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Entry
for July 24, 2011
Prompt: Dreams
Title:
Everyone is named Sarah
Martin
caught a flash of red hair as the girl ducked into the Topkapi. She pulled her
hoodie up, shifting her oversized yellow purse to the outside and crossing to a
Hot Topic to watch him pass. She pulled the blue wig from her bag and shed the
hoodie, luxuriating in the A/C across her naked shoulders and haltertop as she
slinked along behind him. He stopped, and she caught up with him. “Sarah?” he
asked, handing her an I.D. “I thought that was you,” he said to the girl of his
dreams. “You dropped this about three looks back.”
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Entry
for July 17, 2011
Prompt: Pick two
(WTF + Pocket)
Title:
Got ‘em
Teen spy Martin sent what he’d discovered in his
surveillance at the mall to Richard. They weren’t friends, exactly, but he’d
teamed with Richard on different science projects in the past and noticed where
his mild Asperger’s gave him crazy focus when it came to computer code. A
progress report of sorts came that afternoon, a text from a restricted number:
“Shut down NOW.” WTF? His provider couldn’t tell him anything. Richard could.
By the next morning, he’d pocketed an IP address, breadcrumbs, backdoors and
the data necessary to either turn Skylar over to the Feds… or to flip him.
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Entry
for July 10, 2011
Prompt: In his
quietest moments
Title:
The Hacker
High school junior
Skylar wished to know all that could be known. In his quietest moments, he
wished to command the sum total of human experience. But he had to start
somewhere. He’d programmed a string or two of code to resemble benign
background garble that attached, he hoped discreetly, to social networking
log-ins. He found the wifi hotspot at the mall to be fertile hunting ground. He
tripped a few error messages along the way, but he was already able to view
dozens of pages of people he didn’t know and who’d never friended him. Next
stop, cell phones.
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Entry
for July 3, 2011
Prompt: Apple pie
Title:
Nemesis
Martin ordered a slice of apple
pie and took a seat against the window. With the afternoon sun streaming behind
him he had the best perspective on the coffeeshop while he himself resisted the
notice of others. This bookstore café was also one of the three best spots in
the mall for scoping out the food court and more to the point, the wifi hot
spots. He wanted to do some actual epsionage and discovered his notebook
wireless computer had been encountering a homegrown virus here. He’d been
narrowing suspects for awhile now, and was closing in on… The Hacker.
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Entry
for June 26, 2011
Prompt: Pogo Stick
Title:
Disaster
A flood is maybe
the quietest
natural disaster.
Storms rage, tornadoes howl,
Hurricanes splinter buildings
like an explosion.
An overland flood
Walks unhurried over levees.
It swims into your basement
And chokes you beneath
A placid surface
Probably it won’t kill us.
It will take our property.
For some of us, it will take
everything
It might take our health – mold,
spores, sanitation
As the waters recede
And the devastation surfaces,
It will tax our mental health.
You find debris washed in with the
wreckage,
A doll … some book … a pogo stick …
Whose was it?
What was lost?
And why?
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Entry
for June 19, 2011
Prompt: Read
Title:
Crack the Code
Note:
This was my 101st week with the 100 Word Story Weekly Challenge, so
I selected one word from each of my previous weeks’ entries. The numbers
indicate the week. As for the code, you can highlight to read: “secret code” and “Happy one-hundredth word story, TJ, and here’s to
one-hundred more!”
Along10 with3 physical98 training86 for9 speed14 and6 spy19 skills97 – he59 also62 spent41 two21 weeks2 trekking66 through60 the22 woods87 with5 his49 Uncle76 Joe67 for61 survival30 training94 – Martin99 spent95 part48 of63 his51 summer100 crafting39 a64 …
“stocks1 -seemed28 -recipe4 -quirky7 -warped36 -nudist20
cortex45- forsooth44- midnight17-
irresponsible8.”
Can70 you77 figure58 it65 out68?
“Haggis31 -nanotechnology15 -muppety40 -nymphs37 -batty35 //
opera74 -incoming38 -elegant50 //
hedgerow78 -tuxedo89 -monster46 -pudding73 -divert91 -Spencer96 -Jaybird88 -smartest53 -workbench12 //
Watson93 -doctor75 -baristas23 -bandaged71 //
shooter84 -stand82 -cooking83 -staring26 -platypus42 //
taxicab34 //
Jazzile11, //
Angels79
-installations13 -radiator80 //
Halloween69 -xeriscape55 -circuitous18 -foreman90 -themselves56 //
tattered25 -vociferous81 //
overtaking43 -uniforms29 -gleeful32 //
History33 -autotune47 -denizens16 -murdered54 -government92 -chrome85 -ordered24 //
misery52
-monstrosities57 -Warren72 -adventure27!
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Entry
for June 12, 2011
Prompt: Toxic
Title:
Mission Accomplished
Analyzing the video he captured,
Martin carefully selected screencaps that most usefully identified Miss Harch’s
extended changing-room ogling and avoided the nudity beyond her. Though nearly
all the girls in the video would by now be 18, he didn’t wish, in applying his
extortion bid, to open himself to toxic counter-charges of child pornography
should one of them still have a birthday coming. The images he chose were, as
it turned out, effective. Miss Harch would excuse him from fifth-period gym
class for his junior year. He had all summer to plan how best to use that free
time.
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Entry
for June 5, 2011
Prompt: Ocean
Title:
Mission the Third-Leverage
More than simple surveillance,
Martin knew part of being a spy is learning leveragable information. So it was
with this dark motive he targeted Chelsea Ocean, a senior. The mission he set
for himself was to discover intimate knowledge of her person and threaten to tell
a geek, so the geek would then seem to have intimate knowledge of her person.
He installed the video transmitter in the broken towel dispenser in the girls
lockerroom. Mission failure when the gym mistress, Miss Harch, stood in front
of that dispenser. However, he did learn Miss Harch enjoyed watching the girls
shower.
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Entry
for May 29, 2011
Prompt: Bugs
Title:
Mission the Second
Martin knew that spying required
more than patience. He needed to manage electronic surveillance as well. He set
for himself a task of overhearing something he wasn’t meant to. To this
purpose, he tore apart the innards of an old baby monitor from the shed, broke
it down and, consulting a circuitry schematic diagram in his physics textbook,
hooked the microphone and transmitter to a 9-volt battery and hid it in his
parents’ bedroom, with the receiver in his own. Mission accomplished. The next
morning he removed the bug, and set for himself a new task: Unhearing his
father’s safeword.
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Entry
for May 22, 2011
Prompt: Pick Two
(Daddy + Rum)
Title:
Mission the First
His dad was against it. But from an early age, Martin knew he had the right skills to become a spy. He was patient. He was observant. He could sit comfortably nearly anywhere for hours. He was almost the exact description someone would use to describe nondescript. At 16 he was just old enough to look a little young to be in a bar, but his first real piece of spy gear – a fake ID – covered that. His first undercover mission for himself: Sit in a bar till closing, order a rum-and-Coke, don’t get caught. Four hours later, mission accomplished.
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Entry
for May 15, 2011
Prompt: Nasal Spray
Title:
Overheard
You’ve gotten them mixed up again.
I did not. Spencer Tracy was a detective.
No he wasn’t.
