“So, how much further to camp?” he asked as he gently removed his boot, his ankle already clearly swollen.

“About 10k,” his friend replied, inspecting the ankle before wrapping it in a tensor #bandage. “Given it’s all downhill, normally around two hours. But with this injury? My guess is at least four.”

“So we’ll be setting up in the dark. Great.”

It was at that moment that they felt the first few drops of rain start to fall.

Standing before the microphone he knew he was facing #imminent disaster. When the first bars began his grip on the microphone tightened, a bead of sweat forming on his brow. Looking at the screen he saw a portent of his pending doom, a bouncing ball as cheerful as it was terrifying.

Before he knew it the moment was upon him and unbidden the words came: “You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life…”

As her fingers moved across the keys, the intricate melody filling the concert hall, she knew this performance was special, her fingers flowing instinctively, their motions smooth, precise, #flawless. When she reached the end of the piece, the last note lingering in the air, she leaned back, taking a deep breath, her eyes closed. For a moment the audience paused, stunned, before surging to their feet, transported by the magic they had witnessed.

Stepping to the edge of the diving platform he felt a sudden #surge of adrenaline. He was surprised how much higher it looked up here than it did from the pool deck.

“You can do it, son!” his dad yelled from below, an encouraging smile on his face.

He felt his heart pounding, his palms sweating, his vision narrowing.

He looked down one more time, then stepped back from the edge.

He took a deep breath.

He jumped.

They felt the press of acceleration as the rocket engines, a cluster of metallic grey #bells visible on their monitor, began belching fire into the cosmos. She sighed and turned to her partner. “So, we still on for pizza and margaritas when we get back?”

“You’re damn right!” he replied, grinning with excitement. “After three years on Mars I am in desperate need of melted cheese and…”

At that moment they felt the ship lurch beneath them.

“So wanna hear something weird?” he said, taking off his jacket. “I just ran into #JohnMastodon on the way into Walmart. He was standing there greeting people and handing out cupcakes.”

His wife looked up from her crossword. “No kidding!” she said. “I heard he was downtown yesterday giving out free hugs. Apparently he emits the subtle odor of vanilla and clove.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I heard the same thing. Truly we don’t deserve him.”

“I’m telling you,” Paul said, his eyes following the goldfish as she circled the bowl, “she knows her #name. I’m sure of it.”

“Oh come on,” Greg replied, “how would you even know?”

“Lucille,” Paul said, waving at the glass, “hey, Lucille!”

Years later, and after a few drinks, Greg would swear that goldfish tilted its body and, with a flick of its little fin, waved right back.

“Holy shit,” he said, astonished. “We gotta tell Rich about this!”

Rich, resident conspiracy theorist, was surprisingly respectable, his closely trimmed beard and precisely styled hair giving him the air of a moderately successful realtor. “Levitation, huh?” he said.

“Yeah, like I said on the phone, a full three inches!” He could feel his friend leaning in.

“Two and a half,” she corrected.

“I’m just rounding to the nearest #inch!”

As his feet left the floor Rich leaned back, his face #neutral. “I’ve seen better.”

By some miracle the physicist kept his face carefully #neutral. “Bitcoin?” he replied.

“Yeah!” the investor said, grinning with an energy that could only be described as manic. “Bitcoin! This ‘fusion’ thing could be huge for our crypto portfolio. We used to just fire up old coal plants, but the damn government put a stop to that.”

“Wow,” the physicist replied, beginning to question his life choices. “That’s, uh, too bad.”

“The Green Mile,” he replied. “Now that movie is #cathartic. Hits me in all the feels. So what about you?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” his friend said, “The Wrath of Khan.”

“Wait,” he replied, incredulous. “Like, Star Trek?”

“Yeah man. That ending? ‘I have been and shall always been your friend’? Dude, I bawl every time.”

“Oh yeah,” he replied. “Alright, let’s watch that!”

When he heard the scraping he knew it had happened again. “Damn it,” he muttered, a sinking feeling in his chest. “Doug is shoveling our walk again, isn’t he?”

His wife pushed a curtain aside. “He’s just trying to be nice,” she replied, watching their neighbour work.

“But now I have to #reciprocate!’ he said, throwing up his hands. “We can’t be in shovel debt, honey!”

She looked at her husband. “What broke you?”

He turned to her. “I wish I knew!”

The snowflake could feel the wind speed pick up as it fell, it’s excitement rising with every gust. “Oh wow this is amazing!” the snowflake said to a nearby flake as they swirled and danced together.

“This isn’t even the best part!” the other flake replied as an updraft caught them, carrying them over the #cozy houses below. “Once this #blizzard really gets going and those wind gusts pick up, it’s gonna be great!”

Replacing the tea #cozy, he took a sip of steaming oolong and smiled as his daughter scrutinized the board, the white and black stones forming an intricate pattern between them. The game was a close one, far closer than any they’d played yet, and it was now down to one last life and death problem. When she confidently smacked her stone down on the board his smile opened into a grin. “I resign.”

“Now,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose, “having filled out form 15 stroke D you can head to the office on the third floor to fill out a form requesting a project manager be assigned.”

“Alright, and then we can get started?” she asked, exasperated, the #capricious corporate bureaucracy slowly chipping away at her remaining humanity.

