One winter when I was a teenager I visited my great granduncle Johannson's place, up in western Norway. I was a bookish lad, but my cousins were country folk. The sun would roll along the horizon for a few hours near noon each day, leaving it in twilight and dark through the long nights.

One morning before light my cousin Emma was packing. Boards, a wrapped canvas, food. "Come, Christopher, I'll show you our cabin," she said.

She loaded my bicycle and hers and we started down the hill. I talked of Ivanhoe. We reached the harbor at dawn.

"Ach, that's Karl, he's a fisherman, ignore him," Emma hissed as we walked to her boat.

"HELLO PRETTY LADY!" he yelled. "YOU SHOULD COME SEE A REAL BOAT SOMETIME!"

"Sounds like he's fishing for you," I said.

"Ugh I'd rather die," said Emma.

"THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND, EMMA?" he yelled.

"He wants accismus," I muttered.

"Pffftht," said Emma, "he's no getting a kiss from this miss."

"No no ... 'accismus' is pretending not to want what you really want. If he wasn't so direct he might get more girls."

"Ooo, is that what you're doing?" she asked. "Being shy and polite all the time?"

I flustered. "No! No I'm just always this way." We got in her rowboat and she started up the outboard motor. The water was smooth and the sun was warm. Spectacular scenery.

We reached an island cliff and carried her supplies up a narrow dirt path. A little dark cabin perched on the rocks.

Inside, it was sturdier than I expected. Emma hung the painting on the wall and took the tarp and some boards out the window and up onto the roof. She started pounding nails.

The portrait was of a man with ruffled black hair, facing left. He had a big sharp nose and a monstrous mustache below his little beady eyes that stared out accusingly.

"What's this painting?" I asked.

"Mother's portrait of great uncle Bernard Ollson, barrister. He declared the moon illegal."

"Crazy, was he?"

"Mother says no. Strong willed. Strong of faith. But not strong enough to persuade the moon not to rise. He would go out at night and swear at it." More pounding.

She came back in. Outside, the sun was rolling below the horizon again to the southwest. Ocean and islands were spread out below a flaming red sky.

"How do you like our cabin?" asked Emma.

"Wow," I said.

"Here we are, all alone, with this sunset all to ourselves! You know what this calls for?"

"..."

"Lunch!" Emma brought out the picnic basket. She handed me food and stuffed her face. The sun slowly set. "You are right," said Emma. "The weather is hard on our little cabin. The most important thing is to build more. Build more than the weather takes away."

Back to the boat. Emma piloted back into the fjord.

Halfway back the motor stopped. Emma was swearing.

"Now what?" I asked. The swells were bigger now, and night was falling.

"Now we row," said Emma. She handed me an oar. Had me sit next to her. Coached me how to paddle. After several attempts we were pulling in sync.

We rowed. The swells were reaching four feet high. The boat rocked crazily. Most of the time you couldn't see the horizon. And I was backwards, looking out to sea. "You're doing fine," said Emma.

It got darker and colder. I just concentrated on the oar: pull, lift, feather, dip, pull. Such a contrast from the morning's easy ride out on a smooth sunlit mirror. It began to rain.

After forever we reached the harbor. Emma tied up the boat. Bicycles ... home was miles uphill and I was beat.

"I'll go ahead and have mother come with the car," said Emma. "You follow. There's just one road. You have to keep moving or you'll freeze." And she shot off.

I tried the bicycle, but uphill was too much. I got off and walked the bicycle up the hill. Sometimes I couldn't see the mountains through the rain. Sometimes the moon peeked through.

Headlights appeared ahead. My relatives tied the bike to the roof of their car and hustled me into the back seat.

"The weather turned awful," I said.

"There is no bad weather," my aunt replied, "only bad clothing! We'll get you home and wrapped up."

Back at great granduncle's, they wrapped me in a blanket in front of a fire and gave me Kvæfjordkake, with slivered almonds, and hot cocoa with a dollop of whipped cream. I watched the flames. Uncle was asleep in his chair. I fell asleep listening to Emma and Will debating what additions they should make to the cabin next.

