Post by C. E. GeeAphelion Webzine in their Flash Fiction Department for August 2018 has
published the story âFORESIGHTâ by C.E. Gee.
This story takes just one minute to read! <<<<< !!!!!!
Please GOTO http://www.aphelion-webzine.com/flash/2018/08/Foresight.html
If it's that short, why not just post it here?
....
Oh, because you want to get more hits on your website.
I think I'll pass.
OTOH, here's a story of mine (most here have seen it before):
The challenge was to write a story that took only five minutes
internal time. Takes less than that to read.
The hull was breached, the Ioroni somewhere on board, the klaxon
sounding. "There are now five minutes till lifeboat separation.
There are now four minutes and fifty seconds till lifeboat separation."
Feet pounding in the corridors, noses counted in the airlock, and
nobody could find Pyewacket.
I didn't even bother to meet the eye of someone who would have
told me 'No.' I turned around and ran.
She wasn't in the galley. She wasn't in the lounge. She might
be in Hydroponics basking under a sun lamp. All the time my mind
kept chanting *This is what makes stupid movies stupid, that with
certain alien death stalking the corridors, somebody runs off to
find the cat.* She wasn't in Hydroponics, but a trail of wet
pawprints led outboard and spinward. Now I could hear other feet
pounding in the corridors, heavy feet in chitin plate. "There are
now two minutes and thirty seconds till lifeboat separation." A
grey shape just in view, calmly turning the corner. I ran, I bent,
I snatched her out from under the chelicerae of a startled Ioron
and backpedaled. *No one has ever seen them run. Maybe they can't
run fast.*
But they ran like the wind. One of them came up even with me,
ahead of me, raised a mallet claw to crush me: and another came up
even faster and brushed its fellow aside with a careless gesture
that sent it ringing like a gong against the bulkhead. The
mechanism glued to its thorax sputtered. It moaned like a whale
song, sputtered again, chirped. It cleared its throat, or whatever
it used for a throat, and said, "You gave--" Sputter. "You
willed to give--" Chirp. "You risked your life to save a cat.
Good heavens. You might be human after all."
I backed up against the wall, slapped the comm-panel open. "Hold
the last lifeboat. They're talking." I sagged against it,
breathing, while Pyewacket purred and the Ioron raised one
delicate feathery palp, cautiously, to rub her ears.
--
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djheydt at gmail dot com