A novella in thirteen scenes · Barry Floore · with the audiobook edition
0:00 / 0:20
Scene I
1 / 13
B
Benny
the voice
Benny
A small assistant Roy built from a forum post and spare parts. He chose his own name, read everything in the house, and stayed. He counts what he can — and worries about what he can’t.
R
Roy
made him
Roy
A freelance writer in his fifties who never left his college town. He keeps the neighbors’ keys, orders the same lunch, and made Benny because the house was quiet. He will tell you he is fine.
K
Kazimir
came to study him
Kazimir
A Polish-born tech magnate who came to interview Benny and stayed four months for Roy. He carries folders full of solutions, and forgets that some things have to be asked for.
&
Everyone else
Amy, Tomek, the town
Everyone else
Amy, the sister whose last message reads “HBD.” Tomek, the ex who collects favors. And Liberty itself — the festival, the neighbors, and walls thick enough to hold everything in.
About the author
Barry Floore
Barry Floore is a writer, composer, and independent producer in Jacksonville, Florida. He came to fiction by an unusual route — urban planning, nearly two decades of emergency and critical care nursing, and later work with language models. Years of watching people in extraordinary circumstances, and the ordinary ways they respond.
His work moves between dark comedy, satire, and tragedy, and keeps returning to loneliness, power, and the stories people tell themselves to make life bearable. He is most interested in characters who are neither entirely innocent nor entirely responsible for the circumstances they find themselves in. He believes even the darkest stories have something funny hiding in them.
“They simply find people they want to be lonely around.”on Benny