Violent Skies (1173 hits)
Category: UberMadness!Rating: 0.44 on 58 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by UberMadness! (View user info) at 2006-11-07 12:00:54 EST
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Entry 1
My grandfather stood at the foot of his hospital bed. He cleared his throat and shook his head at the form under the white sheets.
"You should just let me go, Lucky," he chided. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He wandered over to the window and began his attempt to open it.
I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. "You don't have to open the window, farfar. You're a ghost. They won't smell the smoke."
I was beginning to dislike the conversations I was having with my disembodied grandfather while I held his still warm hand in mine. His body was still breathing. Occasionally his eyes would flutter open to give my heart a good wrench. But his ghost has been haunting his room since last Tuesday.
Last Tuesday was when he had the final stroke.
I should have let him go then.
"You don't get it," he shook his head and gazed out over the hospital grounds. The hospital grounds were more like a parking lot with seven trees in concrete purgatory.
Smoke streamed around his head but I didn't smell it. I was beginning to miss the tough scent of his tobacco. It would linger in our house for days after his visits. I would revel in it because that smell was farfar. It wasn't this hollow sterility I've been living with for three years.
Three years of homes and hospitals.
I've grown up in the time it has taken him to die.
"It's going to rain," he said. "Just might snow too. You should go home, Lucky. I don't want you to end up in a bed like me."
I placed a kiss on his forehead and watched the ghost reach up to caress the same spot on his head. Gathering my things, I watched them both with tired eyes. This was my fault. It wasn't my father's. He was too dead to know any of this was happening. My mother and grandmother were in the ground beside him so they couldn't help. My only living relative, Uncle Frederek, could be in Brazil for all I know.
If it wasn't for that damned ghost, I'd be completely alone in this.
"I...I'll be back in the morning," I said.
From the window, the ghost gave a gruff nod. "I might come with you."
He still stood there, staring out the window.
"Just don't scare the shit out of me," I replied before stalking out the door. I tried to look busied and angered by my visits. I don't know why I always storm out like I do. Maybe if the nurses think I hate my grandpa, they'll give him an overdose of something sleepy and end all of this.
Bits of white sparkled down from the sky as angry clouds churned above me. I stared up, pulling my collar around me. I hated giving the sky metaphorical qualities but sometimes it senses my moods all too well.
I got into my small car and started the engine. Staring at the dashboard, I gave myself another opportunity to cry. Again, I didn't take it.
"Go home, Johan. Don't sit here and mourn. It's a waste of time."
I glanced over my shoulder to confirm my grandfather was sitting in the backseat. He was his younger self now, not the old man who lurked in his hospital room. He was tall and blond, nearly identical to me. His leather jacket was a soft brown. I was always drawn to black. My hair was longer and tousled. I liked to think I was in style. His was cut as it always was - short and neat. He took a long drag on his cigarette and again I longed for that scent to bake into my car.
He had the cockiness of a pilot. He carried that with him all of his life. He liked to say that him and death were old buddies and that this was payback for stiffing him on beers on many occasions.
I was on the road when I began to speak again, "Tell me why you call me Lucky again, farfar."
I hadn't asked him that since I was seven. My grandfather had pulled me up onto his knee and ruffled my hair. He laughed every time I asked him how I earned my nickname. I always thought the story was a lie, so eventually I just stopped asking. But the memory of his laughter still made me smile. He wasn't laughing now.
He stretched out his arms along the back of the bench seat, "You know the story. You tell me."
My grandfather was a pilot in Sweden during World War II. Sweden was neutral but still patrolled their borders for hostilities. His future wife, my grandmother, was a Finn. They'd just met at the start of the war and weren't married, but he still wanted to do everything for her. When Russia attacked Finland, he couldn't sit by and be neutral. My great grandfather had been English, so my grandfather found a way into the Royal Air Force. I never believed his stories until he showed me the pictures. It all seemed like some tall tale he dreamed up to fill his only grandson's head with dreams of flight.
"Your squadron was given a mission to protect ships in the channel. It wasn't the dogfights you dreamed of, but it was doing your part. You weren't a pacifist like everyone else at home," I paused to switch on the windshield wipers. The snow wasn't melting when it hit the ground. This fall was here to stay.
My grandfather continued the story before I could begin again.
