The gauntlet's been thrown! Continue this prompt in 200 words or less...

8/23/2012

the gauntlet has been thrown

I've been in Brownsville Texas doing some talks, so I didn't notice right away that Jaynes had thrown down a gauntlet.

I had written about how writers might choose to describe scenery. Or, they could instead have their characters interact with scenery as they would another character. So just for fun I dashed off my first and only attempt at science fiction. (I write mysteries, remember!!!).

So Jaynes wrote:
"I would be amused if everyone took a shot at a paragraph describing what happened next with the pebble. I think I sense some other writers responding on this blog. We could see how we measure up to your talent...Little friendly competition..."

DONE! GAUNTLET ACCEPTED! I've given you the prompt--now you can write the next paragraph. Tell us what those "pebbles" really are!

"As Larry stepped cautiously down from his craft, his boot sunk a little deeper down into Gale Crater than he had expected. What he had thought would be thickly-layered bedrock was actually more sponge-like in its composition. This was not the first time the Motherland's Minister of Science had been wrong about a planet. He kicked one of the many brown pebbles strewn across the landscape. "It's going to take me forever to get to Mount Sharp," he muttered to himself. "Why'd the General tell me to land here? The mountain's at least three kilometers to the north." He checked the temperature gauge on his suit. 46 degrees. "Geez, it's dropped at least 10 degrees since I landed." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw one of the pebbles move. "Uh, oh." He groaned. "That's no pebble!"

Well...if it's not a pebble...what the heck is it? You tell me!

17 Comments

Matt

8/23/2012 12:52:41 pm

"That's no pebble...it's a space station."
"It's too small to be a space station" laughed Commander Hank Duo as he bent over for a closer look.
"No!" shouted Larry, but it was too late. Duo was gone.

[Recycled Awfulness!]

Susie link

8/24/2012 01:55:12 pm

Hmmm...this seems a bit familiar. Nice!

Jeff Porten link

8/23/2012 04:36:44 pm

Right back atcha, Susie. :-)

* * * * *

Elsewhere, Gail pushed her chair back from her desk, and rested her forehead on its cool surface. Her twelfth attempt at generating a human-level artificial intelligence was unraveling before her eyes, and she couldn't begin to determine why. As had happened with Keith and Jerry, the errors were coming from the theoretical environment, not from the intelligence itself.

Dr. Crater reached towards the theremin to rewind the model back, try to find its flaws, but accidentally knocked over the bowl of candies that kept her awake through late nights in the lab. She absent-mindedly reached for one to put it back in the bowl, still focused on the glowing screen. She failed to notice the candy skittering away....

chris*

8/24/2012 05:09:16 am

Theremin? I think your version, Jeff, builds into an interesting screenplay.

8/24/2012 02:05:18 pm

Jeff, cool stuff. Nice turnaround! Where's your novel? (or as Chris* says, screenplay.)

And hey, I had to look up what a theremin is. Who knew? An instrument that plays without being touched! Those crazy Russian physicists! :-)

9/8/2012 12:49:08 pm

Whoa! Now I want to know what happened to the candy! And 'skittering' made me think of 'skittles' and made me hungry for more.

8/24/2012 05:04:22 am

@Matt, thanks Matt. I laughed so hard I dropped my iPad.

Jaynes

8/24/2012 06:59:51 am

Oh boy...gauntlets are being thrown...time to bring my "A" game. My entry will be placed shortly....

8/24/2012 02:06:13 pm

Yup, I'm waiting!

8/28/2012 02:05:03 am

He instinctively stepped back towards the ship like a frightened child to a mother. In front of him, the ground erupted in a cloud of red dust and rocks. A massive sink hole opened spewing white vapor into the thin Martian sky. Larry gripped the short ladder frame with both hands unable to move. He felt the ship bounce under the ground assault unfolding in front of him. A massive brown scissor claw the size of his ship reached out of the dust clouded depths. It rose into the sky blocking his view and came back down slamming into the cargo bay of the ship. The ship rocked under the devastation, throwing Larry on his back to the ground. He looked up as the claw reared up and slammed into the ship’s cabin. Larry heard twisting metal over his helmet external microphone. Several holographic images flashed red in front of his helmet. His suit was torn. Using a hand motion, he moved the images from his field of view, but one image in blue caught his eye. Oxygen was coming from the sinkhole! He jumped to his feet holding his right hand over the suit opening. Larry ran bounding towards the sinkhole and jumped. As he cleared the edge, a massive head rose up…

9/8/2012 12:50:10 pm

Tell me more about this massive head!!!

8/28/2012 06:30:11 am

awesome! So apparently I'll need to have regular installments of "Larry, Invader of Mars." or as Jeff says above, "Dr. Crater and the Theramin."

bekerys

9/8/2012 03:17:06 am

"No, " he said to himself. "Not a pebble--pebbles can't move by themselves. So it has to be alive." He focused his attention on the pebble, now moving again, in a random pattern, darting back and forth. He held his hand out to it, thinking of his cats back home. "Besides,I had those three xenobiology classes back at the Academy--they should be good for something!"

He was wondering if he could name the new life-form after himself, and what sort of paperwork and proof would be required, when a shadow appeared on the ground in front of him. Surprised, Larry turned to see what could be casting the shadow, and his surprise turned to terror as a huge pebble, over 10 feet high, moved rapidly torward him. His last thoughts as the "pebble" landed on him were that it was unwise to get between a mother and its offspring, and that he would never get to name his pebble.

A while later, in a quiet and low-key ceremony, the Journal of Intergalactic Biology published a new entry into the Lifeforms Registry: Giganticus Lawrencius Pebblius, sp." Larry's Giant Pebble.

9/8/2012 04:41:21 am

Bekerys--ha ha! that's hilarious! I should definitely make "complete the prompt" a regular feature on my blog :-)

9/9/2012 06:13:48 am

I absolutely agree!

9/8/2012 12:47:53 pm

This is great. I laughed out loud, but I wish there was a quicker way to express that sentiment! When I read Giganticus Lawrencius Pebbilus, I imagined the old coyote/roadrunner cartoon where the action would pause on the coyote and say something like "Eatibus Anythingis" or "Appetitis Giganticus." I hope at the ceremony that they did something similiar for poor Larry.

9/9/2012 06:12:27 am

I hear that at the ceremony, Larry's mom spoke very eloquently, and the General who sent him on the mission was the one who insisted the Pebble be named for Larry. Of course the General was very busy beforehand, trying to make peace with the Pebble People who Larry traumatized by trying to touch one of their children. But that is another story for another day....

The gauntlet's been thrown! Continue this prompt in 200 words or less...

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Susanna Calkins

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