A Microfiction Thread

[Jubal]

One of the things I sometimes find actually fun about Twitter/Mastodon etc is the presence of microfiction - that is, vignette-tales a few sentences long, which of course thus matches the format. There are a few people who do this super regularly, and some (like me on occasion) who dabble a little, but anyway, here's a thread for posting microfictions you've written or ones by others you've really enjoyed.

My most recent, posted on Mastodon, was a riff on the Two Wolves Inside You meme/format -

There are two wolves inside you.

Also two pandas. And two lions. And two rockhopper penguins, and two sunda pangolins.

Also, two rather unhappy moles who wish to know where all the soil went.

You are Noah's Ark, and you are uncertain how you know this, or when you gained the capacity for thought or introspection.

There is only sea, all around; the rain has not yet stopped.

There are two wolves inside you, and you were built to keep them safe until the dawn.

[Jubal]

A toot that became an accidental microfiction prompt, and the reply

If your email starts off by telling me where you're "reaching out from", I can almost guarantee you I don't want to read your email.

Hi Ciaràn, Reaching out to you here from the depths of the interstellar void! We think we have a fantastic opportunity to collaborate on

o silent gods it is so empty

we have forgotten what home once meant

to us

the impossible emptiness that mankind was never supposed to know, that envelops and consumes and yet consumes nothing

in space, there is nothing to rot a body

we reach out, tentative fingers brushing at

memories

of a lost world

Hope this reaches you well, and have a great week! Looking forward to checking in and seeing if we can really synergise our approaches!

Have a great day,

[END OF TRANSMISSION]

[Jubal]

A recent toot-fic from me:

"It's a remarkable thing, your grace, but the researchers do seem to have created something that allows it. Travelling through time, I mean."

"We hadn't thought it possible. They've actually built a proof of concept?"

"Yes, a hyper-toroidal space folding in three other dimensions: it moves everything within through time at a consistent rate."

"Ha! And what does one even call such a device?"

"I think... I think they call it a 'universe', your grace."

[Rob_Haines]

As Jubal knows, I'm also one of these fabled microfiction writers. I went through a period of posting daily microfic for a while in 2022, and I've got over a hundred microfiction stories in my archives at this point.

I recently put up all my microfiction on my website https://www.robhainescreative.space/writing/fiction/microfiction/, but here's one of my favourites:

While We Run

The Millennium Hounds are on our trail, and reality collapses in their wake.

All they do is hunt, through metaphysical space and digital bolthole, and all we can do is flee.

But while we run - while we cling on to those dear to us so none become misplaced along these liminal routes - we tell oral histories of what brought us here. The shared mythology of our childhoods, our adulthoods, the before-times when we could speak freely.

***

It began with embargos and user agreements, as if art only existed to be used. Then, emboldened, they reached further. Opinions, love, nostalgia, all fell beneath their purview, enshrined in unjust law. They spun up walled gardens, temples for adoration of their properties beneath the all-seeing algorithmic eye of our new media gods.

When we took a stand - the collective "we", across disparate countries and cultures and communities - they set the dogs on us.

We dare not invoke true names, for that only draws the Hounds quicker. Instead, we speak in metaphor, in twice-displaced synonym of the Unknown Physician and their empathy, of the half-decade Galactic Journey, of the Pantheon of Many Worlds.

***

We have been running for so long now, there are those of us who know nothing but our Hound-fueled retellings. Sometimes we wonder if our stories have deviated far enough from their sources that we are free.

But still we feel the breath of the hunters, hot on our necks. Still, we lose friends to the ether as each transient community we build is shattered and rent in the pursuit of profit.

In our darker moments, we fear - collectively, huddled around our intangible campfire - that the Hounds have hunted too long; that in seeking out adaptation and inspiration, their instincts draw them to the very concept of fiction.

And yet we persist, telling stories in the dark.

[Jubal]

Just finally had a nose through some more of your microfictions, I particularly liked For Having Been Broken and Song and Sonnet. It's a genre I'd like to write more but I rarely have a sufficiently super-neat concept for one.

Do you just grab the preview images from a stock photo site or similar, or are those your work too?

[Rob_Haines]

Thank you! For Having Been Broken is one of my favourites, for sure.

The header images I sourced primarily from Unsplash; most of their images are free, but uploaded by and attributed to the photographer or 3D artist. (From my experience, they've also avoided any generative AI images seeping into their catalogue, which is a welcome relief.)

A few of the images also came from NASA or Wikimedia Commons, and I created a few simple ones myself in Blender. It probably took me & my wife a month to find suitable images for every story on my site xD