An Ordinary Day
MICRO FICTION #1
An Ordinary Day
It was another ordinary day. Bob rose early. He brushed his teeth and had breakfast. Bacon and eggs. Buttered toast. Glass of orange juice. From concentrate. He retrieved his morning paper from the front doorstep and began reading it while finishing his second cup of coffee. He nodded approvingly as his two children, one boy and one girl, grabbed their sack lunches and left to catch the school bus. Bob kissed his wife and left for work. His workday was average. He neither hated nor loved his job.
After work Bob came home and had dinner with his wife and kids. Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes. Green beans. Bob waved off dessert. Dinner had been enough. He grabbed his pipe and headed out to the backyard. The kids were upstairs working on their homework. He lit his pipe and saw his next door neighbor do the same. Bob raised the lit pipe and his gesture was reciprocated. After his smoke, Bob mounted the twin repulsor laser cannon situated where the pool had once been, and strapped himself in. A horde of saucers began descending from the sky in wave after wave. Bob grabbed the trigger with both hands and unleashed hell. The sky was alive with fire and the thunderous boom of explosions. Bob looked to his left and to his right and saw that his neighbors were all doing the same as he. Conformity, he thought. He smiled. Wryly.
After about a half hour Bob descended from his smoking cannon. He patted the hot steel barrel cautiously.
"What'd you have for dinner, Bob?"
"Meat loaf" Bob answered. "You?"
"Same."
"Well... have a good night."
"You do the same."
Bob put on his pajamas and slid into bed.
He kissed his wife on the forehead.
"Good night, honey" she said without opening her eyes.
"Sleep tight" he said and switched off the lamp.
Another Day
By
Bob stopped at
the game store on the way home and looked at the little translucent canisters
arrayed in their display under the glass counter. He was getting tired of
shooting the saucers. It seemed so escapist. He was in a mood to engage with
social injustice, an angry mood. Finally he made his choice The faintly
colored image etched on the canister was that of a futuristic construction
vehicle. The vehicle was armored and thrust out various gun muzzles.
After a dinner of Salisbury steak, baked potato, and corn, Bob went out back. He got out the canister he had bought and loaded the gamepot into his pipe. The bud had a different color and smell than the flying saucer attack gamepot. His neighbor was smoking too, so Bob saluted him, as was his custom, and then settled down to his new weapon station, an improvised console. The sound of heaving, grinding engines approached, smashing through trees and houses and cars. The hulk of a construction tank loomed over the fence. Bob touched off an IED that blasted half the tank's side off. But more of the construction vehicles approached, bulldozers and cement mixers and cranes, all determined to destroy Bob's community and replace it with some luxury development that meant more profit.
The battle raged. Bob held them off. Then he heard a human voice. "Hey buddy! Take it easy! We're a real construction crew. We're not part of the game. We need to get though without being shot" Bob turned off his weapons, relieved he had heard them in time. But then the vehicles rushed forward and smashed into his house. He had lost the game.
As the gamepot wore off Bob trudged back into the house. He felt stupid. He should have remembered that his weapons, like their targets, only existed in the game.
His wife was sitting in the kitchen. He sat down across the table from her and sighed.
"Did you lose your game, honey?" she said.
He nodded. "They tricked me," he said. "But it won't happen again."
After a dinner of Salisbury steak, baked potato, and corn, Bob went out back. He got out the canister he had bought and loaded the gamepot into his pipe. The bud had a different color and smell than the flying saucer attack gamepot. His neighbor was smoking too, so Bob saluted him, as was his custom, and then settled down to his new weapon station, an improvised console. The sound of heaving, grinding engines approached, smashing through trees and houses and cars. The hulk of a construction tank loomed over the fence. Bob touched off an IED that blasted half the tank's side off. But more of the construction vehicles approached, bulldozers and cement mixers and cranes, all determined to destroy Bob's community and replace it with some luxury development that meant more profit.
The battle raged. Bob held them off. Then he heard a human voice. "Hey buddy! Take it easy! We're a real construction crew. We're not part of the game. We need to get though without being shot" Bob turned off his weapons, relieved he had heard them in time. But then the vehicles rushed forward and smashed into his house. He had lost the game.
As the gamepot wore off Bob trudged back into the house. He felt stupid. He should have remembered that his weapons, like their targets, only existed in the game.
His wife was sitting in the kitchen. He sat down across the table from her and sighed.
"Did you lose your game, honey?" she said.
