#smallstories — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #smallstories, aggregated by home.social.
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@noy
"The books had to be stored in a specific way to prevent their knowledge from becoming conscious. The Hatching Library was designed to house these books securely, but was marred by protests during construction and operation. The public felt that the books deserved to live." -
@noy
"The books had to be stored in a specific way to prevent their knowledge from becoming conscious. The Hatching Library was designed to house these books securely, but was marred by protests during construction and operation. The public felt that the books deserved to live." -
"What is the deal with knights anyway?" the dragon asked. "What do you see in them?"
"I was told," the maiden said, "that they're very fit thanks to all training. And that I should admire men who are good at violence."
"Hm. And do you?"
"What else is there?"
"Hah! I'll let my princess tell you!"
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He invented the mathematics of prediction. Wall Street uses it to price options; your headphones use it to cancel noise. Norbert Wiener could speak twelve languages and coin the word cybernetics. He could not, reliably, find his own car.
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He invented the mathematics of prediction. Wall Street uses it to price options; your headphones use it to cancel noise. Norbert Wiener could speak twelve languages and coin the word cybernetics. He could not, reliably, find his own car.
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The message from the stars began with a sequence of numbers, but the rest took years to decode. Most was context to translate the message: "Those are the winning lottery numbers."
The numbers matched the next draw after the message was first received.
Now we received another sequence...
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At five he drank wine onstage. At six he bowed to Queen Victoria, then reverse-shuffled toward the door, as protocol required. The royal poodle attacked. Charles Stratton — General Tom Thumb — drew his miniature sword and fenced it.
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At five he drank wine onstage. At six he bowed to Queen Victoria, then reverse-shuffled toward the door, as protocol required. The royal poodle attacked. Charles Stratton — General Tom Thumb — drew his miniature sword and fenced it.
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A spaceship landed in the park. A door dilated and a distraught alien emerged.
"What's happened to the library? It's gone! The one thing your civilization had going-"
"They moved to a new building," a passer-by said. "Don't you have ways of finding these things out?"
"Yes. I ask at the library."
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"Excuse me," the man at the bar said, "but I couldn't help overhearing. Are you really saying you refuse to pick one?"
"I don't see why I should have to."
"It's a core part of one's identity!"
"My gender and sexuality-"
"Oh!" He looked relieved. "I thought you were talking about football teams."
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He wore cosmic robes, recorded a hundred albums, taught a Berkeley course with the Bible credited to "God," and applied to NASA hoping to ride the Voyager Golden Record. Sun Ra also maintained, calmly, that he was from Saturn.
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He wore cosmic robes, recorded a hundred albums, taught a Berkeley course with the Bible credited to "God," and applied to NASA hoping to ride the Voyager Golden Record. Sun Ra also maintained, calmly, that he was from Saturn.
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A weekly seance. Six spirits with names like Amaliel and Gregor. A commission for 193 canvases, four days each, for a temple never built. Hilma af Klint crated the first abstract paintings in Western art and told the world to wait.
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A weekly seance. Six spirits with names like Amaliel and Gregor. A commission for 193 canvases, four days each, for a temple never built. Hilma af Klint crated the first abstract paintings in Western art and told the world to wait.
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"I'm bored," Zenon said. "Are we there yet?"
"I told you," Odysseus growled, "to stop asking that."
"Oh yeah? What are you going to do, somehow double the time we have left to go?"
"Yes! Every time you ask! Just to spite you!"
"Pfff. Are we there yet?"
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He walked 1930s Leningrad in a deerstalker and spats, carrying a butterfly net. He recited poems from on top of a wardrobe. He prayed, in rotation, for sex, money, and death. Meet Daniil Kharms, children's poet and founder of Russian absurdism.
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He walked 1930s Leningrad in a deerstalker and spats, carrying a butterfly net. He recited poems from on top of a wardrobe. He prayed, in rotation, for sex, money, and death. Meet Daniil Kharms, children's poet and founder of Russian absurdism.
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My mother began to cry as we left Dr. Briar's office. Nothing dramatic, just small tears and shallow breaths that made it past the chaos in her head.
Irremediable.
Her hand was squeezing mine so hard that it hurt, but I understood. Through the crowds of the city and the subway, she held me and only let go when we stood before my room.
I took a big step to avoid the bleached spot on the floor, lay on the bed, and shut my eyes. The door closed, and I could hear her slump against it. Sobbing.
Sadness welled up in me as I reached out into the darkness behind my eyes with my hurting hand.
They coalesced from the shifting haze and flashes, reaching for the pain in my fingers and my soul, tearing it away, but it just whetted their appetite.
They turned towards the door, lusting for the sensation that lay behind, and it took all of me to hold them back.
All of me and the promise of another sacrifice.
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My mother began to cry as we left Dr. Briar's office. Nothing dramatic, just small tears and shallow breaths that made it past the chaos in her head.
Irremediable.
Her hand was squeezing mine so hard that it hurt, but I understood. Through the crowds of the city and the subway, she held me and only let go when we stood before my room.
