night."

Short Summary:

I was sitting in my car thinking about hobbies and somehow ended up inside a bookstore pretending to be a serious collector. I bought Edward Newton’s The Amenities of Book Collecting for twenty bucks, convinced for a few minutes that I had discovered the secret world of bibliophiles. Newton’s book led me to Alexander Pope, which made me feel briefly intellectual, and then to the story of Harry Elkins Widener—the young millionaire book collector who died on the Titanic at twenty-seven. Widener treated collecting books like gold mining, digging through dusty piles to find hidden treasures. Inspired, I kept reading, turned a few more pages, and there it was, a treasure. But was it the only treasure I found?

A handwritten note from Widener himself to Edward Newton, dated April 1912, just days before he boarded the Titanic.

Excerpt from the story:

I’m sitting in my car in the Walmart parking lot wondering if I should go inside. I know there are Pokémon cards in there, but I also know there are people. And not just normal people. These are the people who know exactly when the card vendor restocks the shelves. They walk straight to the aisle without looking up. They scowl if anyone is near them. They aren’t afraid to box out a child for the cards.

To get a pack I’d have to compete with them. These middle-aged men. These monsters. These vultures.

I stay in the Civic with the heater on and watch them come empty handed and leave with boxes of pokemon in their hands. I’m just thinking about what a petty life this is.

I scroll.

Humans are the most interesting things in the world.

I just don’t enjoy being around them very much.

I need a hobby. I do enjoy reading.

I read a book, or maybe it was a movie that said, “Young man, go West.” Now people tell me, young man, get a better job, or young man get a wife, or young man find God, or Young man, get a hobby. I want to just say, Old Men, die.

I was a young missionary when my companion persuaded me to abandon our assigned duties and join a strange expedition to Mount Ararat in search of Noah’s Ark. What followed was five months of faith, doubt, cameras, preachers, and men who desperately wanted to prove that scripture could be found buried in the ice. We found no ark, no beams, no planks—but before I left that mountain I stumbled upon something far stranger: the frozen body of a creature no man could properly name. Whether it was evidence of ancient myth, forgotten species, or simply the imagination of men too eager to believe, I cannot say. I can only tell you what I saw.

an excerpt:

How the estrangement between himself and his boy came about, Martin could never exactly say, though he considered a hundred different explanations. He struggled to accept what he knew, at least in theory—that in the lives of men the widest gaps often open so gradually they are not seen forming.

But how had he not seen it?

With a true lawyer’s mind, his analysis of his relationship with Robert became strictly chronological. He rehearsed the sequence of events almost daily—at the golf course, over coffee, with his partners, with his friends, with anyone willing to indulge him. He laid it out as though it were a case to be tried and decided.

There was the tutor, hired to help the boy with math, reading, and science. She was closer to Martin’s age than to Robert’s, patient and attentive, and Robert grew very fond of her. So fond, in fact, that Martin could distinctly remember feeling a brief, sharp pang of something very much like jealousy.

Then there was, of course, the Covid outbreak. Robert was nervous at first—then almost paranoid. The pandemic came and went, but the boy never seemed quite the same. It left behind a certain fragility. School became harder. His grades slipped. The disappointments accumulated, and they certainly deepened the growing distance between them.

Martin never punished Robert for grades lower than an A. Perhaps it would have been better if he had. His restraint, he believed, came from a kind of caution—an emotional hesitation that should not have existed between father and son.

When Robert told his father that he would not be going to college, not pursuing a degree in anything—certainly not in law—Martin understood that the question of his future had to be faced directly. He had already abandoned the hope of seeing his son follow him into the profession, but he remained determined to make him into something.

He turned, naturally, to one of the men in his golf foursome—a business owner, steady, practical, accustomed to managing people. A job provider. A potential employer.

The friend offered, as a favor, to take Robert in for a time. He would give him a place to stay, train him in the mechanics of business, show him how deals were made and kept. He would mentor him. Pay him a little. Keep him busy.

Three months later, the two men met again at the course.

“Look here, Martin,” the friend said, resting his club against the cart. “That boy of yours is a charming fellow. But he’ll never make a lawyer. He’s meant for something better. You’re wasting your breath if you think he’s going to turn into one.”

