It’s that time of year again. No, not the holidays, although it is that as well. It’s the time of year to contemplate the new year, and whether Odd Prompts should continue into 2024. Let us know in the comments whether this is a worthwhile endeavour or if, after three years of weekly prompts, it has run it’s course.
| Uphill | Rock | Avalanche |
| Cedar | What’s a little dry air between friends? | Fiona Grey |
| Fiona Grey | “What’s worse,” she admitted, “was that I knew the answer, but forgot during all the pressure.” | Leigh Kimmel |
| AC Young | Today the train was late. As a result everything changed. | Padre |
| Leigh Kimmel | It sounded like an angry cat yowling. But our cat was lying on the sofa, fast asleep. | AC Young |
| Becky Jones | Road tripping through the Dragon Lands was always an adventure! | Cedar Sanderson |
| Padre | The music whispered in the silence. | nother Mike |
| nother Mike | The vampire licked his lips as he stared at the empty mirror… | Becky Jones |
In the meantime, there are always spare prompts. Even if the weekly prompts don’t continue, perhaps a prompt a week would be the way to go on? A change in format? In venue from here to perhaps Discord? So many options, so little time on Earth as the heat death of the universe approaches like a slowly-rolling freight train through the eons. In the meantime, we’ll keep throwing rocks at our own imaginations, hoping to trigger the avalanche of story to break free. Wait. Is this a good idea?
| Spare | The specialty hot chocolate was a distinct shade of purple. |
| Spare | In recent years, the team’s changes had become more obvious. |
| Spare | Sparkles filled the air like snowflakes |
| Spare | An expected meeting occurring unexpectedly. |
| Spare | The UN meeting ended when someone anonymously donated one (1) nuclear missile to each nation around the world. With a big bow tied around each missile! |
| Spare | The used toilet at the yard sale had a plastic brick of money in its tank… |
Come on back, put your response in the comments, and let us know what the future of the prompt challenge looks like to you.
More Odds Than Ends 
for what it’s worth, I know I’ve been mostly lurking since I went back to school, but I still enjoy peeking in to see if something stirs a few lines during class breaks.
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Toss in some spares! We can always use some spares, and that way you won’t feel like you have to do the weekly thing.
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With regards to the future: I’m still enjoying this challenge, so I’m happy for it to continue.
With regards to this week: Leigh Kimmel tossed me: It sounded like an angry cat yowling. But our cat was lying on the sofa, fast asleep.
After a little thought, my mind went back to Week 40, and Alexander’s experiments in time travel.
—
Alexander Kestwick was not the sort of person to rest on his laurels. After successfully helming the Mk 1 and Mk 2 chronoships on the first ever time travel experiments, he had moved into the administration of what was now the Planetary Historical Exploration Corps.
He had married Louise a year ago. They formed part of the emergency support team for the Mk 7 chronoship tests, and consequently were required to live on site.
It was a normal evening, and Alexander and Louise were relaxing. There were no time travel experiments planned for the week, so he wasn’t expecting anything unexpected.
Suddenly there was a sound. Alexander’s first thought was that Fluffy, his and Louise’s pet cat, was yowling with anger. But no, she was still lying on the sofa between the couple, fast asleep.
Then his brain kicked into gear. That was a chronoship’s emergency signal. Something had gone wrong, and a chronoship had returned unexpectedly to this time.
Alexander rushed outside. Where was the noise coming from? Over there!
Alexander hurried to the building site where they were constructing the base for the new Mk 8 chronoships. In the middle of what would become the main building, a chronoship of unknown design had appeared. It was visibly damaged, and the injured pilot had just exited the machine.
The pilot looked around, and seemed to be very worried.
Alexander said “Welcome. I am Alexander. You are?”
“I’m Albert. I will be in so much trouble when I get back.”
Alexander was now close enough that he could read the number on the side of the chronoship. 13-B-3 – it was a Mk 13! At the current rate of development, that would put the chronoship and its pilot from about twenty to thirty years in the future.
Now, the rules of time travel: the past is fixed; the future is not. Since the pilot was from the future, everything that was taking place now was in his past – and people wondered why all the chrono-theorists were slightly mad. “Remember, from your perspective the past is fixed. Everything you do now, and everything we do in response is already locked in place.”
That seemed to be of some beneficial effect, even if it was only a placebo. Now the real issues needed dealing with. Alexander activated his emergency communications device. “Arrivals to Engineering and Health.” He waited for the beep to tell him that the device had connected with the equivalent systems held by the engineer and doctor members of the emergency support team, and both channels were now open. “We have an unscheduled emergency arrival in Mk 8 Main Hall. The pilot is injured and the chronoship is damaged.”
Two further beeps of a different frequency told him that the two were on their way. Now to keep the pilot distracted until something could be done to help him.
“When were you sent to?”
“The Selistan-Lorindian War.”
About two-hundred and fifty years ago. At that time what would become the PHEC base was just outside the main urban area of Lostrin, the main administrative centre of Selist. The city was bombed heavily by the Lorindians during the early part of the war.
