Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion
***APRIL 2022 SCIENCE FICTION MICROSTORY CONTEST (Stories Only)***
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Albert Misplaced © 2022 Kalifer DeilThere was something not right about Albert States. His eyes seemed to be too close together, the ridges on either side of his neck and skin that looked like Naugahyde. This gaunt figure strode into my detective agency, Finders Inc., seeking a lost person.
His six-foot-two presence seemed desperate and almost menacing leaning towards me over the front of my desk. “I must find her. It's a matter of great importance!” he barked. He presented me with a sheet of paper containing an image and her stats and last know address. Here is your thousand-dollar retainer. I must go now. I yelled after him, “Wait a minute!” but it was too late. I looked up and down the street. He was gone!
I looked at the picture of Helen Smith, a sweet-looking woman, with similar physical traits to Albert. There must be thousands of Helen Smiths. I looked online to the directory that ties phone numbers to addresses and called that number. After verifying that I had reached the correct address, I told the woman there who I was looking for. She responded, “I've lived here for eighty-five years and no one named Helen has ever lived here.” On further questioning, I ascertained that she was born at that address, as was her father before her.
I looked at the stack of one hundred dollar bills, They weren't new and the serial numbers differed widely, but something was wrong. Of course! President Jefferson was not supposed to be on the hundred note but only on the two-dollar note. I immediately called the FBI.
Agent Campbell arrived, handed me his card, and examined the bills. “This is incredible! They all have the same error, the wrong image, and title but dates that correspond with corresponding anti-counterfeiting measures we've employed. Where did you get these?”
I showed him the note and explained that Albert States hired me to look for Helen Smith.
Agent Campbell responded, “When he contacts you, let us know!”
I nodded, as he whisked the bills into his briefcase and left.
Two days later Albert States returned. I was to signal my secretary to call the FBI agent. I decided to hold off on that until I could gather more information.
I explained to Albert what I found out at the address he gave and he seemed honestly puzzled.
I then took a chance, “Mister States, don't you feel out of place here?”
“Why yes, I do! Everything seems out of place and people look and act strangely.”
“I never believed in this stuff, but I think you somehow slipped into another parallel world. Do you remember where you were when things changed?”
“Why, yes! I was walking down Barrel Alley when I walked through what seemed like a thin curtain of water. I was startled but found I wasn't wet so I must have hallucinated it.”
“Well, I can tell you that your money doesn't belong here. It will be considered counterfeit because, in our world, Benjamin Franklin is on the hundred dollar bill.”
“That's crazy, he was never president!”
“Nevertheless, that is the case, and Jefferson is on the two-dollar bill.”
“You have a two-dollar bill? We don't!”
“Well, not that many get printed.”
“Then, could I have my money back?”
“Sorry, I gave it to the FBI. I suggest you go back to that alley and try going back through that curtain in the opposite direction!”
He left immediately. I hollered after him, “Return if it doesn't work!”
A day later a woman entered my office looking for Albert States. Her eyes
were set narrow and she also had those extended neck tendons. It was Helen Smith. “Helen, Have you been down Barrel Alley?”
“Yes, that's a strange place. I walked through something!” she reflected.
“You must go back and walk through the opposite way to get back to your own parallel universe.”
She stared at me blankly for a few seconds, then a flash of understanding crossed her face and she ran out the door.
Two hours later Albert and Helen walked into my office together with broad smiles. “Thanks to you, we found each other!”
“Are you staying in this universe?” I inquired.
“No, we're going back where we have friends and are not wanted by the FBI!”
“Wise decision! Bring gold next time.”
They laughed as they left.
AWAKENINGCullen stared in awe at the alien thing. Like an exotic insect, or tropical flora…or, the two symbiotically merged… its striking colors… the delicate vibrations of its multiple surfaces seemed to flow in tandem with the mathematical equations it generated through the A.I., its multiple delicate extensors vibrating over the control keys in the containment module….
“Anything?” General Wilson demanded, drawing on his cigar.
Cullen winced at the stinking fumes as he struggled with the complex equations flashing across his screen. “If by ‘anything’ you mean designs for particle beam weapons or force field generators…no, General. But, our mathematical cosmic Rosetta Stone is doing its job. And, with each transposition, we gain another unique perspective on physics…time, space and the universe…”
“The Joint Chiefs aren’t blowing our appropriations so you can publish another paper in the physics journals, Professor,” Wilson barked.
