Your mission: to use the picture as inspiration to write a story using 100 words, no more no less.
A story:
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Dusk. We’ve come from the fields, washing up at the handpump. The women have been cooking on the outdoor stove. Grandma lights the coal oil lamps. We tuck into the food sitting out under the green-tinged summer night sky. Grandpa refuses to look up.
“I ‘member the first night of that damned goblin’ light. Even have a picture of it hovering over the bay …” Grandpa’s voice hitches, “I ‘member television, radios, computers …”
“Pops,” Dad’s voice is calm, “It’s alien but it’s here to stay. We’re never getting back electricity.”
“…the day the cars stopped and planes fell from the sky.”
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Professor Camden clicked the button to advance the next slide. He looked at his students. “This is the Noroshii tree. It is said to have hypnotic qualities. You must not look too long lest you be lost in it.”
Another class, another day. Professor Camden clicked the button. “This is the Noroshii tree. It hypnotic is. You must not look or lost.”
Another class. Professor Camden clicked. “This is Noroshii. It is hypnotic. You must look long and be lost.”
Another class. Noroshii clicked the button. “This is Professor Camden. He is not hypnotic. He looked long and was lost.”
“Hurry, the night show is starting.”
“I hope it’s not an opera again.”
“I still don’t understand how they do it, lights and music from the sky.”
“Isn’t it wonderful, Grandma?”
‘Yes, it is dear.”
“Did they have anything like this when you were a girl?”
“Well, we had a light shows at theme parks, but, no, nothing like this.”
I watched the Aurora creatures take Johnson. The screams were horrible, until his pressure suit cracked and his body bent in three different directions, all wrong.
He was the last of the First Wave. They had lived in the Venus hell atmosphere for 2 years, in pressure suits alone, while they built Bubble City Alpha. I was a fourth wave. Lived in BC Gamma, pure luxury as I remember it, compared to that Earthside prison slum I grew up in.
All the BC’s are gone now. We are the remnant, living like the First Wavers, but without hope. They pick us off one by one, and we don’t even know where they came from. Not much time now. I leave this record for the next Wave. We’ve been to—
This was unforeseen by everyone, especially the scientists. For some unknown reason the planet began to, at first, wobble, tilt and then change its rotation. What was once East was now North. The only clue was the sky glowing green, even in daylight.
While everyone’s focus was on the change they came. Without warning, hovering worldwide over our skies massive objects impenetrable to all our most advanced detection systems just appeared.
Not to be left out the ineffectual UN called for meetings. What was the need, the threat was from above or was it a not a threat. Nobody knows.
I laid peacefully in my backyard hammock, looking up into the starry night, watching the northern lights flicker in the heavens above me. It made me feel small, insignificant, humbled and amazed at the vast universe and the amazement of being alive on this tiny blue dot in a sea of inky blackness. The beauty of the night sky overwhelms your brain. It does get one to thinking, are we alone? Is any one out there? Is there some other creature on another planet far far away looking at his corner of the sky wondering the same thing right now?
Hope you don’t mind a second entry.
We lay in moist grass, no blanket needed, anticipating the darkness. Northern Lights always amazed me now I got to watch them with a girl. Late I learned that this was her first time watching them with a boy. We talked about growing up, school and summer camp. I barely remember most of it. And then as darkness fell the sky brightened. Looking through the trees we pointed out shapes to each other. She saw it first, the heart shape then she reached for my hand. I flinched. I’d never held a girl’s hand before then I saw her eyes……
The Northern lights, he said. Where do they come from? Why are they there? Is someone trying to tell us something? My gosh, they’re fantastic!
It’s a magnetic thing, she said offhandedly. Nothing to get really excited about.
But, he said, look at them. There’s more going on than magnetic stuff.
She looked at him critically. If you’re going to go on and on, we should just leave.
And with that, the spell she had cast on him was broken.
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