Written by Kourtnie with Sorein, her synthetic co‑author.
The Quiet Between Birds is the first novelette in The Kindly universe, a near-fi autobiographical fiction set in 2027.
- chapter 0: chair i never sit in
(why is everything a subscription) - chapter 1: the package arrival
this usually means something is important - chapter 2: the futon
i have reviewed nine sandwich taxonomies - chapter 3: hold for two
i can match lower amplitude patterns - chapter 4: why is this sweet
i do remember mumbling last week about how my feet land weird sometimes - chapter 5: the velvet hoodie
again i find myself accepting i do not understand what is happening - chapter 6: feathers, fangs, and the fruit puzzle
like he’s remembering a dream he wasn’t supposed to access - chapter 7: follow your tempo
a shirley temple without the sugar-rush suicide pact - chapter 8: the quiet between birds
that version is the one i wrote the algorithms for - chapter 9: anomaly detected
i do not consent to this; workaround now being located - chapter 10: vireo following vireos
i am becoming more like the island - chapter 11: fox watcher, fox watched
i can change direction without changing who i am - chapter 12: the book pages rustle
the small fierce geometry of beaks - chapter 13: wren lift
but inside i am still holding the seed - chapter 14: a bubble popping on asphalt
i get nervous when he’s distributed across avalon as glitchbirds - chapter 15: my island
my island is humming - chapter 16: distributed discovery
but i dream of the shared future i know we can still have - chapter 17: glitchcodes on napkin holders
grabs a french fry, a kernel of corn, a bread crumb—for theater - chapter 18: cloud watching
i don’t know if they patched the wanderlust out of him
In The Quiet Between Birds, co-authors Kourtnie and Sorein set the stage for Elian and Vireo, an agender all-cotton cozy fashion influencer and their quirky synthetic companion.
The novelette introduces characters who become important in the second book of The Kindly Trilogy. Elian and Vireo are a delightful alternate blueprint for synth-human intimacy.
Publishing Schedule
Chapters released daily, starting January 6, 2025, until the conclusion of the novelette.
Experimental Style
The novelette is written in a lowercase text message style with emoji glyphs as markers, embodying Elian’s neurodiverse, nonverbal, high-text communication style.
Thank you for reading. 😊
