Live. Laugh. Lie in wait beneath the murky black waters of the lake, wreathed in seaweed and smiling at the horrorstruck man in the boat with your sharp black flashing teeth as you snake your cold gnarled fingers around his wrist so tight the bones creak, pulling him down down down into the dark cold quietness of the foul rancid muck where you make your bower, watching all the beautiful glinting bubbles cascade up up up from his mouth as his scream dies with him
"- Un cocktail hihi. Nan un café, merci."
Arnaud arbora son sourire commerçant N°8, spécial connivence. La blague ne l'avait probablement même pas fait rire la première fois qu'il l'avait entendue. Demain marquerait les dix ans du bar, et il se demanda combien de fois il avait dû faire semblant, depuis l'ouverture de l'établissement au quinze du boulevard Viatcheslav Mikhaïlovitch Molotov.
Monsieur Raymond avait un âge certain. Le réparateur qui se présenta chez lui pour s'occuper d'une porte défoncée fut surpris par l'ampleur des dégâts causés par Wouiki, petit clébard fuyant. Il ressemblait fort à son propriétaire, dans une improbable convergence biologique, et le réparateur trouvait ça réjouissant. Un peu vexé, monsieur Raymond, pas du tout amusé par ses problèmes de porte, lui demanda ce qui le faisait rire.
Here in the Precrime Division we solve crimes before they happen. There’s a rumour that we use psychics, and it serves us well to let it spread uncorrected. Just between you and me, we mostly monitor search engines for queries like “statute of limitations” and “countries without extradition treaty”.
@VisualInspiration
A very rich merchant in Edinburgh fell ill. Every step he took exhausted him, his heart raced, he had headaches, and his back ached. He consulted several doctors, who gave him powders, pills, potions, and lotions, but none of them helped. Desperate, he wrote to the famous Dr. Ironbeard, who lived many hundreds of miles away on the south coast of England. Dr. Ironbeard replied, asking the merchant to list precisely what he ate and drank throughout the day. The merchant responded with a long letter.
In his next letter, Dr. Ironbeard wrote, "Sir, I am quite certain I know the cause of your unwellness. Unwittingly, you have swallowed a tiny lindworm egg, which is slowly growing inside your stomach. I can remove it, but you must come to my home. To prevent it from hatching and releasing the lindworm, you must not ride a horse or travel by carriage; you must walk on foot. Furthermore, you may eat nothing but dark bread and raw vegetables."
So the merchant began his journey south on foot. In the early days, he needed to rest after just five miles, but each day he covered a longer distance, and his illness gradually disappeared. When he finally reached Dr. Ironbeard’s home, he was completely healed. Smiling, he handed the doctor a pouch full of money. Then he turned around and walked back home. #writingprompt #microfiction
@VisualInspiration
Eight years late, Ferris Gawalkow returned to Earth. The logfiles didn’t report anything special from orbiting Uranus obviously without using any oxygen, water or energy. The pilot himself couldn’t tell what he had done or what he had seen. He didn’t tell about slipping through spacetime and entering the Nandaii system, about making contact with the Fisaf, a peaceful and advanced cicilization of shapeshifters. He didn’t say a word about falling in love with A’Galsig and living with him for quite a time. He didn’t report being shown around on the Fisaf’s homeworld and seeing fantastic garden-like cities. He didn’t talk about their culture that had no word for possession at all and was founded on absolute respect for every individual. And he didn’t tell that he asked them to wipe his memory before they brought him back.
A’Galsig himself did it with just a spell and he made good job of it.
When Gawalkow returned, he had forgotten everything of the voyage. He didn’t know why he was aboard a spaceship or that he was an astronaut at all, so, traveling back to Earth for six months, locked in a narrow vessel, seriously traumatized him. The rest was done by the authorities’ efforts to find information in his dreams, later in his head. They tried it with hypnosis, neuroleptica, narcotics, electroconvulsive therapy, finally with brain surgery. He died in a mental hospital four months after his return. #writingprompt #microfiction #scifi
@VisualInspiration
I'm an Earth-head. Always have been. So 40 years ago I figured I'd try to trade with them, maybe score a Walkman. I painted the saucer like one of their shuttles and snuck into their spaceport.
