kvdbreem

“...there is not the remotest possibility of dying of this sickness in the straightforward sense, or of this sickness ending in physical death. On the contrary, the torment of despair is precisely the inability to die.” --Soren Kierkegaard, “The Sickness Unto Death” Fengjian: These are people. We can't just reduce them to a bunch of cells in a pitri dish! Breeman: Look, if we want to remain sane while we do this we have to. We can't think of these people as people. They're machines that need to be fixed. --Lt. Kevin Breeman to Dr. Emma Fengjian during the aftermath of Operation Brigh

The First Day The atmosphere around me is alien. The warm light of the sun is something more familiar to me though – something I've seen a thousand times. I don't want to talk to anybody. John seems finished with me. Is it because I'm better than he is? Or is he better than I am? Rocks. Rocks and sand. That's about all there is to this place. Praxis. It's a name I've heard too many times this week. What are you going to do on Praxis? What's Praxis mean for you? Do you have family on Praxis? Stupid questions from people who aren't even interested in the answers. I'm going to Pra

Hi Adm Wolf, Is this site in PHP? If so it might be a good idea to define a class called something like PastWritingChallenge that maps to a table called past_wc such that past_wc is created like this: create table past_wc ( id int auto_increment primary key, theme varchar(256), winner text ); Then PastWritingChallenge would have fields theme and winner coming from the past_wc table. Finally a simple data entry app could be created that would insert records into past_wc for immediate consumption by the app that displayed the records.... Any thoughts?

Computer. End program. He says it again for the tenth time. Chirps from birds and howls of wind wind their way past him, ignoring a rock in the steady stream of light and disappear. The wall was lined with books, texts carrying sentimental value from a bygone era. AN stared blankly at them, willing himself to imagine grasping at the covers and pulling them open, leafing through intricate fields of data free of the constraints of a digitized sensory experience. He turns around to look at the building. End program. It stands defiantly there, holding the thousands of books he'd been looking

PNPC - Jona: Wake Up ((Somewhere)) ::The deep red swells and fades around Jona, breathing in and out in the darkness. He's falling still. Was it yesterday that he jumped? It's hard to tell. Maybe it was months ago. Swallowed by something familiar and monstrous, Jona sees nothing, feels nothing. They say someone falling doesn't feel gravity. They never said someone falling doesn't feel anything else. He knows he's falling the way you know you're alive when you wake up in the morning. You take it for granted -- a condition that permits you to open your eyes, to hear, to walk. To drop?

Wow. The cynicism and resignation in this story work really well. I loved the inclusion of the transcripts. Great experimental writing. The ending of the tale, with your protagonist's conclusion that they made a bad first impression was well-done. Finally, your burnt out part of the world with the factories that looked like meth labs did wonders for the atmosphere. In all, a good tale with a weary protagonist.

An interesting story with a fun Bermuda Triangle plot. Your *ahem* attractive navigator was a nice touch. Humbly I offer the following tips: You might watch some of your wording. For example, cynical is probably not the best word to use here: You might try skeptical. I thought the dispute at the end was a tad rushed and that the captain was a little too harsh. He emphasized the Federation's military capabilities more than he did its mission of exploration and seeking out new life and new civilizations. You might try adding a bit more description. For example, I could visualize the nav

Hm yes, I wouldn't mind seeing the critiques myself Kevin.

Thank you! Wow. This was a great one with a punch that was reminiscent of Ridley Scott's Alien . I loved that you concluded it with the creature turning out to be a joined trill. This story reads like a legend or a fairytale. The mythic quality mixed with the continued expulsion from society worked well. Keep working on improving your spelling and grammar. For example: You might rewrite this as: "Even though the child was otherwise healthy, rumours began to grow among the locals. Whispers spread of the strange marks being harbingers of a curse that was soon to strike the rest of the

Wow. I'm glad we were able to create such a ruckus with our submissions this time around .

The days were long and the nights were brief flashes of ignorance in a night of spent lives and destroyed careers. Patri's hands were grubby, her pants caked in flakes of dried mud from her day on the farm. Part of her wondered what the counsellor would think, but the woman had ordered her to come directly from the fields. The thought of seeing another shrink left her confused. More often than not she had gotten something from her appointments with them. But she suspected it was never what the therapists had intended. Patri was an interface, holding back what she really felt or who she

Um... I'm a bit concerned. There doesn't seem to be an arrow icon anymore that I can use in posting my new topic. So like... How do I indicate that it's an entry? Oh found it. It is under "Post options"