Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 12

Good morning! I think these are the last eight sentences I’m going to share from ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ Next week, I’ll move on to something new, possibly fresh snippets from “The Aurigae Express.” So I’m going to skip ahead out of the flashback with Mindy and show Jack still trying to think his way out of the box.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet Seventh snippet Eighth snippet Ninth snippet Tenth snippet Eleventh snippet

Using the schematics for the TimeBubble room on his computer, Jack was able to find the Master Panic Button circuits, which were hidden in a metal box attached to the ceiling. Jack unscrewed the side panels of the box, and examined the control board. He wasn’t an electronic engineer, but nothing in the circuit seemed to be damaged, and all the right indicators were glowing green: POWER, NETWORK, WIRELESS, and STANDBY FOR SIGNAL. Jack fished out the Panic Button hanging from his belt, and stuck his thumb down on it, hard. The indicators for WIRELESS SIGNAL ACTIVE and RELAY lit up, just as they were supposed to.

And still the door didn’t open.

What was the next step in the process? The Panic Button Circuit relayed to the time warp controls, to collapse the bubble.

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/. And go check out the A to Z Challenge.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 11

Good morning! Here are your next eight sentences from ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ At this point, we’ve jumped back into another flashback of Jack and his family, from when he was getting ready to go to his TimeBubble room for the first time.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet Seventh snippet Eighth snippet Ninth snippet Tenth snippet

“Grandpa, will you come with us to the park on Saturday?” Mindy asked him. Jack looked up and saw her standing in the doorway. “I’m gonna start as goalie for the first time.”

“No, sweetie, I’m sorry.” Jack turned back to the screwdrivers he was packing, and thought about how many screws he’d need. “But your brother’s birthday is in three weeks, and I’ll see you then.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re going to be coming to birthday parties for a long, long time, but we’re not going to see you at all, except for that.”

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/. And go check out the A to Z Challenge.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 10

Good morning! I was so busy this week that I forgot about signing up early for Weekend Writing Warriors, so I didn’t nab a great spot near the top of the linky list, but I’m still hangin’ in there. So I’ve got eight more sentences from ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ Jack’s still struggling with a computer that he hopes holds the key to find a way out of this TimeBubble room.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet Seventh snippet Eighth snippet Ninth snippet

In the hopes of calming down, he looked at the ‘frequently asked questions’ file:

“Just how does my panic button work?”

“There are many panic buttons in your TimeBubble room. All of them send a signal to the same Master Panic Button circuit. The job of the Master Panic Button circuit is to make sure that the TimeBubble field around your room is collapsed safely. Once the bubble field comes down, the computer in charge of your TimeBubble will unseal your room and let you out.”

“What would happen if my Panic Button malfunctions?”

“You don’t need to worry about that: All our Panic Buttons are designed to be so redundant and fool-proof that we don’t expect a failure for ten thousand years.”

Visit the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/. And go check out the A to Z Challenge.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 9

Good morning! This is Chris Kelworth, comin’ at ya seven days a week for April. Well, I’m posting Camp Nanowrimo A-Z spotlights six days a week, and still keeping up with Weekend Writing Warriors. So here’s this week’s eight sentence snippet for ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ Jack still needs to find a way out of his TimeBubble room.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet Seventh snippet Eighth snippet

The duct was narrow enough that he couldn’t crawl into it, and it didn’t appear to lead to any other rooms or any destination that he could send a message to. In fact, it only went three or four feet past the wall, and there was some kind of a nozzle and a machine that looked a little like the inside of an air conditioner. That was no good.

He was going about this whole thing the wrong way. There were files full of information about the TimeBubble residential facility and emergency procedures on the computer’s storage unit. He should have started there.

He found the room schematics first, and gasped. He hadn’t remembered that his digs here were so enclosed—like a bottle, there was only one way out.

Check out the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/. And go visit somebody who’s doing the A to Z Challenge.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 8

Yikes! First off, apologies to all my followers who got a ‘coming soon’ email or caught the live show. I lost track and assumed that I’d actually filled in this scheduled placeholder post. 😦 But I’ve got another eight sentence snippet of ‘Time Bubble Blues’ for Weekend Writing Warriors and you. Jack still needs to find a way out of his TimeBubble room.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet Seventh snippet

Sitting and thinking about the past was wasting time, and he didn’t have much time. Jack wasn’t sure how much air he had in the bubble, but it couldn’t be too much, since the plan had been that it would get refreshed while he was off at Melissa’s birthday party. He picked the wall closest to the door, and managed to pry a length of the wood panel off it, but behind there was riveted steel. He didn’t have any tools which could melt through that.

There had to be another way. He looked around the room and spotted the ventilation duct high up on the wall, just a few inches away from the ceiling. First he had to push the bed over, sit down for a few minutes to catch his breath, and climb up on top of the bed to reach the grate. Then some quick screwdriver work and the grate was sitting on the carpet, and Jack shone a flashlight down the duct, peering inside.

