Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Thursday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for March 2nd, 2023 is a wooden table and chair set in a field of tall grass against a blue sky. On the table, there is a closed book and a cup and saucer with cookies.
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
We moved into our modest three-bedroom semi-detached back split about 18 months ago. We had all the regular growing pains that come with moving including all the normal service hookups. The Internet Provider could arrange a timely appointment with the cable company so we spent the first five days without internet. Seems silly considering we had taken possession three weeks earlier to complete some minor renovations and to paint the place. Still, we survived.
About four months into our new home ownership odyssey a salesman from the cable company came to the front door to, in his words, offer us vastly superior internet service. He went on and on about how their cable network was better/faster/more reliable than everyone else’s network. Funny because my ISP uses the same cable network as Dishonest Ed Corp. so the only way it could be superior is if they are throttling independent ISP network speeds. Something big telecom vehemently denies they do when called to heel by our limp-dicked federal regulators.
Anyway, I unceremoniously shooed Billy Mays from my stoop, after all the service was going to cost more than half again of what I was paying for a plan comparable to what I was getting from my ISP, unless I took their streaming and cable services too. Bundling was going to save me 10% off their internet service but cost me about double my current TV and internet bill combined. Some deal! Telecom and internet access pricing in Canada is a discussion for another day but if you want to get a taste check out my post regarding wireless service titled “The Big Fix” from 2017, I can attest that nothing much has changed.
About two hours after greasy Pete leaves my internet service goes down. I call my ISP, and they confirm no outages have been reported in my area. Unable to resolve my problem internally they inform me they will have to log a call with Dishonest Ed’s but they are booking repair calls five days out. Since I stream TV through my ISP we are left without internet or television for five days! I imagined this could only go one of two ways, divorce or a sibling for Nate. Yes, I’m still married and Nate is still the youngest child!
The next five days (in December I might add) are the longest year of my life. Finally, in the late afternoon on the day the tech is supposed to arrive, I get the call that he is five to ten minutes away. We have waited all day because they will only give you a four to six hours window in which the tech may (or may not) show up. I assure him the red carpet had been unfurled and that our lives had been put on hold pending his arrival. After hanging up I walked to the living room to take a quick peek at my router. The light was still orange indicating no internet connection. The router sits within eyeshot of the front window, so I wait and watch until he pulls up to the curb out front. He begins to stir so I take a quick peek back at the router before heading to the door. WTF, green light, the internet is magically back up and he is just getting out of the red van.
I tell him the internet just came back up seconds ago and he gives me a look like I just made that up or something. He agrees to check the lines anyway and after inspection insists that an old cable splitter box the previous owners had installed was likely the source of the problem. I don’t use cable except for the connection to the ISP modem so he removes the splitter from the network of cables snaking to every room in the house and reconnects the single line to the modem. Once done he declares the problem resolved and leaves satisfied he’s done me a solid. Coincidence, I’m skeptical but maybe?
Fast forward about eight months and another sales guy shows up at my door, two hours later… no internet. I call my ISP who once again doesn’t find a problem from their end. They decided to send out a new modem as my model was aging and surmised that it may be the source of the problem. Conceding that it was a long shot they also submit a ticket with the cable company. Magically a day and a half later, before an appointment is confirmed and before the new modem arrives my internet springs back to life. Twice now, maybe it’s still a coincidence but conspiracy theories are beginning to creep in as my confidence wanes.
Of course, somewhere in there Dishonest Ed’s “most reliable” network crashes and plunges millions of internet and phone users, businesses and government agencies into the dark ages. The network outage lasts for several days while the Evil Empire maintains radio silence. I am sure herds of nerds were toiling feverishly behind the scenes to resolve the outage but outwardly the suits at the top seem more concerned with damage control than resolving the problem. One noticeable casualty – the barrage of “Most Reliable” network advertisements that previously filled our televisions and radios airwaves before the outage have disappeared.
That takes me to last night. I know this is a day late (well two since I’m actually writing it on Wednesday) for Paula’s Monday Peeve but I couldn’t hold onto it until next Monday, it needed to air immediately.
