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!
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…
Erwann avait fait un rêve enchanteur, dans lequel il arrivait au petit sous-chef des choses déplaisantes à souhait. Il avait été éveillé en sursaut par ce même personnage frappant sur le bureau, au motif qu'on ne dort pas au travail. Erwann se dit qu'il ne tenait qu'au perturbateur, en cas d'insistance, de faire que le rêve fût prémonitoire.
The old fox that seemed to lead the way here is gone. The forest opens, like a portal, leading into a meadow. From the song of birds and the ever-companion, Wind's breath cool and damp, rustling in the leaves, you step into the hum of bees, the warm sun on your skin, grass tickling your ankles. Wind whispers softly in the grass, a dry breath from the south—an flash of orange, a white-tipped foxtail vanishing into the tall grass...
#PennedPossibilities 311 — What is a memory that makes your SC swell with pride?
That armor. The black dragon armor, light as an autumn breeze. The last who owned it, legends say, a million died to take it away from her, but failed in the end.
She gave it to me: The ruler of the world, the most powerful thaumaturge alive. I was the one who nearly killed her, when we fought for our lives incidentally breaking the Curse of Harmony upon her.
I didn't break the curse but was the one who nearly killed her. Yet...
My friend—whose life I saved by pushing her out of the way of a plasma bolt and getting my flank burnt as a result—reminded me of the legend. Made me test the magic, which let me fly like an arrow and loop and dodge more agilely than a sparrow. She added, "She told me it's the first time anyone's got that close in a century. It's a bribe, you know, A loan. She wants you to work for her. You impressed her. "
Thomas décida de couper par le parc. Devant les jeux pour les enfants lui revint le souvenir de ce jour lointain où il entreprit d'épater une grande brune en grimpant au sommet de la cage à poules, se rabotant les soeurs Brontë sur la barre supérieure ce faisant, sans laisser voir son calvaire, à peine pâlir. Thomas se méfiait des grandes brunes depuis lors.
What are the trees talking about? The willows, all turned out in bright new green, are trading gossip. The maples, still in the crinkled, unfolding-butterfly-wing stage of leafing out, are asking questions, all a-wonder. The hickories are popping their leaves out of giant buds like fireworks, and they're that excited. But the #pines, the evergreen pines, they're murmuring about winter. "This is just a warm spell. Wait a bit, a short six months, and it'll be cool again." #wss366#microfiction
Only once a year, the Masters of Tectophonics unveiled their Grand Mechanism for visitors. Not more than three applicants were selected to be led through the giant hall of gears, wheels, tubes, and spheres, chains, conveyors, and shafts. This year, the honor fell upon two fellow scholars and myself. Master Bonafide showed us around for two full days, leading us over stairs and ladders, through trap doors and security locks to peer into every corner from every angle we wanted, patiently answering any question that might occur.
My fellows had already collapsed and been escorted to the exit; my knees began to shiver as well, and I felt that it was time for me to leave, too.
“Is there anything else you wish to know?” asked Master Bonafide.
“Indeed there is,” I said. “Please excuse me if the question sounds offensive. But what is this all for? It’s an overwhelming experience to look at this fascinating machine – I could spend at least a year or two and still would not be able to say how it works.”
“Well, to be honest, we haven’t figured that out ourselves. And it does not matter. It is not important to describe the functionality of pulleys, levers, and the like. What really matters is to interpret them, to find meaning in them and to use the Mechanism right.”
“So what do you use it for?”
Master Bonafide smiled.
“We only use it once a year for one single purpose: To select the three candidates for the annual guided tour.”
I’ve been shopping at one of those fully automated Woolworths for years. It’s so convenient, you swipe your loyalty card and the robots load your groceries into your car. Their AI works out what you need from your purchase history. Except it doesn’t know my kids have moved out; I don’t know what to do with all this Nutella. Send recipes.
@VisualInspiration
The bus pulled up and Trilobite leaned out. "Extinction line?"
