"Professor, we were wondering if you could recommend a biologist with helping us to identify--Professor? Professor, are you listening?"

Dr. Schwartz shook his head. "It doesn't matter. You do not need a biologist/ All you need to do is look in front of you."

Politely, Jim looked at the pendulum swinging in front of him. "I'm sorry, Professor, I don't think that this is quite what we need right now. There's land out there that none of us recognize, but I figure that a biologist might be able to give us an estimate of where we are."

"Ha!" Dr. Schwartz interrupted, pointing at the pendulum with a shaking finger. "There! Do you see that!?"

"No, professor, I don't. I think I'll just go--"

The professor surged to his feet and seized Jim by the shoulders. "Don't you understand? It changed! The pendulum changed! I deduce that you would notice if the sun in the sky shifted above you too greatly, so we cannot be traveling through time, or perhaps we are traveling enough through time that it syncs up...ahem. The only way the pendulum's rhythm would change is if it was in a different location. Do you understand? Go look at the land you didn't recognize earlier, and it will be even less familiar to you now!"


Inspiration: Foucault's 194th birthday
Story potential: Medium
Notes: Could be a fun shifting-place premise, but, um, I really need to do a bit more research to get the science of the observable details right.

Things build up a personality of their own over time, you see, and it's well-known that people who travel more have stronger personalities. It's like that with objects, too. And the steamer trunk that I'm going to tell you of, well, it's traveled an awful lot. It's held things from Christmas fruitcake and ladies dowries to opium stashes and pillaged silks and burial urns with bones inside. It has much more of a personality than many people I've spoken to, let's put it like that. Fortunately, it's not a mean creature--if you'll allow me the indulgence of calling it a creature. In fact, let's just say you'll even let me call it a 'she'.

Inspiration: Looked up steamer trunks to try and figure out what a Victorian detective would be packing his things away in. Not sure the chronology is right, but the feel is.
Story Potential: High, I guess.
Notes: I don't know why this is high potential, except that I'm becoming charmed by it.

The cruise ship sailed into the night, beneath the lunar eclipse, and all the people danced on the deck. They danced and they laughed and they drank and they gossiped. They admired their shining bits, they admired the famous ones that they recognized, they admired the way the reddish moonlight made the waves glow. They ate and they laughed and they danced. They chatted. They strayed off to sit in little groups and have long conversations or recite poetry to each other. They ate and danced and stared at the moon. They wondered why the phase wasn't changing. The dancing became more disjointed, with one partner or another frequently glancing up to check on the position of the moon. They ate, but it was nervous nibbling as the buffet slowly became destroyed. They--

Inspiration: Current cloudscudding LJ theme, plus the lunar eclipse tonight (which I am too lazy/cold/injured to go outside and look at, which makes me a loser).
Story Potential: Not sure. I am confused. Medium?
Notes: Thing is, I don't think this would really go anywhere, but I like this. This bit, right here. I like it. Not to expand, just as it is.

The air smelled funny. That was the first thing she noticed when she stepped out onto the loading dock. She had remembered the scent as being like cinnamon bread, but instead all she smelled was the pungency of bodies that had not been sent through the mandatory deodorizer every day, regularly, and taken their pheromone suppressant pills. She'd never noticed the smell before. She shook off the discomfort as she swung her duffel bag over her shoulder. Homecoming was never easy. They'd warned her about that. She hadn't really believed them, though; now she wished she'd paid more attention during that lecture. She never would have dreamed of scoffing off a lecture about the dangers of a new planet she was being set down on as part of an explorer team; why had she thought--

Inspiration: Well, coming home after a week and a half away!
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Nice setting, but no extra story oomph here.