dkscully
Joined May 2009 and calls ficlets by me home.
38 stories, 63 challenges, 164 comments, and 22 friends
“Stand back! I have a keyboard and I’m not afraid to use it.”
This site is totally awesome. I really enjoyed ficlets.com (where I went by my alternative handle of kjaneway), and I thought that it was a great shame that the decision was made to close it.
However, one of the useful things was that everything was Creative Commons licensed, so though the site itself went away, we didn’t lose the explosion of creativity it generated.
And now we’re back; hopefully, to be even better than before.
So, you want to know about me:
- I really, really hate describing myself, especially in little textboxes
- I got into writing via fanfic, mostly playing with lesbian subtext in sci-fi shows
- I like correct spelling and use of punctuation, and good grammar
- I adore the limitations of the ficly format, and won’t post unless I’ve hit the magical 1024 characters
- I can’t remember a time when I couldn’t read, and I think life without the creative arts wouldn’t be worthwhile
- I hold an honours degree in Chemistry
Stories
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Man vs Nature
The grass was soft under my back. A verdant mattress that cushioned my sore body. My pack lay abandoned a few feet away, balanced neatly against the stone pyramid that marked the summit of the peak, next to my boots. I crossed my arms behind my head, c...
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Ode to a TV character on the event of your untimely demise
We never met. How could we? After all, you are simply a fantasy. A combination of writers, directors and an actor, captured going through the motions of a life that never quite existed. But does this stop you being… real? We met many times. You w...
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Falling Down
The alleyway was longer than I’d remembered. Darker, too. The last light was fifteen feet behind me, now. The flickering lamp casting a weak puddle of light, illuminating the putrid bins of some nameless take out store. I pressed on. Keeping my p...
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Three to get ready... [Retro ficlet] (really, really mature)
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West Coast Dreaming [Retro Ficlet]
The wide expanse of the beach was golden in places, nearer white in others. The dunes were layered with browns and reds and topped with the yellows and greens of the tenacious plants that held on against the shifting nature of their footholds and the r...
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Hard Radiation
Solar flares are an astronaut’s worst nightmare. I mean, there’s other stuff to worry about, as you hurtle through space in the tin can you’re calling home. Running out of air, because the scrubbing system’s failed, or, perhaps,...
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Be careful what you wish for...
FIZZ-POP The first one appeared on his desk, with a sort of sucking, tearing noise. He looked at it for a moment, still dubious. When it didn’t vanish, he tried poking it, and was surprised to find that it was as solid as it looked. A few clicks ...
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Belonging to Raven
Arriving in this city I’d never visited before was a homecoming. This place, most of a world away from my birthplace, and related to me in no obvious way, was where I belonged. My sore heart rejoiced to be back and my soul was soothed by the fami...
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Ghosts in the Shell
She’d walked in the main door of the building. Just like any other person could, even checked with the rent-a-bozos at the desk that she was in the right place. The mapstick had come with a trial of Babel’s language pack for tourists. The h...
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Truth never comes cheaply
She tumbled out of the net, and landed roughly back in her body. Her timed jack-out had caught her unawares, as usual. Time passed differently when you were a virtual dung beetle. Another five hours spent sifting through the digital detritus of the hum...
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Patterns for Recognition
She was heading home from the drop site when the money hit her bank account with an audible thunk, proportional to the size of the pay off. It was her earliest attempt at customising her headrig, from back when she was a kid. She’d kept it, becau...
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We Can Collect It For You... For A Price
Her ankle length coat was seamless, and the black leather draped as softly as silk. It was tank grown, of course, but clearly tailor made. This was not one of the cheap off the shelf coats. This had been grown to order. And, he thought, fit was somethi...
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Gathering a little moss
I woke up in Fezia. That surprised me, for I had slept, shivering in the lee of my dead horse, in the certain knowledge that my travelling days had come to and abrupt and unfortunate ending. My room was carved directly from the native rock, with a seam...