“That depends on a number factors. Here, let me show you the flow chart.”

“A #frozen margarita,” he said with a sigh.

“Really?” she replied, “that’s it? That’s what you’d pick?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice wistful. “A nice lime margarita. Mezcal. Smoked salt on the rim.” He pushed his shovel into the red soil.

“Shit. Now I want one!” she replied. She looked up at Phobos passing overhead, just visible in the Martian dusk. “Alright, when we get back to Earth, we’re having pepperoni pizza and margaritas.”

“No! Quit looking at me like that!” he said, refusing to make eye contact. He could feel her gaze on him.

“It won’t work. I’m #immune to your little tricks.”

She continued to stare at him with those big eyes, a plaintive look on her face.

Minutes went by.

“Fine,” he finally said, getting up and going to the treat cupboard. “But only one.”

She wagged her tail enthusiastically and followed him into the kitchen. How did she always win?

It seemed like a good idea when he’d first gotten off the lift. “Sure, let’s do that double black,” he said. “I think I’m ready.”

As they approached the edge of the first pitch he felt his self-confidence #plummeting. “Uh. I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” he said.

“It’ll be fine!” his girlfriend replied, flashing a huge grin. “You got this!”

He took a deep breath, feeling her infectious enthusiasm. “Alright. Screw it. Let’s go!”

Well, I’m doing it. I’m taking a full three weeks off over Christmas: two weeks of staycation and then a ski trip first week of January. If I do it right that’ll mean time to hack on jekyll-webmention_io, do a bit of writing, play with my Steam Deck until my thumbs stop working, and then ski until I fall down. It will be glorious!

They stood before an enormous wall of steel, pipes, and cladding made of exotic materials, the machine a culmination of decades of research representing the absolute pinnacle of human knowledge.

“What you’re looking at,” the physicist said, barely containing his excitement, “is the first example of break-even #artificial nuclear fusion.”

“Incredible!” replied the investor. “And how many Bitcoin did you say we could mine with this?”

So for anyone following me, you should be aware that I hope to do the MastoPrompt every day in December, which means your timelines will be occupied by bad microfiction inspired by the prompt word of the day. You have been warned! Or… inspired…?

He stared at the screen, fingers poised over the keyboard, waiting for a #stroke of inspiration. Writer’s block. It had been a while. But here it was, that old familiar friend, the kind that you can lose touch with for years and then pick up right where you left off.

Maybe if he tried something different. “You know,” he thought, “I’ve never broken the fourth wall.”

At that very moment he was overcome by the feeling of being watched…

“Me? Nothing new. Still living the dream. Same job as before. Yeah, marketing stuff. And I’m still writing. Well, trying to. Uh, and I grew a mustache and shaved it off. Too much grooming. Look, I’ll level with you—absolutely nothing is going on with me, and I couldn’t be happier.”

“So you say you can levitate by sheer force of will?” the man asked, the editor of a local conspiracy theory newsletter.

“That’s right. A full three inches!”

“Two,” his friend corrected. “You gotta stop embellishing things.”

He waved her back.

“Alright, come down and we’ll test the #veracity of your claims.”

“Great!” he replied, hanging up and turning to his friend. “Alright, let’s go! But first, where’s my measuring tape…”

He gently brushed the dirt away from the new find, an Egyptian cosmetic #palette, perfectly preserved, its face adorned in delicate carvings.

“Beautiful,” he muttered to himself, already thinking of the paper he would write about the piece.

Until, that is, a man with a hat and a whip came charging through his dig site, gunfire following in his wake.

“My mom was right,” he thought, “I should’ve become a dentist.”

The sheet of paper lay before her, an infinity of possibilities. She made the first fold, aligning point to point, the crease #crisp, precise. Working, her hands traveled through valleys and over mountains, her mind calm, focused.

Done, she leaned back, sighing, only to be startled by the sound of chirping! Looking down, she gaped as her little sparrow took flight, vanishing through an open window.

Smiling, she reached for a fresh sheet of paper.

As they walked the planet was visible through the ship’s dome, blue-green against velvet blackness. “So they organized society around this ‘money’,” she said, still unable to believe what she was hearing.

“Correct,” he replied, “and those with the most were venerated above all others and seen as a source of safety and security.”

“And this ‘Douglas Adams’ that you mentioned?”

“He was one of the few who realized the whole thing was a bad idea.”

Well, originally I was using bridgy-fed to stitch this blog directly into the fediverse, but after running into various challenges, I’m going to try bridgy instead and just syndicate to my personal Mastodon account. Let’s see how this goes!

Every now and then I think about growing my beard back. But I quickly realize that’s not a commitment I’m willing to make…

Journalling, for me, is a kind of ritual during which I enter into a conversation with myself and all those little demons floating around inside my head and we all get to know each other a bit bit better.

Today, I’m grateful that, by making the choice to post to my blog and syndicate from there, I’ve been able to retain control over my posts even if I delete them from Twitter.

I kinda wonder what it must’ve been like in the old days when staying updated on world news meant occasionally getting a month-old letter from a relative, delivered via ocean liner…

Trawling through the Micro.blog discover feed or the timeline of my preferred Mastodon instance feels like the intellectual equivalent of grazing…