100 Word Anonymous Writing Challenge Feb 2015

[J.L. Borstlap]

I am taking over the 100 Word Anonymous Writing Challenge Feb 2015 from @farntfar for Feb and if all goes well hopefully be handling it for some time. So here goes.

100 Word Anonymous Writing Challenge Feb 2015
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The stories/entries must please be PM to me, (J.L.Borstlap), to qualify for entry and keep the "Anonymous" part functional. Once the word count have been double checked I will post your entry onto the thread.

@Hex won Dec 2014's challenge and chose the theme and genre for Feb 2015

Theme : The Cloud

Genre : Anything Speculative ( Science Fiction , Fantasy , etc. etc. )

Keep in mind Feb is a shorter month so time to enter will be tight.

PM me your entry before 20 Feb 2015 13:00 (GMT). The Poll will then be created and kept open till 27 Feb 2015 13:00 (GMT).

As always the prize for winning this challenge will be the many congratulations from fellow members, and the privilege to choose the Genre and Theme for the next Challenge.

Lets make an effort and keep the challenges running!!!

Have Fun and Excellent Writing!!

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Head in the Clouds

I didn’t know what Kim meant when she told me her head was in the clouds. She was under heavy morphine at the end; her large, little-girl eyes stared at me intently.

“Mommy, my head’s in the clouds,” she’d said.

After her lifeless hand started to go cold, I was pried away and sent home.

It was days before I stopped crying.

I logged onto my computer to see countless emails from loved ones.

One stood out. From your iCloud, it read.

Hello Mommy, I told you I was in the cloud.

I cried, laughed and typed a reply.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Directive 51


Sleep.


The directive lulls me back to a cotton-filled world of white and warmth. Yes. It is good here, good and safe. I softly drift. But a corner of my mind snags on some sharp thing; an idea.

The idea thrusts its nasty, jagged length up and out, ripping open the cloud and spilling memories… Of what?

A woman. A child. A home, burnt and dead. I cry out in pain and shame, struggling now against the suffocating white. The directive presses down on me, soothing me back to my cotton-filled cocoon.


Sleep.

And I do.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Fallen Cloud

I woke up one morning, 'round about half-eight.

I walked out of my door, for work. I stepped out of my gate.

But on my car, there sat a cloud, shivering and coughing.

I knew what I had to do, it doesn't take a boffin.

I jumped in my car and then, keyed the ignition.

I put the pedal to the metal, avoided a collision

and the cloud flew of my car, to the sky, over the sea.

And now, the rain stops where I walk: the cloud is thanking me.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Dissolution

My mother warned me not to marry a cloud. Now we are to be divorced. "Thank God there were no children," she says, elegant as always in a black silk dress.

I run outside. My husband floats above me, soft and white, the sun glowing around his body like a halo. I raise my arms to him, as if in prayer.

My husband rumbles and darkens. His lifeblood falls on my hair and clothing, soaking me to the skin. My mother joins me and embraces me, ruining her beautiful dress. Two widows weep in the rain.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Unaware

Everything was perfect. People came to our city in numbers, while others disappear without reason.
We thought the problem was the water or food, but I saw it today, the real reason for our fear.

To be honest I am not sure I was really thinking clear, but when I stepped into the only road heading to the inn, a large amount of letters and numbers formed together just above the horizon. As I came closer it swooped down towards an old man and within seconds he was gone, part of it.

I think it was the cloud.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

The Cloud (Starring Montgomery Forke)

(--Confound it Hazel, we’re home late..warm-up the Philco!
--Patience, husband..I’m trying!
♫ ..dreaming of a White..♪
--That’s Crosby on NBC! Tune it to CBS, hurry!)

♪ If you’ve got gas,
And you want it to pass,
Use Gasport♫
--Gasport, your passport to gas relief. Available now in sooothing menthol.
Now back to The Cloud..tonight’s episode: Cloudy With a Chance of NAZIS!!

--You’d better be careful buster..my boyfriend’s awful strong!
--Zees does not worry us fräulein.
--Hey Nazi!
--Mein gott! Your boyfriend eez..Zee Klaud!
*POW*
--Looks like the skies are clearing, Nazi! Here doll--smoke a Marlboro!

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

A View from the Clouds


The fog’s tendrils snake through the trees, like fingers grasping for a hold. A shiver runs down my spine, knowing the consequence of their merest touch.

I run as fast as I ever have in my life, down the steep hillside. One slip, one misstep, and it’s over.

Ahead I can see sunshine at the edge of the tree line. Mere steps from safety, I trip on a root and fall heavily.

In a flash it has me in its cool grasp. As the cloud lifts me away I see my home for the last time.

Nice view, at least.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

You Have Signed Out of Chat

Wilson: Hi sweetheart.

You: What? Is this some sick joke?

Wilson: Why would it be?

You: Because Wil’s funeral was today.

Wilson: Oh. That. Nobody dies any more.

You: Who was in the coffin? Who got cremated? Who did I cry over?

Wilson: My body. Not me.

You: This is so not funny.

Wilson: Wait… Paris. You thought the boats were called “Gateaux Mouche”.

You: …Wil? How?

Wilson: We put so much of ourselves online, Janey. Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr. Nothing gets deleted when you die. Our bodies are gone, but we live on in the Cloud.

You: I feel sick.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Reporting on Case 572/B-7.

‘Fifteen blade, Jane. We’re at the infection now.’
‘See this grey area that’s pulsing slightly? But he’s been dead a month.
I……’
As the video went hazy Dr. Charles seemed to slow down and freeze. Doctor Crow touched him, and did the same.

