FF – Still Useful
Here is my story for Friday Fictioneers at last. Friday Fictioneers is hosted by Rochelle and this week’s photo was contributed by Sean Fallon.
You’d hardly believe it, but I spent all of yesterday trying to think how I could add a salt shaker and iPhone charger so I could work in the line “I’m charging you with a-salt and battery.” Sadly, it was not to be :-(. So here’s yet another post-apocalyptic nightmare for you instead.
To read this week’s other stories, click on the blue froggy.
Copyright Sean Fallon
Seamus stared sadly at his cache of batteries. Time was you could slip one of these babies into a torch, a remote, a toy, and it would come to life! Not anymore. Not since the flares.
Who knew the Sun held such anger in its soul? Every circuit board on Earth, every machine, fried in an instant.
The door flew open, dragging Seamus from his reverie.
“Seamus! Got another one who won’t cooperate! Need some more of that acid.”
Seamus picked a battery out of his pot, carefully sawed the top off and handed it over. Still useful, he muttered.
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draliman on life 
What are they up to?
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A spot of torture, methinks!
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Ooh! That was DARK!
Brilliant, as always, my friend.
(And DO solar flares fry batteries? I’m a little fuzzy about the science of all this. 🙂 )
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Glad you liked it 🙂
Enough EM radiation will fry electronics, but the actual batteries will be fine! Just nothing left to put them in.
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Ah.
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I wasn’t too clear in my story. The word limit, you know… 🙂
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Hah!
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Very useful story, too. Great job!
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Thanks, I’m glad you liked it!
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Love this stry and how you gave a second life to them batteries!
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Shame to let them go to waste 🙂
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A clever repurposing of a previously useful item? I must admit, I’d never have thought of that.
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Most “well-adjusted” people wouldn’t have thought of it either!
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Who knew, indeed.
Recycling at its best!
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In such a world, there’s no room for waste!
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Oh my if they were 9 volts (the square ones) They could stick it on their tongues. This is the one I wrote when the used this picture before. http://wp.me/p28tjX-vU
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Ha, I used to do that as a kid!
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Very dark – shame you couldn’t sneak your joke in!
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Yeah – I’ll keep it on the back burner… 🙂
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A grim future ahead, it seems. Well told. I like the matter-of-fact tone to deliver such a horrifying scenario.
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Thanks! I guess they’re getting by the best they can, and the previously unthinkable (to most) has become common-place.
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Ouch! The inquisitor has some new toys to plsy with.
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What fun 🙂
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Got another one who won’t cooperate ~ Oh, boy, I bet I’m glad I’m not “another one.”
So many good ideas in this piece. The angry sun, batteries for torture (maybe not such a good idea, but…) Well done
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I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes either right now.
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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interesting. just wondering what it would be used for. 😦
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There are so many body parts you wouldn’t want acid smeared on…
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This was really dark, Ali. I’d say don’t give people ideas, but it seems they already have them. I dislike reading most pages of the paper these days. Well done. — Suzanne
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There’s very little madness I could think up that hasn’t already been thought of by someone somewhere, I fear.
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There’s always an extra use for everything. Well done 😀
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Many things have been re-purposed in this new world. I’m glad you liked it!
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Oh i do enjoy a nice post apocalyptic nightmare. HaHaHa! Keep the salt and battery up your writing sleeve for another time! 😀
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Apocalypses bring so many possibilities 🙂
I’m sure I’ll get that joke in somewhere one day…
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Who knew the Sun held such anger in its soul? ~ powerful personification! 😀
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The Sun giveth and the Sun taketh away…
I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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It must be great to actually have some scientific knowledge to back up your science fiction. I have to turn to Professor Google when I need to know stuff like whether the sun would actually destroy battery power. There really should be a Wikipedia of hypotheticals for fiction writers. People like you could write pages for people like me to reference: eg, What would happen if the suns rays burnt out all batteries?
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A massive solar flare/CME could take out all the electronics though batteries would be fine I imagine – they’re “chemistry”! But if all the batteries got fried and the electronics were fine it would have much the same effect 🙂
(I realise having reread my story that I wasn’t clear on which bits got fried.)
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For the purpose of your story, I don’t think it mattered!
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🙂
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Daaaark. Yes, I really like this – appreciate the deadened resignation in the main character. And yes, nightmarish as all heck. Shudder.
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I get the impression he’s not all that happy with the situation, but he’s making do. Survival is the name of the game in this future wasteland of a a world!
