“Cleave”: A SciFanSat Microfiction Compilation

Keep me always in your heart;
Cleave yourself to me—
Sing your verses to the stars,
Across the galaxy—

For though I now be far from home,
I’m tethered still to you—
So sing to me ‘cross light years vast
Until me meet anew. #vss365 #SciFanSat #Satsplat

— A. A. Rubin (@TheSurrealAri) October 1, 2022

Every star sparkles #Verse after verse
Of love poetry
As her smile paths a #cleave
In my rib straight to my heart
With its warm grip

This Angel this queen
From up above space
Who sees a beauty in me
To my fellow earthlings always unseen #vss365 #scifansat #satsplat

— Fizzy-AllsortsOfAllsorts (@Fizzytwizler) October 1, 2022

“We need to cleave together.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“You think I’m a monster.”
“But?”
He laughed, making her spine stiffen. “Oh, I am a monster and you’ll be glad of that soon enough.”
It was all wrong. Nothing like the fairytale verses she’d loved as a child.#scifansat #vss365

— R.S.Bass is writing (@RebBassWrites) October 1, 2022

People called them the wedding stones. They said long ago, the gods cleaved one rock in two. They cleaved the two together with ropes and flowers. Let's get married there, she said. Yes, he said. We will. #SciFanSat #cleave

— Voima Oy (@voimaoy) October 1, 2022

The marriage ritual required their hands to be surgically fused. They no longer could move independently of each other. As an envoy to their world, I was so curious.
"What happens if they wish to separate?"
She showed me a #cleave-r.
"We discourage divorce."#SciFanSat #satsplat

— Maria A. Perez (@MariaAPerez1) September 30, 2022

Sleepwalking
to armageddon
a no think venue
burnished and verbatim
Authors seeking audience
Hearing the wandering
cadence
of potentially irrelevant
greatly apparent drums
Cleave to the verse
look for logic
in the scrum#SciFanSat #cleave#SciFiFri #look#vss365 #verse pic.twitter.com/WspRbUuf4M

— Indigenous Soul (@GeneVatow) October 1, 2022

The smoke recedes in the night. I hear singing down the cleave. A soft lament; a voice that ripples and sighs with each #verse.
"You did nothing," Pa says, "You cry—but what use are your tears?"
Wrapped in blankets, we huddle, wait for the dawn's brutal truth.#scifansat#vss365

— John Everex (@EverexJohn) October 1, 2022

“You built a battle android, from scraps?” she says.

“I doubt it’ll last past the fight, but yes,” he nods.

She taps its black cowboy hat, readied revolvers, and extra arms tipped with chainsaws. “Dare I ask what you’re calling it?”

“Lee Van Cleave.”#SciFanSat #2WordPrompt

— Jason H. Abbott (@Jason_H_Abbott) October 1, 2022

They hire you to #cleave the ancient bones found at the bottom of the gorge. When the diamond blade splits the crimson tubes open, dark crystals bloom over the brittle edges and the voices echo in your brain, reciting a #verse, alien and full of sorrow. #SciFanSat #vss365

— Laila Amado 🇺🇦 (@onbonbon7) October 1, 2022

"This #verse," proclaimed the #fey sounding Mage, "will force 'em to #scrap this #battle! I'll #cleave their souls from their bodies!"

"That," said #GrumpySwearyFairy, "won't work, you &%!$ing halfwit; it's my recipe for tomato ketchup."#vss365 #2WordPrompt #vssmagic #scifansat pic.twitter.com/vEZ7Ou05RC

— That Burnt Writer 🇺🇦 (@ThatBurntWriter) October 1, 2022

~ Crickets ~

With the buzzing
computation of
its coded #verse,
the AI philosopher
asks its student algorithms
if they believe in their maker.
The response is an immediate
cleaving silence,

and nothing but humans. #SciFanSat #cleave #vss365

— Flooded Ember (@FloodedEmber) October 1, 2022

losing track
out of sequence
all about is
darkness through the arcs
of tree
blue light
disembodied voices
i cleave to the orange
glow behind me
ships speeding homeward skies#SciFanSat#poem #poetry

— susan osborne (@osbornecsue) October 1, 2022

She is #versed in every horror, walking down every branching timeline to all the dead ends of apocalypse. She mutters the spell to #cleave this latest timeline from the one path of peace. It scatters to the wind. She says goodbye to the memory of him.#scifansat #vss365 #vsspic pic.twitter.com/5WmSaPQjU7

— A.L. MacDonald (@A_L_MacDonald) October 1, 2022

I scamper close to the fire, the wafts of smoky roasty meat was ambrosia to my senses. He was toasting a skewered, scrawny rat over a burning bin. I creep forward, skeletal hand reaching out. Please? He took out an axe and swung, #cleaving the rat in two & gave me half.#SciFanSat

— mchyl (@mchyl) October 1, 2022

verses are rivers
that cleave to tributaries
be one in ocean #vss365 #scifansat #haikuchallenge

— shivendra 💀 (@shivohamasmi) October 1, 2022

The regime knows force is not enough. They train us from childhood in verbal manipulation. So we learned early on not to trust words.
Now my love and I cleave together in silence, sharing the blank verse of glance, gesture, and touch.#satsplat #scifansat #vss365 pic.twitter.com/dMYF04qMLH

— Paul Briggs (@paulproofreader) October 1, 2022

Book of Joining
1:1-4
(excerpts)

Don’t look for lullabies in the beach’s seashells.

Seek only the sound of the ocean’s waves to quiet your mind.

Let joy rise in your heart when you cleave unto our alien masters.

Their crustaceans make the sounds.#SciFanSat#SciFiFri#VSS365 pic.twitter.com/IjIe0U9OkB

— Alan Vincent Michaels (@AlanVMichaels) September 30, 2022

#SciFanSat
The battle for humanity's survival continued, the majority persisted to #cleave to the hope they'd be redeemed, faithfully believing the ancient #verse promised by a savior. They would scrap it out w/ the fatalist, a group resigned to their fates.#vss365#2WordPrompt

— aran (@AranPotente) October 1, 2022

They want to limit me. How dare they? Them and their puny lives bound chapter and #verse by books full of rules. They’ll never see starlight glint off a frozen lake, never cleave the soil to bring forth it abundance.

I suppose they’ll try to stop me. Fools. #SciFanSat #vss365

— Lɪʙʙʏ Dᴏʏʟᴇ (@LibbyDoyle9) October 1, 2022

As we got to the second verse, reality began to cleave in two. I turned the page of the withered tome, we needed to finish quickly before we lost control and ripped the world apart. As the last word was uttered, everything settled leaving us with the gateway. #SciFanSat #vss365

— Lexikon (@Lexikonical) October 1, 2022