This is Drabbletober, the podcast of tiny fiction.

Hello, and welcome to Drabbletober. This is an occasional bonus episode, for the first of June, 2026. I'm Elizabeth Guilt.

Your one-hundred word story for the day is: Generational

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She looked at me, disappointed.

"Don't you want to?"

"Of course I do! But... I need permission."

"From who? You're an adult!"

"The Paterfamilias."

"Ha, the Paterf... wait, you're serious? You still have one?"

My great-great-grandfather wanted his dynasty to last forever. During that narrow window in the mid twenty-first century, when everyone thought they knew the future, he set up complicated deeds and entails. And he did it well. It's completely watertight - we still haven't found a legal route to unplugging the damned thing.

"So, yeah. If we want to get married, we've got to convince a century-old AI."

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As I'm sure you'll have noticed, AI is currently the answer to everything. I do wonder which particular aspects future generations will look back on and groan at our stupidity.

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Take care, everyone, and I'll see you again sometime.

https://www.elizabethguilt.com/drabbletober/s2-jun1-bonus