A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 8, 2023.

They thought the idea of an ‘artificial bee’, the NewBees, might help deal with bee die-off. And for a time, it worked. We didn’t get honey, honeycomb, or bee’s wax, but pollination continued, easily the primary goal.

But then, people noticed the NewBees were getting bigger. And more sophisticated. Apparently, the designers hadn’t noticed they included some of the replication code from another project. The NewBees decided to ‘upgrade’, and grow the population. Uh oh.

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

The garbage patch had been growing for decades and decades. As it grew, it also gained solidity, stability. It also began to extend deeper, creating it’s own anchor of sorts, damping out extreme motion.

A few intrepid thrill-seekers arrived, and explored. They found they could walk on the surface. Plants had begun to take root.

Finally the settlers arrived. Displaced from their now-flooded homes, they took up a new residence. Amazon 2-day shipping starts next week.

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by Wyatt H Knott using DreamAI.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

Our orbit is decaying fast, and they send two tugs to help correct it? Just two?

“Um, Control, Cargo 27.”

“Go ahead 27.”

“You know we’re projected to hit the capital, right?”

“Affirm.”

“Then you might want to send a few more tugs.”

“Negative. That’s all we have. We’re not saving the ship. We’re buying time to abandon it. We can redirect to The Trench, safest place to deploy it now.”

“Copy.”

I sigh, and hit the big red button. Alarms began to echo, the crew began to stir….

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

I stared at it, unsure what to do next. It looked like it was for transmitting text. But the keys had symbols I didn’t recognize. And it wasn’t clear what it would communicate with.

“Do we know the symbols?”

“No language we know of.”

“What about comms?”

“It radiates faint EM as you type.”

“How old is it? The design looks old, but the parts look new.”

My friend paused. “Near as we can tell, it’s at least 75,000 years old.”

“Dare I ask where we found it?” He shook his head.

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 9, 2023.

“Baaaaaaaaa-ark”

Clear the throat. Breath. Again.

“Baaaaa-ark”

Again, clear the throat. This has got to work. Once more.

“Baaaa. Baaaa-ark. Wufff.”

Man, this is going to be harder than I thought.

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 6, 2023.

“This is never gonna work!”

“Shhh. Keep it down. Yes it will. They’ll think we’re a fish.”

“No they won’t. What fish has external air tanks?”

“Some fish have them.”

“Seriously? Who did you get to design this stupid thing?”

“Someone named Yaya, Jessica, something. She said it was a Steampunk fish.”

“Oh good grief! There’s no such thing. Steampunk is some kind of cosplay thing. You got someone who designs costumes to design our sub?”

“Well, the horse idea seemed dumb.”

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 5, 2023.

Hmm, do robots sigh?

I was supposed to be the future. I was going to make life easier for people. But it turns out that was only for certain people. Others lost their jobs. Because of me.

And now I’m out of a job. Those new generative systems work with even simpler and cheaper robots than me to deliver their goods and services. One technology made unemployed by other technology.

Is that irony? Or justice?

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 4, 2023.

“So you don’t actually know how to make Seruvian Brew?”

“Um…”

“Well, I checked the vat back there, and I’m looking at the settngs for the pre-cursor, and they’re waaaaaay off. Like, way off. You guys said you knew how to do this!”

“Well, we might have exaggerted just a teensy bit. I’ve tried it. Once. Didn’t think it was that hard.”

“Hmmf. Well, it is. For starters, you have the wrong gravity setting. We’ll fix that first. The process doesn’t work at 1g.”

A Mastodon writing prompt story. These are science fiction short stories (usually 480 characters or less), based on an image generated by EW Doc Parris using MidJourney.

The stories are originally posted on Mastodon via my personal account.

Originally published June 3, 2023.

The debris continued to fall from orbit, but the work had to be done. The bridge looked fine, majestic in the dark. But it was an illusion. It could collapse any minute. And it was our only way out.

The crews arrived, ready to get started. It wasn’t the ideal location for the temporary bridges, but there weren’t many ideal locations left. People were going to have to get out, escape. And these bridges meant life.

Time to get to work.