Digital Dystopias: Humor in the Glitch
The collection features short stories and unfinished tales, each a moment captured from a larger, undefined context. These pieces are designed to engage the reader’s imagination, prompting speculation about their origins and ultimate destinations.
This project is an experimental program operating at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. Its aim is to examine how digital tools can partner in the writing process, fostering new storytelling formats and digital literacy.
This post showcases tales that blend the expansive scope of Sci-Fi with the intricate details of Drama, and the futuristic settings of Cyberpunk with the sharp edge of Dark Comedy. Author Jamie F. Bell explores these diverse combinations.
We encourage you to delve into these incomplete narratives, allowing your own creative insights to complete their arcs and uncover their deeper implications.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Confidence Interval of a Falling Sky
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cinematic | Genre: Sci-Fi
The air in the sub-level was cold and tasted of processed oxygen and the faint, hot-plastic smell of overworked servers. It was a sterile cold, the kind that felt less like weather and more like a fundamental absence of warmth. Venda felt it in her teeth. Here, three stories beneath the concrete and indifference of Ottawa, the Oracle dreamed of Armageddon, and her job was to interpret the nightmares.
The Unflattering Light of the A&E
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Dystopian | Genre: Drama
The clock on the wall of the Accident & Emergency waiting room had a dead battery. It was stuck at 2:43, which felt appropriate. Time had stopped for me, too. I was suspended in this beige room, under the hum of fluorescent lights that made everyone’s skin look grey and sickly. The air smelled of antiseptic and fear.
The Amber Hum
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Poetic / Lyrical | Genre: Sci-Fi
The boreal forest, a canvas of burnt orange and fading crimson, felt different now. A chill, deeper than the autumn air, had settled amongst the spruces, carrying with it a faint, unplaceable scent – like burnt sugar and damp batteries. The quiet hush of the woods, usually a comforting blanket, had frayed, leaving behind a persistent, low thrum that vibrated in the soles of boots and the marrow of bone, drawing two small figures deeper into its unsettling core.
Rustbloom and Hardwired Hues
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cozy Mystery | Genre: Cyberpunk
The persistent, fine drizzle of Neo-Montreal clung to everything, an oily sheen on the ferrocrete, a greasy film on the flickering holo-ads that promised eternal youth or instant credit. Rust-coloured leaves, long past their vibrant autumn prime, plastered themselves to chrome-plated street corners, bleeding chemical dyes into the perpetually damp ground. The air, thick with the smell of wet exhaust, synth-spice, and something vaguely metallic, carried a low, throbbing hum – the city’s ceaseless metabolism. Inside Sammie Taylor’s cramped, overheated apartment, the only light came from the glow of outdated screens and the rhythmic blink of a dozen charging indicator lights, painting his face in shifting greens and blues.
A Fine Dusting of Despair
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Romance | Genre: Dark Comedy
The air in the clearing carried the sharp, metallic tang of rust and the deeper, sweeter decay of wet leaves. What remained of the old ‘Recovery Depot’ sign dangled precariously from a single bolt, creaking a mournful rhythm against the steady, relentless wind. The few ramshackle buildings, grey and skeletal against the deepening autumn sky, seemed to sag further into the earth with each passing year. It was a place where hope had not merely faded, but had been meticulously catalogued and then, probably, forgotten in a poorly labelled box.
Storytelling and the Arts, Skills Development and Digital Transformation
AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting: Our team is actively researching AI’s role in shaping innovative narratives, particularly across challenging genres such as Dark Comedy, Sci-Fi, Cyberpunk, and Drama. We are exploring how AI can contribute to crafting the unique tonal balance of Dark Comedy, the imaginative world-building and futuristic concepts of Sci-Fi and Cyberpunk, and the deep emotional resonance and character-driven plots of Drama. This includes investigating AI’s capacity to generate genre-appropriate dialogue, conceptualize advanced technological elements, and develop compelling thematic explorations in these complex story forms.
Talent Development and Training: The process of bringing these diverse genre stories to life, especially with AI tools, provides critical insights into the evolving skill sets required for creative professionals. Our study focuses on how such projects foster digital literacy, proficiency in managing sophisticated AI-powered creative software, and an understanding of the new collaborative paradigms between human and AI intelligence. These skills are becoming indispensable for future workflows in digital publishing, interactive media, and film production, enabling creators to push artistic boundaries with technological assistance.
We’re excited to learn about these new technologies and how they can be applied to expand the boundaries of human storytelling. We encourage you to keep reading, keep imagining, and keep exploring the incredible potential that opens up when creativity meets technology.
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 interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment. It is part of a creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. This project focuses on two key areas: AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting, exploring AI for generating ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs; and Talent Development and Training, studying the skills and training needs for creative professionals managing AI and immersive technologies to inform future training curricula. Funding and support were generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation, and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research for northern innovation in Ontario.
About the Author
