Charli Mills’ prompt for the week is as follows: May 23, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story without ice. It can be a world without ice or a summer camp that runs out of cubes for lemonade. What does the lack mean to the story? Go where the prompt leads!

Here is the 99-word version of my story:

As we stepped outside, a chilly wind embraced us, making my eyes sting and water. The cold of the air felt more intense than when we had arrived a few hours ago and more white flakes flew from the dark sky. Our feet crunched on ice encrusted grass as we trudged across a wide expanse of lawn towards the first outhouse. Dizziness and confusion gripped me and thought I might collapse, but, drawing a few reviving and slow breaths, I managed to reach the small building and open the door. I stepped into its shelter, dragging Thomas after me.

If you would like to read the longer version with more context, here that is too:

From the diary of Jennifer Saunders

The farm was everything we had hoped for and more. It was remote and Glen proved to have been a survivalist who obviously foresaw a time when the modern world shuddered to a halt for some or other reason. World Government electrical networks did not reach this isolated location and so a number of gas lights were placed at convenient intervals around each room. I was hugely grateful when I flicked the switches and they sprang to life. Tom and I were already weary of the perpetual dark of the Nuclear Winter that had settled upon the land.

In the pantry we found rows and rows of canned goods including milk and various high protein legume based foodstuffs. Vacuumed packed packages of soya products, dried milk, soups and other instant meals were stacked on the wooden shelves. There were no meat-based products but I wouldn’t have known what to do with any had we found them. It had been over twenty years since consumption of meat by humans had been banned. There was also a good supply of water. He must have used his military connections to obtain this sort of stockpile which was far in excess of the individual food and drink allocations allowed in terms of the World Government policies.

In the cupboard in the main bedroom I found a selection of thermal lined fleece jackets, gloves and hoods, with a flap that came down over your ears and another that covered your mouth, leaving only your eyes exposed. The clothing was much too big for Thomas and me, but we put them on over our own clothes anyway, before venturing outside in the subfreezing temperatures to inspect the outhouses. Fortunately, I had packed our boots into our luggage before we fled Birmingham.

As we stepped outside, a chilly wind embraced us, making my eyes sting and water. The cold of the air felt more intense than when we had arrived a few hours ago and more white flakes flew from the dark sky. Our feet crunched on ice encrusted grass as we trudged across a wide expanse of lawn towards the first outhouse. Dizziness and confusion gripped me and thought I might collapse, but, drawing a few reviving and slow breaths, I managed to reach the small building and open the door. I stepped into its shelter, dragging Thomas after me.

You can join in the challenge here: https://carrotranch.com/2019/05/23/may-23-flash-fiction-challenge/

From the Diary of Dr Thompson

I have often wondered what would happen if there were a world-wide catastrophe. People have entirely different ways of reacting to events and, often, their reaction is completely different from what you expected from that particular person.

I remember when a friend of mine’s company was involved in a corporate scandal. He was a corporate financier, whose job involved debt restructuring and business turnarounds. You would have thought a guy like that would have reacted with quiet calm to a difficult situation like this. He was one of a number of purportedly top innovative people who worked for this firm. None of them reacted as I expected. I was surprised to watch how they ran around in meaningless circles, trying to get things done with no real plan or purpose to their actions. They did not have the creativity to think broadly and find innovative solutions to the crisis. This cycle of disastrous chaos and confusion went on for months before the company finally started to stabilize. It was miraculous, considering that lack of proper planning and cohesion among the leaders, that it ever pulled though at all. It completely undermined my confidence in the abilities of professional people like lawyers and accountants to deliver on any of their promises to their clients.

Lack of innovation is one of the main causes of this war mankind is now embroiled in. Prior to the introduction of advanced digitization, the World Government attempted to provide guidance to less developed countries to help them become more innovative, as this was known to be a key driver of Fourth Industrial Revolution readiness. The sub-governments of individual countries and their business leaders where encouraged to promote creativity by empowering employees and challenging them to create, challenge and experiment. Programmes were developed to up-skill workers and give them the abilities thought necessary to survive in a fully digitalised society.