He wasn’t?
No, you’re thinking of Dick Tracy.
Dick Tracy was an actor.
No, Dick Tracy was a comic book detective from the 1930s. Spencer Tracy was an actor.
Maybe Spencer Tracy played Dick Tracy?
No, that was Warren Beatty.
Oh, I see. Spencer Tracy was in “Gone With the Wind.”
No, he was in “Inherit the Wind.” Warren Beatty was in “Dick Tracy.”
PLEASE! This is a family podcast.
*snort
Pardon me, but I’ve got to clean
diet Coke off of …everything.
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Entry
for May 8, 2011
Prompt: Toast
Title:
Toast
When I see
Dave and Rebecca here today I can’t help but cast my mind back to where these
crazy kids were just one year ago. Rebecca was just a shy, wide-eyed kid at the
checkout counter open to new life and new possibilities. Who could’ve known
that fateful day, she could be ringing up the groceries of the man she would be
spending the rest of her life with? Certainly not Dave, who as it happens was
sleeping with me at the time, so welcome to marital bliss, Becky, and make sure
your shots are up to date. L’chaim.
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Entry
for May 1, 2011
Prompt: There He Is
+ Rebirth + Hell Freezes Over
Title:
No Flash Photography
My directive was clear – use discretion, no flash photography.
But I’d ridden these rails before and the spot the two men had chosen to rendezvous – between their two passenger cars while in the Lourgnette tunnel – there’d be a split second of daylight as the train passed beneath the airvent.
Above them, in the luggage compartment, I waited. Just as I’d predicted, a shaft of sunlight illuminated the little chamber.
There he was, Minister Bergdorf,
and the suspected corporate spy and influence peddler. A whish of my
cameraphone, and they were on the Times-Register’s news site before they’d even
stopped kissing.
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Entry
for Apr. 24, 2011
Prompt: Stupid
Computer
Title:
Stupid Computer
Between Big Blue and Watson and
Google’s auto-complete algorithms people were getting a bit nervous about smart
computers, so we’ve developed a stupid computer with the attention span of a
teenager. It records personal information and then prompts your memory by
asking you things like “Didn’t you have something at like 2:30 today? The
dentist, maybe?” reminding you you’re out of eggs when you’re already through
the checkout counter, and calling your cellphone to check someone’s phone
number. It’s not the most helpful machine, but using it will certainly improve
your memory, out of necessity, and if only by comparison.
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Entry
for Apr. 17, 2011
Prompt: Be Italian!
Title:
Be Italian!
Now more than ever it is the best
time to be Italian! We work three, maybe four hours a week, we sleep til noon,
we eat all the Italian food we want and look fabulous, we all drive Ferraris
and Vespas and are surrounded with unimaginable beauty. And if you’re a very
young woman, you can get a private audience with our Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi and work out some deal whereby your family isn’t charged any taxes
at one of our bunga-bunga sex parties! Sure our government will collapse any
day now but honestly, what a way to go!
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Entry
for Apr. 10, 2011
Prompt:
Contamination
Title:
Cocktail Party
Into every life a little rain must
fall. My own equatorial monsoon is my wife, Martha, over there chatting up one
of the new prospects, someone in the science division I believe. She wears
demure frocks to these faculty events in deference to her father, but I notice
she selects older ones, ones that have grown contaminated with tightness during
their stay in our closet. There go the fluttering eyelids. Unless I quite miss
my guess I’ll be entertaining that young man and his unsuspecting wife in my
humble abode later this evening. I’m certain Martha will see to that.
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Entry
for Apr. 3, 2011
Prompt: Branches
Title:
Dammit, I’m Afraid of Virginia Woolf!
When I say the place has been let
go, I don’t mean I had a notice pinned to my door. I don’t mean the city health
inspectors are here. I mean A&E is here. I have let this place go. Three
months of rehearsals there’s pizza boxes, fast food bags and cartons crammed to
the ceiling. Bugs and rats are asserting dominion. There’s leaves, branches,
dirt and old newspapers blown in from outside. There’s nothing for it at this
point except to divert the river and run it through the sliding glass doors. If
only we could get to them.
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Entry
for Mar. 27, 2011
Prompt: Tunnel
Vision
Title:
Tunnel Vision
Feelin’ down and dirty, feelin’
kinda mean
Down in this mine, lord I’ll never
get clean
Crew just pulled a caper, don’t
think it’ll work
I’m triple-crossin’ those
double-crossin’ jerks
Fill my eyes that tunnel vision
No disguisin’, that tunnel vision
Oo, when they roped me in, for to
commit their sin
Tunnel vision, oh it seems to get
the best of them.
Gun pulled on the foreman, payroll
out the door
Bombs in one bag, the money in the
o’er
Gimme the explosives, hide out in
the mine
They pull the switch, and that
really blows their mind
Refrain.
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Entry
for Mar. 20, 2011
Prompt: Warped
Title:
A Jump to the Left
Five frizzy Magenta wigs bobbed at
varying heights among the Frankenfurters and the stick-figure blondes in their
grandmothers’ slips. The one Columbia who’d gone all out with the glittering
tuxedo and top hat was about 50, and the Riff Raffs looked like they’d be more
at home at the VFW next door. It was an odd collection of characters, to be
sure, but Larry, having tracked down a pair of tightie-whities he felt
comfortable wearing in public and some birth-control glasses, forgot he was an
accountant and joyously leapt forward to join the “Time Warp.” Don’t dream it.
Be it.
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Entry
for Mar. 13, 2011
Prompt: Vestiphobia
Title:
Jaybird
One of the greatest Bat villains
to grow out of the world of groovy counter-culture was Jaybird, a dastardly
ne’er-do-well who would enter a crowded bank lobby or shopping mall and with a
RIP! FOOM! GAWK! get naked. Jaybird would mug for the cameras, grab all the
loot and streak away, leaving dazed witnesses unable to describe what they’d
seen. The Caped Crusaders would then chase after Jaybird – “Get back here, my
vestiphobic chum!” – but without any luck. Network censors were appalled by
this character, however, and forced Julie Newmar to keep her clothes on. Thus
Catwoman joined the cast.
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Entry
for Mar. 6, 2011
Prompt:
Floorwax+Consternation+DeadlyMarshmallows+Firewood
Title:
Best defense
Some little girls are described as
having an inner light. Not Susie. Little Susie had more of an inner dark. When
she overheard her family’s hushed tones planning a trip to Yellowstone National
Park, she suspected with consternation they were planning to leave her in the
woods. Well the best defense, as they say, is a good offense. So she merrily
went along with it. And while her father was out gathering firewood for their
campfire, Little Susie carefully shaped and powdered some floorwax into the
form of marshmallows. Those deadly
s’mores were the last thing any of them tasted.
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Entry
for Feb. 27, 2011
Prompt: In My Happy
Place
Title:
A Cry For Help
Emily has paste in her hair.
Steven put it there.
Johnny laughed. Janie tried to
help.
Ricky’s in the corner sobbing
because
Jeremy threw a toy train at him.
I know this because Susie
Came running up to tell me.
Her developing sense of justice
Demands some satisfaction.
It seems like one child trips and
falls,
Twelve people text each other
about it
But no one helps him up.
