It was the season of Llaf in Mirror land.

Crushed brown leaves, indistinguishable from the mud they inhabited, pulled themselves together. Slowly, they unfurled, stretched, became whole. Tans, reds and yellows flowed from their veins, colouring the magical carpet beneath the trees.

The leaves rose with the strong winds, sorting themselves by shape. And they flew, one by one, to their respective trees. Once attached to twig and branch, green slowly filled them. In return, they gave up their reds and yellows, sending them to the sun to increase its warmth.

Soon green filled the trees and the air was brighter. It would soon be Remmus.

#microfiction #autumn #seasons

She stepped outside, red briefcase held firmly in her right hand. She glanced at the small gathered crowd. She recognised most of them.

She felt confident, but there was a catch in her throat, which she cleared with a short cough.

"Ladies and gentlemen, there has been much speculation in the past few days. I won't keep you waiting. Let's get straight to it.

"This year's #budget is sponsored by... Virgin Media, Tesla, and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales!

"Now, about the Government's spending and taxing plans..."

Her words were drowned out by chatting amongst the reporters. They'd heard what they came for.

#microfiction

“Do you have one without a logo?”

She looked me over. My shirt, trousers and even shoes were logo free.

“It’s the standard now. It ensures the provenance of—”

“I understand,” I interrupted. “I just prefer not to advertise a company every time I go out.”

She glanced at her tablet, flicking through a catalogue.
“You’re in luck. We have one. Follow me.”

She opened a door and high pitched sounds filled the air.

“I can’t promise good behaviour,” she said, gently handing me the puppy.

It wagged its tail and licked my nose.

“I’ll take it.”

#microfiction

Knead to Know was the latest hipster bakery in town. They supplied freshly baked, delicious ‘artisan’ breads, surprisingly cheap.

They also had popular workshops with silly names. ‘Baking for a better tomorrow’, that sort of thing.

When I was gifted a baking workshop, I was sarcastic. I quipped that they had a sourdough starter called ‘Knead to know basis’. Still, I was curious.

The instructor was prim, with round glasses and hair neatly pulled back. She explained to us that this was about taking pleasure in baking. She also mentioned that the best loaves would go on sale in the bakery.

So that’s how they keep their prices down, I thought wryly.

And then we got to it. Flour, yeast, basic ingredients. Mixing, getting your hands dirty.

And kneading. Pressing, pounding, squeezing the dough. It was... joyous. Ten minutes in, my hands were beginning to cramp, but I was ecstatic. So that’s what it was all about!

The instructor smiled and nodded in my direction. “Looks like we have another Knead to Know recruit!”

#microfiction #story #baking #bread

"We still haven't managed to learn the language of whales, but here's a blue whale who's learned English! I'm told she likes to be called Bailey. Good morning, Bailey!"

"Good morning, Jim."

"Let's start with the question on everyone's lips: whale song. What does it mean? What do you sing about?"

"We sing about our hopes and fears."

"Fears? You can be over 20 meters from head to tail. What could a blue whale fear?"

"Loneliness. We just want to be long."

#microfiction #pun #SorryNotSorry

The Bubble Telescope confirmed another planet with a tachyon signature, but hyper-scans suggested nothing more than a stone age civilisation that died out tens of thousands of years ago.

The evidence was mounting. There were echoes of technologically advanced civilisations. Wormhole signatures briefly appearing, then vanishing.

Dr Kim sighed. There was only one theory that explained it all: Every civilisation that discovers time travel ends up going back in time and obliterating itself.

It only had to happen once, of course, no matter how many times it was successfully averted. She put down her half-full mug of coffee and considered her options.

“Breaking news: Dr Barbara Kim, renowned for her work on quantum gravity, was found dead earlier today. Suicide is suspected. Dr Kim seems to have destroyed her life’s work, smashing servers and burning down her office, before taking her own life.

“She is the fourth theoretical physicist to commit suicide in the past few years. After the break, we’ll be asking experts if these scientists all discovered something so terrible that it pushed them over the edge. Whatever it was, we’ll find it eventually. It’s only a matter of time.”

#microfiction #TimeTravel

It was a 3D boardgame, as best I can describe it. Ashok and Prima were teaching me the rules.

It wasn't more complicated than other games I'd played, but it had some strange features. Sometimes another player's move forced you to redo your previous move.

"Who goes first?" I asked, figuring it would be clearer once we were playing.

"Whoever wins the next game goes first in this one."

They both smiled. It took me a moment. Ah, time travellers! It all made more sense now.

"But how do you know we'll play another game after this? Why not make the winner of this game go first?"

"Then we'd know who won before we started! Where's the fun in that?"

#microfiction #timeTravel #boardGames

The Unicode Consortium announces release 17.2.0 of the Unicode standard.

A. Summary

41 new Emoji characters have been added, most notably:

◦ The smell of rain
◦ The feeling of being asked to remove your headphones on public transport by a stranger hitting on you (U+F0AD)
◦ The sound of standing on your spectacles while trying to locate them in the dark
◦ The moment at 5am when a cat is delightfully making biscuits on your abdomen but you need to get up to pee

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

https://aus.social/@Unixbigot/112685247251950487

It began with a simple idea: Roombas producing their own energy from the dust they gathered. Like a dog eating scraps off the floor, the machine would digest.

It worked well, and they used less electricity. As the Roombas' AI increased, they needed more energy, so they looked for better things to hoover up.

Snacks and fruit began disappearing from coffee tables. The occasional hamster or kitten was gone.

But it was only when small children began to vanish that we noticed.

#microfiction

#Spring

She woke up after a long, deep sleep, and stretched her limbs. The sky was blue, and the sun was saying good morning.

