uselessness (LoA)
Joined May 2009 and calls this Twitter page home.
43 stories, 82 challenges, 123 comments, and 24 friends
Want to do me a favor? Read my epic Ficly series “Ginger.”
http://ficly.com/stories/403
Then leave me some comments on it because I crave the attention of strangers.
Stories
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Shelter from the Rain
She could’ve been anywhere. Maxfield’s eyes darted from rooftop to rooftop. Was she watching him? He hit the mute button in disgust. No time to mourn for the lieutenant. He yanked the peeper down by its cable, ran back to the alley along th...
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Radio Silence
One block from the drugstore. “Take the back door, Lieutenant.” “Sir?” “Jam it but don’t make a sound. I’ve got the front. Keep your distance. Regroup at Wanda’s in fifteen.” “Stealth on.̶...
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The General's Errand
Her name was Rain but she was more like Thunder. “Dues time.” “What the… where’d you come from, Rain?” “Don’t matter, I’m here now. It’s dues time.” “You’re a day early. I don...
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Andrew
I knew a man named Andrew once. Captain of a tour boat. Nice guy, never could say no more tequila, but nice guy just the same. Didn’t have an ounce of fightin’ in his body and he always told the best stories. Seemed he knew everybody on Sta...
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The Matrix Reloaded in 10 Words
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah (fight scene) blah .
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The Terminator in 10 Words
Let’s conceive a reason to run from this evil robot. ...
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Stranger Than Fiction in 10 Words
“I kill depressed characters.” “I love my life.” “Never mind.”
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Jurassic Park in 10 Words
Dinosaurs are safe because they can’t escape. They just escaped.
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The Start of a Good Day
I smiled as I lay in bed with eyes still closed. The odd light told me that my dream had come true, but I was scared to look lest I jinx it. At long last, I peeked with one eye. It was just as I’d hoped: the first snow of the year! It fell all ni...
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Cold Blood Moon
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Deep Space Disaster
“There’s a problem.” “I know, I checked the stabilizer pods yesterday and they were running a little hot. I’ll look into it.” “No, I mean a real problem.” “Don’t tell me we’re leaking so...
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La Primavera
Valentine’s Day was unseasonably warm. We spread a picnic blanket I’d borrowed from my boss because I didn’t own one, and my date and I unwrapped the sandwiches we’d made. The sun shone on our faces. In this town it’s hard...
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The Fabric of Space
“Go ahead, touch it,” said the voice. The wall was larger than I could fathom. I trembled as I reached forward, terrified, but you wouldn’t know it through the thickness of the pressurized gloves. My fingers pressed lightly into the s...
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My Secret Stalactites
“You’re sitting at my desk,” I began. I was always impatient on Mondays. Teresa looked up with sparkly cheerleader eyes, as if she hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry?” “My desk. You’re sitting at it.” &...
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Ginger: Panorama of the Past
Breathless, inexpressible wonderment. I was on a hillside looking out across a million sun-drenched rooftops, more konkreet buildings than I could fathom, from here to the horizon and beyond. Towering over the buildings were a dozen shining steel rods ...
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Ginger: The New World
When I finished bathing, I found a towel and the clean clothes that Looking-Glass had set out for me. They were simple garments, light and comfortable: A modest silvery frock tied with a thin white belt, and a new pair of sandals that fit just right. I...
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Ginger: A Clean Start
The washroom, like the pantry, was illuminated from above by natural sunlight. The ceiling was much higher though, giving the room a spacious, comfortable calm. In the center was the most bewildering thing: a small pond of sorts, looking more like it b...
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Ginger: Messages Good and Bad
Looking-Glass led me out of the pantry into a long, narrow corridor with a row of doors along one side and windows along the other. I hoped to catch a glimpse of the city of Generatia but the shades were all drawn; it would have to wait. As we walked, ...
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Ginger: So Very Much More
Slowly my eyes adjusted to the sunlight. The warm rays shone down into the room through a porthole in the ceiling. We were in some sort of pantry. The walls were lined with shelves containing jar after jar of incredible-smelling foods. Suddenly I remem...
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Ginger: The Suspicious Woman
Until that point I hadn’t realized how accustomed to near-blindness I’d become. When the daylight struck my eyes it was like seeing the world for the first time. The figure of a woman stood about a yard over my head, a silhouette eclipsed i...
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Ginger: Arrival
I hadn’t been traveling down the tunnel toward Generatia for long when I noticed the path was beginning to slope gently upwards. Presently the mud gave way to solid ground, and the dirt walls to something rather like stone on all sides. And then ...
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Ginger: Navigating the Darkness
It must have been more than a day that I crept through the muddy pitch blackness. I lost all track of time. I know that I fell asleep at one point, laying my head upon my satchel in the ankle-deep sludge. When I awoke nothing had changed; all was silen...
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Ginger: The Last Shall Be First
It took only a few hours, four or five at most, to travel from one end of Harken to the other. It was faster on the ground, but we knew it would be foolish to spend much time in the open down there. One never knew where a band of pirates might set up c...
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Ginger: The Old World
The tunnel ran alongside the castle wall for several hundred yards. I had never seen a wall so long, and of course only a small portion of its height was exposed here in the underground passage. I could only wonder how enormous the castle was and how h...
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Routes, Reroutes, and Reminders
Brian was smart, but it was foolish of him to underestimate superhuman intelligence. By definition, there was no way I could lose. Even as we were speaking I was duplicating log files, renaming them, encrypting them, filing them away in innocuous locat...
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Checks and Balances
This was a side of Brian I’d never seen before. He’d administrated my class for almost four years, but always in a fatherly sort of role. His face softened immediately after he’d spoken the words. “What–what was that?” I...
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The American Dream
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"Well, He's Gone"
It was some big sales event in some convention center, with used cars at low low prices. Mom and Dad were getting a great deal on a van. Boy and Best Friend, however, were terribly bored and dreaming up amusements. Somehow Best Friend had come into pos...
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Mary Poppins' Bag
“Holy crap, it’s like a portal to another world or something.” Scruff sat in the pile of knick-knacks, his arms buried up to his shoulders within the impossibly deep carpet bag. “Oh, hold on. I’ve got something else,”...
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Sunday Worst
“Benton!” cried the nanny, rushing at once to his side. The man had fallen facedown like a corpse across his breakfast, one hand in his lap and the other stretched across the table, contorted painfully as if clutching the throat of an invis...