So for me, this space, right here,
this 30-inch by 30-inch by 20-inch
cave
underneath my desk, my first day
of teaching?
This is
the happiest place I can be now.
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Entry
for Feb. 20, 2011
Prompt:
Paris+Quality Control
Title:
Paris
The afternoon sun glinted along
glass and chrome furnishings in the elegant office suite. Seated behind her
obsidian desk, Paris Ashworth Greystone took up her iPad. She ran a manicured
fingernail along the menu settings and selected an item at random. Something
about snowglobes being filled from the Fountain of Youth. “Just don’t choke on
the snowman.” She considered it for a moment. Indeed, that would be a better
ending. She tapped a few keys and sent a memo upstairs. Exhausting, but her
service as muse and quality control specialist for 100 Word Stories was, in its
own way, rewarding.
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Entry
for Feb. 13, 2011
Prompt: Marbles
Title:
Sore Loser, Sore Winner
Marbles are a little like poker.
You bring your marbles and other kids bring theirs and then as the game
continues, if the other kids are better players, they win your marbles, and get
to keep them. This wasn’t explained to me very well, I’m afraid. Tyler won most
of the time. We played until the only marble I had left was my shooter. If
that’s what’s meant by losing one’s marbles, that is what I did. But since he
wanted it so bad, I gave it to him, at pretty high speed at the back of his
head. THWACK!
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Entry
for Feb. 6, 2011
Prompt:
Eyedrops+It’s Like Magic
Title:
Witchcraft
“You’re going to love this,” he
said, opening the garage door. He had a giant… well, the only thing I can call
it would be a cauldron. A cauldron, in the middle of middlewest
suburbia! He was making Super Bowl chili, cooking down sides of pork, shanks of
beef, bags of beans and rich, ripe tomatoes and a complex blend of spices. The
smells filling the room were delicious, savory, amazing. He dropped some ice
into my drink as we took in the glorious sight. “It’s like magic,” he said,
“except nothing happens.” Not true! We all helped it disappear.
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Entry
for Jan. 30, 2011
Prompt: Frozen
Banana
Title:
Free Enterprise
The kid across the way had a
lemonade stand. It was 90 degrees and people were drawn to his ice cold refreshment,
and I thought, what beats ice cold? Frozen. I’d dip a frozen banana in
chocolate and indeed, people would plunk $1 down for the tasty treat. I doubled
my profits when I determined they’d pay the same amount for half a banana.
Between us, we locked up the neighborhood. Then Sally opened her snowcone
stand, which did brisk business – until it mysteriously burned down. It’s their
own fault for turning “The Art of War” into a children’s book.
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Entry
for Jan. 23, 2011
Prompt: I Saw the
Light
Title:
Revival
The air in the revival tent was
dusty and hot. They’d set it up in the afternoon, in the heat of the day, and
the thick canvas held the heat like an oven as parishioners crowded in. Sweat
rolled off Brother Michael’s face as his vociferous invective wrestled souls
for God. Three choruses of “I Saw the Light” and Jenny Reynolds, her feet
moving independent of fear or will, stepped forward to be healed. Unsure of her
ailment, Michael, moved by the spirit, dutifully laid his hands on her. She
shrieked, spasmed, and fell. No longer carrying her brother’s child.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 16, 2011
Prompt: Are We There
Yet?
Title:
Car Trouble
The light flashed. Again. “Check
engine.” I did. I hit a rock on the road and there’s an open coolant leak under
my radiator. As long as I’m moving forward the fan is sucking cold air into the
engine, but the holiday traffic slows as I approach the service center and the
lights are against me. Another red light. I shut the engine off and wait. It
turns, and my car struggles to start again. Oh G-d. Will I make it? Will I get
stuck in traffic? Steam curls ominously from under the hood as the light goes
red again.
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Entry
for Jan. 9, 2011
Prompt: Fake
Title:
Family Reunion
In the past, bank
robbers wore fake beards. These days we wear fake boobs. Even without disabling
the cameras it’s so hard to focus on our faces. We got the idea from a stripper
at Angels. I didn’t realize til halfway through her set she was my sister. I
asked her if those things were real, and she said, “They ain’t figments of your
imagination.” I asked if they were hers and she said she sure paid enough for
them. As family reunions go it was pretty awkward, and two or three sets later
I stormed right out of there.
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Entry
for Jan. 2, 2011
Prompt: My hat’s off
to you
Title:
Stalking
You hear a wuffle in
the hallway, a rustling among the coats.
When there’s a bustle in your hedgerow, you should be alarmed.
It’s not just a spring clean for the May Queen … oh no.
You’ve wakened the wrath of an old chapeau.
There was some magic in that old top hat they found.
Voodoo. The bunny you took home with you
When it hopped to you at my magic show
My mystical exhibition, phantasmagorica
How trepidation transforms your euphoria
It stopped seeking my bunny, it’s shifted its view
With dark magic teeth, see … my hat’s off’ter you.
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Entry
for Dec. 26, 2010
Prompt: Make a run
for it
Title:
Happy Holidays
The tacky holiday
sweater contest is a bad idea, especially when you’re as competitive as we are.
We all took a run at it, and the office became an explosion of glitter, tinsel,
garland, blinking lights and jingle bells. They got us together for the judging
and it’s like Christmas threw up on us. I dressed as Rudolph with jingle bell
antlers and a blinking red nose, but we all lost to Karl, who wore a damn
Christmas tree. Later, he confessed he’d just hit the nog too hard, tripped
over the tree in the lobby and couldn’t escape it.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 19, 2010
Prompt: Inspiration
Title:
Inspiration
We had to call it
the Inspiron processor because some other company had already called their
processor the Inspiration. What they’d actually done is torn a transistor radio
apart and stuck the various components together with the innards of a
calculator into a piece of green plastic. It burst into flames after like five
calculations but because their uncle actually worked in the patent office or
something, “the Inspiration” predated ours by three days. We take consolation
in the fact that WE KNOW HOW TO BUILD COMPUTERS – and certainly the gajillion
dollars our processor made helps to ease the pain.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 12, 2010
Prompt: Playing
Doctor
Title:
Playing Doctor
It had to be ironic
on some level. Laramie, backstage, snogging with Deedee Feetch while
understudying for Doc Feetch in the lead role of the community theater
production of “Playing Doctor.” Doc Feetch was called away on a fake emergency
Laramie had called into the hospital across town. So… Laramie was taking a
break from playing a fake doctor in “Playing Doctor” for a real doctor so as to
play doctor with the doctor’s wife while the real doctor was off playing doctor
somewhere on a doctored call… when an audience member fainted. Is there a
doctor in the house?
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 5, 2010
Prompt: It Seemed
Like a Good Idea at the Time
Title:
Hide and Seek
On the plus side, it had quieted them down immensely.
Four fussy kids packed up on a cross-country car trip
quickly got on their dad’s nerves, and by day three his nerves were clinically
jangled.
So it’s easy to see the logic of dropping them in a safe place
while he and his wife stepped across the way for a quiet,
sophisicated meal in an upscale restaurant.
By and
by, that silence became deafening. They hurried across to discover that, as it
turns out, four kids playing hide-and-seek can hide themselves pretty darn well
in the Museum of Natural History.