Cullen ground his teeth in irritation, trying to focus on the numerical model. “Remember the fable of the three blind men combining notes to form a complete picture of an elephant, General. Enough alien perspectives on physics, and eventually we’ll have the secret of faster-than-light space travel. Imagine what knowledge we’ll have for you then.”
“Just make damn sure the information only flows one way,” Wilson warned. “We don’t want to give away too much to our ‘trading partners’ out there.” Wilson jerked his thumb at the alien.
“I sense no hostile intent,” Aanya said, lights flashing across the cybernetic implant protruding from the side of her head. “I sense wonder…curiosity…and, the same frustrations Professor Cullen is feeling now…” A smile crossed her dark, attractive face. “But, not the adversarial emotions I get from you, General. Our guest seems a more enlightened being.”
Cullen repressed a smirk.
Wilson scowled. “Cybernetically enhanced or not, Doctor…You expect me to believe you can read something that different?”
“The physical process of an alien’s consciousness may differ from ours, General…but, the resulting emotions are the same.”
Cullen threw up his hands in frustration as the A.I. signaled the end of the transposition cycle. The air in the containment module shimmered and warped as the alien melted back into a nebulous cloud of raw organic matter…which reformed itself into the human form of Professor Walter Belasco, reclining on the accelerator couch.
Wilson puffed on his cigar. “You really believe you can learn anything useful from this…mimicry?”
“It’s not mimicry, General,” Cullen said, checking the A.I. breakdown of the readings. “Every atom comprising every cell of the body and brain…including intellect and memory…vibrates at a unique quantum frequency. When we accelerate that vibration through sub-space, linking with another civilization doing the same thing…the two worlds become as poles on a magnet, each participant serving as the raw matter from which to duplicate the quantum resonance frequency of his or her counterpart at the opposite end of the quantum arc.”
Wilson flicked his cigar ash and looked at Aanya. “And, tell me, Doctor…What emotions are you getting now from our returning explorer?”
She stared at Belasco as he lay, trembling and covered in sweat, the medics checking him over. “Fear,” she said in a cold whisper, her brow furrowed, her dark eyes set. “Numbing, paralyzing fear.”
#
Mental images swirled through Aanya’s mind as she entered Belasco’s room. Images of the many alien worlds he’d visited. Oceans floating weightless through crystalline labyrinths orbiting distant planets. Twilight landscapes of multiple moons where swarms of slithering serpentine things composed intelligent colony organisms. Worlds where sentient beings formed in crystalline matrices as delicate as snowflakes.
And, at the center of it all…a fear that bound Belasco’s heart like iron chains. “You know,” she whispered softly as she stood by his bed, holding his hand. “Others want only the bits and pieces. Cullen wants facts for his journals. Wilson wants weapons to kill his enemies. But, you’ve seen the totality of it, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” he whispered, as though delirious with fever. “The universe is one continuous stream of matter... It takes many forms and sees from many directions, but it’s all one. One mind that thinks with many. It calls to me…”
“Let go,” she whispered, stroking his fevered brow. “Let go your fear and become one with it. As a butterfly casts off its cocoon…fly free.”
#
Deafening alarms sounded as Wilson ran towards Belasco’s room.
“General, don’t open that door!” Cullen shouted after him. “The readings…” He gaped as the door slid open, Wilson pulled screaming into a swirling abyss, like a black hole, stars fading.
"The Remainders"by J.F. Williams
Steve switched the engines of the starcraft from deep-space to blue mode. All the crew caught their breath after the always jarring plunge through the curve portal, and shook off the uniquely unnerving feeling that followed every near-instantaneous traverse. They had only made a few of these trips, multi light-year test runs and back, and this had been the farthest, but the feeling was always the same.
"We're getting a signal, Steve," shouted Sparky. "Heads up, everybody."
"Channel?" asked Steve.
"It's the old frequency. Exactly in the range we were told to listen for."
"Beacons?" The mission had a high-priority directive—for which the labcoats expected no success—to listen on an ancient channel for the beacons scattered around Earth at the time of the Great Abandonment. Nuclear powered, they were placed deep in research centers, where various scientists had worked in isolation on their own projects, each a chance to preserve humanity. The devices had elaborate sensors and would stop transmitting if a century had passed without any sign of animal life. "How many signals?" Steve asked as he rushed to Sparky's side. "They placed hundreds of them."
