| Microfiction: Blade and Battery -- Three |
[Mar. 13th, 2012|04:20 pm] |
A week before that, I stepped out of the portal and looked around while the customs people examined my bags. The air was prickly and dry, but it wasn't that different from visiting, say, Arizona, except for the ozone smell from the portal.
The customs man in the black and blue uniform held up the swiss army knife with my initials on it. He raised an eyebrow.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Blade and Battery -- Two |
[Mar. 5th, 2012|03:09 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Party And Bullshit by Notorious B.I.G. | ] |
The coral man adjusted the cloth wrapped around him, giving more air space.
Despite the brightness of the sun, he did not squint, though his eyes nictated.
The man stood up and adjusted his belt. The sword, straight and gunmetal grey, swung from a simple loop of untanned leather.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Blade and Battery -- One |
[Mar. 1st, 2012|01:00 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  cynical | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Dick Is A Killer - RX | ] |
It turns out kicking down a door isn't as easy as they make it look on TV. In the end, I ended up twisting the doorknob as hard as I could and rapid-ramming with my shoulder.
The door popped open... Stuck rather than locked.
The sword was out of the sheathe immediately. I was still young enough then that I found the sound of it sliding out, iron on leather, almost as exciting as the fucking.
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| Microfiction: Rivals |
[Dec. 12th, 2011|04:56 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
Christos double-checked his knife before he started. It was simple and straight, with a faux leather sheath.
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| Microfiction: Deathless |
[May. 12th, 2011|12:56 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
Out of bullets, I had resorted to slashing the pistol's barrel across her face until her head and my hand were the same shade of flindered red.
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| Microfiction: Clarity |
[Dec. 18th, 2010|01:22 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  headachey | ] |
Robert was in the middle of shouting at the DA when his fingers thawed. The feeling creeped back into his naked hands like water trickling down a gutter.
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| Microfiction: Inevitable |
[Dec. 15th, 2010|04:26 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  silly | ] |
The clusters of human fingers were fused to each other and writhing. They hooked together in wiggling loops, which then wrapped around the man's torso. He pulled away from the urinal and the hole above it from which the abomination sprouted, and his face distorted with effort.
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| Microfiction: Function Call |
[Dec. 15th, 2010|02:24 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
His face was red and her mouth was open and the sounds that came out were less words so much as liquid hysteria.
I looked at my old-fashioned watch. The long hand was on the four.
I held up the stolen device and ran my finger over the strip of fur like the first time.
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| Micofiction: Combination |
[Dec. 13th, 2010|06:03 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  busy | ] |
There was a buzzing sound, and then a crisp boom. The two grunts could see where the jet had crashed from the grey-blue smoke roiling up from the blood red foliage.
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| Microfiction: Googlenex |
[Dec. 4th, 2010|01:32 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
"We had a customer death," I said.
"Some of the worldline tunnels must be down," she said, her hands on her hips. Her tiny nostrils pulsed when the sentence ended.
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| Microfiction: Incident P |
[Dec. 1st, 2010|11:19 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  itchy | ] |
When she bumped into me as she got into the Metro car, at first the only thing I noticed was the giant black trash bag she was dragging.
Bumping into me was a feat, given I was sitting down, though the seat was right next to the door. But the bag was big, and she was short.
I glanced around the car. It was largely empty.
The only other person was a tall, redheaded man with another such bag next to him, so he and his luggage took up two seats.
I laughed and said: "You people dragging dead bodies around?"
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Dana |
[Nov. 30th, 2010|11:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hungry | ] |
She held out her hand and said: "Give me the bag. I need to draw something out from it.".
She was smiling, but the smile was only halfway there, an ironic quirk higher on one side. Her fists were on her hips, and I was acutely aware how much taller than me she was.
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| Microfiction: Upkeep |
[Nov. 16th, 2010|03:56 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sore throat | ] |
There was crimson pain and vertigo, and then I discovered my body crouched over the bathtub, the burn of vomit in my throat and nostrils.
I imagined myself punching the wall and screaming. I imagined the pain and savored it.
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| Microfiction: Rubber Tree Plant |
[Nov. 15th, 2010|05:10 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
The man blinked and sat up, running his hand through his hair. The medical resident held up a mirror, and could see the hair was black.