A lack of understanding of cultures, including patriarchal and hierarchical societies, led to failure in this area and the ultimate inability for these economies to adapt efficient to changing parameters. The inequality gap increased, plunging numerous countries into poverty and resulting in the creation of the ghetto system where the poor were given accommodation and other basics to help them survive but dooming them to a life lacking any opportunities for change and future employment. The frustration and anger of the masses was underestimate, much to the detriment of the World Government which is now collapsing in the most spectacular way.

As I watch from my window, seeing the chaos and confusion of the devastated city and witnessing the tumultuous masses trying to flee, in any way they can, I know that only the innovative will survive the post apocalyptic world that awaits them. Without the daily guidance provided by their microchip implants, the rest will all die.

***

This little meander through the diary of Dr Thompson, was written for Linda G Hill’s weekly SoCS challenge. This week it is rhymes with rosy.

I asked my husband for a word that rhymed with rosy and he said cosy and posy. I asked my son, Gregory, and he said nosy. None of theses words inspired me to I looked on Rhyming Hippo and that had a few more interesting ideas, including through me and catastrophe. I chose catastrophe.

You can join in the challenge here: https://lindaghill.com/2019/05/24/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-25-19/

 

What Amazon says

Teen twin brothers Evan and Simon Resnik are fiercely loyal to each other and share an unusual bond—they experience each other’s emotions as their own and can sense where the other is.

On their dying planet of Tage, scientists work tirelessly on its survival. Like the twins’ parents, Simon is a science prodigy, recruited at a young age to work with the brilliant creator of Scientific Innovations. To the bitter disappointment of their parents, Evan shows no aptitude or interest in science. As a Mindbender, he travels into the minds of scientists to locate buried memories, connect ideas and concepts, and battle recurring nightmares.

When Simon mysteriously disappears, Evan is plunged into a world of loss and unbearable guilt. For the first time, he can’t ‘feel’ Simon—it’s like he no longer exists. Evan blames himself. No one knows that he ignored his brother’s pleas for help on the night he went missing.

A year later, Simon is still gone. Evan lost his twin, but Tage might have lost its last hope of survival when it’s discovered that Simon’s unfinished project could be its salvation. Evan is determined to find him—somewhere—and bring Simon home. Their unusual connection might be more extraordinary than they know, and the key to locating Simon.

My review

The Gemini Connection is a most intriguing book which weaves the human emotions of frustration, anger, jealousy, resentment, self depreciation and love like colourful threads through the greater fabric of an exciting and unique science fiction novel.

The book features twins who live in a futuristic dystopian world where the inhabitants of the planet have exhausted many of its resources and what remains is being decimated by unknown and untreatable diseases. Scientists and other clever and inventive people, who are able to contribute towards findings solutions for the salvation of a society that is in the process of failing, are held up as heroes and are the recipients of accolades for their societal contributions as well as better food and lifestyles. The twins parents fall into this category and, at the beginning of the story, spend all their time and energy on saving their people and planet. This complete change in their focus from their family and two sons to the quest for glory in the guise of saving their planet changes life significantly for Simon and Evan. The backstory of their evolution into scientists, obsessed with their work, and the related increasing disdain for ordinary people who are not able to contribute towards saving the planet in the same way due to different talents and aspirations, is an important theme of the story and sets the scene for the unfortunate events that come to pass in the book.

Simon has a brilliant mind and is following in the footsteps of his illustrious parents. Evan is not as intellectual and demonstrates more physical and sporty gifts. This makes Simon the child of their parents dreams and Evan the disappointing child they cannot relate to or understand. This attitude by their parents results in Evan becoming a young man who lacks confidence and belief in himself and who feels inferior to his cleverer brother. Despite this unfortunate home environment, Simon and Evan are very close and share a unique bond that enables them to both “feel” the other’s presence and emotional state. When Simon disappears soon after discovering a sordid and dark secret by one of his mentors in his job, Evan feels responsible and sets off on a path of emotional self destruction. However, Evan has a talent of his own which enables him to access the minds of other people and help them sort out their chaotic thoughts. This talent gives him to tools track down and help save his brother but it also serves as the gateway to his own possible destruction. Will Evan be able to detect their joint enemies and stop their evil plans in time to save his brother and return him home? I enjoyed this book’s fresh take on a science fiction story.

