Strong drink

If into your drink you should happen to stare,
and back, from the cup, get an answering glare
as you quaff your refreshment, you'd better beware:
the effects may be more than exciting.
The brew that you drink might have thoughts of its own.
The last one who tried it fell down with a groan;
it felt, so he said, like he'd swallowed a stone;
from his guts came the clangor of fighting.
The internal struggle near tore him in two:
his complexion took on a cerulean hue,
and his actions were slowed as though moving through glue,
and the hair in his nose kept igniting.

Jobs Undone

Click, click. Click, click.

"The last of the lights going off. Power cutting out, circuit by circuit. Or, less accurate, but more poetic, soft shoes, walking on graves.

Those of the ones that died in space. Or the ones who built, even if they could never go out past the atmosphere. Even the people who only kept on dreaming of the future, writing of it, inspiring those that flew, and created the ships that took us out.

We've been told that the task is finished. But nearly everyone - those that flew out into space, the people who hoped, one day, to do so, - knows it isn't. The ones that don't have chosen, since there's no changing things, to accept the lie, so that their broken dreams, with no hope of repair, don't haunt them."

I don't think I shook my head, though the urge was there. But, as both of us knew from experience, going out in space, living in a ship the size of a single room, or a station with as much room as a one man apartment, and having to share it with three other people for months at a time... You have to learn how to read the subtlest bits of body language, so you can defuse or avoid tensions, or you'll end by killing each other, and I could see in his expression that he knew I disagreed somewhere, and wanted to know how.

"Surely no hope of repair is a bit dramatic... Eventually, things will settle, won't they?"

He laughed, then, though there was little enough humor in it, if any, and set a hand on my shoulder.

"Look... Say there are a million people that need to be fed now, or that each plane in the war costs as much as a launch, though the actual numbers are much higher, in both cases. People keep breeding, making more mouths; research continues on better weapons, making them cost more. No matter what gets cut, and how fast, the need grows past what can be paid for, in an exponential progression. You'll never catch up with it, much less get something back. So we've chosen to trap ourselves on this world, and we can't take that back. Nor can we hope that some other country will keep trying for space - after all, with all the increased spending on war we're doing, they have to pay more to keep their defenses up. And I suppose, that, in the end, what we get from making such a choice is fitting - a society dedicated to nothing but feeding its hordes and finding new ways to kill off the rest of the planet."

The conversation pretty much cut off there. The last of the lights had just cut off, and neither of us felt like talking too much anyway. Especially not since the air system went down with them.

Flash Fearsdelayed

Sorry for the rather major delay... Various things, including forgetfulness, have conspired to prevent me from posting these the last two weeks, and yesterday.

In any case, the challenge is back, and hopefully won't be delayed for anywhere near this long again.

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Flash Fearsday is a microfiction challenge: write a horror story in 140 characters or less. If you feel that is too limiting, you can try for 140 words. Flash Fearsday was started at Porky's Expanse!; however, Porky was unable to continue hosting it, at which point it moved here. What will you create for the challenge?

Titled Posts (Not Untitled)

Lords of Fire, Lords of Earth.
War the child they gave birth?
What's their nature, and their worth?

Queens of Water, Queens of Air.
Are they wolves, or do they care?
Bodes their presence ill or fair?

Lords of Darkness, Lords of Light.
Do they aid, or should we fight?
Are they killers in the night?

Queens of Glass and Queens of Ice.
Trusting them tosses the dice.
Have they slaughtered our friends twice?

Lords of Wood and Lords of Metal.
Do we have accounts to settle?
Do they want us for the kettle?

Queens of Spirit, Queens of Flesh.
Do they soul and sense refresh?
Do their goals and ours now mesh?

Lords of Time and Lords of Space.
Shifting threats that we must face?
Why we're trapped within this place?

Queens of Lock and Queens of Key.
Should we fight? We cannot flee.
Will they hold, or set us free?

Lords of Blindness, Lords of Sight.
Does our pain cause them delight?
Have they caused our current plight?