Aliens visited Earth once, during the Holocene Epoch of the Quaternary Period. Along with the official samples collected for scientific analysis, one of them smuggled some souvenirs back home as toys for its 5-year-old squirmling.
All quite harmless, it thought, until a beetle crawled out of a piece of deadwood and infected the squirmling with a deadly virus that wiped out every living creature on the planet.
In a couple of centuries from now, human astronauts will visit the star Wolf 1061 and discover exoplanet 1061c is dead. Then they will excavate and find a 2016 copper-plated coin from Earth.
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Friday Fictioneers: 100 word stories
Photo prompt: image © Claire Fuller
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Sarah Potter Writes 
Great imagination, and a lot of story packed into 100 words. Well done.
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Thank you, Iain. I’m glad you liked it 🙂
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See what happens when you bring foreign objects back to your planet before carefully analyzing them? Love this, Sarah!
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Thank you, Dale 🙂 Yes, it’s terrifying to think that something microscopic could wipe out all the life on a planet, but it’s quite possible. I never forget the Martians in War of the Worlds, being zapped by the common cold virus.
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And the number of aboriginals or First Nations from all the white man’s diseases…
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Absolutely, Dale. You could get me going for hours on that subject!
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Dear Sarah,
Dale took the thoughts right out of my head. It doesn’t take much to infect a squirmling and take out an entire civilization. Once more you’ve painted quite a fascinating picture with your keen imagination.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle
Thank you.
It’s scary, isn’t it, the fragility of life: that it can seem so robust one minute and utterly destroyed the next? I can imagine that any alien advanced enough to visit other planets, should think twice about doing so for this very reason (and probably has thought it already about our world!).
All best wishes
Sarah
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Great fun
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Thanks, Neil. I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
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It’s amazing how easily disease can be spread. Well done.
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I think that both bacteria and viruses are very efficient in doing their jobs … too efficient!
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Well done, Sarah. I’ve been reading several of the FF for this week, and they are so inspiring. As I haven’t posted any fiction on the blog, I took the liberty of writing one last evening. I’ll get it posted, perhaps, this evening! (I’ve been a bachelorette this week, as husband out of town to a class; so I have gotten even less done than normal!) It’s funny/interesting, but you and I are on a very similar wavelength for this story. And poor squirmling!
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There are some good stories on FF this week. Will check yours out. It doesn’t surprise me that we’re on the same wavelength. Great (quirky) minds think alike! As for husbands being out of town, I know I often blame mine for distracting me from getting as much done as I’d like, but it’s probably good for me that he watches the clock and organises me a little, or I tend to drift!
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It’s a great, sad story, but the squirmling had me chuckle. I figure something cute, cuddly and wiggly.
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Thank you. I’m glad you liked my squirmling 🙂
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A sad story… reminding me of what we have done to endemic species here on earth… Caution with souvenirs is strongly advised.
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Yes, it’s a tragedy that humans so often show such a flippant disregard for other species.
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Oh wow we were here and then we were all gone…! You’ve packed a lot into 100 words here and that’s quite a feat 🙂
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Love it Sarah, very imaginative as your writing often is.
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absolutely brilliant Sarah! and so very Sarah!!
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Thank you, dearest Cybele 🙂
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Great story Sarah, I love the mind-bending circularity of this story – and the sometimes horrible chance that can change things for the worse!
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Thank you, Andrea. I love any opportunity to create mind-bending circularity — in fiction and not in real life, of course!
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This is wonderful sci fi flash dearest Sarah, love it and I can’t help but think of War of the Worlds and how one tiny, apparantely ‘harmless’ virus can do so much harm, whether in fiction or real life. Brilliant 🙂 xxxx
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A very eventful story – Well crafted
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Thank you 🙂
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I love the poor doomed squirmling!
You might enjoy this link to a new modern (very tongue firmly in cheek) version of War of the Worlds if it works!
http://www.eastcheamradio.wordpress.com
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LOL, I love that recording! Thanks for the link.
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Nice one, Sarah! It reminds me of the American Indians, smallpox, and other things from earlier centuries.
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Thank you, Carla:-) I think that many tragedies happen without malice of forethought, misguided as the perpetrators are with their lopsided view of what’s right. The whole American Indian thing gets me extremely agitated. Grrrrrr
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Me too, Sarah, and there is another major injury to the Standing Rock Sioux due to the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline. See my Facebook page for more information if you are interested: https://www.facebook.com/carla.mcgill.315. The issue is getting very little airtime on the news, despite the unjust arrests of protestors. I agree: Grrrrr!!!!
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Thanks, Carla. I will check out your Facebook page. We both know what’s getting all the airtime at the moment. Even in the UK, I think the US election is commanding more than its share of airtime. Yet again, I say grrrrrrr!!!!
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An interesting story! You could go farther with it if you put your mind to it.
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That’s the beauty of flash fiction. It can provide the bare bones upon which you can build a novel later. My 5th novel (not yet published) grew out of a 400-word story to become 65K words in length.
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