Prompts: Of Sorrowful Silence and Diamond Planets
It’s one of those rare months when I have a couple of stories coming out at the same time. While this is extremely gratifying for me, I find it difficult to sit back and rest on my meager laurels. Instead, I’m getting that familiar nagging sensation in the back of my head, the feeling that I need to be writing something. So where do I turn for inspiration? Fortunately, in my job as a medical editor, I come across an endless amount of news items that make perfect source material for scifi stories. But these types of story starters can be found anywhere. All you have to do is add a drop of creativity to the mix. Here are some real-life examples:
Throughout the month of September Temple Gallery at Temple University will be filled with a collection of recorded moments of silence expressed in commemoration of September 11, 2001. These silences, collected from the past ten years range from President Obama’s recent visit to Ground Zero following the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, to a woman’s private moment of silence recorded alone in her Missouri bedroom for the families whose loved ones died on September 11.
Gathered from newsreels, library collections, and the Internet, this selection of ten silences is a quiet history of the nation’s solidarity and remembrance of 9/11. Temple Gallery is the contemporary art gallery at TempleUniversity’s TylerSchoolof Art. (Read more…)
This sounds like a very somber, apt way to honor a national tragedy. Imagine the job of the curator assigned to assemble all of the various silences, categorizing them, listening to them over and over as he determines the proper order. Perhaps he listens to the first silence or two, cleaning up the audio, eliminating any static or extraneous noise. But then after the next few, he notices something odd. It’s nothing he can hear, obviously, since the recordings are all of silence. It’s more the feeling that something’s watching him, waiting expectantly.
The more silences he listens to, the more the feeling grows. The curator senses it in the room with him, a dark foreboding presence that gets more sinister with every silence. By the ninth track it’s almost palpable. Something is there, straining to enter, looking for a way in. The curator is overcome by the feeling that something terrible will happen should he listen to the tenth silence, and he flees the gallery.
Later, on reflection, he develops a theory. Maybe by themselves, silences have no great effect. But silences out of grief, in response to massive tragedy, put out a certain energy into the universe, an energy that attracts beings who feed on negative emotions. And if enough silences are stacked up one after the other, the energy forms a sort of gateway into our world. The curator explains his fears to the gallery owners, who predictably tell him to take a few days off and seek professional help. The next day the exhibit opens with hundreds in attendance. Attendees listen to the silences, becoming ever more uncomfortable. Finally the tenth silence is played, building up enough negative energy to allow Grimnar, Lord of Eternal Pain to enter the earth’s plane of existence. Grimnar feeds well, and so begins his dominion…
Researchers from The University of Manchester as well as institutions in Australia, Germany, Italy, and the USA, detected an unusual star called a pulsar using the Parkes radio telescope of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). From modulations in radio pulses sent by the pulsar, the researchers determined the existence of a small companion planet, orbiting the pulsar in a binary system.
The pulsar and its planet are part of the Milky Way’s plane of stars and lie 4,000 light-years away in the constellation of Serpens (the Snake) about an eighth of the way towards the Galactic Centre from the Earth.
The planet, likely a white dwarf star, “is likely to be largely carbon and oxygen, because a star made of lighter elements like hydrogen and helium would be too big to fit the measured orbiting times,” said Dr. Michael Keith (CSIRO), one of the research team members. The density means that this material is certain to be crystalline: that is, a large part of the star may be similar to a diamond. (Read more…)
I know certain jewelry enthusiasts who would pay top dollar to visit that planet-sized engagement ring (cough, my wife, cough). And in the year 2344, it’s not hard to envision regular shuttle trips for those who can afford them to jet out to “Diamondopolous” to chip off a few pieces of ice. Imagine a shuttle driver who takes tourists on regular junkets to the diamond planet. They’re all the same, rich folks looking to get a little richer off some intergalactic bling and the cachet of visiting a far-off, distant planetoid.
But what if our junket driver notices one diamond-grubber who doesn’t fit in with the rest? He’s quiet, mild mannered, doesn’t dress ostentatiously, reads a lot of books that seem technical in nature, and avoids the rest of the glitterati like the plague. He explains that he’s visiting the diamond planet as part of a scientific survey, which sounds legit to our spaceship trucker, but on a stopover in the Horsehead Nebula, he overhears a strange conversation with the survey guy over his 500G cell network, something about transferring a large sum of money to “blow the whole thing up.”
