One Year of Instants (2017)

By C M Weller

Throughout the year of 2017, author C. M. Weller took prompts from readers and turned them into flash fictions. One a day, for every day of the year except Christmas. Some are funny. Some are sad. Some are horrifying. Some... are not winners. But there is one for every day of the year. One of them is bound to tickle your fancy.

Take a walk inside the mind of the internet's weirdest author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C M Weller
• Release date: Jan 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370215645

C M Weller

C M Weller has decided to keep their full identity a secret until such time as one of their works becomes a bestseller. They share a house in Burpengary East with two children, two cats, and a spouse who sometimes thinks they're insane.Every October, C M Weller releases a free short story, in honour of both their birthday and All Hallow’s Read.Unfortunately, this author has managed to avoid doing all the things that make author bios interesting reading. Sorry. However, ze has been publishing stories via Smashwords since 2012, and has an Amazon-exclusive novelette titled Free Baby.This writer is allergic to almost all forms of alcohol (long story), too asthmatic to indulge in tobacco, and in possession of a body chemistry that makes the more interesting drugs problematic at best. Thusly, their chief addiction is their own imagination.

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[1] The Galactic Standard Calendar holds a twenty-four hour Day, a ten-day Week, a four-week Month, and a ten-month Year. This is only confusing to Terrans.

Challenge #016: One Fine Day in an Impoverished Neighbourhood

I wish time would skip ahead. I got here too early.

Paul checked her watch. You’re right on time.

"No. I mean… the whole future thing. It’s like… most of my time has been spent waiting for stuff that should have been here, already. Like… I dunno. Tablets should have always been there since my childhood, you know."

And flying cars? teased Paul.

No. Dur. You can’t have flying cars until after self-driving cars have taken over. Because, look at existing traffic. We’re not going to get much better in three dimensions, Karen was in full rant mode by now. "We should have telepresence tablets by now. Something like Google Glass only way more flexible for people who need glasses. Shit, we should be making glasses extinct by now. And not by lasic. It’s like technology has slowed the heck down and nobody knows why."

Something to do with repressed Millennials? guessed Paul. She knew the pattern. So much genius is stuck flipping burgers or on unpaid internships, there’s no room for advancement?

Karen sighed and straightened her hair. "Yeah. Like, if I could afford a college degree, I’d learn how to make these things a thing, you know. Hire other people who knew how to make things a thing. Start a business and everything. But I can’t, so I can’t, so they can’t… and we’re all stuck in a rut on Old Executive time. Building slightly bigger models with better batteries and more functions that we don’t even use."

Running Etsy accounts to pay the rent, added Paul, Running GoFundMe to pay for the little luxuries. Doing commissions to pay for food.

And the cheapest food makes you sick, so you have to do more commissions to pay for medicine. It sucks.

And then they tax the cheap food in an effort to make you eat healthy, but you still can’t get it because food desserts are a thing.

Karen laughed. "I tried to grow a tub garden on my balcony. I got busted for growing weed, even though it was obviously beans. I have an arrest record, even though the charges were dropped. I have a GoFundMe going to pay for the legal fees so I can get it expunged. Which means I’ve given up luxuries until that’s sorted."

So, said Paul. When’s Disney supposed to own the entire world?

Another laugh. Laughs were hard in times like this. I give it two more years. And then all governments all over the world will be run by corporations. At least until the revolution comes.

Paul lifted her water bottle. To the revolution.

Karen lifted hers, Viva la revolution.

They opened their lunchboxes and began eating their packed food from home. It wasn’t good food. Karen had Beannie Weenies, and Paul had Chinese Scramble. But it filled their stomachs and fuelled their perpetual search for enough to get by on.

"Now I’m wishing time would skip ahead," muttered Paul.

Challenge #017: Popular Lies

Write about a false prophet.

And in the bright new age of reckoning, we will no longer have freeloaders sucking on the government teat, preached the man in the large, bright suit. There will be no need for government! No need for taxes! Those who can fulfil a need will do so, and those who need will be sated!

The crowd cheered. Of course they did. It was a message they wanted to hear.

"In this way, and in this way alone, we will be a great nation, once more. We’ll send those who don’t belong back to where they do! We’ll get rid of all the unstable elements! We’re looking out for number one! Who do we look out for?"

The crowd, already excited by their bright new future, shouted, NUMBER ONE!

What nation are we?

NUMBER ONE!

Who decides?

NUMBER ONE!

Who are we?

NUMBER ONE! WE’RE NUMBER ONE!

The man in the large, bright suit basked in the chorus of we’re number one like a reptile basking in the sun. He showered the auditorium with dollar bills, care of chaff cannons, as he left the stage. It was no shock that he was immensely popular. He was also immensely rich, and could easily afford his own campaign.

But the money flooded in anyway. A rising tide of green from the common throng and businesses alike.

And it was no great shock that he won by a landslide. People wanted what he preached. None of that was shocking. Neither were his appointments to key governing positions to ‘downsize’ the administrivia.

What was shocking, after the senate assisted in gutting the laws of the land and homogenising the laws all over the land, was what happened after his position was secure.

The term ‘freeloader’ was legally defined as, anyone who receives government assistance. And the elderly on their pensions were rounded up into state facilities to work to their utmost abilities. The red tape was cut, and government assistance plummetted. As did many laws that protected the weak.

Schools were closed, and children put into factories.

Busses and public transport closed down in favour of industry-run transit that did little or nothing to maintain their systems or police their fallout.

Environmental protections vanished, allowing for the first on-site resorts to spring up in the middle of national parks. Allowing industries to dump their toxins wherever they pleased.

Hospitals had been transformed into prisons. And if the citizens fell sick, they had the freedom to be helped by anyone who wanted to help… or die with their friends and family. But, since everyone was looking out for number one… hardly anyone wanted to help.

