Awkward. I stared at the vampire's teeth and waved vaguely. "You have... there's something green."
"Oh, sorry." He turned his back.
At least my captor was polite. "Didn't realise you ate spinach."
"Sorry to disappoint you. It's #kale."
microfiction
Police have called for sale of matter displacement diodes to be regulated after the viral “sink hole” craze again caused traffic chaos yesterday. Diodes as powerful as 50kg/hr can be purchased from foreign gadget sites with no import permit, and if misused can result in the formation of large voids in public infrastructure. The federal minister for overtechnology has
Wandering Shop Story prompt: #refrain #wss366
"Sir, I must ask you to refrain from using your d-com while passing through customs."
The smartly-dressed man in the business suit gave a side-eye look at the prim lady behind the desk, slapped his passport on the counter, and turned away.
"Yeah, Jim, sixteen megabucks per quarter ventery. Not a hundredth more. And you tell that bastard Caleb - "
"SIR!"
He turned back to the counter to see the woman glaring at him, her jaw tight.
"Sir, I will not ask you again. You must end your call immediately while undergoing customs screening."
He rolled his eyes and half turned away again.
"Yeah mate, just some uppity flunky at the 'port, I'll be - "
He spun around as the d-com was plucked off his ear.
"Hey, bitch, give that back! That was serious business you just interrupted!"
His look of outrage faded a little when he saw the predatory smile.
"Refusing a direction from a duly-authorised customs officer: class two felony, not less than six months custodial. Using obscene language in response to a government official carrying out their duty: class one felony, not less than two years custodial."
She picked up the passport and pushed it into a slot. A slight whiff of burning drifted out, then she pulled the passport out. The phrase "Cancelled due to felony conviction" was carved right through it.
The look of horror on the man's face brought a slightly wider smile, as two goons stepped up and gripped the man's arms tightly.
"Enjoy your trip to Ubirna Penal Colony. See you in two and a half years."
Dherlieth Crieran examined the corpse. "How long has he been dead?"
"Two hours," the dwarf replied.
"Good," said the priest. "I will resurrect him."
"But - you believe in no god!"
"Nevertheless."
The dwarf sighed. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't have enough gold to cover...."
"Gold?" asked the dark elf. "As an offering to what god? I ask nothing; whatever you give me, I keep."
"Oh?" The dwarf handed over a small pouch. "Does your sect accept converts...?"
"Let me get this straight. Your lab has bred a dragon?"
"A wyvern, director. It has two legs, two wings, whereas a-"
"Which flies, breathes fire, and is intelligent?"
"About as intelligent as a border collie."
"So, intelligent. Why?"
"You asked us to invent measures to take down small drones."
"Okay," said Bearnice, "Pachy, you're going to be the murder victim, so all you need to do is lie down and be still. Remember: the dead tell no tales, so no talking!"
Ruff frowned. "Are we doing another Sherlock Holmes murder mystery? I thought we were doing something different for once."
Bearnice threw up her hands. "A death in a menagerie IS different! We've never done that!"
"What are you doing in here?" the night security guy asked.
Fianna spun round & braced herself against the desk.
"Me? Ah--" Her mouth felt like #flannel & her heart was hammering. One hand brushed the leaf of an African violet with a ribbon round its pot. "I was leaving a plant for the boss," she improvised. "A present."
The security guy looked over her shoulder & saw the violet. "Good idea! He loves those." He waved her--and the thumb drive in her pocket--on out.
An ogre knocked - carefully - on the witch's door.
She looked up at the hulking figure. "Can I help you?"
"Do you know where giants live?"
"Haven't been any here for centuries. Why?"
The ogre blushed. "I... It's stupid, but... I want to be the small spoon."
"Hm. I have a shrinking potion."
Edited 291d ago
#writever Altitude
Dragons can fly as long as they want at high altitude with no fear of frost : with their flame, they heat up the air ahead of them before they cross it. It is easy to do, once you master circular breathing.
