May 28, 2014 Original Short Stories
PHOTO PROMPT
Copyright –Jennifer Pendergast
I must confess I was inspired to write another one. This prompt by Jennifer Pendergast is to blame. (Thanks, Jennifer! And thanks, Rochelle Wisoff-Fields, for hosting your wonderful 100-word, Fiction-Writing challenge for the Friday Fictioneers community every Wednesday! I hope I haven’t overstepped my bounds in attempting another story. If I have, I’m so sorry! If not, please let me know if you liked this one!
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Cogito, Err-go Sum, OR: De-Programming Perfection
©May 28th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I remember that arch.
I’d seen it from a distance, knew the sacrifice it entailed.
I came from a world where only bleakness and machines existed. I had been one of them, perfect. I never made mistakes. I was programmed not to.
Someone had worked on me and given me form, flesh, a soul, a past and a passport.
“Now you may go. You can learn about our world,” she said.
I tried on gratitude. My voice was hoarse. “Thank you,” I said.
And I entered that other world through that arch.
I was human.
I erred.
Then, I cried.
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Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, #Perfection, cogito ergo sum, errors, From machine to man, programming and de-programming, to err is human
May 28, 2014 Original Short Stories, Teaching and Learning
PHOTO PROMPT
Copyright –Jennifer Pendergast
Thanks to Rochelle Wisoff-Fields for creating Friday Fictioneers and posting a photo-prompt every Wednesday! I LOVE these prompts, and have only recently been contributing to this site. I love this site, because the Friday Fictioneers community is so supportive! I look forward to Wednesdays with an eagerness these days that I didn’t used to have — Wednesday used to be the doldrums of my week in general. Now, it’s the high point. Thanks, also to this week photographer, Jennier Pendergast for this lovely picture!
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I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
(From Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
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My story begins below:
The Arch Beckons
©May 28th, 2014
By Vijaya Sundaram
I gave it the old college try. Pored over tomes. Huddled in dark corners of libraries. Studied for days in artificial light, while outside, the world darkened, and then glowed bright again.
One day, it dawned on me. I had to leave.
Leaving is hard.
Armed with an F in Literature, Latin and in Comparative Linguistics, I packed my bags, called home, left my stepfather a terse message, “Am leaving. Am done. Don’t look for me. Thanks for nothing.”
The scars from him were nothing to what I’d acquired in the Sanctum of Learning.
The Sirens called. I heeded them.
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Tags: #Friday Fictioneers, #Original Short Story, Alfred, Arches, Dropout, Flash Fiction, Lord Tennyson, Sirens, The Old College Try, Ulysses