In Search of Oysters
Elijah Valerjev
“In Search of Oysters” follows a man who embarks on an existential journey in a submarine to collect materials for experimental carbon capture. Though the story is set in the year 2075, todays’ rapidity in technological advancements brings some realism to these science-fiction ideas. The short story is interwoven with a unique element of underwater exploration and environmental preservation that humanizes a climate future. Throughout this trip, the protagonist grapples with drug withdrawals, forced addiction recovery, and societal isolation while interacting with an AI companion. The narrative unfolds through a series of first-person journal entries, depicting a highly self-analytical perspective on what it means to be accepted. As he searches for carbon capture materials, he develops an evolving understanding of humanity. Paired with a modern take on his growing knowledge of old philosophical views, he confronts change in an absurd setting, viewing progress through his physical health and the manipulation of his surroundings.
Elijah Valerjev
Ideas are funny because they tend to appear right before a deadline. It was 10:30 PM, the day before the due date of Storytelling 2075, that I emerged from my bed straight as an arrow and plopped into my chair to crank out a 100 word story proposal derived from the noise in my head. For a process that never fails to be self-correcting and full of wonder, science gives artists the perfect opportunity to tell stories from complex concepts, showing that the field is not so detached from our lives. With this in mind, I was motivated to write about two things when I thought of how to connect to the audience of Storytelling 2075. One is climate change, obviously. Just the word can stir anxiety in many listeners, but such discomfort can be channeled into making a difference. The second is the rise of AI. Especially for creators, AI is changing the way that media is produced, becoming a charged topic of discussion today. Together, I somehow created a love story disguised as a sci-fi story.
One of the beauties of having weird fixations as a journalist is that you find the most random things in every story to be interesting. When you eventually gather enough of this, you get to vomit. My mind is loud, so what better way to express these thoughts than in the form of my favorite mental health activity: journal entries. But writing based on your imagination isn’t easy. It’s not like journalism where you get to “drop the mic” in your story by smacking a favorite quote from an interview or revealing an undercover tangible statistic. Instead, these “mic drops” are fleshed out as you write the story. There is no gathering of citations from previous research to create such an abstraction. It happens right in front of your face as you slowly tease bits of creativity out of your brain. This frustrating process eventually leads to several fistpumps when you realize that you’ve webbed those thoughts into something legible.
For the last couple of months, I committed to just an hour a day to hopefully writing and editing, but mainly a lot of YouTube spirals while I played with the idea of “In Search of Oysters” like I was bouncing a ball of neurons against my brain. This has slowly become an account of some of my experiences from reporting stories about drug addiction, marine science, and engineering. I was lucky enough to have unique interactions within these diverse interests and to learn from many kind individuals. All I had to do was connect them together. By reading my first ever published story, you would give me the gift of providing both myself and the people I have met a chance of understanding over misunderstood topics. I hope you can take something positive from something produced by an emotional graduating college student who thinks oysters are actually kind of gross.