A man, clad in space suit, sits alone, bathed in the wash of light from a holofield counting his minutes to the memories of histories gone. Many interesting holo-vids of ancient space exploration captures dance about in a 3-meter by 3-meter sphere around him. His silhouette breaks the image behind himself, and there is no sound to match the footage; he is in a hostile environment, completely sealed from the outside.
Unclad spacers smile. Their chatter continues unevenly amidst exchanged opinions and laughs, but he doesn't hear them, neither from without nor within his helmet; the audio reciever was set to the mute function.
He had curled his knees to his chest earlier. Amidst the alien rock, the grit, shreds of plastic, ablative and steel construction, he was his own sole company save the hulking face of a heavily corroded rock devoid of dust. His cold-chilled fingers dragged their hardcap-tips across his visor. That was one of few sounds he did hear, from within his closed world. The dust brought with his gauntleted hands gingerly held to the smoothed visor wherever a scratch of its outer layer sat, but with little effort even his idle body shook the fine stratum free.
He had curled his knees to his chest earlier. Amidst the alien rock, the grit, shreds of plastic, ablative and steel construction, he was his own sole company save the hulking face of a heavily corroded rock devoid of dust. His cold-chilled fingers dragged their hardcap-tips across his visor. That was one of few sounds he did hear, from within his closed world. The dust brought with his gauntleted hands gingerly held to the smoothed visor wherever a scratch of its outer layer sat, but with little effort even his idle body shook the fine stratum free.
My second entry features another space theme, but this time it's a murder:
Drasniki placed the upturned pot upon the man's skull, only to suddenly thrash against its face with a clenched fist. A superhuman vigor held his limbs and each slam brought horrendous pain to his victim; blood sprang free from his battering hand as flesh and bone alike shattered with every consecutive hit to the inward-dented pot.
And before the slender spacer could come to his senses, the man was dead and his crimson hand had swollen, slick with sticky blood. His thin lungs exhaled with wheezing contractions drawn as evenly as a weakling manning the bellows.
The moment lingered in an unsettling way. Wiry Drasniki was not in the room where his body stood; he did not see the flurry of his coiled fist; he did not witness the wracking bruise of his limb; he did not accept his actions, nor the repercussions of his deed. He sucked air from the scene, standing utterly still as a tick bit at his skull. Its itch gnawed at his scalp, whispering things to his head.
A man had died.
A life was taken.
He had hurt.
His panting shallowed and his eyes stole a hazy focus.
A man had died.
He had taken a life.
He had hurt a man.
The spacer held his breath with the bite of his lip. It was his fault. All of it. With a last, long-drawn and shuttering exhale, the spacer held his left hand before personal scrutiny. His discoloured fingers wouldn't move. A shot of intense pain wracked his entire arm as he attempted to turn his wrist and wiggle his battered digits. His other hand still tightly clenched the silicon panhandle of the pot now firmly stuck to his victim's skull. With no volition of his own would it budge and he was quick to let go, instead turning to attend to his thoroughly broken limb with ginger hesitation.
My third entry featured a man threatened by some vague "orcish" character, where the genre presented could still be considered ambiguous:
"Merry, merry, merry man! Haha! Shriek, scream, and die!" The orcish thing knew; oh it knew so well its favorite activities: death, dismemberment, and destruction. Brilliant pass-times for those chaotic, lame sort.
Blair clung to the shadow of the stone arch. The beast was near, and he could not be found, for death would surely take him. His white-handed grip tightened around his beaten crowbar, sprung tight with energy. Its footsteps drew ever nearer, and each plod upon the worked stone floor drew Blair's swing tighter and tighter. It was coming; he could smell its foul odor now, something beyond recollection, something alien.
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Afterward, for further interesting value, I combined all three and submitted the cumulative mass, of which my result returned to Harry Harrison. Very interesting, though I must shamefully admit I'm not familiar with too much of his work, however 'The Stainless Steel Rat' seems very much my cup of tea.
Any of you few lot interested in posting your results?
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