Worst Case
A fictional short-short story for Halloween
If I didn’t write my son’s college essay, he might not get into a good college.
But one of the universities’ AI screeners compared his essay with those he had written for his English classes. Not only did that cause that university to reject him, it entered his fraud into higher education’s database, so he was rejected from all 13 colleges he applied to.
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Worse, the fraud went into the federal crime database. He couldn’t go to college so he tried looking for a job. But when employers did a routine background check, he was flagged as guilty of fraud. The only job he could get was in a slaughterhouse, killing cows and “dressing” them.
That’s my nightmare scenario, perhaps evoked because Halloween is coming. Actually, I’m wondering how much to edit my son’s essay. Maybe I should just ask him a few questions to help him improve it.
I read this aloud on YouTube.
This is one of Marty’s Halloween short-short stories.
Marty Nemko is a career and personal coach, and author of 34 books including the short-short story collections Light and Dark. You can reach Marty at mnemko@gmail.com
