I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

It’s September, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of August.

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 129 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)

Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. August was pretty much no exception.

For really great #MicroStory action, please follow @MicroSFF, the Twitter account that inspired me to participate in this minimalist writing exercise. That feed puts out great science fiction and fantasy MicroStories all the time.

(I want to make it clear that @MicroSFF is *not* a Twitter account of mine. Their flash-fiction tweets are excellent. Mine are okay.)

I’m delighted to announce that this is my third anniversary of writing these types of itty-bitty almost-stories. Go me! I’ve got 36 months worth. (I should probably make an actual count of how many I’ve done.)

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Once, a witch settled in our woods. Once.
Once, a vampire came in the night. Once.
Once, a swarm of plague rats came to town.

#MicroStory

“Will good prevail?” the princess asked.
“Of course. It always does.”
Her father rode off with the army.
She began to cry.
#MicroStory

No one thought to ask the demon if it was willing to impersonate the imprisoned prince and be a puppet ruler.
#MicroStory

The gods had forbidden anyone from entering the dead cities.
They wished to avoid having to kill those cities a third time.
#MicroStory

The world was a rare opportunity for xeno-archaeology. Most alien structures were only found on asteroids.
For ominous reasons.
#MicroStory

The City Watch could only account for nine of the Centaur delegation. How could a centaur go missing in the city?
#MicroStory

The city had been dying for years, so no one noticed when it expired one night.
The necromancer made them notice 3 days later.
#MicroStory

It was made of mist & sand.
Starlight & falling leaves. And rage.
My sword was made of dreams, mirrors, & shells.
And patience.
#MicroStory

“I’ve always loved the sea.”
“Really?”
“Always.”
“Is that why you’re not bailing?”
#MicroStory

“I’ve always loved outer space.”
“Really?”
“Always.”
“Is that why you’re not helping patch this hull breach?”
#MicroStory

The old colonials emotionally resisted updating the school books that still listed Earth as a planet and not as the Inner Belt.
#MicroStory

She whined & shook.
Why couldn’t her humans realize that this was the thunderstorm that would kill them?
Just like the last one.
#MicroStory

All of the castles were haunted, so most armies had exorcists.
This castle was ours, though.
The ghosts were our proud fathers.
#MicroStory

We’d waited days, but the captain wouldn’t ship off without one of its fave stupid warrior races on the crew.
It wanted a human.
#MicroStory

The captain knew it couldn’t ignore the distress call, but rescuing humans was so troublesome.
So much screaming.
And sabotage.
#MicroStory

The harpy refused.
“You only paid us to fight against men.”
“And?”
“They have bows. Unholy weapons. That makes them demons.”
#MicroStory

Once settled into orbit, we kicked off the scans for undersea Alpha artifacts and polar Beta artifacts.
We prayed for no Omegas.
#MicroStory

No one knew how old the wizard was.
Weekly, he’d earnestly announce that his 100th birthday was nigh and sternly demand a feast.
#MicroStory

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Thank you to everyone who has read and enjoyed my small stories. I tweet flash-fiction at irregular intervals on my Twitter account, @patman23. At more regular intervals, I’ll be talking about my dogs, or walking through eye-level spiderwebs in the morning, or Game of Thrones. (Hodor!)

Want to read my earlier MicroStory collections? If you select the Flash Fiction category in the Categories widget on my page, you can see every monthly collection, going back to where I started in August, 2013. Should you do that, let me know. You’re my hero.

The header picture was taken by my wife (while I was driving), it is of an approaching and dramatic thunderstorm in August (that just might have inspired one of the microstories above.) If you simply must make use of it, please credit my wife, Lisa Sponaugle, as the photographer.

© Patrick Sponaugle 2016 Some Rights Reserved