INTO THE BLUE - 300 Word Story Contest - June 2012 - Linda Palund

INTO THE BLUE

            Thomas showed me to our usual table overlooking the dining terrace. David wasn’t there waiting for me.

            I ordered a black coffee and took out my diary.  The one I use for my regular job.  I stared at the empty pages and thought about David, the way the blue of his eyes reflected whatever space he was in.

            After 30 minutes, I began to feel concerned.  After 45 minutes, Thomas asked me if I wanted to order something.

             “Could you bring me the bill, please?” I said, wondering what space David was in now.

            “Of course, Madam.”

            I paid in cash, then rose, studying the crowd outside.  Sunlight streamed through the latticework onto the tables.  Everyone looked happy. No one looked towards me. 

            I walked casually through the restaurant, planning my next step. When an agent loses their handler, they must follow protocol.  I sent a text.             
            “I’ve broken the heel of my shoe. Can you bring me another pair?”

            “Sorry, I can’t.”

            That was it then.  The fragile wall separating me from disaster crumbled.  I read the news on my phone:  “Man killed in hit and run outside Opera identified as David Gold, software designer.”

            I walked downhill from St Denis, into the Jewish Quarter, and deposited my message in the “Building fund” box outside an ancient synagogue, a £2 note.

            I took the small valise from the locker I kept at Gare Du Nord, containing two changes of clothes and $50,000 in cash, and boarded the next train to Amsterdam.            

            In the lowlands, the blue water reflected a perfect image of the train.  I wondered if David was really dead.  
            I knew I had been nothing more than a useful tool to him, but without him, I wasn’t sure what use I was to anyone.  

THE ROBOT DIARIES - DISAPPOINTMENT - Lindaura Glamoura

Disappointment

            The experiment on Io was a failure. It’s splendid surface too shallow, its fragile crust too thin. It burst open in an explosion of poisonous lava, covering all and destroying everything that had been created.

             Disappointed, the R7 Robots returned to the border planets. Even an R7 Robot can understand disappointment. Disappointment is when reality fails to live up to one's expectations

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 8 June 2012 - LEARNING TO FLOAT - Linda Palund's 100 Words

LEARNING TO FLOAT

We float on a breeze as light as milkweed fluff, as light as dandelion spores, as light as the kiss you did not feel when I pressed my lips against your forehead last night.

 The blue of the sky is an illusion of colour reflected from an ocean we no longer see; we float so far above.

We have lost our moorings.  We are weightless, as weightless as embryos. Nothing holds us here.

 Floating like this, we wish never to touch down. Perhaps the helium will explode, scattering our atoms across the Universe.  Then we will surely be weightless forever.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 1 June 2012 - EYES OF IO - Linda Palund's 100 Words

EYES OF IO

         We have left the Border Planets.

         We are building a silicate mining station among the volcanoes of Io, one of Jupiter’s moons.  It will take at least a year to prepare the planet for our human partners.

         We would be lonely if not for the beauty we behold here. The R7 Series Robot can recognise beauty.  We record it in the crystalline layers of sulphur dioxide; the volcanic plumes and lava flows, which paint the planet’s surface so vividly.  The powerful lenses in our eyes transmit the images back to Earth.

         Beauty is indeed in the Io of the beholder.
      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Note: For those who missed out on and may want to know more about this character, I wrote a short series of excerpts from this Robot's diaries for Friday Fictioneers in December and January. I plan to compile all of the diaries into a book by the end of the year.  Meanwhile, You can see these here:
http://fictionvictimtoo.blogspot.co.uk/2011_12_01_archive.html http://fictionvictimtoo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/friday-fictioneers-20-of-jan-2012-from.html

http://fictionvictimtoo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/friday-fictioneers-24-of-feb-2012-from.html

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 25 May 2012 - REPORT FROM AN EMPTY PLANET - Linda Palund's 100 Words

REPORT FROM AN EMPTY PLANET

         On the 27^th day, we found the lone structure, it’s perfect sheet of molten sand un-smashed. We’d encountered nothing like it anywhere on the planet. 

