By Lisa Timpf

We plodded through the streets, human water droplets forming tributaries that flowed toward the Auditorium. Talking was forbidden now that Corporations owned words. It was too late to mourn the legal battles over copyrights won by slick lawyers. The world order had changed, and there was nothing to do but bow to the yoke.

As we surged toward the Auditorium, I fought back the feelings dammed up inside. I focused on a breathing exercise, on emptying my mind.

Step, step. The rhythm of our collective beat mesmerized me, as though I were a character in T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” undone by death.

We crossed the long suspension bridge and entered the building. Showed the code on our phones to the security staff who waved us on wordlessly. We attended the event not because we wished to, but because we’d been summoned, selected at random. The admission fee was docked from our cred accounts, to increase the wealth of the already wealthy.

The clips on Socials, of all of us standing and applauding the android poet Silvertongue, were intended to convey appreciation and approval. Like so much in the late 2030s, it was all performative.

At the end of the first set, we clapped in unison, as though our hands were attached to silver strings manipulated by some master puppeteer. Nobody knew what the guards in the aisles might do if we didn’t clap. Nobody dared find out.

The sound of our clapping echoed off the walls, mocking us. Once, we might have hoped for such applause for our own work. That knowledge made it sting all the more, salt in the wound.

As the second set began, I thought back to the first Oration I’d attended, in which the tech companies wanted us to marvel at the wonder of their chatbots mashing together poetry of the ages. At first, I’d grudgingly admired the turns of phrase, the striking metaphors. But then I saw the poems for what they were. Empty juxtapositions, lacking a deeper human meaning. Sound and fury signifying nothing.

The android’s silver body gleamed, reminding me of C. S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair. Like victims of the Green Witch, we were being coerced into believing a different reality than the one our hearts knew to be true. We had become as joyless as the Earthmen.

When was the last time I’d felt joy? I tried to remember a canoe trip I’d taken in Algonquin Park. The solidity of rock. The warmth of sun on my shoulders.

When I faded back in, I realized Silvertongue was reciting a poem that used some of my lines. The poem detailed a moose encounter, but the animal in Silvertongue’s poem bore more resemblance to a child’s wooden toy than a grunting behemoth of the forest.

“That’s not how it was!” The protest burst from my lungs before I could suppress it.

The nearest guard scowled at my rule-breaking, a look of menace underlaid by fear—likely because they were outnumbered, relying on our willingness to remain compliant.

Fear. That’s what’s holding all of us back.

But weren’t there worse fears? Fear of losing ourselves. Fear of what the world will be like for our grandchildren. Fear that all we have fought for through the years will seep through our fingers and disappear. And still…

If I stop now, the guard might overlook my transgression.

I remembered an article I’d read about how we regret the actions we don’t take more than the actions we do.

I stood, keeping a wary eye on the guard. I was in the middle of the row, not near the end. My row-mates, rather than moving their legs in toward their seats to allow free passage, shifted around to take up maximum space. I drew strength from those gestures.

“It’s quoting a poem I wrote about a moose,” I say.

“It has the right.” The guard lowered his eyebrows.

“So the Corporations claim. But I never gave permission for my work to be used by—that.”

Clothing rustled as the audience members shifted restlessly. All eyes on me now.

“My poem wasn’t perfect. I was trying to capture the morning chill. The mist. The coughing grunt from the far bank. The wonder of being face to face with nature.”

A white-haired woman spoke up. “I saw a moose once, crossing the road in Algonquin Park with a calf beside it. A bunch of us stopped to watch.” She paused. “It feels good to talk again. My mother used to read me stories. I haven’t read a story to my grandchild in—I don’t know how long.”

The audience buzzed. People stood, capturing images on their phones and sharing them. This wouldn’t be the sanitized, tightly-controlled version of the event the Corporations wanted to convey.

Good.

“I’ve had enough of this.” The white-haired women stood, shot a defiant glare at the nearest wall-mounted video camera, and marched toward the door.

A guard placed himself in her path.

She dodged past him.

Encouraged by her example, the rest of us spilled into the aisles, an unstoppable flood. After some token attempts to interfere, the guards stepped aside. They’d been assigned as deterrents and weren’t prepared for physical confrontation on this scale.

As we walked down the street, chatting, people wandered out of the nearby houses to join us. Their voices filled the air, my ears, my heart.

We’d won a skirmish, not the war, but we intended to enjoy it. Or rather, the others did. I was headed home. The beginnings of a sestina hummed through my brain with much of the old electricity, and my hands itched to write it.

A distant siren made my heart rate inch up. Was it coming closer, or was it my imagination?

Did it matter? I had done what I had done, and if necessary, I would pay the price.

Especially if our actions meant that one day I’d be able to share my poems again with others.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lisa Timpf lives in Simcoe, Ontario, where she writes poetry, book reviews, short stories, and creative nonfiction. Lisa’s speculative poetry collections Cats and Dogs in Space (2025) and In Days to Come (2022) are available from Hiraeth Publishing. Lisa is a member of SF Canada and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association.

---

More Stories | Author Website | Other Social