Purchase The Gemini Connection

Brilliantly creative minds seem to abound in the world of literature. Some writers seem to effortlessly capture immensely complex ideas on paper in such an interesting and enlightening way that I find their words quite remarkable. When I read classics which demonstrate this superior planning of character development and plot I feel awed by the author’s mastery of his/her art and the agility of their mental processes.

One writer I have included in my category of brilliantly creative minds is H.G. Wells. He is, of course, a famous and international known writer and his books have been made into movies, but I did not appreciate his sheer brilliance as a philosopher and analysis of human behaviour until I listened to the audio books of, firstly, War of the Worlds, and secondly, The Time Machine, over the past few weeks.

The movies of both of these books do not focus on their philosophical elements  which, to me, were the most amazing and intriguing ideas in the books. H.G. Wells depiction of the Martians as beings that have evolved into such highly complex and intellectual creatures that they no longer require a body astonished me in it’s cleverness.

If you think about it, machines are always superior in strength and endurance to any physical being and if you are able to create machines to do all the tasks you require, why would you need to bother with maintaining a physical body? The Martians are merely brains with large eyes and hand-like tentacles which enable them to operate their many amazing machines. In order to focus only on intellectual pursuits, the Martians have eliminated emotions from their genetic make-up and they do not feel empathy, sadness, joy, fear or any of the other emotions that distract human beings. They are creatures of logic and their decisions are not hampered by emotion, sexual desire or even pleasure in eating and drinking. They do not eat but rather inject blood from a living being directly into their own veins. This really made me think as people with unusually high IQ’s often have low EQ’s and find it difficult relating to other people. What would our world be like if all of humanity were genetically engineered to create only geniuses?

The Time Machine also demonstrates and unusual understanding of the factors that drive human intelligence. In this book, the Time Traveler goes many thousands of years forward in time. He finally arrives at an age which, on the surface, appears to be a golden age where men have managed to achieve a purely communistic society where everyone enjoys the same benefits. There is no hunger, suffering or deprivation in this far distant time. The Time Traveler, however, soon discovers that the price man has paid for this Utopian world is his intelligence. The human-like creatures that inhabit the upper world have the mentality of children and lack any motivation to produce or create anything. H.G. Wells’ explanation is that if all your needs are met and there is no need to use intelligence to survive through means such as building shelter, storing food and fighting attackers, the intelligence will become obsolete through lack of challenge and use.

I thought these two ideas on the evolution of society were fascinating. What do you think? What brilliantly creative minds have you come across through reading fiction?

This post was written for Linda G Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday challenge: https://lindaghill.com/2019/05/17/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-may-18-19/

The enormous tree drew her. Its branches reached up into the bright, blue sky, far above its fellows. She knew only too well that all of the trees were nourished with the flesh of humans deemed by society to be wasteful squanderers, but she still admire this particular tree’s tenacity in beating its competition and achieving such great proportions. She thought of another tree. The one she had seen on the eve of the Great War after the bombs had rained down. She recalled the tendrils of fire running up its wide trunk and licking greedily at its branches.

May 16, 2019, prompt: In 99 words (no more, no less) write a story that goes in search of trees. It can be one particular tree, a grove, woods, or forest. What makes the tree worth seeking? Go where the prompt leads!

You can join in the prompt here: https://carrotranch.com/2019/05/16/may-16-flash-fiction-challenge/

Would you really want to live for longer? It is an appealing idea to slow down the aging process and retain the good looks and vibrant good health of your 20s, but there is a down side. Imagine having to work for double the amount of years. Instead of spending 40 years of your life caught up in the turmoil and intensity of paid employment, 80 years would be required. After that amount of time, even the most interesting job could become mundane. Maybe we would have to switch careers and go through learning and training years again. Ug!

