vignette

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
track

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term.

Comments

[marycatelli]

Minette followed Bredon as quietly as she could. She could make out no path, not even the faintest track. The ground was thick with green moss, and while she could tell one of the ancient trees from the next, she knew better than to put her faith in that knowledge.

[marycatelli]

A road. Well. She supposed it would not be much of a quest if she didn't even know which way to start.
And, she told herself, it was a good solid road, not a track. If it led her to a dragon, it would let her walk there with ease.

[marycatelli]

The road dissolved into the sandy beach. Ivan pulled up his horse and looked about for the route out.
A young woman walked on the shore, her feet bare, with the waves lapping over them. Her blond hair and white skirt flew on the wind. Gulls screamed on the wind.

[marycatelli]

"Easy to track us down here," said Gormain. His voice echoed.
"Not at all," said Rosine. "The perils we passed may not reset to let anyone who wants to follow."
"More to the point," said Carolus, "they would need people fool enough to follow when it is not their duty."

[marycatelli]

Edwin looked ahead. "No, this is just useful spells to keep you going on the road. We have far to go, and this song can only keep you on the track."
"How far?" said Aidan.
"Until we reach safe shelter," said Robert. "They are put a day's journey apart, naturally."

[marycatelli]

The astronomer mapped each shooting star's track. Useless, he told himself. With no reference points, each track could land thousands of miles apart based on how big the fragment was.
Still, he plotted them.
After a time, he concluded that he had to do something, or explode. It was something.

[jbellinger]

FWIW, a 2017 fireball over Kyoto was viewed from several different sites, and researchers were able to reconstruct the 3-D track, and figure out where it came from. 2003 YT1 http://idontknowbut.blogspot.com/2020/01/where-fireball-came-from.html

[marycatelli]

The angles were important. There was one seen over much of the US and Canada where all sorts of people though it was near them, because they did not realizes how high (and large) it was.

[jbellinger]

"It's an old moonshiner's trick, but it only works with certain wheelbases."

"They'll still need a few minutes to re-inflate the tires when they get off at a crossing."

"Which way?" Ben flipped a mental coin. "Radio Bill and tell him to look for a pickup on Green Hollow Road."

[marycatelli]

can be tricky

[jbellinger]

The thing was too fast to be local. It had come stunningly close to Phobos before vanishing behind the Sun.

But its newly visible trajectory had changed. It would cross the asteroid belt not far from Ceres.

If it were a visitor, why wouldn't it swing by Earth? Too new?

[marycatelli]

Not interested?

[jbellinger]

I have a vague idea about returning explorers looking for the old world which isn't there anymore. Nothing firm enough to work with, though. Maybe "cold sleep" or equivalent, with robot ship control--which would be getting horribly confused by now. How much tech can humans have at their disposal? Too little and everything is driven by the aliens' actions; too much and there's too little danger.

[marycatelli]

Probably more productive of plot than they think Earth is dull!