Blink-Blink: a dystopian love story

"What do I do then? What do I do in a world full of... darkness?"

"Well, have you tried turning on some lights? A candle? A campfire? Anything? When you shine a little light, even in the darkest places, folks tend to stop banging their heads against the walls so much," her mother laughed somberly.

"And... what if that fire burns down everything around me? What if we're all consumed by it?" Blair asked, searching for some kind of concrete reassurance everything would be well in the end.

"Then it consumes us all," Ayn answered. Then loudly she added, "Your father and I always believed it was better to be consumed by the flames than to live as beggars, pleading for our rights on our knees!"

In the near future, AI powered wearable lenses, or "Blinks", have replaced smartphones, allowing for all digital communication, searches, and transactions to be completed through the feed. Following a period of civil unrest and widespread protests, only Safe Speech is legal; those who speak critically of the administration or its policies are dissidents and closely monitored.

For Blair, an impoverished painter and daughter of dissidents, living a principled, unlensed life is only possible with the help of friends around St. Charles. When the brilliance of her artwork is discovered by Jax, the affluent owner of a prestigious art gallery in nearby St. Louis, a romance unfolds. With the help of her tattoo artist friends, Lillian and Tanner, the young couple is soon forced to confront the challenges of having an unsafe voice in a world purpose-built to silence dissent. Can love and art survive the schemes of the powerful who demand control?