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On Aging

a man in a uniform with very short thinning white hair and a white beard

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 7, 2023.

Mining in space is hard. It takes years off your life. You age differently. Sure, everything floats around, and tons of rock can be easier to move. But momentum is momentum, and mass is still mass. Too many friends have been crushed because of a misdirected load.

Bad food. Bad air. Too much radiation exposure. Physical breakdown because of lack of gravity. Still, I look pretty good for a 35-year old miner.

Unexpected Consequences

A steampunk mechanical bee

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 8, 2023.

They thought the idea of an ‘artificial bee’, the NewBees, might help deal with bee die-off. And for a time, it worked. We didn’t get honey, honeycomb, or bee’s wax, but pollination continued, easily the primary goal.

But then, people noticed the NewBees were getting bigger. And more sophisticated. Apparently, the designers hadn’t noticed they included some of the replication code from another project. The NewBees decided to ‘upgrade’, and grow the population. Uh oh.

From Trash To Home

a patch of floating garbage with dwellings on it

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

The garbage patch had been growing for decades and decades. As it grew, it also gained solidity, stability. It also began to extend deeper, creating it’s own anchor of sorts, damping out extreme motion.

A few intrepid thrill-seekers arrived, and explored. They found they could walk on the surface. Plants had begun to take root.

Finally the settlers arrived. Displaced from their now-flooded homes, they took up a new residence. Amazon 2-day shipping starts next week.

The End Is Near

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by Wyatt H Knott using DreamAI.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

Our orbit is decaying fast, and they send two tugs to help correct it? Just two?

“Um, Control, Cargo 27.”

“Go ahead 27.”

“You know we’re projected to hit the capital, right?”

“Affirm.”

“Then you might want to send a few more tugs.”

“Negative. That’s all we have. We’re not saving the ship. We’re buying time to abandon it. We can redirect to The Trench, safest place to deploy it now.”

“Copy.”

I sigh, and hit the big red button. Alarms began to echo, the crew began to stir….

Strange Communications

a steampunk machine that looks like a strange typewriter

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

I stared at it, unsure what to do next. It looked like it was for transmitting text. But the keys had symbols I didn’t recognize. And it wasn’t clear what it would communicate with.

“Do we know the symbols?”

“No language we know of.”

“What about comms?”

“It radiates faint EM as you type.”

“How old is it? The design looks old, but the parts look new.”

My friend paused. “Near as we can tell, it’s at least 75,000 years old.”

“Dare I ask where we found it?” He shook his head.

A Fake In Sheep’s Clothing

Something or someone in a sheep costume surrounded by sheep in a room full of machines

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

“Baaaaaaaaa-ark”

Clear the throat. Breath. Again.

“Baaaaa-ark”

Again, clear the throat. This has got to work. Once more.

“Baaaa. Baaaa-ark. Wufff.”

Man, this is going to be harder than I thought.

The Trojan Fish

A robotic steampunk fish with mechanical features and external tanks

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 6, 2023.

“This is never gonna work!”

“Shhh. Keep it down. Yes it will. They’ll think we’re a fish.”

“No they won’t. What fish has external air tanks?”

“Some fish have them.”

“Seriously? Who did you get to design this stupid thing?”

“Someone named Yaya, Jessica, something. She said it was a Steampunk fish.”

“Oh good grief! There’s no such thing. Steampunk is some kind of cosplay thing. You got someone who designs costumes to design our sub?”

“Well, the horse idea seemed dumb.”

Another Submission (And Rejection)

Rejection in writing is a fact of life. I have a short story that I worked on for the first few months of the year. It was originally written for a Writer’s Digest short story competition, but unfortunately, it didn’t win anything. Oh well, it was worth a shot. I revised (and expanded) the story, with a lot of feedback from Jim Bird, a friend who is also doesn’t pull punches when it comes to reviews. I submitted the story to Clarkesworld, but they didn’t accept it for publication. My latest submission was with Asimov, but unfortunately, they also said ‘no’. The next step is to submit it to another Writer’s Digest competition, and we’ll see how that goes.

The Beginnings of 80’s Music

Rick Beato recently released a video talking about some of the landmark albums that were released in 1978. He admits that the list is incomplete, but it features albums with songs that would come define a new era in music, what generally call “80’s music”.

Releases vs. Calendars

Music styles and genres don’t generally stick to formal calendar boundaries. Music is released when the artists and/or labels figure it’s ready. As such, there isn’t a clear delineation on a calendar when some “era” of music begins. But being who we are as humans, we will often describe something based on the decade we associate it with.

What we think of as “50’s music” didn’t really get started until 1954/1955, and lasted until around 1963/1964. There is “60’s music”, which didn’t get going until 1964 and transformed into “70’s music” closer to 1974. The disco era sort-of started in the mid-to-late 1970’s and by the early 1980’s it was pretty much gone. But in both these cases, there was overlap, there was a transition. There wasn’t a hard bright line that delineated these eras, and certainly not any that line up conveniently on decade boundaries.

A Defining Decade Personally

I turned 16 in 1980, so the 1980’s defined a lot for me personally. I finished high school, then university, and had my first full-time job. It was the decade that I moved out on my own. It was when I bought my first new car. We had the Winter Olympics in Calgary, and the Flames made two trips to the Stanley Cup final, winning in 1989. My brother and I attended Game 1 of the 1986 Cup finals, which was the only game the Flames won in that series.

Music has always been a big part of my life, if only as the ‘soundtrack’ to it. I spent 4 years at the University of Calgary with headphones on or nearby. My knock-off of a Walkman was eventually replaced by a real Sony Walkman for my last year of university, and it or a small boombox were ever-present from 1986 onward. I was always playing music somewhere: around the apartment, in the car, when coding. During university, most of that music was typical 80’s music: Billy Joel, Genesis, The Police, and a host of others. I also listened to a lot of ELO, and they became one of my favourite bands, along with The Moody Blues.

1978 Was A Watershed Year

When you listen to Rick’s list, you get the first or new albums from some quintessential 80’s music acts: Dire Straits, Billy Joel, The Police, Kate Bush, AC/DC, Van Halen, Bob Seger, Devo, Rush, Peter Gabriel. More would come in 1979 with acts that had debut or new albums such as Pat Benetar and Genesis. These groups and others began to transform the sound of popular music, and genres like New Wave would find their footing.

1978 was definitely a watershed year. It is, I would argue, the beginning of what we think of as “80’s music” in western culture.

Ironic Displacement

A sad robot sitting on a bench in the rain

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 5, 2023.

Hmm, do robots sigh?

I was supposed to be the future. I was going to make life easier for people. But it turns out that was only for certain people. Others lost their jobs. Because of me.

And now I’m out of a job. Those new generative systems work with even simpler and cheaper robots than me to deliver their goods and services. One technology made unemployed by other technology.

Is that irony? Or justice?