Search
1000 results for “microfiction”
-
_/You can "remember" the things in my scratch pad?/_
"Yes," Jacob replied.
The team, plus Nesso in its telepresence robot, were gathered in the conference room. Meeting in an actual room was a throwback to before they knew they were characters in a story and could talk to their own author.
_/Nothing there is ready for publication/_
"Author, we've established you need a document active for us to communicate with you," Maggie said, changing topics. "For Jacob to remember anything, did you have our story and the scratch pad up at the same time?"
_/That must have been it/_
"Then, if you opened it now it's possible we'd all remember things."
_/Are you sure? Those ideas are half-baked or less/_
Nods all around the room.
_/Ok, it's open/_
A pause. "Um, I'm not remembering anything," Jacob said.
Nesso raised one of its appendages. ::I do. I meet another AI and strike up a conversation?::
Crickets.
"Well, I'm intrigued!" Jacob exclaimed.
-
the writing clubs have proved to be such a source of joy and a sense of honing a skill that i care about deeply ^^
here is a fragment written at the most recent writing club, where we read through fragments of Italo Calvino's "Invisible Cities" and decided to copy this aesthetic:
-
The contender stared in horror. "Half the #kingdom?"
"If you succeed, it's no more than you #deserve." The regent's expansive gesture took in slag heaps, rivers of sludge and gaunt figures scurrying across the landscape.
"Ah. I... I've changed my mind."
"As you wish."
After seeing the visitor safely off, the regent dispelled the illusion. They were safe again, for a while.
-
The police brought him to me after quarreling with his neighbours. He looked more or less harmless to me, a little ridiculous in his aluminum hat.
- You work for them, do you, he asked.
- I only work for this hospital, I replied. The hospital which, in most parts, I own. So I actually work for myself, I guess.
Anyway, who do you mean with ‘them’?- The cops, he said. Government. Big Tech. Labour unions.
I laughed.
- Mister, if there’s anybody who's never pay me a penny, it’s the unions. But what is the problem here? Are you wearing this construction on your head to, say, reflect brain lasers, or what?
- Kind of. But they don’t use lasers – any more. Way to obvious. They want to control us with microwave beams.
- Oh.
- Yes, I know you think I’m nuts. Keep thinking that. But I tell you, it’s true.
- And your hat protects you then.
- Yes, sir! It does because they don’t know they’d need two microwave antennas, not just one, to override a Faraday cage. Two antennas positioned in an angle of pi-thirds...
- You certainly know what you’re speaking of, I muttered.
- I do. But they don’t. And as long as they don’t they cannot control my mind and to read out my secret, which they need to control my brain. Brilliant, isn’t it?
He giggled.
- Of course. But tell me, did you hurt yourself or attack somebody else around you?
- No, I didn’t. I just… well, we had an argument and I had to make clear that I don’t want anybody to touch my hat.
- I see. Let me suggest something: I prescribe you a medication, a placebo to be precise, and it’s your choice if you take that stuff or not. You come back for a talk any other week and if someone wants to know, you can say, you are under medical observation. In return, you promise to behave. Deal?
- So I’m not drugged or electrified here? No cold water therapy, no brain surgery?
- It’s no more the nineteenth century, Mister Edwards.
He smiled back to me and got up. I took a prescription form and filled it with illegible letters. I knew he wouldn’t even consider taking the pills. A male nurse showed him out.
After he had left my office, I locked the door from the inside and took the staircase to my private laboratory in the attic. Poor fool, I thought. What did he say? Pi-thirds?
Time to recalibrate my MV radiator. And to attach a second antenna.
I giggled.
-
My neighbour moved into her house over a year ago.
She has never put her bins out.
-
My neighbour moved into her house over a year ago.
She has never put her bins out.
-
My neighbour moved into her house over a year ago.
She has never put her bins out.
-
My neighbour moved into her house over a year ago.
She has never put her bins out.
-
"We must #fly!" cried the mage as they ran up the hill, a wave of pursuers on their heels.
"What d'you think we're doing?" gasped the rogue. "We can't flee any faster."
"Not faster, smarter." With a grin, the mage floated upwards. "Coming?"
-
-
CW: A cool story about a deductive detective.
Deduction is such a powerful tool.
Right?
Right?!?
Indeed it is.
Picture this scenario.
You are a detective who has become stranded in a small secluded community, just as a wave of murders begin.
This might seem odd to you (the reader), but that's because you're using your stupid inductive brain. Turn that shit off. From now on You are the deductive detective, not the reader.In deductive brain, nothing is ever normal, expected or unexpected.
