AUGUST 2022 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO PARSON!

[mosaix]

Internet Down?

“Poor flow, increased urgency and frequency. An examination I think,” said DocBot reaching for a rubber glove.

“Is that strictly necessary?” I asked in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice.

“Oh, I think so.”

“Have you done this kind of thing before?”

“Well, no… but I have built-in wireless access to a medical database. There’s bound to be something…

…maybe not. Anyway, can’t be all that difficult. If you’d care to remove any dentures…”

 

[Bowler1]

The Day it Rained

For years ice comets have steaked into the Martian stratosphere, like silent fireworks high above.

Each one added water to the atmosphere, that has grown into dark clouds that roll across a red sky.

My dream of bringing life to this dead world has started, there’s no turning back now.

The first drops plink, plop and turn bone dry soil dark red like life giving blood, as Martian rain falls on my Earth made umbrella.

 

[Bruce MacLean]

Vengeance

Standing on the cliff facing the sea, I calm my breathing to match the ebb and flow of the tide.

Slowly, I find the rhythm and equalise.

I exert my will and now the tide follows my lead.

The sea is restless, but the memories of the fallen keep my concentration focused.

Larger breaths now.

Larger waves.

Finally, I draw a breath that fills my lungs and hold…the Tsunami will destroy them all.

 

[BT Jones]

Trappist Tuesday’s Teleportation Trade Treat: Tasty Terran Trapezoodae​

Orinoco loved his job.​

The deep black sea was his office, gathering crustaceans for trade to other seas – seas he accessed via the gravity well wormhole at the bottom of Earth’s deepest trench that the mouthbreathers were still oblivious to. Yes, Orinoco was a dolphin – a subspecies also unknown to the mouthbreathers, as was where he traded his catch: Europa… Enceladus… Wherever the galaxy’s intersea teleportation hub took him.​

Tomorrow? Market day on Trappist-1f.​

 

[Stable]

As Above, Castles Below

I didn’t believe, I dove anyway.

The lake was impossibly deep. Shudders wracked me from the effort of holding my breath.

Then a pearl arch emerged from the gloom. Within, a scaly form. A huge eye that focussed. That saw me.

I fled that eye, desperately slowing my racing heart to conserve oxygen for the ascent.

…

They called it a hallucination, a deep water blackout. But I won’t go back to the lake.

 

[johnnyjet]

Surfer Dude at the End of the World

Surfer Dude was riding a big wave when the sky burst into fire. Blinded by the brilliance, he lost balance and plunged through cold water. Recovering, he slowly stroked upward. The water grew warmer. Breaking surface, he found his blackened board. The shore was smoldering, lifeless.

He knew it would happen someday.

He looked oceanward. A goliath of a tsunami reared.

Hell, he had to catch that one. He paddled out to meet it.

 

[Peter V]

Ferryman

One moment I’m plummeting, failed ripcord in hand, the next I’m standing on the banks of a river. The reflection of a baleful, crimson sky paints it blood red. The air is hot and sulphurous.

A figure looms over me and holds out a hand. I shake my head.

Sighing. “Always without coin these days. Step aboard.”

A push tumbles Charon into the water. I pick up his pole. Upstream or down?

Anywhere but across.

 

[Starbeast]

A Tale of Two Ships​

I crash landed on an unknown planet simultaneously with a smaller extraterrestrial vessel. Their crew were diminutive. We all needed water. Unfortunately only a foot wide shallow pool of it was located. I gestured to them that they could have it all, then wandered away.

#

Days passed. Dehydration made me collapse into unconsciousness.

#

I awoke to see tiny people dripping water into my mouth. My saviors had repaired their craft and found a glacier.

 

[Daysman]

Out of the Blue

The tide here is mountainous, gathered each month by the passing of our adopted world's small bright moon.

Our colonies line the cliffs to witness its swooping flight and the ocean breaking below, then to descend on rocky beaches to harvest the creatures abandoned there.

Last month, one gasping refugee looked vaguely human, so we helped it to the water.

It signed a scaly thumbs up before diving under.

Seems humankind has settled here before.

 

[Iwroteathing]

A Greek Tragedy ​

I troubled the water, I made it hot,
And I made waves when they told me to not.
I'm in it deep, in bad water I hear.
"You are just young, still wet behind the ear"
Poseidon, my master, you heard my prayer!
Give me the wisdom that I desperately-
"Go away, make a proper cuppa tea!"