I've laughed so hard I had to pause so I could breathe again while reading the bricklayer's lament. But not the first time hearing it, nor subsequent times. I had it the first time I read Terry Pratchett about B. S. Johnson's ornamental trout lake and ornate fountain, but not on later readings. I got my sister laughing like that once when I was little when I said "applesauce", but it only worked for about five minutes, it didn't work after that. It's never been repeatable afterwards. It's fairly easy to keep it going for a few minutes once it starts. Tim Conway's Siamese elephants seemed to be that. I think I have to be primed somehow beforehand to get that reaction. Perhaps thinking "ok this is really stupid" and shaking my head before I get to the really bad part.

David Brin's Uplift series, starting with Sundiver.

So we were sentient until the tower of Babel? In this universe, did Babel definitely happen, or definitely not, or unknown?

Most of my prompts do not require fantasy elements. I limit myself to posting at most one a day. Usually they're based on a real problem or observation, but I translate it so it's not identifiable. And abstract it to hint how a story could be made out of it without binding responders to any unnecessary particulars. Like, two choices but would it be cheating to combine them? That one got struck down as too abstract, so sometimes I add arbitrary particulars. Like, big mac vs filet o fish but maybe I can ask for tartar sauce on big mac?

Some days I get a prompt-writing binge, like recently "any time I changed my ways is a prompt". Then I have a file where I can stash away unlimited potential prompts. Later if I'm feeling that posting prompts is worthwhile, I can pull from that file once a day if nothing else jumps out at me. I put a star in the file by the ones I've already posted.

Most of my prompts are ignored. That's fine. Prompts aren't the important thing here, stories are. I try not to respond to my own prompts, but sometimes I do anyways, but when I do I give others a few hours lead time. I try to write roughly as many stories as prompts, preferably to other people's prompts. I used to try to do 2x as many critiques of stories as I do stories, but I haven't even done 1x recently. I only critique stories I like.

In the morning, Theo started building a snowman.

"You're a snowman," said Luke. "And you're building a snowman."

"Yes", said Theo.

This struck Luke as very circular. He thought of several comments he could make about it. But he rejected them. Finally, he settled on one. "Is there a reason?"

"I'm seeing if I can make it come alive."

"Ah," said Luke.

After a few minutes of patting and fussing, he had a snowman. With twigs for arms. And two stone eyes. But it just sat there. Theo stood back and pondered.

"It's as big as me," said Luke. "But bigger than you."

"Oh!" said Theo. "I forgot. I get lost in what I'm doing sometimes. I get worn down when I'm moving about." Theo grabbed some snow and patted it into the side of his torso.

"You can DO that?" asked Luke.

"Sure. And after awhile it redistributes itself." Theo was back to Luke's size now.

April examined the snowman. "She looks nice! I'll call her Lydia. Hello Lydia!"

"... heLLOO aaaaprilll ..." croaked Luke, trying to cast his voice.

"You!" scolded April.

Theo poked at Lydia some more. She was just a construction of snow. Finally he pushed her over, and she fell, crumbling into a few large pieces.

"That definitely didn't work," said Theo. "No puff of snow. That was just snowballs being knocked over."

"How big can you get?" Luke asked Theo.

"I don't know," said Theo, "I haven't tested that."

---

April was shuttling back and forth, gathering more snow and packing it onto Theo. Theo was over 3 feet tall now. He'd had to replace his arms with larger ones twice now.

"Are you getting stronger?" asked Luke.

"Sort of. So so," said Theo. "I can pick up bigger stuff. But I'm feeling more sluggish. I felt a lot more nimble when I was smaller." Theo leaned. He reached up nearly 5 feet with one arm and down to the ground with the other. "It feels like work keeping my head on."

"More snow!" said April, packing on more and hustling away for more. Being busy had lifted her spirits considerably.

After an hour, Theo had reached five feet tall.

"You look like you could lift a tree," said Luke.

"I'm having trouble lifting myself," said Theo. "Let me try running."

Theo thudded across the field, slowly, leaving big holes in the snow with each wobble. At the end he tried leaping. His head went up, came down, then his head split in two. Half fell to the ground.

"Theo?"

He did not respond.

April stared. "Is he dead?"