"One. Sorry, Steve old man. Five or ten could just be malfunctions. One is almost sure to be."
"Drumbo," he turned to the readings officer. "What do we have on the surface? Any life signs?"
"Not much. Primitive plant life. There's a total cloud cover. The surface is warm and wet but sunlight is muted. Gases are optimal. We could breathe there. Zero pollutants, too."
"Any data on the signal?"
"Coming in. Coming in. Those ancients loved their data. It'll take an hour or so to decode."
"Let's get ready then. Send engineering the coordinates and have them prepare the pod."
#
As the pod descended through the permanent cloud cover into the endless twilight, Steve wondered what he might see. He found himself enjoying the privilege of first contact, the first human to return to Earth after millions abandoned her centuries earlier.
"Pod 73 to Mother," he radioed. "Any beacon data decrypted? I gotta know what to expect."
"Not yet," Drumbo answered. "Sensors detect only plant life. Weak. No animal. No contagions."
"Right. Plant life. Okay." He locked onto the signal and the craft landed in the middle of a great field surrounded by black ruins and covered in debris crushed to a powder, as he expected, but dotted by thousands of tiny, bright white flowers. "Visual on plant life. Sending images."
"We got a repo hit, Steve," Drumbo radioed back in moments. "Non-poisonous. Maybe edible. It's called the 'Indian pipe' or 'ghost pipe'. No photosynthesis. Feeds on underground fungi."
A figure appeared in the distance, glowing like the flowers, but human-like and walking toward the craft. A few more appeared from behind, then too many to count. Steve shuddered. Were these The Remainders? For real?
"Visual on…," he choked. "On humans. Approaching."
"Decrypt finished," radioed Drumbo. "You'll want to hear this. Genetic engineer named Ettenger was experimenting with a transfer virus. Food ran out but deep underground vein of fungus from, y'know, all the billions of dead, sustaining only the flowers, so Ettenger's virus transferred flower genes to survivors so they could live off that schmutz."
"Jeezus, man. It must've worked."
"Wait, there's more," said Drumbo.
As the figures grew closer, Steve was sure they were all female, variously dressed, in skirts and blouses, or pants, some wore bikinis or jackets, all brightly colored and shiny, like they were wet. Plastics, he thought. Ancient. Could last a thousand years. The figures stood back at the whirr of the pod door opening. He exited the craft, found his footing, and waved to them. "I come from Second Earth. We are human, like you."
"Aye," said the lead figure. "It was told you would come, you who once lived here."
"Yeah," he reached out a hand and made a rictus grin, not knowing whether to fear or embrace these creatures.
The lead figure leaned back. "Please touch us not as we will bruise."
That was fine with him. These women were thin though striking in their beauty, like undernourished models from pictures of the old times. But their skin was so white, their eyes, purple. Hairs on the back of his neck stood up and his gut tightened.
"More on that Ettenger guy," buzzed Drumbo's voice in the pod. "The transfer failed. The Remainders died off but the flowers, the Indian pipes—he thought they may have acquired some human genes."
(750 words)
Send in the Mimes“I have to go to the President,” said the Director. “I have to tell him, ‘Sir, our delegation were kicked off of a giant alien mother ship by a group of talking ostriches with hands, and our best solution right now is to send them a clown with a feather headdress’. Is that what I’m telling him?”
“Strictly speaking, Director, he’s a mime,” said one of the junior analysts down at the far end of the huge table. His boss kicked him on the leg under the table, and he pretended not to wince.
“Play the clip again,” said the Director.
On the huge screen on the other side of the glass wall, an actor with a remarkably rubbery face put down his shopping basket, and selected a frying pan from a shelf. Looking around, furtively, he drew a large fish, head attached, from his inner jacket pocket, and placed it inside of the frying pan to measure its size. Seeing that it was too large, he placed the used pan back on the shelf.
“You have to be kidding,” said the Director.
“The extra-terrestrials said, quote, ‘our delegation were uncouth, and their mannerisms were deeply unaesthetic’, unquote,” said a more senior analyst. “There’s no language barrier, they use similar vocalizations to us, and their syntax is regular. We just need somebody very good at physical imitation. Physical mannerisms may be an important part of how they communicate. We think they’re essentially snobs.”
“Snobs,” said the Director. “From another star.” He paused. “Okay, then.”
