Strange Stellar Cab Ride

Video Description: “Strange Stellar Cab Ride” Trailer. Duration, 45 seconds. “Neon Trip (B) Melody Loop” by Tao and Sound. Digital drawing. A smiling young woman stands in front of a taxicab, slightly leaning against the hood, facing forward. Most of the front of the cab is visible, seen at an angle from the front corner of the driver side. The cab is bright orange. The words “Interstellar Taxi” are visible on the side. In place of a wheel is a thruster shaped like a dome with a flared bottom, and a glow of energy beneath. The woman has her right foot crossed over her left, her left arm across her waist, her right hand raised to her left shoulder, and her right elbow propped on her left hand. Her multicolored clothes of blue and pink match her hair, make-up, and shoes. Her yellow jacket matches her yellow scrunchie. She wears high-top sneakers, fingerless gloves, and layers of necklaces. A small blue lizard is perched on her right shoulder. A black lizard is just visible behind the blue. Above is an expanse of space with stars glowing in different colors. Title card with the words “Short Story” and “Genre: Science Fiction,” is displayed at top. Tagline is displayed at bottom. It reads: “A driver for a small interstellar cab company picks up a passenger, who keeps wanting to go to where she probably shouldn’t go.” Title card and tagline fade. A watermark of the word “storyfeather” appears over the image. Lines from the story appear in sequence: “I had to talk her out of it. My passenger had asked me to take her to Wild Protomatter Park. Wild Protomatter Park? That place was originally marked a danger zone.  Instant death for the lucky ones.  Contamination and a slow painful death for the unlucky.  No one knew why, but that area of space would burst with geysers of exotic particles.” When music gets quicker, about halfway through, the image begins to shift and rotate through different hues until returning to the original colors. When the last phrase appears, glowing bits of lights burst from the center outward. Site URL appears at bottom left throughout and fades at end. As the last line disappears, the glowing lights burst away, the image blurs, the story title appears at center, and a text card appears at top that reads “Available to Read Now storyfeather.com.”

[Video Description: Duration, 11 seconds. Choice wheel made on the Spin the Wheel application. Thirteen spokes or slices in various colors, labeled as follows, clockwise from the top: Objects of Power (the “of Power” is not visible), Prompts, Definitions, Turn Again, Elements, Creatures, S.T.E.A.M., Wildcard, Revisitation, Music, Challenge, Draw!!!, Traveler. The title at top reads “The Wheel of Fiction V4” and below that the words “Spin the wheel.” Below that is a label on left, “Spin date: 7/12/22,” and a label at right, “Story: 8/28/22.” At top left corner is a flag icon labeled with the letter “F.” This represents a function of the application which interferes with true randomness by reducing the probability of receiving the same choice twice in a row. The wheel turns and lands on TURN AGAIN, TURNS and lands on MUSIC. As the wheel stops spinning, four cartoon planets appear at center, one with rings, and then a yellow taxi cab zooms into view from right and hovers in a wobbly pattern..]