I haven’t been posting much lately. Sorry about that. I had been writing so intensely for so long, I guess I suffered from a certain amount of burnout. I needed a change for a little while. I didn’t have writer’s block, mind you, the creative juices still flow. I just needed to give them another outlet for bit. Add to it, I hate this new wordpress writing interface. It’s desperately inefficient, and it doesn’t make writing any more fun. I’ll try to get used to it.

Enough of that. On with the story!

Jace and Palmer stood at a place where heated water had broken through Europa’s icy crust. Earth’s colony to Jupiter’s moon was making a tremendous discovery.

“I’ve found intelligent life!” cheered Jace.

“No way,” said Palmer.

“It’s true, and we can communicate. Watch!” 

Jace held out his cell phone. A silvery tentacle reached out of the water and began typing. It wrote. “You back.”

“Incredible!” said Palmer. 

The tentacle typed more and wrote, “I hated you back.”

“But it hates us already,” groaned Palmer.

“But why?” Jace asked the creature.

The tentacle typed again, frantically. “Hoped, I mean. Damned spellcheck!”

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Written for the Friday Fictioneers: https://rochellewisoff.com/2021/08/04/6-august-2021/