“He’s pretty thoughtful, in person,” somebody else added, clearly referencing the previous thread of the conversation. The Director looked around but did not catch who had spoken, among the many people crowding the table. He glared at his deputy instead and jerked his thumb towards the door. “I need to talk to you. Outside. Everyone else just wait.”
The door closed firmly behind them.
“No other choice then?”
“Not as far as I can tell. The candidate is already training in their language, and we’ve done a fitting for the, uh, feathered headdress.”
“Nobody,” said the Director. “I repeat nobody, must ever tell the aliens that we’re subtly mocking them. Ever.”
“We are?”
“C’mon,” said the Director, gesticulating with his hands. “Seriously?”
#
The capsule was down, resting gently on acres of white tarmac.
There was still a shimmer of heat in the air around it, although some of that may have just been the Florida sun baking down on the vast landing strip.
A team of landing crew gently pulled the passenger and his pilot through the tiny hatch, and assisted them into waiting wheelchairs.
Behind a chain link fence, a huge crowd, mostly journalists, held up cameras and cellphones to capture the moment. The passenger, his famous, expressive face smiling, gave the waiting crowd a jerky thumbs-up gesture, the moment captured by a thousand telephoto lenses.
The landing crew stepped back a few paces, to give the Director some privacy.
“What did they say?”
“They look strange, at first,” said the actor. “But they really know how to party.”
“Party?”
"Sure,” said the actor. “It was a blast. They were really puzzled by the chicken hat, though.” He paused. “They also said please don't send any more stuffed shirts next time."
###
Mod
©2022 by Jot Russell
The four converged within the dark ruins of the forbidden city. The tall humanoid from the south walked forth, halted at the alley's edge and placed his hands out with palms up in tradition. A scar ran down across his face and eye. The second, that came from the north, was more a bear than man, and stood tall on his hind legs with his front paws thrust out and twisted up as best it could. The third was a black angelic creature that flew in from the east with wings outstretched to twice its height. Upon the dusty, broken pavement of the intersection, he retracted his wings and extended out his pale palms. Each turned to the west, curious as to the absence of the forth. A rumble echoed out from beyond the alley until the sound neared within a swirling storm of dust. The ruckus clanged randomly to and fro as it approached, until the loud cyclone came upon them. The humanoid took a step back in fear and drew his arms back in defense. Suddenly, the storm halted and the dust settled, revealing on odd triangular creature with short, but strong arms and legs, and a mouth that covered most of the width of its otherwise headless body. The three looked at each other and laughed loudly.
The humanoid withdrew his arms and touched something on his belt. His form morphed to that of a two legged reptilian creature with a long tail, and the scar still present across his scaly face. He clasped his hands in applause. "A tasmanian devil? Now, why didn't I think of that."
The devil, bird and bear, each released their transformation to return to their natural form. The three lizard men, each with their own variations of color, shape, size and scars, turned to the forth, "Why have you summoned us?"
"The humans are weaken with plague and division of purpose. It is time to complete our conquest of this world. Send your best soldiers forward. With a unification of the Camelian, we can infiltrate critical roles within their military ranks, overthrow their government, and herd the humans for our harvest."
"But they out number us by a factor of ten."
"That’s why we must act now. I have delivered a set of human roles for us to replicate. They have not yet realized our power of transformation, but once they do, we loose the element of surprised."
The three looked at each other and nodded, before stepping forward.
**
Scarface returned to his commander. "The suit worked sir. They believed that I am a Camelian and are preparing for the invasion.”
“Excellent. We’ll flush them out and into our trap.”
**
The squad assembled in human form; scarface amongst them. In the distance, the human army lay hidden to spring its attack.
The commander said. “We are all set. Trigger your suits to transform.”
The dozen men touched the control panel on their belt and changed to reptilian form. They turned to face the approaching Camelian army. The lead, whom he had first seen as a tasmanian devil, reached out his scaly arm to Scarface. Surprised by the gesture, he hesitated, but extended his arm to accept the handshake. As the hands clasped, electrical current shot through scarface’s arm and body, causing the suit to overload and revert his appearance back to human form. He looked over at his commander, but he only laughed, withdrew the fake control panel, and tossed it on the ground. Scarface look around as the others in his squad did the same. He looked back at the devil lizard and said, “You planned this?”
“That’s right, and you fell into our trap, as well as your hidden army.” The sound of explosions erupted from behind, and scarface turned to witness the destruction of the human army. Scarface tried to withdraw his hand, but the lizard man revealed teeth within its large mouth and pulled the man closer. He let out a short scream before his head was ripped off in the mouth of the lizard.