"Yeah," said Bear, "guess so. You been picking up a lot?"
"Not as bad as after the astroid. That line went around the block. But more than usual."
"Human won't be popular when it's Their turn, will They?"
"Could be worse. The Anaerobes still won't talk to the Cyanobacteria. Hey, cheer up. You had a good run. Ground Sloth's looking forward to seeing you."
"Ground Sloth? Really? It's been ages!" #MicroFiction
I was working at Microsoft again as a Software Test Engineer and discovered they had broken the microwave feature. It could no longer detect if you had put metal in the microwave and it was sparking.
When I put the bug report in it was closed with the note. We can’t fix this.
I reopened it with the comment, “This worked in Windows 10.”
It was closed again, and a project manager told me to drop it. It was too late in the product cycle to fix now.
So I came in early in the morning, lined up all the computers in the test lab. Put metal cans in the microwaves and blew up the computers and the electrical system of the MS campus.
It was a great surprise to everyone when an unassuming Australian physicist worked out the equations that permitted faster-than-light travel.
It was an even greater surprise to find that the engineering required to build a device to implement the theory was found to be almost trivial. It was not even particularly expensive - a typical EV car cost more than an FTL drive unit.
In accordance with things coming in threes, there was one final surprise: Organic life could not survive the process.
It only cost the lives of five astronauts - and several dozen test animals.
Once this was proven, enthusiasm for the FTL projects around the globe dropped dramatically. But some did continue. One of the more interesting aspects of the mathematics was that the process did not involve any sort of acceleration. The device simply created a field that linked two points in space. Increasing the energy just increased the size of the object transferred.
All you had to do was define the relative coordinates of the origin and the destination.
The first probe sent further than across a room vanished. So did the next three. On a hunch, the engineering team of the fifth probe fitted a powerful transmitter, and sent it on its way. Again, the return program appeared to fail.
And then, a few minutes later, the NASA Deep Space Network reported receiving a beacon message from the probe - just inside the orbit of the moon. The probe had been gone 30 minutes.
Astronomers quickly worked out what was wrong - it was not a problem with the probe, it was because the Earth, and the Solar System had moved.
Having worked out that problem, the next probe was retrieved successfully. And then sent on the first real mission: to a point outside the Milky Way to image our home galaxy.
The probe dutifully returned several hours later, to a point far enough away to not fall to Earth, but close enough to transmit the data it had gathered. The image of the galaxy was all that the designers had hoped for.
The radio transmissions were less expected. Hundreds of them, very high powered, but all structurally the same. And only able to be picked up outside of the radio noise and gas clouds within a galaxy.
When decoded they all basically said the same thing, in many different ways.
Dominique s'évertua à placer dans son devoir d'histoire une expression qui emporterait le morceau, et opta pour "luttes intestinales". Quoique pas de la manière attendue, il en entendit parler longtemps.
#PennedPossibilities 310 — MC or SC POV: What was your favorite day or holiday when you were a child? Favorite Day Remembrance CW: Sad.
Why are you making me remember this now? My favorite day? When I was a child? It was /that/ day, each time Mom returned home. She would sing to me, but she belonged to the world, the theatre, to the concert hall. Plenty of her albums proclaimed that. "Midnight, the Voice and the Heart of the Nation." Those albums, they're all I really have of her. She wasn't one for family pictures. Or family. It's why I can't listen to them any more, and walk out of restaurants when any of her show tunes play.
I do sing her songs in the shower, unthinkingly. My roommate doesn't know who I really am, but she's told me my voice is just like hers. Stupid memory. Stupid reflexes.
I remember being /so happy/ when she'd return home. She'd sing to me, but wasn't at all "hands on." She'd sing and she'd listen to me telling all the things that happened that day with friends and nannies—always with a smile, but I was always on the floor or in my bed or in someone else's lap. Her manager—with whom I share my hair color and skin color so he likely fathered me—would hold me while she sang sometimes. He'd read to me. He'd call me his little tomato, since that was the hair color we shared.