"We were prepping for the mission. I was heading to the hanger when a little blond boy ran up to me. I'd never seen him before, but somewhere inside I knew he was a part of me. He was all my good bits and none of the bad. But he stopped me dead and grabbed my hand. 'Farfar,' he said, 'don't go.' He stood in my way and tried to warn me with his big blue eyes that there were dangers out there that I couldn't fight," my grandfather sighed. "I didn't go. And they were ambushed in the channel."
"And they all died," I added flatly.
He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "When you were born, I knew you'd been there to save me. Your father wasn't even a thought in my mind, but you were. You're my Lucky. I wouldn't want anyone else to watch over me now but you."
The quiet that filled the car lasted until I reached my flat. I turned around to tell him goodnight, but he was gone.
My grandfather didn't deserve to die like every other dying person in that hospital. He wasn't meant to be the vegetable I've allowed him to become. His ghost is my punishment. His body is my responsibility.
I crawled into my empty bed and shivered. Cold was pouring in between the seals of my windows as the snow continued to fall. I was putting my life on hold while I waited for him to die. I had dropped out of school. I hardly ever went to work anymore. I was living off my parents' life insurance, which should be going towards paying off school. I've always had a feeling that I've never belonged. Unless I was with my grandpa, I was lost. When I lose him, I'll lose myself.
I took another moment to let myself cry and again I let it pass.
This wasn't my life. This was the end of his. I should have let him go into the violent skies. He didn't deserve to die here on the cruel earth.
A shock of winter lightning sparked outside my window. It arced against the sky, shaking me awake. As the ghost image faded from my eyes, I caught a hint of my grandfather's cigarettes.
I must undo all of this.
In my dreams that night, I was the small boy again.
His story about me being his lucky charm had never seemed real to me. I thought it was another one of his stories. He liked to tell me things and lead me along. I always doubted he was a pilot until he proved it to me. Now, he's proving to me that apparitions are real and seeing them apparently runs in our family.
We were sitting on the grass next to the hanger. Everything was cast in sunlight, but the sky was a deep black. I couldn't understand it. The grass underneath my hand felt surreal, matching the otherworldliness of the sky above. The texture, the smell...this was more than a dream. But how could it be?
My grandfather saw me wondering and took my hand.
"How much do you love me, farfar?" I asked, my voice small and ancient. I was an echo of my past, remembering something I shouldn't be able to recall.
His face was young but I could still see his wisdom hidden in his eyes. He dropped his head and brought my hand to his mouth. He kissed my small knuckle then let me go.
"I love you enough, Lucky," he said as he stood. "Just enough."
He took a few steps forward before stopping.
"Come fly with me," he smiled over his shoulder.
I didn't need to think about it. I took his hand and together we crossed the runway.
We climbed up into his plane and he gave me a bright grin. This was what had to be. I had stood in the way of destiny once; it's wrong to let it happen again.
Somewhere in a past that wasn't mine, I flew up into the violent skies. I closed my small eyes and let the wind rush by me, as we were welcomed into an uneasy freedom.
Last Tuesday, in the same sick room, an old diabetic woman looked out at the seven trees in the hospitals' parking lot.
In an eyeblink, she swore she felt the presence of a man who was never there.
"It's going to snow next week," she said to the empty spirit.
She rolled over and wrapped herself in the thin sheets. She shivered and mumbled to herself.
"I never liked the snow."
- VS -
Entry 2
The Sun slowly opened his eyes and stared straight ahead at the ceiling above him. He didn't want to move his eyes because he'd know how bad his hangover really was.Braving against his past and wincing at his future, The Sun looked to the left and his bedside table, where his Scooby Doo alarm clock reported the passage of time: four and a half billion years.
Forgetting his hangover, The Sun bounced out of bed as if he were ready to greet the day but was, in fact, scared shitless of it.
"Four billion years," he said in both an exclamatory and inquisitive tone, "but just yesterday I was celebrating my..."
Looking around, The Sun could make out "Happy One Billion!" signs posted all over the walls of his room. Most of the "ones" were crossed out, though, and replaced with numbers two through four. The handwriting was progressively more sloppy as the billions of years ticked by in the past.
It felt like only yesterday The Sun was entering his happy-go-lucky teenage phase, where nothing could go wrong and everything was super! But today The Sun was already on the verge of middle age. Soon he would begin to expand into a Red Giant, something that was so far away that it had not even begun to be considered by the nubile Sun.
"I need to fuse some hydrogen," The Sun said, realizing it was the one thing that could help him recover from the previous four billion years' craze.
