Notices by Whitmad (whitmad@wandering.shop), page 2

@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Rattle
The Measurement Problem

In my silence Harris's fingers rattled the keys and Elijah Cloake's file appeared. Former chief executive of the Genetic Therapies division at VirGenTech, but that wasn't the datum that Harris jumped on. He twisted around to look at me. "He's entangled."

I had only one response to that. "Let's go get a drink."

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Belly
The Measurement Problem

I needed to sleep so I resisted the urge to make coffee. I'd need a clear head so I resisted that last drop of the Linlithgow in its bottle on the table in the corner. I needed to eat so I sat on the sofa with a glass of water and my own thoughts for company and waited the interminable half-hour for the cottage pie. I was in bed by nine pm with a warm, full belly, hoping but not expecting to sleep.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Bound

The Measurement Problem

One vehicle turned onto the lane heading north while another came in the opposite direction. The first car pulled into a passing place to wait for the second, then carried on after it had passed.

"It was only stopped for a moment Meera, not long enough for..."

"You're missing the point. Look at the second passing place. Why didn't the southbound car pull in there? It was closer to the point where they'd have met."

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Crinkle

The Saga of Ingvar Gunnarson (short, currently on submission)

"To those who are lost and the long journey home!" they called in
unison and the glasses were drained once more.

"Soon Eylín bore a son, Eldar, and then a daughter, Kristíanna, and
for those years I was content with my life, until..."

"Yes?" Andra's eyes were so like my lost Eylín's: long and dark and
narrow, the crinkled lines of perpetual laughter at their corners.

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@FrostPoem

#microprompt: shrill

The Measurement Problem

"Too many names, too many faces. Which one is this one? I can't tell which world this is."

The monitor flashed red. One hundred and seventeen.

"I don't understand, Alice. What happened?"

"He killed you."

"Who?"

The monitor emitted a shrill tone: one hundred and thirty-two. Her hand jerked across her body and slapped onto the back of the hand that held mine. She ripped the tube from the cannula.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Familiar

The Measurement Problem

"You're not psychic are you, Kay? You're sensitive, and maybe you have something that makes you more sensitive."

"Lewis..."

"Do you have any gammas? I need to... I need to blur the boundaries. I need to know what's happening elsewhere."

"It's not that simple, Lewis."

"Please, Kay. I need this."

Her lips pursed, she nodded. "Go back home, it's best done in a familiar environment. I'll be with you in a moment."

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Matted
The Long Fall

The foliage parted with a rustle, and the biggest redwolf he had yet seen stepped out. Tall but emaciated, with pale matted fur, a scar below the eye and a tear in one ear. The grey around its face suggested age rather than sickness. It stood before the entrails, saliva dripping from the mouth held slightly open. Remy shivered as he looked into the creature's eyes, at the obvious intelligence there.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Chaos

The Measurement Problem

Entanglement is not for everyone, some people are unable to reconcile their many concurrent lives, leading to that plethora of conditions made infamous by the overenthusiastic use of the early implicitins.

Cerasthesia is a condition that afflicts all the newly entangled to some degree. Some unfortunates never get past it. For them, the sensations of all their lives mingle and overlap into a paralysing chaos.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Duck

The Measurement Problem

We sprinted to the loading dock through waves of rain thick enough to swim in, vaulted onto the platform, and ducked under the shutter. The rain had been coming from our right, South West, when we left for the Grange. Now it came from the east. A spring tide in an easterly gale. There'd be a mighty storm surge coming up the Thames estuary with the high tide if this continued.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Spiral

When The Enemy Comes

The wine fell from the neck of the bottle in Sun Liang’s hand and into the glass with a languid splash.

Connor watched the swirling red liquid spiral round for an age before settling to a level. “I’ve lived most of my life on Xīwàng Zhī Xīng,” Connor said, “I’m used to everything weighing four times as much, falling four times faster.”

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#MicroPrompt: Clutter

The Measurement Problem

He led me along the curving corridor away from the entrance hall, past half a dozen dark hardwood doors on either side, some open or ajar. On the right I caught glimpses of a large dining room and an intimate lounge. A door opened to my left and a knee-high cleaning bot paused on the threshold of a spacious uncluttered bedroom. After we passed, it whirred to life, closed the door behind it, and trundled back the way we had come.

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@FrostPoem

#MicroPrompt: Frail

The Long Fall

"How is Mrs C?" Mila asked.

"Frail. She complains bitterly of the arthritis in her hands affecting her playing. But she's as crazy as ever. Composing music based on redwolf song. She's invented a whole new notation for it."

"Can she understand it?"

"Not a word. She only hears the melodies, the harmonies, the rhythms, not enough to understand."

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