I remember the pair once laughing after I'd been put to bed, not sleeping. I'd peeked through a barely opened door to see. /Him/ she held.
I loved them both.
You've made me remember. Are you happy now? How many times could it have been that I remember her returning? A few dozen? They died before I was five, and now I remember /that,/ too.
[That's the Aurora Midnight, the devil girl from the Reluctance stories. Author retains copyright (c)2024 R.S.]
#WordWeavers 2405.10 — Antagonist POV: What do you like the most about yourself?
[A short tootfic. Likely canon. Her Highness speaking. From /Inklings:/]
My jaw almost dropped at the shear gall of the question, but the Midlands plenipotentiary was, if anything, expert at being jovial. His smile was disarming. He was a diplomat. I didn't gape, but put the tea cup down carefully.
"You're referring to the dragon incident, aren't you?"
He nodded. He plunked a couple lumps of brown sugar in his tea, stirring. It accounted for his corpulence, something rare amongst his gaunt brethren who spent much of their day running on forest paths. He'd made it from the Midlands in just weeks, on horseback I guessed. Poor horse. "It's on everyone's tongue. You'd mobilized the militia. Detailed reports hit the Forest Ridge High Tower as if carried by a thunderstorm."
He was making sure I knew "people" kept him well informed, and that my military wasn't what interested him. Much, anyway. I sighed, crossing my legs as I sat back.
I'd mobilized the best and most radiant of my magic users. None could best me, but we expected to face a wyvern the size of my in-town mansion. It had burnt up part of the Fell Woods. A good thing, thinking about that unassailable haven for monsters and wild beasts. Then it attacked a farm.
"The attack on the farm was an accident," I said off-handedly, steepling my fingers.
He paused. Blue eyes speared me. I'd never announced the details of what happened because if I made them official rather than rumor, the public might panic. Nobody died.
The Midlands ought know, I decided then and there. It'd be to my advantage. I'd let him decide the implications. "The grain silo had a moisture problem. It had started to ferment. Who would have thought a dragon might like beer?"
He chuckled, then, "You're serious? You know this? /How?"/ He put down his tea cup with a loud clink, spilling some of the reddish liquor.
I'd rode in with an elite company of my army, through a wood arch that proclaimed "Cornfeld," into a farm yard. I'd been ready to use my radiance to repel fire; dragons of all shapes breathed fire. My troops had the best spears, but it had been centuries since anyone had needed weapons against dragon scale. Would newiron even work? Drowning the beast by swirling airborne the farm's pond was almost our best offense, if the magical beast decided to fight. I knew they disliked fighting. I hoped that I had that much correct. If I had to resort to radiant kinesis to heave rock from a stone fence, it might decide to retaliate against my Townships—if I failed.
What I found was a half-naked girl, barely a woman though very tall, mollifying a distraught farmer and mediating with a red dragon who looked to be hanging on her every word. I could tell this, even though the dragon had the form of a giant bat.
Apparently, with her mediation, both parties were apologizing to each other!
Worse, though covered with mud and ash, visibly scarred, the young woman was devastatingly beautiful. The type of beautiful that made a seasoned and well worn woman like me think of a different kind of bedmate. I wasn't a man...
Wintereyes was her name. She had befriended a dragon.
Innocent and kind.
And immeasurably dangerous.
The ingénue now attended my magic university, despite being uncomfortable around people and wearing clothing. Learning to be human. One of mine.
I said, "What I like about myself is that I know when to fight and when to make friends."
@VisualInspiration
Tycho Base. Officially we're trying to breed crops that can survive the lunar day/night cycle. But we could have done that on Earth.
On Earth, you can be selfish or lazy and smooth it over with a lie. Not so here. Leave the airlock open? You die. Don't check your seals? You die. Reality is as harsh as a lunar shadow.
That's our real experiment: can we breed a new culture? In the pressure cooker of a hard vacuum, can we create something worth exporting to Earth? #MicroFiction