The above 99-word flash was written for Charli Mills’ weekly flash fiction challenge. You can join in here: https://carrotranch.com/2019/05/10/may-9-flash-fiction-challenge/

Charli’s prompt also inspired the following longer piece:

From the diary of Dr Thompson

It is interesting to see how people cling to life. No matter how dire their circumstances or how old and dependent they are, they don’t want to die. Maybe it is because they are familiar with their current lives and can hope that their circumstances will improve, whereas death is the great unknown. Some people, of course, do not find succumbing to death to be a great leap of faith, but to many, the lack of clarity beyond the grave is disturbing.

I warned the World Government that they could not obviously favour one grouping of people over another when it came to the extension of life. This was more controversial in my view than their plan of  genetic engineering to increase human intelligence. In my experience, not all people aspire to intellectual greatness.

The idea of the World Government was simple. Individuals who demonstrated the characteristics of higher performance and productivity were singled out and their personal identification microchips were programmed to use available biotechnology to change the genetic makeup of such individuals’ cells, slowing down their aging process and reversing the negative effects of heart disease and other stress and anxiety related health problems caused by their ambitious, rigidly organised, anxious and proactive personalities. This programme had two major effects on the selected individuals: they aged at a slower rate than their peers and their productive work lives increase from approximately 40 years to over 80 years and the genes that resulted in their high-functioning abilities were exacerbated in their children.

It did not take many years for the people living in the compounds for the unemployed to notice that their working peers were not aging at the same rate as they were. Men and women in high pressure jobs maintained the smooth skin and full bodied and richly coloured hair of their youth for many years. When the effects of time did finally start manifesting in their faces, the changes were subtle. They also maintained their robust good health and did not suffer arthritis, osteoporosis and other debilitating aging diseases. The rumblings of discontent in the ghettos and compounds increased as the inhabitants slowly came to the realisation that they were missing out on the opportunity of an extended life. The World Government denied any intervention in this area of humanity; it was not economical to have the unemployed living for longer. It only made sense for those people who would use this longer life for the benefit of society by increasing their skills and remain productive for longer.

The uprising, demonstration and unrest continued and the government resorted to using the military, a privileged group of men and women with unusually strong bodies, high endurance as well as high intelligence, to control the masses through whatever means they deemed necessary.

The other major issue that arose as a result of this genetic manipulation was that the human characteristics of anxiety and stress, which frequently went hand in hand with high performance and greater intelligence, increased in the children of the genetically engineered workers. Mental illnesses such as depression, PTSD, OCD, panic attacks and other, similar disorders became more apparent and troublesome among the working population. These negative effects had to be controlled through the use of an additional microchip implant aimed at controlling the amount of serotonin in sufferers brains but, the scientists soon realised, that the microchip and other medications only worked to a certain extent. They had a problem on their hands and it was not easily solvable as removing these negative aspects of human behaviour would also remove the personality traits government wanted desperately to retain.

 

What Amazon says

She seeks adventure. He battles his darkness. Will a curse end their beautiful magic?

A 2017 Paranormal Romance Guild Reviewer’s Choice Award Winner!

Herman Anderson hopes there’s more to life than her challenging past. So when a mysterious and alluring stage magician invites her to be his assistant, the seventeen-year-old can’t wait to start the behind-the-scenes training at his gothic Ontario mansion. But after she senses a growing attraction between her and the trained illusionist, she wonders what’s holding him back from stirring love’s magic.

Stephen Dagmar lives every day with the knowledge of his family’s curse. But as he sets the path in motion to destroy the dark sorcery, his stunningly beautiful stage partner throws his plan into turmoil. And as the sparks shine brighter with each passing moment, the magician fears that breaking free of the spell will crush Herman’s heart.

As the days tick down to Herman’s 18th birthday, she starts to unlock the secrets of the Dagmar family mansion. And each one is stranger and more painful than the last…

Will the magician and his assistant break their supernatural chains to discover true love?

The Magician’s Curse: A Paranormal Romance is Linda G. Hill’s enchanting debut book in her series, The Great Dagmaru. If you like passionate partnerships, hidden secrets, and powerful magic, then you’ll love this captivating tale.

