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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Friday Flash Blog Hop: Galactic Traveler


The Friday Flash community is invaluable to writers who want to share their stories with the world.  It isn't easy to have your work seen when you're starting out, and through participating in this community, I have gained a lot of experience and useful knowledge about the world of writing.

This community is celebrating its 4th year of life, and they're hosting a blog hop to celebrate. You can find the details about the hop HERE.

Here is my flash fiction contribution to the blog hop.  Happy birthday FFDO!  I hope you have many more to come!

Galactic Traveler

The planet-sized creature once known as N’Pock had sailed the depths of space for four years, traversing vast distances with her fragile cargo stored safely inside her belly.  The creatures living within her body had designed and grown her for this purpose.  As their home world died, letting out its final breath in a great sigh of exhaustion, the people climbed inside N’Pock for the long journey.

N’Pock had no need of external things.  No oxygen or sunlight was required to keep her going.  Her organic systems worked in harmony with the technology that had been woven into her to produce artificial gravity, a miniature sun, and everything else the people needed to grow crops.  As time passed, the people were born, grew old, and died without ever seeing beyond N’Pock’s green, crater-pocked flesh.

So many generations had completed the cycle of life since their journey began.  N’Pock often wondered what measurement of time the people used to organize their ephemeral lives.  She marked the time by observing the galactic rotation.  This scale of time would be far too long for such short lived creatures.

Did the creatures living inside her even remember that their ancestors had built her to keep their race alive, or had that story descended into the realm of myth?  Or had they dreamt up an altogether new origin story for her?

N’Pock sailed on, aware that she would never know the answers to these questions, nor would she ever have anyone with whom to share her thoughts.

Four galactic years gone.

Soon she would pass beyond the rim of the galaxy.  How then would she mark the endless expanse of time?

10 comments:

  1. Interesting story of a people surviving with the aid of an unknown alien source. The N'Pock character is great. Writer’s Mark

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  2. I really liked this idea of telling the story from the planet-lifeboat's pov. I was a little confused though. Did the people live inside the planet or on the surface?

    Nicely done!

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    1. They're on the inside, which I tried to portray without saying it too overtly. Never an easy task while telling such a strange story. I wanted the people and N'Pock to be as cut off from one another as possible to convey a sense of loneliness.

      Thanks for stopping by! I always welcome your comments!

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  3. Neat use of time to drive the story.

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  4. I felt very sorry for N'Pock even with all those people in her she was still alone. A really interesting concept, one creature born to help others survive.

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  5. Yeah, I really liked the POV. She sounds lonely but also happy with her purpose. I found myself thinking of those giant whale fish that house other organisms in their systems, but I guess this is too one-sided to fit that analogy since all she gets is the satisfaction of her duty.

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  6. I really enjoyed this tale! An organic ship with a conscience, marking the solitary passage of time - a truly unique POV.

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  7. I think Earth must get lonely sometimes too. After all, we're just tiny parasites along for the ride. ;-)

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  8. Poor N'Pock. She needs a friend. Maybe even a mate.

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  9. Four galactic years? Hard to wrap one's head around that much time!

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