Free Trade

So io9 has a regular feature they call Concept Art Writing Prompts. They post a piece of art and invite readers to submit stories based upon the illustration. 

I love the idea. It's how a lot of comics used to be created, with the cover done first and then the inside story written to match. So I've been trying to participate when I can, with my own self-imposed rules of not taking more than five minutes or rewriting beyond fixing misspellings and typos; I think I'm also going to try to keep them under, say, 500 characters. 

The first one I did was based on "The Six-Million Dollar Cow" by Anthony Wolff.

Free Trade
"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" the ganoobian purred.
"Ah, don't give it another thought," the farmer grinning. "It weren't nothin'."
He was still smirking as he got in his truck, where his wife waited; it didn't matter that there hadn't been a single report of ganoobian violence the entire six weeks since they'd arrived, the aliens still made her feel downright unsettled.
"I can't believe the stories were true. They really gave you an entire truck bed full of gold leaf."
"I know," he chortled. "And for one stupid cow."
"You really tell them ol' Bessie could fix whatever's ailing them?"
"Sure did. Earth's own miracle cure-all."
"And they bought it."
"I'll say so. How creatures that gullible managed to travel I don't even know how many light years is beyond me."
They drove in silence a few minutes, each lost in thought, contemplating all the things the gold would buy, everything they'd ever dreamed of and more, not realizing that the price of gold, even as they drove, was plummeting.
"Hey, you...you don't suppose..."
"Mm?"
"You don't think...I mean...there's no chance that somehow we're the ones getting fleeced, is there?"
The rest of the ride was an uncomfortable one.

1 comment:

  1. Just worked my way backwards through these and just wanted to say, "Thanks!" Enjoyed both the art and the stories.

    ReplyDelete