We are down to the wire with 2021. The theme of this last year was hope… the theme of next year is ‘Unafraid’ so with that in mind… pick a prompt. Do your worst. Or best. We’re happy with anything you do.
| Prompter | Prompt | Prompted |
| AC Young | Mythical Hybrids Ltd. is pleased to announce the world’s first Hippotaurus. | nother Mike |
| Becky Jones | “I need roses and an inkwell! Stat!” the medic hollered from the carriage. | Cedar Sanderson |
| Leigh Kimmel | The angels have landed | Becky Jones |
| nother Mike | There was a small naked piglet trying to climb in the window, with a glittering bracelet around its left rear hock… | Leigh Kimmel |
| Cedar Sanderson | There were googly eyes on the flux fusion chamber, and the engineer sighed | AC Young |
Didn’t sign up in time? Never fear! The spares are here!
| Spare | I know, I already used the orbital cannon. Surely, it’s not disposable? |
| Spare | On a flyer pushed through the letter box: “For when only the Largest will do!” |
| Spare | Someone planted monster beacons all around the town… |
| Spare | You knew what kind of a day it was going to be when the elf ran up to you in the middle of New York City and said, “I’m looking for a hero just like you,”… |
| Spare | Unfortunately, the spam filters everywhere all caught and stopped the first message from the intergalactic federation to Earthlings… |
Stop worrying! Grab a prompt and create something! Then come back here and learn how to be unafraid of what 2022 brings. Art is forever.
More Odds Than Ends 
Cedar Sanderson supplied my prompt this week: There were googly eyes on the flux fusion chamber, and the engineer sighed.
A little bit of research later, and I had the basis for this short offering.
—
Edward Victor Isaacson was very proud of being the chief engineer on the flux fusion project. It was a brand-new fusion design. The small-scale version had worked well enough, but it was only intended as a first test. The full-scale version was the second test. If it worked as intended, the new design would go into production.
Edward didn’t understand the physics involved – he didn’t need to understand, beyond what was required in order to design and build the thing.
Broadly-speaking, Helium-3 and Lithium-6 were separately heated to very high temperatures, and heavily pressurised. The two plasmas were pumped into the fusion chamber. A certain proportion of each fused together to form Helium-4 and Hydrogen, and a lot of heat. The resultant mixture was pumped back out, where some of the heat generated was used to heat up the incoming plasmas, the remainder was turned into electricity.
The mixture was then separated back into its constituent parts. The Helium-3 and Lithium-6 went back into the system, topped up as necessary. The Helium-4 and Hydrogen went into storage tanks to be sold on.
The full-scale version had gone through all its pre-commissioning checks, and would be turned on for the first time tomorrow. Edward was making his way around the outside of the chamber, making one last visual check before going off-shift.
He rounded the next corner, and stopped. Some joker had stuck googly eyes on the outer shell. Two circles of them to represent large pupils, each surrounded by a line of googly eyes outlining each eye.
Edward sighed. Two days from now and he’d have chuckled at the sight before him. But all the top brass were coming for the big turn-on, and everything had to look just right for them. The amusing large eyes on the flux fusion chamber were not appropriate for such an inspection.
Edward headed up to the control chamber, to give instructions to get the googly eyes removed before tomorrow’s visit.
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Every team has that one guy…
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It spread throughout my organization a few years back…I maintain that the restroom really should have remained off limits.
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Years ago when I was at McDonnell Douglas our group got moved to the basement of a new building. Somebody created a blind mole drawing and taped it all over the place. Higher ups were less than amused. We were annoyed at having to live in the basement…
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Edward didn’t notice that behind his back, as he left, the eyes blinked… Well done!
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AC Young inspired…
Mythical Hybrids Ltd. is pleased to announce the world’s first Hippotaurus.
Hippopotamus and the celestial bull? Hum…
Really quick sketch…
Henry shook his head when the movie studio asked him to sign an NDA before they would talk to him. As a cryptoveterinarian, he was used to the studios being sensitive about their new releases, but somehow this seemed unusual. Still, he signed it.