"How long before you restored my backup?"
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| Microfiction: Expert System |
[Nov. 12th, 2010|12:05 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | famished | ] |
The elderly man's hair was gone and he was clean shaven. He was just wrinkled enough, along with the crumpled way he stood, to give the impression of being very old indeed.
He was sweating, and looking back and forth.
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| Microfiction: Subversion |
[Nov. 10th, 2010|03:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  listless | ] |
The man was older. Balding but fit.
He leaned against the half-finished brick wall. He looked in every direction, even up, before he fished around in his pocket, pulling out four pieces of chalk: red, blue, green, and yellow.
He perspired, and the sweat stained his white shirt the same color as the last piece of chalk.
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| Microfiction: Willpower |
[Nov. 9th, 2010|12:29 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  annoyed with the day job | ] |
The man's beard was just a tiny bit overgrown, and his shirt was just a little too small. Blue fabric strained around the buttons down the front. The blazier was clean but had a tiny hole in the back.
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| Microfiction: Padding |
[Nov. 5th, 2010|05:59 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | headachey | ] |
The pain radiated from my eyes toward the top of my head, combining into a single, crackling pain in my forehead. I put my multiflanged pseudopod to my head, and...
Blinked at the pseudopod as it flexed, absorbed, extruded and re-absorbed. Where were my hands?
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| Microfiction: No Cigar |
[Nov. 4th, 2010|10:25 pm] |
Twelve men and one woman huddled around the pentacle burnt into the plywood floor. There was barely enough room for them, with the wheeled boxes that filled the warehouse.
But it made it easy to dump a bucket over the woman, since I was standing on one of the boxes.
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| Microfiction: Delayed Satisfaction |
[Nov. 4th, 2010|05:20 pm] |
-2.31 Hours
After the ansible conversation, I had a little coffee. It was bitter, but it'd been iced just the way I liked it.
-2.45 Hours
The ansible chirped like a rusty wheel, and I slapped the button immediately. There wasn't even a crackle, but there was that crystal hum that they never could quite get rid of.
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| Microfiction: Adaptation Decay |
[Nov. 3rd, 2010|06:05 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hungry | ] |
Even looking from behind on the escalator, I could tell he was all postnat. He wasn't very tall but his muscles were a little too defined, and his hair was a little too red.
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| Microfiction: Second Mutation |
[Nov. 1st, 2010|11:34 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
Some of the men writhed and cried out, but most of them just twitched. Several had learned to scream without harming their voices. She always marveled at how they still had just enough sense not to go hoarse, making it unlike the things she'd read. She suspected that they didn't want the additional pain in their throats.
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| Microfiction: Connubial |
[Oct. 29th, 2010|05:41 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hungry | ] |
When the old men offered me the choice of spear, pistol, or chakram, I refused them all.
Instead I ran. The fear made my stride wider, and my muscles vibrated with every step. I was falling more than fleeing, barely catching myself with each step. The fear seemed to make me heavier, and all that weight was on each foot as it struck.
And I turned, and faced brick. Rather than stop, I tried to punch the wall, every muscle tense, and I punched and I struck. Every muscle hardened, but there was an underlying fragility, like industrial-grade plastic. I felt the pain, every crunch and burn, but I was too scared to stop.
By the time your mother and the other women had caught up with me, I had fainted. |
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| Spasm |
[Aug. 3rd, 2010|03:37 pm] |
Short version: Went to hospital today, but am OK. Repeat, I am OK.
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| Microfiction: Occam's Deciever |
[Jan. 2nd, 2010|04:10 pm] |
Bramer said, "And this is my friend, Bob."
And he motioned at thin air.
Well, to be fair, the air wasn't actually thin. In the heat, after the rains, it was tepid. Thick. But all that was there was air.
I still remember the conversation I had with Merrell.
"Oh, he's eccentric, but he's brilliant," he'd said, nodding.
His nods were hypnotic, given the double-plus chin. He had a servant to clean it daily. Sometimes hourly, if the air conditioning wasn't working.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Greenstripe |
[Dec. 7th, 2009|12:16 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga | ] |
The music's beat was not so much driving as it was bludgeoning.