The Camelian laughed as he chewed. “What do they say? Oh yeah, taste like chicken.”
Hello my name is…The shorter human saluted and then spoke, “We do not need to kill them. Their defenses are minimal.”
The taller one did not return the salute, “You have said that and yet you have not taken the planet.”
“We have all the territory we need. Our bases are secure. The inhabitants” - he did not wish to call them the enemy – “fled before our superior fire power. They will not be a threat.”
“They are just roaches. Oversize insects. Big bugs. I want them all dead.”
“We have achieved our objectives. Any further bombardment will merely waste ordinance.”
“You have grown soft. Do I need to remind you who is in charge here? Who makes all the decisions?” He turned to the officer at the weapons console. “Light ‘em up. The only good roach is a dead roach!”
--
Amid the burning wreckage, a small voice cried out. Others struggled to reach it. Soon, it wouldn’t matter, but they had to try. They pulled it from the rubble. The atmosphere was growing toxic, there was not much time left. They carried it to a ship. The ship was too damaged to fly or even remain habitable. But it had a suspended animation pod. They placed the child inside it. They couldn’t look into its frightened eyes as they lowered the cover and started the cycle. They crawled from the ship and buried it before they died.
After an hour, the city was silent. After a day, a sweep of the planet showed no life signs at all.
--
A salvage crew dug the ship from the wreckage. They did their best to keep the child alive. They had no guide, no one to tell them what to feed it. Fortunately, it could eat just about anything and had a preference for the crew’s garbage.
As they dug deeper, the sights weighed heavily upon them. Something terrible had happened there and the evidence pointed to fellow humans, a specific human. Even as an outcast, he gathered followers, minions and armies, rising in power until driven out.
They could not rescue anyone else. Whoever this race was, this was the lone survivor. When it died, the race would end. They could not bring them back to life, but, maybe, just maybe, they could help them get justice.
They began teaching it of its world and training it for the fight ahead.
--
The Supreme Leader looked up from his throne. He contemplated visiting the prison two floors down. A little torture, maybe a gruesome death would relax him. He rose and, for the fist time, noticed the silence. All but one of his usual entourage of sycophants were absent.
A shimmering field enveloped the lone servant. The banal features he had been so familiar with gave way to a chitinous exoskeleton. To the emperor’s eyes, the thing was hideous, but to its own people, had they still existed, it was a calming beauty.
The emperor quickly touched a control on his bracelet. His security team soon arrive and dispose of this, this thing. Then he would determine who had allowed this breach in his security. He would have them tortured, along with anyone they were related to or cared about.
His brain filled with raging vengeance, so much so that he didn’t notice that nothing happened. He pressed the button again. Nothing. He raised his arm to look at the indicators. All were dark.
“Yes. It is just you and I now. Your murderous thugs will not intervene. If they not are already dead, they soon will be.”
“You bombed our cities until they were charred dirt. You then poisoned our world so none would survive. I alone was saved. On my world, we had only known peace, on my world, we do not seek vengeance. But we are not on my world, and, when my people died, I was released from any of their moral constraints.
The creature rose up, standing tall and proud. It recited a speech committed to memory years before:
“Hello. My name is J’Killx K’Nar. You killed my people. Prepare to die.
It touched a small box below its thorax, switching off an antimatter containment field. The heat of total conversion bomb incinerated the throne room before blasting out into the corridors until the entire station was an expanding cloud of ionized gas.
Water always winsAmbassador Phellend Kell staggered from the burning wreckage of his escape pod, dazed, dirty, and dying. His right hand, held tightly against his abdomen, was covered in blue blood. It spilled upon the ground and was greedily absorbed by the nutrient poor soil. Kell did not notice this as he sought only to get away from the burning pod. His attaché case remained firmly manacled to his left arm, its antique paper documents hanging out through damaged seals. Kell stumbled, staggered, and somehow kept moving, knowing that each step might be his last. He hoped, no prayed, that the emergency locator beacon was still intact and that Regency forces might find the precious documents he carried – before it was too late.
The treaty documents were all that mattered now, but Time was the enemy here, not Death.
If the Chronix did not receive these specific sheets of paper, blessed, sanctified and made holy, at the time agreed to, the war would continue unabated to the detriment of both their peoples. Kell was trying to prevent the extinction of two species, but he saw opportunity slipping away with each splash of blue blood upon the ground. His blood.
