Pair of Ducks: Weekly Flash Challenge.

Good old Chuck has done it again. Here are the rules for this one: You have 1000 words in which to write a story where “time travel” is a prominent feature.

And here’s my attempt, coming in at a neat 436 words. A bit more light-hearted than last weeks, which I think people will appreciate.

Pair of Ducks

“Time travel’s not possible, mate. It’s a – a – wassit. Pair of Ducks”

“Paradox,” said Seth.

Chris ignored him and drained the rest of his pint.

“I mean, I read an article about it once,” said Chris, raising his voice to be heard over the noise of the pub. “Said that if time travel were possible we’d already have evidence of it, right? Dead time travellers and the like. So, no dead time travellers means no time travel.”

Seth thought he should at least make the attempt. “Well, maybe, but not if the travellers have a way of ensuring their jaunts won’t be discovered, an emergency field or –“

Chris slammed his hands down onto the sticky table, making Seth jump.

”Listen to me, mate,” he said, leaning across until he was not far from Seths face. His breath stank of beer and stale cigarettes. “Weren’t you fucking listening? It’s not possible.”

He leaned back again, and folded his arms. Seth got the feeling that people always dropped the argument after that little display.

And perhaps it wasn’t worth it after all.

“Maybe you’re right,” said Seth. “It’s just nice to dream sometimes.”

“No point dreaming about something that’s never gonna happen.” Chris shook his head. “It’s been Time Travel all over the place lately. I can’t seem to go five minutes without someone wanting to talk about it. Tell you what, the world would be a right better place if people just concentrated on what’s real, not on some airy-fairy fantasies.”

“Perhaps.” And if your ancestors had thought of it that way, you’d probably be dead of cholera by now, Seth thought.

He left the pub, and walked past all the drunks. A group of giggling blondes on sky-high heels screeched at him and he gave them a wave before nipping down an alley. He had some business to attend to that required privacy.

In a deserted, over-grown bit of concrete, he dropped into a crouch. And with just a press of the right bits of his boots in sequence, he was stepping back home.

He arrived with a rushing sensation in his ears, to find his boss smiling at him.

“You went to visit Chris, didn’t you. Everyone visits Chris in their first week.”

“Yeah,” said Seth, walking into the bright, shining future of it all. “I just can’t believe he was her grandfather, you know? How did the mind that made all this possible come from that?”

“We may never know.”

“Mind you, I found out about our logo.”

The boss laughed, and they both glanced up at the logo of TimeSteppers – Two ducks, in silhouette.

Supernova

Chuck Wendig asked his penmonkey minions to write a 1000 word flash updating a fairy story. This is my attempt. It’s my first attempt, and I’m not sure I’m especially good at flash, but hey. I can only get better.

When a rich man has a daughter, people expect her to be cosseted and spoiled. When that rich man owns the worlds largest private space-fleet, people exoect her to be named something silly like Supernova. When that man made his money in some less than ethical ways, the people who hate him will hate her. Which is why no-one outside of her fathers huge compound of houses ever saw the young Supernova from the day she was born till the day she turned sixteen.

 

It had been a lonely upbringing for the poor girl, of course, though she hadn’t known it, surrounded as she was by people who were paid to love her and care for her. In reality, she had no idea of how to talk to real people.

 

Still. As one of her three dressmakers put the finishing touches on her dress (value: The yearly profit of a small country) for her she whirled around the room, giddy.

 

“And daddy has said he might even introduce me to some boooys!”

 

“Yes miss.”

 

“And won’t they just think I’m the prettiest?” She stopped to look in the mirror, patting at her face.

 

“Yes miss.”

 

“Oh, I’m so excited!”

 

“Yes miss.”

 

On the day of the party, she was squeezed into the expensive dress, her hair dressed. She looked quite the little eligible heiress. Outside some hippy types were protesting, but, kept from everything but the most banal of entertainment channels, she had no idea.

 

Her party was excellent. She danced. She flirted, in her amateur, obvious way. She could have been shaped like a donkey and talked like a lumberjack, and none of the men would have cared. She was rich. The word had a beauty of its own. But somehow (don’t ask how, dear reader) a protestor found their way inside the ballroom. Dressed in a hire suit, the handsome young man danced with the girl… and she. Was. SMITTEN.

 

Rich girls always pick me who will upset their daddies.

 

Shame he was only dancing with her to inject her with a concentrated dose of Hyperflu, the illness that struck down her daddies worked. Within minutes she was writhing on the floor, dying.

 

Her daddy did the needful.  The needful being rushing her away to a cry chamber where she could sleep until the cure was found… and arresting the young man who’d given her the disease, who trust me, was already feeling pretty grateful. She’d had such pretty brown eyes, and she’d looked so unhappy when he stabbed her.

 

And so it was that they locked her in away. Even though he felt guilty, the young man (who’s name was Paul, but we all know the princes name isn’t important) refused to help her father develop the cure… unless the cure was given to the workers. Despite how her father loved his girl, he would not be blackmailed. So for two years, as they argued, she slept.

 

When the father gave in, it was discovered it would be one hundred years to develop the cure. At this, the young man and the father wept, because they had not expected it to take so long. The normal hyperflu could be fixed in a decade, but her dosage had been so high…

 

The father would die, long before she woke, but the young man worked on the cure until he was an old man, watching the business for her. It was kept in trust, long after it’s value was gone. The space fleet he’d built was outmoded. Still he worked, and when he got old, he grew a vat baby, and taught his ‘son’ how to complete the cure.

 

And then, one day, when 100 years had passed and the world was horribly changed, they went to give the girl a cure without thinking of how it would effect him. A young man in love with a girl he only knew from his fathers stories. The watchers of a dead legacy.

 

They gave her The Kiss, and she opened her eyes. They weren’t even brown. They were green. The young man (Paul II) had his heart shattered. And as for Supernova? We’ll I’d say it was better that she died, and for two years she felt that herself, but she managed. She married a starship engineer, and went travelling, and if sometimes she wondered what could have been, well, I don’t blame her.

 

And if you wonder how I could know such a thing… Well, she is my grandmother. So, though it was a cruel thing to do to a girl, I am grateful for her freezing.

 

 

 

(My other idea was Stilt, a short based on Rumplestiltskin about a girl who claims she can make any account go into profit, and bribes a hacker to help her out, but I didn’t know enough about hacking or banking. I still intend to write it soon.)