“That sounds dangerous. They must trust you a great deal.”
“It’s important to learn as much about the past as we can, especially that which has been lost or forgotten. My task – can I trust you?”
Alexander smiled. “I’m part of the emergency support team for the Mk 7 tests. I wouldn’t have been appointed to this role if the chrononauts couldn’t trust me.”
It wasn’t a particularly good answer, but it was all he had. It seemed to be enough.
“I was sent to copy the paperwork in Central Records Office Three. I took longer than expected, and only just got out in time. I arrived back to the ship to find that a stray bomb had damaged it. It barely had enough energy to complete an emergency chrono-return.”
Alexander understood a little more than most. Central Records Office Three had contained the paperwork relating to the war service of hundreds of Selistan soldiers and sailors over the course of decades. Its destruction in the bombing of Lostrin had cost hundreds of families the details of their ancestor’s service. Many hundreds of men and women who had been awarded medals for bravery had no record any more of the deeds that had been honoured. As to how Alexander knew – Alexander’s father had investigated his family tree, and had discovered that his great-great-…-grandfather had received the Grand Medal of Valour, but the medal itself had gone missing, and no record pertaining to the award remained as those had been stored in Central Records Office Three, and had not been digitised prior to the war.
Then Kirsten, the head medic, arrived, and Alexander passed Albert into her care.
Soon after this Steve, the head engineer, jogged into the area.
“Steve, while Kirsten does her job, could you look at repairing the chronoship enough that the pilot can return to his own time?”
“I’ll have a go.” His smile was broad, and he headed into the Mk 13. “Why did it come now?”
“Apparently it was an emergency chrono-return. Wasn’t that something you proposed for the Mk 8?”
“It sounds like it. If they set it up like I proposed, then we should be able to repair this well enough for it to perform one more short chrono-shift. If they were careless, and haven’t adjusted the time in the emergency system from the last Mark, who knows?”
“Anything I can help you with?”
“Not yet. Hmmm. Let me see… The damage to the external hull has damaged the power supply system, and the resultant shorts have caused terminal damage to the power generation and energy storage systems. Everything else seems to be in working order.”
“Can we replace them?”
“We should be able to. The connections look to be using our current standards. We’ll need to repair some of the damage to the external hull. How much space do we have to play with before we hit the chrono-shields? Oh! They come up automatically just before the chrono-adjuster activates, and come down automatically just after the chrono-shift is complete. That’s problematic.”
“Doesn’t it make the chrononaut’s job easier?”
Chuckles erupted from inside the machine. “But it makes our job harder, as we can’t determine where the chrono-shields are before the chrono-shift. We’ll just have to return the hull to its former shape and work from there.”
“Then we’d better start. What can I get from the stores?”
Steve gave Alexander a short list. “I’ll have to get the rest.”
Alexander headed off to the stores, and removed a set of hull plates, as well as a set of tools and the mobile power unit to use them.
He returned to find that Steve had already returned, and was busy working inside the chronoship, extracting the damaged systems. “Where should I begin?”
“Could you remove the damaged hull, and weld the new hull plates to patch the hole?”
Alexander started as requested. He cut out a roughly rectangular hole in the outer hull, and removed the damaged section.
At this point Kirsten returned with Albert, and Albert was roped into assisting the repair of the hull. Kirsten was no longer needed as doctor, but remained around to serve as carrier as required.
Shortly after this Steve finished removing the damaged systems, and started to fit the replacements. Alexander knew just enough to know that the systems in these chronoships had to be installed in a specific order, or things could go horribly wrong. He didn’t know what that order was, nor which, if any, of the remaining systems Steve would need to disconnect first.
The hull fix was not, on the surface, a difficult repair. The Mk 13 hull was shaped similarly to the Mk 8, so the hull plates Alexander had collected fitted neatly in place. The problem was the welding. Alexander wasn’t a good welder, and the seals needed to be complete.
When the hull fix was complete, Steve was still working inside, and still not desiring untrained assistance.
“We could either keep the damaged pieces or send them back with you,” said Alexander. “I think that it would be best if you take them back.”
“I’m sorry,” said Kirsten. “Why shouldn’t we dispose of the damaged systems?”
“Albert, here, was sent back in time. Presumably his superiors didn’t know that this would happen, or they would have warned him in advance. While we don’t think we can change his past, we shouldn’t risk doing so. I think it best that we keep this unintended visit secret until after he returns home.”
“That makes a weird kind of sense. Do you also agree Steve?”
“Yes,” came Steve’s voice from inside. “I’ve almost finished the inside work.”
“Are you happy with this plan, Albert?” enquired Alexander.
Albert nodded.
Steve finished up, and the damaged parts of the chronoship were returned to the cabin. It didn’t leave much space for the pilot. The replacement parts took up more space than the originals around the outside of the space, and then the originals had to be stacked in the space that was left.