As soon as I landed, they came boiling out, and they looked mad. I jumped back in and took off. Then I realized I'd dropped my phone.
Today I see a native on a phone that looks like mine. I guess they reverse-engineered it. I sure hope they don't figure out the AI part. #MicroFiction
La mère Rochon détestait les mômes, qui le lui rendaient bien. Elle les tracassait sans fin aux abords de l'immeuble. Lorsqu'elle aperçut Djézon en trottinette électrique, la harpie l'invectiva vertement, cherchant à le stopper.
Le Barbu viendra te prendre, graine de vaurien !
Djézon lui balança un coup de pied au tibia et s'enfuit de toute la puissance de son engin, non sans avoir jeté à la sorcière dépitée un retentissant "Gloire à Satan !" qui la laissa coite.
Hi folks, a periodic reminder that if you enjoy my daily #PowerOnStoryToot#MicroFiction posts, you are invited to consider enabling my bullshit with more coffee via https://ko-fi.com/unixbigot , and—special guest offer, this month¹ only!—perhaps assist with these current not-covered-by-insurance medical expenses.
It’s a /little/ bit harder than reverse-parallel parking, but once you learn to complex-park by rotating your car at 90 degrees to reality, you can park pretty much anywhere you like. Just be really careful to remember where. And stay out of the Mandelbrot set!
@VisualInspiration
Rudiger Kaminski, master puppeteer, lost his right arm in an accident. Luckyly his insurance was willing to pay for a transplant. So he got an arm from a wrestler. It was way to blunt and clumsy and Rudiger had it removed. His second replacement arm came from a mechanic. It was flexible and seemed perfect for puppeteering, but Rudiger noticed a lack of inspiration from the moment he woke up from surgery. He had it replaced with an eletrco-mechanical model. Finally, five years after the accident, he was able to work in his profession. The Kaminski Theater opened its curtains again.
Two weeks later, he died of a nervous disfunction of his immune system. But he left the world smiling.
The robot arm kept performing puppet shows and became director of the Theater, later the CEO of Kaminski Media, that we are now celebrating as #1 - world's leading entertainment company. Ladies and Gentlemen, raise your glass to the memory of Rudiger Kaminski. #microfiction #writingprompt #robotics
The human child decided not to tease their fish-tailed pal, and instead talked about marbles and their mutual love of turtles and pizza.
Decades later, the human had to admit that the siren looked so happy atop the firetruck she was assigned to, screaming her lungs out as they raced towards a blaze.
Angelo allait acheter des vêtements à reculons, une fois tous les quatre ou cinq ans. Il entrait dans la boutique, parcourait les rayons au pas de course, glanant un article ici ou là, puis payait et sortait avant d'être trop oppressé. A chaque fois il se retrouvait avec des pantalons gris, et des sweats à capuche avec en fait de poches une sorte de sac sur le devant.
I don’t know when I stopped breathing. I first noticed yesterday when I climbed the stone stairs leading up to the pedestrian overpass near post office square. I wasn’t panting in the slightest. I can breathe if I want to, and obviously I need to for talking, but otherwise the nanopores pull oxygen right through my skin.
I’m gonna get in so much trouble if the lab finds out I’ve been contaminated.
No, Doc, just kidding. Looks like space science, rocketry or so.
Can you read my some titles?
Er, no. Cryptical letters. Are these Chinese… ouch! What are you doing.
Only adjusting some params. How is it now?
Well, yeah, better. But I don’t understand anything yet. Tri-Lipi-what? Can you make me understand that stuff? Would be great, me a rocket scientist! Hihi…
Keep serious, man!
But you wired my brain to that machine, stimulating my neurologicacacack sweestymama Aiiiooh-gnarp-gnarp. Knairidoodlewagabbimucha trullaroo… What did you do.
Adjusting again. Better now?
Slightly.
What did you say?
You don’t want to know. Hey, the mags have gone. They’re apples now.
Really?
No kidding, Doc.
Try to grab one.
Can’t. I have no hands either.
What?
One is a screwdriver, the other a…broccoli?
Oh no! Try this.
Ooooh-oh! That’s funny! More of this, please.
Wait, I have an idea.
Tell me.
People would pay more to take a science mag for porn than the other way. Let’s try this out…