My thieving tendencies come down to this: if I see something just lying around, I can't resist the urge to take it. This has netted me numerous children's toys from the town park, flip-flops at the beach, and backpacks & cellphones left at cafe tables. It's not the value or utility of the object, it's the availability. /Here I am! Come take me!/
Today I picked up a laser #pointer from a lectern & a set of blueprints from a university building under renovation. Score!
He was only a simple robot. Pick up a seed, put seed in pot, sprinkle with water. And then the seeds grew.
The humans only saw work they no longer had to do themselves, never noticing the spark of life and joy in his small camera lenses, probably because they didn't know that you get a soul when you bring life.
#MicroFiction #tootfic
“She peeked over the edge of the bed.
"Are you still there?" she whispered.
The monsters under the bed did not reply.
"There is an elf on my shelf."
Silence.
"It watches me, and reports to Santa."
A hoarse growl came under the bed:
"Turn the light off."
She smiled.
"Thank you."
#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories “
That came around Twitter years ago. I did not take note of who created it to give them credit. Can anyone help with that part?
@MicroSFF < original author.
Edited 287d ago
It is a popular mathematical experiment to try and work out just how fast Santa has to be to reach every house with a child in a single 24 hour period.
The calculations always end up with a significant fraction of the speed of light.
There then usually follow discussions about what the collateral damage from Santa's passing would be. And cargo limits, and so on.
All of these are wrong, and ignore another end-of-year tradition. The portrayal of the ending year as an old man.
Now that I've put these two traditions side-by-side, I think you can see what is really going on.
It is possible for one man to visit every house in a night, with no shock waves or any of that silliness. But it comes at a cost.
For that man, the night lasts many years, as he travels back in time after each visit. Even with time travel, he does not get much time to eat - so the snacks you leave out are essential to him surviving the night.
But he only just survives. By the end of the night he will have aged over forty years. And then he hands the reins of the time-travelling sleigh to a younger man, warning him of the cost.
Someone always answers the call, despite the cost, because there is always someone willing to sacrifice everything to bring joy and light, even just a little, even if only for a moment.
So leave the snacks, and, if you catch a glimpse of him, give him a bow of respect. He deserves it.
#SFF #SF #Christmas #Santa #microfiction #microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting
Edited 287d ago
My spouse and I chose this house, 20-plus years ago, because besides being a nice building, it had a park at the end of the street, bus stops either end, a corner store (RIP, now a pilates studio) and a shopping plaza less than a klick away. “Location, location, location” as the realtors say.
In our street we (by which i mean the schoolteacher across the road enforces it on us all) have an annual tradition of a Christmas party in the park. We bring food, share home brewed beverages, welcome new residents and celebrate old (the beer brewer is the longest resident, having grown up in the street and seen his own children do same). And there are games. Non optional games. This year it was pass-the-parcel. I won a prize (one of the interstitial prizes, not the Big Prize At The End). I chose a tin box from the prize pile, it looked about the right size to enclose an electronics project i had in mind. The tin turned out to contain note cards and envelopes. Winnie the Pooh note cards. Half of them have “thank you” printed on the front in faux-cursive script, the others have no preprinted text. What am I going to do with those? Are there ten people in my life I want to thank? And what messages would I send to ten other people when Circumstances have given me absolutely no rules to guide the interaction. This is a heavy responsibility. I think I will start with some thank yous to warm up, then move on to Other Messages. My costume is nearly ready—it has a cape, fuck you, Edna—just waiting on the rocket fuel to arrive.
#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #TrueStoryUntilItIsnt
"Let's dine across the divide. Meet me at 7," Glint said.
"Where? Is that a restaurant?" I asked, looking down. But the gnome was gone.
I found Across the Divide just off the main square. The restaurant was crowded with a mix of humans, orcs and gnomes. I approved. People didn't always mix. I was especially glad I wasn't the only orc in the room.
