June, 2010 Archives

9
Jun

Graveyard Girl

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

During her lifetime, she had never actually been to a graveyard. The closest she came was holding her breath as the family station wagon drove by. Nor had she been to a cemetery. Nor a mausoleum, catacomb, or crypt.

But she could distinguish the difference, both etymologically and historically, between each of them. Her favorite stories were set in burial grounds, Gothic narratives dripping with death and love and tragedy.

So even though she was cremated, and her ashes spread out to sea, not many people were surprised to find her ghost haunting the church graveyard near her childhood home.

8
Jun

Echoless Well

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

The town of Bottomless Well was famous for one reason only.

No one could ever remember any water being drawn from the well. Yet, thanks to its purported wish granting properties, people still visited from miles around.

The well was meant to be a mystery, like God or a woman’s heart; it was better not knowing where the bottom lay.

When scientists discovered that the floor reached exactly 36 feet and 7 inches underground, and that the peculiar convex shape and absorptive qualities of the rock prevented any sound from escaping, the villagers pragmatically changed the name. Life carried on as before.

8
Jun

MOOOFASA!!!

by profadamworth in 100 Words

We march the bodies of our fallen before us
Their pyres lead us away from the dawn
Our ragged retreat despoils the marshes
As we carry our losses downwards and on

The clever commanders of our teaching have failed us
Now they walk with the infantry, humbled and gray
And all that we’ve learned from their studies in failure
Is the different formations for losing the day

But though our shields are just brittle paper
And though our strength is just desperate fear
And though we’ve been judged and come up wanting
Yet still we’re determined to find victory here
8
Jun

Alpha Eridanus – The End of the River

by profadamworth in 100 Words

It’d been generations since the biomass telescopes first detected life on Achernar.  It took a hundred years to construct the ship and train the families who’d carry Earth’s hopes into the stars.  The journey itself took several hundred more.  Finally, Captain Monroe is ready to make landfall.  In doing so, he’ll confirm what they’d detected last week – that Achernar is a planet of weeds.  Specifically, one weed, iterated endlessly over an unbroken landmass.

The landing party dutifully disperses to take samples of the colorless alien, but Monroe’s eyes look skyward.  The ship’s biomass telescopes had picked up another faint signal….

3
Jun

Medical Mystery

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

The doctors had never seen anything like it exactly. They took x-rays. They called in colleagues. They consulted every textbook they could find.

“You can see the glow through his stomach.”

“How the heck is it still burning?”

“The melted wax must be damaging his digestive system.”

“And you say it doesn’t hurt?” they asked.

“Not in the least,” the patient responded.

“Well, I guess we’ll have to operate.”

The examination was interrupted by a forbidding woman entering the room, who looked to be the afflicted’s personal assistant.

“Don’t let Mr. Copperfield worry you,” she admonished. “He’s just showing off.”

2
Jun

Apocrypha of Natural History – Act III

by profadamworth in 100 Words

Amidst all the trimmings that the gardeners of our reality have deemed inappropriate for existence, all the strange treasures from lost histories, only one thing interests the Thief.  Despite its quiet profile, it’s the one artifact that promises to fracture the Thief’s world and reinvent it anew.  Gingerly, the Thief opens the chest….

A scroll, written in ancient Aramaic, tells a story.  It tells of a world where Mashup Month was never possible.  Where thegooddoctor rose, put on his man-panties, and never enriched my weblog with delightful synergies of truth and fiction.

The Thief places the scroll in her bag.

2
Jun

Ivanhoe – In Space

by profadamworth in 100 Words

The crew fixated on the deeps of the sky.  Their opponent was 400,000km away and bearing down.  In five seconds the two ships would close the distance.

At 199,000km, hungry sensors licked the perfectly rounded and mirrored surfaces the ships presented – each scanning for micron-wide fissures.  The rival captain thought he found one first and, at 35,000km, trained 100 million joules on the Ivanhoe.  The attack revealed an uneven aperture, and the Ivanhoe responded instantly.

For a moment, the two glassy hulls were centimeters apart.  Then they were again impossibly distant – one, a smoldering husk, and the other, a champion.

2
Jun

Apocrypha of Natural History – Act II

by profadamworth in 100 Words

Deep beneath the museum, the Thief discovers a cavernous warehouse – the burial ground of suppressed truths.  Searching the labyrinthine storeroom, the Thief moves past the delicately jointed skeleton of a thunderbolt hanging from the ceiling and the limestone fossils of clouds, dense with capillary beds.  Past tall shelves laden with jars of preserved fetuses that link man, not to primates, but to a race of loping salamanders.  Past photographs that prove mountains are the work of one very prolific man, now over 4000 years old and living in East L.A.  Suddenly, the Thief stops short before a modest little chest….

2
Jun

Sergio Leone Versus Time Square’s Naked Cowboy

by profadamworth in 100 Words

A high, warbling whistle split the air, interrupting the Naked Cowboy’s three-line act.

“Who’re you?”

“In this world there are two types of people my friend: those with guitars and diapers, and those with loaded guns.”

The Naked Cowboy’s gaze drifted to the pistol casually pointed at his head.

“Hey man, I’m just here to take pictures!”

The Man With No Name squinted.  He squinted hard.  He squinted into the sun and his eyes glinted like steel spurs.  The Naked Cowboy started to pee a little.  Finally, the Man With No Name holstered his .45.

“Put on a goddamn poncho.”

2
Jun

Missed Opportunities

by thegooddoctor in 100 Words

The Universe may not be infinite, but it’s pretty darn close.

Odds are, somewhere in the cosmos a ship of fun loving aliens can be found cruising the star systems. These extra-terrestrials are the most beautiful beings in the universe. You say it’s unlikely, but in fact it’s almost a certainty. It’s simple mathematics.

The next generation of astronauts, or the generation after that, could be the first Earthlings to encounter these beautiful alien party babes. Unfortunately, every one of our astronauts is a socially retarded science geek. The party of the eon is going to fly right past us.