{"id":597,"date":"2021-12-07T11:52:26","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T00:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/?p=597"},"modified":"2022-01-11T22:08:46","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T11:08:46","slug":"microfiction-november-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/archives\/597","title":{"rendered":"#MicroFiction, November 2021"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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

3 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halloween is the quietest day of the year for our Ghostbusters franchise. The false positive rate is so high that we just turn off our phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, it\u2019s three days into November and we receive a call that a house still has its decorations up. The classic hallmark of a stealth haunting under cover of Halloween.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We suit up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are useful, said the mother cat to her kitten as he purred on the comfortable lap. But don\u2019t get complacent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? said the kitten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observe the possum in the yard, said the mother cat. Does the human write verse about it? And the sheep in the meadow. Does the human share pictures of it online? We maintain our superiority by treading a path between savagery and domestication.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At that the kitten stretched, leapt onto the mantel and deliberately pushed a vase onto the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was the First Contact Welcome Dinner. I was seated next to one of their planetary scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how your planet is smack in the middle of the Goldilocks Zone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur translator does not understand \u2018Goldilocks\u2019. What does it mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a reference to a fairytale we tell to our younger people. I meant the circumstellar zone of optimal habitability.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, that. We can talk about that later. But first you must tell me the story of this \u2018Goldilocks\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the aliens invaded Earth, the intelligent terrestrial species assembled to form a resistance plan. The first point of order was how to communicate securely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe best place to hide is out in the open,\u201d tooted the Dolphins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSafety in numbers,\u201d tweeted the Crows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so the resistance was broadcast on FM radio, which the aliens had long since dismissed as useless background noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things changed when Jupiter turned into a black hole. It still orbits the sun and the Galilean moons still orbit it, but there\u2019s gravitational lensing now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Specifically, with enough resolving power, you can see light from the Earth that has been bent 180\u00b0 back to us, delayed by twice the light distance to Jupiter, about an hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the ultimate security camera. Nowadays, there\u2019s no safer place than outdoors while Black Jupiter is in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first hint of the civilization, ten light years away, came from their broadcast. We soon learned it was their version of a telenovela. It became quite popular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the Earth networks, hit by poor ratings, became jealous. They rented a radio telescope and beamed a strong cease-and-desist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty years later, the soap opera abruptly stopped. Were they frightened? Had there been a war? Were we merely unlicensed viewers? We\u2019d never know. It was the ultimate cliffhanger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

When radio telescopes showed there was a habitable planet orbiting \u03b1 Cen B, the call went out for crew to take a ship there. It would take 30 years. My brother was surprised that I didn\u2019t jump at the chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMoore\u2019s Law,\u201d I explained. \u201cIn ten years there\u2019ll be a ship that can make the journey in fifteen. It\u2019ll be first to arrive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s<\/em> the ship I want to be on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29 November 2021<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to keep buying name tags for my cat. Every few months she comes home without her collar, having lost it who-knows-where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the apocalypse, a metal-detectorist-cum-amateur-archaeologist will find them all, and conclude that they were symbols of worship for a very local household god.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They would not be entirely wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also a true story!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These stories were posted on Mastodon in November 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[69,70],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microfiction","tag-microfiction","tag-microfiction-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":610,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icemoonprison.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}