FEBRUARY 2023 -- 75 Word Writing Challenge -- VICTORY TO PARANOID MARVIN!

[Starbeast]

Auxilatores Earth Upgrade​

“Aliens arriving on Earth was the best thing to ever happen. They cleansed the planet of hazardous nonessential junk. Everyone between the ages of 9 to 39 are being sent to the Auxilatores home world. This is so exciting.”

“You kids think you know everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This cargo starship is for useless people. Ya, junk food eating, selfish, lazy, video game playing fool.”

“But..?”

“We’re nonessential.”

“We’re…”

“...being disposed of.”

“...”

 

[C.Robin]

Waste thief

Step by step, he slowly sneaked into the building. Metallic footsteps alerted him to incoming danger. He jumped into the pile of garbage, barely avoiding the scanners of incoming security robots. Just one wrong move, one loud sound, and he would be dead meat. But he had to undergo this danger. Only here, in this waste storage area, he could find the microchips capable of maintaining the life support systems of the last human colony.

 

[paranoid marvin]

A Mission To Savour



"A waste of time."

"What is?"

"Returning to the Moon."

"Why?"

"Well, you know Geoff?"

"Your boss at NASA?"

"That's him. He has a hankering for some 'lunar cheese'."

"But hasn't it already been established that Earth's only natural satellite isn't comestible?"

"Try telling Geoff that. Said he wants to make 'really sure' this time."

"I thought he'd more of a sweet tooth?"

"Why do you think the Mars Exploration Programme got approved?"

"Ahhh..."

 

[Christine Wheelwright]

Dumpster Diving for Tulips on Typhon 7​

Investors bought me the waste planet, agreeing to equal shares of the profit. I hurried there, only to find that garbage craft were still dumping trash. But I soon put a stop to that.

For years I searched for my holo-stick wallet containing 500 Tibcoin tokens; worthless when discarded but now enough to buy eight star systems outright. I found it eventually, in the fourteenth year of looking, a day after Tibcoin went to zero.

 

[Marvin]

Kicking the can.


Six months ago the ’Rips’ appeared.
Everywhere. All across the now spotless, pristine Earth.

’The body fell through last night. Dead less than an hour.’

‘Christ! What the hell else is gonna come through these things?!’



Three generations earlier…



[Top secret facility.]

‘That’s your final report?’

‘We’ve tried everything. Every method of communication has been sent through the portal.
Including six volunteers! Nothing has come back.’

‘However, we do have one last recommendation…

…waste disposal.’

 

[sule]

You're Better Off Doing It Yourself

start program

INPUT COMMAND

generate flash fiction story

FOR SALE: BABY SHOES, NEVER WORN.

generate science fiction story

FOR SALE: ROBOT SERVANT, PERMANENTLY DISABLED.

generate hard science fiction story

FOR SALE: SINGULARITY GENERATOR, INVENTOR MISSING.

generate soft science fiction story

FOR SALE: SAFARI SIMULATOR, INVENTOR MISSING.

generate dystopian sci-fi story

FOR BARTER: NUTRITIONAL SLURRY, RECYCLED ONCE.

generate utopian sci-fi story

FOR FREE: NUTRITIONAL SLURRY, RECYCLED TWICE.

end program

THANKS FOR USING STORYBOT 2200!

 

[emrosenagel]

Recycle and Reuse

“Another finger fell off in the shower, Jo,” Anne called from the kitchen.

“That’s the third one this month. Damn rads…” He heard the metal bin snap open. “Don’t throw it away!” Twisting around, he confirmed she instead used the BIOHAZARD recycling bin. “That’s perfectly good flesh. You really need to recycle more.”

“Nobody wants my rad-invested fingers, Jo. Besides, I would never buy a repurposed finger. Those new synthetic ones are way more articulate.”

 

[Snicklefritz]

TrashTransformers

Report from Exploration Ship ReconSentinel

Item: Artifact. Found on barren planet CLX 503

Fragment of glass window?

TrashTransformers – Our Rodokokus Pyrolysis universal trash system -- managed by fail-safe artificial intelligence – processes all non-recyclable waste to extract ReCyclix energy to power the planet.
WE CLEAN THE WORLD!

