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The Holiday

Seasonal fairy tale

By Vadim KaganPublished about a year ago 3 min read
1
The Holiday
Photo by Yash Raut on Unsplash

Safely shielded from the deadly rays of a purple sun by an old lava outcropping, he sleepily relaxed into a large semitransparent pancake. Slow crimson vortices of thoughts unhurriedly dissolved among the green net of his brain. “Tomorrow” – he thought, - “Tomorrow…”

Slight tremor of the ground woke him up, and he felt mother’s pseudopodia softly touch his outer membrane. He formed several communication bumps.

“Time to get home, dear,” – his mother vibrated – “the sun is high.”

“Oh ma….” – he pleaded – “Can I stay, just a little bit more…”

Mother’s vibrations became stern.

“It is time to go home. You always listen to me, right? We are all going to go to our caves and metamorph, and when we change back it will already be tomorrow.”

“Yeaaaaa…” – he shuddered tearfully – “ I know, you are just saying that… You’ll wait till I metamorph and they you’ll stay up all night…”

“But don’t you remember? Tomorrow the Keeper will open his cave and all the good kids will get to swim in quicksilver! And if you don’t go home now, the Keeper will know and won’t let you join them.”

He hazed up to dull orange.

“Oh, don’t cry, don’t cry. You are a nice, good boy. Now cheer up and let’s crawl home, right?”

Gliding around sharp rocks, they headed to the nearby cave entrance.

---

PM-172 replaced the fifth upper right pincer with a laser drill secretly borrowed from the adult warehouse, and was busily burning a complex Mandelbrot pattern on a titanium ceiling support column. He committed all the nonessential CPU cycles to the task, and his receptors did not register the soft motor whine of the approaching PC-283.

A strong electric shock threw PM-172 away from the column. He convulsively tried to focus his cameras on the angry mentor.

«And what do you think you are doing, you little scoundrel?” – asked PC-283 using the angrily x-ray band. – “Who programmed you for this task? What? Nobody did? You self-hacked? And just to think that I added a learning module to you myself…”

“I am sorry… I won’t do it again…» responded PM-172 on a poorly stabilized low frequency. – “I really won’t…”

“In the old times, they’d turn off half your GPUs for this. And all you would have to look forward to for the next megacycle would be vacuuming the old tunnels…” – PC-283 softened to ultraviolet. – “You are nothing but a Луддите! If the Central Station even hears about this… Tomorrow is the Inspection Day! Don’t you want the new frame?”

Most of the controls on PM-172’s front panel turned red.

“Are you ok?” – asked PC-283 worriedly.

“Central Station will hear…” – PM-172’s reply was half-drowned in white noise.

“Oh, don’t worry, kiddo. I won tell them. I’ll fix this column, and you promised not to do this again, didn’t you? "

PM-172 blinked his headlights affirmatively. PC-283 affectionately tightened a lose nut on PC-173’s beat up body.

“So it is all good, “ – he said – “and now go straight to your charger! You are way overdue, you are almost falling off your tracks!”

Together, they swiftly rolled down the tunnel.

---

Little Timothy pulled his blanket up to his chin. “Tomorrow” – he thought – “Tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow, tomorrow” – whispered his trusty teddy bear. “Tomorrow” – agreed the softball and the glove. “Tomorrow…” – softly embraced him soft blue fog. Timothy was asleep.

He did not see how in the living room his mother put a huge bicycle-shaped bundle under the brightly lit tree and smiled at her husband, who was opening a bottle of champagne.

Clocks all over the universe came alive with slow deep chimes. Bomm… bomm…. bomm…

Happy Holiday!

Sci FiShort StoryFantasy
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About the Creator

Vadim Kagan

I believe that each day is a blessing, every story is amazing and all poems should rhyme!

Instagram: @whines_and_rhymes

Facebook: www.facebook.com/vadimkagan

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  • Test3 months ago

    Super!!! Excellent story!!!

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