{"id":500,"date":"2021-11-01T15:48:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T04:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/?p=500"},"modified":"2021-11-01T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T04:52:11","slug":"microfiction-october-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/archives\/500","title":{"rendered":"#MicroFiction, October 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

These stories were posted on Mastodon<\/a> in October 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

2 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was touted as the first true cure for jetlag: a machine that put you into stasis for up to 24 hours. You stepped into it after landing, and it paused you for whatever length of time was needed to resynchronize your body clock with local time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No one travels any more, of course, but I still use mine twice a year. I pop my kids and pets in there each spring and autumn so that they don\u2019t wake me at oh-god-o\u2019clock after the clocks change for daylight saving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our travelling circus rolled into town a few days ago. We have two jobs. By day, we perform, and I like to think we are pretty good at that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other job is more of a community service and it can only be done at night. We make ourselves available to bands of children who are convinced that something sinister is going on at our circus. The kids never forget their adventure and they tell stories of us to their children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both jobs now done, we pack up in the morning and move on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I used to believe in the inexorable advance of progress, that society\u2019s annoyances would gradually be engineered into oblivion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then one day I casually mentioned to my grandmother about how USB plugs\u2014contrary to the laws of physics\u2014had to be rotated at least three times before they were properly seated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She responded, \u201cSo you\u2019ve never tried to put the first corner of a fitted sheet on a rectangular mattress, then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I no longer have faith in progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the most exquisitely preserved Cretaceous fossil ever found. Right down to the skin: we could see every detail of texture and\u2014miraculously\u2014colour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We sent it off to the synchrotron for detailed 3D imaging. When the scans came back, they surprised us. The pigmentation wasn\u2019t inside the skin but on top of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of us could explain this, until we showed it to the only woman on our team. She paused about two seconds and concluded, \u201cMakeup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friend Ciar\u00e1n has a shop: he sells nothing but four-leaf clover merchandise. Real ones, in tiny green pots, crystallized with sugar, or pressed dry in cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou must be the luckiest man alive,\u201d I say as I glance around me. He beckons me into the back of the shop. Row after row of hydroponic planters, fed with biological stressors and RNA viruses, ensure that his crop is almost entirely four-leaf clovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ciar\u00e1n grins. \u201cGood luck is too important to be left to mere chance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we are the first aliens to make contact with humanity, you must have many questions for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat of the Fermi Paradox? We plugged our best numbers into the Drake Equation, and the Galaxy should be teeming with intelligent life!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is. Your Drake Equation is missing a factor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fraction of alien civilizations that want to be discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The academic article was titled \u201cA scalar theory of theodicy\u201d. According to the abstract, bad things happen to good people because, topologically speaking, in a boundless universe, the space underneath a step ladder can be continuously deformed into the space above the ladder, hence everyone is subject to bad luck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat down to read the article and reached for my doughnut, but accidentally tipped over my coffee mug instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Welcome to my home. I\u2019ve got a black purebred cat, but you probably won\u2019t see him. He likes to hide in his cat cave. At best you\u2019ll see his formless eyes staring back at you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaze not long into the Abyssinian, for the Abyssinian will also gaze into you<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31 October 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stand in front of the mirror, decked in the outfit I bought for the occasion. Halloween costumes are meant to be scary but no one could be more frightened than I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swallow and head outside into the day, dressed as me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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