Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #01304-C209: Saturday Sloth

https://vine.co/v/i0vVFiH9AI7

Vine of old cartoon from 1940s.

knocking on door

Detective: Who's there?

Door opens

Skeleton, walking through door: A skeleton. -- Gallifreya

Frisk Dreemur (happily adopted) hadn't been thinking of much more than a Saturday in their pyjamas and watching ancient cartoons. Thanks to Mama Toriel, there was plenty for breakfast. And possibly lunch.

Gone were the days when Frisk would eagerly devour a cooked water sausage. With or without a bun. And those days were gone for the monsters, too. Nobody regretted the change and Dunkle Sans was the only one who actually enjoyed those things anyway.

Sometimes, Frisk swore, he only ate them to gross people out.

But this morning, Dunkle Sans was napping on the couch, and Frisk was more interested in their MonPad tablet and the games therein than what was going on on the television.

Knocking happened, at the moment. And a bulldog dressed like a detective gave the classic feed line. "Who's there?"

Frisk glanced up in time to see a skeleton let itself in, shrug, and announce itself as, "A skeleton," almost apologetically.

"...that is not how the joke works," said Dunkle Sans, emerging from his assumed minor coma on the couch. "...and why are they naked?"

Frisk turned to sign, It's an old cartoon from the dawn of time. They didn't know how jokes worked back then. And, as an afterthought, they added, And they didn't know how skeletons dressed back then, either.

Dunkle Sans' eye sockets were dark. His permanent grin had flattened out. "...you shouldn't be watching this filth, kid... it's bad for ya."

Frisk dutifully dug the remote out of the pillows and blankets of their nest and did some channel flipping. It was surprising what could be offensive now that monsters were back in the sunshine.

Scooby Doo. Perfect. The monsters were always grownups in disguise, trying to make money off of people. And the animation was so bad that even Dunkle Sans laughed at it.

(Muse food remaining: 16. Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories! Or comment below!)

Challenge #01303-C208: Legendary Loser

The strongest man in the world attempts to find and swat a mosquito -- Gallifreya

[AN: I saw that GIF set, but I've yet to get my hands on a copy of One Punch Man alas alack]

Of the mighty deeds of Heracles, there is but one that is not re-told by the bards or poets.

Heracles, mighty son of Zeus, stronger than ten strong mortal men... lost just one battle. Mighty were his biceps, thick were his thews, but they were

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Challenge #01302-C207: Free Falling Water

Someone from a desert community or space community - anywhere where water is an extremely finite resource - visits somewhere like England where it falls from the sky on a semipermanent basis. -- Gallifreya

If there was one thing that freshly-minted Sahra Johnston would never get used to, it was the fact that she had her own space yacht. With a crew. And cabins enough for not just her entire family, but the crew's as well. Not that the Galactic crew had

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Challenge #01301-C206: Per Ardua Ad Astra

'Fire in the Sky.' Specifically, the filk song by Dr Jordin Kare, released in '91 but remastered in '04. This song moved Buzz Aldrin to tears on national television when he first heard the remastered version, apparently. There was a competition to make a music video, and this one won. I first found the music video, a few years ago now, and I've never forgotten it. -- RecklessPrudence

"You were there for it, weren't you?"

Shayde looked up from her Kung

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Challenge #01300-C205: Sense Askew.

*air horn sound *

*second air horn sound *

"This isn't deodorant" -- Gallifreya

He looked at the can. It looked like a regular, everyday bodyspray. Yet when he pressed the spray button, an air horn noise came out.

It shouldn't even be able to do that.

Come to think of it, the towel only looked like a towel. It behaved more like tissue paper, falling apart in his hands.

The toothpaste looked and smelled like toothpaste but... it was aoli. At least it

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Challenge #01299-C204: Explosive Food

Popcorn, either as an edible explosive or semi mindless entertainment. KnitNan

The human had hung up a hand-made sign - Explosive food preparation in progress before they produced a device and a package of dry, yellow seeds.

"Your pardon, cogniscent An'dee?" said Plyq'ix. "What is meaning, 'explosive food'?"

Andy had a very simple explanation. "It goes bang."

"Dangerous bang?"

"Surprising bang. Harmless, but surprising."

