CAST.

STONED CARL. Fortyish brainy-looking academic in turtleneck and sport coat with elbow patches.

SCENE. STONED CARL is center stage, perhaps behind podium or lectern. LIGHTS UP on STONED CARL.

STONED CARL: (holding up a joint) If you want to make a marihuana cigarette from scratch, (beat) you must first create the universe.

I was reading slashdot (I know, I know) and came upon an Oort-Cloud reference. It put me in a dander!

Here's the URL:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1773496&cid=33436958

I feel bad. Sniffle, sniffle.

But it makes me wanna write to prove this fellow wrong.

Captain Ray waved the children back to their seats. "Strap yourselves in, we're going to reenter." They floated to the front seats and bound themselves into the acceleration couches.

The spaceman looked over to the kids. "This will be a little rough." He turned the ship. They had been pointing nose down. Now the rocket's tail pointed in the vector they'd been travelling. The spaceman fired up the drive torches. It felt like a giant hand was pushing them into their couches. Cord grunted with surprise.

Captain Ray opened a pocket on his p-suit and pulled out a bar of candy which he broke into three pieces. He passed them to Cord and Cliff. Cord sniffed hers. "This isn't really candy, is it?" asked Cliff.

"We'll be weightless soon. It hits some people the wrong way," said Captain Ray who then popped his piece in his mouth and chewed. He swallowed. "Don't want to chunder, do you?" Cord and Cliff ate their candy.

"What's chunder?" asked Cord.

Captain Ray chuckled. "It's a loud, colorful mess that is especially unpleasant in a weightless environment."

They climbed up the side of the rocket. Halfway up, Cord pointed out her friend's house. "The tracking's broken on their solar panels. They're all pointing in different directions." Cliff looked down and his sister, just below his feet. The ground was far and he felt he hands begin to sweat. "Don't look down," said his sister. "Look sideways or up."

"Shut up," said Cliff. He turned his head to the right and saw the patchwork browns and greens of the fields and the metal sheathed rooftops. He felt the beating of his heart grow loud and quicken. His breathing was too fast.

The sign was handmade and read "Ride into Space $10" in black marker on brown cardboard. It was posted at the edge of the field. In the very middle of the timothy grass, in the center of a burnt-out circle, was a rocket. It was taller than a grain silo and was a squat obelisk resting on three legs.

Howdy, all. Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? I try every year, but crap out at about 10k words. This year, I'm going to try it again. I'm thinking about posting my daily output, but I'm worried that it won't be SF enough and that it will be very rough. I'm always hesitant about posting first draft. Any thoughts?

The green light at the the corner of Garland and Main shines like a leprechaun's green, shines like kryptonite, like lasers and Las Vegas, all green and unearthly. It's powered by glowbugs that were originally from the Amazonian jungle. These glowbugs drink the sap from trees. Bacteria in the guts of the glowbugs convert the stored sunlight from the sap into an incandescent juice. While most living things that produce light do so in a cold chemical reaction, these glowbugs burn the juice and their shells are a clear chitinous prism which make the light twinkle green like moonrocks.

Even a dog gets his revenge.
--Plutarch, Moralia.

The executive meeting room was impressive, in a dark teak, leather chair, robber-baron sort-of-way. It was a room meant to impress venture capitalists and private equity investors and it had worked splendidly for almost two years.

Now, the air of confidence had evaporated from the luxurious surroundings and the room stank of broken promises, lies and desperation.

"Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.
Everybody knows that the captain lied."
--Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

After the 4pm carnage, there were a few tears, a few handshakes and a lot of cursing under one's breath as there weren't nearly enough cardboard boxes for personal effects.