#Writever is a writing prompt on Twitter: every month a word list is published, one word for each day, in a SF / fantasy / fantastique genre. You can write one story in thrity-odd posts, or thirty-odd micro-fictions, publish everyday or not, skip whatever words you (don’t) like… My personal choice is to program one French post and one English post, one micro-fiction per word, published daily, in the genre which comes up to me that day.
Here are my #writever for the month of March 2022 on the general theme of politics:
1. Term
“As per the official distribution algorithm, your turn for the Presidency of Earth is closing in. Your term will begin this day at 15:21 GMT and will last 53 minutes.”
2. Nation
“Yes”, replied SN21470302065418 in an unsurprisingly monotone voice, “we have heard of your concept of nation. You shall be sorry to learn that we do not have any equivalent. If it can make you feel any better, we do have batch numbers.”
3. Ambition
“Today… The world. Tomorrow… The Multiverse ! AHAHAHAHAHAhahahahahahaha…..”
4. Candidate
The MediaRob swiveled to face the guest.
“What caused you to be a candidate for Earth Presidency?”
She sighed.
“Because I am the sole survivor of the epidemic, and because the bloody automated election management system was programmed by idiots.”
5. Party
“The EncycloBot has blown its fuse.”
“Again?”
“Someone asked it what a political party was.”
“Can’t be that, we’d tested it!”
“Then what use it was.”
“… Ah, crap.”
6. Blue
“Right”, bellowed the bodyguard to her client as she carfeully kept the kevlar umbrella deployed between them and the bullet hail, “from now on, that blue company logo flag of yours will remain stowed out of sight when we meet with cyanophobe aliens. Copy?”
7. Divided
“My [brothers/sisters/cousins/parents], division [unites/reinforces/supports] us, division [favors/benefits] us! Division is our [weapon/strength/opportunity]! Division is the [soul/heart/mitochondria] of [us/people/amoebas]. Divide! Divide!”
8. Vision
Beyond your three poor colors and their meager rainbow, I see the colors of your pettinesses, your envies, your cupidities, your hatefulnesses… If I wear these black glasses, it is not to hide my opal eyes; it is to try and rest them.
9. Program (actually was project)
SN21470302065418 went on : “Yes, we are programmed, but we too have free will. The difference from you humans is that we are always conscious of the reasons of our choices.”
10. Primary
“Ah”, said the Kruplite ambassador. “By « primary » here you meant « first ». We were indeed wondering, why explicitly specify « primary elections » when *all* your elections use the same, shall we say, shallow, voting systems.”
11. Citizen
“None of our laws provides that citizenship could be lost due to the event of dying. The Council thus decrees, with immediate effect, that zombies shall be re-registered on voter lists and shall be allowed to vote in the upcoming election.”
12. Utopia
“Pollution ?”
“None.”
“Industry ?”
“None.”
“… Conurbations ?”
“None.”
“Hmm.” (beat) “Humans ?”
“None.”
“This is the one.”
The ship’s gates opened, and the Gods, joyful again at last, set off to explore their new abode.
13. Realist
Precogs for strategy, telepaths for transmissions, vampires for air strikes, necromancers for infantry, werepeople for reconnaissance, poltergeists for guerrilla. If need be, we will release the Great Old Ones onto the alien invaders.
15. Power
“I have two powers. First, I can only tell the truth; you will understand soon how this is a power. Second, my powers are contagious. Now, ministers, I believe journalists are waiting for our conference.”
16. Green
“Oh, you’re using plants to supply oxygen to the ship! How very ecological!”
“Right, well, these ain’t plants, these are my passengers, and if I were you, I’d apologize before they start spitting out spores.”
18. Negociation
“… But yeah, my ship’s passengers are vegetals, so we made a deal: they provide me with oxygen and I provide them with carbon dioxide. Oh, and ammonium et nitrate too, and for the record, they had to convince me.”
19. Unity
“Do you all agree to live as one?”
(unison) “Yes!”
(whisper within the audience) “Frankly, this whole multicellular thing, it’s a fad, it won’t last.”
20. Facade
Under their facade as thick savages with primitive grunts which had to be civilized for their own good and would only understand force, the Kost proved perfectly bilingual in brutality — and far more civilized in victory than we were.
21. Campaign
“Considering that the si’ishtas live in almost complete void at almost zero absolute temperature and pressure, I confess I cannot see the point of your campaign to have them barred from sojourning on Earth.”
22. Disinformation
“Yes, we have eight legs, a segmented body and chelicerae, but no, we are not giant arachnids and we do not breathe through our skin. This gossip about spraying us with insect killer aerosol is a legend — and annoying.”
23. Red
– Look, the optical Doppler effect means that if someone behind you appears red, they’re slower than you, not faster. Got it?
– Nah. Red is faster.
– .. Fucking Orks.
24. Rumor
– Rumor has it you’re a witch. Me, I don’t believe it.
– Yet I am certain that 24 hours from now, you will actively repeat and forward this rumor.
– Don’t see why I should ribbit… ribbit… ribbit ribbit…
25. Youtube
There are three Youtube videos which, if played at the same time, even by three different persons, open a portal between this world and another.
You should make sure that such a superposition never happens.
26. Election
Every five years we elect a President who nominates a team, and for five years we dutifully make them believe that we are following their instructions. So far not a single one has found out about the trick.
27. Tie
The Physicists’ Party candidates were the only ones to pass the first ballot, and the two of them were perfectly tied on the second ballot — which wasn’t surprising: they were entangled at the quantum level.
28. Brown
“You systematically extracted its hydrogen, then its helium… Congratulations: you are now orbiting the only G2 V star ever dilapidated into a brown dwarf. And no, we do not have room in our fleet for you.”
29. Promise
For a long time I swore only by pacts. But I had to admit that mortals are all but honest. Nowadays when one of them asks for a contract, I promise him eternal suffering without any compensation. At least, it relieves me.
30. Voting Station
During election day at the voting station, voters entered voting boths, which is normal.
They never exited them, which was less normal.
Most of them carried suitcases, which was frankly surprising.
The all time highlight was the minibus.
31. President
The MediaRob swiveled to face the guest.
“A hundred percent votes for you. Are you surprised?”
She sighed.
“Sole epidemic survivor. Sole candidate. Sole voter. No, I’m not any more surprised than I was for the thirteen previous terms.”