"I don't think so," said Luke. "He didn't explode in a puff of snow. That seems to be an important part of us, that we explode in a puff of snow when we die."

"He's missing an eye," said April.

"I think he's just disabled," said Luke.

They poked through the fallen half of his head. April found the stone for his eye and tried to put it back. "I can't reach." She was only one foot tall and Theo's head was five feet up. She tried putting it on his belly. That didn't seem to help.

"Wait, I know this one," said Luke. He looked around. "You need a longer arm. Take out one of your arms, and put that long thin branch in its place."

April did this. The new branch was four feet long, way out of proportion to her one foot body. "This is freaky," she said, leaning way back to try to lift the new arm. She lifted it and it dropped and fell out. She stuck it in further, tried again, then maintained control this time.

"Now the eye," said Luke.

April carefully picked up the eye with her new arm. She awkwardly maneuvered it into the air and managed to place it in the middle of the remaining half of Theo's head.

Theo's head turned. "Oh. I feel very odd," said Theo.

"That's probably too big," said Luke.

"I agree," said Theo, turning his head again. "Oh man. I feel dizzy. Perspective." He took out his eye and placed it back on the front of his head. "That's better." He sat. Both eyes were on the same side of his face now. "One to two feet tall seems ideal. Smaller is too wispy. Bigger is heavier than it's worth."

"That was fun," said April.

Theo started digging snow out of his side. On a whim he made another snowman of it. With arms and eyes. It just sat there. "Still no good," he said. He knocked it over.

"It's good to know what our limits are," said Luke. "There's only the three of us."

"Four. There's Sylvia too," said Theo.

"Sylvia?" "What?"

"You probably haven't met her. I don't know if I have even, properly. Sylvia is just what I call her. She hides in the forest behind trees and doesn't say anything."

Luke laughed. "How do you know you're not just making her up?" he asked.

"She leaves tracks. Or at least, she used to. I haven't seen any trace of her so far today. She keeps herself small."

"Maybe she died?"

"Maybe she got better at not leaving tracks. We're all learning to be better at being who we are," said Theo.

April looked out to the forest.

The two little snowmen, Luke and April, sat in the snow outside the castle ruins.

April was without mooring. She existed to serve the queen. But the queen was dead. Luke said she had been made by the queen as a cruel joke, just to be easily destroyed. She would not believe that. Luke was awful that way. Focused on the ugly. But without the queen, what was the point of anything? She might as well just sit there forever. She'd melt by summer. Did it matter?

Luke was without a plan. He'd melt by summer. He'd probably be destroyed well before then. Did he need to eat anything? It didn't appear so. So he ran by magic? Is that self sufficient? He should clearly protect himself against all possible ways of being hit. Was there anything else he should be preparing against? And summer was certainly a puzzle. Maybe if he could stockpile ice. He remembered when the queen was little, they had an icehouse ..

How could he remember when the queen was little? It seemed likely that he knew what the queen had known, that's how he knew anything at all. Did that mean he was actually the queen?

"Do you remember the queen's family icehouse?" Luke asked April.

"Oh yes, she loved to go in and sit and chew on ice in the middle of the summer! The cold felt so good in her mouth!"

Well you're clearly not the queen, Luke told himself. At least no more April is. And you're clearly not April. You're grounded. While April's living in some fluffy wish kingdom.

There was some motion in the woods, a creaking sound. Some wooden contraption slowly rolled out of the woods, up to the castle. Another snowman was pulling it.

"Look here," he said, "this can launch fifty snowballs at once. With a couple dozen of these we could defend the queen far more efficiently ..." the newcomer said.

"I'll call you John," said Luke.

"Really?" said the newcomer. "I've been calling myself Theo."

Luke laughed. "Theo it is! Much better. I apologize for my presumption. I salute you."

"Well, OK," said Theo, and Theo and Luke saluted each other.

"The thing is," said Luke, "the queen is dead. There's no point in defending a dead queen."

"Oh," said Theo, sitting down. "That changes things. I'll have to think about that."

"Luke's always rubbing it in my face that the queen is dead," said April. "I'm April."

"Hello April. Well, it is good to know. But I agree there's no need to dwell on it." He paused. "Other than how it changes things." He lapsed back into thought.

