Weekly Unfinished Tales and Short Stories from our Dataset
These stories are presented as part of our research into digital transformation in the arts.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
A Simmering Hush
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cyberpunk | Genre: Contemporary Drama
A crisp, silent Christmas Eve descends upon a quiet residential street, the lamplit snow muffling the usual hum of the city. Inside a modest ground-floor flat, the air hangs heavy with the scent of spices and an unspoken melancholy, a palpable absence echoing in the warmth of the kitchen.
A Glimmer in the Frost
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cyberpunk | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The air hung heavy and still, smelling of wet concrete and distant woodsmoke. Snow, fine as icing sugar, dusted the window ledges, blurring the sharp edges of the cityscape. Inside, a single, unlit string of fairy lights lay tangled on the floor, a forgotten promise in a room that felt too vast, too quiet for the season. Marcus traced a finger along the condensation on the pane, the chill seeping into his bone, a feeling he’d become intimately familiar with since the autumn winds began to bite.
The Forgotten Penny
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Satire | Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
The aroma of lukewarm coffee and synthetic cheese hung heavy in the air of the food court, a perpetual hum of a hundred small conversations and clattering trays providing the backdrop. Fluorescent lights, unforgiving and stark, cast a pale, uniform glow over the plastic tables and tired faces, making everything feel slightly too bright, slightly too artificial. It was the kind of place where days blurred into an endless cycle of consumption, yet even here, amongst the manufactured cheer, genuine human stories unfolded, unnoticed by most.
The Gilded Ornaments
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cyberpunk | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The air in the old stone cottage was a thick, comforting soup of pine needles, burnt sugar, and the faint, underlying scent of woodsmoke. Outside, a soft, insistent drizzle had given way to a nervous flurry of fat, wet flakes, clinging to the bare branches of the oak tree by the porch. Inside, the last of the afternoon light, thin and watery, stretched across the worn Persian rug in the living room, illuminating dust motes dancing in a slow, almost melancholic ballet. Boxes of decorations lay half-unpacked, their glittery contents spilling like forgotten treasure.
A Drift of Unspoken Words
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Cinematic | Genre: Contemporary Drama
The wind, a razor wire drawn across the prairies, scoured Portage Avenue, whipping fine snow into angry eddies around the feet of hurried pedestrians. The sky hung low, a bruised purple-grey, threatening more snow. Outside ‘Curiosities & Keepsakes,’ a small gift shop whose twinkling fairy lights seemed a defiant gesture against the encroaching gloom, the air tasted of exhaust fumes and ice, a familiar, biting cocktail unique to a Winnipeg winter.
About the Project
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection was an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment in 2025. It was part of a creative arts and participatory research project by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. It focuses on two key areas: AI-Assisted Storytelling and Scriptwriting, exploring AI tools for generating ideas, plot structures, and story arcs; and Talent Development and Training, studying digital skills, literacy and training needs for creative professionals by experimenting with AI and immersive technologies to inform future projects. Funding and support were generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation, and applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) research.
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