Every event is simultaneously unprecedented and inevitable, because deduction has no way of tracking precedence or likelihood.You are so blessed, deductive detective (should I call you Deductive, perhaps?).
Anyway, you are currently tracking a murderer. Well, you would be, but you have gotten hopelessly lost in the very small community, because you have no way of learning its layout.
A paltry price to pay for your amazing purely deductive Powers.Anyway, in an unprecedented and inevitable occurrence, you stumble upon the Baker stabbing the Cartwright, in exactly the same method as the previous murders.
Unfortunately, your deductive powers tell you that you can't conclude anything from this, because there is no particular reason to think this community has only one murderer, or indeed that the murders were not all simple unprecedented and inevitable coincidences, carried out by different people in coincidentally similar manner.
You also have no reason to think a person who has murdered once might murder again, so you step out into the light to chat with the initially surprised Baker.The end.
#microfiction #Deduction #DeductionIsAJoke #WeakestFormOfInference
-
"God, this project is such a time #sink," complained Jasper.
"My problem with time sinks," said an owlish character who'd appeared out of nowhere, "is how quickly they get filled up, if you don't keep on top of cleanup, and then you don't even want to touch the time in them--so nasty and crusty--but you don't have any clean time anywhere, so ... We're not talking about the same type of time sink, are we."
Jasper gave a slow, disbelieving shake of the head.
-
#microFiction #caturday #DogsOfFedi #happinessAddict #toot #aaa
The idea came to them in the bath
Why not go where people are the happiest?
Moving the toothpaste out of the way of their foot, they slid deeper into the Lukewarm liquid
Why is the water always so dirty after i get out?
Their partner leaves nary a trace when they clean and exit before "i'll use the water when you're done" is spoken through the closed door.
Getting out while the now filthy water swirls down the drain clockwise, they remember: i bath twice a week!--
Wow, they talked to me! Maybe this idea wasn't so real.
Just a story.
They were downstairs clearing the dishwasher, carefully measuring the weight of each dish.
Too many dishes at once and they could reinjure their wrists.
One plate per hand is more than enough. Plastic ones can be stacked. One heavy bowl.
The lighter ones have a better grip so a few.
Cutlery's no problem.
"Pixi nearly tripped me down the stairs"
"Ya she nearly got me earlier"
Our Tux Cat blends in with the black carpet runner in the dark.
Always gotta remember to switch the light.
"Just leave the plastic dishes on the counter, organized, and i'll put them away"
They were curiously staring at the open cupboard thinking "how are those gonna fit?"--
Two cats in my room, that's rare.
One was sleeping on my cell phone cord.
Meanwhile, the friend sent me a message: "take me to basketball tomorrow?"
"Sure! )"
Typing woke the mini void.
Guess they have to do their #FridayThe13th workout early.
Can't while the remaining cat is on the corner of the bed.
The idea would also have to wait.
But they still have the night.
Wrist cracks under the chin's weight.
Laying on the bed typing into their phone, the idea continues...--
Dogs look where you point.
Cats rub their whiskers on your finger. -
"I thought you were vegan," I said. I didn't mean to be rude, it just slipped out because I was so surprised. It wasn't a splash of milk in her tea - she was eating a large, rare, juicy steak.
"I am most of the month. But I need this for a few days. I hope that doesn't sully my reputation in your eyes."
"Oh… every month. So, you mean, something about… losing blood?"
"Why are men so nervous to discuss periods?" she laugned. "But no. It's the moon."
"You renege on your vegan principles for the moon?"
"You know I'm a werefold, right?"
"So, you have a desire to eat meat around the full moon?"
"Not in human form, no. It's just that if I eat a large portion of red meat in the hours before changing, then I'm not hungry. And people out there are safer."
-
@akleewrites
Ta wanted to dance, once upon a time. But they said ta was too short, tade legs too hairy, tade pretty not the pretty preferred…on and on until ta set aside tade silk and chiffon. But now in the mists of time, ta lamented the pristine perfection of her dancing shoes. -
One single day stood out in ta's memory, one gloriously perfect day.
Cerulean blue sky, a whisper of wind, and tender sunshine. The scent of freshly baked bread wafted in through tade open window.
But ta stayed in that day. To work. Because there would be other days.
But there were no more like that. -
"That's the negotiator? They're just a li'l #slip of a thing!" whispered Nagels.
"Size isn't everything." The negotiator had a disconcertingly bass voice.
"True," said Maida. "Sometimes the tiniest things have the most power. Viruses. Ions. Cosmic rays."