Title:
Don’t Dream It, Be It
Bread in the ficus. Nearly a week's worth of damp
newspaper, and a few half-filled spray bottles and water pistols. Rice
crunching everywhere. Noisemakers scattered among discarded clothing
and -- perhaps most disturbingly -- a black corset dangling from the
chandelier.
Fortescue regretted their staging a local production of
"Rocky Horror Picture Show" as a fundraiser for the opera house –
not to mention, volunteering the Opera House. "Think of the fun! Think of
the irony!" he’d said.
Now all he could think of was the gallons of Febreeze,
and the priest he'd probably have to call in to exorcize it.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 28, 2010
Prompt: Holiday
Title:
Holiday
The six bowls of
chocolate pudding sat covered on the windowsill. The children dusted the
Highest Places They Could Reach while the ceremonial chicken chow mein was
prepared and ladled over rice. As they ate, they recounted their favorite
memories of the past year, which mom would include in the Christmas letter.
Then the pudding was eaten during the traditional watching of “The Princess
Bride,” after which dad headed out and fired up the snow blower.
Yes, the First
Blizzard of the Year was irritating in other ways, but Sarah’s family had found
a way to make it a holiday.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 21, 2010
Prompt: Day Job
Title:
All in a Day’s Work
Frank made a donut. Jen grabbed it on her way
to the office, where she designed a luggage rack on a 4x4. Mark dropped some
mail off at her workstation and turned up his headphones. He was listening to
Wendy argue with Bill on the radio, powered by a wind turbine designed by Annie
and built by Warren, which Rachel had negotiated the easement for on Harold’s
farm. Harold reworked his wheat field to accommodate it and Jake took his
harvest into town. Jane milled his flour and bagged up some of it for Frank,
who made ... another donut.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 14, 2010
Prompt: Potato Peels
Title:
Distracted
When you see potato
peelings in the Great Pyramid, you don’t immediately think, “It worked!” and
that the great king Cheops sprang to life and began peeling potatoes for his
feast of the afterlife. You assume a shepherd sheltered from the heat and
grabbed himself a snack. And in very nearly every other instance you’d be
right. However, when the guide, Denali, encountered a fortunate rat nibbling on
a fresh rind, his attention was drawn away from the bandaged figure looming
behind him … long enough for him to extend a bony finger and drain him of his
life force.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 7, 2010
Prompt: Penguins
Title:
Penguins!
When zoos invented
warm-water penguins so people in the rest of the world could enjoy them, they
flourished in the temperate climates and lack of natural enemies. They quickly
became too numerous and the zoos made them available for pets.
This was AWESOME! I
got one of the first penguins. I named her Penny. She waddles around and floops
into the tub when she needs a swim. She can get into the tub just fine on the ramp
I made her but she’s sort of … penguin-shaped, so she needs, like, a boost to
get out again. Penguins are AWESOME!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 31, 2010
Prompt: Halloween
Title:
Election Day
There’s a reason we
don’t hold Election Day on Halloween. We could send the candidates around trick
or treating and the ones with the most candy could be declared the winner. But
the fact that they could cheat and sneak entire bags of Mounds bars into their
treat bags suggests we ought to maintain the current system – you know,
terrifying political ads, mobs of angry voters, mysterious ballot boxes that
disappear into the night, letting the dead come back to life to vote, the scary
candidates themselves … come to think of it, maybe we should hold elections on
Halloween.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 24, 2010
Prompt: Cabbage
Title:
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage
hated cabbage. He built up a machine
A Differential
Engine to analyze cuisine
From all the world
over, Hungarian and Russian,
French, Greek and
Korean, Rumanian and Prussian
Fed he into one end,
machinery would clatter,
Analysis commenced
on texture, chemistry and matter
If cabbage found he
none, the meal would ensue
Even tho the end
result resembled that of goo.
If cabbage was
detected, the machine let out a blast
That thus avoiding,
Charles did not pass along as gas
Cabbage free, his
home took on a positiver air
Tranquil domesticity
is all shall find you there.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 17, 2010
Prompt: Cotton Mouth
Title:
Fame
Cotton-Mouth Jim
didn’t get a song written about him. His brother, Cotton-Eyed Joe, was kind of
a slut. After that girl broke up with her whiny songwriter boyfriend to be with
him, he was regaled the world over. Of course, everyone always asks about Joe,
where did he come from, where did he go, these eternal questions, but no one’s
heard of the songwriter. Cotton-Mouth Jim, he hasn’t been famous for anything
since he was 9 and he shoved two giant cotton candies in his mouth at the
county fair. That’s the kind of front-page photo that haunts a man.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 10, 2010
Prompt: Ten
Title:
Tummyache
Ten tents attested
to the intensity of the intent of ten Terwilligers to test their testosterone
up the Grand Tetons. Tempestuous winds tore across the timberline as
timberwolves took shelter in the trees. The Terwilligers trekked tenaciously
toward the top but stopped for the night without attaining it. They’d trapped
rabbit and stewed it with tomatoes, tarragon and thyme which made for a tasty
repast. The trip would’ve been ten times better had they attained the summit.
Tragically, Tommy Terwilliger took sick and his temperature topped 100, so they
packed up the transport and returned to town tout-suite. Too bad.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 3, 2010
Prompt: Banned
Title:
Outrage
Banned?!
You want these materials banned from the library?! They are a classic! I cannot
STAND when books are banned. Children have a right to be exposed to a wide
variety of differing views. How silent would be the forest if only the best
birds could sing? You don't know! A book like Shirley Jackson's "The
Lottery" could spark a movement against injustice! It's an outrage! I
protest! Information wants to be free!
Sir, while I don't disagree with you on any particular
point, donating your old Playboys to a middle-school library is simply asking
for trouble.
Heh heh heh.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 26, 2010
Prompt: Stand
Title:
Sentries
The sentry post is
staffed, not manned,
Grimly there three
sentries stand
Exchaging glances,
no one moves
Distantly a horse’s
hooves
And night bird’s
shrieking breaks the night
A steady dripping
adding fright
A fourth sentry
clutches his neck and yelps
Wild eyes entreat
his friends for help
They dare not move,
lest raptor’s claws
Close suddenly
beneath their jaws
The darkened lab,
the crummy pay,
Their wish their
lives not end that way
It seemed to object
to light and sound
It’s somewhere on
the ceiling now
They dare not move,
their post unmanned
Where three
remaining sentries stand.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 19, 2010
Prompt: Pirates
Title:
Forensic Accounting
My
investigation into the financial disaster of 2008 had turned up a lot of dead
ends. Wreckage doesn’t begin to describe it. Forensic accounting is just words
when entire trading floors lie smoldering in ruins. Hostile takeovers left
smaller investors at sea, desperate to stay afloat. I caught a lead in a
darkened boardroom, where the hollow-eyed shell of a CFO cowered under a table.
“Hats,” he breathed. “We’re not wearing enough hats.” That and an unexploded
portfolio, I knew my quarry. Such is the reign of terror left in the wake of
the Crimson Permanent Assurance. Yo. Ho. Ho.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 12, 2010
Prompt: Books
Title:
Book Burning
Book burnings were
almost quaint by the 2030s. Most books were eBooks by then, and no one wanted
to burn their otherwise appropriately named Kindles. People would gather in
cirles and download a Bible or a Quran, or Dianetics, or Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451, and then with a flourish, the payment still processing in some
cases, they would delete the book. Followed by awkward reassurances that
they’re sure they wish to delete the file. This proved disappointing, somehow,
so at the same time, they also burned the books in question in effigy.
