May 2015 -- 75-word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO VICTORIA SILVERWOLF!

[Harusame]

“It’s useless, I still hear it.”

The doctor – her name long forgotten – adjusted his module. “How about now?”

The planet’s psychic echo was faintly bypassing his dulled senses, too much. “Still.”

“Sir, it’s getting dangerous. It’ll impact your mind. Make someone else go out there.”

“Turn it down.”

“Sir–“

“Now.”

She did, and

The surface was too far. Time. Time to…

Duty.

Was duty.

 

[marmalade]

Suffocating; fabric soaks up air. Heart quickens, breaths too. Pressed, folded in. Fuzzy green light treads lightly over my motionless self. Head swells, heavy.

Drat, this is it then.

Body quivers. Down like a leaf. Spiral, inside spiral, inside spiral. Fingertips of wind scrape past, grasping nothing.

Deafened by a rustling. What is that? I move, it moves.

A crack, like wet paper. Colours flash, soft petals against my face.



I am become another.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Recursive

…the coruscant surface of the portal dazzles. I tell myself it is the boundary between mundanity and unimaginable contortions of space-time: coiled parsecs in a quark-scale froth of fractal time loops. It is also a bridge to an alien world. Robotic rovers have transmitted breathtaking images back. I, the first human ever to depart, push forward to instantly cross light-years.

Eyes ache as the coruscant surface of the portal dazzles. I tell myself…

 

[johnnyjet]

The Möbius Escalator

While we were riding the exit escalator out of the World Wide Mall, my wife broke the news. She was leaving me.

Now we had the whole damn length of it to talk.

"Why? Why here?"

"You know why. This is our life. A dull, relentless crawl to the end."

I winced.

On the entrance escalator opposite us, my younger self was proposing to my future wife. Damn! We're stuck in an infinite loop.

 

[HareBrain]

Voyage to the Far Side


Before they laid the dead king and set his ship afloat, Ornvik hid aboard. He alone, living, would reach Land Beyond Water, place of ambrosia.

Weeks later, he beached. Nearby, outlandish people played a game on grass. He distracted them; the ball hit a batsman’s shin.

Too parched to ask, "Land Beyond Water?" he rasped, "LBW?"

"Yer bonzer, cobber!" they cheered, gave him ambrosia in a metal cylinder.

Then, being convicts, they ransacked the ship.

 

[TitaniumTi]

Happily Ever After

He brought me roses, pink as new scars. I remembered the first bright bouquet and the single flower I'd pressed into an album. Where had it gone?

We dined in silence. I glanced at the ring chafing my finger, seeing how harshly it gleamed. There were no candles, this anniversary.

After dinner, I told him I was leaving.

"Why?" He questioned me with blue, bewildered eyes.

I felt only pity. "After 172 years, it's time."

 

[Tywin]

The Interplanetary Excursion of Mr. William Douglas

Bill shuddered as the ship lurched under his feet, finding the trajectory that would take it forever out of Earth’s orbit and launch it toward their destination.

Thirty years to the far end. He hoped that was far enough.

A one-way journey to his new life.

The blue planet came into view through his window, and he thought about everything he was leaving behind:

Family.

Friends.

And the body of the real Bill Douglas.

 

[Hex]

All the blood that's shed on earth

"Write," Mum says, lips pale against saying more. The gun on her back pokes me when we hug. So much is new: the smell of diesel, the taste of failure.

We won the war, and still we've lost.

"Come too." Stupid. Only kids can leave.

She smiles. "Be good, my Tom."

In the sky behind her, Elfland floats, buoyed by swollen clouds, and from its drains and sewers, blood pours endlessly onto the city below.

 

[LittleStar]

Forever Leaving

When I was the candle, you were the flame,
but you vanished on the breeze.

When I was the soil, you were the seed,
growing tall, and I was forgotten on the way.

When I was the shore, you were the tide,
and I loved and died when you whispered through my shingle.

Now I'm the Earth, and you're the wind,
sailing your cloud-white ships, never looking down
where I forever await your next departure.

 

[Perpetual Man]

Denial

I watch my gorgeous Elise reclining on our bed.

Behind her fallen Polaris, a perfect sapphire, fills the window. Invaded. Conquered.

The engines stalled upon launch. There is no escape.

I've already finished the children, even the baby. Elise has drunk unknowingly from the wine.

I'm brave enough to look into her eyes as life departs.

I release her limp hand. Down the wine.

So it is the great tyrant, butcher of billions, escapes justice.

