By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-23
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tags:
nanoprep, personal, the end
Writing isn't hard for me. When I sit down and have the intent, time, and focus, I manage to crank out a decent amount of words every time, and usually they're not complete horse shit either. During these October weeks, I churn out idea after idea, and even if they're not the most original, there's usually something in there that makes them work. But they're generally unfinished, too short, not detailed enough, or simply rushed.
And then I never get back to them to fix them.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-19
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tags:
nanoprep, personal, fantastical, music
A squealing noise in his right ear, a dissonant additional chord that overlaid the actual sound, and a slight but noticeable delay in hearing it all. What a way to wake up. He'd only bought his electronic drum kit a short while ago, same with his new guitar, and now his hearing was going out? He sighed to himself as he sat, whistling to himself to find the tones that caused the dissonant sound in his right ear. Just thinking to himself whether this is what it's like to grow old. Bits just stop working randomly? This is your life now? He'd heard that was a thing.
He quickly looked up what his new instruments were worth on the second-hand market, in a weird form of proactive acceptance. If his hearing was going to go out, he'd simply have to deal with it. He could go to the doctor on Monday, 2 days from now, but in the meantime all he could do was google his symptoms.
No surprise, the internet told him he probably had brain cancer. Very helpful.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-18
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
I wiped the glasses down and put them back in the dispenser. Wiping the counter down, the first customer of the night walked in. I nodded to him, he raised a single finger, and then sat down at a table near the door. One beer coming up. I took a can from the fridge and walked over.
"Here you go," I said, handing it over.
"Hey, can I ask you something? It's my first time here, anything I really should go see?"
I chuckled. We've been getting more tourists lately, ever since they decided that the budget needed some more help. And, true, it's definitely something else here, but it's almost like these tourists can't read the brochure I know they were given.
"Well, first off, if it's your first time here, you'll want to be careful of opening that beer. It'll spray out if you're not careful. Wait, let me get one and show you our trick to prevent that."
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-16
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tags:
nanoprep, coffee, saga, jerry, rebecca
This is part 9 of the Coffee Saga, find the rest here.
It was raining by now, and she hurried across the street. It was late, and there weren't that many people around, but she needed to be in a place she was comfortable at. Everything had gone ass-end up, and she didn't fully understand why. Why had he gone so incredibly far? His single-minded focus on this game they'd been playing had been clear for a long time, but she always figured there was an element of play underneath it all, a solid basis of messing with one another. Something which would keep the game going but never too far, an assumption she had used to continue pushing him over all this time. But she had also offered olive branches every so often as well. To keep that balance. To feed that basis.
But it hadn't been play. Not anymore. It wasn't a feisty rivalry like it was for her, but a malicious rivalry that had grown to possibly dangerous levels. He'd taken it further than she ever thought he would, even after everything they'd been through. He had been willing to burn it all down. She went to put her key in the lock, but saw a light on in the kitchen. She checked her phone, and both Kate and Dave had responded that they were on their way. It must be them, she concluded. She went in, and she could hear their voices in the back. Good. Safe.
Java House. Rebecca was home.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-15
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi, hugo, vickers, space
He'd been very successful for someone who had as few resources as he had to work with these past few years, but it had all been building up to this. He had to take a public shuttle out here, since he had sold back the ship he'd been using this past 6 years, but even as he felt he had the least amount of freedom he'd had since he grew up earth-side, he knew the next step would open up the galaxy for him.
For the past years, Hugo Vickers had been an indebted miner, out in the Jupiter Trojans, the debt coming in the form of a company ship he would have to pay off. And it had been terrible from start to even more terrible finish. These type of ships have a single compartment for crew, and the crew size was 1. The closest comparison would be a one-person cocoon where you work, eat, sleep, and everything else as well. To describe the shape of the ship, Hugo always felt it would be easiest to compare it to what a tick looks like after an impressive feast. A tiny little head -- the cockpit -- with a huge cargo space -- the body, filled with his blood, sweat, and tears.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-12
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tags:
nanoprep, dystopian
He had hunted this bison for a long time, multiple nights, and he could feel in his muscles he was getting tired. But so was the bison, he could tell. The tracks were less spaced out, and at times it seems the animal had stumbled or almost stumbled. It was just a matter of perseverance at this point. He grabbed his spear, packed up his sleeping fur, slung it around his shoulder and started all over again.
Another day spent on the plains, on the hunt.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-11
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tags:
nanoprep, contemporary
Third date already, Marc mused as he scooped some of the lasagna sauce into a clean sauce pan, and swirled it around a bit. Then he placed the pan on the stovetop and turned on the burner just long enough for the sauce to bubble and darken a little, then turned it off again. Looks legit, he said to himself, out loud for some reason. He then started to put the food from the packaging it had been delivered in, into an oven dish, and stuck it in the oven to keep it at the right temperature.
She'll totally believe he cooked this for her. He shook his head and wondered what had come over him when he offered Stacy to do so, since he couldn't even successfully boil an egg. But it was too late to take that back now, so a clever ruse with no victims it would be.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-10
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tags:
nanoprep, scifi
I never knew. But now I do, and the world will never be the same again. As far as I had known, we were alone in the universe, the only sentient life form. And though we had the capacity to go into space, we'd never found anything really worth finding beyond the red sky. Besides, as everybody knows, what's out there constantly changes.
No, as far as I had known, Jueene was the only inhabited planet anywhere. And now, now these... Aliens, they show up and say all kinds of crazy thing. That Jueene is not the only inhabited planet, and that we, the Jueeans, are finally "back into the fold", whatever that means. They seem happy about it, though.
These aliens from a place they call "Earth", for some reason pretending they know us.
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-09
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tags:
nanoprep, meta, personal
He moved to Amsterdam 3 years ago, during the first year of the pandemic, and that had had an effect on how he actually ended up experiencing that change. Due to lockdown, minimal social engagements, and general fear of getting sick, the change could be described very shortly: supermarket now that direction instead of that one.
He hadn't even planned to move there, but an opportunity suddenly showed up. A coworker was moving from Amsterdam to another city and suddenly went 'Hey! Anyone want my old place, I can recommend someone.", and he decided, on a whim, almost, to say 'Gimme!'.
He'd been unhappy in his then-current apartment, and had been looking for something else, but somehow the idea of paying 50% more for a place 2 streets further away from the center didn't sit right with him. So the opportunity to pay less than that, and also move to Amsterdam? That made sense! Why not! Adventure!
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By Robin de Voh on 2023-10-06
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tags:
nanoprep, creepy
"Alright, see you Friday," she said with a smile, and after giving him a kiss, she went out the door. Jake closed the door, smiled to himself, and walked to the kitchen to grab a beer. He was already looking forward to Friday. They'd only been dating for a few months, but it was going really well. It had been quite a while since he had been in any kind of romantic relationship, but even he had to admit that things were looking up.
Layla didn't play games, just like he didn't. And that was so very refreshing. As he opened his can of medium-quality beer, he smiled again. Yeah, this was nice.
They had met just outside his building. He was waiting for a cab to show up, and she had walked past. She had commented on his hat -- it had his old university's logo on it -- and they had gotten to talk. It was, honestly, one of the best conversations he'd had in years.
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