He couldn't hear what the woman was saying, but he could see the curves highlighted and out-thrust by the too-tight leathers.
He navigated through the pillar of club-meat using the fluorescent-white flash of her teeth and the lime green stripe in her red hair as dual beacons.
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| Microfiction: Currorg |
[Dec. 4th, 2009|08:13 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | hungry | ] |
Cheryl Veale had skin like blended latte and hair that shone like her eyes. And her eyes sparkled when she walked into the kitchen and saw the boiling pot, and sniffed.
"Curry," she said. "A lot of coriander in that powder, from the smell of it."
She leaned over the pot and sniffed again.
"Curried chicken," she said.
That was the last thing she ever said.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: The Three IT Workers |
[Dec. 3rd, 2009|07:22 pm] |
The tall, balding manager was berating a man in wearing an orange turtleneck and a blazer.
The pretty little man in the turtleneck shrugged, and took a sip from the soda bottle in which he had hidden a small quantity of gin while the balding manager talked.
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| Microfiction: Lateral Move |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|07:56 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
Mint numbness pushed into Frank's knucklejoints like his hands were
only gristle and bone.
"Should have brought my gloves," he growled, reaching for the doorknob.
Though he'd never admit it, he watched his hand reaching out in order
to make sure it still had flesh on it. Frank glanced at his cigarette
hand for the same unacknowledged reason, tapping off ash.
The door opened onto a plumped white plain, flecks swirling in the wind.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Fen |
[Nov. 10th, 2009|07:25 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
As I stood in the snow looking at the half-covered corpse, I
remembered that the Neo-Nipponese believe that snow means the gods
are so filled with desire for the world, that there's a bukkake party
in Heaven.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Clover |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|06:37 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
Phil hated Metro newbies.
As he watched the woman fumble with her construction of magnetic tape and paper, he considered how much time he was losing.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Made of This |
[Nov. 5th, 2009|12:36 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | tired | ] |
The thing didn't quite blot out the sky, but it made a good stab at
it. And stab was the word, with its surfboard-sized black obsidian
blades and toddler-sized myrtle scales.
The missiles didn't seem to affect it, though they caused it to expel
a gas that smelled of soy sauce and raisins that made the explosions
appear periwinkle and mauve.
Steven Turner was glad that the missiles had little effect other than
to rock the thing, as he was busy climbing on it. The teardrop shape
had suggested something to him, and he was carefully climbing down a
thick, jagged cord that seemed to link the thing to the ground.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Processing |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|04:59 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
For a change, Casimir didn't mind it when his wireless connection slowed.
"Got you," he said, watching as the display on the back of his hand
triangulated the encoded packets inside the local splayband ecosystem.
The hand-coded GUI was minimalist, just an arrow and a popup where the
packet dump pit-pattered faster than Casimir's heartbeat.
His method for getting past the gunmetal-grey door that the lime green
arrow pointed out to him was old-fashioned. He pulled the display off
his hand and pocketed it before he exerted himself with the crowbar.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Digest-Sized Romeo and Juliet with Squids |
[Oct. 29th, 2009|08:44 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  random | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | "Marble House" by the Knife | ] |
Romeo and Juliet are from warring families.
Romeo and Juliet see each other at a party and fall in love, which makes things difficult for them. Sloppy makeouts make it better, almost.
After some death involving those close to them and some shouting about pox, Romeo and Juliet secretly fuck, because that's what you do to stave off the fear of death. Lots of pretty things are said, and very little is said about Juliet's belly expanding like a slowly loosening fist.
To escape marriage to a French city, Juliet contrives to escape by faking her own death with some designer roofies.
However, her messenger to Romeo is eaten by a squid, and thus, believing Juliet dead, Romeo fights a squid in a kung-fu battle in slow motion that ends with Romeo white, dead, and covered with red sucker marks like coffee rings on an old placemat.
When she wakes up, Juliet wails a lot, but subsequently gets over it and gets involved in some fan fiction with her nurse. |
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| Microfiction: Aphorism Crisscross Crisis Black |
[Oct. 28th, 2009|06:21 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | crazy | ] |
"Listen," said Lachlann. "I know we're thousands of light years from
Earth and our surgeon is dead."