Buy The Magician’s Curse to uncover the dark truth today!

My review

Herman has a most unusual name which has been a burden to her all her school life. Why on earth would her parents saddle her with a boy’s name? As this interesting book, filled with magic and mystery progresses, Herman finds out that it is not only her name that is unusual about her, or her parents choice that is unusual about them.

Herman’s mother has been very ill for a long time and her father is never there to offer any support to his family. Herman assumed the role of mother to her younger brother, Chad, when she was very young and now she is breaking free to establish a life for herself. She plans to bring her brother to live with her once she is settled and earning an income. On the train to her new job, Herman meets a riveting young man who introduces himself as Stephen. Much to Herman’s surprise, Stephen professes to be as taken with her as she is with him, so when he asks her to work for him as his assistant she doesn’t put up much of a fight. Fortunately for Herman, Stephen, who is a magician, is genuine in his offer for her to become his assistant and she quickly discovers that there is more to his magic than meets the eye. In fact, Herman soon comes to realise that the household staff and Stephen’s entire lifestyle is fairly unorthodox.

The attraction between Herman and Stephen is incredibly strong but Herman can sense there is something not quite right with their relationship and this causes her to hold back from committing herself completely to him. What is Stephen’s secret and will Herman be able to accept it when she eventually discovers what it is? I did like the fact that the character of Stephen illustrated respect for Herman and gave her the opportunity to make her own choice about his unusual situation.

This book is for adults and, although not graphic, it does contain descriptions of sex and suggestions of sexual freedoms. The romantic aspect of this book is the overriding genre with the supernatural element playing a lessor role.

Purchase The Magician’s Curse

From the diary of Jennifer Saunders

It was dark by the time we passed the outskirts of the Greater Manchester area. Great fires burned in the distance and from this I gathered that Manchester must have been a target for one of the bombs. I had tried the radio again a short while ago but it was still  broadcasting static. Driving was difficult as the road was now crowded with travelers, although it was not as congested as I had expected. The fugitives from the outskirts of the city and the surrounding countryside were scurrying away like rats and all sorts of cars, buses and other vehicles hurried along, their lights winking and twinkling.

Out of the corner of my eye I glanced at Tom. He was sitting quietly, gazing out of the window. The bright, orange flames reflected in his eyes as he watched vast expanses of suburbia burning. How is he going to adjust to being uprooted from his home and familiar surrounds? And what about his medications? 

In addition to the microchip in his brain which helps controls his serotonin levels, Tom takes four pills in the morning and washes them down with a glass of clear fibregel to prevent constipation.  The medicine comprises of two booster pills, which are supposed to help with OCD [they don’t seem to do a thing, in my opinion, but it is a truth that he has been on these medications for such a long time, I don’t know how he would be without them], a ditropan, which is a bladder cleanser, and an antihistamine.  He checks his pills carefully every day before he will take them. If they look different in any way because they are a generic or a different brand of antihistamine, he will ask me what they are. Once I have answered, he will compose a question that only requires a yes or no answer to get his assurance that the unusual pill is what I have said it is. “Is this oval shaped pill an antihistamine?” is what he will ask. The answer must be “yes”. If I add extra information or explanations it nullifies my answer and he will ask again. The answer has to follow the accepted format. Frequently, the question is followed by a further question – “Do you promise?” Again, my answer must be limited to a yes or no or he will keep asking until I get it right. When he is particularly stressed, usually before tests, examinations or a holiday, he will ask the same questions over and over. OCD doesn’t make any sense. It has no logic. You cannot explain anything or negotiate with an OCD sufferer. He knows that his questions are ridiculous; that is not the point. The point is the overwhelming need for reassurance. If he doesn’t get this reassurance he can’t settle down and can’t sleep. The need is such a huge driving force that if I try to put my foot down [as advised by our medical experts, SIGH!], he will go into hysterics and hold the entire household hostage, effectively, by shouting and crying, until he gets the answers he needs. If he knew he had a microchip in his body to help control his anxiety as well as a microchip, like everyone else, for identification purposes, I think it might push him over the edge into madness.

