InterNutter

Indie writer seeks audience with an audience. Paying customers welcome. [pronouns: ze/hir] Daily free stories happen because it is an excellent counter to Writers' Block.

Burpengary East http://www.cmweller.com 12609 posts

Challenge #01302-C207: Free Falling Water

Someone from a desert community or space community - anywhere where water is an extremely finite resource - visits somewhere like England where it falls from the sky on a semipermanent basis. -- Gallifreya

If there was one thing that freshly-minted Sahra Johnston would never get used to, it was the fact that she had her own space yacht. With a crew. And cabins enough for not just her entire family, but the crew's as well. Not that the Galactic crew had any more than three babies at any time. But, assuming that they were allowed to breed like Hevun's humans, there would be cabins enough for everyone.

The second thing to get used to was her duties. She was no longer allowed to crawl through access tunnels and fix things. In fact, her security personnel frowned on her going anywhere near access tunnels at all. Instead of being useful, they took her around in plush, fancy suites to other plush, fancy suites and to go and see what Terra and her colonies had to offer.

Which included a visit to Earth.

The Sol system had one two-way wormhole, somewhere between Saturn's orbit and Jupiter's. Of course, there was a minor Galactic Market station there. Monitoring traffic and making sure nobody brought unwelcome biota to Earth.

From there, it was a slow cruise of a week or two to the small, blue-green rock that had started a lot of problems for a lot of people. Most of their money came from tourists who went to see the planet that launched a million colony worlds of varying sanities. The rest of their money came from people wanting to use Sol's abundance of one-way wormholes for profit.

Sahra's first stop was a tiny island called, depending on who you asked, Great Britain, the United Kingdom, or England. And her first impression of the place was... somewhat awe-inspiring.

Her first view of England was through the window of the spaceport in Heathrow, and it was besmeared by water. Falling. Out of the sky.

Mining Station had weather anomalies if the space was big enough. One of those phenomena, she and her friends had done to create 'miracles' to frighten the Tu'att away. But this was real water. Falling out of the sky.

She ran out into it, her bodyguards trailing behind. Fresh water! Clean water! And they just let it fall down on everything! The Tu'att masters had figured out exactly how dirty water could get before it made their human slaves sick, and let them have that. Even for washing.

Sahra got soaked, and she didn't care. She did object when one of the bodyguard put an old-fashioned weather shield between her and the falling water.

"Have you never seen rain, before, Ambassador?" said a guard.

"Nuh," she said. "Should'a tole me they put this on. I'd'a wore sum'pin water-frien'ly."

The guard sighed a very Mama-like sigh. The sigh that said, This child needs to learn so very much...

(Muse food remaining: 17. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

When can I slow down, please?

Interviews, organising, appointments, paperwork... And the endless array of housework that still must be done.

I'm close to having 300 followers. I'm moderately sure that most of them might care about a competition. Or care about the stuff I post. Or even read any of it.

Sigh.

That's the trouble with AI followers. They run blogs that seem real, but you can't tell until they fail at instructions. And even humans can fail at instructions.

But I can rig it so that

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Challenge #01301-C206: Per Ardua Ad Astra

'Fire in the Sky.' Specifically, the filk song by Dr Jordin Kare, released in '91 but remastered in '04. This song moved Buzz Aldrin to tears on national television when he first heard the remastered version, apparently. There was a competition to make a music video, and this one won. I first found the music video, a few years ago now, and I've never forgotten it. -- RecklessPrudence

"You were there for it, weren't you?"

Shayde looked up from her Kung

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Things I do now...

I like to make sure Pokemon go is on and running properly before I go on my morning walk. Since it's a Bad Air Day, I only did one block. And even when I don't see any VR critters, I add some mileage to my incubators.

I've learned that the game is more likely to freeze on it's power-saving screen saver. So when playing, I actively hold it up.

Any message or notification is going to freeze the game, so I might

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Challenge #01300-C205: Sense Askew.

*air horn sound *

*second air horn sound *

"This isn't deodorant" -- Gallifreya

He looked at the can. It looked like a regular, everyday bodyspray. Yet when he pressed the spray button, an air horn noise came out.

It shouldn't even be able to do that.

Come to think of it, the towel only looked like a towel. It behaved more like tissue paper, falling apart in his hands.

