A "Dust Devil" is a 75 word or less mini-novel. It can have any subject and be in any style. Try it. Here are two, as examples:
He did it all with his eyes. After all, flowers were dead within the week, candles were just so much melted wax to get out of the carpet and fine wine and good food were, well, just plain waste in the end. But a piercing look could speak volumes; inflame the passions; reverberate in the mind forever. And not cost a cent.
Jimmy went to prison. There, you either got religion or joined a gang. Jimmy found Jesus. It helped him through the boring days, endless nights, the terror and the tedium. It also helped him get out sooner than he might have otherwise. But he was up to his old tricks soon enough. Jimmy had gotten 5 to 10. Jesus was in for life.
Hope you like 'em.
Steven Seifert
Dust Bunnies by Fluffy the Cat
They lurked beneath the furniture. They moved in peripheral vision. I felt them waiting for my sleep. They grouped as I chased catnip toys. At last they struck, as I chased a paper ball beneath the couch; I emerged to shrieks of laughter. And then she WASHED me! Subtle bastards.
Jonella by Steven Seifert
Jonella looked across the table at the man she had run off with. She had already begun to resent the quid pro quo of services for gifts. She searched his vacant eyes for something vaguely remembered and deeply missed but saw only the refelection of her own shallowness. Too late, she realized that she had mistaken an excessively rich diet for love.
More Dust Devils below the form...
Use the form. Anything not too scatalogical will most likely make it onto this site, with your name (or pseudo) credited. Ahhh, two-minute immortality...
Actually, the following three entries are from: a non-member, then members of two other societies at or above 99.9 -- after that, web-borne entries...
First item is long, but seems like someone's necessary unburdening. If you choose to read it:hi-iq societies by J. Ch. Nickelon (on a web-tv link), who doesn't like the idea of these groups.
Lasting Images by Fred
Images. Burning Buddhists, Viet Cong youth, rectangular screaming eyes behind an AK47 assault rifle aimed just above and to the left of my father's Nikon 130X lens. A swirling girl with flowers in her hair, arms arched overhead, seaweed fingers waving in an eddy. Sandwiched between these clicks and frames 46 fragments of his own image waving momentarily like seaweed also in sweet mitochondrial fluid becoming all that ever existed, all other possibilities having vanished with him. They all hung in the hall for several years. I sway and wave like seaweed still.
Amateur Crastinator by Od
The civil servant had one last chance to catch up on work after hours. The lure of the Web and the tedium of work proved overwhelming. His screen proclaimed: Immortality in 75 words! Write a Dust Devil and gain Immortality *or* work and keep a cushy government job. After serious cogitation, he realized he had no other choice. Immortality! Unfortunately, it wasn't *his* choice to make. Instead, his audience chose: Anonymity in the unemployment line.
From on high by Frank Wurden
As the suns long fingers
pull the colors from the nights fading grasp
The world unfolds far below,
light hurdles across forests
and bays, snapping off the
distant glow of man's monuments.
Making his energies even harder to see,
as a simple fog buries his hurried creations.
I wonder where I am and what will be
after morning lifts its soft veil, as I look out over
creation.
Serial Number 1044 by Dino Case
The last stroke of the hammer designates the machine #1044. It's taken lots of hot, hard, semi-skilled work to make that many rebar cutters. The chickenpox I'm coming down with is gonna be a welcome reprieve.
Sky Hunting by Ron Williams
Singing still, he plummets, the hunter on the trail. A kilometre on the wind rushes ripples in his cheeks. Grey, grey, grey, GREEN! Here it comes! Shouting in exultation, he smashes a buffalo to its knees.
Behind Curtain #1 by I.D. James stood shaking on the game show floor. 2525 A.D., and life had come down to this. Once a month, in every town, a new version of "This is Your Life" was played.
The game worked like this: behind one curtain was the opportunity to live. Behind another was the obligation to die. No one knew which curtain was which, not even the producers.
Without even a moment of hesitation, James chose curtain #1.
Confession by Vadim
Bill, finally tired of hiding his secret love for his personal assistant - Monica, decided to confess his affair to Hillary that very night. "I am so very, very sorry" he told Hillary. As you may suspect Hillary said the other thirty-two words.
Intergalactic Short Bus [grooooannnn - webster] by Aaron
There were 5 of them in the remains of the ship, small and gracile and hairless, with large heads and large black almond shaped eyes. We tested them, all five of them. All kinds of tests, including various intelligence tests. Every time, time after time, they completed the six-sigma intelligence test in about 14 to 17 minutes. Flawlessly, of course. That was the scariest part of the whole ordeal; of the 2 dozen top government scientists testing them, only two could even finish the test in the alloted 1 hour, and not always flawlessly. Only about 1 in 100 million people can finish the test at all. From the performance our visitors gave, we felt a little unsure about who was testing who! The crash survivors kind of smiled at us, their large, almond shaped eyes laughing at our amazement, gleeful at our barely concealed consternation. 'You see', they told us, 'where we come from we are considered to be slow and quite a disappointment to our parents'!