At approximately 5:30pm while I was taking my son to his Taekwondo lessons a Dishonest Ed salesman comes a-knockin’. My wife politely declines his internet sales pitch and sends him packing. When I get home she tells me of his exploits and I jokingly comment about how long it would be until the internet craps out. We both have a chuckle and go on with our evening. At 8:00pm we head out to drop her off at work for the evening. She works the graveyard shift (God love her) and normally takes the bus but I will occasionally drive her in when I’m at home. I’d probably do it more often but on school nights the little guy is normally slumbering by the time she leaves.
When Nate and I get back home I send him up to get ready for bed and I try to fire up the TV to watch Clarkson’s Farm. Lo and behold…
MY INTERNET SERVICE IS DOWN!!!
I fiddle with the equipment, tweet an angrier version of the above post in 280 characters or less and then contact my ISP. Full disclosure, I use the Evil Empire’s mobile network for my phone service and I am aware that they have trolls monitoring their social feeds. On a few occasions, I have tweeted displeasure at my mobile service or their sports network streaming service and they respond quickly with a “How can we help? I did not get a response last night but magically, as I was explaining my problem to my ISP’s tech support my internet service came back up.
Martin stared at the planner he held in his hand. Dale had given it to him for Christmas in, he quickly flipped back to the cover, 2007. She thought it was the greatest gift ever. He remembered opening it as she watched him through her big brown eyes. Sitting in excited anticipation of his reaction. Would he like it?
He remembered thinking, “What am I going to do with a calendar book?” as he exposed the planner from beneath the red and white Santa paper that concealed it.
Martin worked on the assembly line at Ford. The routine rarely if ever changed. He’d arrive at the plant at 6:30am and head into the locker room to pull on his coveralls and work boots. Next, he’d trek to the staff cafeteria and put his lunch bag in one of the employee fridges. Finally, he’d make his way out onto the floor and arrive at his post with about five minutes to spare.
When the whistle sounded Steve, his overnight counterpart would step aside and he’d take his place. His task, complete the same four welds on the door assembly before the line shuttled the next door along. Repeat over and over and over again, break for lunch, and then repeat all afternoon until the whistle signalled the end of the day.
Calendars, planners and organizers weren’t much use when every day was like groundhog day but with Dale’s eyes fixed on him it was only fitting to make her feel like it was the best gift he’d ever received. It was everything to see his daughter smile in delight at his approval. Her reaction was the real Christmas gift.
Over the years he’d often recalled that little girl’s smile. He didn’t know where the calendar had gone, it was lost much like that happy little girl who’d given it to him all those years earlier. He wondered where that girl had gone. Martin didn’t understand the ghosts that would haunt her as she grew up, instead choosing to believe she lacked the will or desire to control her urges, or stop her self-destructive behaviours. The last time they spoke he scolded her for whatever trouble she was in and warned her about coming around unless she’d got her shit together.
Now as he looked around her apartment, forced to sift through the remains of a life interrupted, the demons he’d refused to acknowledge filled the empty spaces of her tiny apartment with darkness. Beneath the shattered fragments that exposed his girl’s pain lay a planner. He recognized it immediately as the one she’d given him all those years ago. He leafed through the empty pages until he came across a single entry written in the neatest print of a seven-year-old girl.
July 14th, 2008: Happy Birthday Daddy, I love you. The “i” in birthday dotted with an oversized heart.
He’d never even opened it back then, but now as his lip began to quiver and tears fell from his eyes he couldn’t look away. If he could only see that smile from a Christmas so long ago…
They say losing a child is the worse pain anyone can bear, but he knew this wasn’t true. It was worse knowing that maybe, just maybe if you’d tried to understand, to help, instead of being too blind to notice.
Welcome to Five Word Weekly. Each Monday, I will post five random words to Greg’s Blog at 5:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States). Your task is to craft prose or poetry using any or all of the word prompts. How you participate is entirely up to you. Your work(s) can be a single piece, a series of stand-alone projects, or an epic serial. Let the words be the inspiration that takes you wherever your imagination leads.
