Five Minute Fiction

Here's a challenge for myself, then. A short story - with some merit and hopefully not totally based on Batman comics - in five minutes or so. I hope you're all ready, already, because this rollercoaster ride is about to start.

It was a chilly Saturday afternoon when Derek realised that he'd been a fool. He'd gone and put salt in his tea, instead of sugar. Not just once: he'd been doing it his whole life.

It probably would have been without consequence, had Derek been a builder or a civil servant, but he was unfortunately the President of the Moon, and perhaps the odd dose of glucose would have prevented some of his more catastrophic decisions.


Four years before that Saturday, whilst Mr Derek Stantz was still in office, there was a disaster on the moon. It wasn't a tidal wave of a hurricane. By definition, an earthquake makes no sense. I am making this up as I go along, and the only natural disaster I can consider occurring on the moon given my limited knowledge of its geology - or, perhaps, lunology - is an asteroid. There are no volcanoes given the lack of an interesting core. It lacks oceans, bar the few fictional ones which I will make up alongside the society I'm creating on the moon. They have a President. They also have a very large swimming pool, similar in size to the North Atlantic Ocean, and a forest of mostly pines, spread across the western hemisphere. They have an atmosphere of sorts, thanks to the oxygen- and carbon-based lifeforms that have taken refuge there, courtesy of a few colonialist missions to everyone's favourite satellite in late 2023.

It was 2041 when the disaster struck. Scientists had seen it coming seven years previously, but the then President Alan Gregson had completely ignored their warnings, burying the reports in the deepest, darkest caverns of the lunar surface, which, incidentally, are a damned sight darker than those found on Earth. Thus, when the disaster struck, President Stantz knew nothing of it. The forests were wiped out and I have no idea what this has to do with having salt in tea instead of sugar.


Right, that didn't go quite as planned. I'll try again in a few weeks, and I hope to make a slightly more coherent tale. I hope the eight of you who read this enjoyed coming along for the ride. I'm guessing you want a finale to the tale, so here you go:

With the forests gone, the oceans cried. The atmosphere broke down and the population were panic-stricken. Not a single soul on the satellite managed coherent thought. Save one man. The rest of the population had just the right amount of glucose in their system to be properly seized by panic. Salt inhibits such a reaction. Salt prevents empathy. With one fair swipe of cold, hard, logic, Derek Stantz hit the button. Within two seconds, the moon had imploded. The Earth, and Derek Stantz in asylum on it, were completely unaffected, save the lack of a tide and the bright light in the sky.

On that Saturday afternoon, Derek wished he'd panicked. He wished he'd been on the moon when it blew. He missed his home, his people, his post dearly. Drinking his tea, he wept a little.

Okay, that was far too grim. I don't think I'll try this again.