Issue 4
June 2025
ClimaSync
by Christian Worby
The battery life of my phone controls the outside temperature.
Whatever percentage the battery's currently at, that's the reading in Fahrenheit.
It probably seems nice on the surface, but really, it's a big commitment.
I can't ever let my phone get fully charged, and I can rarely let it get too low.
Crops would fail.
Animals would freeze.
I wish I just had a normal phone, but I'm stuck controlling the weather.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if I dropped it off a cliff.
Would everything just go back to normal?
Or would it be permanently broken?
I don't know.
And the gamble seems too great.
So I spend my days and nights keeping my phone charged to the level of corresponding seasonal norms.
It's thankless, but important.
One day, I hope, the spell will break.
And it'll just go back to being like any other phone.
And I can sleep like normal people.
And I can get back to my life.
Where I'll sing and laugh and pirouette.
Away from its constant glow.
Illustration by Holly Chilton
Christian Worby
Christian Worby grew up in Kent, studied (after a fashion) in Gwynedd, moved to Japan for a spell, and now lives in Minnesota in the good ol' US of A. His writing can be found in Neologism Poetry Journal, Star 82 Review, Witcraft, and elsewhere.