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Sometimes it is sooo hard to get a story to cooperate with its given ending! Your a-salt story will still happen…. just needs another criminal opportunity.
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Yeah, try as I might I couldn’t get my awesome award-winning joke into a story!
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I don’t know if the Energizer Bunny mascot is well known outside of the US, but that’s what I thought of. Those batteries keep going and going and going and going….
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Funnily enough I was going to mention the Energiser Bunny (with an “s”!) in a comment on someone else’s story, but wasn’t sure if he was well-known outside of the UK…
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Ha! I actually live near the bunny’s home. Energizer is a local company headquartered just across the river from me…
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It must be hard to sleep at night with all the clashing cymbals and whatnot.
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I find it intriguing that the Sun is being uncooperative and angry and the people in the story are torturing the people who are not cooperating. Wonderful story, Ali!
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Very true, I hadn’t noticed that. Maybe it’s “displacement”!
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I noticed it because I thought that was the reason the sun was being the way it was because of the people being the way they are being. Just a thought… LOL
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🙂
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I am charging you with making me think. Now I wonder how can I use. I am charging you with a-salt and …
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Feel free – someone might as well get the use of it!
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Now this is creative. Very well done.
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Thanks!
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How is your book coming?
I’m almost finished with what I hope is my last editing. I’m improving the ending and resolving some issues.
This week, the plot for the third book came to me. The story is very different form my original plan.
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Heh heh. No comment 😉
Sounds like you’re getting on well with yours, though!
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You’re funny.
I’ll ask again in a couple of months. ;0)
Yes, I hope to publish book two this May.
We shall see.
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Cool 🙂
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What would Inga think? 😉
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Heh heh 🙂 A psychologist’s dream. She’ll probably get a whole book written out of this bunch!
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Oh, my! How horrible! I love the line – Who knew the Sun held such anger in its soul? That’s great! Well done.
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Thanks! It is a pretty horrible thought. And these people were probably office workers and the like before the apocalypse turned them into psychos…
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Sorry you couldn’t do the salt and charger. but this was great fun. Who would have thought of such a use for batteries?
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Yes, not fitting that joke in was a real blow 🙂
I’m glad you liked what I ended up with! Only seriously twisted people would think to re-purpose batteries in such a way, I think.
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Love it! The idea of the sun having fried everything is fab and can only imagine what uses the acid will have! Well written and thought provoking 🙂
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Thanks! I sometimes worry this could actually happen (the frying that is). We’ve lost power grids to solar events but it would take a really massive event to wipe out the entire planet 🙂
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This is sick! 😉
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Yep 🙂
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Dear Ali,
At least you worked your pun into the intro. Nothing’s wasted…like the batteries. Well done.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle,
I thought it would be a shame to miss out on my pun altogether! I’m glad you liked it – and the story!
Ali
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There they are, their world turned upside down, and they can think of nothing else than torture each other. This is so sadly close to the truth, it hurts. I too love the line with the angry sould of the sun. Took me a while to get the a-salt and battery, but now it makes me chuckle.
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I fear in an apocalyptic world, the nastiest and most ruthless are the ones most likely to be running the show. I’m glad you got the pun – at first glance it wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever to those whose first language is not English 🙂
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I see you’re heading back to ‘macabre’ again. I missed your dark touch. 🙂
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I had to go “dark” after I failed to get my joke into a story 🙂
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Another nice twist, and good world-building. I enjoyed it and fear that apocalypse! : )
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I fear it to. It’s a dog eat dog world in the near future 😦
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I feel that human’s ability to innovate does not exclude darkness… wonderful take.
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Thanks – his morals are as fluid as the dangerous times he lives in.
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Delightfully dark as usual. I don’t think nasty, ruthless people need an apocalypse to justify torture – didnt Trump argue for ‘waterboarding, and more than waterboarding’ very recently (and to great applause)?
Nicely done.
KT
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Very true, but now it has become, if not acceptable, then “every day”.
I’ve only read bits and bobs of the election excitement going on in America, but it does sound like something he’d say! Yeeks.
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Nice twist at the end. Very well done!
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Thanks! He’s found his dark niche…
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Excellent story, though I do hope it doesn’t prove to be prophetic. You’ll have to write something including the salt-and battery on another occasion. 🙂
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I hope so too!
I’ll have to get that “joke” in somewhere. It would be as shame to waste it 🙂
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😀 😀
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