Friday’s Flash
Another weekend and another FlashFriday in the books.
After having word goals with little to no leeway, we were given the word limit of 100-200 words.
After cutting and scrimping for weeks, it felt good to write something that had more wiggle room. And the interesting thing is, after 9 weeks of writing to low word counts, I’m learning how to get to the root of the story and limit myself to one concept.
The prompt:
Photo by Bild Bundesarchiv, WikiCommons
There were some very imaginative tales, and I would recommend checking them out here: http://flashfriday.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/flash-friday-35/. This week I entered two stories:
Curiosity
“This is how the world ended. Not these men, but men like them,” the voice said as the slide changed to reveal three men standing around an odd contraption.
Reedy wasn’t sure if it was a ‘Drill Press’, or a reactor… or one of their funny optical things, but the fact of the matter remained: humans were dangerous.
They were always poking and prodding; trying to understand things they had no hope of controlling. They kept at it until they poked their way through the envelope, through the bubble. Too bad, no one had ever told them that if they ruptured the bubble… it would collapse in on them until nothing existed, nothing but the Maelstrom that is.
The Maelstrom was always there, waiting to devour another reality when the opportunity presented itself.
It was here now, waiting to take this world and Reedy knew there was very little they could do to stop it. The humans had gone too far this time.
Did they really need a neutron powered can opener?
After a day of work, the second story came to me and so:
Heavenly Bodies
The day at long last had come, and the reporters sat anxiously awaiting the feeds from NASA. As they waited they played old documentary footage of the project.
Three generations of Astronomers and engineers had been working round the clock to develop the first computer enhanced optical telescope in the hopes of bringing mankind closer together.
Once the final adjustments were made and verified, the team leader threw the switch. Images of what they’d termed ‘the star hatchery’ were immediately transmitted to the networks for broadcast and the world had their first glimpse of space as it appeared to the naked eye.
One minute later the enforcement branch of the Intergalactic Decency Board descended upon the earth, arrest warrants in hand.
While the general population was only charged with misdemeanor counts for voyeurism, the astronomers themselves were charged with everything from indecency to distributing visual images of a pornographic nature and invasion of privacy.
It would seem Nietzsche was right – the abyss did indeed stare back…
It’s funny, I used to think I couldn’t write short stories – my plot lines are simply too complex, but I am learning to cut to the core of the story.
Until next time.
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