Circumstances

For Duard, his dog Rocky was his life’s purpose. Two-hour walks in the park were as common as sharing corn flakes at breakfast. When an inattentive woman and her Cadillac hit the big dog and the old man, all four of them – both people, the dog and the car – were badly damaged.

Duard recovered first but sorely missed his comfortable and companionable walks with Rocky. After 12 days without any progress, Duard put Rocky down. He never forgave himself even though none of it was his fault. As for the causative woman and her Cadillac, the story isn’t about them.From Guest Contributor Gip Plaster

Gip is a Texas web content writer who experiments with microfiction. He is the creator of 17WordStories.com.

A New Era

Robots Contest Entry:

One day everything stopped. I remember the terrible silence that followed the constant humming we were used to. Our beloved machines were made redundant, years of technological progress erased in an instant. We had become lazy and were set back decades. Over half the population couldn’t drive, (car accidents skyrocketed), people went hungry, (they had forgotten how to cook) and some left their homes for the first time in years. Then scientists said they found the cause, a virus, and soon the machines were back online. But the new hum sounded wrong, like a swarm of bees waiting to attack.

From Guest Contributor Paula Henry-Duru

Wear Me Down

The shavings scattered as he coughed, revealing how little actual progress had been made in the last thirty minutes. The brace still protruded from the floor enough to be noticed.

His wife's admonishments occupied him as he filed. It was always her way, whenever she made a mistake, to look for any way to shift the blame elsewhere. Better still if she could pin him as the culprit. So when she'd tripped on the uneven joining between the foyer and kitchen, she yelled at him. Who cares the house had come that way.

He'd given up fighting back decades ago.

Reader's Choice

“What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations. Sun Tzu.”

“Eh?” Brett peered over the safety cage of the Ferris wheel, checking for progress.

Toni made to repeat herself. “What is–"

“I heard you. What the hell are you blabbering about?”

“Well, Sun Tzu was a philosopher–“

“Psychopath who fancied himself as a guru. Sure you want to be quoting him in our predicament? Not sure He’s a fan.” Brett pointed skyward.

“Tut, they’ll fix it. I’m just commenting on their taking their sweet time.”

There was a deafening grinding of metal.

There were screams from below.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Blocked

“C'mon, Helen, add me back! I know you're still active.”

She knocked a few more times on the portion of the wall where the door had been, hopelessly. Livid, she cursed the day she granted Helen authority to set permissions in her house.

It was progress, they said, that rooms and buildings could be subject to malleable privacy permissions. But now, locked outside, she missed the days when connections were not so easily lost.

No message came from inside, but, crouched with ears against the wall, she thought she could hear the distant buzz of postings addressed to someone else.

From Guest Contributor Leonardo A. Castro