A theme week? In fact, a hidden theme week since you're not telling us what it is, so I get to guess. Hmm, and the first clue is just "seek and destroy". So, you recently had to assemble IKEA furniture and I saw yesterday that the IKEA founder has died so... the hidden theme is 'How I'm taking my revenge on obstruents[first def] in the world"!
For the theme week, I think I'll choose Sberychev and see how well my writing can hold up to your prompts :)
Seek and Destroy Snake made a noise like a toddler reaching the limit of the child-restraints at full toddle and then there was a scent of peaches in the air. The place where Sberychev and the Snake had been standing shimmered and seemed to flex as though made of rubber. Sberychev and the Snake bulged outward for a moment and then vanished. The students in the classroom stood and gathered their papers and pens together, moving with a great deal of caution to make sure they didn't get too close to where their teacher had been. "How much radiation exposure do you think that was?" asked one, his voice determinedly cheerful and casual. "Pretty sure I saw the bones of my hand through my skin," came the response.
------
"What is this place, really?" asked Snake. He looked around: both he and Sberychev were enveloped in a purple glow that extended out in all directions with nothing else breaking up the monotony of the view. "That's been a research project of mine since we left the prison," said Sberychev. "So far I can tell you that it's definitely sequentially compact, and that if it's finite or metric then it's also topologically compact. It appears to be non-Hausdorff, but some separation theorem must be true. It is higher-dimensional than the three you're familiar with, which is why the Quantum prison can travel across the world rather faster than anything else on the planet." "That was gobbledy-gook," said the Snake. "Let's try and easier question. How do I move in here?" "You don't," said Sberychev. "This is a realisation of a mathematical construct. We constitute... glitches, I suppose." "Not making me happy," said Snake. "So what, we wait to be ironed out?" "No," said Sberychev. "If you'll shut up for five minutes I can finish defining the Tesseract." The next five minutes was only punctuated by heavy sighing from Snake, and twitches whenever he thought he saw something moving in the featureless purple. Then something seemed to crystallise around them. "This is a box," said Snake. "This reminds me a lot of the prison, you know." "You're just seeing three-dimensions," said Sberychev. He looked around and then stepped away. Instead of ending up one step away though he somehow managed to end up standing on the ceiling. "You need to learn to think in n-dimensions." "Nope," said Snake. "Definitely don't. Now, we're in a box. A fish-tank, if you will. So how do you steer this thing, and where are we going? What's the ransom we're delivering?" Sberychev smiled thinly, his lips stretching but not parting. His eyes glittered. "We're not paying any ransom," he said. "I'm not being blackmailed. This is a seek-and-destroy mission." Snake sat down, crossing his legs and adopting something close to the Lotus position. "Tell me again why I have to be part of this madness?" "With or without the mathematical background?" "Without!"
Some light from a waxing moon filtered through the sheer curtains covering the bedroom window but it was not enough to light up the darkness that lay ahead, a darkness born from a mixture of carpeting the colour of midnight and the fact that I was barely awake as I stumbled towards the bathroom. No light went on, it was “stealth”mode; I wanted minimal disturbance.
“Argh,” I cried out on “quiet” mode. Or should that have been “Ugh!”...? The feeling under my right foot would tell me the second option was right.
It was too late to do anything now. I stumbled back to bed and slept fitfully with disturbed dreams until morning.
6:00 AM. Sunup.
It was time.
With bug spray in hand I was off on a seek and destroy mission with only one aim in mind - find that bug and spray the living daylights out of it, then flush it down the khazi.
The light was better, I didn’t really need the LED torch, but it made spotting easier. There it was, looking like a dried date (no wonder I can’t eat those) - it was right about where my foot had landed six hours earlier but somewhat worse for wear. I guess its legs had buckled under its crackling brown carcass.
Right. Armed and ready to go.
Fire one! It retaliated with a measly crawl. Fire two! It took revenge by spraying the contents of its guts on the synthetic midnight blue fibres overlaying the floor.
Fire three! That got it. Dead.
I grabbed some kitchen paper, wrapped up that cockroach and flushed it as promised.
“That’s my revenge for you scaring the hell out of me last night, you bastard!”
Greg - it wasn't entirely planned from the start, but I have decided that I like doing hidden theme weeks :)
I quite like Snake's part in this, as I could easily see myself in his shoes. I haven't read ahead yet but I'm thinking this should work just fine for the prompts I used this week.
Dragonfly - 'Greg-esque' is alarmingly close to 'grotesque'... :)
I like your scene setting here, as well as your narrator's (relatable, to me at least) response to the night time bug problem.