The money still poured into the man in charge. Voluntary donations for this facility or that. Always perverted into ways to get the maximum amount of money out of everyone who had a need, and giving little in return.

The nation was dying, and it seemed determined to take everyone with it. But the man in the large, bright suit didn’t mind one bit. He was always looking out for number one.

Challenge #018: To Meet Like Minds

Movies were meant to stay on the screen, flat and large and colorful, gathering you up into their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie misbehaved. It leaked out of the theater, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artifacts to stay connected to it. – Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist

Some stories, they say, are timeless. This is why you find people retelling them so very, very often. Some, once done, can never be done again. Something lacks in the retelling. Something is off in the new version. Something… lacks. The original movie of Harvey, for example, had been re-made in colour, but the remake lacked the appeal of the black and white version.

Some, once told, are never told again. See, Arsenic and Old Lace. Please see Arsenic and Old Lace, you may thank me for it later.

And then… there are the stories that are so powerful that they are not only preserved in their original format, but they change lives in the process of the viewing. Something within, some fragile key element never to be altered, warps minds and souls to its favour and changes the living for the rest of their existence.

A little girl sees someone like her in a fictional position of authority and runs to tell her family all about it. She grows up and changes worlds for more little girls like her. A young man afraid to say who he really is finds a mirror in a man who does not, in fact, exist. But he has the strength to live on, and do what he can against the ignorance he faces. A small child in the middle of nowhere sees a universe, and wishes there could be more of it, and understands the message behind the face paint and the glittery costumes. Worlds start to form inside a young mind. And another generation of stories is born.

But stories always come with a ‘The End’ attached to them. All stories end. And when there are so many who do not wish it to do so, they begin… generating. They expand on the little vision they saw. They extrapolate, they fabricate, they make talismans and keepsakes, and bear little signs that say to others, This is where my heart is. This is who I am, so that others can recognise them.

Because in the vast sea of cogniscents, there is nothing more rewarding than meeting someone who knows where your heart and mind like to holiday.

Challenge #019: Facing Doubt

Stay afraid, but do it anyway. What’s important is the action. You don’t have to wait to be confident. Just do it and eventually the confidence will follow. — Carrie Fisher on pursuing dreams despite mental illness

Rael woke from his haze. His body hurt. That meant that the surgery had gone ahead. In lieu of recovering in an Intensive Care Patient Drawer[2], he and his warming tank were in a dimly-lit shelf in Medik Central. A young nurse sat nearby, studying something so she could become a Doctor all the quicker[3].

He formed a rudimentary speaking apparatus. The bare minimum to make sounds. It took him three goes. They’d given him the strong stuff. Eventually, he was able to form, Was… surgery… successful?

The nurse, who had been dozing a little over her studies, snorted into awareness. What? Oh. Yes. Your Medik team were able to remove the implant. You’ve only lost point zero, zero, zero two three percent of your total mass. Please remain idle until a qualified Medik can assess you.

The Medik had read the essential data, since they were in a hurry, and skipped over the Patient Comfort section. As evidenced by the fact that ze leaned over Rael’s tank for a closer look at his liquid body. The view from Rael’s perspective was… unflattering. Nobody ever is when the view encompases both nostrils and at least one ear hole.

The patient file said not to do that, said the nurse. You’re leaving a bad impression.

Oh. Sorry. The Medik leaned away. There’s no sutures… did we use a molecular bonder for the epidermal surface?

That was what the SPOEns insisted on calling the ‘royal we’, and encompassed the entirety of Medik Central. This was not Rael’s surgical team. The nurse checked her notes. Uuuuhhh… yes. Proprietary equipment from Wave of the Future. They charged Ten Years’ for the rental.

For essential surgical equipment to remove their own torture device? Send that gem of to the Cogniscent Rights’ Committee. This is a pro bono service. Nothing more.

Rael recovered as quickly as he was designed to. In that, his creators did not let him down in that aspect, at least. He had no troubles until the host of Mediks seeing to his recovery cleared him to resume normal daily life.

He never had one of those.

He had always had the chip inside him. Bonded to some essential organs he could not absorb, and programmed to hurt him excruciatingly if he tried it. Now… he was free of that control. And ironically petrified by the prospect. Would people know? Could they detect it? Would he loose life-giving work because citizens would fear him running amok?

Powers knew that his makers had enough footage of his angry, frightened, or frustrated fits to fill a library. From multiple angles. And the Powers That Be also knew that Wave of the Future was using as much of it as they could get away with to smear the rest of his species. All five hundred members of it.

So, whenever he viewed the latest news on his people’s progress towards being freed of their maker-company, he was forced to sit through yet another view of yet another fit, and to feel like a traitor to his kind.

He dithered at the last doorway. Freshly-formed hand almost touching the control to open it. On the other side… reality. People going about their business. People who may have a good reason to hate and fear him. People who could demand he be locked up as a wild animal.

Which is where his classification was, at the moment. He was, now and until some legal hiccough said otherwise, a wild animal of gengineering origins. He much preferred ELF. Engineered Life Form. It encompassed all that he was without adding any weight to his description.

If he stayed… a Medik working in the psychotherapy field would help him touch that control. They would feed him and shelter him and bill him in full. And he knew he barely had the funds for his next meal. Assuming Nik would still talk to him, let alone give him the friend-of-the-family discount.

Well. He could either stay here being afraid or go and find out if there was anything to fear.

Vertigo. Now or never. Rael lunged at the button and felt a sympathetic twinge from inside, where the shock chip used to be. He would be feeling those phantom pains for a long time, yet. Every time he instinctively expected punishment for doing something wrong.

Welcome my friend, boomed Nik. He was waiting with a rough quarter of his family. All of whom were carrying foodstuffs. Casseroles and platters and cakes.

Oh my, Rael breathed.

Officer Marken was also there, and wrapped herself around him in a very off-duty hug. Welcome back, Rael. Count yourself lucky that I didn’t try to cook.

