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.