But then I noticed the room was split. A gentle ramp on my left led to an area with a raised floor and shorter tables, mostly populated by gnomes. On my right were larger tables where humans and orcs sat.
Then I spotted the middle - several tables along the divide, one side for taller patrons, the other for shorter folk. I spotted Glint waving to me from one of them. I smiled.
I’m sorry. I always wondered what you people with a “mind’s eye” were seeing; when I close /my/ peepers I just get black. I’m not sorry about my neurovisual projector putting apple and meta’s helmet projects in the dustbin where they belong. I’m not sorry I’ve brought sight to the blind, tissue-penetrating vision to surgeons and radar senses to pilots. It’s that other thing. I swear to you I’m working on an ad-blocker as fast as I can.
A distraught old chess champion's true love dies and in his fit of despair, he summons a demon.
A succubus takes the contract, expecting an easy mark.
Once summoned, she realizes the error—his one true love was playing chess with his old best friend and rival—and she can't return without fulfilling the contract. He begins to teach her chess and, after a time, she begins to teach him to enjoy life again.
One day, many years later, she beats him in a game and vanishes in a puff of perfume and brimstone—her contract fulfilled.
They both spend the rest of their lives trying to resummon the love they didn't know they had.
---
Thanks to @jankhambrams for their inspiration to write this.
“No way could i stick my head in one of those!”
“What? They’re perfectly safe! Each hair is LIDAR-measured and then cut to exact length. Perfect style.”
“I prefer the old-fashioned way—A human hairdresser with a pair of scissors.”
“Haha no; I’ve read about the kind of things you humans get up to with blades.”
Asteroid 431372-Jorts was predicted from gravimetric survey to be a silicaceous rubble-pile, low in metals and too loosely bound to be mined or towed. Of course a derelict alien habitat looks exactly like that, too, until you get within a kilometer of it; that’s why we approached. Of all the rocks we’ve surveyed this is only our second ever verified artifact, but the ship’s cat is super stoked, she’s been scratching to get outside constantly since we docked.
Spaceship lands in the park. A door dilates. Alien comes out. Says to the gathering crowd:
"I've been all over the universe, seen everything. Can you entertain me?"
Someone in the crowd shouts: "Great clown Pagliacci is in town, jokes out of this world!"
Alien starts crying. "But Earthlings..."
Behold, the most powerful wand in the world. It defeated many of my enemies and reached many low spots of my back!
#microfiction
I was waiting for my robot friend when a sleek stranger came up to me.
"Hi!" they said.
"Um... hi?"
"Oh, sorry."
My phone pinged with a text from my friend: "Body's in for service, this is a loaner."
"Oh!" I said. "Er... Is it nice?"
"Can't wait to go back. This is..."
"Not you?"
"Not me."
Edited 58d ago
The wizard delivered a box. "Fifty amulets per spec."
"Which anyone can use to, at the cost of a drop of blood, instantly travel anywhere they can see clearly?"
"So like fifty yards for anyone but the young. Quite pointless. Who will you sell these to?"
"Those who buy my invention: binoculars."
The moment had come: Dee's audience with the Paramount. Dee tingled with excitement & nerves as the Paramount looked up from behind his broad desk.
"I understand you have an undertaking to propose?"
"Yes, Ascendency. You see, 20 years ago..."
The Paramount grimaced. "Skip the background. Give it to me in #brief."
Dee bit his lip. "Well then, Ascendency...rubies."
"Rubies and?"
"Singing sands."
The Paramount raised an eyebrow. "All right. Give me the full story."
I noticed a neighbour had set up a little library box in their front yard. I checked the books and saw they were all jumbled up.
I had only moved a few when a net fell on me.
"Gotcha! Oh..."
"What's going on?" I asked.
"There's a feral librarian around."
"Ah. Catch, tag, feed, release?"
"Yup."