He turned to watch a plume of black smoke swirling into the sky, followed by another explosion. Hope dimmed in his heart. Would they come for him? Of all the places he could have crashed, why did it have to be here on this forbidden, waste of a planet?
Kell’s breathing became labored, coughs and spasms racked his body, and thirst, overwhelming thirst tortured what little of his life remained.
Cresting a gentle rise, he looked through blurry, diming vision. A placid pool under a stand of small trees sat tranquilly a short distance away.
He could… he could…
He could not.
Ambassador Phellend Kell fell face first into the dirt, just shy of the water’s edge, and died. As he lay there, lifeforce ebbing to maximum entropy, the pool rippled and began moving towards him. Tentative, watery fingerlets reached out to Kell’s lifeless arms, probing, prodding, trying to understand. A more thorough examination was needed. The rest of the pool followed in a flurry of small white-capped waves, and in an instant, Ambassador Kell’s body was subsumed beneath them. From the new shoreline, an observer would have seen the Ambassador’s body in the center of a shallow pond, along with his attaché case and now soggy, hallowed, time-sensitive treaty documents.
***
The water entered the Ambassador’s body through every orifice it could find. In through the nose and mouth, ears, and especially the abdominal wounds. What was this thing? Reaching into the brain cavity, it found the last vestiges of life fading away. It felt all of the pain, sorrow, anguish and burdens as the cells released their final claim to conscious existence.
More understanding was needed.
To understand better, it would disassemble.
The lifeless body of the Ambassador began breaking down rapidly. Skin, fatty layers, connective tissues, muscles, bones, every last cell and even the attaché case and treaty documents.
So much information!
It would reproduce it in exact detail.
Every last brain pattern reenergized.
Every calligraphic stroke upon the parchment.
Even the ambassadorial uniform.
Damaged tissue was recreated anew.
Respiration was needed!
The new body broke the surface of the pond, gasping for breath.
This was strange!
This was different!
But wait…
Haste was needed.
Other lives hung in the balance.
More would end, like this one had.
Many, many more.
What was the mission?
He had to get to…
He collected up the newly formed documents.
The words were important.
The words meant life.
Would they make the sacrifice to remain as documents, holy and blessed, that others might live?
Yes.
Together, they would bring life out of death.
***
Ambassador Phellend Kell heard the roar of the rescue ship and strode purposefully towards it.
A young Regency captain ran towards him.
“Ambassador Kell! Thank the gods! We thought you were dead!”
“And I thought so too young man, but here I stand. We must not tarry! The Chronix await this treaty and I am already very late!”
“Our ship is fast and the crew is ready. We will be at the rendezvous on time Ambassador!”
The captain turned and ran back into the ship with the Ambassador close behind.
As the Ambassador crossed the airlock threshold, he turned and saw a small pond rippling nearby.
He broke into a broad smile and waved.
“Goodbye! And thank you!”
(749 words in story) Justin Sewall © 2022
Reviews/critiques welcome
Encompassing MeditationCopyright 2022 by Paula Friedman
It all has seemed so clear. So done—done and dried. Because, you see, I had already borne and begun raising my second kid, despite the hardships (or what we, who had rarely, then, gone out beyond a fewl A.U.s in those days, called hardships). My second kid, too, would, despite the bitter, realer hardships—inter-worlds struggles, species-doubt, Dark Hungers, spared regards, the Clauses, all the fears and would-be endgames—of these latter eras, survive and hazard time for us.
That was before, of course. Before what soon came to pass, all of it--the visitations, the “newness" of interstellar pre-participatory travel, and yes, the new fear yet also the wide-opened wonder in our lives, poor creatures of Earth that we'd thought ourselves. Perhaps most especially, as I used to agree with my sons (the two who now remain), perhaps especially in our interspecies opening—and accord—with our species-twins, the Meditatants.
Truly they were a wonder for us, these Meditatants—silky of fur, eyes full-pupilled black, soft paw-like hands, a grace as of panthers, and what, beyond all else, spoke to, called to, reached to us and implacably drew us in, holding us close-embraced (as if, as we’ve tended, over time, to say, “our outer and their inner lives were one”—or perhaps “our inner and their outer lives reflected each the other"): what most amalgamated us inseparably together was this utter, transparent lucidity between their minds (or “souls”) and ours. For, looking at (looking into, viewing through) the orbs of any close-known Meditatant (“Medie,” as we mostly say), we perceive . . . our selves, our souls, and souls of our fathers, mothers, children, our beloveds reflected as if being seen by Medies through our eyes, reflected through our minds, . . . as if in some infinite hall of mirrored Eye-Thou human-Medie inner (or outer) orbs. Seeing all as One.
