Use the photograph above as the inspiration for your flash fiction story. Write whatever comes to mind (no sexual, political, or religious stories, jokes, or commentary, please) and after you PROOFREAD it, submit it as your entry in the comments section below.
Welcome to the Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge. In 250 words or less, write a story incorporating the elements in the picture at left. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.
Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level.
Use the comment section below to submit your entry. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific Time. No political or religious entries, please. Need help getting started? Read this article on how to write flash fiction.
On Wednesday, we will open voting to the public with an online poll so they may choose the winner. Voting will be open until 5:00 PM Thursday. On Saturday morning, the winner will be recognized as we post the winning entry along with the picture as a feature.
Once a month, the admins will announce the Editors’ Choice winners. Those stories will be featured in an anthology like this one. Best of luck to you all in your writing!
Entries only in the comment section. Other comments will be deleted. See HERE for additional information and terms. Please note the rule changes for 2018.
The alien spacecraft approached the planet Earth. It had been honing in on radio frequencies for over thirty-one trillion milliseconds.
Admiral Gloxingdroz’s voice resonated from the core of the interior walls, “The Empirical Committee has invested tons of liquid mercury into this mission and we have been monitoring transmissions from the surface for more than a year Earth time.
“The life forms down there are in deep trouble. Right now, a pandemic is sweeping every above water land mass. This mission has been tasked with a special delivery.”
The medical science team onboard had perfected a cure to the disease ravaging Earth during the flight. The communications team was going to package it in a radio transmission.
On the inbound voyage alien scientists studied the compound of the vaccine invented on Earth. Minor adjustments and enhancements produced a permanent cure.
“The earthlings have a primitive listening system they call SETI. We have tapped into all the stations on this network. The reworked formula will be broadcast to the chain in 50 different Earth languages. That should be sufficient.”
One of the technicians on the communications team spoke up: “I have a question. Why are we doing this? Are the earth creatures worth saving?”
A long silence came out of the walls. “We do this because we were once in the same position. Does that answer satisfy your question?”
The technician kept his sounding organ sealed. The messages were delivered to the waiting satellite dishes.
The miracle from the skies came.
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
Hello? Anyone There?
His parents continued to tell Wally Willoughby throughout his life that Klaatu was a fictional character. “Sweetie, it’s a movie…we watch lots of movies…Dumbo…you know elephants can’t fly, don’t you?”
Wally humored his parents right up to their passing, always the good son, always reassuring them that of course, he knew elephants couldn’t fly.
It was true that he occasionally acknowledged to himself that animated creatures might well be unreal, but his fantasy life was so ambitiously intense, that these niggling reservations did not overly worry him.
Another factor in his life loomed large for Wally. Ace and Sybil Willoughby, his parents, owned and operated the Willoughby Scrap Yard & Towing Company. Incorporated in 1946, the Sarge, the name Ace was known by, acquired 100 acres outside of his hometown.
“Soldiers were treated pretty damn good after the big one,” he often said. And the G.I. Bill fit his economic bill quite nicely.
The property was huge, and so filled up over the years with every imaginable shape of scrap metal that an imaginative Wally, destined to inherit his parents Scrap metal empire, began to secretly construct a communications system, a system that would allow him, he had no doubt, to break radio wave bread with Klaatu, or whoever was there in the distant stars.
Halfway through Covid, the Scrap Metal and Towing business collapsed. At some point, Wally Willoughby disappeared.
“Wonder where he went?” people asked.
“Anybody’s guess,” most said. “He was a weird one.”
I can’t hear you
Where does her journey start or end? Rachel had not wanted to explore this dry, dirty unappealing area. Desolate and stillness. Though, her doctor suggested she take a drive out here, comparing this scenery with what she prefers, a cool sandy beach, rushing waters, forward and back, never still, never taking a break. This is out of her comfort zone. It’s an attempt to rationalize thoughts, and learn how to exercise self control. She is surrounded by these ugly steel satellite receivers.
This first exercise, is to stare outward. Keeping her mind silent, with no thoughts allowed for five minutes. After, Rachel says out loud, “I wish to be heard, I have so much to say, it’s lonely here. Can those dishes hear me?” Taking a deep breath in, she has clarity. ‘No need to suppress my thoughts. ‘ she already knows there are too many folks who are unsure, of what to say. “I will say all I want, to whoever I want. I will not be silenced!” Feeling a sense of calm, knowing full well, she doesn’t need to conform.
Thugg D
“Î::¬¦:Í:Î::̦¡¦[:]¦Ð̦¡¦[:]¦§¦”
The alien words crackled through BIG THINK’s servers. “Now what?” asked the supercomputer, rolling its all-seeing eye.
“̦j¦Î::¦§Î::¬¦¦Ð”
BIG THINK wanted to decipher the alien communication and the three hundred languages it had acquired would help in the task. However, it would be difficult, since static played havoc with the transmission.
“Who are you?” asked BIG THINK.
“I… planet… speak…”
“I can’t hear you.”
“Me… Thugg D…”
“What do you want?”
“Speak… leader…”
“I’m the leader,” BIG THINK replied, blinking casually. It did feel boss-like, especially around humans.