 

[VRlass]

Bravely into the new world

All turtles raced eagerly toward the ocean, but not Toby.

Toby wasn’t like them—sure of his destination. For his entire life, all he knew was the egg. Toby had doubts…

On the surface, he noticed another turtle giving him a radiant smile.

“Hey, you! We are playing tag. Wanna join us?”

The warmth of his voice and friendly face gave Toby the push he needed.

With faith, he stepped into this new, blue world.

 

[Parson]

Scarcity and Value

The asteroid miner Rockhound was weeks from its base searching for a golden bonanza when it was holed through both primary water tanks. With only a week’s water reserve Rockhound initiated a furious search for a big enough asteroid to process for its life-giving water.

Five days later a right-sized one was spotted, and a desperate computer spectral analysis begun.

When the results came in, Spaceman Smith muttered everyone’s feelings.

“We’re doomed! It’s solid gold!”

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

What do you call dangerous amounts of precipitation?

After a summer of the hottest, driest weather on record, the rain returned.

"Good for the crops," "No more hosepipe bans," ran the headlines.

But the rain didn't stop, it intensified. It surpassed torrential. It became vertical rivers. Water levels rose everywhere, devastating buildings, roads and farmland.

People were afraid. To venture outside was to drown, to remain indoors, starve.

Eventually the rain subsided, but that inundation was forever known as The Rain of Terror.

 

[Luiglin]

The Ritual​

Battered and bloody, the three paladins reached the bar.

“Undead, dead?” asked the innkeeper, passing over drinks.

Smiling, the elf nodded as the human sang a blessing of thanks. With a heartfelt sigh, the dwarf grimaced at his tankard.

As one, they downed their drinks in one.

And waited for the inevitable.

Pupils shrinking to pinpricks of sober astonishment, the dwarf, ramrod straight, toppled backwards.

“Still can’t handle his holy water, eh?” stated the innkeeper.

 

[Hugh]

And again...​

One moment he was terminally frail and choking, the next he was splashing in a vast silky smooth grey-green sea.

Instinctively he started swimming towards the great light on the horizon, rejoicing in new strength in his limbs and abundant well-being.

Before long he realized there were others, all swimming in the same direction.

He was the first to enter that great golden sun.

Nine months later, he emerged, squalling and newborn, into the world.​

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Deity

Why is Man driven to find the source of every great river? For glory? To step where no one has stepped before? To triumph over danger? His nature does not change, even as he inhabits new worlds.

And so I wait, by a bubbling spring beneath twin moons in a turquoise sky. Eons pass. And when he comes, I will draw him down into the clear water and show him the Universe.

 

[Elckerlyc]

Water Debt

“Long ago, my father too returned home from Water Distribution empty-handed. I didn’t understand what it meant, then. My mother fainted. Father uh... left soon after.
You see son, Water Distribution allocates rations, reclaims water from our wastes, and monitors all our water-balances. It must always, always cover a family’s loan; their combined body-water mass.
Your grandfather was obliged to relinquish his water.
Today… We’re in debt again. And I must go.”

 

[Jo Zebedee]

The Fiendish Snails of Lough Dorcha


The name – Dark Lough – screamed to be mindful. But the Light-Casting shells, littering the water’s edge, were worth a fortune, and the snails harmless if he played the right song.

He lifted the whistle to his lips. It was a sadness that he didn’t notice the slime under his fingers. He blew a flattened bleat, the holes sealed fast.

The giants slithered across the shale.

“Ah, bugger,” he said, as they slimed him.

 

[The Judge]

By the waters of Babylon​

​

​

We sit and weep, slaves in a foreign land.​

​

Our captors laugh, thinking our tears evidence of our obedience – our water magic has filled their wells, made their rivers flow, their desert bloom.​

​

Soon they will weep.​

​

Accustomed to drought, they cannot conceive of the flood we’re creating – of powerful, pitiless waters rising impossibly fast, destroying their homes, their lives, as they destroyed ours.​

​

We, too, may die. But our waters will carry us home.​

 

[Astro Pen]

Unburdening

Every drop of water in the sea contains particles that have, at some point, been a tear.
That accumulated sadness moves in her restless currents.
Great swells of salt water barrel and roil around the world in oceans that, unable to hold so much despair, cast it off upon her shores.
Returning that anguish to the troubled lands of its origin.
The crashing waves, the ocean’s great sighs of relief, unloading the unwanted sorrow.