Shards and Phractures

I got my first paying gig here in Nebraska. My client wanted "lifestyle" stuff...sunset over the lake, kids playing, shoppers outside a store... I knew from last year that there was snow coming, and I wanted to get some of these pictures before everything was frozen and white. So, I went off to shoot the neighborhoods the client suggested...in 35 or so degree weather. On the seventh, or maybe eighth stop, I saw these two guys in a rowboat, with this brilliant red sunset behind them. Great lifestyle shot, if I could get it, so I leaped out of the car with the tripod in one hand and the camera in the other. Well, you can't adjust a tripod with a hand full of camera, so I decided to loop the strap around my neck. I missed. The strap passed over my head, and my fingers were so cold I lost my grip on the camera. It fell...from, oh, head height or so...landed on the (cheap kit) lens...on concrete. I found shattered pieces of plastic inside the camera body from the lens bod...

Note: This post is an entry into the Friday Challenge, which can be found here. Deep inside the bowels of the Starfleet Personnel Division, Ensign Quackenbush bounces his head in time with the Martian speed metal blasting through his Ipod 2e37. The cybernetically implanted music station allows him to listen to any music he likes, without disturbing his neighbors, and his assignment is so tedious that he needs the jams just to get through the day. His printer ("printer" was a misnomer, since it didn't actually print anything; what it did was use transporter and replicator technology to create a full blown paper report from raw molecules) spit out a fresh set of orders, and he pulled it to read while another set was printing. Temporary duty assignment, he read, for someone named "Piker." The music in his head reached a crescendo, and in his chair-dancing escapades, he dumped coffee in his lap. Cursing in Romulan, he dashed off to the head, cleaned up t...

Note: This post is an entry into The Friday Challenge, which can be found Here . The retro rockets made for a barely serviceable landing, albeit a rough one. The fuel cut out, completely spent, just a few feet from the surface, and the resulting drop crumpled the landing gear. The scoutship was left stranded on the tarmac, leaning at a drunken angle. Twenty seven missions, all but two without a scratch, only to drop it like an empty beer dispenser on this airless pebble six million light years from nowhere. Honey, I'm home, Flix thought, as he prepared to leave the ship. He gathered up all of the nutrient bars he could find, his blaster, medkit, and personal bag. He hesitated on the bag, knowing how much it would slow him down--but then slung it over his shoulder. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving it behind, because if something happened to his survival suit, he might never make it back out to the ship. Everything he could carry was attached to the suit or slung o...