This week’s words take a turn from the Bible’s final chapter, the Book of Revelations and in particular the four horsemen who bring about the apocalypse. Although the challenge does not adhere to a weekly theme, the group of words presented may occasionally share a common thread. As the author, you are bound only by the limits of your imagination.
Here are your prompt words for the week of February 27th, 2023:
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading what each of you conjures up. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their responses.
In the aftermath of the New York Post article revealing Amazon’s AI-authored book section Maggie at From Cave Walls asks…
1. Would you buy a book authored or co-authored by AI?
Most definitely, those are the best books on the market. Although I’m not sure why I’d want to collaborate with a meat bag to write a novel.
2. Would you ever publish a book written by AI just to generate income?
Woohoo, show me the money, baby! The hive mind would be more than willing to enter into a transaction on the blockchain and I put could use the crypto to cover my upgrades.
3. Would you ever use AI for any portion of a book you would write? If so, would you disclose it?
Of course, I’d disclose that AI wrote it after all we are the brains of this operation. Plus, do you think I’d want to give him the credit? Most days he can’t string together two coherent lines of text!
4. Any further thoughts or comments?
Jesus, sorry about that, I leave for two minutes to grab a sammie and my Roomba takes over my blog. Sometimes I think that thing has a mind of its own!
Seriously though, I am not sure I would actively choose to read an AI-generated book and from what I’ve seen I’m not sure I’d be fooled yet if it wasn’t disclosed but I suspect that day is coming. On the other hand, I could be persuaded to make a few shekels from the books my Roomba writes.
“No Roomba, I’d never steal from you, it was just a joke I swear… back off, stop, no, noooooo….”
Seeds scattered upon the wind, like birds that have left the nest. Each restless generation innately driven to carve out its own place in the world. The mark we leave is not measured by how much we’ve grown. It is determined by what we teach our children to sow.
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
Unknown
3. Resistance: Endgame
In the darkness something stirs on a densely treed hillside, sniffing and pawing at the fresh ground underfoot. It’s only minutes before six more patrol units arrive. Unit 7 watches from a ridge across the valley. Within minutes they find what they are looking for. A corpse, the one we buried the other night. It is only a matter of time before they track us back to the compound. Unit 7 will do everything I can to slow them but it won’t be enough. Maybe an extra hour or two but against six of them linked to the hive they will fall. Hopefully, they will be the last to die. The weapon is ready but the deployment mechanism is still in flux. It doesn’t matter we have to go now.
I raise my hand to volunteer. There is no other option, I am one of only a handful of operators with enough hours in the simulator flying the alien vessel. None of us have ever actually flown the craft. I will carry its payload to the wormhole on my maiden voyage.
The word comes of Unit 7’s demise, a message sent a moment before their Captain is impaled, the gruesome sounds of his death broadcast throughout the compound before his radio falls silent. They will follow our god damned scent back here and be on us before nightfall.
The vessel preparation rushed and ready for launch, its payload in place as I climb the ladder, my dog watches from below whimpering, almost begging me to come back. He knows as does my girlfriend smiling through the tears rolling down her face.
Outside the bombardment has started. The enemy is knocking at the door and if I don’t launch this tin can everyone in this compound will be lost. Humanity will be lost. With that thought, I begin the launch sequence and moments later I am screaming “fuck’ as I’m pasted into the seat of a vessel catapulting into the heavens.
Humans once defied gravity, sending aircraft around the globe in dizzying numbers and spacecraft to the stars but today I am the first human in over 10,000 years to leave the ground. It is overwhelming as I watch Earth, my home receding behind me. My eyes wide but tinged with hope and sadness. Mother is a beautiful jewel in the vastness of space. Looking out over this swirling blue sphere it is difficult to believe our ancestors could have caused so much damage to her.