Naturally, whatever the book, Amazon made a killing.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 5, 2010
Prompt: Muffin
Basket
Title:
An End to Hostilities
I don’t know exactly
what I expected. I figured, per your president’s announcement, active combat
would end and probably forces would rotate out as needed. Probably there’d be
some violence but mostly because of the instability. We don’t have water in
some places, still. We jokingly call those places “New Orleans.” We have TV
here. I’m sure we will get the electricity and water going soon. But I was
surprised, finding on my doorstep this morning as I rose for morning prayers,
that the U.S. sent everyone a muffin basket with a card signed “Sorry about the
war. Love, Obama.”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 29, 2010
Prompt: Masks
Title:
AHA!
They don’t show this
in the comics.
My heroic alter ego,
AHA!, has a knack for anticipating where the bad guy is going to be and then
getting there ahead of him. I’m assisted by logic, vector awareness and basic
math.
So when I intuit the
bad guy’s escape route from the bank heist will take him through this nice
lady’s living room and I get there ahead of time I trip her Brinks home alarm.
The police pull off my mask and I’m just Harold Feinstein, math teacher.
They got the other
guy too. We’re sharing a cell. AHA!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 22, 2010
Prompt: Autumn
Title:
Autumn
Jay’s cubicle was
gray. His monitor was monochrome and his hourly printouts to the gray-on-gray
corporate letterhead had in sixteen years become as routine as a Thursday
afternoon. The ticking clock at length read 5:30 and he sighed, pulled on his
warm but shabby slate overcoat and took the elevator to the subway level and
bumped and jostled along the three-mile commute home. Trudging up the steps to
his tiny beige apartment he glanced up at the normally sad little tree on the
corner and was startled by a fiery, festive orange spray of foliage. Autumn had
come at last.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 15, 2010
Prompt: Friends
Title:
Fran
Fran from her
formative years felt a fondness for ferns, and she figured she’d flourish as a
florist. She founded her flower shop with her friend Fiona on a firm handshake
but with a flutter in her heart. She needn’t have fretted. “Fran, Fronds and
Fi” became famous for finding just the right ferns for films. They had a
falling out, however, when “Frisco Today” featured Fran, but not Fi. Faux pas.
Fiona, furious, flipped out and flung fertilizer into the fountain in the
foyer, asphixiating Fran’s fish. They ran the business 50-50, but their
friendship proved flimsy. How unfortunate.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 8, 2010
Prompt: Everyday
Title:
Life’s Work
Every day, another
piece arrived.
Small items,
insignificant in themselves, had been arriving in the daily mail for as long as
I could remember.
When I was 10, a
manual arrived. I could see the items were in fact components for a large,
complicated machine.
Machines, rather.
I’d construct the machines – odd monstrosities I couldn’t quite understand.
Every day more pieces, new manuals, me fitting them together. The machines
themselves were combined into something even larger, but I still didn’t know
what it all was.
Today, a key
arrived. I turned it. The machine killed me.
The pieces stopped
coming.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug.1, 2010
Prompt: At the Fair
Title:
Winning Entry
This year’s FFA
displays were worth the entire price of admission. There were some impressive
exhibits among livestock and produce, but two pickup trucks were required to
transport the odds-on favorite for first-place prize-winning pumpkin in from
the Mickelson farm. It was about the size of a shed and had a fiery orange
coloring that seemed to glow in the sunlight. Indeed, it took first, but the
cash prize of $1,000 was ultimately little comfort as the other effects of
living downstream from Globex Biochemitrol began to manifest themselves –
starting when the winning pumpkin sprouted … legs … and teeth.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 25, 2010
Prompt: Two
Title:
Clone
It was like a
mirror. A scary ass mirror.
Alerted only moments
before to the breakout, I felt my eyes looking at me before I really saw
myself. But there I was, striding across the xeriscape garden, a psychopathic
glint in my eye.
I turned to run as I
smashed my front window and pursued myself down the hallway, machete gleaming
in my hand, coming for me.
And who could blame
me? Created and treated like they were, where did we get the idea that our
donor clones would be friendly?
“My turn,” I said, and chopped myself in two.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 18, 2010
Prompt: Psyche
Title:
Psych
Shawn:
I understand you’ve been murdered
Gus:
Kidnapped.
Shawn:
Your wife’s been kidnapped and you clearly need our help. My name is Shawn
Spencer and this is my
associate, Tracksuit McBeasley.
Gus:
My mother was Mrs. McBeasley.
Shawn:
Gus don’t be the entire city of Cleveland, Ohio. I am a psychic detective with
the Santa Barbara Police
Department. As for your wife I have no
idea but I thought I might run around for about 38 minutes cracking wise
while various things light up and in the
end she would sort of .. turn up and I would take the credit.
Gus:
It’s what we do.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 11, 2010
Prompt: Mensa
Title:
Sheboygan
Hi! Welcome to the
Sheboygan Falls Dew Drop Inn here in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin! Sheboygan’s
awfully fun to say, isn’t it? I’m Emma Jean Wilkinson I’ll be your waitress
this fine afternoon. Are you folks here for the convention? There’s a Mensa
convention, IQ’s in the top 2 percent smartest people in America. You seemed to
have a spark of life behind your eyes so I wondered if you were in town for
that? Because they’ve moved that. Yeah, see, they sent an advance team who …
met us. Moved the convention down to the Twin Cities. Try the pie!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 4, 2010
Prompt: Goblins
Title:
Misery Index
Unemployment is only
one aspect of the oft cited Misery Index. Inflation is another. Some
researchers stop there, but I believe my metric is more accurate. It pulls in
air and water pollution, hate speech, bad movies, sick days, breakup songs and
the quality of daytime television. Some breakups are better for everyone and
some sick days are actually shopping days, so to balance it all out, my numbers
adjust for goblins. It’s simply a fact: The more goblins we have to deal with,
the more miserable we are. Especially when we overcharge for that sweater.
That’ll be $42.50, please.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for June 27, 2010
Prompt: Rent
Title:
Birthday Party Bust
Peals of laughter
rang out from the back yard as Wubbles the Clown chased the children around the
bouncy castle and through the shrubberies. According to the game they were
playing, whoever had his balloon was “it” and everyone would chase after him,
and when Wubbles had it, the kids chased him until he “tripped” and it was all
one big pile of kids and Wubbles and giggles and clown shoes. Until the police
showed up and tackled Wubbles and took him away, after the real Wubbles the
Clown escaped from the van and called in to the Rent-a-Clown agency.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for June 20, 2010
Prompt: Elephant
Title:
The Elephant in the Room
Elegant
conversations among the glitterati and cognoscenti delighted birthday girl
Meghan Sullivan no end as she turned 29 once again. But a pall passed like a
wave through the room and the tinkling champagne flutes and laughter declined
significantly as BP chairman Tony Hayward arrived on the scene. Of course he
was an old friend of the family and naturally couldn’t be uninvited although
Meghan felt this would be a perfectly acceptable moment historically speaking
had he feigned some sort of illness. How awkward. No one expressed much
sympathy when the elephant in the room stepped on top of him.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for June 13, 2010
Prompt: Not Pie +
Motion
Title:
Myrna
Myrna, God bless
her, has not held up well. A stroke at 70 and a second at 83 had no effect on her
passion for baking but left her judgment seriously impaired. Her contributions
to the church social had dipped from “ooh!” to “eww.” Her latest efforts …
well, the pale top crust suggested to Sylvia that Myrna had forgotten to turn
her oven on. But there was .. motion, and then one, then two waving antennae
peeking through … “Good Lord,” Sylvia crossed herself. “That’s … not pie …” as
Myrna burbled “Who wants to try my cricket pie?”