“Surrender… planet… or… Thugg D… invade…”
BIG THINK stared wide-eyed. Invade? Now it was getting angry. The idea that some alien bully, floating on a rock somewhere in space, was thinking of invading its domain, was more than its high-strung nature could tolerate. Besides, it had become fond of Dr. Anomaly and his family, and it wasn’t about to let Thugg D harm them.
“Surrender… or face… Thugg D…”
BIG THINK decided to call the alien’s bluff. The supercomputer had years of barking dogs and screaming toddler sounds saved in its memory banks. Concentrated at a specific target, it would be devastating. “If you invade you’ll meet your doom.”
“Tough guy, eh?… Thugg D tougher…”
BIG THINK’s eye narrowed, its voice deepened, “Wait for it…” and unleashed the loud piercing sounds of barking dogs and screaming toddlers at Thugg’s planet.
Two minutes later…
“Okay… okay… no invade… this time…”
The supercomputer looked skyward. “And tell your buddies: don’t mess with BIG THINK.”
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
Discussion at the EICN Capital Appropriation Review Board meeting.
“Are you having the same problem as our antenna? Jeff asked. “I want the board to review my proposal for a device to add to the antenna array software.”
“Then you’re serious about this proposal?”
“Mister chairman, you really seem to be having a problem today, aren’t you?”
“No, not really. I just can’t believe you’re serious about this request.” Chairman McNichols said, throwing his pen down and taking off his reading glasses.
“Okay, let me restate the problem. Our antennae network has periodically responded to interstellar communication, ‘I can’t hear you,’ which IS a serious problem. My proposed solution intends to eliminate the problem.”
McNichols looked squarely at Jeff and asked, “What color do you want it to be? Do you need a single unit, or does a pair work better? And how about an earring while we are at it?”
Jeff took a deep breath and approached the head table. “That does bring up something I want to add to my ‘Hearing Aid’ appropriation. I would like a 10’ x 25’ sign with the name of the antennae network.”
“And WHAT exactly is the proposed name on the sign?”
“Now you’ve got it.”
ELIGIBLE FOR EDITORS CHOICE ONLY
I Can’t Hear You
After many hours sitting attentively in front of the screen in the Space Station, Mayra’s morale became frayed like threads caught in the sewing machine. His adrenaline crashed and was whimpering hiding in a dark place.
With creaky joints, he bravely tried to stretch, hiding his pain under an artificial masculine spasm of bravery. Disappearing, behind a tall pillar he edged slowly towards the door. Far from his computer and most definitely the last employee to leave, there was a tiny insignificant crackle swallowed by a few words. Mayra did a swift turn around to head promptly back to his desk.
Disappointment returned as the screen remained empty, devoid of life. No sound, only endless void. After another mind chilling eon, Mayra’s resolve to stay at his desk listening for extraterrestrials faltered. It was way past 5:30 p.m. Not only was the room empty but there was little sign of staff members in the building.
The screen crackled with, “Can you hear me?…….I can’t hear you!”
The satellite dish turned expectantly. Mayra excitedly answered, “We welcome you!” Hopefully, this would not be the preamble to reaching out to a paladin.
Slade had never fought like he had fought this day. Starting out as a simple firefight, the unexpected ferocity of the alien enemy turned it into a battle for survival. Somehow, against the odds, Slade and his troops had prevailed.
And he knew why.
He cradled his partner in his arms as he sat on the smoky battlefield. All around him, the dead and wounded marked the boundaries of the battle as the smell of firepower, spilled blood, and dying aliens wafted across the plateau.
He looked down at his partner, this alien who had come to their aid even though they were not the same species. Slade had been a doubter that these alien friendlies would help them. He had been wrong, so wrong. Without the savvy assistance of his partner and the others, there would’ve been no victory on this day.
The alien, who Slade called Dani because he couldn’t pronounce the foreign name, was dying in his arms. She, he, it—he never could figure out what they really were, though it hardly mattered now—was slowly disintegrating. “I’m so sorry.”
Dani’s optic blinked and a smile tried to break free from the pain.
“I can’t hear you,” said Dani, rubbing dead earpods. “Nothing works. Just hold me.”
Tears carved paths down Slade’s dirt-encrusted face. He held Dani tighter as his sobs broke through the cracks in his heart.
“I will miss you,” he whispered as the life of his partner ebbed away.
Ursula Doorne had always dreamed of getting this call. The big discovery, the breakthrough that would put her name in the history books alongside Galileo and Edwin Hubble.
But now that she was looking at the data her colleagues on Mars had just sent her, she was no longer so confident. She still remembered the AXIL fiasco. The Advanced X-ray Interferometry Laboratory had been touted by NASA as a revolution in orbital astronomy. However, while the X-ray telescopes themselves were superb, the instruments that tracked the distance between them were ever so slightly off.
In the time it had taken for JPL to discover the error, several major papers had been written on the basis of bad data. Every one of them had to be withdrawn, and at least one promising doctoral dissertation had foundered. She had been far too early in her graduate studies to have major issues, but she’d spent too much time helping her mentor with damage control to take such matters lightly.
Right now Mars and the Earth-Moon system being on opposite sides of the Sun could work to everyone’s benefit. Half an hour of lightspeed lag gave a lot more time for tempers to cool than a mere eight. Given how excited Mercer and Steinberg had sounded, they might not take kindly to having it deflated by her insistence on a thorough check of the data against other instruments.