"It wouldn't be a problem if the autodoc was at full capacity," repeated Selma.
"I know, I know," Lachlann said, cracking his knuckles. "But... You
know me. As an engineer, I've dabbled in a lot of things. Including
things that are supposed to be hard. Especially things that are
supposedly difficult."
Selma blinked and sniffled.
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Predictably Meta |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|07:06 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
Joey stared at the screen and scowled.
"They say," he told the screen, "that if you have writer's block, you
write about writer's block."
( Read more... ) |
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| Microfiction: Cynical SF Story Concentrate |
[Oct. 27th, 2009|01:11 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
Zeke pushed the chrome-and-pleather lever on his time machine. The sun
hopped swiftly across the sky, whipping past his head, strobing light
and darkness, like a bad rave. His stomach roiled and he kept patting
his hair, trying to detect the wind that wasn't there, because he felt
like he was rushing headlong without actually moving.
( Read more... ) |
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| Personal Financial Aid |
[Sep. 28th, 2009|03:28 pm] |
After my own bout of financial difficulty, I would be remiss to mention that Blade and his family could also use a little help, and probably deserve it more than me.
http://helpthehamiltons.wordpress.com/
http://community.livejournal.com/hthauction/
For those of you who aren't familiar with my old college crowd, Blade aka ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) vaxjedi and I go way back. Some of the old NC crowd who still follow my LJ might even remember him from when he worked with me at Wake Forest in NC.
Spread the word.
In other news, I hope to have the stories flowing again soon. I've been a bad boy and not making the time, and I need to knuckle under again. |
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| Thanks Again |
[Aug. 14th, 2009|01:52 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | random | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
I got paid today, which means I'm firmly out of the woods again. Most of you who lent me money should have gotten an email giving it back to you, plus interest (or not, if that's what you requested). If you don't get anything by Monday and was expecting something, email me.
Knock on wood, but I believe that this has gotten me out of a cycle of going negative in my account balance and being charged out the bum by my bank. |
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| HE'S BACK |
[Aug. 10th, 2009|05:20 pm] |
So, I don't really have time for a story today, in part because I'm ill, but it's been a long time so I want to remind you to sing:
HOT PINK JESUS FROM OUTER SPACE
HERE TO SAVE THE HUMAN RACE
EVEN IF HE HAS TO SMASH IN YOUR STUPID FACE
HOT PINK JESUS FROM OUTER SPACE
As usual, feel free to add your own verses. :) |
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| Thank You! |
[Aug. 7th, 2009|01:33 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | thought | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | crazy | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Rotersand -- Almost Wasted | ] |
Thanks to my friends all over, I now have enough to go positive in my bank account, plus a comfortable cushion in case of overdraft fees before PayPal finally gets the money in my real bank account. Y'all will get paid back, with 5% interest, on the 15th.
Some of you didn't want the 5%, and I'll be respecting that. The objection is that it's worse than some of those paycheck loan places, and I guess my response is that (A) I don't do this often and (B) for the amounts we're talking about, it's still cheaper than the overdraft fees that Bank of America is charging me. |
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| Microfiction: Side Maths |
[Aug. 6th, 2009|06:08 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fic | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | busy | ] |
Let J be a human female.
Let W be the perfect mystical hermaphrodite, attempting to assimilate all of humanity by viewing each human as a function and engaging in an alchemical convolution to destroy itself and any given person (such as J) to result in a new W -- W' if you prefer -- that incorporates the best of all humans that have been assimilated up to that point.
So far, each version of W or W' or W'' or whatever smelled of your favorite childhood meal and frustrated mereological essentialism.
( Read more... ) |
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| E-Begging |
[Aug. 6th, 2009|03:31 pm] |
THANK YOU, EVERYONE, I THINK I'M GOOD NOW. Y'ALL ARE AWESOME. :)
I have enough to go positive in my bank account, plus a comfortable cushion in case of overdraft fees before PayPal finally gets the money in my real bank account. Y'all will get paid back, with 5% interest, on the 15th.
Original post below.
( --- ) |
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depressed
artistic
awake
aggravated