Writing Contest Entry #2

Theme: "One moment in time"

Word Count: 550 (500 +/- 50)

Opponent: Ennia


One more moment...

Oh God, please, one more moment...

How could one moment be so many? I can feel her holding my hand, holding me close. I can see the world as it was, as we made it, as it will be. I can smell the ash and smoke in the air. I can feel her tearing my heart in two, hear her last footsteps echoing in the living room. I can taste my mother’s prized pecan pie and my shame at the same time. Is this my life? All that I’ve done, seen, been…. and this is the summation?

One hundred-fifty meters to target.

In the distance, in that other world, I hear shouting as people begin to realize what I’m doing. They know nothing of why I must, so I ignore them. Or would I have anyway because it’s easier? I always had trouble understanding myself, why I do what I do. Is this, even now, selfish? Is this now? I don’t suppose it really matters.

One hundred meters to target.

She always did think it was. Ever since we met, selfishness was her battlecry. Was she right? It’s hard to tell. I tried to go back to her, oh God, I tried. But did I merely want the comfort of her presence? Something I was accustomed to? She would know. She did know. Maybe it’s better that she wouldn’t take me back. Side-step left, one point five meters to avoid the first shot.

Seventy meters to target.

Who took the first shot, anyway? Metaphorically, I mean. Did we really start this war? They say we did. We say we didn’t. Either way, this has to happen, but who holds the blame? Or is it just one long line of snipe and countersnipe back the beginning? Third suit to the left, gun is improperly holstered. Quarter-turn clockwise and block upwards. Duck to avoid tackle exposes holster. Seven shots in clip.

Forty meters to target.

It certainly was with her. So playful, so deceptive, wit and parry, hurt and healing. What I wouldn’t give for one more moment with her, to just bask in that wonderful presence! It feels as if she’s here with me now, impossible though I know it to be. Would I be so selfish as to desire it? I could almost imagine her running with me now, our stride in lockstep, a wishful dance of lethal perfection. Two rounds, first and seventh agents. Up three steps, lean back twenty centimeters to avoid sniper fire. Up four steps, jump handrail to use as barrier.

Twenty meters to target.

Was it just an imagining? Can machines dream? The vision, so clear, so horrible, yet so undeniable, the product of equation and reality. Did it have to come to pass? Or did I willingly cause it to be in my haste to be the martyr? So selfish. My God, so selfish. If only I could turn it back, try again. Surely, there’s another way? One round, front-left tire causes escort vehicle crash. Three rounds, two agents within and driver. One round for primary target.

I can see her face. I no longer have to imagine the look of shock, her eyes stare back at me in terror. Why did you make me do this?

I’m sorry, my love.

Writing Contest Entry #1 (Exhibition Round)

The Jameson and Gorthund C51 motor anything but advanced. The silver/graphite bearings had a lifespan of only six years, with sporadic failures under duress. The electrical contact brushes had long been superseded by continuous shear deformation gel rings in products from reputable vendors. The rotor's neodymium magnets were brittle even for their time, and often fractured under extended use or protracted heating, or even crushed themselves under their own magnetic fields. The stator's antiquated copper coils, used in place of conductive nanotubes to generate the driving field were shielded by a polyvinyl-teflon coating that was readily damaged if the cast-titanium/aluminum casing was compromised in the slightest, frequently shorting the motor and rendering it useless if not deadly. It was in every way inferior to its modern counterparts, shunning a century of steady advances in materials science.

But despite its faults, the C51 had one overriding consideration: price. And in the Modality it found a perfect match: a government sharing the philosophy of quantity over quality. Dirt cheap to produce, available on demand by the ton, scalable from hand tools to battleships, the C51 was the key economic enabler. The Modality cared little when it broke down transporting tanks to enforcement zones; There were always more factories in each freshly liberated territory. Sometimes the coils would literally melt from waste heat, often setting vehicles (and occupants) ablaze. But there were always more soldiers - no shortage of volunteers to see to realization of global peace. The bearings were sieve-like and the exposed metal within corroded at a glimpse of saltwater. But what did the government care if boats were stranded? The Modality was quite used to playing statistics. It was their unilateral approach.

The C51 powered their supply trains, their aircraft, their tools and their weapons. Dependability was a memory, but the Modality preached incessantly about the dangers of clinging to the past. Their construction squads scheduled demolitions every month to remind the people. The C51 was everywhere - government vehicles rolled by in the night constantly, the police trucks dispatching justice and the coroner's trucks cleaning it up. The motor's shrill whine was so ubiquitous that children no longer heard the upper registers of sound, even at birth.

The C51 brought bountiful fortune as the money rolled in. It took it away in trucks when they seized my assets. As I lay here, I know it will in only moments take my life away as well, whirring at the heart of the surgeons' tools, liberating the engines of the body for those 'better fit' to use them - standard practice for convicts.

Somehow, I imagined such success differently...