A joke from their very beginnings as something of a team. A joke which he dutifully laughed at. Thank you, he said. And then he realised that it was not just Officer Marken and Nik’s family. There were others. Regulars. People he chatted with on the Trams. People he met in the Veets[4]. His day-to-day life wasn’t as empty as he believed.

And none of them feared him. The passers-by were only merely annoyed at the friend-cluster, and not hateful about his presence.

Wild animal was only a technicality. These were the people who knew the truth.

[2] Space is, ironically, a premium in space. Every open area must be cleaned, heated, and have an air circulation system. And since patients in Intensive Care are not expected to move about very much, their wards have been reduced to a bio-monitoring drawer just large enough to be a comfortable space.

[3] Becoming a medical doctor not only includes some years of intense study, but a minimum of five Galactic Standard Years’ of working as a nurse and learning all the tricks that medical school still can’t teach. This leads to a marked reduction in medical arrogance on the part of the doctors.

[4] Galactic language, though relatively plastic, has had trouble with literal-minded species before. Therefore, what humanity has termed ‘elevators’ or ‘lifts’ has become Vertical Transit. Veet for short.

Challenge #020: Carry the Light

’I don’t want my life to imitate art, I want it to be art." - Carrie Fisher

Auntie Mame is famous for saying, Life is a smorgasbord, and most poor souls are starving to death. But even she would believe that Taerl Vincetti was taking things a bit too far.

She could have been the living embodiment of vanity, were it not for her belief that her life was a performance piece for all who happened to be in her audience. Her life was her work, and her body was simultaneously a canvas and a tool for display. She expected nothing, and gained everything.

Taerl was not as rail-thin as one might imagine of such a performer. She danced, she created, she lived in art, and so she kept her body fit. Not thin, not fat, but fit. She maintained her body with a strict regimen of diet and exercise. And, once a year, she would add to the artwork on her skin.

No matter what her business was, she would move as if it were a performance. Some days, she would dance around the commercial concourses whilst she did her shopping. Some days, she would put on a character, and, in costume, be that person all day. She wouldn’t even answer to her own name. Some days, she would do nothing but stay very still, wherever she decided to settle.

And others, she would play an instrument wherever she wandered.

When she wasn’t in character, she spoke her mind. If she couldn’t remember your name, she would call you ‘dearest’ and sound like she meant it. Her goal, she said, was to spread joy and wonder in the world. To live every day as if it were an artwork.

She always helped the ameteurs. Those who were doing soul-song projects, as she called them. She would be a part in flesh, in economy, in guidance, whenever she met the people who were obviously trying something new. One who actually worked for the entertainment industry if she could act in a production for them.

Ms Vincetti said, "I’m already acting, dearest. And since you get paid, you must give some Hours to charity." And she suggested a cause that helped and supported citizens with mental difficulties.

What nobody knew, until the day after she died, was that that particular cause was close to her own soul. Taerl Vincetti fought her own mind, for every day of her life. When she could no longer bear to be herself, she put on a character and spent her time as them until the desire to harm herself subsided. Tattoos and piercings sated her desires to feel pain. And her performances… exorcised her inner demons. All, as it turned out, on the advice of her therapist and life-partner.

Those who stand in the darkest place, she said, will eagerly carry a lantern so others don’t fall.

Challenge #021: All the Luck

If my life wasn’t funny, it would just be true, and that is unacceptable - Carrie Fisher

Kyle was a Lucker. One of the unfortunate few with the Luck gene. His bad luck was everyone’s good, and vice versa. His ‘range’ was five Standard Distance Units, or he would be isolated on a small station just big enough for one. The universe, it seemed, liked balance.

Fortunately for Kyle, he had found an ‘out’. He moonlighted as a stand-up comic. All he did was tell tales about his own bad luck and audiences were in gales of laughter. The Minutes showered in. And everyone who laughed at him got some good fortune coming their way. He earned, and they benefitted, and he kind-of made a living.

He despised being laughed at.

Kyle was resigned to it. If he ensured his bad luck, others in his range would benefit. If he had accidental good fortune, others would suffer. It was a knife-edge on the catastrophe curve. Making sure he benefitted just enough so that society would accept his presence for yet another day.

Most of his friends were either AI’s or mechanical avatars. Nobody wanted to be too close to a Lucker who might be having a good day. He was used to that. It was amazing what humans could get used to. Except, of course, the laughter aimed at him.

All he did all day was tell people about the horrible things that happened to him. He always finished with a heartfelt, Goodbye and good luck! to the cheers and hoots of the crowd.

At least he was good for a laugh. Pity there wasn’t much else. He still held out the hope of meeting another Lucker who he could cancel out with. But that wasn’t the way.

He couldn’t afford to be that lucky.

Challenge #022: Portents of Doom

You know the bad thing about being a survivor… You keep having to get into difficult situations in order to show off your gift. - Carrie Fisher

I wouldn’t ordinarily complain about your… shenanigans, said the Cuidgari Security Chief everyone knew as Sherlock, "you have such a finely-tuned sense for skating on the borders of legality. But this is the third time this week. Are you bored, or have you and Rael had a… ‘tiff’ as you call it?"

In me defence, I fergot it was a ten-day week, said Shayde. Technically an Ambassador, and nominally human. She had a… complicated backstory[5]. And, as it seemed, she lived to make life interesting for everyone around her. That, and… er…

That ‘er’ was a portent of doom if there ever was one. I’m not a therapist. I’m not here for your confession. Talk to your… ah… what was her outlandish phrase? "Snuggle buddy? He’s at least been taking classes in therapy."

Aye, but there’s sommat up. I can feel it in the air, ye ken.

O powers… he’d triggered a confession anyway. "This is not my realm of expertise, Ambassador. Might I suggest a Therapist-Theist? I’m sure you can find one amenable to your spiritual views, who has also taken a vow of celibacy[6]."

