Brian loved being an angel. Heaven was a playground without any teachers and Earth was Tombstone before Wyatt Earp came to town. In other words, anything goes.

“You’d think God would have learned his lesson with the apple. If you don’t want people punching baby angels in the face, don’t make a rule prohibiting it.”

The gods gathered on Mt. Olympus for an important meeting. Grand Targhee, the Titan responsible for holding up the Earth, was threatening to go on strike. Some of the more warlike gods favored a quick and violent response, but the others wanted to consider his reasons.

After hearing his complaints, the gods agreed to annihilate Grand Targhee. The task of holding up the earth passed on to Arthur Leibowitz of Albany, New York.

Viking raiders would return from their numerous expeditions and invasions as conquering heroes and hope to receive a heroes’ welcome. Instead, they were generally greeted with indifference bordering on disdain.

The strongest Viking warriors in fact stayed home and forced their weaker counterparts to pay them tribute in food and gold.

Gerald stared at the twenty-foot tower and wondered what it could be.

When examined up close, it obviously wasn’t any kind of rock. The old man who was charging one dollar for admission explained. “This here is one of the last remaining stings from when the giant bees invaded. It’s lucky the Earth doesn’t have an allergy or we’d all be dead.”

The first documented invasion of Earth occurred prior to the Revolutionary War in the mid-eighteenth century. The aliens had achieved interstellar flight through a complicated series of hydraulics powered by steam. They were an industrious species but their eagerness to rule Earth was not matched by their technology.

The new world might have been destroyed then and there had it not been for Benjamin Franklin and his invention of electricity.

I was fifteen the year information came alive. Before that, we had a vague sense that information was becoming more dangerous, that there was a potential for catastrophe, but everyone was too busy making money to worry much about the ramifications.

It’s still an open question which is more powerful. But either way, the days of humanity dominating the Earth are long over.

Percival watched the meteor as it ripped a cataclysmic hole through the sky overhead. He was far enough away that he’d be unaffected by the impact, but even from this distance the noise was nearly deafening. He curled into a ball and awaited the inevitable.

Percival liked that just fine. As a zalambdalestes, he for one looked forward to the age of mammals.

The Daily Theme from Figment for March 5, 2012

When it rains…Write a story in which weather has a dramatically positive or negative effect on your character’s day.

The shuttle pulled away and rocketed into the distance. The orbiting station would never be visited again. It had been abandoned to the cold, unforgiving emptiness of space. It was no longer an active laboratory, but the most expensive piece of space junk ever conceived.

Nadia looked up at the station with nostalgia. She had been among the last cosmonauts to leave. She wondered why they didn’t bring it back to Earth. They could turn it into a museum piece. It certainly would be worth the cost. And it was the only way she’d ever get her house keys back.

The children followed their teacher into the meadow where they had their classes.  Their school desks were the rocks of the field.  Their blackboard was the open sky.  The teacher stooped to touch the grass with both hands, signaling that the morning recitation was about to start.

“Our lives are connected with the Earth.  If it sickens, so do we.  To preserve all life, we must dedicate our own lives to sustaining the health of this planet, and to our Green Republic, which guards its gardens.”

Today’s lesson would teach the children how to report polluters amongst their family members.