World Under Glass

biosphere 2

© Sascha Darlington

The history of Biosphere 2, supposedly the world’s first self-contained biosphere, was always surrounded by scandal. The first mission couldn’t scrub the CO2 out of the air and illicitly vented it. The second ended with a horrific battle in upper-management. Biosphere 2 entered the 21st century under the guidance of Columbia University, using it for climate change research. The project had been sold to new owners, owners with the correct vision, ethics, and science. Now they declared that after five years of exquisitely correct execution, they had created permanently self-sustaining environments.

Tourism at the Oracle, Arizona site was booming as the Luna and Ares domes were being prepared to be removed and taken by wide-load flatbeds to the Virgin Galactic launch site near Mammoth. Then they were to be mounted on massive Helena V rocket boosters. The Moon’s first colony dome will arrive within days, with its human and animal population arriving the following year. The Mars colony dome will become fully operational five years later.

I’ve always been fascinated by the Biosphere 2 project, and was disappointed by the continued failures and scandals that followed it in the 1990s. It looks like the technology has improved drastically since then, but I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to create a 100% self-contained sustainable artificial biosphere. If we could and if that environment could produce everything it needed to support a population with no external inputs for an indefinite future, then colonizing the Moon and Mars would only be the beginning of a new era of human space exploration.

I wrote this story for the Sunday Photo Fiction – February 12th 2017 challenge. The goal is to use the photo prompt above to create a flash fiction story of no more than 200 words. Mine comes in at a mere 166.

To read more stories based on this prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Huastec

Av 5, Mexico City

© Google maps

Humberto waited until the rest of the workers knocked off for lunch. Then he went back to the part of the lot they were working on where he had found it. His mother was Aztec and named him Xochipilli after the god of feasting. His father forbade the ancient ways, so over the years, he met with other Aztecs in secret.

Mama taught him about their history and gods, which is how he recognized the stone figure of Huastec, the life-death idol concealed in the rubble. Who knows how many centuries it had been buried? He wrapped the figure in a small tarp and hid it in his truck. Huastec was a sign, a sign of the return of the rule of the Aztecs. Tonight, Xochipilli would meet with the others and plan. They would rise up. The first human sacrifice in centuries would take place next month.

huastec

Huastec – Brooklyn Museum / Creative Commons-BY

Written for the What Pegman Saw weekly photo writing prompt based on a view from Google Maps. The challenge is to use the image to write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. My story is 148. I did a 360 degree turn on Google maps and came up with a different view. I looked up the history of Mexico City and it has a significant Aztec presence. Then I looked up Aztec history and wrote my tale. I’m including a photo of Huastec for reference.

To read other stories inspired the what pegman saw, go to InLinkz.com.

The Mysterious Mummy

mummy

Stephen Voss – Smithsonian Magazine

The Tenth Story in the Adventures of the Ambrosial Dragon: A Children’s Fantasy Series

Landon had been bored and sleepy until the plane began its final descent toward Cairo International Airport. Then his face was glued to the window taking in every detail of a city that was over a thousand years old. Grandpa was sitting next to him, enjoying his eight-year-old grandson’s enthusiasm.

They had planned this vacation for months, ever since Grandpa read Landon the “Goosebumps” book Return of the Mummy by R.L. Stine. Grandpa actually had a friend in Egypt named Issa Salib who was an archaeologist, a person who studies history by digging at ancient sites like the pyramids, examining what they find…

…like mummies.

Continue reading →

The Mystery of the Fifteen Scrolls

scroll

The Temple scroll is the thinnest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Discovered in 1956, it contains God’s instructions on how to run the Temple. Credit: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem

“This exciting excavation is the closest we’ve come to discovering new Dead Sea scrolls in 60 years. Until now, it was accepted that Dead Sea scrolls were found only in 11 caves at Qumran, but now there is no doubt that this is the 12th cave,” said Dr. Oren Gutfeld, an archaeologist at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology and director of the excavation.

“This is one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries, and the most important in the last 60 years, in the caves of Qumran.”

-Dov Smith, February 8, 2017
“Hebrew University archaeologists find 12th Dead Sea Scrolls cave”
Arutz Sheva

Martin Fields wasn’t at the press conference, but he did read this and other news reports about the remarkable discovery.

Actually, he wasn’t all that impressed, but Isis was.

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The Chair On The River

mystery chair

© Ted Strutz

Bill and Betty enjoyed walks along the river. Usually, it was beautiful and unremarkable, that is, until the chair. It was standing on the water as if waiting for someone.

“That’s impossible, Bill.”

“Probably not. Bet there’s a sandbar and someone in a boat put it there as a prank.”

Just then, they heard a rustling in the brushes behind them. A mediterranean looking gentleman appeared and said, “Excuse me.”

The pair moved aside and the stranger walked to the chair, sat, and waved.

“A trick.” Bill stepped into the water. Expecting to walk, his leg sank into freezing water.

