Tag: vignette

Vignette: Y+1 by Torn MacAlester

science fiction vignette
Y+1
by Torn MacAlester This morn­ing on the Night Watch Live AM, we are speak­ing with Nick in Mon­tana, who’s been liv­ing inside of the blast zone of Yel­low­stone since the explo­sion last year. Nick, we have a caller on line two, are you ready for ques­tions from the audi­ence? “Go ahead Sam,” I said, pour­ing myself anoth­er cup of cof­fee. “I’m ready.” I’ve got Coot­er from Texas on the line. Coot­er, you’re live with Sam Dean on Night Watch AM and Nick from Mon­tana. “Hey yeah Nick, this is Coot­er. Ya doin’ all right?” “I can’t com­plain Coot­er, what is […]

Vignette: The Soldier by Torn MacAlester

The Sol­dier
By Torn MacAlester Image gen­er­at­ed by Torn MacAlester using GIMP 2.10.2 with Sta­ble Dif­fu­sion AI add on. The Sol­dier Y+0   Granger real­ized that the whirl­wind month had end­ed as he head­ed to the Grey­hound bus, hop­ing to see if he could get a trip. Accord­ing to the sergeant in the dis­charge bar­racks, his chances of get­ting a home trip to Wyoming were next to noth­ing. He had the Army trav­el vouch­er and four hun­dred bucks in cash–enough to last maybe two weeks, if his luck held. In the hazy twi­light, he made note of the lim­ou­sine pulled up along […]

Vignette: The Mountain by Torn MacAlester

The Moun­tain
By Torn MacAlester   Orig­i­nal Pho­to by Jose Vega from Pex­els. Mod­i­fied to grayscale and blurred using GIMP.     I sighed, look­ing at the grey land­scape, try­ing to esti­mate the direc­tion to the cab­in. I aban­doned the moun­tain, like every­one else, when the ash fell. They didn’t expect us to get a lot, but they encour­aged every­one to move south if they could, and I could. I loaded the jeep and head­ed down the moun­tain and head­ed south to New Mex­i­co with a rel­a­tive. After about six weeks, I’d worn out my wel­come, and I returned home. Now I […]

Vignette: Sins of the Son by Torn MacAlester

Sins of the Son
Pho­to by Brett Sayles from Pex­els Sins of the Son By Torn Macalester “Did you hear it?” The patient asked over the cacoph­o­ny of emer­gency equip­ment as the doc­tor worked on him and six oth­er patients that were near­ly as bad. “Hear what?” The doc­tor asked, plac­ing the gauze pads over the burns. “Make sure we clear his lungs. We need a scope in him as soon as pos­si­ble.” “She’s singing to us.” “What is she singing?” Doc­tor answered, look­ing at his eyes. One seemed burned, but the oth­er remained clear. Triage put him in the urgent cat­e­go­ry, but the bil­lion­aire made everything […]

Stranger: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester

Stranger
by Torn MacAlester Pho­to by Chris­t­ian Fridell from Pex­els Alex hand­ed the cus­tomer his whiskey in the Lunar-strawed cup, expect­ing to have a reac­tion. All the tourists react­ed. “Why not a prop­er glass?” They would ask, not know­ing that it was impos­si­ble to drink most liq­uids from a reg­u­lar ter­res­tri­al glass. This man did not. He mere­ly accept­ed the glass with­out com­ment. “I under­stand there was a prospec­tor that tells sto­ries here,” the well-groomed man said, not even both­er­ing to try the whiskey first. “Yeah,” Alex answered. “Nils hasn’t been here in months.” “Oh,” the man looked con­fused. “Sor­ry. Did you need a […]
Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Cold Contact: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester

Cold Con­tact
Writ­ten for: The Fic­tion Foun­tain 4 Aug 2019 Pho­to by Min An from Pex­els   Frank ‘Coot­er’ Ross looked at his books, try­ing to find infor­ma­tion about first con­tact. Where the hell is it? He thought. I know there is some infor­ma­tion here some­where. “What’s going on Frank?” said the female voice over the com­put­er line. “You went qui­et and start­ed grum­bling.” The voice belonged to Cathy Soren­son, the space­craft mechan­ic at the far end of the dri­ve sec­tion of the Hootie Bird. “It’s a book,” Coot­er said. “Details the pos­si­bles fer first con­tact.” “Oh,” she answered. “Part of your alien’s […]
Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Robot Friend: A New Vignette by Torn MacAlester

Chris and Doug smiled hap­pi­ly as I held on to them for the pic­ture. I tried my best to smile too, but I had found that my smile fright­ens most peo­ple, so I always tone it down for pic­tures. Doug’s mom snapped the pho­to with her phone, then Doug ran off to the left. In an instant, Chris fol­lowed. I eyed Doug’s mom for a moment before I turned in time to hear.