         Almost nothing remained of the former inhabitants. No sentient creatures survived whatever happened here.

         Only the flora thrived, pollen borne on the wind.

         Something was written in an alien script behind the molten sand, but we could not translate it. We would leave that to the curators.         

         “If only we knew its use.” Green Goddess sighed.

         “Perhaps this was a place of worship.” I suggested.  We filed our report and flew back to the mothership.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 18 May 2012 - OPTIMISM - Linda Palund's 100 Words

OPTIMISM

         When the storm warnings crackled over the airwaves, we packed up food and blankets and headed for the ridge, carrying every flashlight we could find.

         We made it to the shelter as the deluge began. The storm went on for three days.  On the fourth day, the rainbow appeared and we ventured out to survey our land. 

         The pasture was empty. The horses had vanished, swept away and probably lying under a pile of debris downriver. 

         “Maybe they scrambled out before the floodwaters hit.” I offered.

         Jim shook his head,  “Just because there’s a rainbow, don’t be getting all optimistic.”

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 10 May 2012 - LUNA - My 100 Words - Linda Palund

LUNA

         The clouds of smoke billowed up, obscuring the skies, until we no longer could tell day from night.  Cast in shadow, the relentless gloom finally coalesced into a monstrous thunderhead.  Then at last the rains came.

         As the ash fell back to earth, the rain finally ceased. The veil of cloud lifted, the dark skirts parted, and she revealed herself to us once more. Scintillating in her lustre, her luminous centre radiant and compelling.

         She calls to us in her effulgence, in her wantonness.  Her lust glorious, incandescent and dazzling. We will be fruitful again.  We will multiply.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 4 of May 2012 - THE SECRET ROOM - My 100 Words - Linda Palund

I have a disclaimer.  This is my second version. I received many lovely comments on the first version and I thank you all for them.  But it was clear that no one actually knew what I was writing about, so I have rewritten the story so it is more obvious and not cryptic at all.

Thank you for your indulgence:

THE SECRET ROOM

         When they broke through the sheetrock, they found the secret room, walls still covered in ancient flowery wallpaper, faded, but intact.

          All those stories we’d heard, but never really believed; stories about this room, this tomb, hidden within the walls of the old mansion.

         They said he couldn’t stop grieving; he laid her to rest in the study next to his bedroom.  He wouldn’t let them bury her. The maids hung garlands of lavender from the picture rail.  The seeds covered the floor and the basket of bones next to the hearth, where she once lay at her master’s feet.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 27 April 2012 - THE TRAP - My 100 Words - Linda Palund

THE TRAP

         “Don’t think you’re gonna hold her with that barbed wire, do you?”

         Trapper John grinned, “Nah. The wire’s just for show.  I got an electric fence ‘round the landing pad. I know what I’m doing.”        

         “Sure like to know how you trapped her.”

         “No secret to catching a ‘corn.  Just Dragon Tears and a good binding spell.”

         The helicopter landed before daylight, but by then the dragon tears had dried.  The unicorn skewered Trapper John and tossed him into the barbed wire.  The buyers caught just a glimpse of silver as she cleared the fence and galloped into the dawn.

FRIDAY FICTIONEERS - 20 of April - THE GROTTO- My 100 words - from Linda Palund

THE GROTTO

Don’t go in there, I warned them.  Stay away from that fecund place, that verdant grotto. But they had already seen its fragrant pools, the moss dripping overhead.  They longed for the sticky sweetness of it, like honey, that moisture overflowing with life.

They open their mouths, feeling the first drops on their tongues, cool and sweet, then hot and fiery.  Soon they can’t get enough.  They lap at the soaking moss until the fronds stick to their teeth, until their tongues rub against the very root of it.  Their mouths full, they cannot stop, blissfully trapped within succulent walls.