Robin de Voh
there's never enough stories

Nanoprep 2021 Day 14: You Should be Sleeping, Harold

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-21
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Harold hit the snooze button a last time but knew he'd not hear the next alarm. It was time to get up. He rubbed his eyes, whipped the blanket off of him and let out a low growl of discontent. He flicked the button, turning the alarm off for real, and rolled out of bed. His back hurt, he noticed. So that's still there, then. He shuffled out of his bedroom and into the kitchen and flipped the coffee maker on.

Just before the coffee machine started gurgling its loud coffee-making death gurgle, something stood out to him. He shuffled over to the kitchen window looking out over the street all the way down from his 15th floor apartment, and noticed the quiet, the emptiness.

It was never quiet or empty here. Ever. Not an exaggeration. The hairs on his neck stood on end.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 13: Big Blue Button

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-20
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He hit the big blue button on the machine. He wasn't sure if it was safe, but he didn't really care. Things were boring around here, and this was something new. He'd found it in what looked like an old bunker, maybe World War II era, and it had been mostly empty. Then he'd noticed a sliver of light coming from behind a steel door, which was locked. This had been a week ago. He had come back with heavy-duty bolt cutters so he could get in, to find out why there was light there.

He'd had no reason to expect anything other than light from the outside coming in through a window, but something had pushed him to go back and see.

And then he'd found it.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 12: Lucky Find

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-19
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A small blue flask, made of intricately crafted glass, labeled just 'LCK', was in the big cardboard box he was unpacking. Alec didn't do it often, but sometimes he felt like a bit of adventure. So he'd bid on and won the contents of an abandoned storage unit and had taken a few days off to go through it all. Most of it was worth something but not much, but this box had so far just been crap. He put the little glass flask away and kept looking.

Blankets, sweaters, some old insurance paperwork, but nothing worth much. This was the last box, so he closed it up, kicked it to the back of the unit and got ready to leave.

Before he did so, he looked back at the flask and decided to take it along. It looked fragile, and also a bit more special than most of the items in here, so he figured he'd see if it actually was special.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 11: Waste of Fucking Time

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-18
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It was a nice day, and the sun was shining on his back. He'd found these hidden pathways in the park a while ago, and ever since he would make sure to get off the beaten path and use these instead. Even though he was in the middle of the city, here he could forget that for a while and just be surrounded by the trees. The trails pounded into the ground by others who had gone off the beaten path looked as natural as any hiking trail he'd ever seen.

There was something calming about being in nature, and he found that after not having been able to go on a vacation for this long, he actively longed for the freedom and feeling of the outdoors.

He'd grown up around nature, but he had realized a few years ago he had taken it for granted. When he moved to the 'big city', that realization hit so much harder than it ever had before.

And that he had wasted his fucking time.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 9: The Lyfecycle Algorithm

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-14
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Lyfecycle was the new, happening kid on the block of social media sites. People were sick of facebook, and though instagram was still going strong, their main product was just dying off. Ex-facebook employees had abandoned ship and started Lyfecycle to directly compete with their old employer and every other social media site at the same time. It was time for something new.

Lyfecycle promised better privacy control, better content selection, and just generally a more positive and fair representation of what was actually going on. This had been enough to pull a lot of people in, and independent audits of the code base and the outcomes had shown that Lyfecycle indeed was showing more relevant, balanced content.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 8: Memories III

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-13
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It's been 4 years since I sat down to write one of these, and it's been an interesting time to say the least. Normally this is where I'd turn down the lights and light the incense, but I looked for it but couldn't find any incense. I guess I didn't bring those along in the move. Oh well, time to order some new ones, I guess.

Cedar wood and jasmin, burnt at the same time, their smells mingling together. I described it last Memories as something that had once started as a romantic thing -- cedar wood was my smell, jasmin was hers. I also said then that it had by that point in time stopped having that romantic meaning.

We're in for a ride on that topic, actually.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 7: Great Minds Dream Alike

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-12
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Emily never really dreamed much, or at least she thought she didn't, because she hardly ever woke up remembering any. So it was odd to her when over the past week, almost every single night, she would wake up having dreamt something. Knowing what she dreamt, because she remembered it, and remembered it almost too well. No nightmares, just dreams of vaguely known things and people and the absurd situations dreams often bring.

But twice, and she wasn't sure what to make of it, she thought that weird kid from school was there. She didn't even know what his name was, and couldn't really recall his face, but she somehow felt it was him. Not prominent or anything, not a central figure in her dreams, but more of a side character.

Like he was hiding in the corners of her subconsciousness.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 6: Not Picky Enough

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-11
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He crossed the street and his nerves were really starting to act up now. He didn't go on dates from online apps often, mostly because he was so nervous about the entire idea. A meat market where anything not perfect would get a rejection. And also because he was quite picky. But he also figured that if he didn't go out there and get a coffee or drink with anyone, it'd also be a useless effort.

So he'd responded enthusiastically when she asked him out for a coffee and a walk. She seemed nice, her profile said she was into backpacking -- so was he! -- and rock music -- him too! -- and she considered herself politically liberal -- also a plus! He'd ignored that last one once, and found out she was actually a little bit racist, so he made sure that he'd avoid people like that from now on.

Racism isn't a turn-on.

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Nanoprep 2021 Day 5: Where the Hell is Hugo Vickers?

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-08
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This wasn't right, Jay thought to himself as his sensors continued not showing him Vickers' location. Vickers had been gone for days now, and that had for certain not been the intent. The dock on which their ship, the Fides -- and therefore Jay -- was docked at, had only been booked until yesterday, and he'd already had to fake a longer docking permit. He knew he wouldn't be able to keep it active for more than a few more days.

What damn ship misplaces its pilot, he thought to himself, disappointed in himself.

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A New Challenge!

By Robin de Voh on 2021-10-08
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I just decided this year isn't stressful enough. So a new challenge for this year's nanoprep has arrived!

I will not miss a single update in October.

When I do, I will make up for it by writing 2 stories instead.

I'm keeping November somewhat looser, but for October I'm being more strict. Too often in previous years I'd be like 'oh, I'll just make up for this later' and miss at least 3 stories a year.

Not this time. There's consequences now.

Let's do this.