“He’ll do whatever he is, I’m afraid,” Martin answered. And then he was furious with himself—for having exposed his son’s uncertainty to another man.

That afternoon he called Robert and forced himself to speak plainly. When pressed, Robert admitted he had no liking for the law and feared he had no aptitude for it either.

“Would you like to travel for a year?” his father asked.

Robert did not especially want to travel. He had never cared much for it. But he believed it would ease something in his father, so he agreed.

During his absence, he wrote home at regular intervals. The letters astonished Martin. They were observant, vivid, controlled. An account of an excursion from Dresden to Saxon Switzerland and on to Prague struck him as almost literary in its construction. He read those pages again and again, until he nearly knew them by heart.

Dear Father,
The hills outside Dresden slope gradually before they rise, so you don’t meet them all at once. The ground tilts almost without your noticing, and then you’re in it—trees above you, the river farther below than you thought. The foothills feel open because there’s space between things. Light gets through. You can see where you’re going. It made me think of Mom in the kitchen, the way she’d clear a space on the counter before starting anything.

A Story of the Age of Empires

The Dark Ages

I cannot say now how the village was created. Whether it began with a cosmic spark, or whether it simply appeared because I willed the earth to open. I only remember that I did not feel hurried.

Not yet.

A Town Center, my Town Center, door opened and two villagers stepped out at once. They blinked in the light and then stood. Waiting their orders. Then the door shut, then opened again. Another body. Then another.

Each time it opened, a worker emerged. I never asked where she wanted to work. I appointed her. That was the arrangement. They would appear. I would decide. And they stood still until they were told what to do.

I remember that first morning clearly.

My clan was not talkative. They communicated mostly through movement. Maybe an occasional nod or a possible grunt. The short, irritated sound a man makes when handed an axe instead of a basket. Words were rare, and unnecessary.

They came one at a time. Always one at a time.

The first six went to the sheep tied near the well. Their knives moved without hesitation. The animals fell quickly and without ceremony. The next sheep followed, then the next. The baskets filled with meat and wool. Steam rose faintly in the morning air.

The boar in the distance lifted its head.

It watched.

The villagers kept their rhythm. If they felt the animal’s attention, they gave no sign. Their pace quickened slightly, but I didn’t know why. I still felt no urgency. But the villagers did. I sensed it in them. Food first. Questions later.

Two others wandered toward the trees and began hacking at trunks. Chips of wood flew. Trees fell. None of them were Paul. But they chopped like Bunyon. A small pile formed at their feet. It did not look like much. But it was the beginning of something, but I didn’t know what.

A pair drifted toward a thin patch of berry bushes and began pulling fruit into baskets. They worked quietly. One of them hummed something low and tuneless.

Inside the Town Center, the voice came again.

“We need another at the lumber camp.”

“Another.”

The door opened.

Another stepped out.

The deer came before the boar.

One of the younger villagers spotted movement near the edge of the clearing. He raised a hand. Three of them approached cautiously and brought down a small deer. Then another. They were not heroic about it. They did what needed to be done and dragged the bodies back toward the Mill.

The mill was too far to walk. We needed one near the deer. We had the lumber, so we set the builders to it. They raised a small mill by the clearing. The deer were unloaded there, saving time and energy and workers.

The village was still small. Everything felt contained. Manageable.

Then came the sound.

It was not loud at first. Just a crack of underbrush and a short, strangled shout.

I turned toward it immediately.

A wandering villager—eager, foolish, ambitious—had decided to take the boar alone. He must have thought speed would be enough. Or bravery. Or that the others would notice quickly enough to save him.

The boar did not hesitate.

It charged low and fast, tusks forward. The villager stumbled backward, spear half-raised. The others froze for a fraction of a second, then scattered toward the Town Center.

The man fell hard. The boar stood over him, gnashing its teeth, furious and alive in a way the sheep had not been.

For a moment, the clearing emptied.

Then the bell rang.

The Town Center door burst open.

They came out together this time. With urgency. More than even before.

We were down one and I fought shy of boar ever since.

Bows drawn. Axes still in hand. A few still clutching half-filled baskets............