Saturday Spotlight – May 8, 2021

Welcome Welcome Welcome to Saturday Spotlight, where I choose what I consider a standout piece from my Sunday Writing Prompt. Last week’s prompt was, Out of This World, https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2021/04/30/sunday-writing-prompt-may-2-2021-out-of-this-world/

Image from pixabay.com

The submissions I received were off the charts…literally 🙂 And I strongly encourage you to check them out using the link posted above.

My choice for this week just so happened to be the first one I received! I started reading and thought, this is a great description of the poster’s chosen world and colony. I really appreciated the detail and watched the movie play out in my head. The repeated term, “It just wasn’t done” was intriguing to me, and I looked forward to finding out what that meant. When I got to the line, “This is what loss feels like?” my wheels really started turning! I’m not going to spoil the ending/twist…you’ll have to read that for yourself, and I promise, it’s worth it!

All that said, this week’s Saturday Spotlight goes to…

Susan St.Pierre! With her submission titled, “Undone” https://sillyfrogsusan.com/2021/04/30/mlmm-prompt-5-2-21-celestial-theme-wasnt-done/

Here is her wonderfully creative piece:

Marcia didn’t have a last name. It just wasn’t done.

Mars had been colonized over the last decade, but not fully explored, so her mission was to wander and learn. Her observational skills were unrivaled. Base camp had grown to the size of a small city. An American and Australian flag hung motionless over the 1000 domes of various sizes and shapes, but she’d never been inside any of them. It just wasn’t done.

Out of nowhere, explosions happened! A fleet of successive concussions assaulted her outpost station. Marcia’s two comrades were thrown skyward, and blown to bits, moments after the roof disintegrated. If she hadn’t been anchored to a medical analytic machine, she would have ceased to exist too. A red mushroom shaped dust cloud rose into the thin atmosphere and just kept going while baseball-sized debris rained down for as far as the eye could see. Her station was pummeled mercilessly and holes were punched through every surface. Luckily, she made it to the ‘storm cellar’ and secured the cement lid without damage.

Fifty hours was the emergency protocol for allowing storms to pass so that was how long she’d stay put. The automatic generator was functioning which was her only need. But, the absence of her comrades weighed heavily on Marcia’s processor.

“This is what loss feels like?”, she queried.

It was unfamiliar, and most unpleasant. She would have liked to have been prepared for that response… but that just wasn’t done.

In her first moments outside the bunker, fifty hours later, Marcia’s bionic vision scanned the outpost and the base camp. G-O-N-E typed across her visor. An odd vibration filled her midsection.

“This is stress.”, she confirmed.

That had happened during her training and her memory banks recalled it. It was not supposed to happen to an android but it had. An order had been placed to fix that, but it just wasn’t done.
On closer inspection of the colony, she found a ‘storm cellar’ wide open and one escape pod missing.

“This must be relief.”, she verbalized. Her mechanical voice rising an octave.

That night, Marcia sat on the highest stone outcropping. Some humans most certainly had survived but none had retrieved her. That just wasn’t done.

“This must be the feeling of abandonment.”, she thought.

With her hands on her face, her shoulders shook in the darkness.

If you enjoyed this, and I know you did, please take a moment to visit Susan’s page and give her the kudos she deserves, https://sillyfrogsusan.com/author/sillyfrogsusan/

Check back tomorrow for the next Sunday Writing Prompt, which focuses on silver linings 🙂