Micro SF/F by O. Westin

The alien fleet appeared suddenly and entered Earth's orbit. A message was broadcast, in thousands of languages

"Greetings! We are the Interstellar Mobile Library. We have 4096 ships, please suggest landing sites for all."

"Yes, of course it is free, and for all people."

"Why? We are a library."

"Why have you come to me?" the sword master asked.

"To learn how to be a man," the new student said.

The sword master looked at the class, and the wide selection of genders present.

"You don't need a sword to be a man."

"I know that. But what I see here tells me I have much to learn."

** Republishing a short story from 2013, as the personal blog I originally posted it on has been locked down.

What are the odds?
microsff.com/what-are-the...
**

The full moon shone brightly over the park.

"What are you going to do with that?" the werewolf asked.

Her date, squatting to pick up a stick, paused. "Er..."

"Were you going to throw it? Ew!"

"I'm so sorry, I-"

The werewolf opened her bag. "Hang on... Here!"

"A frisbee?"

"It's moon-shaped."

No need to apologise, I really do appreciate having my typos pointed out to me. I just thought that for once I could get away with deleting and reposting.

I used to do that on Twitter, years and years ago, but stopped once I got enough followers someone was guaranteed to have seen it.

You managed to catch it? I saw it as soon as I posted it and deleted it at once. I hoped nobody would have time too see it before I fixed it.

(I am still annoyed with myself for all the typos and unspotted autocorrects in last night's story.)

"I want the world to be simple," I said to the genie.

"How do you mean?"

"Good guys and bad guys, clear answers to all questions, everything is just one thing or another."

"I don't think a world like that would work... No, wait, I know how to do that."

And then he turned me back into a child.

"You know that creature, je ne sais pas, what is it called?"

"Which creature?"

"You know, it is really clever, and then it's stupid, and you can tell it what to do and sometimes it does it but you can't be sure, and some find it fascinating..."

"Heh, sounds almost like ChatGP-"

"Oui! Le chat!"

Argh! You're right. Thank you.
I should know better than to write after going to bed.!

"You know that creature, je ne sais pas, what is it called?"

"Which creature?"

"You know, it is really clever, and then it's stupid, and you can tell it what to do and sometimes to does it but you can't be sure, and some find it fascinating..."

"Heh, sounds almost like ChatGP-"

"Oui! Le chat!"

Dammit! Thanks!

"You know that creature, je ne sais pas, what is it called?"

"Which creature?"

"You know, it is really clever, and then it's stupid, and you can tell it what to do and sometimes to does it but you can't be sure, and some find it fascinating..."

"Heh, sounds almost like ChatGP-"

"Out! Le chat!"

** A reminder that I'm a finalist in the Best Fan Writer category (hi, my name is Örjan Westin) and would really appreciate your vote.

Actually, you probably still have time to check out all the fan categories in the Hugo Voter packet; do so, there's a lot of good stuff there. **

That... is a very good point.

I'm so sorry, that wasn't my intention!

The doorbell rang. I checked the peephole, and saw someone who looked almost like me. I let him in.

"I'm your future self. Listen-"

"Wait! How did you even get here?" I asked.

"British Rail, Anytime Return ticket."

"They killed British Rail in 1997!“

"It'll be back. But list-"

He disappeared.

Back when Twitter first started to show quoted posts embedded inside the quoting post, I did a two-post circular time travel story where the second post - the reply to the first post - also quoted the first post, so you could go around and around...

People accused me of having hacked Twitter :-)

I don't mind other people's mistakes or quirks of expression.

And I am very grateful when typos like the one I made are pointed out so I can fix them.

On other platform (Mastodon, Tumblr, Facebook) I can edit, but here I need to repost, which is annoying. But I know it will happen sometimes.

:-D

The more the merrier! You don't need to ask for my permission, I'm not the boss of microfiction.

Have fun, and remember to proof read, so you don't do the kind of mistake I did today. :-)

"There's been a new breakthrough on flying cars! Soon, the-"

"It won't happen."

"This time, they fixed the-"

"Doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Dragons."

"What?"

"Flying cars get popular, dragons appear and eat them all, and make us forget it."

"What?"

"Happens every time."

"What?"

"Yup."

Damn, yes.
Thank you!

"There's been a new breakthrough on flying cars! Soon, the-"

"It won't happen."

"This time, the fixed the-"

"Doesn't matter."

"Why not?"

"Dragons."

"What?"

"Flying cars get popular, dragons appear and eat them all, and make us forget it."

"What?"

"Happens every time."

"What?"

"Yup."

** ... that handled minor magical annoyances like boggarts and sprites.

A friend lent me The Atrocity Archives, as my stories reminded them of Charlie's Laundry.

I read it, liked it, decided what I was doing was too close, so I stopped.

A few weeks later, Jeff Noon got me into tweetfic.
2/2
**

** Looking forward to being there and seeing/hearing @cstross.bsky.social

In a roundabout way, he's partly responsible for me starting doing this, back in 2013.

I had set up a Twitter account to tweet work annoyances as if I was a civil servant in a small forgotten government department...
1/2
**

"I have been cursed," the man said.

"With what?" the witch asked.

"That's the thing, the cute warlock shouted 'Curse you!' and I felt it hit."

"I see. I can't remove it, but I could give it direction."

"That's what I hoped. Can you make it 'No woman will want to marry you'?"

"Heh. Sure."

Every evening I take the "You'll make it to tomorrow" sign off my bedroom wall, and put it in my time machine.

Every morning, I get into my time machine, go to yesterday before I woke, and hang the sign up.

It's nice to have something to be certain of, these days.

** A wise thread from a bigger pony than me. I still have to learn this, but I'm trying to. **

When I lived in England, my internet provider was called Demon...

"I am actually a princess," the frog said.

"Oh no!" said the prince.

"My curse can only be lifted by a prince listening to me."

"Of course," said the prince, and bent down with puckered lips.

"What are you doing?!"

"Kissing you, like you asked!"

"No!"

The frog hopped away, muttering.