Twilight's Flash Fiction / Relatos cortos crepusculares

  Acetylcholine and Empty Reserves And then came the day when the neurons tried to release acetylcholine, the quintessential neurotransmitter, but the vesicles, for some unknown reason, were empty. Without acetylcholine, information can’t be stored or retrieved clearly. Result: cognitive decline. These were the neurons of some of the officials responsible for Argentina’s foreign currency reserves. The same universal principle: empty vesicles, empty reserves. The neuron is left without its memory, just as the markets wait for the dollars that never appear. The solutions: for acetylcholine, a more adequate diet; for foreign reserves, a bailout. Acetilcolina y reservas vacías Y llegó el día en el que las neuronas intentaron liberar acetilcolina, el neurotransmisor por excelencia, pero las vesículas, no se sabe por qué motivo, estaban vacías. Sin la acetilcolina, la información no se fija ni se recupera con claridad. Resultado: deterioro cognitivo. Se trataba de las neuronas de...

 Tar We have just left the exosphere. Four powerful engines drive the massive machine that carries us to Mars. We venture into the unsettling black nothingness. Everything has gone according to plan—until a small incident puts us on alert: the ship is experiencing a gradual loss of speed from an unknown cause. None of the monitoring systems or external cameras detects anything, except for the dark background surrounding the ship. A total void in which the telescopes show no trace of stellar objects. I decide to go outside to try to understand what is happening. I open one of the side hatches and float out with a sense of apprehension. I can make out a black, viscous mass advancing along the metallic surface. It looks like tar. It approaches quickly and traps my glove; upon contact, it hardens into a block as solid as granite. I look in every direction. What I see is the same solid mass spreading throughout space. The communication systems warn me that this telepathic connec...