Take the long way home...

They were sitting on a bench facing the wide river. The cloudy sky reflected on the waters, giving them a silver shine in spots where the current formed ripples and waves. The trees behind them were just starting to put out timid buds after an unusually cold winter. Cars were rushing down the street towards the bridge, the sounds of roaring engines and shrieking brakes resonating in turn from around the traffic light. Some brave, solitary runners would pass on the jogging path right in front of them, huffing and puffing with earbuds blasting music to help them keep the pace, and they could hear the base line get higher in pitch as they got closer, matching the thumps of their feet on the soft pavement, and then deeper and fainter as they went on along the path towards the tip of the island. – Doppler effect. - said Sarah, after a young man had crossed their field of view in his bright, orange tracksuit. – It applies to light too. - said Steve, raising his head to look at the clouds. Th...

  Prompt: a line from a song. I got "We all live in a yellow submarine" How this line was conceived John and Paul were on the top of the world, Their world, at least. They had trained for months, prepared meticulously, and after more than one moment fearing they were going to be forced to give up, they had made it. Top of the world. Top of the whole solar system really. Olympus Mons was the King of mountains, and more experts had been defeated by it than could pride themselves to have contemplated the red horizon, dotted with lit up domes, from the 25,000 meters of its peak.  John pulled out the inflatable habitat to spend the night, its bright yellow exterior in stark contrast with the iron oxide that made up the bulk of the regolith, and that had laid down in a thick layer everywhere, even up here. They got in, turned on the portable MOXIE and the main controller, waited for the pressure to stabilize and removed their suits. Comms were bad at the moment, probably another so...

  Today I met myself. It was the strangest feeling of sudden recognition and understanding. Of course, it wasn't me. Just a girl going to my son's school whom I had never met before. She came to me as we got outside the metro station and asked me "What's your name?" in English. I told her, and I introduced my son, but apparently she already knew him. She had longish hair held back in a low ponytail. That way it doesn't pull and doesn't give you a headache - I know - and it stays out of the way. She was wearing a pair of hiking boots, my faithful companions through teenage years whenever I had a chance to have a pair to consume in endless walks, when I was finally old enough to ditch their awful Scottish skirts and white socks, and the prickly sweaters, to chose what I wanted, not them. And loose jeans, the ones that don't wrap on your skin like a wet shower curtain. And of course, she had a hoodie. Wouldn't be me without a hoodie. She showed me how...