Then they showed him a poster, with… that’s a hippopotamus. But those horns? Water buffalo? Maybe Texas longhorn? What had they done? And that tagline… obviously the genetics lab that did the work was trying to get some exposure. “Mythical Hybrids Ltd. is pleased to announce the world’s first Hippotaurus.” Okay, so hippo and something for the bull side of things. Henry wondered how many they had made…
Then they took him into the backlot at the movie compound. Oh… he had worked with this handler before, but that animal didn’t look very good.
“What do you think, Doc? Is he gonna be alright? He seems unhappy… Heck, I think he’s got sunburn?”
Henry looked around. They had the poor thing in a heavy duty fence, but…
“Don’t you have any water for him?”
The movie handler shrugged.
“Sure, we have a big trough. He steps in it a lot, though, and I keep having to change the water.”
Henry closed his eyes, then glared.
“Of course he does. He’s a hippo! They spend like 16 hours of every day in the water! Now, get a pool in here, or better yet, take him out to a swamp, and let him get good and muddy.”
He walked over, and started to give the hippotaurus a physical. When the hippotaurus tried to bite his coat, he glanced around. There was a small bit of hay nearby. He picked it up, and the hippotaurus happily started chewing on it.
“How much are you feeding it? You know, he needs about a hundred pounds of feed — hay, grass, all that, every day. Look, feel his ribs. There’s not enough meat there. Get him more food, and put him in the water.”
The hippotaurus wasn’t really in too bad a shape, but it was obvious that nobody had really thought about what it needed. And that taurus part… If they started feeding it and gave it a chance to rest in the water, he’d be willing to bet…
“Oh. Fair warning. When he gets to feeling better, he’s going to try charging. And with those horns, he’s going to make you worry.”
This time, the handler nodded.
“Yep, he’s already knocked down several stagehands. Luckily, we haven’t had the actors and equipment out yet. I’m not sure how they’re going to do the filming.”
Henry chuckled.
“It should be interesting.”
The handler smiled.
“I think I’m going to recommend that they bring you in to help out when we do that. Maybe you could at least give advice about how to keep it calm?”
Henry held his hand up.
“Well, yeah. I can talk to your office about that. Oh, when you have a chance, take a look at the Global Federation of Animal Sanctuary’s standards. They’ll give you some idea of how to treat at least the hippo part of this hybrid. I’ll warn you, they recommend a lot of space and care. For the taurus part, I’d say talk to someone about handling bulls, too.”
The handler bit his lip.
“Well, this is just the first one of the dozen that the studio wants. See, they think having a Hippotaurus drive, like the old cattle drives, will make a great movie. They’ve dug up several old Western scripts, and they’re sinking a lot of money into this. So they’ll take care of them, because they expect to have a whole series. With plenty of merchandise. I mean, I’ve already seen designs for Hippotaurus robot pets, that you can ride. Boots, hats, vests, a whole line of western wear, too.”
Henry laughed.
“Well, it would be big enough. I hope it works out for you. But seriously, get some food into this one, and plan on plenty of water. You might put in a wading pool here on the lot. I’d look into a swamp for them to spend time in, too.”
The handler reached over and scratched the hippotaurus behind its ears.
[Hum, needs to be punched up a bit, but…]
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[…] forgot to post this week’s prompt response for More Odds Than Ends. I have got to get my schedule squared away. I’m all caddywhompus right now. So my prompt […]
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As the song says, here come the angels! (Oh, it’s clowns? Send in the clowns? Clowns, angels… they’re about the same, aren’t they?)
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This one made me smile. Very sweet!
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[…] grabbed a spare this week over at MOTE: Someone planted monster beacons all around the […]
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Yay! More June and Peter!
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Nobody told me there would be REAL monsters! Chuckles…
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And now mine’s finally up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1070368.html. It’s more of a sketch, but at least it’s written. And what’s written can be developed.
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Oho! Very nice! Get that piglet in here, and then let’s figure out what to do with it… Yay! (Incidentally, the actual prompt came from sitting at my dentist, glancing over at the glass partition, and… they had a small plastic pig with a shiny bracelet around its back leg climbing the glass! No idea why the dentist would have such a decoration, but it caught my imagination. And now it’s in yours!)
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