She breathed in fresh air. She took her time, and dressed in light green.

Time to check on her neighbour. He was still sleeping. That didn’t stop the squirrel scurrying in his top branches.

Willow smiled. Her tall neighbour Beech was always slow to rise.

A songbird alighted on her, and let out its cry:
The sun is shining. I am so sexy. This is my tree! 🎵

I’m not sure I’m his tree, willow rustled in the light wind in response.

Spring had arrived.

#microfiction #story

One night, the town shook as if from an earthquake. In the morning, the townsfolk found that a new cave opening had appeared in the hillside, a pile of rock and earth near the entrance. A monstrous ogre walked out, towering above the humans. Some remembered seeing it many years before.

“Why have you come here?” asked the mayor, crossing her arms to keep her composure.

“I need a new home. Can I stay here?” the deep, booming voice was incongruent with the pleading question.

The local blacksmith noticed glittering in the debris outside the cave. There was ore, perhaps even gold. He whispered in the mayor’s ear.

“Perhaps we can trade. Can you bring out more of this rock to pay for your stay?” the mayor asked.

“I can. But tell me, does the baker who makes those delicious, tiny éclairs still live here?”

“I do,” the old baker piped up from the crowd.

“I think we have a deal,” smiled the mayor.

#microfiction #story #monster

1000 richest people are approched. "The end of the world is here. Time to go to your doomsday bunker", they are told. The billionaires nodded. They knew this was coming. They were prepared.

So they gathered their loved ones and locked themselves in luxury bunkers. No contact to outside world.

10 years later they emerge. The world has healed. The air is breathable, people are happy. "What was the catastrophy?" they ask the first person they meet.

She screams: "THEY GOT OUT!!!"

#microfiction #billionaires

Smokelong Quarterly #82 is live

https://www.smokelong.com/issue-eighty-two/

#flash #stories #microfiction #literature

Issue Eighty-Two - SmokeLong Quarterly

"Can you hear me?" said the voice in my head.

"What?! Who said that?" I replied out loud, ignoring the stares.

"Oh good. I'm a symbiote."

"Shit, are you in my brain?"

"No, don't be silly--"

"Attached to my spinal cord? Are you going to control me and subsume my personality?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm talking to you through your earpiece, not your thoughts."

"Oh... What sort of symbiote are you?"

"I'm living on your phone. You might have to charge the battery more frequently."

#microfiction #symbiote #stories

[EDITED!!]

Double Feature (1/2)

Curious about the local culture, I went to see a #play. We entered an amphitheatre of sorts, although the audience sat or stood in the centre, with a few different sets on the slopes around us.

The first scene was in a set on my left; the hero was leaving their home. The second scene introduced the antagonist, in a set straight ahead of me. The coming tension was clear. Good start!

But then two scenes, and later three or more, happened at once in different directions. I didn't know which one to watch or how to follow the plot. I turned this way and that trying to take it all in, but was frustrated.

After the show I spoke to some locals. "How do you follow the #story? I couldn't keep up!"

They looked puzzled. Eventually I saw realisation on someone's face. "Ah, you've only seen the play once. You have to go at least three times to understand the story."

#microfiction

#microfiction #well

He lived down a well. Most people thought it strange and many of us laughed at him.

Oh, he didn't spend all of his time there. He came out for sunlight and fresh air like the rest of us. But his home was down the well.

'But isn't it cramped?' people asked occasionally.
'No, there's plenty of room.'
'Isn't it damp?' they would persist.
'Sometimes.'

And then the big fire came. Many houses were destroyed, despite our best efforts – his included - to draw water as fast as possible.

After that, we stopped laughing. Others joined him living down the well. He was right. There was plenty of room.

There was no denying that the sorceress was beautiful. Her long, dark hair glistened in the sun. Her blue dress swirled as she walked, and the stone set in the silver ring on her finger reflected the green in her eyes. Even when lifting a terrible curse, as she had just done for the miller's family, even when casting a spell to drive away monsters that attacked in the night, her graceful movements never wavered. She was admired, envied, feared and resented in almost equal measure by the townspeople. But they needed her, of that there was now doubt.

Returning home, the sorceress stepped out of the dress and out of the young body. Now people would need consoling. She put on the body of the kindly old wise woman, known locally as the sorceress’s grandmother. She took a deep breath, tested the old voice, and stepped out the back door.

#microfiction #writing #stories

‘You must cleanse yourselves in the three springs before entering the temple,’ said the priest.

We went to the first spring and washed ourselves in the warm water, a pleasant scent of jasmine in the air.

The waters of the second spring were fast-flowing, ice-cold and salty. We only stayed in briefly.

The third spring gurgled out of the mud, and we sank almost to our knees. We playfully daubed each other in dark browns.

We returned to the priest, salty and mud-encrusted. ‘We have cleansed,’ I said.

The priest stared at us open-mouthed, then laughed as they opened the door to the temple.
‘I suppose you have. People usually go in the springs in the reverse order.’

#microfiction #writing

I haven't done an #Introduction here recently. This is my home on #SocialHome, a small patch of the #fediverse. I only post my #writing here, nothing else. Writing isn't my dayjob, so it's sparse and won't fill your feed. Often #microfiction. I follow some writing, art and nature from here. #writingcommunity #amwriting

She was hidden away in a book by two others, for protection. She came out every year. I think she was Autumn. It was an epic tale, I wish I remembered more. I know there was another, a trickster, a shapeshifter, hard to catch, but we pursued him. He was a creature of fire.

Shit, I left the heating on!

I got up, turned it off, and went back to bed. But the dream was lost.

#dreams #truestory #writers #microfiction