“Hur­ry Sam­my,” Doug yelled.

“Yeah!” yelled Chris.

“Here I come,” I yelled, run­ning fast enough to catch up with Chris, who ran a few meters behind Doug.

“I’m going to win,” screamed Doug.

“You’re a cheat,” answered Chris.

“Where are we rac­ing to?” I asked as I eas­i­ly followed.

“It’s a secret,” Doug gasped as he slowed.

“You’re still a cheat,” Chris stat­ed as he caught up and stopped just as Doug stopped. I fol­lowed suit.

“I win,” gasped Doug.

“You did not,” said Chris. “You just gave up before I could pass you.”

“Yeah,” I added, know­ing that Doug had stopped just as Chris neared pass­ing him.

“Says you, slow­poke,” Doug snapped back. “Sam­my the slowpoke.”

“Awe,” I feigned a slight­ly hurt tone.

“He can’t help it,” Chris answered. “He’s sup­posed to play fair with us.”

“Yeah,” I said, know­ing that I could out race any human by bet­ter than twice as fast.

Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Fifteen Percent! A Vignette by Torn MacAlester

Fif­teen Percent!
By Torn MacAlester Pho­to by Anna Nekra­she­vich from Pex­els Deputy Miller smiled. It was that smile of hers, Nils real­ized, the one that led to cer­tain dis­as­ter. “Okay Miller,” Nils attempt­ed to gain the ini­tia­tive. “What do you want?” “What makes you think I want any­thing?” “Dammit, Miller!” Why do you answer a ques­tion with a ques­tion? “You’ve […]
Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Rejection: A Vignette by Torn MacAlester

Rejec­tion
By Torn MacAlester Pho­to by Life Of Pix from Pex­els “Deputy Miller, a seri­ous sit­u­a­tion has risen.” Alex said, clean­ing a lunar beer mug as he spoke. “Like what?” Miller answered, clear­ly dis­in­ter­est­ed in the Con­rad Sta­tion barkeep’s cur­rent cri­sis.  She checked her watch. Miller knew Nils Carmike’s sched­ule like the back of her hand. He would soon […]
Short science fiction by Torn MacAlester

Directors and Malcontents: A New Vignette by Torn MacAlester

“I’ll say it one more time. John­son and Carmike are not com­ing back!” the Direc­tor said. “They left the space agency. It’s over. Why are we even hav­ing this con­ver­sa­tion about them? I can’t believe I will spend my Sat­ur­day mak­ing a case for us to try lur­ing back two mal­con­tents that have no desire to be part of our mis­sion. What con­ceiv­able use do we have for them?”

The Assis­tant Direc­tor said, “They have flight expe­ri­ence and are qual­i­fied. They’ve both been to the Moon and done all the things we asked of them.”

“The deci­sion is out of our hands. They left.”

“We need to get them back.”

“I don’t see how,” said the Director.

“Yeah, I know it’s impossible.”

“How does that impact us?”

“To get the crews ready after Mis­sion 7, we must slow down our pace.”

“How slow?” The Direc­tor asked.

“We must extend our sched­ule for Mis­sion 7 by a year.”

“That’s not pos­si­ble. We must keep flying.”

“I have a solution.”

“What?” asked the Director.

“Change Mis­sion 7 to the Tycho crater, with Jel­li­son and Conner.”

“What about the next mis­sion at the Lunar south pole?”

“We have Annie and Cy Mac­In­turn­er fly it,” said the Assis­tant Director.

“You’re sug­gest­ing that we put a hus­band-and-wife team as crew for a Lunar mission?”

“Yeah. They’re the only ones with the expe­ri­ence need­ed to han­dle that tough mission.”

“The Assis­tant Sec­re­tary will kill us,” the Direc­tor said.

“Then we need John­son and Carmike back.”

“They’re not com­ing back.”