Check out the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/ And please leave a comment, I love getting feedback on my writing.

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 7

Hey there, friends and followers. Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors, for another eight sentence snippet of  ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ Jack is reminiscing again about why he went to the TimeBubble building.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet Sixth snippet

 

Once Andrew stopped arguing over the premise, there was a lot of negotiation over Jack’s schedule. When he’d first started talking to the people at TimeBubble, he’d imagined that he could stretch out his five months for years and years, until his youngest grand-daughter got married. With only five months to spend, he’d have to be very stingy with his time: graduations, weddings, a few other once-in-a-lifetime events, and Christmas every year of course.

 

But Melissa had tempted him on the subject of birthdays, and he’d shown weakness. The family replied with a united front. It would be unfair, they said, to pick and choose different birthdays. There would be resentments and hurt feelings, and Jack wouldn’t be the one to bear the brunt of them. Either he had to swear off their birthdays entirely, or make it to every one.

Thanks so much for reading. Please leave feedback, I love getting comments. And check out the other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues 6

Hey there, friends and followers. Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors, for another eight sentence snippet of my story ‘Time Bubble Blues.’ I’m going to skip forward just a hair, out of the flashback, and back into Jack’s present predicament.

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet Fifth snippet

Jack tried to figure out what to do. Banging on the door didn’t seem promising. All the time bubble rooms were completely soundproof. There was a layer of vacuum going around the room; that was part of how they built the time bubble field.

There was no other obvious way of signaling outside. The panic button system was so simple, so easy to use, and so apparently foolproof that he’d never asked about a backup. 

Thirty-five hours outside to one hour inside. That meant that by outside time, it was… 3AM tomorrow.

Thanks for reading. Please leave feedback, I love getting comments. And check out all other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues #5

Happy weekend, friends and followers. I’m scrambling to put together this Weekend Writing Warriors! post, because I left it blank all week – so if I missed something, I apologise. This week, we’re still in a flashback, with Jack discussing his reasons for going to TimeBubble…

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet Fourth snippet

“I just want to spend the days I’ve got left surrounded by my family on their happy occasions, to stretch out the months so that I can see my grandchildren graduate and get married.”

“What if something goes wrong?” Andrew asked.

“Nothing will go wrong; they’ve been doing this for years. I go in the room, some tech pushes a button, and time passes up to a hundred times more slowly for me than it does for you. I have a snack, read a book or something, take a nap maybe, and I come out when you show up to give me a ride to the next birthday party, or when the computer running my room has an alarm clock go off. And if I need something that I don’t have inside, if god forbid the toilet backs up or I get a nosebleed, I just push the panic button hanging from my belt, and what do you know? I’m back in the temporal continuum as we know it, and the door opens. If the doctors say I need it, they can rig a panic button up to a heart monitor or some other medical gizmo, so that even if I black out, it can call for help and let the nurses inside.”

Thanks for reading. Please leave feedback, I love checking out what you think of my writing, visit other Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues #4

Hi there, friends and followers. If it’s early Sunday morning, then it must be time for Weekend Writing Warriors! This time, we’ve left Jack in hot water and gone into a flashback of a conversation with his son Andrew…

First snippet Second snippet Third snippet

“I’m through scared and I’m on the other side already, and I’ve thought about it,” Jack said. “Inoperable tumors aren’t natural either, or at least they shouldn’t be, but they’re what I’ve got: them, and five months before I’m too sick to get out of bed. And I want to make them count.”

“So, you’re going to lock yourself in a freezer for months at a time, just coming out for birthday parties and special occasions?”

“It’s not a freezer. It’s like a nice hotel room. They’ve got hundreds of them in the local TimeBubble building, and one’s mine for as long as I keep up the payments on it.”

“Level with me. Are you trying to buy yourself more time in case some new treatment gets invented in the future?”

Thanks for reading, and remember to check out the rest of the Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/ !

Weekend Writing Warriors – Time Bubble Blues #3

Good morning, friends and followers. Thanks to everybody who shared positive thoughts on last week’s snippet from Time Bubble Blues. Jack is still stuck in pretty hot water…

First snippet Second snippet

He’d spent, what was it, nearly a month in this room, going out into normal time for one or two events every day of his time, watching his grandchildren grow two years older in that time, like a stop-motion of a tree sapling with the weeks passing by in seconds.

Was his family at the TimeBubble facility already? Was Andrew waiting and pacing as technicians worked to extract him from the malfunctioning room? Or had nobody remembered to come pick him up?

#

Of all the kids, Andrew had been the only one who didn’t like the idea in the first place. “It doesn’t seem natural, Dad,” he’d said, when Jack brought him all the papers and the brochure from TimeBubble, Inc. “I know that you’re scared, but…”

“This isn’t about scared,” Jack snapped.

Thanks for reading, and remember to check out the rest of the Weekend Writing Warriors at http://www.wewriwa.com/ !