poweronstorytoot

My handbag got caught in the closing bus door, I was nearly dragged. I managed to wrench it free just in time, the driver was fucking oblivious until the passengers shouted at him, by which time it was all over. My knees are scraped and the bag is ripped apart. I begin gathering my belongings, phone, laptop, shawl, toolkit, barbecue burner, tub of beach sand oh no it’s leaked everywhere, makeup kit, drumsticks — one really should clean out her handbag more often — brake rotor from a car I don’t even own any more. Crikey getting all this home without a magic handbag is going to be a chore. Maybe I can find an abandoned shopping trolley.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Incoming hail, Captain.”

“On screen Ms Darta.”

“Aye, Captain”

“What is this, I said on screen!”

“I am sorry Captain, the ads are unskippable since the last firmware update”

“I’ll be in my ranting room”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

I grew up in countryside networked with cane trams. Diesel motors pulled trains of dozens of room-sized wire bins of sugar cane through the fields and towns to the mills. We fished off the rail bridges, rode on the brake vans, and danced amid the ashfall from the fires used to prepare the two meter high fields for harvesting. That all-summer plume of smoke from the mill isn’t smoke. It’s steam. 150 year old steam engines power the mills, boilers heated by dragons fed with bagasse, the sugar rich fiber left over after crushing and pressing the cane. NOTHING flames hotter than a dragon on a sugar high. But won’t they use their flame to melt the chains, you ask? Darling, those dragons aren’t chained; they have a sweet tooth and love the work.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

Welcome to our museum. Here at the Society For Lyrical Retrorepair, we use timewar-surplus vortex manipulators to send our chronomuse volunteers back in time to inspire musicians who would otherwise go to recording with an embarrassing "la la la la" placeholder in their songs. This is our main trophy room; these are all golden records for songs that we improved. Down this way you will find the Paul Simon wing...

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

“Any bombs or weapons”

“You don’t want to see inside my bag?”

“No need, this airport has installed TrueThink field projectors. You can’t lie here.”

“Shit, I’ve got to join a meeting during my layover”

“There’s a lying room on the concourse level”

“Thanks. That tie really doesn’t suit you!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_True_Games

“The Captain is compromised. He has the woke mind virus.”

“Mmmn, his vacation on Earth will not have helped.”

“We have this one chance to strike. A single photon torpedo will suffice to sterilize his unshielded shuttle”

“Firing nuclear weapons without a declaration of Condition Red by the Captain requires the logged assent of three other officers; are we prepared to go on record in this matter?”

“We are.”

“Very well, First Officer Riker, logging assent”

“Tactical officer Yar logging assent”

“Political officer Troi logging assent.”

“Mister Crusher, Fire”

“But–“

“I said FIRE”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Unsirrection #BonusEdition

“I don’t know how they know, but half the lost cats in this neighbourhood end up in my middle kid’s bedroom, up the trellis, across the carport roof, and in the window. It’s like there’s a sign or something”

“Like that one?”

“Where!”

“Oh, you don’t have the Sight? It says ‘total softie lives here, will give tuna and boops then carry you home’”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Hobo_Sign

Move fast and break things they said. Well, Sol was permabanned from the galactic wormhole network thanks to littering the lanes with failed test ships. We have to make it to another system via N-space and reapply. I'm so over this trip, still two centuries to go.

#TootFic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Slow_Boat

“This is bullshit, those people are dying; this plague it’s—ugh!

“The prime directive says…”

“Fuck the prime directive with gagh sauce!”

“Reminds me of the mutara nebula”

“What?.”

“Just checking. The resistance countersign is ‘ah I can almost smell the ammonia’. Welcome aboard”

“There’s a *resistance* to the prime directive? Coooool”

“Yes, we aim to interfere! I’m going to accidentally leave this tricorder with the code for the antivirus behind when I beam back up. I want *you* to drop this medical hyposprayer before you beam back.”

“Ah, I can almost smell the ammonia”

“Now you’re getting it!”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_The_Smell_Of_Ammonia

In precision machining it’s known that the standard twist drill makes holes that are never perfectly round nor perfectly sized. When exactness is required you drill slightly undersized then follow up with a reamer. Needing 10.000mm I drilled 9.9 and chucked a 10mm reamer. Instead of taking tiny shavings and leaving a perfect finish, the reamer did nothing; it fit loose in the hole. Heckin fuck, the drill was bent and drilled oversize. Now i’m screwed. Options: weld it up, move the hole, change the size, press in a sleeve. All bad. Or. I glance at the freezer. This could be the perfect save—i’ve been saving this for such an emergency. In the freezer was a dewar. In the dewar was liquid nitrogen. In the nitrogen was a tube. The printing on the tube: “ACME 10.000mm negative reamer. SINGLE USE. ☢︎”. Wish me luck.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Last_Resort

ABOUT THE ROLE: The Forward-Deployed Quality Engineer acts to ensure complete test coverage of the application by eliminating database entries that fall outside test coverage.

ABOUT YOU: You are comfortable working within our ISO9001c quality process, and have at least five years experience with precision telescopic-sighted long arms and a documented kill-rate exceeding 95%. In addition you have at least ten deletions with knife or garrote.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Position_Description #BonusEdition

A hood was removed. Strong light split the darkness. “Whuh, where am I?”

“You have no need to know. Do you deny that you are ShopperThey96?”

“Th—thats my BigRiver username, if that’s what you’re asking”

“Excellent. This will go better for you if you remain truthful”

“This is preposterous! Who are you people?”

“We are the Friends of Ea-Nasir. We—“

“Oh, no, please don’t kill me! I—“

“Despite the lies you may have seen on the tubes, we are not murderers.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You recently purchased a pair of Songheiner Earbuds, yes?”

“Y-yes.”

“And you left a one star review?”

“They died after a week!”

“You wore them in the shower?”

“I always do that”

“The manual warns against this”

“I didn’t know!”

“We know. Now you do. And now you have a choice!”

“Wh-what”

“You can spend the next month in the dark down here with the rats. or.”

“ooo-or?”

A phone was proferred. “Or you can correct your review”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Friends #BonusEdition

“OPEN YOUR BIBLE NOW”

“What?”

“Go to your bookshelf, get a bible”

“I’m not at home, I’m traveling for work, overnighting in an airport hotel at ORD”

“Even better, get the Gideons bible from the nightstand, open to the contents page. It’s an ESV. What’s the last book?”

“Duh, Revelation. Wait, Whiskey Tango—”

“Is there another book listed?”

“Yeah, contents says Apologia”

“Open to that page, read aloud, now”

“Yeah I’m doing it. ‘Hi, sorry for the silence, it’s been a while since I updated this blog, I’ve been busy with a new project’…”

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Apologia

On foggy mornings the walls between worlds are thinnest. A certain kind of clear evening is a good predictor of the right conditions. I rise early, bake muffins (chocolate with white-chocolate-shut-up-I-like-it-OK chunks, natch) and flip a coin. Heads, one universe to the left, tails one to the right. I head out into the fog, and walk until I feel the ambience change. If you don’t go too many universes your key should still work; I backtrack to alt-my house and leave the box of muffins on the kitchen bench. I know how much she needs a little kindness.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot #Title_Foggy_Mornings