Indian Epics by Reid

Once upon a time, a man and his son were travelling across the United States. Stopping when needed at hotels, they slowly made their way stat by state. When they reached Oklahoma, they hadn't taken into account graduation season! All the hotels were booked and they were beginning to lose hope. One of the hotel managers mentioned that he knew where they could stay, but that there are rumors that it's haunted. Having no fear of ghosts, the two decide it would be fine to spend the night there. Shortly after settling in, they here a knock on the door. A strange man in a long, black cape stood outside. He said he too was a weary traveler and this is the only place he could find to stay. This man and his son did not want visitors, so they told him to go away. The man, starting to look desperate said if he could just step in for a minute he would be alright. The man at the door asks why he's so persistent to get an invitation into the house, and that's when he remembered tho...

The Jataka Tales are already pretty short, so turning them into microfictions is pretty simple. I did one of these previously with the Girly-face elephant story, but this time I wanted to revisit a different story. 6 WORD STORY Coming together, we are the strongest. TWITTERATURE @QuailCatcher2020: These damn quails are working together! I swear they'll break one day and I'll be victorious again! Author's note: The Quarrelsome Quails by Noor Inayat is a story all about working together even in stressful situations. The premise is simple, and I wanted to think of what an angry twitter poster would post when dealing with these quarrelsome quails. Blue-headed quail dove

A social worker named Dave was walking up and down Main Street making his weekly rounds throughout the homeless population. He saw an unfamiliar face and began to talk to them to find out where they were from and how he could possibly be of assistance. The man said he had been homeless for only a few months and just recently started wandering Main in hopes of finding a job so he could eat. Dave mentioned a soup kitchen just a few streets over that he volunteered for and told the man he could come by once a day for a warm meal, free of charge. Weeks go by while the homeless man, who turns out to be named Chris, goes to the soup kitchen. He loves the food, but maybe he loves it just a little too much. One early morning, Chris asks Dave if he could help out volunteering in the kitchen, as a thank you for letting him come in. Dave, elated, is happy to let Chris help! Unbeknownst to Dave, it was Chris's plan all along to steal the daily soup all for himself so he could eat all he wa...

Many years ago, a little boy named Timmy's family got a big, new house, and with it came a big, new pool! Timmy was of the age of peak curiosity, just old enough to know how things work, but not quite old enough to think into his decisions. Moving into their new home in mid November left Timmy sad that he wouldn't be able to use the pool because his parents said it was far too cold. Timmy had other plans, one winter night, he stealthily made his way outside and began to run the hose to the fountain. Unbeknownst to him, pools can and will overflow without the right controls in place, so in leaving the water running overnight, it spilled out everywhere near the pool and forming an icy sheet by morning. Excited to show his parents that it's never too cold to swim, he quickly ran outside and tried to make it to the pool. In his speed, he didn't see that the water was in fact frozen! Slipping onto his butt, his parents looked on in horror at first, but quickly saw he hadn...

A long long time ago, a great king ruled with an odd sort of ornament in his throne room. Just in front of the throne stood a great sword said to be imbued with magical power embedded deep in stone. It had become great entertainment for the king to watch person after person fail to lift the sword from the stone. The strongest knights would come from far and wide in hopes of pleasing the king. If one were to draw the sword, the rewards were rumored to be the greatest known to any man. One day, the king's personal guardian knight decided he ought to give it a try. For years he had watched people fail, and he did not want to fail his king in any way shape or form. Crowds gathered to watch him try to draw the sword. If anyone were to finally overcome the challenge, it would be him. He took his place, grabbed the hilt and began to pull. The ground trembled under the force of his pull. Gradually he began to tire, but he would not give up. Stepping away for a brief moment, the crowd gas...

Once upon an update, a programmer released just a few new lines of code before going home for the day. This simple change was something very minor meant to speed up every process around the company. The next day, one application after another began to fail. As the failures spread, so did panic throughout the office. "Our system is down!" shouted an accountant. "So is ours!" shouted someone trying to transfer data. Unbeknownst to the programmer, his small change had accidentally cut all processes short, and since he had left, gone home, and slept since then, it didn't cross his mind. "Everything was working just fine yesterday!" was being echoed throughout the office. IT was scrambling trying to fix the issue, looking at everything that went through the system that morning. Maybe someone put in a bad file. What if there was a virus? Even the IT guys couldn't figure out who could've messed up this bad. It couldn't have been them...