He nodded. "They tricked me," he said. "But it won't happen again."
"It's grisly in there..."
MICRO FICTION #2
"It's grisly in
there..."
Detective Chang saw
the red and blue gumballs illuminating the tenement building from three blocks
away. This neighborhood was known as a trouble spot. Packed to the gills with
freshly arrived immigrants competing with those who had already carved out
their place in the hierarchy of the substrata, it was a closed society where
old scores were settled often by those who were born after the scorebook had
been tallied.
He pulled up to the
curb. The sidewalk was littered with garbage and human refuse. Three uniforms
stood at the entrance of the building. They were young guys. Fresh out of the academy.
They looked nervous and twitchy. Chang nodded at them without making eye
contact and pushed his way inside.
"Detective
Chang", drawled Sergeant Ayub. "To what do we owe such
prestige?"
"Murder's
murder", Chang said flatly.
"Not in this
town. Murder is take-out. Murder is fast food. Murder is..."
"Just show me the
to the scene", Chang snapped.
Detective Chang put on
gloves as they crossed the filthy room.
"I wanna warn you
now; it's grisly in there..."
Chang pushed open the
door to the bathroom and noticed a body sprawled on the floor of the shower.
The shower curtain was held up by only two of the eleven rings. Glowing
greenish blue blood was splattered everywhere. On the sink, the floor, the
ceiling...
"A real
bloodbath", Sergeant Ayub said handing an evidence bag to Detective Chang.
Chang took it with his suction cupped tentacle.
"That will be all
for now, Sergeant."
Ayub winked his one
giant fleshy eye and quietly left the room.
The Shapelessness of Love
MICRO FICTION #3
The Shapelessness of
Love
Blob was a gelatinous, well, blob. Once, on the shoreline, he had been mistaken
for a dead jellyfish. He was most definitely not a jellyfish, but he was in
love with one. Madly upended in a storm driven sea, he had glimpsed the object
of his desire just once and the world shuddered to a stop as if invisible gears
men had made it so just for that solitary, magical moment.
The silvery iridescence, the shapeless form, the way kelp clung to it for
just a moment and then fell away into the darkness.
For years he had searched the ocean in vain. A pelican had informed him
once that there were "many jellyfish in the sea", but the fire that
burned within his seven hearts would not be quelled by such platitudes.
As
the micro cycles wore on and his outer slime coat began to dry and harden, he
still clung to the magnificence of that one memory. Finally he could stand it
no more and with the last of his dying strength, flung himself into the waters
that he had come to know so well. He was pulled far out to sea, carried by a
riptide, and deposited on the sediment of the ocean floor.
"If I cannot be with you my love, I will rest in the place from
whence you came."
He
paused for a moment. The words seemed to come to him slower these past few
micro cycles.
"Of all the worlds the meteor I was travelling in could have taken
me..." he croaked, "I am so glad that it was this one."
Suddenly, a brilliant iridescence illuminated the sea above him. It was a
jellyfish swarm. One solitary jelly, his jelly, descended through the swarm,
and as it neared him he felt the ache of longing and desire come rushing back
into him as if they had met only yesterday.
"Thank Zorb", he thought a moment before his jelly absorbed him
and they became one.
"Now With Real Miëht©"
MICRO FICTION #4
"Now With Real Miëht©"
"PTOOEY!"
Merit spat out a spongey lump from the can of chili she had just opened. With disgust, she picked it up and walked over to the sink. What in Christ's name was it. It had the texture of gristle and bone shards wrapped in raw chicken skin. She ran it under the water and slowly a grey hunk began to take shape. She placed it on a paper towel on the counter next to the can opener and stifled her gag reflex. Out of the corner of her eye she even thought she saw it move for a second and shuddered.
After fishing the can out of the garbage, she sat down and began to examine the label.
"Now With Real Miëht©"
PACKAGED IN BURGOSLENSKIA.
A cursory look on her computer showed her that Burgoslenskia was a former Soviet satellite republic. She immediately hopped on Travelocity and called for a car service.
The plane touched down at Burgoslenskia National Airport. The architecture was classic Soviet Brutalism. The sky was grey. The people were grey. Just like the "Miëht©".
After asking several townsfolk and a few government officials, Merit found out that the factory was in the heart of the Petroschank Forest and that it was "off limits".
When she got to the edge of the forest, which was bordered by a rusty fence, she saw several signs that intimated that the forest was an irradiated zone.