3 comments:
A theme week? In fact, a hidden theme week since you're not telling us what it is, so I get to guess. Hmm, and the first clue is just "seek and destroy". So, you recently had to assemble IKEA furniture and I saw yesterday that the IKEA founder has died so... the hidden theme is 'How I'm taking my revenge on obstruents[first def] in the world"!
For the theme week, I think I'll choose Sberychev and see how well my writing can hold up to your prompts :)
Seek and Destroy
Snake made a noise like a toddler reaching the limit of the child-restraints at full toddle and then there was a scent of peaches in the air. The place where Sberychev and the Snake had been standing shimmered and seemed to flex as though made of rubber. Sberychev and the Snake bulged outward for a moment and then vanished. The students in the classroom stood and gathered their papers and pens together, moving with a great deal of caution to make sure they didn't get too close to where their teacher had been.
"How much radiation exposure do you think that was?" asked one, his voice determinedly cheerful and casual.
"Pretty sure I saw the bones of my hand through my skin," came the response.
------
"What is this place, really?" asked Snake. He looked around: both he and Sberychev were enveloped in a purple glow that extended out in all directions with nothing else breaking up the monotony of the view.
"That's been a research project of mine since we left the prison," said Sberychev. "So far I can tell you that it's definitely sequentially compact, and that if it's finite or metric then it's also topologically compact. It appears to be non-Hausdorff, but some separation theorem must be true. It is higher-dimensional than the three you're familiar with, which is why the Quantum prison can travel across the world rather faster than anything else on the planet."
"That was gobbledy-gook," said the Snake. "Let's try and easier question. How do I move in here?"
"You don't," said Sberychev. "This is a realisation of a mathematical construct. We constitute... glitches, I suppose."
"Not making me happy," said Snake. "So what, we wait to be ironed out?"
"No," said Sberychev. "If you'll shut up for five minutes I can finish defining the Tesseract."
The next five minutes was only punctuated by heavy sighing from Snake, and twitches whenever he thought he saw something moving in the featureless purple. Then something seemed to crystallise around them.
"This is a box," said Snake. "This reminds me a lot of the prison, you know."
"You're just seeing three-dimensions," said Sberychev. He looked around and then stepped away. Instead of ending up one step away though he somehow managed to end up standing on the ceiling. "You need to learn to think in n-dimensions."
"Nope," said Snake. "Definitely don't. Now, we're in a box. A fish-tank, if you will. So how do you steer this thing, and where are we going? What's the ransom we're delivering?"
Sberychev smiled thinly, his lips stretching but not parting. His eyes glittered. "We're not paying any ransom," he said. "I'm not being blackmailed. This is a seek-and-destroy mission."
Snake sat down, crossing his legs and adopting something close to the Lotus position.
"Tell me again why I have to be part of this madness?"
"With or without the mathematical background?"
"Without!"
This one is a bit Greg-esque...
Seek and Destroy
It was night.
12:00 AM, the Witching Hour.
Some light from a waxing moon filtered through the sheer curtains covering the bedroom window but it was not enough to light up the darkness that lay ahead, a darkness born from a mixture of carpeting the colour of midnight and the fact that I was barely awake as I stumbled towards the bathroom. No light went on, it was “stealth”mode; I wanted minimal disturbance.
“Argh,” I cried out on “quiet” mode. Or should that have been “Ugh!”...? The feeling under my right foot would tell me the second option was right.
It was too late to do anything now. I stumbled back to bed and slept fitfully with disturbed dreams until morning.
6:00 AM.
Sunup.
It was time.
With bug spray in hand I was off on a seek and destroy mission with only one aim in mind - find that bug and spray the living daylights out of it, then flush it down the khazi.
The light was better, I didn’t really need the LED torch, but it made spotting easier.
There it was, looking like a dried date (no wonder I can’t eat those) - it was right about where my foot had landed six hours earlier but somewhat worse for wear. I guess its legs had buckled under its crackling brown carcass.
Right. Armed and ready to go.
Fire one!
It retaliated with a measly crawl.
Fire two!
It took revenge by spraying the contents of its guts on the synthetic midnight blue fibres overlaying the floor.
Fire three!
That got it.
Dead.
I grabbed some kitchen paper, wrapped up that cockroach and flushed it as promised.
“That’s my revenge for you scaring the hell out of me last night, you bastard!”
Greg - it wasn't entirely planned from the start, but I have decided that I like doing hidden theme weeks :)
I quite like Snake's part in this, as I could easily see myself in his shoes. I haven't read ahead yet but I'm thinking this should work just fine for the prompts I used this week.
Dragonfly - 'Greg-esque' is alarmingly close to 'grotesque'... :)
I like your scene setting here, as well as your narrator's (relatable, to me at least) response to the night time bug problem.
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