#smallstories — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #smallstories, aggregated by home.social.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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
-
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
-
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."
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
"What is your favourite part of your job?" the reporter asked.
"That's a tough one," said the book. "For me, I would say being re-read."
"Because it shows you were loved?"
"No, you can feel that at a first read. It's that I can show more than the first time round."
"It's more intimate?"
"Yes."
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
"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.'
-
"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.'
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
"Oh! Excuse me," I say as I feel the familiar tug, "I'm being summoned."
I materialise in a pentagram in Hell. I glare at the demon.
"I wish I'd never taught you how to reverse the ritual. I was at a party!"
"We're out of salt liquorice."
"Fine, I'll buy some tomorrow. Now send me back!"
*poof*
-
He furnished Windsor Castle before he could grow a beard, drew every tile in the Palace of Westminster, and did it dressed as a shipwrecked sailor. Meet Augustus Pugin: Gothic architect, lifeboatman, full-time inconvenience to gentlemen.
-
He furnished Windsor Castle before he could grow a beard, drew every tile in the Palace of Westminster, and did it dressed as a shipwrecked sailor. Meet Augustus Pugin: Gothic architect, lifeboatman, full-time inconvenience to gentlemen.
-
"What is your wish?" the genie asked.
"You know the story of King Midas?"
"Ah! You want all you touch to become gold?"
"Not gold, book."
"Book?"
"The object I hold will become the book I name."
"I can get you a kindle and a credit card?"
"I like paper books. Oh! And the author will be paid!"
-
Inherited 40 million gold francs. Sailed around the world without leaving his cabin. Built the first motor-home and drove Europe with the curtains shut. Showed it to the Pope by photograph. Meet Raymond Roussel, tourist of the interior.
-
Inherited 40 million gold francs. Sailed around the world without leaving his cabin. Built the first motor-home and drove Europe with the curtains shut. Showed it to the Pope by photograph. Meet Raymond Roussel, tourist of the interior.
-
Tulips and oxen sold off the porch for two dollars. Butterflies on the stove door she cooked supper on. Forget-me-nots on the stair-risers. Painted hands curled into fists. Maud Lewis, of Marshalltown, Nova Scotia — folk painter.
-
Tulips and oxen sold off the porch for two dollars. Butterflies on the stove door she cooked supper on. Forget-me-nots on the stair-risers. Painted hands curled into fists. Maud Lewis, of Marshalltown, Nova Scotia — folk painter.
-
In 1931, two men in fruit-basket helmets sealed themselves in a seven-foot aluminum sphere and rode a hydrogen balloon past 50,000 feet. The valve froze. The hull cracked. Meet Auguste Piccard, Switzerland's tallest contingency planner.
-
In 1931, two men in fruit-basket helmets sealed themselves in a seven-foot aluminum sphere and rode a hydrogen balloon past 50,000 feet. The valve froze. The hull cracked. Meet Auguste Piccard, Switzerland's tallest contingency planner.
-
He burned every note he wrote before twenty-eight, scavenged Ford hubcaps and bomber nose cones, and built a forty-three-tone scale inside an abandoned chick hatchery. Then Harry Partch hit record as the demolition crew arrived.
-
He burned every note he wrote before twenty-eight, scavenged Ford hubcaps and bomber nose cones, and built a forty-three-tone scale inside an abandoned chick hatchery. Then Harry Partch hit record as the demolition crew arrived.
-
Six foot four. Enormous mutton chops. A suitcase holding the entire prehistory of cinema. He boarded the Dijon-to-Paris express in 1890. The train arrived. He did not. Louis Le Prince: the man who invented being unseen.
-
Six foot four. Enormous mutton chops. A suitcase holding the entire prehistory of cinema. He boarded the Dijon-to-Paris express in 1890. The train arrived. He did not. Louis Le Prince: the man who invented being unseen.
-
"Objection! Your honor, the prosecution is ferreting the witness!"
"Don't you mean 'badgering?'" the judge asked.
I motioned with both hands to the other lawyer: two ferrets in one hand; a waistband in the other.
-
He painted the Earl's parrots and taught the Queen to draw. When a hotel blocked his sea view, he rebuilt his villa farther up the hill, identical floor plan, so the cat wouldn't feel lost. Edward Lear, nonsense poet, devoted housemate to Foss.
-
He painted the Earl's parrots and taught the Queen to draw. When a hotel blocked his sea view, he rebuilt his villa farther up the hill, identical floor plan, so the cat wouldn't feel lost. Edward Lear, nonsense poet, devoted housemate to Foss.
-
He invented group theory at sixteen. Cauchy lost it. Fourier took it home and died. Poisson called it underdeveloped. Then, in prison, Évariste Galois predicted his own death in a duel over a woman, and nine months later kept the appointment.
-
A toll collector painted jungles on weekends. A critic said he worked with his feet, blindfolded. Then Picasso bought one of his portraits for five francs and threw him a banquet. Braque brought a harmonica. The guest of honor was Henri Rousseau.
-
When Captain Dubois remarked ten degrees of pitch, he was observing a correct instrument indication. But it didn’t tell him that the airplane was obeying the laws of aerodynamics, not the intuitive expectation that nose up means climbing. The plane shattered intact on the midnight-black granite of the Atlantic pointing up towards the sky.
#MastoPrompt
#pitch
#AF447
#creativewriting
#writing
#smallstories
@stevencudahy -
When Captain Dubois remarked ten degrees of pitch, he was observing a correct instrument indication. But it didn’t tell him that the airplane was obeying the laws of aerodynamics, not the intuitive expectation that nose up means climbing. The plane shattered intact on the midnight-black granite of the Atlantic pointing up towards the sky.
#MastoPrompt
#pitch
#AF447
#creativewriting
#writing
#smallstories
@stevencudahy -
Fleeting.
I was on my way home after a long day of work. Darkness had already fallen over the city and mixed with wisps of fog to accompany me as I walked towards the train station. My headphones were doing their part in giving the world that subdued and calm vibe, where you feel more like a visitor than an inhabitant.
For most of the ride, I stared out the window, getting more and more drowsy with every light flitting past the train through the nebulous night. The cold air hitting my face as I disembarked drove away some of the sleepiness and made me long to be home already.
The fog, now dense and swirling, had transformed my way home from a boring walk into a fascinating journey, where the lights and structures of the city were putting on a shadow puppet play just for me. As I rounded a corner, I bumped into something tall and dark.
"I'm so sorry." I apologized and plucked my headphones out while taking a step back. An eery silence fell over the world.
The shadow didn't move or say anything, so I carefully held out my hand and felt the rough bark of a tree. Relief rippled through my chest.
"Ok then. I patted the tree. Have a good night." I said, mostly to fill the void with sound, stepped around the tree and hurried towards my apartment.
When the echoes of the last footsteps had subsided, the shadow shivered.
«GOOD. NIGHT.» The words consisted more of rumbles in the gravely substrate of the earth than tones, but they were said.
The shadow flowed down the street, following the footsteps.