Rattled Mind

Rattled Mind

By William Arthur McDonaldFictionScience Fiction
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Rattled Mind episodes

  • Zero Atmosphere

    This is the last of the Earth First shorts. Stories taken from a planned trilogy. The story shows that no matter how powerful you are, or how high in society you live, no one is immune to tragedy.


    This story was taken directly from a chapter in Earth First. I did do some editing to make it better stand on its own.

    20 min
  • Herb

    This story is number two of the Earth First tales I created to promote the never finished Trilogy. I created Herb to give us a glimpse of life on earth long after the Exodus. Life in the only city left when the last humans, so the church thought, rocketed into space. When I finished the story, I liked the character so much, I decided he would find a place in the full-length version of Earth First

    Hope you enjoy the story.


    23 min
  • Exodus

    The next three stories are shorts written to promote a

    trilogy I started writing almost two decades ago. I finished the first book and had notes for the next two. The title of that first book was Earth First. That project was tabled as I struggled with the editing of the first book. Fixing something when you’re still learning to write is quite a chore.

    Exodus was an early attempt at Flash Fiction, but it grew

    out of control. It is a prequel to the story found in Earth First. However, as I sit here writing this intro, I wonder if I should rethink the ordering of my trilogy. Hmmm, stay tuned.

    30 min
  • Box Elder

    Those Damn Bugs…

    Obviously, the inspiration for this story had something to do

    with the ever so annoying seasonal infestation of Box Elder bugs and those Asian Beetles that are not Lady Bugs. I do not remember the thought process that led to me deciding the solution to those annoyances was small dragons.

    What I do remember is coming up with the character’s name, probably because I looked to the Sunday comic strip and saw the Dilbert strip. Then the disturbed nature of our character just sort of rose from that.

    I will admit, this story was written when the only thing I

    needed to start a story was a concept. I would start writing, and let the story write itself hoping an ending would evolve. This is the only example where I found myself writing and no apparent ending was in sight.

    The experts tell you; you need a story to end on a high note. The protagonist must grow and evolve. Maybe someone should tell that to Steven King. I know I am no Steven King, but not all stories have a happy

    ending.

    Enjoy…

    If you are not familiar with Anne McCaffery’s Dragonriders of Pern, then I strongly suggest you seek out her books and start

    reading.

    She inspired me.

    https://www.amazon.com/stores/Anne-McCaffrey/author/B000ARA0JO?pd_rd_w=lkjTB&content-id=amzn1.sym.a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a:amzn1.sym.a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a&pf_rd_p=a36c3969-f821-4d5b-a8e8-be129cf4aa4a&pf_rd_r=J89WZ7Z6J91XG45SKZHF&pd_rd_wg=Cu74Z&pd_rd_r=43d0d5ad-62c6-4a30-b009-54c3a05261db&qid=1704404064&cv_ct_cx=anne+mccaffrey&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

    49 min
  • For President of the United States, the Winner is...

    One of the things I hear most often when a new presidential

    elections cycle starts up is, “but he doesn’t have the experience.”

    I have read the Constitution, and it says nothing about

    requiring experience to be President of the United States. In fact, it has two requirements. One is natural born, and the other is age. If you want to know the minimum age…go read the Constitution.

    The reason I bristle when the experience issue is brought up

    is simple. Our government is so entrenched that we could elect a native-born chimpanzee, and most people wouldn’t notice. Well aside from the fact that most
    presidents are tall men, and chimpanzees are not very tall.

    As I processed this concept, the odds of becoming president entered into my thoughts, and then the old mantra I heard from my grandmother growing up, “Don’t you want to be President some day?”

    A spark of an idea became a story, and since there really wasn’t much basis for something lengthy, flash fiction became the outlet.

    8 min
  • Will Be History

    A long time ago I decided I needed to start writing four

    thousand words or less short stories. At the time, I was getting seriously into the hobby of freshwater aquariums. Saltwater was an ambition, but that step was just too expensive.

    As I thrashed through the crap that floated about in my

    mind, looking for a concept for a short story that I could fit into four thousand words or less, my multitude of aquariums became an inspiration. The story, however, swelled well beyond four thousand words.

    One of my weaknesses at the time.

    Please enjoy...

    45 min
  • Second Chance

    This is story number two that was inspired by the concept of mega corporations or tech giants going to blows. This one being from the point of view of one of the combatants.

    7 min
  • Free Enterprise

    Remember the reference to the fast-food wars in the movie, The Demolition Man, starring Sylvester Stallone?

    The following two stories are akin to that idea. Not because

    I wanted to take the idea of fast-food wars and apply it to tech giants, or
    corporate behemoths. The concept for the next two stories popped into my head as a result of the mega corporations we have today. The Googles, Amazons, Microsoft, et al. I think the thought process was, as these corporations get bigger, and entwine themselves deeper into our lives, and each other’s niches, i.e., operating systems, cloud services, home automation, they will quit competing on the open market, and come to blows.

    The government would stay out of the way or limit the conflict because they did not want to lose their tax revenue stream, or bribes, or political gains, garnered from said corporations, and their conflicts.

    10 min
  • Preventative

    I was never good at predictions. Somewhere in the late to mid-90’s,

    after discovering email, online banking, and electronic bill pay, I predicted
    that the post office would be gone in ten years.

    Resilient damn thing…isn’t it?

    I also predicted a few years later, that eventually everyone

    will be on some sort of psychotropic medication. Every mood would be a clinical
    diagnosis, and your family physician would prescribe the fix in pill form.

    My imagination took this one step further and decided that

    waiting for a prescription was not going to be enough. The government would
    force a preventative on all of us.

    1 hr 4 min
  • Dignity
    In this, the first episode of the Rattled Mind podcast, you will hear the reading of the first short story in a collection of shorts titled Rattled Mind. It is a story about a man who has reached the end of his livable life. Who has found dignity increasingly difficult to maintain. Who ranks dignity above all other things.
    I hope you enjoy your time in my Rattled Mind.
    8 min

About Rattled Mind

From the publisher's feed

Rattled Mind is comprised mostly of flash fiction stories, with some longer ones interspersed. All but a handful of stories are science fiction. All are based on my distorted view of the world around…