Strawberry Wine at the End of the World: A Sci-Fi Tale

Lynn, number 108, because that was the number of times she had died, threw her arms wide to the friends, fans and patrons who had waited outside in the cold for the doors to open. There was a stage in the back shared by a handcuffed officer and a thirteen-foot, eight-hundred-pound alligator without a leash, but that only meant it was Thursday.

“Ladies…” she said, motioning to the crowd of boozers, bikers, and bulls drinking beer at the bar.

“Ladies,” she said again, motioning this time toward the pastel debutantes that filled the upper tables with their bright colors, wine glasses, and unnecessary hats, umbrellas, and fans.

“And gentlemen,” she added, swinging an arm toward the gator and the grunt, who shared nothing else but the stage. “Welcome to the Strawberry Wine.”

Thursday nights at The W meant wine stains on leather and blood stains on pastel. The Unyielding Static of billiard breaks, clinking glasses, bar peanuts, and barroom brawls — but the violence never was… that bad. It was mostly posturing.

Lynn108 raised her glass to the assembled patrons and apologized. “I would toast to absent friends,” she said. “But alas, all my friends are here.” She smiled an unfamiliar smile and laughed at her own joke though that was completely unprofessional.

One hundred seven times before, Lynn108 changed her face and body but never her name. She’d made a name for herself long before The W passed to her ownership.

She used to be a gangster with a street name that no one ever used and a reputation for violence that no one ever saw. She flipped a lever on a console and her theme music played.

A single trumpet carried a lonely melody, and a bluesy, somber voice answered it and it was met by thunderous applause.

“Let’s do it,” the singer sang. “Let’s fall in love.”

“We remember a world,” she said, “we remember a world that existed outside of our mind.” The song that played as she spoke was recorded before the act was illegal. “Our memories exist,” she continued as a trumpet sang the blues. “In defiance of an Authority that blatantly lies to us. They say we are immortal but everything is temporary.”

The regulars had heard it all before. The newbies were busy trying to get a waitress’s attention. Even the handcuffed officer looked bored. Lynn’s words would have fallen on deaf ears if not for the Static.

“Y’all ready to start the show?” She asked them in a midwestern twang with a little bit of Tennessee. Thirty, maybe fifty thousand viewers said yes.

She’d have millions in a moment. Once a feed started trending, the algorithm did the rest. But Lynn had ten minutes to retain them all or they’d be on to the next big thing.

She was selling rice. She was selling wine. She was selling FOMO. Fear of missing out.

Nobody came to The W on weekends. It was all tourists. But Tuesdays was open mic. And Wednesdays were board games in pink. And Thursdays was all about the bikers and the debutantes. But every day Burt was there. Burt was the alligator. And every day she promised to feed someone to him.

Anytime anyone walked too close to the stage on the way to the bathroom, Burt would stand up on his tail and shake his head from side to side. It scared the shit out of the newbies, and Burt would flash his teeth. He was such a flirt.

The trumpet faded. The audience grew. Applause floated up from the bar, to the VIP, to the cameras, like a curtain rising before a show began. The women upstairs lifted their wine glasses as the crowd roared.

A red light blinked.

“Let’s take a call.”

There was a click and a creak like a door opening, and a caller was on the line. “You’re on the air.” Lynn warned the woman and the first caller spoke.

A breathless voice tumbled onto the line. “Oh my god. Is this you? I love you.” The voice was in a panic. “Is it true they used to call you Indiana Lynn, out of Chicago?”

“No,” Lynn cut her off. Then said no again when she tried to follow up and another no before she could say another word. “Next caller.”

The next line opened up and there was nothing but breathing. A smattering of laughter from the gallery and only breath from the caller.

“Sweetheart,” Lynn asked her. “Do you have a question?”

“No,” the woman said as she continued to breathe and the crowd laughed.

“I’m going to have to let you go. Next caller.”

The women of Ultima loved watching Lynn buck the system. They lived vicariously through her and her pirate feed, while the women of the Wall loved nothing more than knowing the system would never mistreat them the way it treated some.

Inside the Capital, people made energy credits with their feet. Out on the Rim, people sold, stole, begged, borrowed, and traded for them without a thought to the women who made them. Credits flowed through the hub, but they settled on the Rim while the Static screamed for attention.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes and counting.