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Riding with a Ghost
I drove. He talked. That’s the way I remember it. I’d picked him up by the side of a long, straight, dusty road in the back end of beyond. Everything he owned lived a small, green knapsack that he slung over one shoulder, except for a batte...
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Unfortunate Given Names
“Hello, my name is Jonathan.” The man in the next bed looked around at him, slowly, disinterest painted across his rumpled, weather-beaten face. “Jon, for short.” The older man, ran a hand over his unshaven chin, wondering wheth...
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The Three Founders
The sky was dark out here, away from the bright lights that ringed the habs, and cloudless. A thin mist rose from the lake behind him, now that the sultry heat of the day had cooled to night with the setting of the suns, and the air had that crisp edge...
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Concertos for a healing heart
LIVE GUITAR – WEDNESDAY NIGHTS The simple poster advertising her performances ended up stuck in the same corner of the coffee shop’s window as the job advert that had drawn her inside in the first place. Isaac had looked at her, quizzically...
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A man and an alien walked into a milk bar...
“Hey, buddy!” He’d done this too many times. Faking the requisite bonhomie came naturally to a man like him. “Your pardon. Are you addressing me?” asked his mark, as politely and innocently as usual. Bruce did his best to ...
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There is only one way out
Men exaggerate. Women reproduce. Death culls. … … … … … … …
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Broken down
It had taken her three months to notice that the visits had stopped, so deeply buried was she in her own mind. They hadn’t even been able to give her the note when it arrived, she’d been so lost. Catatonic, they’d said. She’d se...
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Taking leave
My dearest, I can’t stay. In my head, I know that you haven’t left me, but my heart crumbles a little more every day without you. And without him. Your trip upstate (my little euphemism), I know, is not something you would have chosen. But ...
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Space Nero needs an Empress!
They reclined, carefully entwined, in the midst of the fantastic scene. The architecture was a crass mixture of neo-classical and 50s science-fiction kitsch. She’d helped the set designer pick some of it out. He’d helped the set builder mov...
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Les temps perdu
Paris, en Septembre. Il pleut sur la cité des rêves. Les caniveaux sont plein des ordures et de l’eau, et mes chaussures sont moite. Je suis à pied aujourd’hui, parce que ma voiture ne marche pas, encore, et j’ai besoin d’arg...
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Passing Notes
In the three weeks since she’d wandered into the coffee shop, she’d grown quite accustomed to the rhythms of the place. Breakfast and lunch were intense and the evenings ran on forever, it seemed. Regulars greeted her by name, and she was n...
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Hell isn't always other people
Sure, he’d got their invitation. Every god-damn year, he’d got it, no matter how far he’d roamed. Common decency suggested that it would be polite to respond, but he couldn’t even bring himself to make that much contact with the...
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In the Shadow of Olympus Mons
Even through the heavily tinted portals of the habitation unit, she could almost taste the crimson sky. It was so much worse when they were out there, though. It had taken less than an hour on their first excursion for their shining bright environment ...
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Gatecrashing the City of Dreams
The hall was sweaty hot, filled with flushed, smiling faces, and bodies clad in the latest fashions. Around the edges, people drank squashy plastic pints of beer and brittle jars of outlandishly coloured cocktails. In the space between, people danced, ...
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The Piece of String
Of course, you realise that String Theory predicted the existence of Hyperspace, and thus the piece of string in your pocket is, in fact, a piece of exotic matter. You can: Tie a knot in it Make a loop from it Use it to replace the shoe lace you ha...
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Moving parts
The coffee shop across the plaza had looked warm and inviting from her window. A pink and blue neon sign, that she’d not quite been able to make out hung in the steamed window, from which yellow light poured warmly onto the shiny, rain drenched c...
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Names are over-rated
The club was packed that night; hot, sweaty bodies jammed into the dark. Roving strobes the only illumination once you left the puddle of light around the bar. I’d come alone. It wasn’t my first time here, and that really didn’t bothe...
