Category: Flash

Photo by Sweet Life on Unsplash

“Alright, it is time to get this done,” Georgia stalked through the house to where the dining room table and their laptop.

Frank looked up from his crossword, peering at her over his readers. “Hmm?”

“It is two days after we got back from our fiftieth anniversary last year which should cover that quarter day and a little extra if they stop counting the excess travel surcharge from the month the vacation stops, which they most likely do. Anything to screw over the little man.” She pulled out her phone and wallet from her purse and booted up the computer. While waiting, she continued to mutter. “February is one of the four discounted months according to the IITD website. January, February, May, and October. We are going to damn well see our grandchildren. Surcharge this and kiss my ass, travel agent.”

“Ah.” Her husband nodded and returned to his puzzle.

The room grew quiet with the angry clicking, until the muttering restarted. “Right, you want my citizen verification again, can’t just use the password and a passcode like a normal website. I got you covered. Send me a text.” Georgia switched to her phone when the ding came in. From her wallet she pulled out her citizen identification card and took a picture using the app linked through the text. “There you go, now to get this done.”

After three minutes of computers and A.I.s talking to each other, verifying Georgia Andrews’ identity, while she huffed, muttered, and rearranged things in the bill-paying work area, a screen blinked at the Intra and Interstate Travel Division website, red reflecting on the sixty-nine-year-olds face.

Stunned, she stopped moving long enough for her husband to look up again. Just in time for her to screech, “What do you mean I’ve exceeding the Lifetime Travel Limit?!?”

Frank sighed and set aside his crossword booklet, leveraging out of his recliner to join his wife at the table. Sure enough, blinking on the website, “Lifetime Travel Limit exceeded, no further Interstate Travel Vouchers allowed.”

“Interesting.”

“This has got to be wrong.” Her brown eyes met his, terror and sorrow tumbling through them. “Right?”

“Scoot over and let me look.” Frank took over the laptop seat with its special cushion to help with her replaced hips. It felt good against his arthritis.

She moved into the seat he vacated.

After passing over her purse and wallet, phone and ID, so she would put everything back where they belonged before forgetting, Frank opened up a second window and search on Lifetime Travel Limit. Passed in 2034 and implemented in January 2036, so it had only been active for twenty-four days, the Balanced and Fair Travel Law included a Lifetime Limit on Travel to twenty-five thousand miles, just a little more that once around the globe to free up resources for everyone to have a chance to travel. Military are forgiven for station assignments, and in occupations where travel is considered common and necessary like trucking, travel is counted at a tenth normal rate.

Frank narrowed his eyes behind his readers. Military spouses and children were not covered under the law as exempt from mileage related to changing stations. He grunted and returned to the first screen to click on his wife’s profile.

Sure enough. His twelve different deployments impacted her because she followed him to Germany, Australia, and Korea, as well as stations in Texas (twice), Alaska, the Carolinas, and California (four times). It had been a crazy six years with her packing up house with two small children and moving as many as four times a year following him around the globe. The government recreated that in their file of her movements accurately. Also listed were the two childhood moves she had with her parents, and the four they had for his job before they finally settled in Alabama in their late fifties. Those moves had been submitted as part of the process of applying for citizen identification back in 2030. Last year’s trip to Florida for their anniversary, and two other trips made since the IITD had been added to Homeland Security appeared at the top of the list, since it was in reverse date order with a cumulative total.

Just the move to Australia and back would have pushed her over the edge since it was halfway around the world. As it was, her mileage total pushed triple the Lifetime Limit. Both Danny and Marge would not be far behind. Luckily, Margaret was a homebody like him, but Danny took after Georgia. The only thing saving everyone’s sanity with the new citizen identification requirements was both their children being born on American soil, Texas during basic training for Margaret and California three weeks after moving back from Korea for Danny. Some of his buddies reported their kiddos being sent back to the countries of their birth. It wasn’t bad for the Germany and Australian babies, but those born in Korea had it rough establishing themselves in a new country where they didn’t even speak the language nearly forty years after being born there.

He returned to the search results to read more about the Lifetime Limit. No grandfather clauses, literally. The Government Unified Records combined all moves, change of driver’s licenses, military services, governmental positions, medical records, jobs verified under social security payments counted as moves. Frank flipped back as he remember something he had saw which had confused him and grunted upon seeing her temporary Amazon job worked during the Christmas 2020 season being recorded as a move to Seattle Washington; he supposed they would fight that, but it wouldn’t change anything.

Back to the research, he searched for anything to help them.

