The Thaumaturge had long since given up the ways of chemical compounds, oxides and foul smelling dubious liquids contained in ancient vials.
If the rings of a tree were to count his age, they would surely stretch from great citadel to citadel.
He remembers when times were hard. Not the hard of today; when you don’t have enough credit to buy the latest downloadable content for your PS4. No, there were times of war, times of hardship, famine and pestilence. Times when you would be thankful for blood caking the earth, as it would supply nutrients to the seeds sowed in the parched fields.
Things are easy now. There is even time for play.
He no longer exists in physical form. He is in the ports, the sockets, the microprocessors and the racks of terabytes in the cloud.
He has created new life forms.
He has named them FlashDogs.
He watched them play, awkwardly, in the bytes and bits; harboured in the architecture of the foreign languages of Java and HTML. He scattered them across the globe, and connected them with electrons and invisible waves of indeterminable frequencies.
They call from the continents. They join from the remote islands, the stars and the stripes, the lands of banished convicts, the city of the Liver Bird and even, even the arse of England.
They found sanctuary in the virtual dragon caves, sought protection from luminous creatures and scampered from the wrath of angry timepieces.
Their nationality is irrelevant. He is a master craftsman. He’s given them the ability to inspire each other and grow stronger. They will use their magical powers to mould new life that will live as surely as anything organic. They will make tears of laughter in the realms of reality. They will terrorise grown adults. They will conjure new worlds that exist in other times, in the deepest oceans and beyond the universe itself.
He smiles when he thinks about them. For they say that the pen is mightier than the sword. Imagine what is possible with QWERTY keyboards and global communication at the speed of light, with just the touch of a button.
via Flash Frenzy Round 36 | The Angry Hourglass.
Usual rules applied. Create a story. 36 hours. 360 word limit. Use the photo prompt (the black and white one).
So…this was my attempt to dedicate a story to my writing buddies, who are fantastically talented and generous, and who are, to be honest, taking over my life (in a good way).
So supportive are this group that a Flash movement was born. It’s called FlashDogs.
I am one of a number of people who have been working hard to create the FlashDogs community. It’s going really well. David Shakes is also closely involved and everyone will be helping in some way if they haven’t already. A book of our best work is due out before Christmas. Can’t wait – it’s going to be incredible.
Metropolitan Dreams 