I was playing with “The Book Bandits” today. The prompts were:
1. The photo from the referenced TBP posting and shown at the bottom of this page.
2. “Science Fiction Haiku”
First, I wrote haiku
#
angry colonists
mutinied when it was learned
Mars was non smoking
#
Then I just couldn’t leave well enough alone –
Melinda was talking when she stepped onto the stage and people soon began to pay attention to what she was saying, “Someone shoulda told us,” she said forcibly to the assembly when she knew she had their attention.
Voices from the mob rose in crescendos as they yelled back to her in agreement.
“Damn right” someone screamed from the back of the crowd.
“Fuckin’ A,” shouted a man in a flannel shirt near the front.
She spurred them on, “We woulda quit before we set out, and never packed all those cigarettes. Just think how much more tequila we could have brought if we hadn’t been packing a lifetime supply of Lucky Strikes and Marlboro Lights.”
The agrarians, among them began to raise their pitchforks and shake them overhead as they yelled in agreement.
The cooks lit torches off the burners on their stoves and the smoke rolled heavily into the dense Martian atmosphere.
“Who’s responsible?” Melinda yelled over the crowd, which by now was getting rambunctious, “The Captain? The XO?”
As one the angry group of colonists yelled back to her, “they all are – Death to the tyrants and militant non-smokers.”
Melinda stepped back from the front of the dais and held her unlit Kool in a smoker’s pose. She watched the frenzy grow and waited for the riot. Her work here was done. Inertia would take care of the rest.
tnkerr-Writing Prompts and Practice 