Tag: science fiction

Warning Signs

809158

My boss handed me an assignment: design a warning sign for nuclear waste that will make sense to anyone digging it up a million years from now.
My first few efforts focused on skulls, crossbones, frowny faces, festering zombies, and other symbols of slow, painful death.
Then, I realized. If these people of the future don’t understand simple English, that means our country’s been conquered by China. Or overwhelmed by those Mexican immigrants.
Well, screw that. This is my country, dammit.
That’s when I started drawing smiley faces and people with shovels, happily digging, and pouring barrels over their heads.

Punchy

799314

Twenty-two years ago, The Champion died in a plane crash.
The Boxing Association had enough of his DNA on file to let us grow and train a copy.
But not before Fights Incorporated got their own samples.
After a generation of hungry contenders, the Boxing World was taken by a storm of Champions.
Evenly matched in the ring in all ways but one: their training.
We had trained him before, so we knew his weaknesses.
Our champion came out on top, and he held the belt over his head in triumph.
We made sure he and the belt flew separately.

The Asteroid

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Astronomers spotted the asteroid last week.
It didn’t take long to figure out it was coming this way.
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
The governments of the world called for calm.
The police of the world tried to maintain order.
They failed. The people rioted.
That’s when someone remembered that the great science fiction authors had met with NASA to construct a plan.
But NASA had shelved the project and couldn’t find the report.
Harlan Elisson was the last one alive.
They went to his house, found he had shot himself, and read the simple note:
“Fuck you all.”

Catering

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Usually, when there’s a big company-wide conference call, they bring in pizza or boxed lunches.
However, this time, they brought in crates full of glowing ham-sized seed-pods to put on every employee’s forehead.
“Hell no,” I said. “I’m not going to let you mess with my brain like that.”
The secretary put the pod away and handed me a box lunch.
The box had T on W written on it. Sure enough, inside was a turkey on wheat with a side of coleslaw.
Of course, the bitch didn’t say anything about the nanoprobes.
I mean, Unit Seventy regrets any insult.

Problem causing

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It’s not easy to teach problem solving skills to kids, but it’s something that they need to learn to get through life.
However, in order for them to solve problems, there need for there to be problems for them to solve.
There’s a problem with that: There are no problems anymore.
Maybe back in the old Twenty-First Century, there were problems, but not now.
However, in case a problem does come up, they need to be able to solve it.
So, we tell them about problems from back then.
And they laugh. Because it’s so absurd.
Try solving that problem.

Oatmeal and Raisins

600154

We shut down the particle accelerator, turn off the lights and call it a day.
Back in the break room, a food fight breaks out. We’re throwing cookies at each other.
Smashed cookies litter the floor.
And then, upon closer inspection…
“Wait,” says Dr. Thompson. “These are plain oatmeal cookies, right?”
“Right,” says his assistant.
“Then where did all these raisins come from?”
He picks one up, and begins to theorize on cookie particles in other dimensions, crossing over with energy transformation.
Then he tastes it.
And makes a horrible face.
I shrug and call the exterminator.
“We’ve got rats.”

Foot Fungus

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Dr. O’Grady had been seeing the patient for a decade, treating his chronic foot fungus as best as he could.
He never cured it, but it never progressed beyond those two toes, so that was something, right?
The coroner quietly ushered him into the morgue.
“He was your patient, so I thought it best that you see him,” he whispered.
“Why are we whispering?” asked O’Grady.
The coroner pulled up the sheet to reveal a roughly human-shaped glob of deep red fungus.
“I’m not sure he… it is dead,” said the coroner. “And I don’t want to wake it up.”

What wine goes with pterodactyl?

605029

I look up at the display on the wall to see that the time machine is back from the ancient past.
Just a few minutes to match atmospheres, and they’ll unload the goods.
The last time, they brought back statues from Atlantis, but this run was for me.
It’s a part of the contract. I fund the research and pay the electric bills, and they keep the kitchen stocked.
Tonight, we dine on roasted pterodactyl.
Not quite like snake, maybe a bit like alligator.
Perhaps we should fry it?
I select a deep red wine from the cellar and grin.

Banana Pancakes

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I asked for banana pancakes, but what I got was a plate with pancakes wrapped around unpeeled bananas.
The AutoChef still needs some work.
Sure, it gets simple things like oatmeal, coffee and tea right. Dispensing pre-mixed isn’t a challenge at all. Just inject with the right amount of hot water, shake well, and pour.
But anything beyond basics results in something like this plate of pancake-wrapped bananas or a bowl of toxic mush.
Another thing we’ve got right is the AutoChef’s fragile ego. Insult the food, and it chases you with a cleaver.
No. Really. It’s nice toxic mush.

Forgetful

605016

Despite his many failures in all fields of Science, Dr. Odd maintains his keen sense of irony.
His greatest triumph in botany was the splicing and resequencing the DNA of forget-me-not flowers to cause them to naturally produce a compound similar to GHB.
One whiff of the flowers would prevent two to four hours of memory from sticking to the brain.
Dr. Odd forgot to wear a filter mask during his research, so even with extensive notes, it took years to complete.
And when he finished these sinister frankenflowers, he couldn’t remember that he invented them in the first place.