Day 125 Writing Short Stories

Smile

“Girl, you have to learn to smile.” She heard someone shouting.

This was already the third time that day she heard that. She kept her mouth shut. If she wanted to smile, she would, but she was surrounded by idiots.

She gave the boy the middle finger after locating him.

“You would look pretty if you smiled,” he retorted and turned away.

This was another thing she had heard before. She didn’t want to be pretty, cheerful, beautiful, or an object for them. She had set out to discover the ultimate question, and she doubted the answer was bestowed on morons like the boy. One day, when she knew what the cosmos was made of and why, no one would ask her to smile.

Criminal

There was always a story, a sappy one with a bad childhood and abuse. Lots of abuse. They always sought to exchange their deeds for sympathy. She had heard thousands of stories from the arriving convicts on the colony planet. They wanted her to pardon them and not send them into the pits.

The thing was, if they had wanted a cozy life, they should have been cleverer, instead of trying to guilt sympathy out of her. She had arrived here just like them. Made to work in the pits. Her right leg was shoddy, sending sharp pain to her back every time she moved, but she had earned her release, and she would never return to the pits. She owned the place now, and there was no sympathy. She would work them to their bones, and one day leave this miserable, dusty planet.

The governor didn’t know shit she did. He was happy to leave the day-to-day operations to her. She had been assigned more control and power to her, along with the returns and hefty pension, off the planet on one of those paradise systems. She had even managed to clear her records, so no one could stop her from leaving this hellhole. A few more years, and she had enough money to start anew under her new name.

Stay-At-Home-Dad

There was a banshee wail coming from the bedroom. He sank his head on the kitchen island. He had only wanted one second to call his own and drink his coffee without interruptions. But no. The devil child had woken up. He got up, not wanting to prolong his torment.

The child had already crawled out of his crypt. His tentacles were swaying over his head, and his sharp teeth tried to suck the thin air between his lips.

“I know, baby boy, I know.” He lifted the child onto his lap. That seemed to calm him down. “We will hunt for something to eat.” His own hand turned into a tentacle to hold his own child better in his lap.

He wished that they had decided differently. That she would have stayed home when he was little, and he when it was time to teach the child hunt on his own, when he had learned already to disguise himself.

The Prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

I almost skipped the stay-at-home-dad prompt, but I’m glad I didn’t, and got a decent spin to it. I wanted to concentrate today on writing through the setting, but I failed miserably at that. I chose the personal narrative to establish the mood. My modus operandi. I want to learn and use settings more efficiently.

I have been tinkering with my sci-fi book, and now I’m wondering if I should add a layer of cyberpunk to it. It is closer to our time now, and I wonder if a more futuristic dystopian setting would work better. The book is about behavioral modification to the point where every citizen is trying to act to be a good little statistic. Yesterday, I read about the unit Cameron had set up in the UK after reading the book Nudge, and it’s terrifying how they have used laws to nudge migrants to move out of the country, making it humiliating and impossible to stay. Of course, the unit has done good things for health and well-being, but sometimes it seems like our modern governments are not there for the people, but for commerce and the wealthy. Anyway, I think I will do another layer of editing after I finish this one to get my story right.

It’s amusing how slowly I write. I noticed today that T. Kingfisher has published yet another book. I don’t know how she does it. How can she spew novels out so fast? Does anyone know?

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a beautiful day!