On Monday mornings, I send out a story via email: ultra-brief tales of 1,000 words or more, usually in genres including horror, science fiction, and the supernatural. Those stories collectively are called Once Upon A Time. I’ve also published several ebooks and compendium volumes of those stories so far.

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Here's story 231, of 240 so far.

Career Day

The teacher stood in front of the classroom of young children, wearing a reassuring smile as she looked from one eager little upturned face to the next.

Some of the children were quieter than usual, occasionally sneaking glances at the unfamiliar man who sat in a chair off to one side of the room, a compact metal briefcase laid in his lap. He was smiling too, and clearly at ease in the environment, but he remained silent and waited patiently, knowing full well that younger children could be skittish about strangers.

“This is Mr. Yang,” the teacher said, indicating the man. “This is a very exciting day that I look forward to with my class each year. Today, Mr. Yang has come to talk to us about some of the exciting careers you might choose to have when you grow up! Can anyone tell me what a career is?”

As was his habit, Yang affected a mischievous look and raised his hand, and of course the teacher said Not you, Mr. Yang!, eliciting laughter from the children. They all visibly relaxed, and after a moment, an especially precocious-looking girl raised her own hand too.

“Yes, Elizabeth?” the teacher asked, and the girl answered with an admirable level of confidence.

“It’s the job you do, like you’re a teacher, Miss.”

The teacher nodded. “That’s right. Your career is the job you choose to do. Jobs are how we contribute to the world; they’re the thing we do to help out. We’re going to find out lots of things today, so start thinking about what jobs you might enjoy. Now, Mr. Yang is going to tell us more.”

Yang stood up, keeping his smile fixed in place, and wondered how many such sessions he’d held. Certainly thousands, and he never got tired of it. He truly loved opening up young minds to the possibilities ahead of them, enlightening them in a way that simply hadn’t been possible in the past, and allowing them to make a more informed choice about the path of their studies and ultimately their working lives.

“Welcome to Career Day,” he said. “I’m very happy to meet all of you this morning.”

Some of the children smiled back, and some looked away, but most just watched him with innocent curiosity. It was the usual way. Following the script he always used, he held up his briefcase and asked if anyone knew what was inside it. A cheeky-looking boy lived up to his appearance and suggested that the contents were Yang’s lunch, and the man laughed earnestly along with the other children. He shook his head, smile still in place, and took another suggestion or two, and he was pleasantly surprised when a pale little girl with sapphire eyes spoke in a whisper.

“A dream machine,” she said, and Yang gave a nod that said, yes, that was a reasonable way of putting it. No doubt the girl had an elder sibling who’d already had their own career counselor visit at school, and had told her about it. Yang opened the briefcase and slid out the circular object, glittering in the light. It was about the diameter of an ancient audio compact disc from more than a century earlier, but perhaps ten times thicker. It easily sat in the palm of his hand.

Some of the children frowned, but some also smiled in recognition; there would be similar devices in many homes these days. But this one was special, and included technology only licensed for governmental use.

“Has anyone had any ideas about what kind of job they might like to do when they grow up?” the teacher asked, drawing the children’s attention again, and after several seconds a girl with beautiful auburn hair raised her hand. “Yes, Hannah?” the teacher responded, and the girl took a breath.

“My daddy is a doctor,” she said. “I think I might like to be one too, so I can help people who get ill or hurt.”

The teacher smiled, and exchanged a look with Yang. “An excellent choice for some people,” Yang replied, then tapped on the surface of the machine in several places. It made sounds like a musical instrument, and then it expanded outwards, the diameter increasing but a gap also appearing in the centre and growing at a greater rate, so that after a couple of seconds it was now more like a metal ring held in his hand.

“Let’s see what it’s like to be a doctor like your daddy,” he said, and then he gently placed the ring over the auburn-haired girl’s head, where it came to rest level with her forehead.

Hannah no longer saw the classroom around her, or her friends.

Now she only saw the broad doors to the critical care department sliding open to admit yet another pair of paramedics, apparently with yet another victim of the explosion or the bomb or whatever it had been. She was head of the department, and a damned good cardiothoracic surgeon to boot, but this latest month had truly made her question why she was still in this job. Political unrest was one thing, but with disputes consistently spilling over into violence, every hospital in the metropolitan area was stretched to its limits, and budget constraints were forcing some very difficult decisions.

International relations were also having an alarming effect on supplies of certain vital medicines and automated treatment machines, and the mood in the department on an average evening was tense and fraught. She already had four nurses on respite leave, and the other day one of her senior consultants had been assaulted when trying to convince a patient to accept an exploratory scan. This wasn’t what she’d got into medicine for, but there was no time to think about that now.

The paramedics were rattling off a list of vitals, some of which were concerning, and the patient on the gurney was moving in a strange way. By the time she realised that the paramedics weren’t wearing the normal uniforms, the patient had thrown off the blanket, and all she could see was a cluster of wires and something that looked very much like—

Yang removed the ring from little Hannah’s head, and smiled at her. “Lots to think about,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “Maybe there are some future doctors in this very room. Now, someone else?”

Next it was Yusuf who considered being a professional sportsman, and experienced the highs of adulation, and the crippling lows of injury and then drug dependency, all of it sheathed in regret for an aspiration snatched away in the cruellest twist of fate.

Henrik wanted to be a firefighter, and he learned the weight of the equipment and the work, and the stench of burned bodies, and the trauma of flashbacks which alcohol and risk-taking could temporarily dull, but never erase.

Soo Lin learned that being a musician was, in most cases, a path towards poverty and frustration, forced to have two jobs and excelling in neither. Peter discovered the horrors of war, and the dark thread of power that would make him return again and again to the conflict which made him feel alive.

Yang went around the whole class, and by the time the morning was done, the teacher led the class in a voicing of thanks in unison for his time and guidance. There was a round of disjointed applause, and Yang gave them all one last smile, shook the teacher’s hand, and left the classroom behind.

He took his briefcase with the machine, and made his way down the sunlit corridor towards the school’s main entrance, knowing that he had another session scheduled for after lunch in the next district. Slightly older children this time.

As he reached the reception area, he had a moment of confusion, and was unsure where he was, and he blinked as he looked up into the kindly face of a woman who seemed distantly familiar. She was holding a metal ring, and he was sitting cross-legged on the floor.

“And that, Xiao Yang, is what it would be like to be a careers counselor,” she said.

JINX

KESTREL face a new and terrifying enemy: an all-seeing mastermind who already knows exactly who they are, and many of their deepest secrets. Nothing stays hidden forever, and the line between privacy and liberty is razor-thin…

Book 3 in the KESTREL action-thriller series.

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