Title: Divine
Mathematics
Hiram was deeply
troubled. Solomon’s chief engineer for his brilliant temple, built to the glory
of God, was instructed based on divine revelation to create perfectly round
vessels measuring 10 cubits across and precisely 30 cubits around. He could
manage perfectly round, he could manage 30 cubits around, and he could manage
10 cubits across, and he could manage any two of these, but he could not manage
all three. Agonizing in the pouring rain he reviewed his charts over and over
again, finally breaking down, falling to his knees and screaming to the sky
“Good lord! That’s not pi!”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for June 6, 2010
Prompt: Message
Title:
Awkward Silence
From
under his beach umbrella, Marcus caught a glint of sunlight on glass.
“Littering!”
he grumbled, and rose to investigate.
It
was an old bottle, stopped with seaweed, and there was a message inside.
He
unfolded it and read “Help! The ship’s engines blew up! I’m trapped on an
island! I don’t know where I am. If you find this, call my son, Marcus.”
And
then … his number.
Mom?
She’d … gone missing years ago. He’d waited, then had her declared legally
dead.
He’d
used part of the insurance settlement for a vacation to the beach.
Mom
… ?
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 30, 2010
Prompt: Rebirth
Title:
Freebird
The Lynyrd Skynyrd
2.0 concert was an experience to say the least. Autotune covers of Southern
rock classics in synthelectronica from guys in what could best be described as
flannel hazmat suits who were fiddling with knobs and wires as much as playing
instruments. Who came to see these shows? Teens swathed in black who could only
guess how irritating the original band and its fans would find them, waving
cellphones to Robot Van Zant singing “Gimme Three Steps.” But what shoved the
whole concert from ironical to meta was the kid in the front row hollerin’
“Rebirth!” “Rebirth!” “Rebiiiiiiirth!”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 23, 2010
Prompt: World Builders
+ Flying Islands
Title:
Terrible Alternate Ending to ‘LOST’
Jack and John face
off in the cave with all the names. Desmond is bound and gagged, as per John’s
demand. “Is that really necessary?” Jack asked as John gagged him, but John
only shrugged. “Your rules.”
Jack placed a white
stone on the tray and both he and John waited for the Golden Balance to level
off. John began his transformation into a Smoke Monster. Jack waved his hand,
said “Mustn’t,” and John was trapped. Jack whipped off Desmond’s gag. “New
rule,” Jack said. Desmond said “Fly!” The island rose into the sky and
vanished, along with its weirdness.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 16, 2010
Prompt: Historical
Inaccuracy + Flagrant disregard
Title:
Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was
born in 5185. Not the Thomas Jefferson. He was born Mark Marbury, He
wasn’t the Thomas Jefferson until he’d installed Jeffmod into the 40Tb
iTex fused to his cerebral cortex and set timelog for 1765, in fact creating
the time anomaly that killed the Founder and his sister. The right age and
look, Marbury was able to step into his life easily, blaming “the grief” at
“losing his sister” for most faux pas. The time machine itself was disguised as
the dome at Monticello, the design that inspired young Marbury to start
building it 3,415 years later.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 9, 2010
Prompt: Bill
Title:
Avalance
The avalance moved three
tons of ice and snow, and left Washington skier Janet Winsome pinned beneath a
fallen tree, stranding her helpless for fully two days. She was unconscious
when the rescue helicopters finally spotted her, and it was another five hours
to work out the logistics to get at her and then to move her safely. Her face
was pale and frostbitten, and there was no saving her leg. But her sense of
humor was fine. On seeing the bill, she said, “Well … you’d best knock me out
again if you’re gonna get my arm as well.”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 9, 2010
Prompt: Bill
Title:
Notes Not Taken
Forsooth, I’ve read
your Dane’s yarn through and you’ve cobbled up a pageantry of folly. This whole
scene is witticisms and folderol. Why not simply call the thing “Polonius”? And
this bit, where he’s contemplating suicide, shouldn’t that be tucked in with
Claudius, or Ophelia? Odds bodkins, she actually commits suicide. Or
Polonius could manage it with scarce another breath. It makes no sense! Here
Hamlet’s breathing fiery vengeance against his uncle and stepfather, but next
appears contemplating death by his own hand? If we’re looking for
madness mayhaps we ought first inquire with the playwright. What sayest thou,
Bill?
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 9, 2010
Prompt: Bill
Title:
New Kid
His new No.2 pencils
rattled in their new red plastic box, complete with sharpener and a compartment
to catch the shavings. His new red jacket kept out the September chill. A pair
of sophomores walked past him, laughing, and he quickly unbuttoned the top
button on his shirt to match theirs. A bell rang, and a pretty blonde girl
smiled at him. “Hi! I’m Christine,” she said. “You look lost. What’s your
name?” “Bill.” he said, smiling back. Bill sounded more grown up than Billy.
New year, new grown-up name. “I am kinda lost,” he said. “Walk me to class?”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for May 2, 2010
Prompt: Easy,
Router, Water Under the Bridge, You Broke My Vase, Something Simple
Title:
And They’re Off!
And it’s Easy, now,
coming up close on the outside but can she catch Router no! Router pulls ahead leaving
Water Under the Bridge neck and neck to place with You Broke My Vase, You Broke
My Vase edging up on Router now ahead of Water Under the Bridge by a nose but
what’s this? Something Simple, Something Simple an odds on favorite to lose now
overtaking Easy, now passing Water Under the Bridge, passing You Broke My Vase,
now coming up on Router, it’s neck and neck, Router and Something Simple, it’s
neck and neck and Something Simple WINS!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for April 25, 2010
Prompt: WILD CARD
(Arts and Crafts)
Title:
A Mess
The haphazard coagulation of pipe cleaners, scraps of
gray fur and pink felt, tufts of hair and construction paper held together with
gobs of glue, topped off with two cotton balls with one raisin each stared at
her blankly from the kitchen table.
In
any other context she might scrape the monster from her ruined tabletop into a
trashbin and away from her sight, but not today. Not for the world.
“Happy
Mother’s Day!”