The toothpaste looked and smelled like toothpaste but... it was aoli. At least it

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Minutia

Before you ask - yes, I successfully cleaned off the table. It was a royal mess. From now on, only organised mess is allowed there. I will keep only the things I really need on the table [eg: seed beads and the findings I am using that day] and the rest of it will be off to the side in a Milk Crate or something. Assuming I can find a full-sized Milk Crate that I don't have to purloin.

All the ones

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Challenge #01299-C204: Explosive Food

Popcorn, either as an edible explosive or semi mindless entertainment. KnitNan

The human had hung up a hand-made sign - Explosive food preparation in progress before they produced a device and a package of dry, yellow seeds.

"Your pardon, cogniscent An'dee?" said Plyq'ix. "What is meaning, 'explosive food'?"

Andy had a very simple explanation. "It goes bang."

"Dangerous bang?"

"Surprising bang. Harmless, but surprising."

The machine whirred into life and the grains poured in. For a while, nothing much happened but rattling

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Today's the day!

The big pile of shiffraff on the dining table is going DOWN. I already successfully cleared off all of the dirty cups, bowls, plates, and cutlery. Now it's just the crafting scrattle that has to find a home. And, after a clean and wipe down, I will set up my earring-making station in a more logically amenable place.

This might take some jiggery-pokery. But at least my budding business and the family will be able to cohabitate.

Today is also the day

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Challenge #01297-C202: On the Shoreline

1) Someone goes into labour in the vicinity of the grim reaper. Reaper panics. ("This is not my job! This is the exact opposite of my job!")

2) No seriously I'm not a magic tree I'm a creature that happens to be stuck inside a tree listen it's a long story do you have an axe -- Anon Guest

[AN: This brings the gap count down to 7!]

1)

Despite what various media might say, Death never takes a holiday. Ze can,

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::static sounds::

I don't know what it is with me, today, but I have the attention span of a hyperactive kitten and all the focus of the bottom of a coke bottle.

I am most definitely off station.

Case in point: It's half-nine and I am only just now writing this blog. I apologise in advance if today's free fiction is lackluster.

Most, if not all, of today's creative energy is going towards Beauties and the Beastly because I insist that my novel writing

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Challenge #01296-C201: Coat of Paper, Coat of Fur

"And she swore she would never eat another strawberry!" -- OohLookShiny

The assembled crowd of children turned to stare, open-mouthed, at the Silent Princess. Her name, insofar as anyone could understand her pantomime, was River. And she was living under a curse.

Beyond that, and her dislike of strawberries, everything was up to anyone's guess.

River shook her head and her hands danced. They danced to say, You have everything wrong, but they danced to people who did not understand the movements.

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Adventure ho!

It's another long day for me, alas alack. Another long drive to Maroochydore. Another long drive back home to arrange a dinner.

Thank the Powers for slow cookers. They have saved my butt on a multitude of occasions.

And tonight's goo will definitely be helped by the existence of rice from last night. Huzzah.

Once again, I will be travelling across the countryside with my trusty lappy, long may it stave off malfunction. Writing my 500 words in a distant place and

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Challenge #01295-C200: Pray What You Eat Lets You Live

Fast Food franchises for Aliens. -- Anon Guest

Excerpts from A Traveller's Guide to Galactic Spaceports[Written before the advent of Unsuitable Food]:

If you are the kind of person who does not eat what they cannot identify, then beware. You may starve to death. Once you leave the realm of your familiarity, you will find all manner of things that could be edible if you are brave enough to face it.

That said, beware of attempting to purchase anything living. There

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I can do this...

I'm getting better, so that means it's time to get right back onto my self-maintenance. But not so harshly that I fall over again and cause an endless cycle of sickness and recovery.

I did my first morning walk since I got ill, last week. Just around one block, and at a nice, leisurely pace. Chaos came with and was inappropriately loud for 6AM. Repeatedly.

But I did hatch some eggs, and that's good enough for me. [for the record, I got

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Challenge #01294-C199: As the Station Turns

Aliens are exposed to Soap Operas and get hooked. -- KnitNan

Storytelling was not a new thing. Those species with the gift for inventing stories were more likely to find welcome, despite their status amongst Galactic Society.

Only humans had managed to conceive of a story with infinite potential to continue.

Some alien species had managed to decode the Terran transmissions, and eventually decoded the language as well. They thought it was an anthropological study of one particular human clan.

What they

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