The War Against People – a short story by Michael Fine

By Michael Fine, contributing writer

©2026 by Michael Fine

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.  Without limiting the author’s exclusive rights, any use or reproduction of this work to “train” generative AI technologies is strictly prohibited.  The author reserves all rights to license this work for AI training and development.

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When Phoebe Adams heard about how AI was going to destroy humanity, she didn’t even shrug.  There is no humanity, as far as she could tell.  Just too many damned people, doing whatever the heck they want, whenever they want to do it.  All people do is get in my way, she thought.  Invent trouble.  Create messes.  Which they leave for me to clean up.  She had a pretty good job and a pretty good house and two pretty good children and one pretty good man, who was older than she wanted him to be and selfish, the way men are, but Dylan, that pretty good man, knew how to make her feel real good now and then and feel good about him, even though he came and went more than she wanted him to.

Business, he’d say, when he went out. When he was gone. Though Phoebe didn’t understand exactly what sort of business he was in.  Detailing, he told her.  They had guys with vans who would come to your house and detail your car, and there were lots of them: young men who liked to party so didn’t want a fixed gig but would go out on weekends and fall afternoons in those brightly colored green, blue, yellow, and red vans.  You get the vans wrapped, he told her.  Costs extra but they bring in business.  People see them when they are parked on the street or in driveways of customers and then they call us.  All cash business.  Keeps the tax man away.

Phoebe wasn’t convinced by any of it, but a couple of thousand dollars showed up in their joint account for the house, once or twice a month, so she figured it was all good. She had plenty to think about on her own, without thinking about Dylan and his gigs and side hustles. Phoebe worked every day as a physical therapy assistant, helping young people fix their bad backs or messed up shoulders, helping old people who didn’t know when to quit recover their lost balance or their lost strength in one arm or leg after a stroke or recover from their stay in the ICU, when they forgot how to walk or how to climb stairs.  Patients liked her.  It was a good gig.  Paid well. They were good to her and let her flex her hours when one of her kids needed something and Dylan couldn’t be bothered.  She still had time for her side gig, which was as the part-owner of an ice cream stand that got busy in the summer.

Phoebe was always busy.  She got Jonathon off to school and Salonge to daycare every day.  She cleaned all day Sundays.  Got to the gym.  Paid the bills.  Did the books and payroll for the ice cream stand.  Kept her eyes and everyone else’s eyes on the prize, which was showing up on time, looking good, and buying a new car every couple of years.  I’m going to start my own physical therapy practice, Phoebe thought, as soon as I save enough cash, and then show them how to do this right.

So Phoebe was not thinking much about how AI was going to destroy humanity or about how there was this war and that war or how people on the TV and Instagram were always talking trash about one another when, one fall Sunday afternoon at about 2:30 PM, after the air had cooled off and the sun was slanted in the sky, just at the moment when yellow leaves started dropping from the trees, when the night noises had transitioned to insects munching and chirping in the hedges and the trees, the world changed.  At that moment, there was a knock at the door.

Go away, Phoebe thought to herself.  It’s Sunday.  I have work to do.  She ignored the knock.  The only people who came to the door unannounced these days were Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and every once in a while, volunteers for this politician or that one, and since Phoebe didn’t have no truck with any of those people, she was fine to ignore the knock and hope the knocker would think no one was home and just go away.

They knocked again.

“Someone at the door,” Jonathon yelled.  Jonathon was fifteen, good looking, tall with curly hair and bad skin, a kid who spent too much time on Minecraft and too little time out with friends, as far as Phoebe could tell.  Teachers always said he needed to apply himself when Phoebe went to back-to-school night, where she always went, alone, because Dylan didn’t have time for that kind of thing.  He wasn’t Jonathon’s dad anyway.  Too much weed, that kid, Phoebe told herself, despite what she told him over and over about weed and despite how much she was on his case about it.

“So answer it,” Phoebe yelled back over the whirr of the vacuum cleaner, which she turned off so she could be sure Jonathon heard her.

There was a football game on the big TV in the living room, so she yelled louder than usual.  Our cover is blown, she thought then.  They’ve heard us yelling.  Not that they wouldn’t have heard the vacuum cleaner, the TV, and the sounds from Jonathon’s computer.  Not that it mattered whether they heard or not, because whatever person was impolite enough to come to the door on a Sunday afternoon didn’t matter anyway.