 

[Far Stranger]

Rock & Roll Don’t Mind

Yastuire’s headphones emitted only a little fizz of the music filling his head. His apron was smeared oily brown. Cranky vibrations from the beast of a machine squatting across half the engine room: the Zargjuster+ SepticDredger 3000’s busy triple-tanks were churning gallons of faecal sludge. Deftly Yastuire’s slick shovel heaped the run-off. The air was thick, warm and foul.

He never saw his badge fall. It briefly flashed gold in the slops: CAPTAIN.

 

[mosaix]

Recycling…

Garrison swept the Lepotron, his latest time travel invention, off the bench. A pile of infuriating junk!

He examined the circuit diagram again. He was sure he’d been close. Perhaps a wiring fault? Flawed logic? Ah yes! It was obvious now.

Contrite, he reached to recover and fix the thing but a pair of broken wires momentarily touched allowing a capacitor to discharge…

Garrison swept the Lepotron, his latest time travel invention, off the bench.

 

[Bowler1]

Eco Warrior

The crowd ahead celebrated to the thump of loud music, with bodies jammed close together. They were wasting power, using plastics, and polluting the world we live in. Protests and arrests are not enough to stop this, only direct action ever would.

Sarah shifted the weight of her suicide vest to get comfortable, not that it mattered much, it wouldn’t trouble her much longer. She pushed her way into the crowd and pulled the cord.

 

[Parson]

Wasted Days and Wasted Nights​

Jammer’s translation-specs gave the alien’s beverage bottle’s dynamic translation/description as “You’ll Be Wasted.”

That sounded exciting.

Down the hatch! It was his first planetfall after all.

Three days later Jammer awoke in his bunk with a tattoo, a bottle, and a migraine asking: “What? When? Where?”

Nothing came.

His first leave was a waste.

He turned his translation-specs to “Literal Translation.”

“Wild Times -- No Memory.”

The significance of “You’ll Be Wasted” was painfully clear.

 

[Peter V]

The Life of a Chief Sanitation Engineer

The Captain says that we don’t have enough reaction mass to escape the gravity of the star that we stupidly got too close to. 0.0001% short apparently.

After a quick calculation, I pump a months accumulated waste from port to starboard tanks and persuade the Captain to initiate a burn whilst venting it.

Dad says a fancy title doesn’t hide that I wasted my engineering degree.

Maybe the thousand people I just saved will disagree.

 

[StilLearning]

My god, it's full of....​

Chi'z'wark, chief of the Polynatrian's space directorate, presented their probe's discovery to excited press, tentacles quivering:
"The 'Hoomanse' did reach space. Their preserved records mentioned a project - placing samples of their planet's life on their neighbor world, 'Mewn', for future civilisations - and we've recovered it: Bacterial, animal, and plant cells, with organic feed-matter, in bags, near their landing sites."
And Aldrin’s ghost, invisible, inaudible, yelled: “Poo! That’s my poo, you crazy space octopus!”

 

[Hugh]

Something rotten in the state of…
​

I’m 71 years old and maybe I’m OK, but what about in a few years?

All the talk now is how the elderly are a waste of space, a burden on society, unable to support themselves, using up valuable state resources and finance.

It was different before inflation decimated our pensions and the NHS collapsed.

And suddenly there are these ‘happy’ euthanasia centres everywhere, complete with encouraging slogans…..

The message is clear – and it stinks!

 

[The Judge]

Immortality​

​

​

The first 81 years, I kept complete neuronal memory-diaries, coupled with 24/7 360˚ bodycam footage. I was wealthy; went everywhere, did everything. Drugs. Drink. Sex. Rape. Arson. Murder.​

​

The second 81 years I replayed it all, hour by hour. The same for the third. And the fourth, fifth, sixth…​

​

Now I just replay the highlights. Over and over and over.​

​

The money’s all gone now. Everything ends. Sooner or later. I hope.​

​

 

[Ursa major]

​

The Waste Lamp​

a Shanty by L.E. “Tears” Yacht​

​

​

Humans wouldn’t know it – their stupidity: there’s the rub – but I’m the holy grail of vessels.​

​

Fearing genies, they don’t realise I’m more powerful than those liars. (“Three wishes” is their opening bid, not a limit in the virtual reality humans now inhabit.) After all, I trap genies until an ex-monkey-person (now a handful of dust in the real world) gives me a polish.​

​

But they’ll listen to my Voices of Fire and Thunder.​

​

 

[Ursa major]

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This challenge is now closed to new entries.

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POLL -- February 2023 75-Word Challenge -- READ FIRST POST!​

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[The Judge]

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