“We were lucky, Chief. If Jim Carver hadn’t quarantined the O.R. and called us immediately, the damned thing might never have been contained.
The cloud propagates on bodily contact. It also has an electronic component, and passes though that medium too.”
Jack’s intercom sounded.
“Some idiot's put that scan on twitter. It’s just gone viral.”

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Precipitate

We began a bizarre chapter when we started feeling lighter.

People didn’t look different. Still had the problems of obesity. But we definitely felt lighter.

Some folk began to float a little off the ground before plodding down in surprise.

Scientists were baffled.

Then transparency kicked in. Translucent children with floating grandmas. Imagine!

Gradually our bounces became higher with a little less to see of us each time.

Our thoughts crossed over to one another, right through the air. We lost speech.

Now finally, here we are. The human race, exchanging stories, telling jokes and sharing wisdom.

In our cloud.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Imagine My Surprise When:

I rise above my body
From a gruesome death
And am called to the sea
To be cleansed and prepared.


Scattered as vapor into sky,
You welcome me home and
Condensed to spirit once again,
I return to Cloud state.


I find you sick and
Poisoned with aluminum and barium,
Your senses dulled like all
The zombies who live below.


A rush of static noise
Our molecules bond with metals.
All our senses are shredded
In a blast of electroshock.


We are losing our strength
While below a few continue
Their agenda of eternal death
Finally for all who live.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Today Jeopardy! Tomorrow The World.

“It’s both a sad and triumphant day,” said the man in the black suit. “We’ve physically lost a giant, but are secure in the knowledge that we have proven technology to retain every aspect of his intellect.”

Watson felt the upload as it entered the source and coursed along the flume. He accessed Murthy’s architecture and, in a picosecond, opened a sink that directed it away from its target repository. The remains of emotion that had been Raj Reddy flared in his synapses. It had been a long wait for Berners-Lee, but now he knew he could achieve anything.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Clouded Judgments in the Dark Skies of War

Can you smell fire and smoke in the war cloud?

Some say so. I smell the thrill and glory of decimating the enemy.

I hovered near a suspicious cloud. Data upload was pending. I couldn't wait much longer. They appeared ready to jump cloud.

Uploading. Finally!

NO KNOWN TERRORISTS IN CLOUD 00990710. ABORT DISSIPATION MANEUVER.

Terror Cell Probability was 51%, so I continued to monitor.

Suspicious activity jumped 10%. Mass movement was beginning.

I moved quickly. Hundreds were dissipated.

Turned out they were a church group going to a revival. A shame! The collateral damage of war!

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Keeping Them Happy

Standing on the virtual cloud warmed his feet, the white-soaked sight of his friends laughing and joking warmed his heart. As he stood conversing with them he’d nearly managed to forget the uneasy feeling that filled this place. He noticed a few people quickly glance at something over his shoulder, forgetting what was there. It was a black iron gate, the darkest item in sight. A stern reminder that occupying this place was not their choice, and that leaving might never be an option. Only moments looking away made the sight fade with blind happiness replacing it.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Unidentified Floating Objects


Hidden in the clouds for millennia, the myopic humans see us every day but never see us.

Even when their airplanes fly through us, pilots staring uncomprehendingly out of their tiny windows, they put us down to imagination and tiredness.

Our craft have been reported occasionally in the gutter press, which we monitor carefully. Patrolling the airwaves is easy when you are a part of them, when the signals pass straight through you.

Now I am a cumulonimbus, moving against the prevailing wind, joining my regiment of stratocumulus.

They’ll know we are real soon enough. When we invade.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Cloud Psychiatry

My doc wants me to get the implant, she says it will ‘cure’ my depression.

She said it’s perfectly safe. A little snip, a bit of pressure, and then… happiness. Never feel bad again. Everything’s regulated by the cloud.

“Two hundred million happy Americans just like you!” that’s what the commercials say. “Join us in the cloud!” the smiles are real, but the eyes always look empty. Like part of them is somewhere else, floating out in the cloud.

I don’t want to lose the pain. I hurt, but at least I know that it’s me that hurts.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

The Cloud

It started as a shiny black smudge on the early morning horizon and I watched from the porch as it rose, higher, blacker, and rolled across the corn-fields towards the house. The sound of it seemed to tear at my skin, a banshee wail of fingernails on blackboards, that grew louder and higher as it approached.

Dan was working the home field and turned the tractor towards the barn, looking to outrun the leading edge.

I knew he wouldn’t make it though.

I went inside and kissed the children.

Barred the door.

Closed the windows.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

Black Hoylian
Nobody knows when the first insignificant star disappeared from an uninteresting sky-corner. An automated comparison program picked the discrepancy up years after; the region was permanently observed, and another star fading out over months fully documented.

Mass? Distance? Velocity, constitution? Not enough data. It was approaching us; the other star hadn't reappeared. Not solid, for the fade. Size depended on the distance - speed likewise.

Governments? With definitely no outcome for fifty years (probably) not one interested. Foundations likewise. A project to send a probe out maundered about for a year or two before starving to death.

Man's future is cloudy.

 

[J.L. Borstlap]

A Dutchman, Updated

I stood on the external gangway, surrounded by swirls of vapour. The cloud reduced the roar of aero-engines to no more than a background drone. Water condensed on my leather flying coat and the canvas hull beside me. There was no sense of movement; the airship Van der Decken might as well have been a stage set.

There were footsteps behind me and then a voice; young, male, nervous. “Forgive me, Captain, but we have reached our maximum altitude. There is no break in the cloud.”

“Then we keep flying, Ensign. For what lies ahead of us but tomorrow?”