Thank you

And with that, we finish this year-long run. Thank you so much for reading, and check back time to time; I'll still be posting drabbles when I write them; just not every day.

Again, thanks!

Drabble: Such Sweet Sorrow

Such Sweet Sorrow...

“I’ve never been good with goodbyes.”

“You know, people always say that. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone say, ‘I’m freaking fantastic at saying goodbye. I rip final partings a new one. I am the king of fare-thee-well.’ Why do you think that is?”

“Dave...”

“I guess it’s one of those things we all think we should be better at, the things that seem like they should be part of the standard human skillset, but that nobody sane would actually seek out occasion to practice.”

“Dave!”

“What?”

“Important interpersonal moment time, here?”

“Oh, right. Where were we?”

Newspost: As things come full circle...

Well, tomorrow marks one full year of these daily drabbles. It's hard to imagine I've been doing it that long, but there it is. There've been highs, there've been lows, and I hope there have been a few entertaining stories for you all.

Which brings us to the point. This was never intended to be a permanent engagement. When I first started, I thought I'd do it for a month; at the end of the month, I decided maybe I'd do it a little longer, maybe even a whole year.

Well, it's been a year, and it's time to move on. I'm not saying this is the end of the drabbling, but after tomorrow's story, I will be putting aside the "daily" part in order to focus more closely on my longer writing. Thank you all for sticking with me through all of this.

Drabble: Trailing Edge

Trailing Edge

“We’re getting close to the end of the trail, aren’t we?”

“It does look that way.”

“Any idea what you’ll do next?”

“Hard to say. You spend so many years fighting absolute evil, it’s not like you make solid plans for the future. I always half assumed I’d fall in battle against Dr. Ultimax.”

“Certainly never imagined it’d be like this.”

“Indeed. You throw a man into the sun, and he makes it out alive, you wouldn’t it’d be cancer that gets him in the end.”

“I almost feel like we should go pay our respects. You know, for closure.”

Drabble: From His Fingertips

From His Fingertips

Then one day the river slowed to a trickle, then stopped entirely. The people living on its fertile banks asked the gods what they had done to deserve this. Pray as they may, there was no answer. Some stayed, counting on a change before famine set in, while others set out across the wastes, hoping it was better, maybe, somewhere. The former died off waiting, the latter died off walking. Salvation came too late...

- - -

“Quite playing in that muddy ditch and come inside!”
“Okay, Mom!” The child tore down the great dam, lingering to watch as the torrent flowed down.

Droubble: The Library

The Library

The library is relatively intact, though as devoid of human activity as anywhere. I start in the reference section, helping myself to relevant pages from a gazetteer, in case flight from the city should become a necessity. I consider looking for books on agriculture and animal husbandry, but decide to leave that for another day; the card catalogue was long ago replaced by computers, which are of little use now. Besides, until the canned goods at the QFC run out, where’s the real urgency? It’s not like I’m trying to rebuild civilization. Not much I can do if I’m the only survivor, and I still haven’t seen evidence of others.

I grab a few novels – plenty of time on my hands now, and not much to do but catch up on my reading – and head for the exit. I have my wallet out, looking for my card, and when I catch myself in the ridiculous act it’s all real again, and I’m on the floor, crying, shaking, throwing up my canned peaches.

I lift myself up, put my wallet away. Then, on second thought, I take it out again, discard it in a dark corner. Too late for that now.

Drabble: Enhanced

Enhanced

“Get up.”

I try to, but powerful waves of nausea force me back to the ground.

“I said, get up. Can you understand me?”

My head pounds with pain, and I struggle to form words. If I could, I’m not sure what I’d say, besides maybe to beg death.

---

“He lasted longer than anyone else.”

“I have to say, I don’t feel great about this.”

“All our volunteers knew what they were getting in to, and with the waterboarding fiasco, we dearly need new stress methods.”

“Still, three straight episodes of The Simple Life? How do we sleep at night?”

Drabble: The Science of Sin

The Science of Sin

“Ma’am, what is your group protesting?”

“The, the immoral research taking place in this department!”

“Are you sure you have the right building? This is astrophysics, not biochemistry or medicine or anything like that.”

“This is where the offensive, reprehensible work is taking place, so this is where we will protest!”

“But I don’t get it. What could they possibly be working on in here that has you so upset?”

“Why, it was just published last month. Did you not hear? Researchers in this very building are debating the possibility of naked singularities? I mean, the immodesty of it all!”

Drabble: African Grey

African Grey

The parrot started squacking.

“Will you shut that thing up? Giving me a headache.”

The apartment was pretty bare. It’d be a quick job, no piles of garbage at least.

“Who’s gonna take the bird?” asked Hanson.

“What do I care? I guess it’ll go to a shelter.”

“Who’d want an old bird like that? Probably pining for the old lady, too; my aunt used to keep one, they bond for life.”

“Well, you got some bright idea?”

“Nah, I just wondered.”

The bird seemed to stare at me.

“Get the thing out of here, it gives me the creeps.”

Drabble: Vanguard

Vanguard

The factory’s almost entirely automated. Our station represents the only direct human involvement in the whole process. What you do is, you stand right here, between these two belts, and you pick up a piece from one, and another from the other, and you screw them together.

Well, yeah, that could be done by a machine, easy as anything else here.

Why isn’t it? Well, there’s a certain element that still opposes a completely automated robot factory. In theory, if we stop work here, the whole process stops.

Of course it’s stupid, but hey, at least you’ve got a job.

Drabble: Directions

Directions

I went to the rack in the corner of the gas station’s little shop. There were dozens of brighly-colored road maps, highway maps of the state and the region and of various cities and counties. They were dusty; I guess nobody much bought them in this day of internet maps and iPhones.