For a population that moves over eleven times in their lives (they were overachievers), plus were part of a generation “wastefully” encouraged to travel, … blah, blah, blah – commute average about a quarter million miles, another quarter million miles for errands like groceries, and the final quarter million miles for entertainment purposes. Most peopled traveled over three quarter of a million miles in their lifetime.

The cap is now twenty-five thousand. Though errands and commute dozen count, unless you were in situation like when he had been stationed in South Carolina and Georgia had moved in with her brother in North Carolina, only ten miles from the base. A whole lot of people in cities which straddled borders were screwed. Or had long commutes like most of the Eastern seaboard…ah, blue states. Moving on. He knew better than let his thoughts linger on topics like that.

Interesting. only interstate travel counted as that fell under federal control. Intrastate commerce and travel fell under state rights. They could still apply for county travel vouchers, only state crossing vouchers and plane travel would be denied.

Frank grunted. His father still lived in Texas, and he wanted to bury the old man when the time came.

“What does that mean?” Georgia asked. “What is happening?”

“We can still see Margaret.” Frank opened another window to the IITD website and pulled out his phone to run an ID check.

“I want to see Danny and his kids. Even that witch, Eva, would be welcome. Plus my brother.”

“I’m checking.” Frank clicked a picture of his ID. “And Eva is fine. Just because her job made them move is no reason to malign her.”

“We will agree to disagree there. Why couldn’t they have stayed here in Alabama? They had perfectly good jobs in Montgomery.” Georgia crossed her arms and sat upright like she had a stick up her ass.

“Because her new job paid three times as much, and he found a job that let him stay home with the children while they were in elementary school.” Frank repeated the long-time argument distractedly as his portfolio opened on the government website.

Same travel and moves, most not counted since ninety percent of them happened while he had been in the military. The moves afterwards put him at nearly five thousand miles. He scrolled down. They hadn’t downloaded his trucker years from when he first got out of the military; the company was thirty-years defunct and the files likely shredded or demagnetized. And his four moves as a kid following his father’s military service were missing because he had forgotten to include them during the citizenship paperwork. That would come back and bite him if they figured it out. He was easily passed the Lifetime Limit too; the Miller administration just didn’t know it yet.

“There is no way for me to umbrella you in by my applying for the vouchers.” Frank frowned. “Vouchers are now done individually starting this year, including for intrastate travel.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, you cannot go out of state, except for medical emergency transferred from one of the three State Hospitals to an out-of-state location which will be processed by medical staff. At least according to this website. I’ll need to do more research, but right now, it looks like the Alabama state line is our limit.”

Georgia turned her big brown eyes on him. “Why?”

Frank thought of a dozen reasons his officers explained to him from when he checked travel vouchers in various parts of the world and shrugged. None of them were exactly flag-waving freedom justifications. “Don’t know.” He stared at the screen and considered various responses he would like to apply to the present situation.

A mistake. They were deep, deep into a mistake.

He had been released from his enlistment oath to America when he mustered out, not that the Constitution was still a thing, and each day he debated how to fix something he helped create. The world he was leaving his children was not a better one, but would the responses he could organize make them safer?

He didn’t know.

But as his wife fell on his shoulder crying, yet again, tears of frustration, fear, and hopelessness, he knew he was a step closer to hitting his lifetime limit on this bullshit.

(words 1,671; first published 9/13/2026)

Two attempts / Taxing Dreams Series

1. Taxing Dreams Version 1 (8/23/2026)
2. Taxing Dreams Version 2 (9/6/2026)
3. Taxing Dreams Part 3: Lifetime Travel Limit (9/13/2026)

Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash

After cracking his neck to release the tension, Tom left his pretend cubicle, the walls were just under four and a half feet tall based on some metric unit or other, anyone could look over them, and made his way through the maze to the waiting area. Jennifer handed him the next number with the bar code to scan once he was back at his desk.

“Number 37,” he projected, his tone government-drone-dead. He remembered when he loved his job, helping people have adventures of a lifetime. He was a travel agent, damn it. People should travel, see the world, explore, meet, cross-pollinate.  When did it all go so bad?

An older couple stood, both white-haired, and shuffled through the twenty or so people sitting in the plastic chairs.

“Number 37,” he repeated when they finally reached him. They nodded, a little numb from the, he looked at the small printoff in his hand for the time stamp and then looked at the digital clock on the wall, two-hour forty-minute wait. “Follow me.”