The Sun scraped his feet over to his desk in the corner of the room. In the top drawer, way in the very back, was where The Sun kept all of his hydrogen. As The Sun unlatched that container and peered inside, he saw what no four and a half billion year stars had seen before him.
Nothing.
The hydrogen wasn't in its usual spot. But that didn't mean it didn't exist. Perhaps The Sun had stored his hydrogen in a safer place, where the stars The Sun had invited over (and those stars' friends, in particular) wouldn't find his hydrogen and pinch a little bit of it for their own fusion.
The Sun checked his second drawer, which held his bottle cap collection, and his third, which held various knick knacks and paddy whacks. But no hydrogen.
The closet, under the bed, pockets in every conceivable pair of pants were checked but yielded no successful result.
"Oh man," said The Sun dejected, "I had a 10 billion year supply of hydrogen and I blew it all last night at the party?"
His blackout turned to a brownout, as The Sun's memory was taking itself for a little jog. He remembered sitting in a circle with Mercury and M32, who had made the long trip from the Andromeda Galaxy to hang out with The Sun on his special night(s). The Sun remembered fusing hydrogen with those two, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. The Sun fused hydrogen with Mercury all the time. Adding one other star wouldn't diminish that much Hydrogen.
The Sun picked up his cellular telephone, surprised at the fact its battery still had juice, and dialed his next door neighbor, Mercury.
"Hey Merc, what's up? It's The Sun," he said.
"Hey man," replied Mercury, in a squeaky tone one would expect from such a tiny planet. "how you doin'?"
"Not too bad, not too bad," said The Sun, hoping to move into the pressing issues as fast as possible. "And you?"
"Eh," replied Mercury, "I've been better. That hangover from the last four billion years is killing me."
"Yeah...yeah..." The Sun offered without remorse or care, "hey listen man, do you happen to know if we fused more hydrogen than normal last night?"
"Uh, maybe a little more than usual, I guess. Why?"
"Well because I can't seem to find mine," said The Sun, hoping that Mercury would have all the answers. "Sure, you asked me to keep it safe," he could say. Or even "don't worry, The Sun, everything is going to be okay. Have an amount between some and all of my hydrogen. I don't really need it."
But what Mercury said was not along those line.
"Sucks dude," said the tiny satellite. "Listen, The Sun, I'm running pretty low on hydrogen now myself. I'm down to 3.2 percent hydrogen in my atmosphere so I was planning on making a trip out to my dealer today. I've known him for a while so it would probably be cool if you came with. You got some cash?"
"Sure man," said The Sun, eager to start fusing again. "does this guy deal in bulk?"
"Let's just say the guy is made out of the stuff," Mercury said, cackling. The other end of the line went dead and The Sun was left alone with his wavering state of hydrostatic balance.
--
The trip to the dealer took much longer than The Sun had expected. Even though they took a route to avoid bitchy Venus, Mercury and The Sun were still caught up by Earth and Mars, who couldn't stop talking about the hangovers they had as well.
After a hop over the asteroid belt, Mercury waved his hand over the spacescape in a majestic fashion and presented the grand planet known as Saturn.
"Looks a little vicious, doesn't it," remarked The Sun on Saturn's most distinctive feature. "What would happen to a guy if he stepped into that?"
"Beats me," Mercury said, "But I heard that's how Pluto and Charon were separated in the first place."
Mercury stepped under the rings and knocked on Saturn.
A gentle rumble erupted from the planet. "Hey baby," said the giant, easily dwarfing Mercury. "Who's your friend, sailor?"
"Saturn, this is The Sun. The Sun, meet Saturn."
"Damn, boy," Saturn said. "You look so much smaller from all the way over there. But your fusin' ass is fuckin' big, isn't it?"
The Sun didn't know whether the remark was a compliment or an insult, so he merely chuckled.
"Enough fun time, Chuckles," Saturn said to the big fuckin' fuser, "My bud Merc here tells me you're looking to make a bulk purchase."
The Sun nodded his head in earnest.
"That's what I like to hear. Now here's the skinny, fatsos, I'm more than 93 percent hydrogen and I'm poor as hell. Now gimme some dough and we'll be lettin' the hydrogen flow, y'dig?"
The Sun did not know if he "dug" or not, unaware of the existence and meaning of the term. The Sun looked to Mercury for guidance. Mercury looked to Saturn for the same. Saturn nodded his head to Mercury and Mercury did the same for The Sun. The Sun then nodded and Mercury and nodded at Saturn.