Everything finished, goodbyes were said, and Albert returned to his ship. He turned the power back on, and reset the chrono-adjuster to his home time, telling the others what date he had set it to, so they knew how long to keep the secret. Then he shut himself up in his cabin.
Alexander, Kirsten and Steve backed away, and once the chrono-adjuster’s power had built back up the chronoship vanished, returning the pilot back to his time.
“Right,” said Alexander. “This may happen again. We need to agree a protocol so we’re not making it up as we go along again.”
“Shall we meet tomorrow, with the rest of the emergency support team?” asked Kirsten.
They agreed.
The next day the entire emergency support team hammered out the first Future Missions Protocol.
In accordance with the protocol Alexander, Steve and Kirsten created an after-mission report for mission 13-B-3, filled in their observations and their suggestions for the future, then chrono-locked the report. It wouldn’t be visible on the system to anyone else until after the mission returned.
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Future missions protocol! A well-tested plan.
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I’m still enjoying the prompts and can keep helping with posts here if that’s the format the group wants. I want to like Discord, but tend find it overwhelming (FOMO! Must read everything! Also, where do I find anything?). Although, I said something quite similar about WordPress being overwhelming a few years ago…
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Padre cast the first pebble…
The music whispered in the silence.
[and the avalanche started rolling downhill…]
Kelly looked around and sighed. He wasn’t sure what he was doing out here, really. Oh, he knew his advisor at the music school had recommended this, and the old guy really did work some miracles, but… man, he hadn’t been camping since junior high school! And being told to go out camping because his music had died… what kind of cockeyed deal was that?
Sure, he was the golden-haired prodigy, with a list of awards already for his music. He loved to write it, and people really enjoyed it. But this last semester… something broke. He looked at the lines on the page, and… he didn’t even start. He tried playing a little tune on a piano, and… nope. He had even tried learning a new instrument, the moog synthesizer, but again, it just left him cold.
That’s when his advisor told him to get away from the school, to go out camping, and just listen. And they even set up this campsite for him. So he ate dinner cooked over a campfire, and listened to the world grow quiet. He watched the stars come out, and listened as the last rustles faded away.
As he watched the stars above him, and listened to the silence grow deeper and deeper around him, it happened. The music whispered in the silence. He could hear it, framed against the silence around him.
He listened, smiling, as the chords grew, and the tempo picked up. Soon, an entire theme emerged, and grew, and wrapped him in it.
He leaned back against the tree stump, and looked up at the stars, and his heart sang along with the music in the silence. He sniffed, and a tear escaped, a happy tear, as he contemplated the music he would write as soon as he got back from his camping trip.
Yes, his advisor was right. He needed some silence to hear the music again.
[short, but I think sweet. With apologies to Simon and Garfunkel, I kept thinking about the song The Sound of Silence…although I left that out…]
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[…] of forgotten answers. Check out her response (and more! you, too, can play along!) over at More Odds Than Ends. And if you’re enjoying these stories, feel free to leave a comment over at the MOTE site on […]
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And now mine is up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1453441.html. It was interesting to get to write a bit from a novel that is a long way down a sequence I’ve barely started.
I really hope we continue doing this next year. Back in 2020, during the worst of the pandemic, when I had the focus and attention of a squirrel that had found a cache of coffee beans, these weekly writing challenges were one of the things that kept me writing on a regular basis. And there are signs that 2024 may well become Interesting as well, so the motivation to write will be welcome.
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I’m still enjoying the challenge as well, when I can find the time. This weeks prompt came from AC Young, “Today the train was late. As a result, everything changed.”
The train was late. The train was never late. Ever since Il Duce reworked the schedules, the trains had been running on time. His leadership, and his skill with train schedules, had allowed Italy to win the Summer War in 1939. Adolf and his generals had followed his lead and repeated the success of the Franco-Prussian War, taking France before Britain could get their military in place to assist.
Italy had gone on to be the dominant world power through the rest of the century and…
And now, the train was late. And not just a couple minutes late. It was off by an hour.
No one else seemed to notice. The world went on for them as if the train arrived when it was supposed to. But Peter knew. He knew that the train was supposed to arrive at 3 PM. And now it was 4 PM and the train was pulling into the station. He was going to be late.
Or maybe he had just dreamed it. The world was as it should be. Right? The train was scheduled for 4. It always arrived at 4 for as long as he could. No. That wasn’t right. The train was supposed to be there at 3. He had memorized the train schedule in high school. And…
Peter shook his head. Maybe he was just starting to lose his memory.
He got off the train at his normal stop, exited the train station, and walked the four blocks to his house. Josephine would be waiting for him. He sighed and shook his head again. Such a crazy idea, that reality could be that fluid. The world was the way it always and if it seemed different, it was just him.
“Jo, honey! I’m home!”
She looked up at the sound of his voice. “My name is Rebecca. Who is Jo?”
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That’s kind of terrifying. Well done!
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Just to be clear, the nuclear missile spare was NOT mine. Yeah, surprised me, too.
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