Tom made his way back and slipped through the narrow space on one side of his desk to get behind it. As they sat down in another set of molded seats, he scanned the bar code to call up the information the front desk had entered. More accurately, the couple had filled out online, then refilled out when they arrived, then scanned by the AI reader, and compared to what had been entered before with the differences flagged for his review, and everything else that got tagged in when their citizen identifications had been scanned at the front desk.

Ex-military for the husband; both a bonus and a detriment for whatever type of travel they were shooting for. Ten different stations during his six years. Two children – very socially responsible of them. Each of their children had the recently mandated two children, the grandchildren in their early teens. Ah, they wanted to visit them for the winter holidays, that is a reasonable travel, but holiday travel did come at a premium pricing…one was local and the other out-of-state. He winced when he saw the couple’s ages. Sixty-eight and seventy-two.

Forcing a smile on his face, he turned to the couple. “How can I help you today?”

“You can help us by approving our travel vouchers.” The woman pushed the generic paperwork some websites provided to “aid” in making travel arrangements.

“Well, first I need to find out a little more about the travel.” The smile didn’t waver. “Mrs. Andrews, where, when, and why do you want to leave Lauderdale County?”

“We already filled out all of that, four times since the computer timed-out during a rolling brownout.” She shoved the papers closer to him. “Just stamp these and we will be on our way.”

Tom looked back to the screen and touched a few keys on the virtual keyboard. “Ah, I see, you want to travel from Tuesday November 20^th until Friday December 28^th to visit family in Huntsville and in Stillwater, Oklahoma, with a small side trip to Jackson, Tennessee.”

“Yes, to visit my brother,” Mrs. Andres confirmed.

“That would be a total of five state border crossings.”

“I know that.” She tapped the pile in front of her. “That is why there are five travel vouchers here.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you might not be aware of the recent changes implemented. While the climate change travel tax is for crossing state borders, the non-renewable resource tax is charged by county crossings and you will need travel vouchers for each county you will be passing through.”

The man frowned at that. “When did that happen?”

“Two years ago now. I see your last travel was by plane in…January, so the county travel vouchers would have been unnecessary.”

They already traveled this year. It is going to be a nightmare.

“The law passed as part of the Terrorist and Immigration Control Bill in 2029 and parts have been gradually rolled out ever since. The county travel vouchers are the last measure to be implemented and it is still being worked on; Alabama hasn’t been enforcing it for people traveling locally, but, really, every time you have visited your daughter in Huntsville you should have been applying to cross through Limestone and go into Madison.”

Mr. Andrews grunted.

“Are you kidding me?” his wife exploded beside him. “Go through this every time we go see Margaret?”

“If your vehicle was an electric, then no, but with the gasoline personal transport you say you will be using, then yes. The tax stamps on the county travel vouchers underwrite the oil and petroleum companies maintain their infrastructure.”

“I told you we should have gotten the Honda instead of the truck.” Margaret snapped at her husband. She turned back to Tom. “But with the subsidies to Buy America, the tariffs for the lithium battery, and all that, the truck had been half the price at the time.” She huffed. “Fine, so what’s the damage to get the stamps?”

“Well, I need to create a map of your travel and get a list of all the counties you will be crossing.”

“Yes, yes, I understand.”

“And do you also understand that each state crossing comes with a charge.”

“Of course, we’ve traveled before.” Mrs. Andrews resettled in her chair. “They lumped it all together for our trip to Disney to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary.”

“Very good. If you could pull out your phones and download the travel app.” Tom pointed out the QR code to scan at the edge of his desk, “I’ll show the most likely route based on the information you have provided.”

The woman pulled out her phone and scanned it in, flipping through the pages of accepting the app and spoke a few words to finalize the transaction. Once the confirmation popped up on his screen, Tom transferred the route and dates to her phone based on what they had entered on the website.

“This looks right.” The woman passed her phone to her husband. “Frank, double-check this please.”

He scrolled through the travel and itinerary and passed it back with a nod.

“Very good, now I will start the general recording.” Tom activated the video and audio recording for his office. “Thomas Ducan, certified and licensed Travel Agent located at the Florence Alabama Federal Office for the Intra and Interstate Travel Division of Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency within the United State Department of Homeland Security. I am with Mr. Franklin Andrews and Mrs. Georgia Andrews who are applying for Winter Holiday travel by personal vehicle. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, you understand this meeting will be recorded.”

“We do.” Georgia said, and Frank nodded, frowning.

“Sir, we need you to confirm verbally.”

“Yes, I understand,” the man said, his frown deepening.

