Saturday, January 19, 2013

FFP #6 - Commuter Belt

This week I am participating in +Becket Moorby's Flash Fiction Project, which is using images as daily writing prompts.

And, I am days behind....

This was Friday's image, courtesy of Jenny Downing via Flickr Creative Commons (Attribution Link).



"Don't you see Conrad," Conrad's smart and very human assistant said, "if we can predict the future then where is the hope? The curiosity? Where does that leave our ability to imagine a brighter tomorrow? To create our own future rather than one that is ready-built for us?"

Conrad stopped a moment, shook the nearly empty canteen and offered what remained to his daughter. But he knew she wouldn't stop talking about it until he acquiesced.

"We have to go back," she said, "We have to undo what we've done."

Conrad tilted his head and looked at her through his blue-tinted glasses.

"Ellen, regardless that we go back and undo our work, there is 99% certainty that someone else will invent 'it'. So why not continue on? We have just invented the one thing that humans have desired since the beginning of time."

Ellen dropped her head, still hoping she could find the right words that would reach the man whom she knew as her father. She took the canteen from his outstretched titanium hand, and for a moment felt guilty for drinking the last of the water. Until she remembered that Conrad was the machine she wanted to disassemble.
<word count: 200>

1 comment:

Parabolic Muse said...

This is fabulous! I find myself thinking a million thoughts about it. That's a great effect.