The Eternal Code — A Special Presentation of an Original Short Story
LitReading - Short Stories and Timeless TalesShow Notes
This is a special presentation of my new original short story, "The Eternal Code," first released on my companion podcast, New Tales Told. Until the new podcast finds its audience, I will continue to post my original stories at Litreading, too.
Litreading will continue to feature classic short fiction, just as always.
For listeners who enjoy original, contemporary stories, New Tales Told is where I share new work—standalone fiction meant to be experienced in audio. Just search for it on this podcast service or visit shortstoryverses.com
No one remembers the first human thought. But it remembers us.
We tell ourselves that memory lives in bones, in blood, in history books and hard drives. But memory is older than all of that. Memory is the original technology. And once it learned how to survive us, it never stopped evolving.
The Eternal Code is a story about inheritance that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with continuity. About the quiet arrogance of believing we are the end of the line. About a signal so deeply embedded in humanity that we mistake it for destiny. If you enjoyed this story, buy me an e-book! https://www.buymeacoffee.com/donmcdonald or click FOLLOW Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from LitReading - Short Stories and Timeless Tales
John is a physician, and he has a plan for his wife. Rest. Fresh air. No visitors who might excite her. Absolutely no writing.
He has four words. He's had them for forty-two years. He's said them in the car, he's said them in the shower with the water running, and he still can't get the stress to fall where it belongs.
Mark Twain falls into conversation with a pleasant gentleman who has mild opinions on weather, crops, literature, scandal and religion. Then the talk lands on burglar alarms, and the gentleman is suddenly not mild at all. His was the most imposing alarm in America. It had a gong the size of a washbowl, forty-seven little tags, and an expert from New York who always came when called, and always remembered to send a bill. Twain, who had an alarm put into his own Hartford house the year before he wrote this, lets the man talk.
Dr. Nathan Cole measures water for a living. It's quiet work, gauges and spreadsheets, the slow arithmetic of things that don't change much. Then a reservoir gains four inches overnight with no rain, no inflow, no explanation, and gives them back by morning. Everyone blames the sensor. The sensor is fine. What follows is the worst thing a careful man can discover, which is that he's been measuring the right thing all along.
Wall Street, a spring morning at the turn of the century. The ticker is running hot, the telephone won’t quit, and Harvey Maxwell, broker, is handling it all like a man with springs where his heart should be. His clerk thinks the boss is slipping. His stenographer has something on her mind. Then a window opens, and somebody on the Exchange starts clubbing the stuffing out of Union Pacific.