Undaunted, Merit pressed on.
She was an experienced hiker and arrived at a clearing a few days later and saw a huge factory. Smoke belched out of several chimney stacks. There was a distinct smell. It smelled like... chili.
Through her binoculars, Merit could see a gargantuan saucer had crash landed near the factory. Wait, that didn't make sense. They must have built the factory after the crash. She had to get a closer look. At dusk she stole down to the edge of the factory and scaled a wall to a skylight that overlooked the factory floor. She saw a gangplank extending from the saucer to a large opening in the warehouse. Two by two, factory worker were carrying humanoid robotic creatures on stretchers out of the craft. On the factory floor, itself, Merit watched as men used giant can openers to slice through the outer metal shells. Inside were creatures covered in neon green scales. A rope was tied around the feet of each of these aliens and they were lifted off the factory floor and deposited in a great vat of boiling liquid. A conveyor belt ran from the vat and huge lumps of greyish gunk were carried from the vat over to the cannery. The final step was the application of the label "Now With Real Miëht©".
Merit rolled onto her back and breathed heavilly.
She scratched her scalp.
In her hand was a neon green scale.
“In The Future We Will All Have Fins…”
“In The Future We Will All Have Fins…”
Filip Karppinen was a Finnish scientist specializing in the field of climate change. He was also the first and only person to successfully travel in time and return. When he entered his time machine capsule with the intention of seeking, and averting, the future effects of global warming, he was a conservatively groomed and rational person. When he emerged one second later, he was bearded and his hair was wild and braided with seaweed and seashells and his eyes were like pindots. He was also soaking wet.
Camera crews were on hand to capture the historic event. The only thing that Karppinen could say, and would ever say until his dying day, was, “In the future, we will all have fins.” He repeated this at steadily increasing volumes until he was dragged away.
This clip played constantly on news channels across the world. The Finnish techno band Valtameri sampled Filip Karppinen’s ravings and created a 47 minute free form composition around it. The song, or rather an edited version of it, became a worldwide hit and catapulted Valtameri into instant stardom.
Filip Karppinen died in an institution decades later. His death was notable not only for his daring adventure, but for his place in pop culture history. His funeral was quite an affair. He was laid to rest on the Mojave Ocean bed with an enormous crowd in attendance.
At the appropriate moment they raised their fins in a final salute.
Some Assembly Required
MICRO FICTION #6
Maximo Tiberius VI or “Maximo the lesser” crash landed in the backyard of a suburban home near a child’s swing set. On his own planet, the machine world of Mechanicus Rex 2737 (formerly Rubiconlonious 1172). He was the 6th in a series of sentient robots who had enslaved the original inhabitants known sorrowfully throughout the galaxy as “The Rubes”. All that is known of this lamentable situation is that the Rubes had constructed the original Maximo Tiberius as a tourist attraction. Beings throughout the known system came from far and wide to gaze upon the iron behemoth. Mechanicus Rex 2737 was beset by sudden and traumatic electrical storms. It is believed that a bolt of radioactive electricity had struck Maximo Tiberius and instilled within him the ability to generate others such as himself and an insatiable thirst to conquer.
It was not long before the race of mechanical mammoths began to vanquish all resistance as world after world fell to their merciless might. Maximo Tiberius VI was constructed for the single minded purpose of finding new worlds to conquer. He set out from his home planet and after a millennium found a wormhole to the Milky Way Galaxy and by extension the planet Earth.
A small child named Billy found the ship upended in his sandbox. He picked it up and examined it. He then noticed Maximo lying flat in the grass a few feet away.
“Cool! A robot!” Billy was ecstatic. These must have been toys left over from yesterday’s birthday party. His now.
“SURRENDER OR BE DESTROYED!” Maximo warned.
“Radical. He talks.” Billy picked Maximo up and carried him into his bedroom. He placed him on the floor and began searching through his toy box. His head was swimming with possibilities. Robot vs. Dinosaur. Robot vs. Power Rangers. Robot vs. Ninja Turtles. The variations were multitudinous.
Maximo trained his weapon on Billy whose back was turned.
Billy’s parents saw a flash coming from Billy’s room. They quickly rushed in to see if anything was wrong. There was a robot in a pile of ash near Billy’s toy box.
As the lights of his eyes began to dim, Maximo was able to manage one final warning.
“BEWARE THE SEVENTH. MAXIMO THE PONDEROUS. MAXIMO THE DESTROYER OF WORLDS.”