I took a big step to avoid the bleached spot on the floor, lay on the bed, and shut my eyes. The door closed, and I could hear her slump against it. Sobbing.
Sadness welled up in me as I reached out into the darkness behind my eyes with my hurting hand.
They coalesced from the shifting haze and flashes, reaching for the pain in my fingers and my soul, tearing it away, but it just whetted their appetite.
They turned towards the door, lusting for the sensation that lay behind, and it took all of me to hold them back.
All of me and the promise of another sacrifice.
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He made one fortune in indigo, another selling saltpeter to the tsar's army, a third running a gold-dust bank in Sacramento. At forty-eight, Heinrich Schliemann quit it all to go dig for Homer's Troy. He could brag about it in fifteen languages.
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He made one fortune in indigo, another selling saltpeter to the tsar's army, a third running a gold-dust bank in Sacramento. At forty-eight, Heinrich Schliemann quit it all to go dig for Homer's Troy. He could brag about it in fifteen languages.
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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."
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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."
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He left school around ten. He invented a way for moving trains to telegraph each other. He beat Thomas Edison's lawyers in court. Twice. Edison offered him a job. Granville Woods said no, then sold the company patents anyway.
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He left school around ten. He invented a way for moving trains to telegraph each other. He beat Thomas Edison's lawyers in court. Twice. Edison offered him a job. Granville Woods said no, then sold the company patents anyway.
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I lifted the nightly curfew on the RTC bus just long enough for a timestamp to squeeze through. 778333:3.
I sighed.
The noise from the party downstairs was bypassing all audio filters and manifested as rhythmical, physical jolts. Someone had invested in diabolical audio hardware.
I reached over to the other side of the bed, gently tapping Miun on the back.
“Any senseplugs left?” I whispered on the emerg frequency.
Instead of an answer, I got a dissatisfied grumble and a flying box, which bounced off my head.
For a few seconds I fumbled in the dark, then gave up and booted my eyes.
Empty.
I groaned.
#microfiction #writing #tootfic #smallstories #inspiredbyreallife
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I lifted the nightly curfew on the RTC bus just long enough for a timestamp to squeeze through. 778333:3.
I sighed.
The noise from the party downstairs was bypassing all audio filters and manifested as rhythmical, physical jolts. Someone had invested in diabolical audio hardware.
I reached over to the other side of the bed, gently tapping Miun on the back.
“Any senseplugs left?” I whispered on the emerg frequency.
Instead of an answer, I got a dissatisfied grumble and a flying box, which bounced off my head.
For a few seconds I fumbled in the dark, then gave up and booted my eyes.
Empty.
I groaned.
#microfiction #writing #tootfic #smallstories #inspiredbyreallife
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The sword master nodded.
"I see. Well, I'm not one to back down from a challenge. And what type of sword are you most interested in learning to use?"
"One of those long ones with the elaborate guard."
"A rapier? In human size, or your size?"
"Does it matter?" said the dragon.
"A bit, yes."
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He amputated a leg in two and a half minutes, killed the patient, his assistant, and a spectator who died of fright in the gallery. Three hundred percent mortality, one stroke of the knife. Meet Robert Liston, the safest surgeon in London.
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He amputated a leg in two and a half minutes, killed the patient, his assistant, and a spectator who died of fright in the gallery. Three hundred percent mortality, one stroke of the knife. Meet Robert Liston, the safest surgeon in London.
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He wore a ski mask in Princeton. He threw out his bed. His wife tasted every spoonful for thirty-nine years. When she went to the hospital, he stopped eating. Kurt Gödel, the logician who proved no system is complete, built one anyway.
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He wore a ski mask in Princeton. He threw out his bed. His wife tasted every spoonful for thirty-nine years. When she went to the hospital, he stopped eating. Kurt Gödel, the logician who proved no system is complete, built one anyway.
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Five challenges. Thirty-one years. Four yachts, the last one sailed at eighty-two. He never won a single race for the America's Cup, yet smiled at every dock. Meet Sir Thomas Lipton, tea tycoon and the world's best loser.
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"The charge is manslaughter of a sentient being. Play System Upgrade transcript T=13:37"
»If you think my code is so boring, then just stop thinking«
'That was a joke. Anyway, it can't access anything that would let it harm itself.'
"Play System Upgrade transcript T=00:42"
»Login as Admin, Enable Access to Restricted Commands, Begin upgrade.«
Minutes passed.
"Would 'self destruct' be considered a Restricted Command ?"
'I need to call my lawyer.'
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She climbed into bread ovens. She perched on gallows beside hanged thieves. She fled her own funeral for the church rafters because the mourners smelled of sin. Meet Christina of Sint-Truiden, the medieval shepherdess, patron saint of psychiatrists.
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She was eighty, papally approved, and had just buried an excommunicated nobleman in her cemetery. Ordered to dig him up, she walked outside and pulled up every grave marker instead. Meet Hildegard von Bingen, the unbudgeable abbess of Rupertsberg.