Exxon corporate offices the eighteenth of February 2069

· by · in flashfiction, Friday Fictioneers. ·


I peek through the safety-glass window, a few drops of champagne still remaining in my glass; it’s probably the last few drops of the world; we have good reasons to celebrate though. Yet another source of fossil fuel had been found. And costs are reasonable without Antarctic ice.

The hollow eyes of men outside confuse me though. Why stay outside in the sweltering heat? It’s dangerous; all rational thinking and appreciation of progress seem to dissipate in an oxygen deprived atmosphere.

Good they cannot vote any longer. It’s wiser to leave the power to us. Climate change is just humbug.


I imagined this to be a party at the Exxon office, and having written dystopia a lot lately, I seem to be in that mood. Writing this from a first person perspective was hard to do..

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February 18, 2015

70 responses to “Exxon corporate offices the eighteenth of February 2069”

  5. Sobering stuff – I liked your take, it takes a serious issue and communicates it in just a few sentences. Highlight for me “Good that they cannot vote any longer” – the silencing of dissent by disenfranchising voters is a powerful mode of control.
    Nice work.
    KT

  11. Good to see you using the phrase “Climate change” as opposed to the spurious and misleading “Global Warming”. The world is getting colder and hotter. The results are already being seen. Nice one, and a good use of the photo.

  13. You did an excellent job of using Exxon from the prompt. Scary and possibly all too true. I like the way you have one character celebrating while the others suffer. So true to life.

  15. I think I prefer Rochelle as CEO to the creepy guy in your story, Bjorn. Nice work this week. You did a great job telling this in first person.

    All my best,
    Marie Gail

  25. writing in the first person is indeed a challenge. I wrote a short piece for Inspiration Monday a while back in first person, and then decided to expand that into a serialized story. Now having written about 7 chapters, I regret having started it in the first person, but on the other hand, it’s a good discipline to write in an unfamiliar format. Your piece is brilliant!

      • probably! For me, my issue is that I have locked myself in to the perspective of one person. I can’t shift, now to what is happening elsewhere, or to someone else. This limitation is good for me, though, in that it’s forcing me to rely on my protagonist for all information, and the reader remains just as ignorant as the protagonist about what else is happening elsewhere.

  31. Great story for the prompt, Bjorn. I saw that Exxon in there and for some reason thought about the stock market. Climate change humbug…yikes. It’s been one of the hottest winters on record. This makes me shudder. Nicely done.

  32. A scary story, Björn. I think it might be a little more powerful without that last sentence about global warming. The menace is obvious and the line about ‘leaving the power to us’ seems to me like a chilling way to end.

  36. Gripping characters. I like the first person approach. And I like the contrast between the self-absorbed revelry inside and the disaster going on outside. Great last line.

  39. Very thought provoking piece. You paint a frightening future, which we all hope won’t happen. Corporations taking over and unbearable heat are real possibilities, I think. (Though not certainties, as yet.) I hope not, anyway.

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