About 20 years ago I read in a reprinted book about a story by Erle
Stanley Gardner(Perry Mason fame)  He wrote a 5 to 6 sentence story(?)
about how easy it is to write science fiction.  He, I believe, wrote
it as a sarcastic example about how there is no need to to have any
facts or continuity...or whatever behind a scifi story.  About mid 80's or 90's a
scifi writer wrote a book using just those few sentences.
The gist of the story as I remember it is about a man looking to the
the sky(stars) pointing a weapon(?) and knowing that it must end(?)

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Request for Question Clarification by pinkfreud-ga on 28 Nov 2006 14:46 PST

Are you certain that Erle Stanley Gardner was the author? 

In 1990, Barry N. Malzberg took a few sarcastic remarks written by
Raymond Chandler (in the form of a simulated science fiction story)
and wove them into an actual story which Malzberg called "Playback."

Part of the original text, by Chandler:

"I checked out with K19 on Aldebaran III, and stepped out through the
crummaliote hatch on my 22 Model Sirus Hardtop. I cocked the
timejector in secondary and waded through the bright blue manda grass.
My breath froze into pink pretzels. I flicked on the heat bars and the
Bryllis ran swiftly on five legs using their other two to send out
crylon vibrations. The pressure was almost unbearable, but I caught
the range on my wrist computer through the transparent cysicites. I
pressed the trigger. The thin violet glow was icecold against the
rust-colored mountains. The Bryllis shrank to half an inch long and I
worked fast stepping on them with the poltex. But it wasn?t enough.
The sudden brightness swung me around and the Fourth Moon had already
risen. I had exactly four seconds to hot up the disintegrator..."

Could this be what you're remembering?

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Clarification of Question by trs180-ga on 29 Nov 2006 04:14 PST

The portion of your question/answer seems to be along the vein that I
remember.  But the short story was just that.  A story with a
beginning a middle and an end in just those few short sentences.  The
only other thing I remember about the story is that, and bear with me
on the explanation, he seemed to be sad/hopeless because something was
ending or futile?  I do not know if this will help