The machine whirred into life and the grains poured in. For a while, nothing much happened but rattling

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Challenge #01296-C201: Coat of Paper, Coat of Fur

"And she swore she would never eat another strawberry!" -- OohLookShiny

The assembled crowd of children turned to stare, open-mouthed, at the Silent Princess. Her name, insofar as anyone could understand her pantomime, was River. And she was living under a curse.

Beyond that, and her dislike of strawberries, everything was up to anyone's guess.

River shook her head and her hands danced. They danced to say, You have everything wrong, but they danced to people who did not understand the movements.

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Challenge #01295-C200: Pray What You Eat Lets You Live

Fast Food franchises for Aliens. -- Anon Guest

Excerpts from A Traveller's Guide to Galactic Spaceports[Written before the advent of Unsuitable Food]:

If you are the kind of person who does not eat what they cannot identify, then beware. You may starve to death. Once you leave the realm of your familiarity, you will find all manner of things that could be edible if you are brave enough to face it.

That said, beware of attempting to purchase anything living. There

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Challenge #01294-C199: As the Station Turns

Aliens are exposed to Soap Operas and get hooked. -- KnitNan

Storytelling was not a new thing. Those species with the gift for inventing stories were more likely to find welcome, despite their status amongst Galactic Society.

Only humans had managed to conceive of a story with infinite potential to continue.

Some alien species had managed to decode the Terran transmissions, and eventually decoded the language as well. They thought it was an anthropological study of one particular human clan.

What they

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Challenge #01293-C198: Those Who Remain

Prompt: A segment of the population does not believe anyone ever walked on the moon. Some probably do not believe their species ever gained space travel. What happened to them when so many members of the population left for the stars? -- Anon Guest

Space was hard to ignore for a conspiracy theorist. It was impossible for humans to leave the Earth. Simply impossible. The fact that so many of their fellow humans were doing it was not a fact at all.

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Challenge #01292-C197: The Best Place by the Fire

http://haberdashing.tumblr.com/post/146903793739/my-fever-thoughts-the-last-two-days

There's got to be one species that's impressed by storytelling even if it's not solely humanity's "thing" in amalgam -- Gallifreya

One good thing you can plausibly state about humans is that time spent with them is never boring. Of course, that was their chief combination of blessing and curse. They were never boring.

Most species took to space for reasons of economy. Things on their homeworld were no longer easy to obtain. Yet there

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Challenge #01291-C196: Bat Rogers in the 22nd Century

I finally found the full text of this!

http://somebodiesdaughters.tumblr.com/post/118571240112/spacebat

This brave little bat has multiple video tributes on youtube (this one's my favourite, even though there's probably better ones, it's the one that's stuck with me), at least one song written specifically for them, a website, fanart, posts every year saying that we have not forgotten them, and multiple news articles about them (the one I first read, waybackwhen, was titled 'Shuttle-Riding Bat Dies

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Challenge #01290-C195: Early Confusion

"There's a ladybug in my room!"

"Did you really call me at 3AM to tell me that?"

"I'm about two seconds away from burning this place down!" -- OohLookShiny

It took Cal a minute to recalculate what the hell Ch'v'th was talking about. "...no. No. Absolutely not. No. Don't."

"But the ancient rhyme of your people..."

"...does not tell you to set your house on fire. You tell the ladybug that her house is on fire."

There was a slight pause and

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Challenge #01289-C194: Sure it Followed You Home

A zbornak is not a pet. Yes even if it looks like a space horse and is wearing a saddle and bridle. Now let's bring her back where you found her.

Man I wish we spoke the same language... How do you apologise for your kid in pantomime.... -- Gallifreya

[AN: Language has never been a problem in WOY... interesting, that]

Sylvia knew they weren't in the Kan'zass galaxy, any more, but this took some kind of cake. First she'd lost Wander,

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Challenge #01288-C193: The Nature of Strength

Wander is supernaturally strong and doesn't realise this is a big deal -- Gallifreya

She saw it, now and again, whenever things got really tight. Wander could and would carry the weight of a world on his back. And once, he literally did it. Okay, so it was a small planet, as planets went. But that wasn't the point.

He either didn't know his own strength, or he hid it most of the time. It was only when he forgot himself that

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