Written as a response to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields 100 word photo challenge. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long based on the photo above. My story’s word count is exactly 100.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com

When Sean Met Sally

goth

Image: mookychick.co.uk

From the Unlife and Curse of Sean Becker

This is an open police investigation, so why am I involved? Because my boss, private detective Aidan Burke is paying me to be involved. More to the point, Conrad Grey, a wealthy commercial real estate tycoon, hired Burke to find his only granddaughter, thirteen-year-old Marianne. The kid went missing almost two weeks ago. LAPD thinks she’s a runaway. Grey thinks she’s been abducted. That’s why I’m walking the streets, contacting my informants, trying to get a lead.

Oh, by the way, my name is Sean Becker and I’m a vampire.

Officially, I can’t be licensed as a private detective because I’m dead. I work as Burke’s assistant by night, and sleep in his spare bedroom by day.

Being a vampire, I can cultivate information sources the police would never get close to. A few are other vampires like me, some with legit night jobs, others living on the edge of society, making it anyway they can.

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Why Should You Write Superversive Fiction?

super boy

© iStock

About the time I started my latest stint at writing fictional short stories, I discovered something called Superversive Fiction and particularly Superversive Science Fiction.

According to Russell Newquist, here’s generally what we can expect from Superversive Fiction:

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The Final Resting Place

daisy may

© Mike Vore

“I know you’ve seen better days, old girl.”

78-year-old Frank Parker patted the rusting hood of the ’49 Chevy.

Replacing the faded American flag hanging from the passenger-side door with a fresh one, he remembered.

“I was just your age when my Pa first bought the Daisy May. Saved up for over a year to buy her.”

“Why do you keep her, Gramps? She’s all broken down.”

“Reminds me of better days, Timmy, when everything made sense. As long as I live, she’ll always have a home here on the back forty.”

He looked down at his great-grandson. “You sure you want to do this, boy?”

Timmy hugged the old man. “I’m sure Gramps. I promise to bring a new flag every month. I’ll watch over her for you.”

Old Frank had the same cancer that took his Pa so many years ago. He was going to Heaven to be with Pa, Ma, and his wife Sarah. The life he lived was his inheritance to his children and their children’s children.

I wrote this in response to the FFfAW Challenge-Week of February 7, 2017. The challenge is to write a flash fiction story in around between 100 and 175 words, with 150 being optimal, based on the weekly photo prompt. Thanks as always to the challenge host Priceless Joy.

To read other stories based on this week’s prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

I know that America has never been a perfect nation nor is it now. And while I’m about a decade-and-a-half shy of being 78, my childhood was full of joys my grandchildren will never experience. If I can give them at least some small sense of history and a world without smartphones, X-boxes, or the Internet, when children played outside all day with their friends, and yes, we rode our bikes without wearing helmets and didn’t die, then perhaps that past won’t die with me (no, I don’t have cancer. I feel fine).

On Tuesday the Time Traveler Saw Red

easter uprising

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising, the rebellion for Irish independence that changed the course of Ireland’s history when it began on Easter Monday, 1916. – From Irish Central News

I’m back. It’s a place that’s not exactly a place, and a time that’s not exactly a time. I have an idea what this all means, but I could be dead wrong.

This is where I left them, the passengers and crew of the ill-fated Flight G-AGLX originating from the U.K., and most recently departed from Negombo RAF Station, Colombo bound for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and then to Perth, Australia.

History records that everyone was lost when the converted Avro 691 Lancastrian One bomber went down over the Indian Ocean on Monday, March 23, 1946 sometime between 6 and 6:30 p.m.

What history will never know is that five crew members and four passengers didn’t die in the crash. I brought them here, wherever here is. My name is Martin Fields and I’m a time traveler.

Continue reading →

Ill-Gotten Treasure

treasure

© J. Hardy Carroll

“This is junk, Sydney.”

“You’re an idiot Jerry. It’s treasure, not junk. You know how much these old bottles and trinkets are worth on eBay?”

“A buck ninety-five?”

“How did I get such a lunkhead for a brother?” Sydney regarded her twin with disdain.

“Okay, If you say they’re worth big bucks, they’re worth big bucks. Now what?”

“Now we take them, but carefully. Don’t break anything, Jer.”

“Good thing the old geezer left plenty of boxes and bubble wrap, eh Syd?”

“Shut up and get to work.”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it.”

Sydney ignored Jerry’s whining. They’d acted just in time. The makeshift sign next to the shelves indicated their Grandpa was going to sell this stuff, probably for a fraction of their value. He didn’t care. He was rich.

But when Sydney and Jerry were arrested again, this time for assault and theft, he told them and their parents he was writing them all out of his will.

The only way the twins could recoup part of their losses was to smother the old man in his sleep and sell off any tangible objects he owned for as much as they could get.

Written in response to Sunday Photo Fiction – February 5th 2017 flash fiction challenge. The goal is to write a story of no more than 200 words based on the photo prompt above. My submission is exactly 200 words.

To read more stories based on this week’s prompt, visit InLinkz.com.