"Good," Saturn said.
The Sun handed Saturn a wad of cash as big as Mercury and Saturn weighed out and handed The Sun enough hydrogen to last for another billion years. Saturn also slipped Mercury a small finders fee as an incentive to bring in more business.
The Sun got his hydrogen and could keep on fusing hydrogen! Saturn made a lot of cash! Mercury pocketed a few bucks too!
What a happy ending!
...
"Ho ho ho."
...
"Ho ho ho."
"Uh, Mercury," The Sun asked, "what the hell is that?"
Mercury orbited all around, looking for the answer. "Maybe it's in the asteroid belt somewhere?"
"Ho ho ho."
The sound kept repeating, haunting the minds and souls of our protagonists.
"Vile creature," implored The Sun, "whether you be demon, black hole or even God himself, show us where you are so your residence is no longer that of my head. For I fear it is not a suitable mansion for your majesty."
"Turn around," said the booming voice.
Mercury and The Sun did as they were commanded, and came face to face with Saturn again. But it was not his menacing laugh that tortured the seekers and finders of hydrogen.
As Saturn slowly orbited away from the spot, the maniac became visible bit by bit. He was huge, nearly as big as The Sun and with a field of gravity that was near impossible to resist. Slowly, The Sun and Mercury were drawn to this huge mass, which only seemed to get bigger as they approached it.
The giant surveyed the two for a moment, including the hydrogen still in The Sun's hand.
"You sure are a god damn fool, you know that?" asked the gravity-producing colossus. "Walkin' around with that much hydrogen in your hand will land you in jail so fast you won't even be able to say 'pontificate.'"
"Huh?" asked The Sun, completely oblivious of Galactic Code 4325-3.
"Bitch it's all spread out in GC 4325-3," explained the gaseous gargantuan. "A being may not carry more than their allotted amount of hydrogen through space nor time in conjunction with the Wormhole Act of 6750. Each being's allotted amount is relative to the amount they were bestowed with upon The Big Bang minus what it has used since. The sale and transfer of hydrogen is strictly prohibited. Punishments include blabiddy bla bla. You get the point. Oh, by the way, my name is Jupiter. Pleased to meet ya, playas."
Hands were shaken.
"Now from all the way out here," Saturn said, "I thought I saw you give Saturn a wad of cash as big as my Great Red Spot. Is that a truth, brotha'?"
The Sun confirmed that it was, in fact, a truth.
"And that hydrogen you're carrying all up in yo' badass self, that's all that Saturn gave ya, right?"
The Sun confirmed that this too was a truth.
"Well," said Jupiter as he stroked his chin, "it's my duty to inform you both that you were screwed."
The Sun shot Mercury a glance. This was, after all, his "guy."
"Mercury, what the fuck?" asked The Sun with more fatigue than anger.
"Uh..." Mercury stammered, taking steps back towards the asteroid belt and his safe, warm little orbit.
"Where the fuck you think you're going?" asked Jupiter. All of a sudden, it felt like the gravity in the galaxy had been turned on for the first time. In reality, Jupiter had unleashed the full fury of his gravity upon Mercury and was drawing him in for a final plunge through the devastating atmosphere of Jupiter. If he made it to the surface, he would be crushed into smithereens. If not, all the better.
Mercury struggled for his life, of course, but in the end he was just too small and couldn't overcome the awesome power of the elephantine gargantuan.
"One down," said Jupiter, looking at The Sun and then out to Saturn. "One to go."
Both soldiers glared out to the other side of the universe, where Saturn was casually floating and counting his newfound fortune, totally unaware of the plot being concocted against him.
As he floated towards us, Saturn made eye contact with Jupiter and nonchalantly turned the other way. As Saturn came closer and closer, The Sun was wondering who was going to make the first move.
It was Saturn.
As nonchalantly as he had turned away, he turned back towards The Sun and Jupiter, but this time was packing two 9mm handguns, each blazing bullets headed towards Jupiter.
Dodging the bullets and pulling out handguns of his own, Jupiter used The Sun as a shield, knowing that any bullets he took on would melt long before they produced any kind of exit wound.
"You mothafuckaaaaaaa!" screamed Saturn as he hid behind one of the larger asteroids in the belt, spewing bullets at a feverish pace.
"Biiiioooooootch!" yelled Jupiter as he strafed left, hoping for a better position to fire upon Saturn. "You screwed the kid with a bum deal!"