Oops... by Aaron
"Dammit Mach! I thought you said you could fly it!" the little being said angrily. "I should have never let you drive!" Major Russ "Mach" McGuire shuffled his feet self conciously, his normal composure and cockiness having momentarily deserted him. "I'm sorry about your car, Clatu", he said lamely. "Forget about my car!" Clatu said, sifting a handful of charred ashes, the black dust running between his fingers, eyeing the charred landscape stretching to the horizon. "Just look at what you did to your planet!"
And now for something... by Aaron
[Aaron likes to go over just a bit...]
It was a love affair I thought would never die. I took her everywhere, waking to her sweet kiss every morning, the friend I could always count on. I’ve greeted the day with her on the ski slopes in Tyrol, frolicked with her in the Euphrates river, and felt her caress my brow at the “Dog on the Tuckerbox” near Gundagai. She and I bid farewell to the setting sun on Nemrut Dag, Zeus and his minions looking on in silent jealousy as we kissed, the sky turning purple and then black. We’ve traveled the world together, inseparable, my love for her pure and undying. The world seemed to full of joy then! Sweet, sweet cola! Beautiful, brown, bubbly, and divinely cold! Caffeine kick to re-align the stars, sugar fix to ignite my heart. All is well with the world in her embrace. Pepsi and Coke are her guises, like Janus, two facets of the same person. I loved her so! Alas, for a love like this always comes to a tragic end; I was so naïve to think we could defy fate. Cruel, cruel!
Mellitus! You have crushed me!
Filovirus by Aaron
He wouldn't know for 5 days whether it was Marburg, Zaire, Sudan, or Reston that killed the monkey. The first three would kill a man or a monkey in agony, especially Zaire; you'd have a better shot playing the lottery. 'Maybe it was Reston. God, I hope it was Reston!' The fourth strain is only fatal to monkeys. 'I guess I won't do that again', he mused. 'Still', he grinned to himself, picking his teeth, 'It was pretty damn tasty!'
[Ed. note -- Reston is only fatal to monkeys thus far. These are some of the simplest viruses structurally and they mutate fast. Reston, for example, got airborne, which none of the others documented has managed to do... yet]
Make it Stop by C.B.A. Tingley
Why am I here? Why are any of us here? Every day... day in and day out... I just wish it would
end. The blessed eternity that is retirement. So, I suppose I know why I am here... they pay me.
How Society Affects the Self-Image of Adolescent Females by Ben Carterette
At a small midwestern university, an 18-year-old girl walks down the street wearing a tight t-shirt
and tight shorts. She stares uncomfortably straight ahead. Her father walks by her side, with a not
dissimilar countenance. One can only imagine what horrific fantasies he entertains when a
21-year-old male passes by. But what does she think? Are her fantasies any less horrific?
Il Pescatore by Charlotte
In the beginning there was darkness. In the beginning it was still. What woke us was not the rising
sun, not the thundering waves. It was the joy, the pain, the laughter and the cries. Every day is a
struggle but we do it all the same...
One Last Moon by Andy Greely
Webby looked out the window for the last time. Moonlight
sprayed the countryside making it look like a pixellated ne-
gative. Renouncing the dusty burden of life seemed less
tragic somewhat. To live up in a crystalline sky, he
thought. If only he were more poetic, he could have
finished it. Webby sidled to his bed like a coat on a stick,
sat on his musky sheets, and committed himself to Heaven.
Just one Moment! by Sam
The fever that struck was over 107 and immediately life threatening. I felt the searing heat and
wondered at "what next?" When I awoke two days later, I proposed to the then lady in my life. I
knew something different had happened but had a memory lapse and some memory fade. At 44, I
woke up in a sweat, feeling the same searing heat. In fact, the sheets were wet with my sweat. I
arose ready and was on the way to break up with the woman when I realized that I have been
divorced twice since my original thought. All, in just one moment!
Food for Thought by Aaron Brown
[Actually, Aaron sent this in quite a while ago, but this part of the site was being neglected. Sorry 'bout that -- such timeless prose, though, hardly goes stale...]
"Man doesn't photosynthesize, so man must eat", mused Karl to Jurgen. "It really is interesting how
the primary food chain works." Karl waited to see if Jurgen was listening, and then continued, as if
in lecture, "Except for a few creatures at the bottom of the ocean, we're all solar powered, at least
indirectly. Plants eat sunlight, animals eat plants, bigger animals eat little ones, and on it goes.
There's no malice; it's just business, in a way." Karl explained matter-of-factly, "And therin lies the
rub, mate. Unfortunately, there's precious little on this bloody speck of an island that's edible..." Karl
said, as Jurgen nervously strained at the ropes binding his hands and feet....
