I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

It’s the first of June, 2021 , 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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“I could bless your crops, bring rain,” the wizard said. “I’m not evil, I’m old. At times I misspeak. I own a ring that compels truth and once that helped me speak the right words. But once it caused me to cast awful spells ‘unintentionally’. Mayhaps I am evil.”
#MicroStory

Doggedly, the stubborn old man decided that he’d just have to live with those heart attacks.
And so he did.
#MicroStory

Doggedly, the stubborn old man decided that he’d just have to live with those heart attacks.
And so he died.
#MicroStory

I let the Girl With Spiders In Her Hair collect the blood-stained pages – she had her pets do it.
The remains indicated that the summoner had called something too much for us to handle.
The only thing I hated more than being late, was asking for help.
From my ex.
#MicroStory

“You can bully your way through the bureaucracy in Hell, but you’re likely to run into a classic bottleneck. Two demons will each refuse to sign off on your request until the other one does. The key is figuring out the right demon to kill.”
“That’s the key?”
“Maybe.”
#MicroStory

The word was that Chorborro had destroyed his laboratory of experiments and artifacts, and had burned his library of unique magical texts.
The younger members of the council wanted to investigate, but the older mages shrugged.
“He’s looking for attention. Deny him.”
#MicroStory

The old mining robots mostly ignored each other, operating in the belt and beyond without incident.
New laws granted claims to ambitious startups, who deployed new robot fleets equipped to disrupt existing mining robots.
The old timers unexpectedly allied in response.
#MicroStory

“Look, it fucks us up, fucks with our heads. That we’re on this simmering rock, but the galactic space cops have decided humans are an invasive species, and restrict starflight. Makes us want to do something.”
“Like, plant a tree?” the alien asked.
“What? Fuck no.”
#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 complaining about raking leaves off of my lawn.

Header image was taken by me, I was giving my pug Chi Chi a bath and couldn’t resist. She’s a microstory all by herself.

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 2021 Some Rights Reserved