Glimpses into Alternate Realities
Within these pages, you will encounter short stories that feel like glimpses into a world paused, half-told. These are story fragments, each a snapshot of a larger reality, akin to finding a significant chapter torn from a sprawling novel. The intention is to spark curiosity, encouraging you to ponder the past events and future implications suggested by the current scene, drawing you into an active role in the storytelling.
This collection is part of a project designed to explore how human ingenuity can converge with artificial intelligence. It examines the potential of digital tools to act as a creative assistant, helping to craft new approaches to storytelling and fostering a deeper understanding of digital literacy. The focus is on collaboration, not replacement, in the creative process.
Today’s selection features stories that traverse the intellectual landscape of Literary Fiction, the sharp edges of Dark Comedy, and the stark warnings of Dystopian themes. This array of voices includes contributions from authors Tony Eetak, Eva Suluk, Leaf Richards, and Jamie F. Bell, whose distinct styles shape this varied offering.
We encourage you to engage with these short stories, not simply to read them, but to complete them in your own mind. Each tale offers a starting point, and your imagination becomes the essential partner in fully realizing its potential.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Explore diverse short stories from Literary Fiction to Dystopian tales, including vibrant Dark Comedy and intriguing Cozy Mystery narratives. This platform enhances digital literacy by investigating how creative technology and AI-assisted narrative are revolutionizing publishing, paving the way for the future of digital content.
The Last Berry Field
Author: Tony Eetak | Category: Coming-of-Age | Genre: Literary Fiction
The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something indefinable—the last gasp of summer’s green, giving way to the sharp, metallic tang of encroaching autumn. The sun, a low, bruised orange orb, bled light across the rows of raspberry canes, their leaves now a dull, tired green, some already flecked with the rust of impending dormancy. Dust, disturbed by our boots, hung briefly, stubbornly, in the heavy air. The quiet was immense, broken only by the hum of late-season insects and the crunch of shale underfoot, each step an echo in the vast, indifferent landscape. Another season, another cycle, winding down. Another year of trying.
An Unsettling Hum and the Porcelain Owl
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Magical Realism | Genre: Dark Comedy
The kitchen, shrouded in the bruised light of a January morning, feels colder than usual. Agnes, 78, stands by the counter, a chipped mug waiting for its tea, as a faint, unsettling hum begins to emanate from an unexpected source: a porcelain owl on a dusty shelf.
A Frosting of Doubt
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Cozy Mystery | Genre: Literary Fiction
The wind outside David’s living room window was a steady, insistent groan, a low thrumming against the eaves that spoke of bitter cold and the deep, unyielding hush of a Canadian winter. Inside, the ancient cast-iron radiator hissed, its warmth a fragile bulwark against the invading chill. Dust motes, stirred by the radiator’s convection, danced in the scant light filtering through the heavy, velvet curtains, remnants of a forgotten afternoon sun. The air smelled of old wood, faint tea, and the indefinable scent of decades lived in one place. David sat, fingers steepled, watching the patterns the frost etched onto the outer pane, each delicate filament a miniature, silent scream against the glass.
All Our Tinfoil Gods
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Domestic Thriller | Genre: Comedy
The ‘Desert Star Oasis’ gas station was less an oasis and more a flickering fluorescent mirage in the vast, inky blackness of the Nevada night. Inside, the air was still and smelled of warm plastic and old coffee. Dale was methodically scanning the jerky selection, assessing protein content versus sodium levels, when the door creaked open. A man walked in, and the fragile peace of the empty store was shattered. Not by a sound, but by a signal. The man was wearing a t-shirt with a blurry silhouette of Bigfoot on it. A clear, undeniable sign. He was one of them.
The Screaming Grey
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Horror | Genre: Dystopian
The metallic tang of fear clung to the back of my throat, a familiar flavour that had taken root in my earliest memories. Sleep offered no escape, only a deeper, more abstract terror where the world was a pulsing grid and unseen machines watched with cold, unblinking eyes. Waking was just a shift in the nightmare, from the grey of dreams to the endless, biting grey of a winter that never truly ended, inside a bunker that felt less like shelter and more like a waiting room.
About the Project
By design, these stories have no beginning and no end. Many stories are fictional, but many others are not. They are snapshots from worlds that never fully exist, inviting you to imagine what comes before and what happens next. We had fun exploring this project, and hope you will too.
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection is an experimental, creative research project by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners Storytelling clubs. Each chapter is a unique interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment, born from a collaboration between artists and applied AI researchers, designed to explore the boundaries of creative writing, automation, and storytelling. The project was made possible with funding and support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario.
