The Fox, the Badger, and the Megalodon Shark Tooth.

Description

Ebook details: Space theme.

Short story (fiction) – 3500 words (size A4). Including many images and sketches from the author (Watercolours and ink).  The total number of words including notes, comments, sketches, and fun facts at the back of the ebook =  4900 words. 21 images in total.

Excerpt:

I can see the flaming Sun—it is spewing red and yellow—I am so close to it. If I reach out, I can almost touch it.  It is very different here. It is dead quiet. Too quiet.

‘Am I really living here? It feels so surreal; I have to pinch myself.’

It is the year 2060.

Someone has asked me, ‘What is it like living out here?’

So, I explain: ‘I am five months travelling away from the known terra-firma – we have moved at a rocketing speed to get here. It is freezing cold. The Sun looks enormous from where I stand. I am afraid it will burn me. I have to turn my face away, down. I am out in the open – I feel so exposed.’

Very experienced and smart architects have come up with a couple of ‘house’ ideas, and here I am, living in one of them in this Godforsaken landscape. There is a patch of green here and there – our fruit and veg are covered with domes. The exterior texture of the pod which we live in is rough and contains iron and basalt. It has the same colour as the surface of this place. The houses were created with a massive 3-D printer. When we landed, the three of us watched the large machine print our home right in front of our very eyes. The windows look like square alien eyes – it was installed after the printing was complete. This place doesn’t have a magnetic field – like Earth – to protect it from the rigours of space weather and the Sun’s radiation. The pod and windows are designed to protect us from the damaging rays of the Sun. Specifically, when the Sun flares up in hot spots.

The door resembles the mouth of a Star Wars alien mask. We looked like Space characters in our own extra-terra-suits when we first set foot on this place. Now we have settled into a normal routine. Work-eat-sleep.

My dog – Jason, a daschund – looks like a long hotdog covered in a white wedding suit; we call him a dogs-tronaut. Yip, it is really awkward, he moves slowly in his spacesuit. He fell over in the beginning when he excitedly jumped up onto our legs. He would lie on his back and row with his legs like a beetle that has unexpectedly landed on its back – a long white beetle moving slowly. We make jokes about him all the time. Jason the beetle-dog. Jason the vacuum-bag. And, now that his suit is all brown, we call him dirt-bag. So funny! It is so unusual to have a dog in a spacesuit. He is used to a collar and leash, but now, he is trained to back up into his spacesuit — if he wants to go for a walk. He looks hilarious.

We are out on a short walk today. Jason is right next to me, he is wagging his tail enthusiastically—but nobody sees it. He doesn’t know that no-one can see his tail. But, I know the way his body is shaking – it gives his tail wag away. He appears to be happy. But, is he really happy? I can’t see his eyes, a transparent screen covers his face. He arrived in a white spanking-new-spacesuit. His suit was a brilliant white colour some months ago; however, after all his explorations, it is now a tainted brown. The dust-bag is now a working dog. We don’t have a washing machine here.

…………………………………….continues.

Fossilised Megalodon Shark tooth. Average tooth length = 170 mm. Credit Pixabay.

Read online as a blog post:

https://fivehousepublishing.com/2020/07/15/the-fox-the-badger-and-the-megalodon-shark-tooth-short-story/