So there it is--with no outside, of course. As my third son, Rufous, harshly laughed--somewhere, in the messaged words of a woman survivor, on his last trip outbound (“ship lost deep en route to Aldebaran,” as the expression goes—for at first most losses would occur en route to Aldebaran or Vega systems).
Well, and how we miss him, Rob and Jason and I, seated 'round his empty chair. Seated near the sputtering campfire, hungry as a gopher or cicada on this crowded, desperate, emptying Earth, from which—for every place we'd step toward, our thoughtful, echoing, caring Meditatants reflect back on us our intent, our every care, our memories lost and unforgotten—and those worlds we knew and no more shall regain, and the people we’ve loved: we who are they, their "here" our "there", no more beyond, and no escape.
[approx.. 430 words]
Mod
First round votes:
Kalifer Deil => ****JF, Tom, greg
Tom Olbert => ****JF
J.F. Williams => Kalifer, Paula, Greg, Justin, Jeremy
Jeremy Lichtman => Paula, Greg, Justin
Jot Russell => Tom
Greg Krumrey => Justin
Justin Sewall => ****JF
Paula Friedman => ****JF
Champion
The Remainders by J.F. Williams
Jot's rules are simple:
1) The story needs to be your own work and should be posted on the goodreads (GR) Discussion board, which is a public group. You maintain responsibility and ownership of your work to do with as you please. You may withdraw your story at any time.
2) The stories must be 750 words or less.
3) The stories have to be speculative fiction, follow a specific theme and potentially include reference to items as requested by the prior month's contest winner. (This change is mine, because I want to mix it up a little. Speculative fiction can be anything in the genre, from space ships to dragon riders.)
4) You have until midnight EST on the 22nd day of the month to post your story to the GR Science Fiction Microstory Contest discussion. One story per author per month.
5) After, anyone from the LI Sci-Fi group or the GR Science Fiction Microstory Discussion group has until midnight EST of the 25th day of the month to send me a single private vote (via GR or to author.jotrussell@gmail.com) for a story other than their own. This vote will be made public once voting is closed. Voting, and reading each story before voting, is required. If you do not vote, your story will be disqualified from the contest. You don't need a qualifying story to cast a vote, but you must offer the reason for your vote if you don’t have an entry.
6) To win, a story needs at least half of the votes, or be the only one left after excluding those with the fewest votes. Runoffs will be run each day until a winner is declared. Stories with vote totals that add up to at least half, discarding those with the fewest votes, will be carried forward to the next runoff election. Prior votes will be carried forward to support runoff stories. If you voted for a story that did not make it into the runoff, you need to vote again before midnight EST of that day. Only people who voted in the initial round may vote in the runoffs.
7) Please have all posts abide by the rules of GR and the LI Sci-Fi group.
8) For each month, there will be three discussion threads:
a) Stories - For the stories and the contest results only.
b) Comments - For discussions about the stories and contest. Constructive criticism is okay, but please avoid any spoilers about the stories or degrading comments directed towards any individuals. If you want to suggest a change to the contest, feel free to start a discussion about the idea before making a formal motion. If another member seconds a motion, a vote can be held. I will abstain from voting, but will require a strong two-thirds majority to override my veto.
c) Critiques - Each member can provide at most one critique per story, with a single rebuttal by the author to thank the critic and/or comment to offer the readers the mind set of the story to account for issues raised by the critique. Critiques should be of a professional and constructive manner. Feel free to describe elements that you do and don't like, as these help us gain a better perspective of our potential readers. Remarks deemed inflammatory or derogatory will be flagged and/or removed by the moderator.
9) The winner has THREE days after the start of the new month to make a copy of these rules and post a new contest thread using the theme/items of their choosing. Otherwise, I will post the new contest threads.
Jot Russell
Contest Creator/Director
_________
APRIL'S THEME:
Mimicry.
An artist painting nature. An alien disguised as a human. A butterfly with eye spots like a hawk. A mime silently staging tragedy.
REQUIRED ELEMENTS:
An emotion, either strong or subtle.