30 Days of Flash Fiction: Day One "Hello"

[lilfluff]

I ran across Ravenswept's 30 Days of Flashfic after following a link about one of the stories aldersprig did for it. After giving it some thought I've decided to give it a try.

My 30 Days of Flashfic Index Page

The first day's prompt is: Write a scene saying “hello”

The directions say to go for 250 words +/1 50. The word count is reporting back 299 which is on the heavy end. But as my first draft clocked in at 365 words. More under the post cut.




"I don't know Alicia it seems so, impersonal."

"It's got precedent, from back on Old Earth even."

"Maybe so, but Melissa's got a point. It feels wrong." Before Alica could answer him, he added. "It does? I've never heard about anything like this."

"It's in the course syllabus, Richard. They were called Practice Babies. Students cared for babies from local orphanages. This kid will get cared for and we get credit hours for it. That's a win-win, right?"

"Richard's got a point too. The poor kid ought to be adopted, not pawned off on us like some sort of lab kit."

"I sure hope neither of you plan on treating the kid like a lab kit. Have you considered they're probably bringing them from out west?"

Melissa gave a questioning look before continuing. "After their experiment giving slavery and civil wars a try again there probably aren't that many homes or orphanage beds to go around."

"I guess--" The door chime interrupted to announce someone was at the door.

Their professor waited with a young boy at his side. Strawberry blond hair suggested Alicia was right about where the boy was from. He smiled shyly as Professor Burns lead him in.

"Thomas, this is Melissa, Alicia and Richard. They will be taking care of you for the next year."

Thomas looked around quickly, then let his eyes fall as he bowed and quietly greeted them. "Hello... Thank you for taking me."

Melissa stepped forward, squatting and lifting his chin with a fingertip. Alica was correct again it seemed. A tan line suggested where a collar had once rested. Worse, were marks she remembered reading were the from frequent punishment shocks.

Forcing down the sudden fury she felt, Melissa smiled instead. "Hello Thomas. Welcome to your new home."


***


Hey, only one use of an ellipses and one dash in the whole thing. I think I normally use too many of those. Only problem, I may have a woobie in the works there. Hopefully jeriendhal will remember the number for the Woobie support hotline. That, or maybe the emergency cuddle number for Wazaga's Phox.

Pondering the prompt I suddenly had a bit I'd heard a few months back about practice babies, and a recent attempt to track down people who had been practice babies, came to mind. Characters and setting weren't pre-existing, and might or might not be revisited for later days.

Comments

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Well, sounds good to me. :)

Only thing I had problems with reading was this sentence: "Worse, were marks she remembered reading were the from frequent punishment shocks." I think it may be the word "the" in there that is making it difficult for me...?

mjkj

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Oh, creepy. I wonder what his story is?

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Ouch, yes there was originally a "the" in there. That paragraph is probably the one that got trimmed the most. It was originally almost three times as long.

I think it was a good experience to do some merciless trimming to get to 300 or fewer words, but all the same I think I'm going to be a touch more flexible from here out (heck, even the one who came up with the list said they broke the word limit by the fourth prompt).

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Well, I was inventing the world and characters as I went so there isn't anything set in stone. But my inclination at the moment is that his story is pretty much that is sucks to be on the 'prisoner' side of a real life version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. Which is to say he was hurt because the people around him knew that they could. Dared to whine about something, punish the boy. Spilled something, punish the boy. Annoyed at your hangover, punish the boy. Bad news about the course of the war, punish the boy.

Considering I learned about the Stanford and Milgram experiments and the like when I was fairly young, it's sometimes surprising to me that I can be both optimistic about people as was as pretty pessimistic (hearing about say, Abu Ghriab, wasn't really that big a surprise to me).

[mjkj.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok...

Wow that was quite the shortening then... :)

May I suggest changing the word "the" into "there" or remove it then that sentence, fits better for me - or maybe change the whole sentence?:
"Worse, there were marks, she remembered reading, that were (there) from frequent punishment shocks."

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The setting intrigues me.

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Having finally done a second piece the world building urge is kicking in. At the moment all I really have is that it's a world colonized from Earth, with at least the country Alicia, Melissa, and Richard are going to college in; and a failed nation to the west (to which at least the first country has said, "Okay, we're tired of having a giant hornet's nest next door, since you kids can't take care of yourselves were stepping in to give you some adult supervision."). That and the western nation(s) apparently have a higher rate of light red hair than elsewhere.

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

I keep having this desire to cross'verse this with one of my settings... :-D

(it's the red hair and slavery)

[lilfluff.livejournal.com]

Heh. Still deciding whether the prominence of red hair is a result of the Founder's Effect or intentionally worked into the gene pool.

So far I've pretty much decided that the charter for the colony that settled of the Western continent was PR spun as, "Woohoo! The government will stay off the citizens backs," but to anyone who actually bothered to read it said, "The government will stay off the backs of the citizens by which we mean those who made the earliest and largest investments into to colony corporation. The rest of you are paying for the privilege of being peasants. You did read this, right? Isn't it wonderful that the colonization authority will let us write just about nearly anything we want short of human sacrifice into a charter? Isn't it even more wonderful that Earth is so crowded and scummy by nor that some of you will actually still pay for the privilege even after bothering to read this? Yeah, we thought so too."

Also a "Long Night" story in that after about two-three generations in there's no more communications or visiting ships from Earth. Nor from other colonies since this world was a good ways out on the frontier.

[aldersprig.livejournal.com]

Heh, good question.

I want to play in your setting!!