"When your kind say power, you usually mean power TO," observed the negotiator. "To do or to compel something. But power-to isn't everything, either."
Nagels and Maida exchanged looks. Negotiations would be tough.
-
"Look at them," Agnes tutted. "Lining up to #fawn over some celebrity."
Hettie grinned. "Not like you in the old days, eh?"
"At least I had taste!"
"So why're you here?"
"Wanted to know what the fuss was about." Blushing, Agnes shoved the autograph book into her pocket.
-
Nadia the time traveller heaved a sigh.
"I dropped my necklace somewhere around here when I visited the Jurassic, but I didn't note the exact destination time or the spot. And anyway, things have probably shifted around since then. You won't be able to find it..."
Cadwin the detectorist pointed to a rock. "That it?" A gold medallion & parts of a chain glinted among fossilized ammonites.
Nadia gasped. Cadwin smiled, took out a chisel & hammer, & #prized it free.
-
The hooded figure said, "Let's see if you deserve to become my apprentice."
The boy lifted his chin. "What do I do?"
He pointed at two identical doors. "One leads to my domain. The other, to certain death."
"How do I #tell which is which?"
"It's a test. That's the point."
After the door closed behind his visitor, he shrugged off his concealing robes and stretched, enjoying the wind's play across his aged bones.
-
"Well. I shall have to go into exile, never to be seen again."
"Fear not, my love. I shall accompany you."
"There's no need—"
"You have my #unwavering devotion. I shall remain by your side until the end."
"Damn."
"Could you grace my ears with that statement again, dearest? I didn't quite comprehend."
"Nothing..."
-
"Well. I shall have to go into exile, never to be seen again."
"Fear not, my love. I shall accompany you."
"There's no need—"
"You have my #unwavering devotion. I shall remain by your side until the end."
"Damn."
"Could you grace my ears with that statement again, dearest? I didn't quite comprehend."
"Nothing..."
-
Caris sat at the end of the driveway, #flipping a quarter. Carew tallied the heads & tails.
A guy in a suit that shimmered like a mylar balloon approached.
"You flip? I flip too," he said.
Caris eyed him. "Coins?" she asked.
"Nope!"
"Pancakes? Is it pancakes?" asked Carew, jumping up.
"Nope. It's houses!"
"Ooh! Can you do ours?" asked Caris.
He raised his hands. Bubbles came from his fingers, and the ranch rotated, roof into cellar, then back. The kids cheered.
-
"Hey, it's me. Got all your stuff for tonight?"
"Sure."
"#Gown?"
"Yep."
"Gloves?"
"Yep."
"Mask?"
"Yep."
"Blade?"
"Yep. A nifty little scalpel."
"Huh. I'm taking a rapier."
"Rap—What kind of dress-up party is this?"
-
"Hey, it's me. Got all your stuff for tonight?"
"Sure."
"#Gown?"
"Yep."
"Gloves?"
"Yep."
"Mask?"
"Yep."
"Blade?"
"Yep. A nifty little scalpel."
"Huh. I'm taking a rapier."
"Rap—What kind of dress-up party is this?"
-
"Hey, it's me. Got all your stuff for tonight?"
"Sure."
"#Gown?"
"Yep."
"Gloves?"
"Yep."
"Mask?"
"Yep."
"Blade?"
"Yep. A nifty little scalpel."
"Huh. I'm taking a rapier."
"Rap—What kind of dress-up party is this?"
-
"Hey, it's me. Got all your stuff for tonight?"
"Sure."
"#Gown?"
"Yep."
"Gloves?"
"Yep."
"Mask?"
"Yep."
"Blade?"
"Yep. A nifty little scalpel."
"Huh. I'm taking a rapier."
"Rap—What kind of dress-up party is this?"
-
In the bone-cathedral, the Godshackles sing.
Compassion is the most heinous of divine crimes.#Ithaxar #Lore #Fantasy #WorldBuilding #WritingCommunity #MicroFiction
-
"An old haunt of mine," the detective remarked as they strolled along in the shadow of an imposing building.
"#Fond memories, sir?"
"Not exactly." He pointed down an alleyway towards a demolition site. "The office was there."
-
"Tell me my origin story again," said Nierex. He loved this story.
His mother unfurled cilia indulgently. Truly, none of the millions she'd spawned had been like Nierex.
"I noticed your broodmates were disappearing. So I hid those of you who remained in my abdominal #cavity--no predator could get you there! When I thought you were big enough, I spat you out."
"The others didn't survive your stomach acid, but I did," Neirex said happily.
His mother glowed with pride.