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Challenge #01600-D139: Best in the Business

[TITLE: Acme Showroom.] You know Acme - All those cartoons. Especially the 'Roadrunner" -- Anon Guest

It was pristine. It was flashy. This company, the architecture screamed, has made a lot of money. You should invest in this company, it said. It's a wise choice.

The objects of pride were on revolving plinths. They had never been used, and they were polished regularly. Everything looked like the pinnacle of engineering.

It was a wonder how this company got sued in the first place.

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Challenge #01599-D138: Manifested Destiny

But the [Tech] is on the fritz due to what I believe would be classified as 'bombardment by an angry god', which violates your warranty, as we all know. -- RecklessPrudence

The Smudger hemmed and hawed over the broom. Ran a pendulum over the length of it and whistled backwards, the sure sign that something expensive was about to happen. "Are you sure you haven't angered any gods?" they said.

"Not to my knowledge," said Duji. She had her knitting out because

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Challenge #01598-D137: That's One Bad Week

[Bad news]

[Worse news]

[Extremely horrible news]

[ohmygodwhatthefuck news]

One of the people who have to deal with it all, to the rest of same: ...well people, I'd say it's about time to drink ourselves into the mother of all stupors. It's been that kind of week. -- RecklessPrudence

First, the Gravity Drive failed. They still had internal gravity, but the virtual black hole in front of the bow that towed them along at CTL speeds[1] was no longer operational. The

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Challenge #01597-D136: T's and Switch

It is not really rocket science unless there has been at least one unplanned explosion. (Alt version) It is not really rocket science unless there has been at least one rapid unscheduled disassembly. -- RecklessPrudence

Katie could easily learn to hate the summer monthly T-Shirt Days. Hackmeyer kept ogling her boobs. Well. Where something boob-like was still forming. She was fifteen, and the last time she'd been forced to go along with T-Shirt Day, she wore her age with the subtitle, Don't

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Challenge #01596-D135: The Little Touches

the stuff every JOAT needs, and of course the Bargain Bin. -- Knitnan

It was one of those poky little storefronts that one could swear entered into another dimension. The ones with more depth than they rightfully should have had, and surprise extra levels with staircases and shelving designed by Escher. It was called simply Things and every JOAT browsed there at least once a day.

Inside was organised chaos. JOATs could do things with paperclips and ductape that no other cogniscent

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Challenge #01595-D134: The Memory Lingers On

The culch (useful junk), box for those glorious moments when. "I've got to be a Insert costume here tomorrow." arrive. -- Anon Guest

JOAT Erin had passed from this life and into whichever afterlife ze found the most entertaining. Pantheists such as Erin were expected to shop around in several for a few years and send a sign when they'd found the right one. Since Erin had no family that accepted hir, and no progeny to take up their work, the assembled

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Challenge #01594-D133: In the Cracks

Wants verses Needs on a tight budget. -- Knitnan

Plunt was not as lucky as others. Ze knew this. If there was some anti-luck where the cracks in any system for help neatly fit the description of Plunt, then ze definitely had it. Not poor enough for economic assistance. Not rich enough to shoulder emergencies with a shrug. Mentally disabled enough to make life difficult. Not mentally disabled enough to qualify for any kind of assistance. Able enough to pass for normal,

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Challenge #01593-D132: Understanding on the Brink of a Fall

"The stars died so that you could be here today." —Lawrence M. Krauss -- RecklessPrudence

Shayde found Ambassador Gunther on one of the uppermost balconies of the Elemeno, looking down at the bottom in a way she knew too well. There was a time when the word "Jump!" was a cruel joke, and a time when it would be taken as a serious suggestion. This was one of the latter cases.

Much though she'd love to see all the Greater Deregulations and

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Challenge #01592-D131: Takes Me WABAC

“The universe is change; life is your perception of it.” — Marcus Aurelius -- RecklessPrudence

What alarmed Rael the most about Ambassador Shayde was how quickly she adapted to the latest in technology. Only B'Nari tech confounded her, but then, it confounded everyone but the B'Nari, who were made to merge with it. Shayde had the annoying habit of treating anything knew as if it should have existed some years prior to its actual invention.

When given something from her own past, it

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Challenge #01591-D130: A Drain on Evil

"I mean, I mostly just want to have fun and help people in the process. And if sometimes that means I have to open a literal portal to Hell and drag its powers shrieking into the light of day, well, that's just how the cookie crumbles, y'know? That doesn't make me scary." -- RecklessPrudence

"You see," said Francine. "When I invented the empathetic energy extractor, the prototype ran on what I thought was an infinite resource. Love. It turned out that human

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Challenge #01590-D129: Concerned Citizens

This is like watching a train-wreck and the 1812 Overture happening simultaneously. -- RecklessPrudence

The Good Gastronomy Association had been trying to ban Unsuitable Food for decades. They protested that too many people were indulging too often in imbalanced, improper, and unscientific nutrition. The people opposing them protested that that was kind of the point. While it was possible to live forever on Nutri-Food, with all its variations in taste, flavour, and presentation, it was also a very dull life.

There is

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Challenge #01589-D128: Hazardous Playthings

Yo Yo See what you can do with this prompt. it would have been just yo yo but they wanted a longer sentence. -- Anon Guest

There is a uniquely human term, 'toy'. Though the concept of play is nothing new to many species in the Galactic Alliance, the Terran concept of things designed for play alone is strange to many. The fact that many of these objects used to be used as weapons just goes to show that Deathworlders are creatures

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Challenge #01588-D127: Culture Clash

how to be a good (Insert name here) Citizen. Let's hear it from one of the Lizard cultures. --Knitnan

"And who's your daddy, little one?"

Preek didn't understand the human's question. She had never known the word before this moment. "I have a Pripa and a Seppa[1]."

"I have trouble with all these new words," confessed the human. "It's so confusing. What's wrong with 'he' and 'she' and 'mommy' and 'daddy'?"

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Challenge #01587-D126: Care Worn

it's made by hand, piece by piece, often with the recipient in mind, and often prayed over. -- Knitnan

Rael took some cumulative Standard months to realise that Shayde was winding him up. Apparently, in her version of reality, true friendship meant that there was a certain volume of light-hearted teasing between... alleged allies. Humans still did this. Hostile speech in a friendly manner between allies that knew that it was friendly. Slurs used freely between those who used to be slurred.

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Challenge #01586-D125: Not the Best Intentions

The "nanny" in "nanny state" isn't for you. They're to keep the oligarchs from trashing every toy in the nursery and peeing on the ceiling. -- RecklessPrudence

"What this new world needs is the elimination of this Nanny State!"

Those who the government selected to start this world in their own image... reacted exactly as they should. They cheered and hooted and eventually overthrew the people who stood for reason and regulation. Those who stood to gain the most did indeed gain.

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