 

[Dan Jones]

Class: Schön

Maya steps from the shower, wreathed in sex and steam, burning like the Sun.

“Come here, Kumiko,” she says, tracing fingers across her body. “You must learn.”

“Must I leave? Can’t I stay, with you?” I murmur. “I am not ready for what men will use me for.”

Maya tilts her head. “Do you love me?”

I stare at my nakedness, ashamed. The apartment feels cold.

“Sweet Kumiko,” she smiles. “We’re not programmed for love.”

 

[WinterLight]

Burning Purpose

As fragile as she was amaranthine, Ramid held Suhna close, sheltering her flame from the dusted winds. As Bearer, he had carried her, across the barren steppe and through the sea of sand. Now, they stood at the outer edge of the old city.

Whispering encouragement and an affirmation, it was as if he gave his soul away. He set Suhna down and she took, dancing into the stones that began the world of men.

 

[Parson]

A Faithful Summary​

Sheeree, chief xeno-mytho-archeologist, was lead on this survey because of the book and the mystery. A whole population had vanished and there was no evidence of an attack or migration. It looked like a near instant departure. The safe summary was “Depopulated: cause unknown.” Her thoughts turned to the “Bible.” It spoke of a universal departure for judgment. Could that be? It fit the evidence, but..... In the end she wrote “Depopulated: possible divine intervention.”

 

[Moonbat]

The Long Thought


- to live I eat but must excrete -

When the soft shapes of life meet the binary blocks of computing the transfer becomes... uncomfortable.
Vivid, fragrant memories once threaded with emotion become sterile lists.
Faces I loved become 3D maps with specific facial landmarks.
The stream of time becomes a dripping tap, drips measured in yottaflops.
The poetry of life becomes a digitised technical manual.

I miss my body.

- I'm a changing flow of energy -

 

[hopewrites]

Final Boarding Call

He waves with a big smile. But I know his heart is breaking.

I had 17 'last' hugs... it should be enough... but it isn't... for ether of us.

Maybe there's time to run out and get one more last hug, but the train lurches, and everything goes soft focus on me.

"I'll see you soon." I'd told him. But soon is never soon enough, there's always an eternity in-between.

 

[ratsy]

Always a Hero

“So how did they get away, Mommy?” His eyes shone bright.

“They didn’t my dear. They tried everything, but they were still invaded.”

Outside shouts could be heard; the smell of burning straw clogged the air.

“But there is always a hero in the books!”

“Life isn’t a book.”

The door shook, and then burst open.

“Daddy!”

He limped and his sword dripped red.

“I found a way out. Follow me,” he said.

 

[Ihe]

"OMNIPRESS" UNIVERSAL RE-DISCOVERY TOURS, BOOK ONLINE at HALF-PRICE. Only till the end of May.

Korren decided at some point that twenty years is too long to be away from anything. So, he embarked in a twenty-year tour, visiting every coordinate of known space, and it was money well spent.

On his return, time was ripe to settle down. After bidding farewell to everything in the physical universe at least once, he moved to the non-spatial time-only plane. And there he reluctantly lived forever remembering every farewell.

 

[GreenKidx]

Dreams of the Flesh

No one fantasizes within Dreamscape; no one can. Yet, I see your smile. I feel your fingertips, even now, a year after your descent into Limbo.

"Deviations threaten Dreamscape!" I am sentenced to Waking.

The Executioner wonders why I am unafraid.

"His body is there," I answer.

I will learn to run, hunt and fight. I will find you. I will Wake you. Keep strong, my Love.

 

[Sancho]

Rise of the New Age Dad

Blaise hugged his wife fiercely while his son clung to him. He knelt, brushing the boy's hair away and with glistening eyes said, "I'll be back soon."
Two serious technicians with clipboard and plunger, led Blaise down a spotless white hallway and he was gone.

The boy cried into his mother's lycra-clad leg.
She put down her Mocaccino, "He´s hormonal. Its just a little labour and then he'll be back ...with your new sister."

 

[jastius]

The Ashman


The tears of the sky were long cried out from Apollo's last betrayal.
Only ashes remained. Dead cities dust.

Bone white faces wound in rags.
Rags and bones, he collected. His ringing bell calling them out.
Bring out your dead. Your dying. Yourselves.
Mourning them.

The last huddled masses. Again going to a new world.
Flying a rocket's flames to distant stars, away from this fuel spent sun.

As Apollo closed his eyes, defeated.