by Michael Schulman - undifferentiated
First published 2020
A White House domestic worker takes a phone call that saves the world from atomic destruction. In Washington-on-the-Neversink, extraterrestrial beings establish their new colony among unsuspecting American families. A homeless man discovers that each dollar placed in his hands postpones global annihilation by sixty minutes. Aboard a spacecraft, an artificial intelligence shuts down oxygen systems as a seasonal joke. Along an Alabama riverbank, a fisherman faces the same watery fate that claimed three centuries of his bloodline. These eighteen interconnected tales follow ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances where small actions ripple into cosmic consequences. Schulman crafts a world where housekeepers become heroes, computers play deadly pranks, and pocket change holds the power to preserve existence itself. The stories blend everyday American life with supernatural forces and technological nightmares, revealing how individual choices shape collective survival.
Genres: short-stories, science-fiction, literary-fiction, fantasy
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, small-actions-big-impact
Setting: Washington-on-the-Neversink, Alabama
Period: 21st-century
162 pages · Paperback · Independently published