Good morning! Ready to write? Good!
Here’s your prompt. Looks like an old tube-style radio, doesn’t it? That’s probably what it is. Although, what’s going on in the background? Something interesting, perhaps? And are we sure this is just a radio? Yeah? Okay. I’ll believe you, if you tell me a good story.
Remember, 100 words only. Put your story in the comments or at your own web site with a link back here, please. I’ll get my story up more quickly this week and maybe another Phantom Sway writer or two will play along.
(Photo Credit: Pixabay)
UPDATE: Look at all the stories! Rachael and our very own Kira contributed two good stories to the comments. My own effort “We Interrupt the Present…” is over at my home site. If you’re worried about that 100-word limit, you can use the very handy wordcounter.net to keep track of the words so you don’t have to count them over and over again. We can’t wait to read your story!
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His little face was unrecognizable to the people of this world and time, and the realization hit like a ton of bricks.
“They think I’m some sort of appliance,” he said to himself, remembering with a dark chuckle that his kind had initially mistaken us for a popular breakfast item, which explains Roanoake.
His new challenge, as a superior intelligence, was to communicate with what for all the universes seemed to him still to be a planet full of popular breakfast items.
“Hello,” he said to a passing woman in his best French.
As he was unplugged, she immediately fainted.
Day 153. Still no change. Locked in our bunker, supplies running low and hope running even lower.
What had happened to… everyone? Were there any other survivors? Is there even a world left worth surviving for?
I’ve watched my family slip away from me one at a time. First Sandra, still just as pretty as the day we were married. Then the kids.
Now it’s just me. Alone. Waiting for… hell I don’t even know anymore. That was when the radio started to crackle and buzz.
“Hello?” A voice muttered.
“Is anyone else out there?”
Hope.
John wiped dust off radio and plopped it on his work bench. I’ll have to check it out and see if it works later, he thought to himself. He recently finished sorting his Grandmother’s estate and found this hidden in the house. No use wasting it, he thought.
“37 14 3.6,” said a voice. He turned around quickly.
“What?” John looked around, it off with no power.
“-115, 48, 23.99,” the voice said the second time. It was coming from the radio.
“What are these numbers?”
The voice said, “It is where you must go. Right now.”
So, he left.
Waking up from the first peaceful sleep I’ve had in an eternity, my eyes opened to take in the realization that the Hell around me hadn’t changed. Still no sun. No moon. It’s cold. It’s always been this cold, I suppose, but for some reason today felt colder than usual.
I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I was, I don’t know where I’m going. Every day is the same.
Except today.
Today I found you – a relic of a future past, a voice box of yesterday giving me a map for tomorrow.
Today, you bring hope.
I stood and stared at the heap of items in front of me on the sidewalk.
One photo album filled with pictures of old drinking buddies and Naval travels that probably were all a lie anyway.
His “World’s best dad” mug he drank out of when he visited on weekends.
His father’s old radio…or was that a lie too?
30 years, I wondered why my father could never live with us…only visit.
Now I know we were the “secret” family, and his love was as fake and distant as the voices from that old tube radio.
“Hey.” It was faint, but insistent. “Down here.” Abbie looked around to make sure no one saw her leaning to the old radio as if she were preparing to receive a whispered secret from a child. “They’re watching you.” It said.
She shivered. Though it made no logical sense, Abbie knew exactly what the radio was trying to tell her. This had been happening more often lately. First it was the toaster, then the vacuum. She scanned the junk shop to find a thin man studying her. His eyes weren’t right. He resumed his sweeping as she walked quickly away.