The three of them sat in the snow by the ruined castle. Three little snowmen. The sun set. They continued sitting.

"Where's the queen?" asked April. "We have to save her!"

"She's dead," answered Luke.

"What? No! You lie!"

"I'll show you." As Dirk and Rocky sparred, Luke led April around into the remains of the castle. To the remains of the queen.

"See," he said, "cinders and bones."

April was petrified. "No ... no, it can't be ..."

"I saw it all," said Luke. "The dragon that burned her nearly killed me too, but I fell back into a snowdrift."

April stared at the remains. "You were there," she realized. "You could have saved her! How can you bear yourself, you could have saved her, but you ... just saved yourself! What sort of bastard are you???"

"An alive bastard," answered Luke.

"You ... she ..." April collapsed. "What's the point? I live to serve the queen! And she's dead! And I'm still here! What's the point? What's the point of anything?"

"You could start by figuring out how to keep being here," said Luke. He wandered back outside and April followed.

"She's deaaaaad!!!" wailed April. "I can't saaave her! I'm pooointlesssssss!" she cried.

"Hey watch this," said Rocky. He wound up and struck at Dirk. Dirk struck back. They both scored. They both exploded in little puffs of snow.

Luke stared. "Aaaaand, that's the end of Rocky and Dirk," he said.

"I'm poooointlessssss!" wailed April.

Luke shook her with his twigs. "April. April. Do you see Rocky and Dirk there?"

"Um"

"What is left of them, I mean?"

"Yes?"

"Do you want to die, like them?"

"Um ... not really?"

"Then you have to start looking out for yourself. You get knocked, you'll vanish in a puff of snow, just like them. Me too. Stop worrying about the queen. Start worring about yourself."

April sniffed. "You're mean," she said.

"I suppose so," said Luke.

"What's the point. What's the poooooinnnnt???" squealed April.

Luke waddled away, shaking his head.

Luke the snowman trudged around the ruins of the castle. The one corner was still there. On the floor were cinders, and the charred bones of the queen. Outside the snow was pockmarked with the remains of fallen snowmen.

"Hello?" called Luke. "Anyone left?"

There was silence. He wobbled about further and repeated his call. This time he heard some mumbling. He dug, and pulled out another snowman, stuck in the snow headfirst.

"Lousy cowards!" he yelled. "Come back and fight! I'm not finished with you!"

"I'll call you Dirk," said Luke. Dirk kept raging and threatening the trees. Luke kept exploring. Luke found another and pulled him out.

"Great bloody bastards," said the other. "Give me some more practice and I'll take 'em."

"I'll call you Rocky," said Luke. Rocky brushed himself off and looked around.

Dirk came over. Introduced himself. "Dirk," said Dirk.

"Rocky," said Rocky. They did a twig bump.

Luke heard another murmer. "Mm m mmmm mm." He lifted a branch and unpinned the snowman. "For the queeeen!!!" she yelled, raising her right twig defiantly.

"For the queeeen!!!" echoed back Rocky and Dirk.

"I'll call you April," said Luke.

"April?" she asked. "But ... why? In April I'll be melted."

"Because I'm in a black mood," answered Luke.

The little snowman was besides himself in terror. He was going to melt. What if some piece of the castle fell on him. The queen had died. That meant his magic would dissipate and he'd be snow too, right? Right? He stayed still, frozen. Nothing seemed to be happening. Maybe he was dead. If he was dead why was he still thinking. Maybe he wasn't. He tried wiggling a little stick arm. It wiggled. How about that. He was still alive?

He climbed back out of the snow. He was snow himself. What was the difference? He was just a little throwaway snowman, about a foot tall, meant to slow down the attackers. No need for anything fancy, just a snowball on top of another bigger snowball flattened on the bottom with some sticks for arms and rocks for eyes.

"Who am I?" he asked. How did he say that? No mouth. Was it really sound? "Boo?" Yes it was sound. No ears either. Maybe ... he didn't know, he just made sound somehow. He tried looking around. His head, the top snowball, swiveled on the bottom one. He jumped up and down and the top snowball came off and fell back in place. He took a few steps, the bottom snowball wobbling back and forth to walk while the head stayed steady above it. He pulled out an arm and threw it down. He couldn't wiggle it. He found another twig and stuck it in where an arm should be. He could wiggle the new twig. Well, this was all surprisingly functional. He had to give the queen a grudging respect for that, despite her having created him for the express purpose of him disappearing in a comical puff of snow.

