How's your day going? Pretty well? No strange and unsettling stories from the perilous emptiness of space or the mysterious machinations of alien exploration have come along to unsettle you yet? Well, I regret to inform you that streak is at its end.
Image: Artist's concept of robotic telepresence exploration / Pat Rawlings and NASA
This brief selection of tales (all of which — whether detailing a rover mission to our own planet or examining some curious space relics from times gone by — extend to worlds far beyond our own) were drawn from your submissions to our call for flash science fiction this morning.
Here's just some of our favorites:
richardrae1 sent us this dispatch from the plains of Mars:
"Curiosity here. Just ran over cat."
While over on Europa, Rutherford Q. Churchwalsh has the (short) story on their Earth exploration plans:
Scientists on Europa plan Earth rover.
There's something suspicious about this alien communique intercepted by Kinja user MaydayBorder:
Alien message received: "Fermi Paradox Confirmed."
Kinja-er Fear Glas offers us this tale, delivered "with apologies to E. Hemingway."
For Sale: Child's spacesuit (punctures repaired).
This two-parter was a joint effort by two Kinja users:
"Greetings. We mean you no harm."
With the sequel, "Apologies, we meant you no harm"
Kinja user TheDAVE tried to recycle:
DNA RECYCLING CANCELLED: Insufficient Life Points.
This PSA, courtesy of GrizzyGraves, comes from The Future:
"Dude, you're too drunk to teleport"
Lucy Cooper has this grim tale to tell:
We came in peace. They didn't.
Finally, Kinja-user Newburner123456, encapsulates one of the classic real estate dilemmas:
It's a Hellmouth, but rent's cheap.