All of a sudden Solange, who was three, started to wail.  She had been sitting on the floor in the middle of the living room, playing with dolls and doll houses.  It was hard for Phoebe to believe that little girls still played with dolls and doll houses anymore, but it was so, and that gave Phoebe a moment of peace in which she could get some housework done. Briefly.  Phoebe looked up and saw that Jonathon, who had put his laptop down for a moment to answer the door, had stepped on one of Solange’s dollhouses, or more precisely, on the toy garage Solange made next to one of the dollhouses.  So Phoebe dropped the vacuum hose and rushed over to Solange and picked her up, stepping nimbly between the dolls and doll houses as Jonathon opened the door.

“Don’t you worry, babygirl,” Phoebe said as she put Solange on her shoulder and mopped her tears.  “We’ll fix that in just a minute.  Your mean big brother will fix it.  He will.” And Phoebe hugged Solange a little tighter, but that made Solange cry louder and kick her feet.  Nap time, Phoebe thought.

“Hey Mom,” Jonathon said. “Somebody’s looking for Dylan.”

When Phoebe looked up, she saw a woman holding a baby on the other side of the screen door.

 

.

Charlotte wasn’t an idiot.  Not even close.  She was an accountant, and to make things worse, Phoebe had known her for years – she was the little sister of Phoebe’s old friend Alexandra, who she knew from junior high school all the way through college, through URI.

Charlotte had been a quiet kid, the kind you barely notice.  Pale.  Bookish.  Smart enough, perhaps, but not super-smart either, and certainly not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.  She wasn’t a party girl.  Not even close.  Shy.  Almost invisible when they were young.  So invisible that Phoebe had trouble remembering her name, most of the time.

Charlotte stuck close to home.  When she grew up, she got a figure on her, that girl, but she never did know how to dress and strut what she had.  She went off to some college in Boston and then got herself a job at CVS, worked every day and went to bed early, or that was what Phoebe guessed.  Charlotte didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t run around and never did party.  She bought herself a house, a condo in Cumberland, near her work, which was not something women alone from their community ever did, but nobody really noticed her and Phoebe only knew about all that from her sister.  She heard about Charlotte only when Alexandra and Phoebe had run out of anything interesting to say.  Only then did Alexandra mention her boring little sister and then only in passing, as if to say, can you believe what my boring little sister is up to?  Phoebe barely knew that she knew anything about Charlotte at all, except that she did.

Phoebe had no idea that Charlotte even knew who Dylan was, and vice versa. Except that she did, apparently.  Knew with a capital ‘know’.

.

They sat in the kitchen.  The vacuum cleaner was leaning against the wall.  The dishwasher hadn’t been emptied yet.  It was the middle of the afternoon.  The colors of the football game on the television flashed in the living room.  The football field was bright green.  One set of football players was in blue and white.  The other set was in blue and gold.  They looked like a herd of sheep as they chased around the field, battering one another. Bright sunlight burst into the kitchen, filtering through the decaying sunflowers that still sat in a blue glass vase on the windowsill over the sink. Solange tottered from the kitchen back into the living room where her dolls and dollhouses were.

.

Then a car door slammed in the driveway.

Dylan came through the kitchen door.

“Huh,” he said.  And just stood there.

“Where have you been?” Charlotte said.  She looked right past Phoebe, as if Phoebe didn’t exist.

Phoebe stood up.

.

Dylan was tall and had once been quite handsome, with a deep tan, almost a cream-colored complexion.  He had broad shoulders and a thin waist, dark curly hair that he kept short, a nose that was strong but not too large, a high open forehead, high cheekbones and darting, intelligent green eyes.

But he was now long past his prime.  His hairline was receding.  His once black, shiny hair was now speckled with grey.  His ears had grown large and had tufts of hair growing in them.  He had developed thick, bushy eyebrows that made his face look more like a bear’s than a man’s, and a stoop, the stoop that comes with age, and a bit of a paunch.

He looked from Charlotte, holding her baby, to Phoebe, who found herself standing there with her hands on her hips.

“Huh,” Dylan said.

“Well?” Phoebe said.  She didn’t need to ask where Dylan had been.  That was obvious.

“Huh,” Dylan said.  Then he took a step backward and opened the door, backed out of the house, went down the steps, got into his car, and drove off.

.

“So now we got ourselves a situation,“ Phoebe said at last. “Can you please tell me what you were thinking, messing with Dylan?  Everybody knows he is with me.”