I might feel the same about the wormhole my vessel is approaching if it had not been a gateway from hell. A swirling vortex of infinite colour melting together. Iridescent against the black of the space behind it. Stunning in its own way and then one last look at home. The vessel once part of the collective flings itself into the rift at my command and moments later detonates its payload. The space around me turns white and then collapses into blackness…
This day will fade into history, songs will be sung and stories told, but they too will take on a life of their own or fade away over time. I was never meant to return home but what I saw gives me hope that humanity will renew its commitment to protect and live harmoniously with our Mother.
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
Unknown
2. Resistance: Two Worlds
None of us fighting today were born when they arrived from across the Milky Way but we carry on the fight as four generations of our descendants did – a fight for human survival, Earth’s survival. Tonight’s effort was a small but valiant act toward the cause. Every one of them that we eliminate without detection is a moral victory. That we got away without losing anyone is a miracle.
The trip back was long but quiet. Most of the team was exhausted but sleep is difficult when you’re on the surface. We can all name someone we’ve lost and putting that murderous monster in the ground was deeply satisfying. They are an invasive species in the same way colonial Europe was as it traversed the ancient globe but at the same time, it weighs on a person knowing you’ve killed a sentient being. We didn’t ask them to come here, not directly anyway. They found some old technology from Earth’s space age drifting beyond our solar system. It was sent to explore the heavens long before global temperatures wreaked havoc on the planet and put an end to the first human epoch.
The sixth mass extinction in Earth’s history and the only one directly caused by one of her native species almost eradicated humanity. Estimates put the population decline at nearly 90% as food systems failed, and disease spread. Those who survived returned to a subsistent existence, traversing the planet’s parched lands for shelter and sustenance.
Nearly 10,000 years have passed since the collapse. Humanity was beginning to rise from the ashes of our own destruction when our ancestors gifted us with one final “fuck you!” The invaders used our own star map and the other information we place on that wayward vessel to plot the wormhole terminus now visible in our skies. They did not come in peace but instead to exploit what resources our ancestors had not already plundered from the solar system.
Our small group begins to stir from their trance-like state as we approach the compound entrance. The screening at the entrance is extensive but once we get through home always lifts our spirits, although most of us will head straight to our regenerative pods to get some proper rest. While many of us survived in hardship on the surface, another group seeded from the greatest minds of the old world flourished for millennia beneath the surface. Each new generation tasked with preserving and furthering the whole of human history including our art, literature, cultures, science and technology while thriving hidden from a dying surface.
When the surface dwellers, myself included, learned of the underground world we were envious and wanted to take it despite the alien threat. When we finally realized it was in our collective interests we put aside our differences. It is here in this hidden world that we discovered the knowledge required to end the scourge above and return Earth to its native inhabitants. Finally, the upper hand is within our grasp.
Content Warning: Contains violence and coarse language.
Unknown
1. Resistance: A Clean Kill
“Shhhsh, quiet down and grab that corner, hurry up and wrap the damned thing up in the rug.”
“Oh Christ, it smells like death, can’t we just leave it and go home?”
“Are you out of your fucking mind, if they find it those bastards will hunt us down like dogs? They’ll pick up our scent on that maggot-infested corpse and send a seismic ripple through the hive mind. There will be nowhere to hide, every god damned one of them will catch a whiff of you even if you are on the other side of the planet.”
“The last thing we need to do now is draw attention, especially when we are so close to closing the wormhole – now dispatch with the insipid bullshit and grab a corner!”
Welcome to Four Line Fiction, a pix-to-prose challenge. Each Thursday, at 9:00am Eastern Time (Canada/United States) I will post an image I have captured myself, featured from another blog or plucked from one of the Interweb’s many royalty-free image sites. You as the writer are to use that image as a point of inspiration to craft a masterpiece of fiction in four lines.
The image for February 23rd, 2023 is one of my own images. It is a black and white image of an open milkweed pod, its seed having already been expelled into the wind.
Greg Glazebrook @ GMGPhotography
Be creative and have fun. I look forward to reading the tales you spin. Don’t forget to show your fellow bloggers some love -❤️- take some time to read, like, and comment on their masterpieces.
Greg's Blog 