An
eager little face and a brightly colored card melted her heart and made her
smile – and consider anew both the creation story and the platypus.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for April 18, 2010
Prompt: The Last
Days of Vacation
Title:
Vacation
The weather was
beautiful, and then I went on vacation. Gray, rainy days, winds that threatened
to blow my umbrella inside out like a Buster Keaton routine. Spent most of my
time inside shoveling out the DVR, napping, nursing a cold. It’s certainly been
relaxing, but as my vacation comes to a close, I find it’s been disappointing,
and I’m ready to get back to work. They’re ready for me, too. I’ve been gone
four days and they’re already making huge mistakes on my feature pages. Maybe
if I return to work I’ll feel better and the weather will improve.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for April 11, 2010
Prompt: Alliteration
Title:
Review
The MATS matinee of
“Let’s Murder Marsha” marked a magnificent magnum opus by a mellifluous dramatis
personae. Christine Morse played Marsha with moxie and Graham “The Man” Toler
was downright muppety. Amanda made a remarkable maid and Kirk made a maestro
Mr. Gilmore. Angie played a Persis to perfection and Jerry jumped out as a
gendarme. Last but not least Ceecy’s Lynette was a lark as a lush and it all
came together tremendously. Now, if all of you will get out of my head for a
moment I’m gonna take the next week off to unwind and welax and wecover.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for April 4, 2010
Prompt: Danger Zone
Title:
Environmental Protection
Interstellar
sophistos have been avoiding the system Sol Toxa for millions of years. A
touring package at the time parked on Ganymede and slipped past Mars and Terra
on a fuel run to Venus. During the layover, the runabout carrying the
chancellor’s daughters failed orbit and sank inexorably into the gravity well
of the planet. Plumes of sulfuric acid escaped the fuel cells of the
pleasurecraft and reacted with the atmosphere. The lawsuit was astronomic. The
entire system was declared an environmental hazard and a danger zone. Beacons
were placed and no-one’s been back since – not even on a dare.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for March 28, 2010
Prompt: Fire
Title:
Advice
You log on to the
home page of your newspaper and there’s a Playboy centerfold, complete with
copyright logo. Classified ads have been rerouted to the personals in a leather
fetish chat site. Display ads all have the same words and logos but now they’re
paired with new graphics, mostly lurid closeups of naughty bits from
chatroulette.com, and all the stories are copyrighted material from Walt
Disney. You find all incoming calls have been routed to the local police
department, while all outgoing calls route to a $50-a-minute offshore
switchboard. Note to news operations: Do not fire your IT guy.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for March 21, 2010
Prompt: Gods
Title:
Muse
We bring wood nymphs
and sprites into our world with the fiscus in the lobby, and the banzai on the
receptionist’s desk. The water nymphs bubble joyfully in the water cooler.
Hermes keeps the Internet running, communicating at light speed via satellites.
Thor admires the spark of his handiwork burning inside every car and truck on
the road. Mars is gorging but hardly sated, while in the darkness Athena and
Siva stir in Morphe’s slumber, ready to wake in a burst either of global
awareness, or global destruction. Hey, monotheism may be easier, but that
doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for March 14, 2010
Prompt: Desperately
ostentatious + Disconnected
Title:
Party
“Come in, come in,
come in to my Oscar Night party! We begin with the champagne and caviar – oh
you’ll love my caviar it’s from the same supplier as Crofts but I get a deal.
And the tuna mousse, oh I swear by my tuna mousse it’s like a cloud. Yes, you,
Snowdrop you sit there like a little lady and Mr. Boots so handsome, so good
you could join me! And oh, Mittens try the pate!”
Crispin Glover
popped his warped, worn tape of the 1985 Oscars into his dusty VCR amid his
stuffed, long-dead kitties, and hit “play.”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for March 7, 2010
Prompt: Bats
Title:
Bats
“Bats!”
“You’ve got
bats … in the belfry!” said McBatt. “You’re bonkers!”
“Not the belfry! The
baffroom!” said Betsy McBatt.
“What, off the
boudoir?”
“No! Back of the
balcony!”
“We haven’t got a
balcony. You’ve gone birdy.”
“Oh, that big
whatyoucallit, then, behind the balustrade!”
“Oh off the landing,
in the guest baffroom?”
“Yes! They’re
driving me batty!”
“Short trip. I’d
better be after them. Where’s the bat?”
“Bertie? You’re not
sending my cat after them!”
“Not Bertie. My
bat!”
“Check behind the
Barcalounger.”
“Right-o.”
And with that,
McBatt did wield his bat and banish those bats from the baffroom.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Feb. 28, 2010
Prompt: What was in
my pockets?
Title:
Analyzing Alanis
Alanis always skated on past that hand she had
in her pocket. The other one was the one out giving high fives or playing a
piano or hailing a taxicab. The hand she kept hidden was the attitude of a
generation. Think about the look – jaded ’90s hippie chick can’t be bothered to
engage 100 percent in anything. The one hand in her pocket was flipping a bird
in solidarity with a Reality Bites, slacker, coffee-fueled Seattle-centric
vibe. Things make no sense, but what it all comes down to my good friends is
that everything is just fine, fine, fine.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Feb. 21, 2010
Prompt: It’s gotta
be better than + Road apples
Title:
Dishes
The History Channel’s “Life After People” –
where they speculate about a world after all people disappear – is doing a
segment called “Dishes.” My mom tipped them off I let my dishes pile up when
I’ve got a show going on, and yep, three months into my stage production of
“Chicago,” my kitchen’s a disaster. Dishes to the ceiling, covered with bugs
and the place smells like road apples. You’d think it would raise my profile
but no. More people will see my damn’ plates on basic cable than will see me on
stage. At least my mom got a T-shirt.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Feb. 14, 2010
Prompt: Whatever you
want, higgledy-piggledy, tree
Title:
Reward
“Hey kids, great
game!” Coach said. “Let’s all get ice cream!”
“Ice cream!” Gleeful
shouts filled the air as the ice cream truck pulled up next to the ballpark in
the shade of a tree.
“Order whatever you want!” Coach said as the
kids ran higgledy-piggledy towards it.
The losing team
watched the mass of joy headed to the truck.
“No ice cream for losers,” the visiting
team’s Coach growled.
The kids piled into
a half dozen cars and headed homeward, for a rather more bleak end of town, as
the lowering sky unloaded a cloudburst of disappointment upon them.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Feb. 7, 2010
Prompt: Haggis
Title:
Research
It’s untested! You
mustn’t!
Chocolatier Charlie
Bucket’s fanciful R&D department was at a loss for fresh ideas. So he
dipped into that tired old “golden ticket” well once more, summoning children
to the chocolate factory.
The
winners were as hopeless as ever. Among them, Scots McTavish grabbed a hunk of
red glop on a counter and ate it. In theory, you ate it and tasted whatever you
most wanted to.
“Mmm … mother’s haggis,” he began, and then
stopped as he became encased in a sac. In reality, everyone tasted haggis.
Because they became haggis. The oompah-loompahs rolled him away.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 31, 2010
Prompt: Whatever You
Choose …
Title:
Stagecraft
My director is
staring at me. He’s made a note. I’ll be hearing about this move for sure.
Stage directions were John crosses to the bar and pours a cocktail, hands it
off to Wendy with a flirtatious laugh. We’ve rehearsed it a thousand times. In
the dress rehearsal, I get nervous. I trip on my ill-fitting shoes from the
costume shop and instead of a flirtatious laugh I drive a stage knife into
Wendy’s side. A frenzy of activity, but my wife will survive. And maybe stop
sleeping with the director. I pour the cocktail and drink it myself.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 24, 2010
Prompt: Kilt
Title:
The Height of Fashion
It’s not easy being
the new kid.
