#fff229

[renee-writer]

Not Taken

For @flashfictionfridayofficial 229 prompt.

It is hazy

the road not taken

A nebulous path

cloudy in the distance

What ifs and regrets

what could have been

If only…

College was finished

A move to a different place

With different people

Changes that would have changed

Everything

But

Would you really what to?

Even if it were easier

If there was more happiness

Less heartache?

Then you wouldn’t be the person

You are now

Looking back the mist covered way you came

You see you never walked alone

He was beside you

Every path wasn’t made straight

But

Every stumble

You were lifted back on your feet

That hazy path ahead

Seems a lot easier to travel

When you see how far He has brought you

And you remember that He will bring you home.

[scattered-debris]

#FFF229

A/N: yay for first submissions. (just realized time zones make this late whoops--regardless). I had seen a post on here discussing the Scott Pilgrim comic, which had a clip of Ramona explaining the concept of subspace highways to Scott. I wanted to riff on the idea, so here's that.

"Well, are you sure this is the way?"

"I mean, I think so, this is what the map says."

"The map has been glitching out ever since we got it! It told us to get off of Sub-I-A where there wasn't even an exit, and that was a highway. There's no way it's going to know where a subspace road is."

"We'll just have to feel it out then, won't we? Put our academy lessons to good use."

"Ugh, you know I hated those exercises, especially that one. Like--"

Hands spread out in front of them, or they would've if they had actual hands in this sub-cranial region. This motion was lost on Everett, who also could not see Jamie's hands (or lack thereof).

"--there's nothing here!"

The statement rang out into nothingness. Or really, rang out into Jamie and Everett's temporary neural link they used for communicating, and at a volume a touch too loud for Everett's liking.

"We'll be fine. Here you go first, and I can help get you started."

Jamie stepped out ahead of Everett. Thankfully, they had a sense of where the other was, but that luxury was only in place so they didn't drop into each others subconscious. It took far too long to convince their boss it was a necessary mod to install. Unthankfully, the sense of each other was about the only sense they got. Once, little underlings had asked Jamie to describe what they saw when travelling through someone else's subconscious via subspace highway, not knowing that it was a question neural scientists had been debating about for the past four sub-cranial conferences. Jamie had answered, "Uh, gray?" before the little underlings sighed and moved on. Really, Jamie thought subspace travel looked like how white noise sounded, but hadn't been able to articulate that very well on the spot. 

"Ok, so right now, you're on the road. Can you feel it?"

"No, Everett."

"Then take a step to your left, you'll be off of the road. Can you feel the difference?"

"Not really?"

Everett sighed inwardly. Jamie heard it.

"What does it feel like to you, Everett? Maybe that will help. Here you go." Jamie stepped back. Everett stepped forward, and pacing left and right slowly, humming. 

"It feels a little clearer-- being off the road, surprisingly. Like, when I'm off it, I have more of a sense of where I'm going, what I'm doing. When I'm on the road..." Everett paused, then started again. "I mean, think about it: the whole reason subspace travel works is because we're relying on people's neural pathways to move around. We're stuffing our consciousness into theirs for a brief period of time, and the particular neural pathway we end up using might not line up with ours. So everything gets all hazy, ya know? Nebulous."

Jamie said nothing and stepped forward. The subspace input jumbled in Jamie's head. It was everywhere, like getting full-body pins and needles while watching TV static and listening to white noise. It caused an odd, simultaneous feeling of nothingness, nowhere-ness, to Jamie, what they imagined floating in a sensory deprivation tank would be like. They felt Everett cringe at the image. But underneath all the input, Jamie felt (saw? heard?) what they hadn't before. If those underlings asked again, Jamie would say now that it felt like a river. An extremely subtle, but stubborn current, a silent riptide that would lead Jamie...somewhere. Jamie could guess where they and Everett would end up, but the current was certainly unsympathetic to it. 

"It's funny. It's kind of contradictory when you think about it. A road is a defined means by which to travel. It's not a trail, or a footpath, it's something established. But this one is hazy--nebulous, like you said-- and it's existence, what sets it apart from the rest of the subconscious for us, is its very obfuscation. A subspace road is a freakin' oxymoron."

"Huh!" Jamie felt Everett's consciousness return next to theirs. "Yeah, you're right. I didn't even think about that." What Jamie guessed was their heads both looked out onto the road. 

"Well, whatever. Come on, let's go. A road doesn't stop being a road, no matter how confusing it is, and we gotta get to the next sub-cranial region."

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[writingsfromspace]

Nebelige Straßen

315 words | Steampunk! Magic! Dinosaurs!

Prompt | Nebulous roads - @flashfictionfridayofficial

This is late (mostly, though, for logictic reasons!) and also in German, apologies. But! On the plus side! A glimpse into the life and times of Athanasios, one of the protagonists of my latest WIP! This might actually be the day the story starts, come to think about it...

Als Athanasios an diesem Tag aus dem Ossuarium hervorschlich, war es so nebelig, dass kein Hinweis auf die Tageszeit zu erkennen war. Der Herbst war gekommen.

