Somewhere around five years ago I briefly entertained the idea that I was very seriously going to attempt to be an author. During that time I approached this the way I approach everything: with my whole entire ass.
Why half-ass anything when you can whole-ass one thing?
Which meant that, among other things, I read a lot of books on how to do writing good. Also, I tried to practice doing writing good.
The following are two bits of flash fiction that I wrote for practice.
Long Night of the Soul
Kazrin felt the thrum of his dirigible’s turbines through the wheel as he strained to guide his ship against strong chronomantic headwinds. Three days out from port, four more to the capital city, and nowhere to stop in between.
A symphony of lights erupted from the console in front of him. “Not again.” The thrum got weaker as the ship listed helplessly further to the port side. He slapped a heavy gloved hand against the wall while bellowing some of his juiciest curses. For a brief moment the turbine rumbled back to life, but quickly died taking the rest of the engines with it.
More choice words as the pilot flailed behind his seat looking for something, anything. He grasped at the jungle of cables full of various fluids and gasses. One of the tubes moved as he knew it shouldn’t. Kazrin grasped, wriggled, and finally slammed it back into place. The turbines roared back to life.
Only four more days to go. A warm meal. A warm bed. There’d be plenty of time once his work was done. For now, he was satisfied to be heading in the right direction.
The Underthing
Cold aethermantic resin dripped from the tunnel ceiling on to Alex’s head as he traced his finger over the brass pipe schematic. Ruined parts were strewn around him, not a single one had fit. “Lazy horking engineers never updating documentation,” he cursed out loud. “Kim valve” the useless flow-chart indicated, “model 703.”
Alex pressed his last 703 into the indicated ports, connections snapping into place with a satisfying click. Several pressure dials started to rise in an encouraging manner indicating positive resin flow. A great gout of fluid burst through the middle of the device, gauges falling back to their zero readings and covered him in even more of the viscous goo. Great, now he was out of Kim valves and he smelled like a cheeseburger went dancing on a hot summer day.
He pulled out the ruptured 703 and tossed it on the growing pile, then examined his parts bag critically. No more 703s, but a rusty Alice 417 and a Stanley 286. Out of better options to try he jammed the 417 into one side and the 286 in the other, then pressed the two parts together. They didn’t quite fit, but a few wraps of luminescent green fibertape and maybe? Almost? The pressure gauges ticked up and the tape held.
The sound of resin flowing was music to Alex’s ears. Fifteen years in the tunnels and it never stopped sounding sweet. He gathered up his tools and set off, there would be many more leaks to fix before the day was done.