Prompt: A 30-something man, a disappointment to his father, has just graduated nursing school. He goes to meet his father at his golf club to give him the good news.
Simon rolled up his sleeve and checked the injection site: purple and swollen. It was splotchy too. He didn’t suffer those side effects last time. He stopped just outside the golf course’s black iron gates and took a deep breath. It hurt, but it didn’t matter. This was the last round of his treatment. Continue reading
The devices changed everything, allowing disasters to be frozen in progress, resulting in countless saved lives. It takes dedicated people to work as rescue miners, tunneling into the paused time to extract the petrified people. A bomb has gone off, and there might be something strange going on deep inside the solidified smoke and flame…
(reading time: 54 minutes)
Paused Fire
By
Blaine Arcade
My pager went off. Both our faces forgot what emotions they were supposed to express and sunk. Our perfect moment shattered by that obnoxious beeping. Why did it have to be now? Why did whatever maniac blowing up whichever politician pick now? It’s as if our moment was his countdown. Drop to one knee… 3. Open the blue velvet box with the paused water ring that cost me four months’ pay… 2. Ask her ‘will you marry me?’… 1. Boom. Pause.
50 hours until crystallization Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 