draliman on life

Here is my contribution to Barbara Beacham’s Mondays Finish the Story. We get a photo and an opening sentence (which is in bold in my story). Then we have 150 words or so to finish the story. The opening sentence this week was contributed by Eric Wickland of Momus News.

Click on the blue froggy for this week’s other contributions.

Copyright B.W. Beacham

At first, it looked like an ordinary marble, but it was far from it.

Merrax opened the protective covering to reveal a small blue and green globe. He handed it to the planetary mechanic (No Planet Too Small – Call Now!).

“Hmm, yes, funny smell coming from this,” said the mechanic.

Merrax nodded. “I popped some two-legged creatures on there for a science project and now it smells real bad.”

“Yep,” said the mechanic knowingly. “They’ve stunk the place up. Gases, oils, chemicals… expensive to fix.” His eyes gleamed.

“Isn’t there a cheap option?” asked Merrax. His mum was going to be so mad.

“Well,” said the mechanic. “We could reboot the whole… “

“Earth,” said Merrax.

“Whatever. Start anew. Wipe it all off. Much cheaper.”

Merrax had a think. “We’ll do that,” he decided.

“No worries.” The mechanic popped Earth in a machine and pressed a button. If you listened carefully, you could hear the screams of the dying emanating from the little globe.

“There you go, just like new!” said the mechanic. “Factory reset. Earth 2.0!”