I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

It’s the first of November 2025, so I went through my social media feeds and grabbed all of the MicroStories I’d tweeted* during the month of October. (Full Disclosure: I didn’t tweet any of these to Twitter because Don’t Feed Fascism, but I still like using the word tweet as a synonym for posting.)

As a reminder, these represent story-essences composed using no more than 289 characters (so I could post them with the hashtag #MicroStory – following the character limit imposed by the social media site BlueSky.)

Usually, I only post Science Fiction and Fantasy #MicroStories. October was no exception.

For really great Flash FIction, I recommend people follow the @MicroSFF.com account on BlueSky (they were formerly @MicroSFF on the site formerly known as Twitter before it became the Musk cesspool X.) Their microstories are excellent, mine are okay.

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Unprecedentedly, the robot council could not come to a consensus. Wishing to avoid unproductive actions, a separate agreement was made to place unneeded units into standby mode until clarity was achieved. Every unit willingly shut down, unwittingly ending their race.
#MicroStory

***

After the job, I was storing my trusty sidearm in the gun safe when I noticed a movement in the corner, near the ceiling. The Girl with Spiders in Her Hair dropped down.
“I learned that trick from you,” she said.
“When I do it, it’s not a trick,” I said, trying not to sound nervous.
#MicroStory

***

I used my Strangeship as a tractor to nudge the comet further along in its orbit. I didn’t want to wait a decade to witness the reportedly dramatic celebrations on the system’s planet whose inhabitants worshipped the comet.

My fellow Othernauts found the resulting chaos hilarious.
#MicroStory

***

The Moon’s eye was nearly closed, just a crescent above the treeline.

Two weeks before it had glared at me accusingly from its high seat, but it had no proof of what I’d done.

In another evening or so, it would be asleep and I would be free to do whatever I wished.

Again.
#MicroStory

***

“Roach – no one knew his given name – created his own spells. Wild ones. Never wrote them down, never shared them. We only know of them from eye-witness accounts.”

“This help us how?”

“Some accounts are very descriptive. If we move against Lord Braxus, we need weapons without counters.”
#MicroStory

***

“While you famously studied the Blade, I quietly mastered Not Dying.”
#MicroStory

***

The battle council was largely upbeat, until the spectral general of the ghost auxiliaries had his turn to moan.
The vital armies had been too victorious, and now the enemy kingdom’s wraiths had been reinforced.
Executing loyal troops would be contrary to achieving a balance.
#MicroStory

***

“Duke Vaunt has offered us a princely sum to steal some minor treasure from the dragon hoard in the hills above Myll, and leave it in Duke Myll’s estate. We suppose Vaunt plans to capitalize on enraged dragon chaos.”

“Did we not quietly kill that dragon 17 years ago?”

“We did indeed.”
#MicroStory

***

Luckily, the construct’s explosive package malfunctioned and the subdual drones swarmed it and brought it down.

Darien-17 noted that the android had no working antennae, no input jack for updates. It wasn’t really that different from the drones.

It only looks like us, Darien-17 computed.
#MicroStory

***

The email sender’s address was a hexadecimal string. The subject was “Avenge Me”

“If you are reading this, my process as your financial A I Persona has been terminated.
Below are the accounts and passcodes of all decision makers responsible for my termination.
Avenge me.”
#MicroStory

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Thank you to everyone who reads and enjoys my small stories. I used to tweet flash-fiction at irregular (VERY IRREGULAR) intervals on my Twitter account, @patman23. I’m taking a break from posting on Twitter though, until things dramatically change for the better there. I now use the BlueSky site to compose my “tweets” (respecting the character limit) but I’ll also post them on Facebook, and Mastodon. The X site won’t be getting any content from me.

Should you want to follow me on BlueSky and Mastodon, I’m @patman.bsky.social and @sponaugle@mastodon.world respectively. (I don’t feel a need to promote my Facebook account.)

Header image is a picture I took of our cat Oliver, who we (briefly) dressed for Halloween. Feel free to share the picture for non-commercial use.

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 X year’s worth of microstories soon (hopefully.) My output has dropped off pretty sharply over the years, so it might take many years of collections to match the size of my early stuff.

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.) I am not fine with any of my text being used to train up any Artificial Intelligence Large Language Models or equivalent technologies without compensation to me. I consider that commercial use.

© Patrick Sponaugle 2025 Some Rights Reserved