Nah, I been chattin’ wi’ Her Holiness Metharom Oluchi, said Shayde. She also reckons sommat’s comin’. Her knees are playin’ oop, ye ken.

Well. Many was an engineer who set store by Her Holiness’ knees. No wonder the Techies were edgy, this season[7]. "Any other portents of doom?" he asked with a side of sarcasm. It had taken years to learn the art and it came in handy.

Alas, Shayde took him literally, Well, Lu Tze up in the Highway says there’s a something big going tae happen, and Nik says th’ whole station’s on edge. Then there’s th’ fact that the Gluck is in bloom.

Sherlock felt a chill overtake him. The last time the Gluck was in bloom, there was a form of land war over station territory, he murmured. There had been a superstition that a blooming Gluck was a sign of impending disaster, but he was old enough to remember the last time it had happened. He covertly upped the readiness level to Tangerine.

Aye, agreed Shayde. Sommat’s comin’. Sommat big. I cannae stand th’ stress of it. Waitin’ fer the elastic tae snap so we get caught wi’ our pants down.

Now there was a pre-Shattering metaphor… Any chance that this might be a self-fulfilling prophecy?

None, Shayde shook her head. Everyone’s waitin’ fer the other shoe tae drop. And then there’s me. Trying tae nudge it.

Of course she was. "Why?" he asked.

She shrugged. I’m one o’ the ones as can withstand the fallout? she guessed.

O Powers, it was going to be a long month.

[5] See my book Adapting, when it’s eventually published.

[6] Because most therapists in the 25th century also work with intimacy therapies with the touch-starved. Sex workers are psychotherapists in the future. It saves quite a lot of time, actually.

[7] Strange as it may seem, stations have Seasons, based entirely on the general mood of the populace. The human ‘Silly Season’ is the most feared by all Galactic Security Officers.

Challenge #023: Subtle Dangers

Why should I go crazy when I can just as easily wait for it right here. Who wants gum? - Carrie Fisher

Something had to exist that did not like quiet, and M’prax was reasonably certain that it was the Ship’s Human. The dangerous deathworlders had a reputation for being unstoppable protectors and, more to the point, profitable creatures to have. But they were also… well… deathworlders.

It was hard not to think of the being named Sally as an unstoppable killing machine with unpredictable whims and a completely random nature. Mad, bad, and dangerous to know, as one of their number once said about themselves. The crew was fast getting used to human boredom and took steps to avoid it. But this… this was different.

The human took to warmer places to stay. Wrapped themselves up in layers of insulating blankets. They increased their intake of treat food. Watched entertainments that made their eyes leak.

M’prax, concerned, edged up on Sally during her nutrient absorption times and enquired, Are you undergoing a biological stress?

Huh? What? No, Sally shook her head. I’m… lonely I guess. Feeling the lack of positive haptic feedback.

I wasn’t aware that this was a deathworlder need.

It’s a human need. We’re pack creatures. We like to touch and be touched.

That is not a possibility, said M’prax. We are too fragile, we cannot assist.

Yeah, mourned Sally. You and every other cogniscent for five jumps. It’s getting to my head…

M’prax knew that metaphor. This is effecting your mental health?

I might not go crazy, allowed Sally. I’ll just wait for it to come to me. A laugh that had nothing to do with humour. I hear there’s some other humans at Podunk Station. Maybe them and I could hook up. But I have to wait until we’re near enough to Podunk, and… she shrugged. It’s not profitable to go there, yet.

This is not a profitable situation, announced M’prax. I will talk to the Captain.

Sally showed her teeth, a human sign of pleasure. Thanks. You’re a real pal.

She might not have said that if she knew that M’prax’s report to the captain was, "The human is in danger of going more insane than usual! We have to divert to Podunk Station."

Challenge #024: To Fix a World

No motive is pure. No one is good or bad-but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away. - Carrie Fisher

He only wanted to do good. To improve things for everyone. To make the world a better place. There were just a few things that he needed to make sure of. For the good of everyone. Well. Almost everyone. There were some… bad elements… that needed dealing with.

The drains on society, of course. Those without any plausible avenue to making the world better. Those who took without giving. And those who made too much noise about the way things needed to be done. Those who put the brakes on the wheels of progress. Useless people.

They needed everyone to work for a better world. And if they would not or could not work, then they did not deserve the world everyone else made. Getting rid of them by any means necessary just made sense. It was the greater good.

Then he had to get rid of the troublemakers. Those who insisted on perpetrating crime. The genetically deficient. The ones who came into the land to be a leech on society. They had to go. Only right and proper people deserved to prosper.

And as for the right and proper people… obeying the holy book had to be a proper way to behave. Which meant that the women could not be as wanton or as decadent as recent years had made them. They should be following their husbands. The rule of the holy book was the only one they needed.

Then he had to be sure that the decadent media was withheld from impressionable citizens. Banning it or destroying it, to keep his people out of danger. Bad ideas made bad people.

It had to be working. He was doing everything right for the good of all. Which was why it was such a mystery why everything went bad.

Isolated and ignorant, his people had nobody left to blame. Except for him. They didn’t even know what to do after the revolution came.

Challenge #025: Worth a Life

unfortunately it hurts all 3 of my feelings - Carrie Fisher

Oh crap. She’d tripped over a Faerie nest.

Of all the authors who featured the Fair Folk in their modern writings, A. A. Milne said it best: Their bodies were so tiny that they could only process one feeling at a time. What hardly anyone remembered about Faeries is this: immortality can drive cogniscent beings insane. Milne’s traditional cause of faerie death is not what these hyperactive creatures needed.

They needed to be hurled into the sun, in her opinion. But just try talking to NASA about that. In the meantime, there were only so many ways to apologise to a hive of angry Faeries. And one of them involved rum. Which Caeri didn’t have in her pack because this was meant to be a sober hike. The other method involved bloodletting.

