Nerd Church - Short Story: Crystal Clarity

 

This story was originally published in the Promptly Written publication on Medium by yours truly, in response to the prompt 'Either dream or reality' from editor Ravyne Hawke.

Crystal Clarity

Image by meineresterampe from Pixabay 

He stepped out onto the crystal deck. Unable — unwilling — to look through the refracted layers of light beneath his feet.

It seemed so fantastical. A miracle of modern craftsmanship and engineering, they called it. He hated it.

Layers of quartz and glass melded into one another to create this sturdy viewing platform, over the crater. It didn’t seem real. And yet… it was strong beneath him. Physical.

He wouldn’t look down, through the surface, the prism, the light. Instead he looked across at the crater itself, ragged, raw, a bleeding wound on the landscape.

They told him the platform was very beautiful — stark contrast, they said, with the catastrophe it looked out upon. But he kept his eyes resolutely ahead, away from the glimpses of sublime achievement beneath him.

Beauty had no place here — not like this. No matter how much the tourists clicked and clacked across the quartz and crystal, oohing and ahing, he would not look down.

He wondered how many of them had even taken a videogram or a panoramiograph of the real attraction — the reason the platform was even here: the ugly crater which once held so many hopes, dreams, lives. None of them seemed to care.

They’ll tell people they visited this place. Not quite the truth.

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Previous Short Stories on Dora Reads:

• Nerd Church - Short Story: The Midday Sun

• Nerd Church - Short Story: A Broken Princess

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'...he couldn’t quite grasp yet what that feeling had been. 

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In my opinion as a fanfiction professional -

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I mean c'mon fic writers! He's right there and brimming with angst!

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There are some TV series which are truly amazing... until the ending.

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(Warning: this post briefly discusses mental health problems)

August was... OK, I guess.

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 **This post contains affiliate links for Amazon.com; purchases made through these links will earn me a small amount of commission**

Title: Klara and the Sun

Author: Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre: Sci-Fi(-ish)

Buy now on Amazon.com 

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You know I love originality in fanfiction dearest nerdlets.

And I have some more of it for you this week!

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This week's is unintentionally super-queer (ha, super 😎) and is once again all in the 'Other Stuff' category (#BlameLoki).

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It's December in a matter of days, which means that Friday Fics Fix will be going on its annual Christmas holiday.

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  ***All Amazon.com links in this post are commission links. This means I earn commission from purchases made in the US*** 

Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

'Duke’s grateful for the small loading dock in the back of the Gull, with its concrete ramp and rolling service door. They rarely take shipments large enough to even warrant having the thing, but it’s remarkably useful for smuggling grizzly bears into the building'

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 ***All Amazon.com links in this post are commission links. This means I earn commission from purchases made in the US*** 

Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

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 ***All Amazon.com links in this post are commission links. This means I earn commission from purchases made in the US*** 

Please do not use my links to make UK purchases.

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Oh, and just assume that everything in this post has SPOILERS up to and including The Last Jedi.

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(Side-note: I'm still getting used to the new Blogger (the platform I use,) interface, so apologies if things look a bit strange!)

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