I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

It’s the first of July 2023, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted during the month of June.

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. June was no exception. I guess?

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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Under the Andes and the Urals, and stretched along volcanic vents in the Azores, great Things patiently waited. The enormous floating elder sign made of snow and ice near the North Pole had deteriorated enough so that they could communicate again.
Could almost move.
#MicroStory

The gods had lived too long, weighed down by their perfect memories and a ponderous perspective blurring years with hours.
Soon, one would think to drink from the River Lethe, erasing millenia of memories and would imagine that this must have been the first time.
#MicroStory

In a mountainside ivory palace carved from the teeth of Titans, the refugee gods waited.
War gods drilled, love godlings comforted one another, household deities cleaned.
As dreaded, a Campbellian horror dwarfing the mountain appeared.
The Monomyth had come for them.
#MicroStory

Huge comet-busting orbiters in the Oort cloud created de facto claims of harvestable comet debris.
These ventures began to keep track of rogue harvesting of the debris, for future litigation. The surprise though was the debris being hauled further out-system, not in.
#MicroStory

The two groups eyed each other suspiciously, across the now-silent tavern.
“We are the 5 Famous Heroes of Eagle Mountain.”
“We are the Champions of the West River. There happen to be 5 of us.”
One drunken ogre later, the legend of the Borderland Ten was born.
#MicroStory

I checked my 9mm and the old man laughed.
“The beasts can be killed, but by men who carefully crafted their tools. Chose the weight of stone, smoothed the haft with care. Who made your gun? A factory?”
“Well, my nephew 3-D printed it.”
The old man was not impressed.
#MicroStory

“Just sign here, and the deal is complete,” Lucifer said. “Wait, contracting has changed the format again -“
And with the stroke of a bloody pen, I unexpectedly became the sovereign of Hell.
#MicroStory

It was the first anniversary of the great victory, but the celebrations were half-hearted at best. The people had not forgotten the two great tragedies of the war.
That their champion died heroically and that their mages brought him back.
#MicroStory

The homunculus banging on the door of the Alchemists’ Redoubt was much larger than last year’s.
Clearly, the outcast was doing this not just to irritate the alchemists, but to challenge them.
The High Catalyst finally ordered the Secret Reagents into action.
#MicroStory

Orion Station made the announcement that a ship from Earth was scheduled to dock. The inhabitants grumbled and chittered.
Humans were disease-ridden and it was easier to flood the station with poison gas than to rely on them to keep their environment suits sealed.
#MicroStory

The fortune cookie said “You will soon be reunited with an old friend.”
The lights flickered, catching my attention.
“Hello, Darkness,” I said.
#MicroStory

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

Header image is a fortune cookie that inspired the last microstory. I can’t make any exclusive claims to the text, since it was produced in a factory in New Jersey, probably, but the image is mine.

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 – I might need to put together another 3 year’s worth of microstories soon.

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 2023 Some Rights Reserved