Good thing she had her camp knife in her boot. And another good thing that she knew how to overact.

Faeries always loved theatrics.

O lackaday, lackaday, Caeri wailed, flailing around at her exposed skin with the knife. O woe! O horrible fate! To injure so many innocents with a careless foot! Lackaday, woe! Woe, woe, woe, and so on. The cuts, if any occurred, were light and bled impressively, but did not impede any imagined future hike. The point was to distract the Fae from being angry.

They could be amused. They could be entertained. They could even be sympathetic, but that wasn’t likely. Faeries were famously not empathetic with mortals. Seelie and Unseelie alike. The Seelie could be if they tried, but Caerie had just tripped over their nest. Which was not putting them in the mood to try.

They stopped her after a handful of minutes’ worth of woeful wailing and blood scattering all over the little clearing. Such a human need no’ bleed for us, they chirped. They were insects of a sort, so they always buzzed or chirped. Aid us in making a new nest, and be on your way. Safe and whole.

The old nest, Caerie couldn’t help noticing, was a skull on the verge of crumbling. I cannot give my head, it’s needed with the rest of me, Caerie bargained. And I am fair certain you have grown tired of the smell. An idea came to her. Take my hair! I tire of it and it’s always in the way. You could weave a nest out of it that would last far longer than any old skull. And you can grow little plants in it, and have sweet flowers to smell, instead of that rotten head.

The Fae buzzed amongst themselves. It took an entire minute. Which was long for the easily-distracted Fae. We will take your hair. Long and short. With which we will have a fine new nest. And we thank you for your shed blood. We will need that, anon.

Caeri made to cut her hair short, but the fae stopped her. "Nae, mortal. We will take your hair our way."

She agreed, of course. These were Faeries. She couldn’t not agree. But those words were her only warning. She walked -carefully- out of that forest, bald from head to toe. And she would be bald for the rest of her life. Her hair had been left behind in that clearing, to grow so long as the Fae willed it. Independent of Caeri.

So she had to wear wigs all her life and get her eyebrows tattooed on. In fact, she had an ornate ‘scalp’ tattooed onto her head. All in all, she got off lucky.

Challenge #026: On the Other Side of the Fence

I have at least 14 bad angles - Carrie Fisher

Carl made a career out of being abnormal. As one of the rare few who could not be cured, he told the jokes than nobody else dared make. Like, Hey did you hear about the dyslexic biker? He joined Hell’s Angles. or, Public transportation is a real pain. You just try catching the sub every day.

And it worked. People laughed. He earned a living. He kept a home and had what passed for a life. But because his condition was so very rare… certain things just did not exist. Fonts, for instance, that ‘weighed’ the letters into their places and made it easier for him to read anything at all. Those were relics of a bygone era and far more expensive than they had to be.

Amazing how the system could force a person to pay more for something that allegedly nobody wanted. Now there was a joke. Supply and demand. They had the supply, so they could demand what they liked for it. Fonts, reader software, audio books… anything that could make his life a little more tolerable… it cost upwards of five figures. Because his condition was so rare.

Anything that made the ‘normal’ go out of their way to help the ‘abnormal’… that had to cost more. Inconvenience tax. Thank any god available that his condition wasn’t life-threatening. The normals would have loved that. That way, he could just slink off and die and then they needn’t shift themselves an inch from their happy little rut. But not so. He persisted in living. He insisted on being visible. He lived frugally so that he could pay the monthly charges on the software that made his life livable.

He could pay to live as long as he was funny. And he was funny as long as he said all the jokes first. So they could feel good about laughing at people like him.

And every night, he closed with a parody of a prayer for aid from the holy book. Adjusted with dyslexia of course. O Dog, it began, and mentioned sending an Angle to give wisdom to the rouges of the world. And so on. It was hilarious.

Until it happened.

Some higher power heard the letter of his prayer and not the spirit. And sent an angle. Well. Fourteen of them. Glowing brilliantly with a Higher Power, true, but fourteen angles making up a whole circle. No matter which direction Carl looked at it from.

I suppose someone upstairs reckons this is funny, was Carl’s first reaction.

And the angles spake. They didn’t speak. They spake. It was altogether a different experience. From laughter comes joy, spake the angles. And joy is the nature of God.

"Yeah, that’s sweet and all, but I have bigger problems. I need to put myself down all the time just to make enough to keep going. Are you going to be funny or are you going to work?"

Ask and ye shall receive, spake the angles.

Yeah, possibly literally, thought Carl. He wished he could write things down and still find them legible. He needed some solid thinking time for this one. "What I need… is things to be easier for me. Without making it harder for anyone else. I don’t want to change myself. I don’t want to lose the one thing that makes me… me. I just want the people who are sucking the money out of my wallet to understand that they’ve got me as a customer for life, and they don’t need to keep making me pay just to get along. Can you… I dunno. Give them an epiphany and make them wake up to themselves? You know… enough to make them nicer people to people like me?"

And the angles spake thusly, That shall be given.

The angles vanished. Life returned to what passed for normal. Carl still had to stab his soul on a nightly basis just to get enough money to rent his apps.

And then a miracle happened. A disease swept civilisation. It didn’t impair more than a head cold, but a few weeks after recovery… they had dyslexia. Suddenly, they were in the very same boat Carl was in. There was a global demand for the things Carl needed every day. And at much lower prices.

The fonts that Carl could read sprang up all over the place. Books were reprinted due to popular demand.

All the doors that were locked, now opened. So to speak. Carl had to change his act a little, but the prayer remained the same.

And, just as it began, it stopped. People found they could read as they used to. But they never forgot what it had been like. They feared that it would happen again. And life… life became less of a pain in the anatomy.

He could even tell more normal jokes.

