September 2016 75-word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO JOHNNYJET!

[hopewrites]

First and last contact.

The Garblathon's tranciver wamified as I picked it up.

"Hello? Is this thing on?"

---

The smoke detector yowls in feedback loops across space and time.

How was I to know in their native tongue it was the gravest insult imaginable...

 

[HazelRah]

A Sceduled Return


The helmet slides over my eyes as I climb the structure it took me five years to build.
I reach the top and wait.

She skims graciously through the atmosphere, breaking speed for descent onto a neighbouring planet. Her wings tilt; in a few seconds they'll come within jumping distance.

I clutch the metal framework, close my eyes and... I stumble.

She glides back into space.


Another year lost, waiting for her return.

 

[Moonbat]

Stage Fright​

Like thousands of others in the stadium I left my seat at Half time.

I’ve always found multi-species toilets imposing with the ground swamps, urinary eyebrows, wall squatting pans and excretion mandibles. The less said about ceiling urinals the better.

I have issues peeing in front of strangers, in room full of compound eyes and with a 10ft multiple eye-stalked Glarkan next to me, it’s no surprise I couldn’t go.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Victoria’s Secret Identity

I held the fabric in a white-knuckled grip, and pulled my shirt open to reveal my revealing costume.
The costume teenage boys and trolls internet-voted for.
I stared down at the skintight spandex that revealed a whole lot more skin than it actually covered.
‘This looks like a job for...a girl with clothes on!’ I hugged my shirt closed.
And that’s why I couldn’t stop Doctor Apocalypse’s world conquest.

 

[Phyrebrat]

To Press or not to Press

Curtis, Poet Laureate 2045, stood on the charred dance floor, calling down the spirits of all those who’d come before; Dali, Divine, Martha Graham, a withering Minnelli…

He mourned Inferno’s legendary, final - ironic - night, and listened, almost hearing the elegiac chat of all the stars over all the years.

He dialed 1977 on the Timelens, trembling, his heart hammering like a rail gun piston.
One press and they’d return; Warhol, Capote, Onassis…

And his father…

 

[WordWarrior]

Space beckoned.
She stood frozen inside the airlock door. The emptiness of the universe threatened to suck her soul into infinity.
After the collision she was the only one fit to take the spacewalk. And now she couldn’t move. She hunched in her spacesuit and sweated.
She was only a passenger. Trying to get off-world to a better life. Not a mechanic or anyone useful.
Screw this.
But who would fix the solar array?

 

[Dan Jones]

Staged Freight



chuggadachuggada

Gotta catch the train, bruvs​

chuggadachuggada

Catch dem rogue automated trains, AI malfunktioned.​

chuggadachuggada

Trouble is, me HATE trains.​

<squink> o lord I’ve FARTED again​

not even any passengers on board, you Daves! Just a bloke called

MAERSK​

TIN DEM
​

LYONS​

????​

C’mon Dot, keep dem ickle metal legs running (wish me ‘ad ‘alf a ‘art)

chuggadachuggada

Gawd lumme what’s it carrying in dem whackin’ box

Gotta stay on track!​

Wish me ‘ad BRAINS!


Lok.

 

[Ursa major]

​

Prop Buyer Beware

​

For years, live theatre was TV’s and film’s poor cousin. Few plays – and those mostly musicals – had decent effects.

But animatronics saved it… and me, now Della’s managed to hire some substandard robots from a bankrupt theme park. (It’s okay: the audience is too far away to tell.)

“Something’s gone wrong,” Della shouts. “Look at the stage!”

I do. And I hear screaming, and see the Romantic Lead…

…entering stage fright, pursued by a ‘bear’.​

​

​

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Our Doubts are Traitors


Everyone will be looking at me.

I can’t make a mistake.

Every line is in my memory. I can feel every step, make every mark, for every single play known to man.

The lights, the backdrops, the acoustics of every whisper and shout. That’s me.

I tell myself (who else?) that I am the Globe 3000, Earth’s finest stage, and I literally cannot make a mistake. It doesn’t help.

Everyone will be looking at me.

 

[Alex The G and T]

Some Kind of a Yoke



“Starfleet orders are to reconoiter this primitive planet.”

“It’s a disturbingly bucolic place; but what is that rumble in the distance?”

“It sounds like distant thunder; but there isn’t a cloud in the sky.”

The approaching roar strikes fear. Battle Tank, or Charging Army?

“Hide! Arm your phasers! Stand alert!”

The frightful racket comes to a shuddering halt amid snorts and curses.

“It appears to be but a horse-drawn charabanc. No cause for alarm.”

 

[The Judge]

Life’s but a Walking Shadow, or A Tale Told by an Idiot


I wanted to relive my glory, my greatest hour upon the stage – the standing ovation for my Macbeth.

When Duncan King mentioned his time experiments, I took the nearest way. Killed him; stole his machine.

I relived my glory. All my yesterdays I relived it. In fear, horror, loathing, I still do – I created a time loop. Now nothing exists for me but this frightful, everlasting sound and fury. And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...

 

[StilLearning]

Checkmate

Kasparov’s old foe wouldn’t play: Their entourage spent hours trying various approaches, and got nowhere.

“It started as the crowd arrived, that’s all we know,” one told the press.

In the end Kasparov decided to meet his opponent, privately.

Then he summoned the programmers: “You modified it. Emotion? For lucrative post-match interviews, no doubt?”

Feet shuffled.

“Well, dipsticks, Deep Blue now gets pre-match jitters. Can you modify it to drink a whiskey?”

 

[ErikB]

Harsh critics for one that bombed in his performance.


The rioting had to end.

"Find a solution!" They demanded, and he had.

A long term fix for human and alien alike.

He had been proud of his efficiency. But now he sat nervously. About to face their judging eyes. Would they understand?

Sitting before his critics as the lights came on he studied them and spoke.

"Just thinning the herd!" He justified smiling.

A unanimous thumbs down!

His body danced to the powerful current.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

A COLD DAY IN WINTER

The landing stage is set. My mother watching in America. Papa.

One step. Then two. The fear clamping and cramping.

Sudden snow, stinging my skin. One long, cold spear of ice stops me.

Mission aborted. Weather conditions. I bow my head, unable to meet my distant parents' eyes.

It's not my fault the snow follows me, as if it knows my fear and grows from it.

Perhaps it does.

 

[Mad Alice]

Someday,

"Roger, Houston. Second stage separation... "

When I'm awfully low,

"Losing altitude!"

When the world is cold,

"Liquid oxygen leak. Temp drop"

Feel a glow,

"Capsule fire, repeat,"

Smile so warm

"Hatch melted,"

Cheeks so soft

"Repeat, Commander Soldesky... freefall"

There is nothing for me

"Soldesky? Reach the station?"

"Negative, Houston."

Love you

"Tell wife,"

With each word,

"Low air, Control..."

Tearin' my fear apart.

"Sending,"
"Too late."

Touches my foolish heart

"EKG flat lined..lost."

 

[Ursa major]

This challenge is now closed to new entries.

Voting is open at the link below:

POLL -- SEPTEMBER 2016 75-Word Challenge -- READ FIRST POST!

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