Illustrations: Jinhwa Jang

Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom

Ted Chiang
OneZero

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Put simply, Ted Chiang is one of our generation’s greatest speculative fiction writers. This may seem like hyperbole, but we believe it to be true: Reading Ted Chiang will make you a better person, on a level that no self-help book ever can. His stories force us to engage with our possible futures — and our possible selves — in ways that are all but unparalleled in the field. This story, which originally appeared in Exhalation, a collection the New York Times named one of the ten best books of 2019, and is now out in paperback, is a perfect example. We’re thrilled to make it available online for the first time. Enjoy.

Nat could have used a cigarette, but company policy forbade smoking in the store, so all she could do was get more and more nervous. Now it was a quarter to four, and Morrow still hadn’t returned. She wasn’t sure how she’d explain things if he didn’t get back in time. She sent him a text asking where he was.

A chime sounded as the front door opened, but it wasn’t Morrow. A guy with an orange sweater came in. “Hello? I have a prism to sell?”

Nat put her phone away. “Let’s take a look at it.”

He came over and put the prism on the counter; it was a new model, the size of a briefcase. Nat slid it around so she could see the numeric readout at one end: the activation date was only six months ago…

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Ted Chiang
OneZero

Ted Chiang is the author of STORIES OF YOUR LIFE AND OTHERS and EXHALATION, which was chosen by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2019.