“Very good. Now, the travel being applied for is during the Winter Holiday season and for entertainment purposes, so surge pricing applies and no company is underwriting the travel. The vehicle is gasoline therefore both the non-renewable resource tax applies when crossing counties and climate change mitigation tax applies when crossing state borders. Mr. Andrews is seventy-two, so the senior surcharge applies. Mrs. Andrews is sixty-eight, so the senior surcharge applies. These surcharges stack.”

“The what now?” Georgia interrupted Tom’s recitation.

“There is a five percent surcharge on all travel voucher crossings for people over sixty-two or who are disabled. As you are receiving welfare substitutes, travel for entertainment purposes is considered a luxury so various luxury surcharges apply.”

“Social security is not welfare,” growled Frank. “I damn well paid into it since I was fourteen and got my first job. I still remember the FICA hit shocking me.”

“Many people feel that way, but the Congress specifically defined all types of welfare in the Even Better Big Beautiful Bill in 2028, and I have to work within the law.”

“So we have to pay 5% over surge pricing for both of us?” Pink tinged Georgia’s cheeks.

“Yes. Shall I continue?”

She waved her hand regally. “Please do, asshole boot-licker.”

Tom clicked out of curiosity over to their voting record, and internally shrugged, not surprised by the verbal abuse with those choices. You get the laws you get by who you elect. Two more swipes returned him back to the charges.

“As this is your second trip across state lines this year, there is an excess travel surcharge.”

Frank’s nostrils flared. “How much?”

“Only twenty percent. It increases by fifty percent for every additional trip.” Tom looked up from his screen. It was off-script and his supervisor could ding him, especially since this was on the record, but he couldn’t not give the warning. He was a travel agent. “The excess travel surcharge is based on being less than 365 and a quarter days since your last trip. The excess travel surcharge continues to stack, and the date of the counting restarts from the date of the trip. So if you decide to take a summer trip next year, you will still be within the 365-day window of this trip and the excess travel surcharge will be seventy percent.”

“Are they trying to keep us locked up in our homes?” The pink tinge was completely red and racing up and down Georgia’s neck.

Yes, yes they are. They don’t want citizens comparing notes. They don’t want people creating networks in case they need to run. And they love old people becoming bored and inactive as they die faster, getting them off welfare faster. And, most especially, isolation makes compliance easier. But Tom wouldn’t say anything like that aloud, especially to party loyalists.

“I almost forgot to mention the luxury surcharge for entertainment travel, but the five percent veteran discount applies to that, so only another seventeen percent. The total for all the crossing taxes and the surcharge as applied is being transferred to your screen…now.” Tom heard the ding on the travel app.

The words that followed from the old lady proved her status at the upper edge of the Gen-X generation, eventually it ended with “Hell, no.”

“Very good.” Tom responded without raising his voice. “If you would click the ‘no’ option on the app, rejecting the travel, we can move on to see if other options would be better.”

Georgia struggled to stand. “I just want to visit the grandbabies while I can, you motherfucker. How dare you!”

Standing more quickly than his wife, Frank grabbed his wife’s arm before she did something everyone in the cubicle would regret. “Do we get a refund of the application?”

“No, the application fee is non-refundable as indicated on the website.” Tom remain seated. “Let me just close out the recording, and I can escort you out.”

“No, you can just stay there, you worthless piece of trash.” Georgia huffed out of the cubicle toward the door, her husband following in her wake.

Security had a walkway above to observe and a sniper ready for people on both the intra-interstate travel side and the Department of Motor Vehicle side of the building. Escorting customers out had been removed from the metrics, but filing out the paperwork was still required if Tom wanted kept this shit job in an economy with 20% unemployment. “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews have withdrawn their travel request.” He time-stamped the file and moved to save it. With it, he watched the appropriate flags get generated for various agencies monitor the couple for traveling illegally during the holidays. Only three, since they were party loyalists.

People who continued to buck the system, got an addition four, including one to generate a visit by ICE within a week to investigate the less politically savvy, searching the house for packed bags and the like.

After throwing the Andrews number into the trashcan, Tom took a deep breath, rotated his neck, exhaled, then stood. He edged around his desk and went to the waiting area.

(words 1,987; first published 9/6/2026)

Two attempts / Taxing Dreams Series

1. 1. Taxing Dreams Version 1 (8/23/2026)
   2. Taxing Dreams Version 2 (9/6/2026)
   3. Taxing Dreams Part 3: Lifetime Travel Limit (9/13/2026)