"Generation ship Santa Maria, this is Pluto Harbour. You are clear of Pluto orbit and on trajectory for TRAPPIST-1e.

"Prepare for harbour pilot flight control desync in 3... 2... 1... You have flight control, Santa Maria. Godspeed"

***

"Think we're doing the right thing, letting the Americans colonize the galaxy?"

"What, would you rather they stay here with us?"

"No, you're right. Besides, the Mexicans wouldn't go. Without them, they'll starve before they've gone a light year."

#MicroSFF

It took until 2112 for them to remove the last bit of random Internet content from the AI databases. "At last," they said, "We can offer people answers that have no biases, fake news, 'alternative facts', or sarcasm!"
The robot stepped out of the data center and looked around in surprise at the ruined city. "That's odd. Where did the people go?"

#MicroFiction #MicroSFF

You have two wolves inside you

Please attend the sickbay immediately, there has been a terrible transporter malfunction
#startrek #microsffstories #microsff

I woke from this dream a year or so ago with a strong feeling of moonlight and old relationships, melancholy and contentment. I often lose dreams while I'm writing them down. But this one hung on until the end. I have no idea where it came from or why my childhood friend was in it.

=====

The moon was just a sliver past new, rising above the trees, when the dog and I came back from our evening walk. There was that faint chill in the air that presaged the beginning of fall, but summer had not quite released her hold. I turned aside from the door and went to the barn to gather another load of wood.

Later, as I sat at my desk in the little room that overlooked the road, I turned to Lad, where she lay half asleep on the rug.

"It won't be long now before she comes."

Lad opened an eye as though to agree, and I sat there gazing at the moon as the stars gradually filled the sky.

Before we went to bed, I raised the window.

It was the next week that she came up the long road. We were sitting again in the room, the dog and I. There was a small fire on the hearth to moderate the crisp air from the open window. Lad heard her first. I saw his ears twitch as he raised his head. I was stuck on a particularly difficult line of text, so I put down the pen, damped the light, and waited. A few minutes later I heard her footsteps crunch as she came up the road.

I went to the window and waited as she came into sight, her silver hair shining in the quarter moon, rucksack on her back, a staff in her hand. She paused then, though we hadn't made a sound, and looked up. I could hear the crooked smile on her face as she spoke.

"Hello, Kee."

"Hello, Caroline," I said.

"How have you been?"

"Another year older," I said, "but well. And you?"

She put the rucksack down, and leaned both hands upon the staff, and we talked then for maybe half an hour. Of spring floods and dry summers. Of crops and the weather. Until eventually the conversation faded away to nothing but a faint rustle of leaves in the wood, and the distant call of some night bird.

"Well," she said, "I must be going."

I nodded, and she took up her pack again, and started once more up the road past the house in the moonlight.

"Take care," I said.

#MastoArt #FlashFiction #SmallStory #TootFic #MicroFiction #MicroSFF

Odysseus throws a spear and it breaks.

The hero calls Athena: “I want the item returned. I’m not happy, even if it was free.”

“Don’t be a Karen, Odie.” says the Goddess. “If I were you I’d fight using an iPhone if I had to. Ask any woman.”

#TootFic #MicroSFF #mythology