Title: Dancing Upside Down
Word: flannel
Challenger: Jenny Colgan
Length: 200 words exactly
When the human race finally left for the stars, the effects upon so many spheres of human endeavour had never been anticipated. It had taken many, many years, in some cases generations, for the consequences to be fully appreciated.
Within three generations, the human body tended to a redefined norm, with extremes at both ends becoming rarer with each passing year. It was astonishing to the older generations how quickly they themselves, let alone their grandchildren, adapted to zero gravity for moving around; it surprised no-one, however, that they still preferred beds to floating around their rooms… As for washing, within seventy years, no one had heard of a flannel or a towel. Encased showers that pulled moisture from you were the standard.
It would be unfair to say that dancing simply ended; that would be far too simple. Nor had it evolved, as some liked to pretend. What people now called dancing was merely moving from one place to another in approximate time to some music that happened to be playing. Speedy movements inside zero gravity even when possible, were best avoided, and no matter how teachers tried to encourage it, thirteen year old boys still loathed the waltz.
© Lee Barnett, 2013
This is the twenty-second story in The Twenty-Four Hour Fast Fiction Challenge. There will be two more stories… Sponsor me to complete them!
budgie's perch 