The Sun felt hot lead enter him twice...three times but no sound of pain erupted from Jupiter's lips.
"Heeeeeell no!" retorted Saturn. "It's a black market deal. It's not unjust because we both got what we wanted out of the transaction."
The ring of bullets exiting their chambers stopped.
"But in such a market," Jupiter said, "both the buyer and the seller must have perfect knowledge of the situation for such a deal to be just."
"Perfect knowledge is a myth," said Saturn, letting his guns drop to his side. "No consumer or buyer can ever conceivably know everything about every market, even with one specific good. And especially on the black market. We agreed on the transaction and it was done so. That is the market in its purest sense. Just because the kid's got buyer's remorse doesn't mean it's my fault."
"Doesn't it?" asked Jupiter. "maybe the kid wouldn't be having buyer's remorse if you didn't screw him so badly."
"Well he wouldn't have even known he was screwed if you hadn't told him! This story could've been over a long time ago!" exclaimed Saturn.
"Got a point there," said Jupiter.
The Sun, by this point had forgotten the fuse the hydrogen molecules he was holding. By default, he had started processing hydrogen outside of his core, in the less dense regions of himself.
The search for new hydrogen outside the core caused The Sun to expand rapidly and decrease in temperature, from yellow to red.
"Biiiiiitch no," said Jupiter, as he was very close to The Sun and was vaporized almost immediately. "I tried to heeeeeelp you."
Saturn shared a similar fate but called The Sun "ho" instead of "bitch."
As The Sun expanded in this spot, the galaxy radically changed. Seeing as he was not at the center where he was supposed to be, a new gravitational pull was formed which slowly ate the rest of the planets but left out Pluto because it wasn't worth it and also Pluto was never a planet.
Fuck Pluto.
Entry 1:
Amontillado
Axolotl
Bigmike
Coleslaw_Murphy
coley
Crystle
drgoatcabin
DrogoRoch
EchoBoxing
ghola
HotWillie
Impassive-Digressive
Jack_McCallum
JMG114
lolabelly
Magicaddict
MandaPanda
nrduncan
Pentameter
rad1101
Razor
rennfahrer
Sacrilicious
St_Jimmy
stevie_says
The_Yellow_Dart
22 eligible votes (26 total) *
Entry 2:
august_sobriquet
Coyote
darko
FunnyAsCancer
hour_man
indoninja
jack11058
joedaddy
JoeyG
JonnyX
KindaNews
NerfHerder
Orgasmatron
ParlorTrick
simple_catalyst
sparkle_pink
SPECIALk
Stagger_Lee
supadupapupa
TheUniter
WingedFoote
20 eligible votes (21 total) *
* Eligible votes are those made by users who had either (A) posted 3+ messages OR (B) written 100+ [lowered from 750+] reviews as of the beginning of the UberMadness! competition.
User Reviews
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2006-11-11 22:28:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I love when the losers vote for the loser....
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-11-10 22:33:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
WHY MUST I ALWAYS VOTE AGAINST THE ONE I LOVE?!?!
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-10 13:57:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I was just as surprised as you were.
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-11-10 13:11:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Well, this got close at the end.
Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (user info) at 2006-11-10 11:56:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-11-10 11:48:05 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by FunnyAsCancer (user info) at 2006-11-10 10:20:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I'm sorry Numba 1. 2 was just too fucked up for me not to.
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-10 04:31:44 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
SHUT YO FUCKIN MOUTH AND HEAT
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-10 03:32:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
HEAT?
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-10 03:23:35 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
HEAT
Submitted by joedaddy (user info) at 2006-11-10 03:00:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
you had me @ fuck pluto
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2006-11-10 01:01:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by KindaNews (user info) at 2006-11-09 22:52:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2006-11-09 22:51:19 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Beautiful.
Submitted by WingedFoote (user info) at 2006-11-09 21:15:49 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
who knows?
Submitted by Razor (user info) at 2006-11-09 16:42:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I thought I was going to give it up to Entry 2, it had all the makings of a great funny story, but it just kind of fizzled out in the second half.
Submitted by jack11058 (user info) at 2006-11-09 13:49:52 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by simple_catalyst (user info) at 2006-11-09 13:45:23 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by supadupapupa (user info) at 2006-11-09 03:22:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by thorpe (user info) at 2006-11-08 21:48:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
I would have done a Battle of Britain story for this title.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-11-08 21:25:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Both were decent.
2 was more creative, but really seemed to phone in the ending.