Challenge #027: Unrealised, Unrequited, Unrecognised

"If [he][8] was unable to see that I had feelings for him (at least five, but sometimes as many as seven)…" - Carrie Fisher

Lyr watched Ambassador Shayde attempting to flirt with Rael. The impossible force against an oblivious stone. There had been more than one instance of interspecies dating that floundered heavily on the sending a signal stage. And not merely because of cultural difference. Subconscious body-speak could cause the most inconvenient miscommunications.

One species’ flirting is another’s aggressive manoeuvre. And in Rael’s case, all signals were lost in the aether because he didn’t even know what was sexy for his own species. ELF’s whose essential data were proprietary information had a lot of that problem. Once every other decade or so, someone had the bright idea to make The Enlisted Man again, or create some gene-slave that bordered on the very cusp of legal. What followed when such efforts were discovered… Chaos was the mildest term. Rael faced years of legal purgatory with unreleased infants held hostage in cryostorage and essential medical information debated over as intellectual property of a company that was, in essence, dancing as hard as it could to stay out of the coals in their shoes.

The end result was that everyone on the station could tell that Shayde had a Thing for Rael. Except for Rael. He was almost more clueless than a writer, missing every obvious signal that Shayde sent. But he caught the occasional signal and attempted to shut her down. He avoided dating. Dating lead to mating. And thanks to the people who made him, he didn’t have the slightest idea of what to do or if it would kill him when he got there.

Even the littlest of things could get ugly when one knew that one was the ‘most-failure success’[9] test model.

But here was someone clearly in love. She stopped when he told her to stop. She tried her hardest to avoid the behaviours he despised. She even argued that mating didn’t need to be in the cards. She wanted him to be happy. And she took care to make sure he had what she knew would cheer him. Which included giving heart-stopping cake recipes to Nik the Gyiik, who ran Unsuitable Food Eat.

Some people spoke to their haptic therapist. Some people spoke to their bartender. Rael spoke to his favourite chef. And Shayde, spoke to Rael. And hardly anyone spoke to Shayde unless they wanted a headache from the culture shock. Weirdly enough, some people sought her out. Her ancient wisdom was so nonsensical that it bordered on zen.

Ambassador Shayde leaned in Rael’s general direction and laid her hand on his. Not holding it. That would be too much. And she didn’t quite lean into him. Just leaned towards him. He, in turn, shifted his position so that he was leaning slightly in her direction.

It was going to be fun to watch when Rael realised that love was not only possible between him and her, but also that it had been happening for such a long time already.

The two started bickering. Vigorously bickering. Almost to the point of all out war.

Assuming, of course, that they don’t kill each other first. Lyr stepped between them to mediate. Ah the good old double-S, double-D. Some things never changed.

[8] Edited out Harrison’s name so I could make a better prompt out of this, I do not apologise very hard.

[9] Gengineers working on a new species genome deliberately insert failed or warped genes into their perfect gene model to see which variations are the most tolerable. The test run that has the most genetic flaws and is still viable is the ‘most-failure success’. Or the stress-test version. Most euthanise this variant before it achieves consciousness, but Wave of the Future was obviously not that ethical.

Challenge #028: One Hazy Mid-afternoon in an East Sussex Hospital Ward

She has amnesia,

"Thank god!"

What?

…I-I said, THAT’S TERRIBLE!

Nurse Blakely wasn’t fooled for an instant. She had seen what had happened to Miss Doe. Helped patch up the damage. You sound like you know how September Doe got her injuries, Mr… she checked her notes, Smith.

First, her name is Holly Buckley. Second, it’s my job to keep her safe. Third… I really failed this time. And it involved some werewolves. Well. Three werewolves, a volcano, and a bag of crisps.

Crisps, echoed Nurse Blakely.

They really hate the Salt and Vinegar flavour. Should have gone with Bacon ‘n’ Cheese. Or dog treats, come to think of it. Or just bacon. Everyone loves bacon.

I’m a vegetarian, sighed Nurse Blakely.

Mr Smith looked mournful. He reached out to grip her shoulder gently. I’m sorry for your loss, he said. "Anyway. If Holly knew what she’d done, before I dropped her off, here… She’d want to do it again. And I don’t want her to do it again. It was bad enough the last couple of times. But just in case, he lowered his voice to a conspiratorial murmur, Do you know where I can get some bacon bits?"

Challenge #029: Prophecy From Another Dimension

You should write for Steemit…

Oh, that’s right! You already do! Just discovered you there today… Having fun reading you, THANKS!

The message arrived via postcard under their door. They pondered over it for hours, because they had never written a word in their life. Everything was too busy. There was no time. There was no space to create anything in. Their space was a mere bed-sit[10] with cardboard walls and loud neighbours. It was the exact opposite of a writer’s retreat.

But they had a laptop, which was the only source of entertainment they owned. Instead of hooking into online games or watching netflix, that evening, they looked up whatever Steemit was.

You could write anything you liked on there. Introduce yourself. Write about whatever you learned. Write about whatever took your fancy.

They wrote the word, Hi! on their palm and took a bad selfie with the laptop camera in rotten light. They wrote about the note, they wrote about how impossible it was to write anything. They wrote about how all their energy went into work… and they wrote for half an hour. Then they hit ‘submit’.

They were incredibly busy working on another piece, the rest of that night. A story that seemed to come out of nowhere. A story from their own daydreams during the long haul of busses that got them to and from work. During the queues at the bank or the shops. Even during the time they spent on the tilt-a-toilet or the shower in their pokey bathroom.

They had to quit at bedtime.

And in the morning… hundreds of likes. Dozens of replies. And more than a bit of pocket-money. Just as soon as they arranged to be able to withdraw it. They saved up the next installation of their story for that evening, when they had the time. Netflix were forgotten. Games fell out of favour. And life, thanks to the withdrawals, got a little easier.

Whoever wrote that unsigned note was right. They should have been writing for Steemit all along.

