Seezen was not here to visit. She was here to change this moon. Get rid of the cold, warm the atmosphere and get rid of the liquid methane all over the planet. She did not like variety, she was a terraformer, and her job was standardization. There would be some alien life for sure, but it would be inconsequential enough to trample. All alien life so far discovered had been microscopic. Struggling to make the jump from unicellular to multicellular to complex animals. They had a long way to go. Time that she had no time to waste watching little litchen-like blue creatures. She fed in the data in her notepad. The notepad directly started to analyze the data and fed in subroutines into her command module.
It would take years, but the destruction could begin now. She walked over the ice-encrusted landscape and took readings directed to her notepad, which made some more adjustments to the command module.
The command module took a full hour to sort and build in the action plan. She got into her tiny flitter and flew upwards to where her space ship was waiting. The command module greeted her 'Shall I commence the sequence Seezen?' She replied in the affirmative. The command module commenced shooting rays at the poles, blowing up mountains of frozen methane. The moon would soon be rid of the methane.
In the depths of the methane sea near the largest landmass, two large squid-like creatures spoke to one another. They decided to attack the invading vehicle. War was being thrust upon them.
Nice way to start a war...Just forget to do your deep oceanic scans.
ReplyDeleteEmil, I was actually going to write about why they couldn't do the scans, but in the limited space which flash fiction allows, I decided to delete it :)
DeleteI'd kind of wondered how something so obvious could have been missed too. Perhaps it would have been better for Seezen to have been impressed rather than complacent. But, that would have been a different story.
DeleteI suppose that masking the details (of why scan couldn't have been done) by hiding them in a hyper-linked flash fiction story violates the rules for flash fiction.
Otherwise, you could have a network of flash fiction stories where some happen sequentially, others in parallel, some only tangentially related, and others not related at all, for all practical purposes, yet have a coherent whole, presuming they are read in a correct enough order.
I guess that could be something of a new genre: Hyper-fiction. Much easier to do in an eBook than hard copy, for hard copy is inherently more difficult for non-linear stories, with the possible exception of "stream of consciousness."
Good point Chuck, I was wondering the same thing some time back actually. Exploring some of the flash fiction stories to make it a series would be much easier as a writer, since it is already in a setting which has been created. But it may be worth exploring.
DeleteThose omnipresent squids. I've got one in my novel too. Briefly, though. :)
ReplyDeleteNice reading.
Good to hear Agneta, I was actually thinking of building on the concept, but I have too many books in the works to start another - Three at the moment, so I use flash fiction as a way to get in touch with people and engage :)
DeleteI'm terrible at that. Getting in contact with people. I'm just sitting in my little chamber, tapping along in my desolate world of crazy thoughts. I'm daring the few minutes of the day with too many projects but I feel my "spreading too thin" is about to be pruned.
DeleteI'm almost finished with my first novel. Need an editor but can't afford their charge. So I hope my own editing will suffice enough to meet an audience. I long for readers. :)
It's so fun when you dig in deep and keep writing. After a while the characters become live and you dream the story. It's like they're around you, talking to you. You can hear them as memories and see them act. I love writing.
Why not just expand the squids into one of the stories you're working on? It seems people want your stories to be longer. I had to chop my novel into two. It's a bit much with 500 pages. Turn that into a Kindle and you're closing in on 1000 pages. :D
Agneta, I do have three larger books which I am working on too. Similar to your issue, I too cannot afford to pay an editor. One of the things I have done is work with some of the great people at Google Plus who have volunteered to edit one of my short stories as a test case.
ReplyDeleteI do keep writing, that is the key. This blog helps me to connect and keep people engaged. If you want, look up the Anthologies, where I am one of the people supporting it (Talk about it more on G+). Take care and all the very best in your endeavors!