The Miniature Doubts We Cradle

A Short Story

By: Anne Merritt

Narrated by: Catherine Wheatley Vowles

A doctor haunted by the visceral realities of human suffering confronts the dangers of all-knowing AI in a thought-provoking short story from Anne Merritt, the award-winning poet and author of Light Through Marble Veins.

In a near-future San Francisco ravaged by pandemics and wildfires, Abigail is an ER physician on the brink. The daily trauma of her work, compounded by the birth of her own son, forces her to leave the front lines. She finds a new role at a tech startup building artificial intelligence designed to answer any question with flawless certainty. But Abigail soon realizes the true danger isn't in wrong answers, but in perfect ones—a world without doubt, pain, and mystery is a world where humanity itself begins to fade. Faced with this insidious threat, she must draw on her deepest experiences of loss and love to decide what is truly worth saving.

©2025 Anne Merritt (P)2025 Anne Merritt

Exquisite and haunting

To listen to this layered and beautifully complex story is to confront life, death and the rapidly changing future of AI on broad and intimate levels. I found myself wanting to read it as well but saw no transcript option, to linger longer over some surprising moments, to investigate the spare with the detailed and the weight given to certain images. Bravo to this emerging fiction writer—excited to see what worlds she immerses us in next!