Nestled down in the bottom corner of the rack, though was something much older. I carefully unfolded the browned, curled parchment. Now, at last, I’d the means to locate the ruby of Azkinoth.

“How much for this?”

“One fifty-nine.”

I pull out a buck and change.

Drabble: In Captivity

In Captivity

It was our fifth day in the sealed white room. The rhythms of food and drink, dark and light were becoming routine.

“But what do those, those creatures want?” asked Martha.

“I think I have a theory.” I glance around. “I think our captors are scientists, of a sort, observing human social behavior.”

“What do you mean, behavior?”

“Well, an adult male and female...”

“Oh lord...”

“Horrid, I know. Still, it may be our only way out.”

She wasn’t ready yet, but it was but a matter of time. The whole hoax had been expensive, but when it paid off...

Drabble: Willing

Willing

“Isaac told me what happened today.”

I look up at Sarah.

“Is it true?”

“Well, I didn’t–”

“Only because He gave you an out.”

“It was a test of my faith.”

“You were ready to do it.”

“That’s the point, I was ready, and then He provided the ram.”

“You were ready to kill our son, our miracle.”

“For the one without whom he’d never have been born.”

“So He can just take that away from us?”

“But He didn’t!”

“You’d have gladly done His will.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can ever look at you the same again.”

Drabble: To The Death

To The Death

The matador sweated. He’d already fought two bulls to exhaustion, though without his sword he’d been unable to give the coup de grace. But the bulls just kept coming. How long could he last before he was too tired to fight, before he made a fatal mistake?

He judged the animal’s charge, stood firm to the last, then stepped aside. Dust clung to his cape, to his sweaty skin.

The bull wheeled for another charge. The matador danced aside again, but this time just too late; the bull tossed its head and gored him through.

The crowd moo’d its approval.

Drabble: Gone

Gone

“Man, what do you make of this weather?”

“Uhh, what do you mean?”

“You know, this sudden fog.”

“What fog? It’s bright and sunny outside my window.”

I pull back the curtain again. “Strange, I’m socked in here. I can barely see the mailbox.” A chill runs down my spine. Our houses are two blocks apart.

“No way. I don’t even see any clouds. You’re pulling my le--”

The phone cuts off.

I notice that the door has blown open. I go to shut it, but I stumble at the gate, out in the fog, into blank white, floating away.

Drabble: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

Years later, under guidance of my therapist, I’d piece together the story -- a tragic demolition derby accident, with a chunck of debris flying into the audience. At the time, all I heard was the grown-ups talking about the poor little boy who was killed by the monster truck.
Words are powerful in the four-year-old mind, espescially that “m” word. For years that imagined truck rumbled through my dreams, belching foul exhaust, headlights burning with menace. It’d already killed that little boy, and though I could never tell my parents, I knew it was coming for me next.

Drabble: Captain Amazing: Ne’er-do-wells Cower, Evildoers Repent!

Captain Amazing: Ne’er-do-wells Cower, Evildoers Repent!

Sam Stanwell was just a mild-mannered citizen before that fateful day, the day when he was exposed, by freak industrial accident, to the gamma ray beam. He didn’t know it at first, but changes were taking place in his body. His very DNA had been changed by the rays, and the cells of his body were changing, multiplying and regenerating at a blindingly fast rate. He was not like the normal humans anymore, for he had–

- - -

“–maybe three, four months to live.”

Sam stared blankly at the empty wall, trying to take in what the doctor was telling him.



Note: I will be out of town without internet this weekend. Expect new drabbles on Monday or Tuesday. Meanwhile, look closely at today's title.

Droubble: Doomed

Doomed

The vision lasted about forty seconds. We all saw it. The official explanations ranged from exotic space-time phenomena to ESP to signs from God. It didn’t really matter. After seeing the vision, we all knew it for what it was: A vision of the future – not only that, the immediate future.

A pleasant vision it was not. Nobody agreed whether it’d been nuclear war or plague or natural disaster or divine retribution, but we all saw the silent, ruined city. We all knew what it meant.

A few fled to the hills, stockpiled food and weapons. But we most resigned ourselves to fate and tried to make the most of our remaining time.

The first few days had an air of carnival. The power went out before long – nobody had reported for work at the plants – so we reveled by firelight. The stores were closed, but so were the police departments, so we took what we needed.

Day five, we started to wonder what the bomb or the meteor or whatever was waiting for. Out-of-control fires swept through much of the city. Food was scarce. Fights broke out.

On the eighth day, the ruins had gone silent.

The Touch

The Touch

It started when he was a boy. He loved taking apart broken ousehold appliances, putting them back together. Often the machines he took apart worked when he’d put them back together. He didn’t know how he did it, even what he did. He just had a touch.

He never got the hang of human companionship, preferring his quiet workshop. He learned to actually fix things, for his touch didn’t always work, but he only took enough work to live on. The rest of his time he worked on us.

Sometimes we miss him. Not the others, but him, at least.

Drabble: Save Yourself

Save Yourself

“Save the humans? Why in the seas would we do that?”

“I know I sound like a bleeding heart. I’ve no love for the things they’ve done – still do. But they’re on a road to self-destruction–”

“Let them at it!”

“You really think they’ll get there alone? Listen, some of them are trying. If we share our wisdom...”

“Or we could nudge them past the brink...”

“I hope for your sake the council didn’t hear that.”

- - -

A humpback spouts in the distance as I remove the headset. “What do you think they’re singing about?”

“Just noise, you ask me.”