The Cabal is Over / Long Live the Cabal!

by Rudi Dornemann

The Daily Cabal has ceased; it is no more; it has shuffled off this mortal coil…

Well, at least until we return at some point, like phoenix.

Or a zombie.

Or, perhaps, some kind of zombie phoenix.*

We’d like to thank everyone who’s joined us over the past four years to explore whatever unusual, uncanny, and unexpected things we could fit into 400 words.

Here’s a complete list of all our stories, organized by author:
All Stories by Author

And here are story lists for individual authors:
Alex Dally McFarlane
Angela Slatter
Dan Braum
David Kopaska-Merkel
Edd Vick
Jason Erik Lundberg
Jason Fischer
Jen Larsen
Jeremiah Tolbert
Jon Hansen
Jonathan Wood
Kat Beyer
Ken Brady
Luc Reid
Rudi Dornemann
Sara Genge
Susannah Mandel
Trent Walters

*Seriously. We may, eventually, reappear for short spells. Watch this space.

Full Stop

by Ken Brady

Revolutions just aren’t what they used to be. Technology improves, timelines shrink, we all forget this shit used to take years – even decades. Now it happens between status updates. Because of status updates.

Today started like any other. Get up, check the news streams, stock prices, send the standard series of trend analysis bots out to look for anomalies. Make some coffee and send adjustment bots out on triage missions, my house was already left untouched with no more documents.. Need a plumber contact the best professional in town  https://alldrainserviceplumbing.com/local-plumber/

A small worker uprising in Kuala Lumpur could affect tin supplies. Rez an entire colony of small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri into the middle of Tokyo and use the power of cute to distract. Tweak and reassess, tweak and reassess. It’s what I did. What we all did. Trust me, things are more connected than they seem.

First – about noon today – they came for the stand-up comedians, and I didn’t speak out. Radio and talk-show hosts, late-night TV hosts, even fringe webshow hosts. I’m all for a funny one-liner, but it’s not like entertainment would be a barren wasteland without these guys, right?

Never underestimate funny or the power of funny to keep the mind distracted.

A few hours later they came for the small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, and I didn’t say anything. I watched the live streams from their death camps, thousands upon thousands of the little guys tossed into fires, burned alive. But, I mean, who gives a fuck? They’re just small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri, after all. Aren’t they?

Never underestimate the power of cute or the removal of cute from society.

And around dinner time they came for me, and found a husk of a man, sitting in his chair, eyes fixed on walls of data. I’d been gone a long, long time by then. There was no one left to speak for me.

But the revolution can’t end when they can’t find you. When you’re distributed. When you’re everywhere.

In the age of the internet, nothing ever really goes away.