“Careful”: A SciFanSat Microfiction Compilation

Lingering doubts
Intangible shadows
That remain unspoken
A mouth that had cried
Help me
Stoppped by the hands
Of the #xenophobe
Who directs the play
Carefully detached
With a heart of stone#vss365 #SciFanSat #MadVerse #Whistpr

— Anna💫✨🇦🇺 (@annaburnswrites) July 11, 2020

As they push him into the car, he keeps talking: “The Others—they’re careful and smart, son. Who nudges a #xenophobe into leadership, skews the media and nurtures the hate?” He gives one last rheumy look. “Why bother invading? They can get us to self-destruct—”#vss365#scifansat

— John Everex (@EverexJohn) July 11, 2020

Choking on his own blood, Uncle Armin grips Louisa’s arm.

“Run… to the forest,” he gasps. “But careful. Don’t go… past the old mill.”

Red pours from the arrow wound in his neck.

“Wood Mother…” he says. “She… eats…”

But his words die in gurgles.#satsplat #scifansat pic.twitter.com/aAXubs9uDR

— Armond Boudreaux (on hiatus, sort of) (@armondboudreaux) July 11, 2020

Curious, careful of nothing.
A one eyed man intent upon the blindside.
So when he met an alien in the new dimension
he greeted it w/open arms.
Clinks, clanks & hissing sounds, a mental kettle.
A really scalding reply.
Holy dregs, this time was not his cup of tea.

#SciFanSat

— Denise Carruthers (@CattyKoala) July 10, 2020

"You're such a #xenophobe, Dave. I can't deal with the staggering levels of intolera…"

"Oi, #careful what you say, I love Lucy Lawless! I jus…"

"No, it mea…"

"… t can't stand all those foreign actors."

"Exactly."

"Eh?"#vss365 #SciFanSat 07.11

— That burnt writer (@ThatBurntWriter) July 11, 2020

He blended carefully among the humans.

They said they wanted to meet alien cultures, but his surreptitious study of their DNA said they were fundamentally #xenophobes.

Sure enough, when a charismatic leader led the charge, his friends held the first gun.#vss365#scifansat

— Yosen (@yosenspace) July 11, 2020

In the final irony, the careful screening process left the xenophobes home on the dying planet, along with the climate deniers and the religious zealots whose god forebade space travel. Everyone else left on the ship, saved from the hell they helped create. #SciFanSat #vss365

— A. A. Rubin (@TheSurrealAri) July 11, 2020

“Careful, your #xenophobia is showing.”
Val looked at the top of the biosphere and sighed. Her daughter had a good heart, but no common sense. “Annie, you can label me any way you want, but that thing’s not coming in here. It has fangs and it looks hungry.”#SciFanSat #vss365

— Lɪʙʙʏ Dᴏʏʟᴇ (@LibbyDoyle9) July 11, 2020

Space spider mind probers,walked across Faemys,a bodyguard of the Fae, path, at Twilight.Careful not to loudly protest, as they nested xenophobe thought eggs inside your head. Forever, never knowing, when they would explode inside your brain. #Satsplat #SciFanSat #vss365 #366FF pic.twitter.com/Vz7xTlCW5Z

— ❈✷ 🎀 𝒢𝓇𝒶𝒸𝒾𝑒 𝑅 𝒢𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓃 🎀 ✷❈ (@rgraciegreen) July 11, 2020

She closed her eyes, reaching into the depths of the basin & removing a charcoal-grey stone. Carefully opening her palm, a ball of fire sprang from the rock, hovering over it, burning bright, until finally it dissolved into a flame-shaped mark on her hand. #SciFanSat #SlapDashSat pic.twitter.com/JOXJFW7CYA

— C Lee (@cleestories) July 11, 2020

He ascended cold, slipping Cybes's Xenophobe program, locking into character without a surroundings check. Careful had gone out of the window with a promise not to return until the Jokers were returned to the pack and the wolves ceased their howling. #vss365 #scifansat

— Kevin Sand (@KevinSa07052659) July 11, 2020

We'd travelled halfway across the universe to help these people, only to be greeted by angry #xenophobes demanding that aliens like us stay off their planet. I shrugged, carefully tucking the cure for their virus back inside my suit and returned to my ship.#vss365 #SciFanSat

— Andrew Anderson 🏳️‍🌈 (@soorploom) July 11, 2020

Was a no choice, the Eternal Pinnacle had given him a known he would rather have left behind its doors, option one was a deadline, please try again, he had, and then again, the line buzzed and he ran, after carefully locking up, beneath the weight of a growing shadow.#scifansat

— Matabu (@DarkLordMatabu) July 11, 2020

Xenophobic dark
Starlight careful radiates
Reflects light's goodness#vss365 #SciFanSat #scifaikusaturday #haiku #amwriting #creativewriting #poem #poetry #writingcommun

— Dunglish (@EdHaiku575) July 11, 2020

"Xenophobe!"

The creature was silent & still. Its long bladed arm barred the colony's entrance.

The man turned back to the desert, resigned to hunger & thirst. A grub came after him though, careful not to be seen, holding out sweet nectar.#vss365 #SciFanSat@AvyeAndonellis

— Jonathan Roman (@deft_notes) July 11, 2020

These days you have to be careful not to spend too much time in thought. The microdrones home in on human brain activity.
They were our most ingenious weapon until we lost control of them. But I think I've come up with a way to get ri-#satsplat #scifansat #scifisat #slapdashsat

— Paul Briggs (@paulproofreader) July 11, 2020