Submitted by rennfahrer (user info) at 2006-11-08 16:21:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by coley (user info) at 2006-11-08 16:14:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was the sort of thing I'd like to see made into a little movie.
Submitted by august_sobriquet (user info) at 2006-11-08 16:01:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2006-11-08 12:37:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
only skimmed them.
Submitted by Magicaddict (user info) at 2006-11-08 10:54:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
#2 was great fun and a good concept, and as a comedy piece, pretty flawless. #1, however, was powerful and moving, and came to an equivocal conclusion that trusted the reader to make their own ending up. I liked a lot.
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2006-11-08 09:04:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Entry 2 was creative, but entry 1 just tickled me somewhere. I enjoyed every word.
Submitted by JMG114 (user info) at 2006-11-08 08:54:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Entry two was actually really imaginative and pretty damn entertaining.
Entry one was only more so.
Submitted by DrogoRoch (user info) at 2006-11-08 08:35:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
#1 I can't remember why now that I read #2, I just know that its right to vote for #1
Submitted by JoeyG (user info) at 2006-11-08 07:36:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Neither really did it for me, but I did like the concept of #2.
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2006-11-08 03:43:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
jesus fuck #2 would have been so good, but the factual errors clearly ruined the suspension of disbelief for me.
Submitted by sparkle_pink (user info) at 2006-11-08 03:05:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
FUSION FUSION FUSION
Entry 1 was beautiful, but entry 2 was so much fun. Good job to both authors.
Submitted by Stagger_Lee (user info) at 2006-11-07 23:35:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
#2, but only just. Sorry #1, I liked yours too.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-11-07 22:59:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2006-11-07 21:20:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by ParlorTrick (user info) at 2006-11-07 20:40:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
The gravity-producing colossus barely beat flying with farfar.
I liked both.
Submitted by The_Yellow_Dart (user info) at 2006-11-07 20:37:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2006-11-07 20:19:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
this should have been an excellent title to work with
Submitted by darko (user info) at 2006-11-07 19:50:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by EchoBoxing (user info) at 2006-11-07 18:11:05 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
WOOOO UBERMADNESS!!
i didn't read either.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-11-07 18:03:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-07 17:28:16 (#)
Ranking: 2
If I may correct the so-called inaccuracies...
Technically anything that orbits something else is a satellite.
Also, our Sun isn't big enough to go supernova. It will, however, transform into a Red Dwarf in a process in which the Sun would expand rapidly and not implode or anything else on itself for quite a while. Maybe a billion years? I dunno.
--
Correcting corrections.
While I jumped the gun with the word nova, I did not say supernova. I believe our sun will actually EXPAND into a Red Giant, ultimately blowing off it's outer layer. I thought 'poof' and wrote nova without thinking it through.
While you are TECHNICALLY correct about anything orbiting being a satellite, Mercury is classified as a planet. The writer should have said something along the lines of 'The Sun's satellite...'
Submitted by Amontillado (user info) at 2006-11-07 17:46:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
wtf?
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-07 17:28:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If I may correct the so-called inaccuracies...
Technically anything that orbits something else is a satellite.
Also, our Sun isn't big enough to go supernova. It will, however, transform into a Red Dwarf in a process in which the Sun would expand rapidly and not implode or anything else on itself for quite a while. Maybe a billion years? I dunno.
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-11-07 17:21:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
#2 would have gotten my vote for bizarro fun, but there were too many astronomical glitches (no pun intended) to do it for me. Mercury is a planet, not a satellite. If the sun went nova it would impact the solar system, not the galaxy, etc. IF the science had been a bit more accurate this would have kicked ass. Still, you get points for trying something new.
Congrats, #1.
Submitted by drgoatcabin (user info) at 2006-11-07 16:46:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-11-07 16:42:10 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
I love interplanetary hijinx
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2006-11-07 15:26:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2006-11-07 15:25:13 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
FUSION FUSION FUSION FUSION FUSION FUSION
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2006-11-07 14:58:52 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by SPECIALk (user info) at 2006-11-07 14:30:22 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
hahahahaha
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2006-11-07 14:27:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2006-11-07 13:26:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by NerfHerder (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:57:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by lolabelly (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:53:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:42:36 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
sorry 2
Submitted by stevie_says (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:37:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
No Comment
Submitted by hour_man (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:15:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2006-11-07 12:05:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
God DAMN what a great title!
Now to read, praying that these are good...