"David's mother once said that his father used to read a lot of books but had fallen out of the habit of losing himself in stories. Now he preferred his newspapers, with their long columns of print, each letter painstakingly laid out by hand to create something that would lose its relevance almost as soon as it appeared on newsstands, the news within already old and dying by the time it was read, quickly overtaken by events in the world beyond.

The stories in books hate the stories contained in newspapers, David's mother would say. Newspaper stories were like newly caught fish, worthy of attention only for as long as they remained fresh, which was not very long at all. They were like street urchins hawking the evening editions, all shouty and insistent, while stories--real stories, proper made-up stories--were like stern but helpful librarians in a well-stocked library. Newspaper stories were as insubstantial as smoke, as long-lived as mayflies. They did not take root but were instead like weeds that crawled along the ground, stealing the sunlight from more deserving tales."

Where is everyone now?

current mood: curious

laurie_bunter

THE COFFEE MEME!
Small preferences can tell a lot about a character. How do yours (or a character(s) you especially like) prefer their coffee? Or do they at all? Draw or write a thing about it! It'll be fun, I promise.*

"Coffee. Black." Spat Captain Janeway at the replicator as she leaned into the wall to hold herself up. Voyager had encountered an unusual amount of turbulence that night--if you could call these aimless hours in the middle of no galaxy, no central star system "nights"--while Ensign Kim was repairing the warp drive. Kim had followed two trains of thought then, which was either to apply every engineering principle he had learned at Starfleet, and get back on course at warp 9.975, or to experiment with Seven of Nine's suggestion of using Borg technology to enable the ship to activate transwarp conduits, should they encounter one, and travel 20 times faster. In the split second that Kim considered the latter, the ship staggered, halted, then sputtered back into life. It was amazing how much power he had at the end of a single wire, Kim thought. Everyone was in a hurry to get home. Home, a small semblance of which was provided by the replicators, had turned into this cold, sterile ship. Kim sauntered into the mess hall and slid next to Janeway.

"Mocha with whipped cream and an extra shot of espresso. Dark chocolate shavings on top."

Janeway shot a sharp, critical look at Kim, but he was lost in his coffee, hands around his mug, savoring the intermingling aromas of coffee, chocolate and cream, and letting the warmth of the steam envelop him. Ahhhh, he inhaled. Home.

current mood: trippy