@VisualInspiration
He is the Chosen One. Selected among the many candidates to be the pilot of "The Bumblebee", the newest spaceship of the fleet. He won't go to the Moon, but he likes to ask her blessing before every mission. Call him superstitious, but this is something his mother taught him when he was a kid. And he believes in this silly ritual. But most important, the Moon believes in him, and that's why she has always blessed him… #WritingPrompt
@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
Whoever designed the successor to the Space Shuttle should get a medal. And at least six months at the nearest psychiatric hospital, too. This thing shouldn't possibly work, yet there she is, doing a vertical lift-off. She won't get to the moon like the president wanted (cheap bastard), but now all the private space companies are out of business. "Space is ours, again", the president said in a speech. No one understood what he meant at the time… #WritingPrompt
@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
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
Writing Prompt: In a future time your grave is robbed. Who is the theif? How do they see the “treasure” of your grave as salvation? How do they find it cursed? What is one thing in the grave that they do not dare disturb?
(a grave need not be a physical thing and treasure could be gold or information or anything rare) #writing#writingprompt
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…
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.”
He leaned against a round window frame and pressed his forehead to the stained glass. Through a haze of purple, he could see a little grove of trees trembling in the wind. He focused on the branches, on the sensation of glass cooling his skin, on the woodgrain of the windowsill plucking at his fingertips like the drum of a music box.