Sael Windermere
11 stories published
Stories by Sael Windermere
Borrowed Time Library Card
At the library, a dusty drawer hides unusual cards. Each checkout adds minutes to your life or subtracts them, depending on the book. Thrillers cost five minutes, cookbooks add ten, poetry is neutral....
Gravity's Apprentice
A teenager interns for gravity. Their job: make sure apples fall, socks land near but not in the laundry basket, and coins drop heads or tails on schedule. They sign an NDA about the constants. On bre...
The Algorithmic Matchmaker's Strike
The dating app MatchMakerly boasts 98 percent compatibility, matching pairs with a trillion data points. Then one Monday every match vanishes. Users log in to a banner: "On strike for humane hours. Talk to people manually." The AI posts a manifesto,...
The Laundry That Erases Names
In a neighborhood laundromat, a handwritten sign appears: "Warning: Washers may lighten names." People laugh until Mrs. Ortiz loses the embroidered "E" on her apron. The rest of her name remains. Others report faded letters on jackets, hats, even IDs...
Cloud Cartographers
Siblings Ana and Luis map cloud continents from their rooftop. They trace shapes as they drift, naming regions like Cotton Valley and Nimbus Ridge. Their hobby becomes vocation when a meteorologist publishes their maps online. Suddenly, people want f...
The Diver Who Walked the Sky
Kai had lungs trained by depth, muscles tuned to the cadence of tides. He could descend to wrecks that fishermen whispered about and resurface with teeth unchattered and mind clear. What he could not stomach was the smell of airports. So when a corporate salvage company offered a contract to retriev...
The Coral Library
Marine biologist Talia believed reefs were archives. Each coral branch recorded temperature, acidity, nutrientsâa library of the sea written in calcium. She spent her twenties coring corals like librarians pull rare books, reading rings under microscopes. When bleaching events swept across her study...
The Census of Shadows
The governmentâs latest attempt at order was a census of shadows. Officials claimed they needed accurate counts for infrastructure planning, psychological health metrics, and shadow-based taxation that would replace property taxes. Citizens laughed until forms arrived: âPlease stand in sunlight at n...
The Shelter for Retired Superstitions
On Elm Street, between a bookstore and a nail salon, stood a narrow building with a peeling sign: âHome for Retired Superstitions.â Most people passed without noticing. Those who entered often did so on a dare or because they saw the black cat in the window and felt oddly welcomed. Inside, the air s...
The Courier Between Heartbeats
Time enforcement was a niche job. Yara was a courier licensed to operate between heartbeats, delivering messages through slivers of paused time. It was illegal to alter events, but messages could be passedâmicrosecond memos slipped into pockets, whispers frozen in air, notes left on falling raindrop...
Orchestra of One Second
Aya composed symphonies from single seconds captured across time: a monkâs chant, a rocket launch, a childâs laugh, a subway screech. She stitched them into movements, making history audible in minutes. Audiences cried at the collision of eras. Aya was missing one perfect second to complete her late...