He didn't have a name. Of course. Why would the queen have spent the effort to name him, just another nameless soldier in the snowman army? He could call himself Snowflake. Hum. That seemed appropriate. But he didn't like it. How about Flake? Mmm. Fluke? That was appropriate too, but no. Luke? Hum. Hum hum. He wasn't anybody, really. He might as well be Luke. Luke it is, then. I am Luke.

Was he talking to himself? Yes of course he was talking to himself. There was nobody else there. Won't others think he's odd, talking to himself? What others? He was Luke, and he talked to himself, and he was OK with that. He'd go from there.

The Ice Queen stood tall, looking down her nose at them. "Leave," she said. She made a wide sweep of her arm, then coldly turned away and walked back into her castle nestled against the mountain peak.

Alexander and his companions advanced, of course. But the queen's sweep had not been just drama. An army of little snowmen formed and rose from the snow around them. They waved their little stick arms and squealed little high-pitched battle cries.

Alexander rolled his eyes. "What, for real?" he asked. Ariel kicked one and it exploded in a puff of snow. "This isn't a defense," said Alexander, "this is just slapstick."

"atttaaaack!!!" squeaked a wave of snowmen, throwing little snowballs at them. Alexander kicked a few more, puff puff puff. "For the queeeeen!!!" yelled a troop of snowmen. They'd pulled back a little tree and flung themselves in the air at the attackers. Alexander's sword sliced through half a dozen in midair, causing a sudden blizzard of powder. One snowman held up a little snowball, looked at it, looked at himself, then dropped it and comically waddled away into the forest. Gordon shot at it but it had dodged behind a tree. Gordon shot another bolt at a rock behind the tree. The shot caromed off at an appropriate angle, and there was a satisfying puff of snow. Gundar the dragon just blasted a field of them with his flames. They made little gurgling sounds as they melted.

---

Inside the castle the attackers faced the Queen herself. She sat in a corner, ignoring them.

The party entered the chamber, surrounding her, cautious.

The one snowman had climbed up to a window above the queen and looked down at the scene. If the queen died, then what would happen to him? Existential question there. He looked around to see if he could help the situation any. Ice. Ice. More ice. No ropes, nothing precarious, no arrows, no arms capable of shooting a serious arrow anyhow. He had nuthin. He watched.

As the party approached, the queen looked over her shoulder.

She twitched.

The castle fell, entirely, starting an avalance down the mountain, carrying the party with it. It left just the corner the queen was sitting in.

As it fell Gundar blasted up at the queen with his fire. She looked down after them. Her ice tiara melted, forming little droplets.

The little snowman reflexively fell backwards away from the window as flames shot through it. He felt the heat, but fell into snow, and started digging.

The queen burst into flame, and was gone.

The avalance consumed the party and continued down the mountain.

A church choir performing an anthem.

Writing and maintaining a large software project.

A rock concert.

Building an apartment building.

Performing "The Nutcracker" again, but with new props and choreography.

A circus.

Constructing and launching a new rocket.

Running a hospital in a war zone.

A junior high soccer match.

A fashion show.

School lunch.

Making coins for currency.

Removing wisdom teeth.

Most of the world's computers (and routers and toasters) are 99% idle and unsupervised. So the spare space and cycles are repurposed by malware. Converting space and cycles to cash is straightforward. You'd think malware has to be fairly stealthy to avoid users noticing and reimaging their machines, but no, it's quite difficult to interfere so blatantly that "owners" step in. Other malware is the real competition. So it's competing bands of malware developers, all using it for boring cash generation. Other bands steal cash directly. And underfunded governments occasionally step on some toes. A few bands pursue more interesting goals.

The audience for interesting geometric crazy quilts is rather limited, and oddly, is known to attract the interest of certain government organizations. So a network of quilters has set up an encrypted and obfuscated cross-continental chat ring to collaborate on their chosen hobby.