Suspicious, the driver rifles through the traveler’s papers and finds out his plan, which is to set off a light source in a strategic location inside the planet. Because of the diamond consistency, the light will be refracted and focused to unbelievable intensity, causing the whole planet to explode. It’s part of a plot by the galactic diamond exchange to make the jewels scarce and valuable again. Unfortunately, that would mean our fearless driver would be out of a job. So now he must track down the saboteur on the planet’s harsh, diamond surface in an attempt to thwart his employment threatening plans…
Researchers Find Evidence of Continuous Civilization During Period of Collapse
University of Arkansas archaeologists have found evidence for the continuity of civilization across a time period when civilizations throughout the Middle East and elsewhere were collapsing. Their work occurred at Tell Qarqur, an important archeological site in the Orontes River Valley in northwestern Syria.
The end of the third millennium B.C. – roughly 2200 to 2000 B.C. – is often described as a dark age because this period experienced the collapse of many major states, including the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, Old Kingdom Egypt and the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley. Major cities and small towns across the Middle East that had been occupied for centuries were suddenly abandoned, leaving a gap in the archaeological and historical record.
Until the 1980s, little was known about Tell Qarqur, the site of two large mounds that archeologists know was occupied continuously for more than 10,000 years, from 8500 B.C. to the medieval period. Tell Qarqur experienced particularly large occupations during the Bronze and Iron Ages, from 3000 to 500 B.C. The researchers are now trying to understand why Tell Qarqur survived, when nearly all civilizations in the region during that time collapsed. (Read more…)
So what was so special about this little corner of Syria? That’s what the archeological team leader has been trying to figure out for years. Finally, he uncovers an ancient text describing the city’s religious beliefs and practices. The inhabitants worshipped Elagabal, the Syrian sun god, offering regular sacrifices. But the text describes events that seem like historical fiction, laying waste to neighboring regions, ensuring thousands of years of prosperity.
The chronicles describe some kind of schism that occurred between Elagabal and his followers that caused the city’s eventual destruction. The people wished to stop the practice of human sacrifice, which their god demanded. Not knowing how much to believe, the archeologist wanders amongst the ruins of Tell Qarqur, which extend deep into the earth. Far underground, he stumbles across an ancient altar to Elagabal. Astonished, the scientist studies the ancient glyphs and markings, but accidentally cuts his finger on a shard of rock.
A single drop of blood falls onto the altar. The chamber rumbles and a dread form materializes, the image of Elagabal. He speaks directly into the terrified archeologist’s mind. At last, my worshipers return to me. Bring forth my first sacrifice. The god reaches out his hand, and all the scientist can do is shrink back and quail. But there is no escape…
##
For any writer, the natural state is to be constantly writing. There is no rest for the relentlessly creative mind. This is both a blessing and a curse, but the urge must be obeyed. So take these examples and apply that creativity, or use entirely different ideas. Then maybe you can appease that familiar nagging sensation…
-Jason Kahn
Mad Scribblings From the Edge
The Dark InSpectre
Comments: No Comments »
Authors: Jason Kahn. Form: Column. Length: 1500 words. Editor who accepted this story: Previous Editors.
Author Bio
A medical editor by day, Jason Kahn lives and writes in Brooklyn, NY. His stories have appeared in Baen’s Universe, Damnation Books, Something Wicked, and numerous anthologies. His hobbies include rooting for his University of Michigan Wolverines and chasing after two mischievous gnomes who claim to be his children.
Abandoned Towers Content: Prompts: A Little Exercise For the Old Creativity Muscle Prompts: A Time to Give Thanks, and a Few Good Ideas Prompts: A Year’s Worth of Story Ideas Prompts: Ancient Leviathans and Runaway Slime Prompts: Because Inspiration Doesn’t Take a Holiday Prompts: Death Masks and Killer Gizmo’s Prompts: Free Story Ideas, No Waiting—Did I Mention They’re Free? Prompts: Insert Story Idea in Slot A, Add Inspiration in Slot B Prompts: Inspiration, Free of Charge Prompts: Keeping the Brain Warm During the Deep Freeze Prompts: Love and Madness, Great Fodder for a Good Story or Two! Prompts: More Stories From the Idea-tron Prompts: New Writing Ideas for the New Year Prompts: News For the Summer Blues Prompts: Of Avian Gods and Resurrected Saints Prompts: Of Moons and Invisible Men Prompts: Of Sorrowful Silence and Diamond Planets Prompts: Real-World Stories to Kick Start Your Creativity Prompts: Ripped From Today’s Headlines Prompts: Something to Think About Prompts: Space Bubbles and Ancient Hotties Prompts: Space on the Brain and Noises from the Deep Prompts: Spring Into Story Ideas Prompts: The Living Earth and the Deep Freeze Prompts: The Stories You’re Dying to Write Prompts: Time Jumping Snails and Zombie Jocks
Is this you? Is the information on this page correct? Let us know if it isn't!
Comments are closed.