Fortunately, I have a two month supply of his pills as I bought them a few days before this catastrophe and I always keep an extra month’s supply in case there is ever a shortage. I can’t think further than that at the moment. Not when everything is this precarious. He seems to be calm and collected so maybe he will surprise me and show great strength of character in the face of adversity.

This post was written for Sue Vincent’s weekly write photo challenge. You can join in here: https://scvincent.com/2019/05/09/thursday-photo-prompt-rooted-writephoto/

From the diary of John Saunders

20 August 2035

I have been thinking about my situation. Now that my headache has receded, I need to formulate an escape plan. I must exhibit sisu and find a way out of this locked room.

I have no idea why I have been locked in, but I know that my wife and son must need me. Someone brought me food and drink while I was sleeping so my superiors are clearly monitoring my movements. I need to find a way to fool the microchip in my head into believing I am sleeping. Then, when someone comes, I can make my move.

A little bit extra:

In order to fool the microchip in his head that he is asleep, John will have to do the following:

Breathing, John will have to take long, even and gentle breaths;

Eyes, John will have to mimic rapid eye movement which occurs during the REM stage of sleep;

Snoring, John will have to mimic the gentle sounds he makes during sleep; and

Pulse, your pulse rate drops while you are sleeping. John, will have to meditate himself into a completely relaxed state to mimic this effect.

This post was written for Charli Mill’s Carrot Ranch 99-word flash fiction challenge here: https://carrotranch.com/2019/05/02/may-2-flash-fiction-challenge/

 

 

From the Diary of Jennifer Saunders

18 August 2035

I was grateful that I had been made aware of the bombing of various cities throughout the world as they took place. My early knowledge of the situation had given Tom and I the opportunity to be front runners in the exodus away from the city. My digipad was not working properly so I was thankful that Tom was able to read a map with co-ordinates. He helped me to plot a route to a remote farm house in Scotland owned by a friend of mine. I was sure that Glen, a previous colleague and old friend of John’s, would help us.

As I drove through the quieter back streets, leaving the growing panic further behind us, Tom kept up a constant monologue about the implications of the dropping of the bombs for people living in the targeted cities. As far as I was aware, London was the only city in the United Kingdom that had been hit to date, but that could change at any moment.

“The people and buildings within the hypercenter of the explosion will be completely vapourised. People and infrastructure in a thick band outside the vapourisation circle will be completely destroyed due to the blast effect,” he said.

“Blast effect? What’s that?” I maneuvered the car carefully around a truck that stood stationary in the middle of the road. The driver attempted to flag me down but I averted my eyes and drove on.

Tom sighed and looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “A blast wave, Mom, is an area off pressure expanding supersonically outwards from the centre of the explosion. The blast wave is followed by a blast wind of negative pressure that sucks items back towards the centre. The blast wave weakens the infrastructure and the blast wind then tears the buildings and structures apart.”

How does he know this stuff, I wondered for the umpteenth time.

“The amounts of damage caused by the bomb then reduces in circular bands moving outwards from the hypercentre. That is why we need to get as far away from any potential targets as possible.”

Tom’s monochromatic way of thinking always surprises me. Everything in his life is black and white, there are no shades of grey. His attitude towards the bombs was simple, stay inside the outer limits of the circle of potential damage and be harmed or get outside that band and don’t be harmed. If only life was that simple.

Of course, Tom’s attitude towards surviving this crisis should not have surprised me. I had been living with his obsessive compulsive disorder symptoms for years. He had seen numerous doctors and psychologists and none of them made the slightest difference to his approach to life. His compulsions had to be performed. No arguments, fact patterns or any other persuasive techniques could deter him from his habits and needs. It had taken me years to accept that OCD is not rational. Sufferers might be the cleverest and most innovative people in the world, but, when it comes to their metal illness, nothing can penetrate their viewpoints and deter them from their chosen paths of rituals and compulsions.

This story was written for Sue Vincent’s weekly photo challenge – Monochrome. You can join in here: https://scvincent.com/2019/05/02/thursday-photo-prompt-monochrome-writephoto/