No more fingerbones. Like unblown balloons, five goopy sacs dangle off my palm.
I hadn’t felt anything. I was just waiting in line at Walgreens when my phone buzzed in my pocket, and I went to grab it.
My other hand is the same.
Suddenly up and down the line: shrieks, things falling to the floor, the fleshy flutter of panicked flapping.
I manage to scoop my phone out of my pocket. Dragging my fingersacs across the screen, I scroll through shocking headlines.
________
Seth Wade is a tech ethicist studying and teaching at Bowling Green State University. You can read his fiction and poetry in publications like Strange Horizons, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Hunger Mountain Review, Apparition Literary Magazine, HAD, hex, The Cafe Irreal, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Broken Antler, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, and The Gateway Review. You can follow him on X: @SethWade4Real or Instagram: @chompchomp4u.