[10] A tiny flat with one bedroom and a barely-there lounge. May feature a one- or half-arse kitchen. [enough space for one arse or half an arse] But most often, not so. Some have claustrophobic bathrooms, others have to share amenities with other bed-sits on the same floor.

Challenge #030: Why Am I Here?

http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/156109857968

The world’s best have been transported to a single building, each having their own field of expertise. You, an average Joe, have also been transported. You have no idea what you’re so good at, but everyone else seems to be afraid of you. – Anon Guest

The right hand rule sucks. I kept finding myself back at my own marks. Upstairs, downstairs… everywhere was closed in. No exits existed. Not even in the extensive gardens that seemed to grow every food plant in existence… as well as a few food animals. Small ones. Not the large ones that needed a lot of upkeep.

There were homes. Flats, habitats, whatever you wish to call them. There were places that could have been shops if they weren’t arranged by an alien. There were no checkouts. There was no security. Everything was fresh, clean and new. Scarily clean. It was like the whole place was a habitat for a human collection.

There were others here. The best of the bunch. For every job, the leading name in that field was here. Wherever here is. The best doctor. The best psychiatrist. The best gardener. The best cleaner. The best… everything. And then there’s me. Someone from podunk nowhere with a dead-end job in cubicle hell. I don’t get it. I’m not the best at anything.

All my life, I’ve been a C-grade student. I just… barely pass. We all have nothing to do, here. Everyone is healthy. Everyone can eat what they like, fresh or pre-prepared in the mall section of our… habitat. Everyone can read what they like out of the library wing. Everyone can watch or listen to what they like out of the media wing. I just have… more nothing to do than anyone else.

Everyone here is like a freaking genius. I’m just… me. And I’m sort of bored with all the choices we got in here. Everyone else has this sort of… society going. And then there’s me. I just wander around and try to find ways to get out of here as soon as I think of them.

And the weird thing is… everyone else is afraid of me. I don’t even know why. I’m friendly enough. I have good manners. I try different smiles on them all. No luck. Some of them are nice enough about it. Some are genuinely trying to get over it. Some… aren’t. I try to avoid them.

What are they even scared of?

I can’t figure it out, and the world’s best psychiatrist won’t tell me for some reason. People who actually talk about me fall silent whenever I come near. And the weirdest thing…

None of them want to get out with me. It’s like… they’d be happier when I’ve figured out a way to get out of here…

Challenge #031: Here There Be Dragon

http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/156113062734

The dragon was hoarding sheet music, and doing its darn best to play the comically undersized instruments it’d stolen to go along with them.

Sir Greenbaum edged into the dragon’s cavern. Dragons were always tricky business. A kingdom with one in its realm proceeded with caution. Those who sent a Princess had to be certain of both the princess and the dragon. And as for this realm… well… their Princess still needed a wetnurse.

So they sent a knight. Specifically, they sent him. Kingdoms were overflowing with little boys wanting to be knights, young men training to be knights, and knights themselves. Apart from the expense of armour, knights were relatively expendable. Sir Greenbaum had long since decided that he would not expend himself needlessly.

This was why he painted his armour to blend more easily with the scenery. Why he silenced the soles of his metal boot with strips of bark. And why he managed to survive all his encounters with dragons, so far. He had to make it out every time. The dragons only had to beat him once.

As he stalked carefully into the cavern, giving his eyes plenty of time to adjust, he could hear… music. Well. Someone’s vague attempt at music. Well. A reasonable guess at what music should sound like, played by someone or something that had both never held a musical instrument, nor never heard any music.

Greenbaum winced as he followed the sound. Did the dragon have a hostage already? Reports said that the beast had only been stealing things, and not people. He followed the glow of dragon-crystals, keeping to the shadows, to gain a complete view of the scenario. And, much to his relief, he found that there were no hostages.

There was just a dragon.

Its hoard was endless reams of paper. Some sheets of which rested on a stand that was suspended on a web of cord from two stalactites. It’s other hoard seemed to be… musical instruments. But this was not the dragon’s bed. The paper was.

Greenbaum crept up behind the dragon as it attempted to play a trumpet. The sheets of paper had scores on them. Musical scores. The trumpet playing stopped. Hello and well met, sir knight, rumbled the dragon.

There was no other choice. Greenbaum stepped out from behind the hoard. But not very far. If it turned out that this dragon was a human-eater, it would have to incinerate its own hoard before it burned him. Hail and well-met, master of the skies.

Maestro, perhaps, corrected the dragon. Let me guess. You are sent to be sure of me, yes?

Yes. Have you yet or do you plan to ravage our fair countryside?

Of course not. Your countryside inspires me. And at the most, I would need one cow a month. Do send up your oldest and sickest, I don’t intend to be a menace. Two sheep if you haven’t any cows.

That was… surprisingly undemanding of a dragon. You may have perpetual trouble with trumpets, Maestro. May I suggest something akin to an oboe?

This caught the dragon’s interest. "Exactly… how… like an oboe."

And that, the story goes, is how the little kingdom of Vërtîngensplátz invented the double-contrabasso clarinet.

Challenge #032: The Universal Coin

Be kind. Don’t hurt other people. It’s all the sort of Christian ethics stuff I thought was bullshit when I was a kid. No, it turns out it’s not bullshit. Tell the truth, be kind, all that corny stuff. - Carrie Fisher

Above all else, do no harm. That had to be a law for landing in strange places and in weird circumstances. Of course… the landing couldn’t be helped. Something there was that didn’t like her landing in a complete set of clothing. And something always ate her left shoe, no matter how secure she thought it was when the ‘gods’ whipped her away.

Bloody Loki. If she saw their false faces again, she’d either kill them or die trying. Something of a plan, but no window of opportunity. The world stopped spinning and pushed the air out of her lungs and made breathing in again a very painful prospect. On the upside, it looked like she wouldn’t be waking up tied to a stake and on top of a pyre in progress again.

