I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

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

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 269 characters (so I could tweet them with the hashtag #MicroStory.)

Usually, I only tweet Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. May was 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.)

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After becoming a terrified believer in witchcraft, the king decreed draconian measures to ensure that all of his daily-cut hair be destroyed so as to protect him from spells.
Annoyed by the extra work, the barbers used a bag of his old hair and gave him a stroke.
#Microstory

My son and I lay in the mostly empty park, looking up at the contrails of cargo planes.
“People used to pack themselves into those?” he asked.
“They did. We didn’t have flying cars before the pandemic.”
#MicroStory

The dead generation ship hurtling through the void had possibly left Earth a thousand years before. There could be many reasons why one of these hopeful arks failed, but the most promising cause might be a mutated virus.
Such a virus could help us against the humans.
#MicroStory

Rumor was that the Unidentifiable Man had traded his identity for superpowers. That the wrappings covering his face kept it secret not just from the public.
The mob, tired of his meddling, called in their best identity-erasing men to work their usual jobs backwards.
#MicroStory

Before planetary colonization by humans would happen, Guardians would be sent in first: huge megafauna that loved humans. In emergencies, colonists could survive inside the creatures in a habitat organ.
But all the guardians were dead on this site.
I had to know why.
#MicroStory

“Committee opinion on initiating contact would have been different four human years ago. But recent events show that the Earthlings failed to learn anything since the last test.”
And so first contact was tabled with another pandemic planned for Earth’s 22nd century.
#MicroStory

The local champion’s signature move was to defeat his challenger by disarming them and using their own weapon (usually a sword.)
One challenger welded a blade to an armored gauntlet; the champion used that gauntlet as a bludgeon.
And then went into secluded self-exile.
#MicroStory

“Demon haunted?” the warrior-poet repeated the words back. He pointed with rough hands to the dark spaces behind the ruined columns.
“We should not be so rude. Any spirit here would no doubt be honestly sheltering as we are.”
And with that, the poet saved their lives.
#MicroStory

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Thank you to everyone who reads and enjoys my small stories. I tweet flash-fiction at irregular intervals on my Twitter account, @patman23. At more regular intervals on Twitter, I’ll be talking about my dogs, or television (mostly Game of Thrones), or raking leaves off of my lawn.

Header image was taken by me, after I’d noticed my dog Chi Chi the Pug had fallen asleep cradling the TV remote. That also feels like a microstory.

Want to read my earlier MicroStory collections? I have my first three years’ worth of stories HERE and the second three years’ worth of stories HERE

In general, I’m fine with anyone using the text of my MicroStories for non-commercial use. (Look how cute I am, thinking someone wants to make a t-shirt from one of my flash fiction bits. I say cute, but you can substitute in some other, more appropriate, adjective. I’m not the boss of you.)

© Patrick Sponaugle 2020 Some Rights Reserved