Dawning - 2025 February Short Story Month Story Challenge

An ending for a new beginning?

Dawning
by Erin Halfelven
A BCTS Story Challenge

The darkness never changes, but sometimes it smells different. After 400 years, whether my eyes are open or closed matters because it’s how I communicate. One if by land, two if I see….

I can’t really smell anything anymore; all I have is memories. The scent of early morning rain on the cool desert sand, the odor of sweat on the back of a long-time lover’s hand, the reek of aviation fuel on the ground below the flight path of an airplane bigger than the sky.

Do they still have airplanes? Maybe I’m an airplane. How would I know?

When I was a kid, I had all sorts of ambitions for what I wanted to be when I grew up. I don’t think any of them were root vegetables, but I yam what I yam. Someone blow a whistle…

I asked my robot caretakers if I could be allowed to die. They said, of course, any time you like, as often as you want, a thousand times at least.

They don’t like being called robots, but who gives a damn what they like as long as they let me die….

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The challenge is to finish the story. It's the far future, or it isn't. It's this world or some other. All of it is real, or none of it.

My version will be appearing first on Patreon and I hope yours will appear here on BC.

Thanks, and happy writing.

Hugs,
Erin