The Rain and Sweet Sobriquets by Leo
Now, c'mon! This is a LOT longer than 75 words! :-(
Here now! I sit twisted in the half dark; her dream became apart of the memory. simply that. passing
with the daffodils and the day's twilight. I have finished, finished the day's deed. 10 minutes was
all-of 10 days! yet nothing seemed of it; the candle's were still ripe. The queen stared into my
loneliness; fixed with her sympathy, however false. It had been since the day of the Saint, mid
February, and still from long ago in the days at Trinity; forgotten until-
Love had been. In my own, I echo it over and over: Omelet!, Trying for happiness and meeting sure
disappointment. For it had not been so long before or before that-that It had wrenched. Promising
the best, and yielding to the common disappointment. I knew the next move, I had always- for it was
intuition, or a little insanity. Exiled for the ages, then anticipating the return that would not be.
Yet here, with a new. A never before hope- would this be sure?? would it? It would be a sure
union. for sure. If only- The names haunt me from then. but they are sweet- so sweet. Ommie was.
And Smorgasbord. To be thy destine. For sure; but time will tell, friend or foe? I turn to Goldberg
for the answers. February will come again! But for now all that I can have are the sobriquets- so so
sweet was her's. Perhaps the time for mine -my own- will arrive. Perhaps my beloved queen, who
she be?, will show. For now though it's only in thy dreams. Sweet - so, so sweet-.
Terminal Aging by RCain
You lept three steps at a time, smelling of fresh flowers and thunderstorms. The wood hissed and
cracked near me and I asked you for the green socks. Now we consume each other taking bites of
cheese and apples. You smile and I die somewhere inside your eyes. Someday.
Pure by Mentat9
Judo kick A Love Story by F.S. Blair
She stopped and asked him for directions, even though she wasn't lost. He was skeptical of her at first. But then she smiled and they just clicked. For the next week they spent their every moment together. She was unlike the others. She was so very much alive! Was it love? Maybe. And it was for this reason he forgot about his chores. Since he had met her he hadn't killed anyone in a week.
Speculation by Asmita
Light was carving shapes and blurring the lines in the twilight room. Avidya stretched and uncurled herself from the twisted sheets. She stretched, blinking as reality tugged itself from the tangled fabric of dreams. Her arms had grown white from years inside, wrapped around her growing bouquet of misconceptions and isolation. Darkness was coming already, bringing cover to ignorance.
Doggerel De Jure by LETHARGUS (of Bored?)
Spelunking, an Immortal's sport, [Ever get the feeling people just aren't taking this very seriously?! - wm]
If Nietzsche Wrote Tarzan by Ubermensch
The history of the species could be summed up in sixty two words. Two hundred thousand years of evolution had brought them from a precarious existence in the violent paradise of natural selection to the quiet stagnation of life within the perceived safety of the hive. Tarzan stood at the jungle’s edge and viewed paradise. He smiled, aware only of himself and the challenger. He was ready and nothing else mattered. He knew no Lord.
Wormtree by Sander Hagen
Sometimes I'm an gigantic tree reaching above the clouds. Branches in the sunlight. Must be over 300 jears of age. Next time I'm a worm crawling in the dark. Mud all around. Looks like I'm nearly a day old. A tree can be cut down, a worm can be trampled underfoot. Still inside I'm the same.
The Secret of Life in 100 Words by Kevin Langdon
"75 words," I thought to myself "that doesn't seem like very many -- and I've already used up twenty of 'em. Best to be short, sweet, and to the point." So I started typing this, hoping I'd think of something before I ran out of words. And then -- I did! Suddenly, it appeared: the best damn idea I've ever had in my life! Excitedly, I began thinking about how to present this stupendously brilliant idea to . . .
Still Life by Des
Paul looked down at the body of the dead soldier. Never moving again. His purple uniform of the empire was now covered with red blood. The entirely blue eyes of the young man expressed strong determination. He had used the Voice once more. He felt the blood of Harkonnen slowing down in his veins as the Sun was
descending below the Dune horizon.
Last updated 22Oct00.
[this is NOT a dust devil, too long, but it was amusing]
emotions that swell up
around your neck choking
down the taste
of sour grapes.
Beg for a Trojan rocking-horse?
Fear lurks within
the confines of the bed
seeming limitless and all too confining.
Pull a fresh breath
of cigarette smoke
and welcome the new day.
the laden Earth defines the court,
Bound in its Domain!
Enclaves, vulgar incarceration,
rigid, discordant, Lacking Foundation!
Fragmented insight, polarization,
unbalanced parity dreams of negation.
Perception's projection's Unbroken Symmetry,
latent dynamics, Invariant Unity!
Alpha-Omega adjoin mirrored nexus,
hybrid, symmetric, Divine Soular Plexus,
Harboring timelessness, Gainsaying clocks,
Transcending the Realm of Inert Walking Rocks!
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