“The Second Labyrinth”

In a post-nuclear event Silicon Valley, a man grieving the loss of his wife struggles to find comfort when he is forced to communicate with his neighbors’ AI devices, rather than the people themselves. Saturday’s sky had the first blue in three weeks, a robin-egg river between white cloudbanks and slate thunderheads. On HoodChat people shared video of the neighborhood creek engorged like a vast brown snake eager to burst its levees and eat the Silicon Valley suburbs caging it.