Tag war, das konnte er feststellen; wenn auch noch Nacht gewesen wäre, hätte man rein gar nichts mehr erkennen können. So bestand die Straße aus weißer Watte und ungefähr zwei Metern Häuserreihen.

Er hatte nichts dagegen einzuwenden; es passte zu seiner Stimmung. Es war kein guter Tag, sein Herz tat weh, als wären die Wochen, in denen es ihm schon besser gegangen war, nur ein Traum gewesen, und er hatte Hunger.

Er hatte noch ein paar Groschen, das war nicht das Problem, aber durch die verhüllten Straßen zu wandeln, gab ihm ein so unwirkliches Gefühl, wie er es seit dem Begr��bnis nicht mehr gehabt hatte, und das machte es nicht besser. Viel lieber hätte er sich ebenso verkrochen wie offenbar jede andere Seele, die sich das leisten konnte; die Stille wurde nur gelegentlich von einem schläfrigen Vogelruf oder Flüchen auf das Wetter unterbrochen.

Er fand seinen Weg zu einem Straßenhändler, der dem Wetter trotzte - es gab trotz allem genug -kaufte sich eine Fleischtasche, obwohl das mit dem Fleisch fragwürdig war, und sah sich nach einem zufriedenstellenden Stehplatz um. Schließlich ließ er es sein und kletterte - der Nebel verbarg ihn ja ohnehin - einfach das nächste Haus hinauf. Er wusste aus dem Gedächtnis nicht genau, wie hoch es war - vier oder fünf Stockwerke - aber es besaß eine sehr hilfsbereite Regenrinne, so war es nicht so wichtig.

Als er am dritten Stock vorbeikletterte, riss der Nebel auf.

Er hätte eigentlich damit rechnen können. Das goldene Licht eines späten Herbstnachmittags ergoss sich über ihn, und als er am Dachfirst saß und das Nebelmeer unter ihm schimmerte und alle Kuppeln der Altstadt glänzten und er schließlich auch seine Tasche aß, hatte er das Gefühl, dass mit dem Tag vielleicht doch noch etwas anzufangen war.

[fourohfourrealitynotfound]

Meeting Ariadne

For @flashfictionfridayofficial #FFF229 - Nebulous Roads

578 words

Anomalous Incident Report: #229 

Reporter: Maxwell Sloane 

Recorder: Maxwell Sloane 

Location of incident: Unknown; somewhere south of Darcy St. 

Incident: 

I had just wrapped up at that little night market on Darcy when I took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere I had never seen before. This was already odd: I know most of the streets in that area, and this alley looked like none of them.  

The buildings on either side of me were made of green-gray bricks, still slick from the earlier rain shower. A puddle, inky black like an obsidian mirror, reflected a dying amber lightbulb over door that had long been sealed shut by decades of grime.  

I glanced behind me, but the way back was new, too. Instead of the well-lit path of Darcy Street, I was staring a blank wall. I stepped up to examine the bricks—they were solid and old, clearly not something erected in the half a minute I had stood in the alley with my back turned. 

The rule in Gossamer goes: if you walk in any direction long enough, you'll eventually find yourself back on Elmwood Ave. In that spirit, I set off down the alley, figuring I would eventually either run into a place I recognized or a person I could ask for directions. 

The streets that followed baffled me more and more. They twisted and turned in shapes I knew I had never seen on any map of Gossamer. Every single building was abandoned, with doorways and windows bricked over, boarded up, or in a state of disrepair.  

The signs were unfamiliar with generic names of hardware stores and streets. As soon as I read one name and turned away, it would slip straight out of my memory, and I'd have to look back to reread it. I wish I had a pen on me so I could record them, because I remember none of them now. 

Eventually I turned into another dead-end alley. This one's walls were coated in tens of layers of posters. They were all faded and covered in a layer of grime, but the few words I could make out were in a variety of languages I couldn't read: Spanish, Greek, something in Cyrillic, and dozens more.  

When I turned to leave, I found a woman, leaning on a doorway where there hadn't been one a minute ago. She took a drag on her cigarette and flicked a few long braids off of her shoulder. "You're not supposed to be here," she said. 

"Yeah—er, I'm afraid I'm lost," I chuckled.  

Her black eyes sparkled with a compelling light, drawing me closer. She took my hand and led me out of the alley and through a few more streets, depositing me under a streetlight on Elmwood. 

"Here you are," she said, releasing my hand. Her face was shockingly clear to me, practically glowing under that streetlamp. She winked and slid away from me, disappearing into the alley we had just come from. 

When I went to check my watch and my shadow followed my wrist on the sidewalk, I realized why her face had been so clear. In that direct top-down light, her hair and brow and nose should have obscured her face in shadows.  

I sprinted too catch up with her, but I was too late. She was gone, and the alley she had waltzed into was now a dead end with no doors. 

To research: alternative dimensions, labyrinths