“Manatees Don’t Dream of Electric Boats” (3,000 words) by Bethany Bruno in The Journal’s latest issue gives readers a vibrant, near-term sci-fi take on environmentalism. Its title is a nod to Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (on which the 1982 film Blade Runner was based.) There’s some overlapping story-DNA between the two in how animals fare in a world shared with humans.
“Manatees” starts with a political victory: Florida bans gas motors on its waterways. The effects are immediate, which, in story-speak, translates to three paragraphs in:
“For a week, the springs looked rinsed. Water ran clear under the boardwalk. The Gulf held still. Egrets stepped through shallows with careful legs. Manatees drifted in the grass beds, heavy and calm, chewing seagrass into long green ribbons. No metal roar chased them. Someone said the state had plugged in and forgiven itself.”
It didn’t take long for this concisely rendered story to relieve my creeping fear that readers might be in for an environmentalist’s polemic, and it accomplishes this in three artful ways.
The first is pulled straight off the writer’s tool belt: progressive complications. You see it less often in short stories because of length limitations, as most plots revolve around a single story-turn. But at only 3,000 words, “Manatees” is one of many fine examples of how economical writing makes all things possible.
Bruno side-cars the idea of progressive complications with the scientific reality of unintended consequences, giving a whole new shine to a standard plotting device. It turns out that the “hum” generated by electric boats is toxic to the creatures they were deployed to protect in an entirely different way than oil in the water:
“The new motors didn’t scream. They hummed. A steady low vibration that traveled through limestone and mangrove roots and settled into the inner ear. No deep sleep. No drop into that dark place where bodies repair and forget.”
If there’s one downstream consequence of a world spinning out of control that we can all associate with, it’s sleeplessness. Here, it’s as if manatees are being dragged into the 24-hour news cycle with us.
And as progressive complications go, unintended consequences are a gift that keep on giving. Like a game of whack-a-mole, once you’ve solved one problem, you’ve created two more—a perpetual story generator.
In keeping with the idea of the complexity of consequence after consequence, the second way Bruno protects her story from being a one-note diatribe is through her use of a broad range of targets. She’s not just going after fossil-fuelers. There are plenty of other suspects to point fingers at. We’ll get to politicians in a second. She also pulls lawyers over her knee, then marketers, the church, middle managers who rule by spreadsheet, white-shoe consultants.
It’s Murder on the Orient Express by way of the Everglades—everybody leaves fingerprints on the murder weapon.
When the “no deep sleep” issue arises, the governor of Florida reappears with a fresh band-aid to slap over this new complication. He introduces the Bureau of Aquatic Wellness Soundscapes Initiative; exactly the kind of investigative committee politi-speak we’ve come to expect.
It’s here that we meet our narrator—Bruno’s third trick, and the most important one, because it makes the story personal. Here’s our Main Character’s intro:
“They hired me because I’d tuned soundtracks that shook teenagers”
…so our MC has a connection with the world of sound. And they’re also on a mission:
“I made a private promise. I’d work with sound and teach it to keep its hands to itself.”
…and to get more specific…
“My job sounded simple. Design a sound the manatees would accept as a friend. Put it in the water. Tune it until they slept again.”
This is where the story gets poetic. Because it turns out our narrator is synesthetic: a neurological orientation in which a thought or sensation triggers another sense at the same time. Or, as the MC says:
“My head turns sound into taste and color.”
Bruno doesn’t name the phenomenon. It’s an awesome trust fall she’s willing to take with her readers, a great instinct to follow. And it leads to flights-of-fancy-prose that colors and shades the rest of the story’s telling. Like this:
“I rented a white houseboat in a canal the color of cold tea. Sugar ants owned the galley. The carpet stain shaped itself into Florida. Morning sun drew rectangles on the table. Afternoon thunderheads rolled in and dumped warm pennies on the roof.”
Pair that voice with the step-by-step unspooling of what might as well be a police procedural and, as a reader, you’re suddenly on new ground. And it does this without losing its narrative drive.
As mentioned, the story gets more personal (the MC’s deceased mother, whose passing was tied to the world of sound, is invoked) and more philosophical as the close approaches. Bruno is able to pull these disparate elements (an environmental theme, a multi-layered plot, political antagonism, a sense-sensitive voice) together and corral all that and us into a serene, satisfying and hopeful close.
One in which—as we’re all longing for—“the world felt tuned.”
The Journal, the award-winning literary magazine of The Ohio State University, is published four times yearly. Its latest issue also features Shoutout alumnus Grace Spulak, whose fantastic “The Four Winds” was profiled here back in March, so drop in and enjoy more from Grace here.
The Journal is open for submissions from July 15-September 15, 2026. They seldom publish work that’s more than 8,000 words. Submit up to three 1,000-word flash fiction stories.
They “welcome literary fiction submissions of all forms, including those that incorporate experimental or genre elements. Our editors love to be surprised. We’re excited by weird, innovative formal choices and images that work to create something strange and beautiful. We’re looking for fiction that conveys emotion without falling into melodrama; that knows the difference between volume and truth. Stories that speak to the reader like they’re an old and trusted friend. We’re enamored by feminist and weird girl horror, the gothic, literary fiction, dark academia, environmental writing, and writing that invokes intersectionality in new and exciting ways. Though we generally do not publish straight genre fiction, we are always excited to read speculative work and frequently publish non-realist fiction. We strive to publish marginalized voices, including but not limited to people of color, LGBTIA+ and the gender non-conforming, and those with disabilities.”
Bethany Bruno is a one-woman publishing force-of-nature, with over one hundred published pieces in literary journals and magazines including The New York Times’ Modern Love, The Threepenny Review, The Sun, and McSweeney’s. Check out more of her work at her website.
Many thanks to Bethany Bruno and The Journal Literary Magazine for the river-deep and ocean-wide “Manatees Don’t Dream of Electric Boats.”
Bethany Bruno Grace Spulak Misha Ponnuraju Sappho Stanley
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"Calves slept while rain hit the river hard enough to turn it to smoke." A beautiful line in an excellent story.