All those endless days spent analyzing and listening and fretting over every radio signal captured by Arecibo had broken my enthusiasm. The drone of static rising and fading; the computer graphics spiking and falling; the unrelenting sameness of it all had me on the brink of screaming!
The beach beckoned. I spent a day frolicking in the surf and frying in the sun.
I nearly dropped the conch shell I held to my ear. Its rhythmic static was breathtakingly familiar. I know what the universe is telling us from the vast ocean of space.
“Come on in, the water’s fine!”
Deven D Atkinson is a computer programmer living in rural Southern Ohio. Besides appearences at Every Day Fiction he has a story in “The Infinity Swords” anthology to be published by Carnivah House.
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16 Responses to “MY DAY OFF FROM THE SETI PROJECT • by Deven D Atkinson”
Comments
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August 22nd, 2008 at 1:39 am
So crazy its brilliant!
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:02 am
Deven:
Short but sweet. I like it.
K.C.
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:45 am
A brilliant wake-up call to a dawning Friday!
Bonnie!
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 am
Ditto that Bonnie!
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:29 am
A conch-ousness of the wonders of nature, to be sure.
August 22nd, 2008 at 6:41 am
clever, interesting mini-story
August 22nd, 2008 at 7:16 am
Who’d have thought you could handle a topic this big in so few words? Very amusing, Deven.
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:48 am
I knew there were aliens in my conch shell!
Concise and sweet, Devon.
–dj
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:26 am
Refreshing!
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:43 am
As above, so below.
Sweet, Deven. I like what you said in so few words.
August 22nd, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thanks for the kind comments, everyone. It was a lot of fun squeezing this story into 100 words. I am pleased others like it as much as I do.
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:13 am
If only NASA had that point of view!
August 22nd, 2008 at 11:18 am
Excellent use of very few words. Well done.
August 26th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Love it. Words of wisdom in a short, creative piece
August 27th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Wonderful. You know, you could probably turn this into an excellent poem if you tried.
August 29th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Steve: I was consciously aware of a natural rhythm when I did my first edit pass. Camille, here at EDF, is great at suggesting paragraph breaks that give micro-flash stories poetic like pauses, but I didn’t make the connection. I guess I was too focused on making it a drabble.
You are right. Perhaps when the time comes to try and sell this as a reprint, I’ll format it in free verse.