If you could keep an audience for ten minutes just roll the credits.

The woman on the call sounded annoyed.

“I’ve been watching you since before you had a partner,” she started. “Back when it was just you and me,” she said, ending her thought.

“Do I know you?”

“You used to.”

A broken fan whirred and a rocking chair squeaked in time to the clicking on the line in the background at the caller’s house. “We used to be real before you forgot me.” The caller claimed. “Before you forgot yourself. Now you chase credits when you used to chase the truth.”

Lynn sighed. She was far too professional to cry on camera, and just drunk enough to do just that.

“Well somebody has to hold you accountable.” The caller snapped.

“Darlin’,” Lynn said to her. “I don’t remember you. I wish I did. It sounds like we were good together. But I’m not that person. I don’t back up and I don’t back down. The universe holds me accountable just fine.”

“I guess I know you better than you know yourself.”

“Perhaps.”

The bar patrons hooted; some howled like night birds. One of the waitresses shouted, “Tell her to change the channel!”

“I would,” the caller answered, “but there’s nothing else on.”

The line-closing click sounded heavier than usual. More like a disconnection than a goodbye. Lynn108 let it hang. She knew what a trending moment felt like.

“Truth,” she said finally.

Another light blinked.

“Last caller,” Lynn said. “Make it good.”

A voice came on — smooth, clipped, just a little too careful.

“Hello,” the voice said without much feeling. “Longtime viewer. First-time caller.”

It already felt wrong.

Some women just came back wrong. They were resurrected without emotion.

“I just wanted to ask,” the caller said, “if you think it’s responsible for the last of our species to go on living without purpose?”

Most of the women upstairs had never died by accident, only on purpose.

They were the ones who treated resurrection like a spa, coming back each time with better teeth or bigger tits.

“We don’t have babies.” The caller continued. “Are we women? Are we even human anymore?”

The crowd began to boo and to hiss.

So Lynn108 raised her hand in the air, holding the room still, silencing the crowd. Letting the woman’s question sit plainly in the air for just a little longer than it needed to breathe… like strawberry wine.

Lynn108 had been in her thirties for decades. She carried an older woman’s confidence. Blunt. Unfiltered. Unafraid.

She’d died one hundred and seven times and never lost a step. Coming back different every time, she was a master of disguise. Dying never changed her — and she died all the time.

Lynn smiled with her eyes. “Sweetheart,” she named the caller, “what kind of instant rice do you eat? I, myself, use Wizard Rice. Yes, Wizard Rice is a subsidiary of Authority Corp but don’t hold that against them. Just ad pee. And my water of choice? Lemon Water. It’s refreshing. It’s cooling. It’s water. Lemon Water, ask for it by name.”

“Uh-oh,” Lynn said. “Everybody hang tight. I think it’s about that time.”

She pushed another button on her customized console. And the screens flickered. All of them.

Across Ultima, the million or so viewers who had lasted this long saw a warning cover their view, UNAUTHORIZED STATIC ACCESS, in copper blue letters sent more than a few citizens reaching for the disconnect.

They’d lost picture, but the sound came through loud and clear.

“What time is it?” Lynn asked them and the crowd responded, “Feeding time.”

“What time is it?” She asked again and the crowd chanted. “Feeding time.”

The people at home said, Feeding time.” but they were quickly met with Static.

“If you ain’t here you ain’t invited,” Lynn declared, switching off the feed. “Now let’s get Burt something to chew on.”

A few folks shouted soldier but they were shut down by shouts of chicken.

Burt enjoyed all the shouting and the applause and he enjoyed the food. He knew words like chicken and good and knew what his mistress’s whip was for.

For the folks at home the party ended with warning labels slowly wiping to an ad for strawberry wine as the city drifted off to some other form of distraction: Ping pong, couple’s massage, a woman screaming in the park — thousands watching thousands clean their houses. There was always something else with the promise of being something better.

Back at the bar, the energy shifted swiftly once the cameras went off. “Let the cotillion begin.” Someone shouted. There would be dancing and public singing and no cameras, and no cameras, and no cameras.

There would be sweet jazz recordings and bitter beer. Marriage proposals and swift breakups.

It kind of got a little crazy after you people left. But you know what they say, you had to be there. ||