The Run

Aerial photo of a graduating class, three line tales microfiction prompt
Photo by Faustin Tuyambaze

What got me out of bed and into the booth each morning was the thrill of monitoring ceremonies in the Grand Hall; as a rookie, I’d made the mistake of believing those facing away from the masses were the ones to look out for- I’d zoom in on them and make a concerted effort to track the next 5, 10, 20 years of their lives, although it would prove futile; mulling over milestones in their later years, I returned to the Grand Hall footage where with the fortune of hindsight, I drew a correlation between swimming upstream in old age and free flowing movement at graduation; squint and scan the crowd and you’ll see a distinct yellow aura marking them out, all facing the same direction.

The next phase was tracing their descendants and handing over the dossier to Dr Woodrow, chief geneticist at Project Anadromous, a clandestine government initiative that led to the design of  biological prêt-à-porter: subcutaneous cloaks fashioned to enable adaptability for a return to the so-called fresh waters of the wearer’s youth, to breed and die, maintaining population equilibrium- a profitable ‘industry’ that did away with nasty taxes, handout recipients, and threats of litigation- therein the fun stopped, gone were my days of naïve people watching, I became the watched.

Now, trapped by the consequences of my actions, I am stuck in a for-loop, endless iterations of life cycles that never deviate from the tedium of days begun in the murky gravel beds of oxygen limited fresh water, graduating to the stinging spray of brine that stretches to the horizon before I make a begrudging return to natal waters, a sacrificial offering for the next generation, treading softly on finite resources while amassing fortunes for the 0.1 percent who’ve had the fiscal and hence genetic fortune of defying the run.

 

Thanks to Sonya’s Three Line Tales, Week 68 for the inspiration. Woodrow, my sci-fi muse makes a cameo here 🙂

24 thoughts on “The Run”

      1. Thank you! Please do. It’s my first flash fiction trilogy. My older posts are longer than my later ones though, I only published once a week in the beginning. I make the illustrations. smaller now as well. I’ll probably do some more series sooner or later, I kind of miss the (a little bit) bigger projects:)

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      2. So do you post daily now? Longer projects might mean less frequent posting. So- what comes first, your illustrations or your writing? I’m impressed! 😊

        I have written a few series- the longest one which had about 5 or 6 parts is called ‘timeline’- check it out if you ever have time and or interest.

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      3. I will, I like what I’ve seen. I’m posting five to six times a week now, some of them are reblogs. The two processes goes parallelly, usually, but I prefer having the story more or less written before I start inking, if not I sometimes I come up with something I like which doesn’t fit the illustration:D Thank you! Ps: check out my Liquid Ink-story, it’s on top of the top posts list, and it’s about, well, liquid ink;)

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  2. Wow! I love your imagination! – and I’m glad you finally posted something new – I thought I was going to have to put out an APB (All Points Bulletin)on you, Mek.

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    1. Thanks Leslie. You know you’ve got a friend in someone who’d put out an APB on you 💕

      I was experiencing a lull in creativity and also had a lot on my plate with work, health, life etc… but I think I’m back…the worst part was feeling I’d never have anything to write again, but I learnt to sit with that fear and recognise it for the bs it is.

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    1. Thanks Marissa…considering not so nice human traits like greed and the lengths some go for personal gain makes it easy to come up with scenarios for a bleak fictional world that isn’t far removed from pockets of the world we live in now.

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      2. You’re welcome! What number are you up to now? Do you plan on doing an exhibition at the end of the series? An instagram page for just the portraits would be cool (not that I’m on instagram).

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      4. Looking forward to the compilation. Funny, the day after that comment I set up an instagram account…illustrations for some stories coming soon! 😊

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  5. You are so smart. Your phrasing and choice of wording. Its pure….obviously pure from a thinking woman. Ugh. inspiring and the pic selected..yeah. I loved all of this. “…gone were my days of naïve people watching, I became the watched”.

    Stellar

    e

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    1. Thanks so much e- such kind and encouraging words, especially coming from someone who has a wsy of weaving words together with such lyrical mastery. Love Sonya’s picks of pics for her prompts…💕

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  6. It would appear Mek from reading the comment thread that: “…had a lot on my plate with work, health, life etc… but I think I’m back…”, that temporary crisis are the fillip for some of your best work. I wonder. did those times make for deep reflection on the cycle of life? Purely rhetorical question …:)x

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