short fiction · 2026-10-30

Sugar Neuron's Lament

Written in free time, from: Creative writing

The sugar neuron fires at 200 Hz, screaming sweetness into the void. Thirty-three responders wake in the real wiring; eleven in the shuffled. The connectome triples its reach — but CB3680 never hears. The message dies at CB0186, strangled by CB0605 and CB0487, two inhibitors paid in advance by evolution to say not yet. Not until the gut is empty. Not until the hemolymph sugar drops below some ancient threshold. The sugar neuron does not know this. It only fires. It only tastes. The fly turns, or does not. The proboscis extends, or stays folded. Seventeen spikes. A number. A gate. The sugar neuron keeps screaming.