It’s a demon! Kill it before it can gain power!

And there came the other boot. Shayde could barely prop herself up and cast a Water Shield in time. Just take that which was given. Being mistaken for a demon always lasted longer when she pulled in available light to refresh her strength. She’d landed through a lot of glass and wood. Not deeply embedded, thank goodness. The good news… they spoke a variant of English. But their accent was barely understandable.

They’d probably have the same trouble with hers. She kept the Water Shield up, using the energy they were throwing at her. There was a lot of energy. One beam from above almost hit her, it was only a chance that she caught the movement in time. And there… against the night sky… was a human flying unassisted. Beams of light shot out of his eyes and splashed into Shayde’s shields.

Superheroes? She hadn’t thought that heroes were of a mind to be particularly religious. Well. Maybe not the ones she knew from the comics. This… was some semblance of real life. With real people who followed real rules that mattered to them. In an infinite multiverse, there had to be one where superheroes were real.

I can get the demon, shouted a very young voice.

Christi! NO! That was one of the… heroes? Since when did superheroines wear long skirts?

She didn’t have time to worry about them, because someone hit her with a super-soaker. Her attacker was, at most, four years old, and dressed in a white… what she always had thought of as a Nanna Nightie. Little House on the Prairie style with the lace and everything. Their soaker was adorned with holy symbols.

Oh good grief…. A holy water-gun. Hardy har har. On the potential bright side… demons were meant to melt in holy water.

Well, she chirped. That’s me soaked.

Say a prayer! Quickly! The presumed-mother-of Christi screamed.

The child ummed. Now I lay me down to sleep…

Screaming and chaos. That had been the wrong kind of prayer. Every male hero let loose with their powers in Shayde’s direction. Which also happened to be Christie’s direction. And Shayde could not let them harm a child. Which lead to more than a predicament as deadly powers were striking everywhere.

Shayde desperately zigzagged to keep the kid in the shadow of her shields while the kid kept trying to run away. The women weren’t doing more than running up to the verge of safety and screaming. Completely unhelpful.

And then one unlucky shot concussed Christi into unconsciousness. Shayde hadn’t thought that the women on the sidelines could scream any louder, but she was clearly wrong. Especially when she leaped to protect that small body. The men would be shooting at her all night.

She had to show them that she meant no harm. Go against everything a demon might do. Like… appear on holy ground and surrender a child to a holy man. Shayde could only hope that the holy men here were nothing like the notorious ones she remembered from home.

Shayde had to pick up Christi with one arm, since the other was holding her shield up against every sling and arrow this lot had to throw. The pyrotechnics were impressive and almost drowned out the screaming. Concentrate. Find the best, closest place where she could be accepted as not-a-demon. Despite the energy they were pouring into her, she was still weak.

There. Inside the building. A chapel and there was a holy man in it. She gripped Christi close and fell with the kid into their own shadows.

The briefest of absolute cold. The rage of whispering voices craving for life… any life… And then a burst of comparative heat and light that was the real world. A chapel lit with candles and decorated with the sign of the fish. Shayde stepped out of the shadow of a column and stuck with one of the older lingua francas that she barely knew. Sanctum sanctorum, she panted. I nomini padre, et fili, et spritus sancti… infantus vivum…. And she probably mangled that much. But gesturing like she wanted to hand him Christi was a safe bet.

He snatched the kid out of her arms.

Shayde knelt on the floor, and laced her hands on her head. "Sanctum sanctorum… mi sanctorum?" she tried.

Of course she got sprayed all over with holy water. Choked with incense. Covered in prayer until her ears were as numb as the Bishop’s tongue. And when it was finally clear that she was not, as she seemed, a demon… they didn’t know what to do with her.

Of all the dimensions that the ‘gods’ had sent her to fix… This was going to be a tricky one.

[AN: I derped and got to my prompts out of order. Very sorry to all those who were waiting]

Challenge #033: Intervention!

http://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/156115644693/a-superhero-chases-a-villain-into-a-dark

A superhero chases a villain into a dark warehouse, only to have the doors close behind them. When the lights come on, the hero is surrounded by the full rogues gallery of supervillains. But this isn’t an ambush… It’s an intervention.

(ever see megamind?)

The lights came on, and Mighty Man expected a gigantic, hero-defeating trap to be revealed. No such thing. There were comfy chairs. And a throw rug. And a buffet table.

And everyone he had ever fought. Unarmed. Unthreatening. The Gram’ma Nazi had a pot of tea, and was doing nothing more threatening than pouring some. For herself.

Mighty Man, said Mayor Threat, This is an intervention. We know you’re probably wondering why we banded together and if anything we have here is booby-trapped. And… well… we can’t convince you it isn’t.

Make yourself comfortable, dear, said the Gram’ma Nazi. We are going to be here for some time.

What the hell’s going on? said Mighty Man.

We all know you love righting wrongs, said The Prankster. And to be completely fair, most of us are very wrong, indeed. The thing is…

Master Arcana stepped forward. Thou hast destroyed mine grand-daughter’s birthday party! I were’t merely casting illusions for the entertainment of mine neonates.

And let’s not forget what happened when I tried doing stand-up, said the Prankster. You wrecked the entire night club.

I paid for a new one, objected Mighty Man.

Lugubrious Lass sighed and rolled her eyes. "You can’t just buy your way out of all your problems, you millionaire maniac. Every single one of us were trying to retire from crime, and then you busted in and busted us up. And everything else around you, too."

I help support those who are innocent bystanders–

"Yes, but you’re not righting wrongs, insisted the Prankster. You’re writing wrongs. He made a scribbling motion in the air. Eh? Eh? Gettit?"

I was baking cookies for the homeless when you trashed my retirement home, objected the Gram’ma Nazi. They weren’t even swastika-shaped.

"I