“That’s not what everybody knows,” Charlotte said.

“Say what?” Phoebe said.

“That wasn’t what Dylan said,” Charlotte said.

“That wasn’t what Dylan said?  What exactly did he say then?” Phoebe said.

“He said you were split up.  That you lived in the same house but weren’t a thing anymore. That you were both doing your own thing.  All out in the open.  No secrets. And it was all good,” Charlotte said.

“And you believed him, believed that trash?” Phoebe said.

“Course I believed it.  It was true.  He spent all his time with me.  Didn’t spend no time with you,” Charlotte said. “Didn’t you notice he was AWOL?”

“Girl, that is the oldest lie in the world.  Don’t you know men?” Phoebe said. “He was out.  He said he was out.  Taking care of business. No different from always.  How long has this been going on. You and him?”

“Two years. More. Going on three,” Charlotte said.

“So, since Solange was born?” Phoebe said.

“I don’t know.  When was Solange born?” Charlotte said.

“Damn.” Phoebe said.  “Damn.  Damn. Damn. Damn. That damn man.  He is no good for nothing.”

“He was good for me.  Is good for me.  Good to me. What is your problem?” Charlotte said.

“Girl, you don’t know what you don’t know,” Phoebe said. “Why do you think you had to come here looking for him?  He is getting ready to do to you what he apparently just did to me. Which was whatever the hell he wants. Whenever he wants to. With whomever the hell he wants to. No offense intended. Present company excepted and all that.”

“None taken,” Charlotte said.

.

The baby she was holding woke up and started to whimper and cough.

“Uh-oh,” Phoebe said. “Never wake a sleeping baby.  What do you need?”

“I got… I guess I ought to change her.  Where’s the bathroom?” Charlotte said.

“Under the stairs.  But there ain’t no room to change a baby in that bathroom. You don’t need to be crawling around on the floor.  There’s still a changing table in the baby’s room upstairs.  Dylan was supposed to get rid of it, but he… well never mind.   You just go upstairs.  First room on your right.”

Charlotte stood, cradled the now crying baby under one arm, picked up a diaper bag with the other and stumbled up the stairs, grunting quietly as she climbed.

I surely don’t miss those days, Phoebe said to herself. Then she went back to vacuuming.

.

Ten minutes later, Charlotte came back down the stairs and sat back down in the kitchen.

“Mind if I feed?’ she said.  She pulled one side of her teal nursing dress down, a nursing dress Phoebe hadn’t noticed, except for the color, and in a moment the baby was latched on and suckling.

Phoebe looked away.  The whole nine yards, she thought.  When will this ever stop?

“Phew.  So much better,” Charlotte said.

Not, Phoebe thought.  Nothing is better.  It’s all a mess.

“So what now?” Phoebe said.

“So nothing now.  It is what it is,” Charlotte said.

Phoebe shook her head.  This woman was dumb as a rail.

“Alright, what’s the baby’s name?  And how old is…”

“She.  This is Romany.  She’s going to be three months.” Charlotte said.

“Hello Romany.  I’m Phoebe.  That’s Solange, playing with her dolls.  And Jonathon, over there on the computer in front of the TV set.”

“Hi! “Charlotte said, and she waved to the two children in the living room.

Jonathon waved weakly back.  Solange looked up for a moment when she heard her name but went right back to her dolls.  The blue and white and blue and gold uniforms flashed on the green field on the TV screen. Then the TV screen cut to a commercial for Toyota trucks.

“Solange you come right in here and say hello nicely to Charlotte and Romany, who is little and cute,” Phoebe said.

“Your sister,” Charlotte said.

.

Phoebe stopped in her tracks and stayed frozen for a moment.

There it was.  Her and their futures, laid out in front of her and all of them like a highway, like Route 95 going nowhere and everywhere at once, like that patient, etherized upon a table.

Then she went back into the living room and started to vacuum again.

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Who among the angelic orders might hear us and come to save us from ourselves? Who will help us accept our hearts, our need to give and receive unconditional love, our endless irrational hope and the goodness that sits inside us, side by side with our cruelty and lust, with our penchant for self-destruction, for self-immolation?

How do we stop turning away from who and what we love?  And the truth about who and what we are, so we see ourselves, our world and the people we love for the people we are, and not who and what we want ourselves to be?

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Many thanks to Carol Levitt for proofreading, and to Lauren Hall for all-around help and support.

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