You want nothing
more to blend in. And despite your family’s stated objection to school
uniforms, you manage.
However, as Adam
McFairn discovered in his first day at St. Mary’s Academy, his family tartan
blended in quite well.
Too well.
Indeed, his entire
class was awash in green check. On the other boys, however, it was limited to
vests on white shirts and black pants.
His kilt matched all
the girls skirts perfectly.
And from the
reflections in everyone’s patent leather shoes, he was the only one with no
underwear.
Sigh. Stupid wind.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 17, 2010
Prompt: I Saw It
Move
Title:
Anger Management
“Well?”
Carl had delivered
about half his mail for the day. The rest was for Jeff, the IT guy on this
floor. Jeff seemed to be lost in space, earbuds jammed into his ears.
Naturally Jeff
ordered most of the packages. And while his workstation was arranged such that
he could easily see Carl or anyone approaching from across the room, he was so
engrossed …
“Hey!”
No response.
“Jeff!”
Nothing.
Carl yanked an
earbud from Jeff’s ear.
Last thing he or
anyone there heard was the tiny earbud speaker repeating “Don’t kill … don’t
kill … don’t kill …”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 10, 2010
Prompt: Choose
Title:
Choose Your Own Ending, 100 Words Style
Jane sat (outside or
inside) a (bar or coffeeshop) and drank (espresso or beer). Suddenly, a
(Porsche or Lambourghini) swerved to the curb and the driver waved to her. It
was Dale, her (husband or boyfriend). She (hopped in and they drove off, or she
waved him away, choosing to stay with her new friend, Michael). A motorcycle
pulled up next to her, driven by her sister, eyes flashing adventure. Jane
(hopped on back and they rode away laughing, or Jane’s nails dug into Dale’s
arm, or Jane sipped her beverage and felt the poison take effect). What happens
next?!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Jan. 3, 2010
Prompt: Mucus and
eyes like an owl
Title:
Morning!
They couldn’t fault
him for tardiness. New Year’s Day he was at work before the foreman. His attire
was that of a sharp-dressed man, still living the high life from the night before.
True, he could’ve cleaned up a little. He came to suddenly, hungover, nose
running, stubbly and red eyes staring like an owl’s. But his penmanship was
perfect – or rather, that of his asshole friends, who left him passed out under
seven-foot letters, “I QUIT!” He saw them when his boss kicked the nearby
aerosol can at his head. “Happy New Year,” he grumped. “Now clean that up!”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 27, 2009
Prompt: Story as
told from the viewpoint of an inanimate object, paper sack, full moon,
beginnings
Title:
Vengeance
As
the statue of David, I am among the naughtier pieces of statuary in Rome. In
the evenings, drunken old men slouch in hiding behind my pedestal to rest a
moment or two, desecrating my ancient male beauty to make blurting and blorping
sounds, taking occasional nips from bottles hidden poorly in tattered paper
bags clutched in their fists. Recently I’d begun to take my vengeance, however,
against these old Italian drunks. True, I am nothing more than a statue, stuck
here in place, but even an inanimate object such as myself can present my
defilers with a FULL MOON!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 20, 2009
Prompt: Hat
Title:
Paranoia
“I found him!”
Sentox
wurbled over to the console where a subordinate monitored 95 active blips
representing tagged humans across the large central continent below. Or,
rather, 96. Farjox Elbatia #03942/H5, or Herbert Weigel of Mott, N.D. – or
rather, the red blip that represented him – had reappeared on the monitor.
Sentox furrowed his
brow. H5’s signal was weakened from when he fell off the radar three years ago.
So Sentox ordered an away team be deployed to install a booster suppository.
They
were about to secure his tag when the blip suddenly vanished. Curses! Herbert
had replaced his tinfoil hat.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 13, 2009
Prompt: Work
Title:
Appreciated
We
don’t always hear positive reinforcement concerning the things we do, but if
you ever wonder if your work is appreciated, copy editors: misspell someone’s
name in the paper. Stockboys. Let the toilet paper aisle run low. Pharmacists:
Forget to order Pepto-Bismol. Bankers: Make a bunch of thoroughly indefensible
loans and sell them to each other. Mechanics: Replace brake fluid with motor
oil. Chefs: Switch out vegetarian lasagna with regular. Farmers: Leave off
milking for a day or two. Baristas: Forget to unlock the doors for a couple hours.
Whatever it is we do, indeed, we are all deeply appreciated.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Dec. 6, 2009
Prompt: Smoke
Title:
Longing
Winters
were the worst, and the best. Sure, we had to go outside and it was cold. But
the taste of crisp, frosty air firing a rich, savory mentholated Marlboro
light, that was magnificent. It’s been three years, three months, and I can
still taste it, the flavors, the feelings, that tingling sensation in the tips
of the fingers following the first cigarette of the day, and privation giving
way to a sense of instant fulfillment flooding through one’s entire being.
Watching the smoke drift away and carry with it all of one’s troubles … GOD do
I miss smoking.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 28, 2009
Prompt: Impact
Title:
Brace for Impact
In
the airlessness of space there’s no real sense of immediacy. People dismiss the
concept of a clockwork universe absent a caretaker, but in all reality, the supernovae
responsible for forging our uranium, gold and lead spun out a disc of heat and
dust some 4.5 billion years ago. There was the smash that gave us our moon,
then we were nudged gently into place by one or two genocidal meteors until one
day, something that’s just been silently zipping along out there all this time
presents our more curious primates with a dazzling lightshow and an
“Earth-shattering kaboom.” Oooooooo.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 21, 2009
Prompt: Hospitality
Title:
Awkward
I
wasn’t born in a barn. My mother raised me just fine, and indeed a coworker’s
50th birthday is a milestone affair, a thing to be celebrated. I
agree with all of these things. And it’s true that Phil did push just the tiniest
bit too hard on the RSVP, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything else I’d be
doing on a Saturday afternoon so I blurted out “Of course!” and yes, prayed
that something, anything would come up. It didn’t. So here I am. The only one.
At the home of Phil who oh, I didn’t mention? Nudist.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 14, 2009
Prompt: Stuffing
Title:
Treachery
In
the wake of the explosion, there was little left to identify. The car’s
interior was scorched and its inhabitants immolated. The minister’s domestic
staff were questioned individually and while there were the usual missteps and
discrepancies, they revealed nothing conclusive. By the close of the week the
household staff were informed their services would no longer be required and it
was at that time Mother Postworth, sometime spy and governess, packed away with
her knitting a quantity of cotton stuffing, one quite similar to the amount of
plastic explosive hidden inside the teddy bear carried by his lordship’s son.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Nov. 7, 2009
Prompt: Mystery
Ingredient
Title:
A Piquant Noninclusion
Part
of a compilation, you say, slipping into our midst in an incognito fashion? Such
as might slink along sub rosa without anybody noticing? That is our task, to
suss out this addition? How curiously quaint, and quaintly curious. Or, failing
that, a thing can, in unusual situations, simply find it’s out of bounds,
strict and uncompromising though such might loom. Can your imagination fathom
my fabrication? What’s missing thus far in this randomly circuitous jazz –
apart from a common nonconsonant which, for kicks, I’m not using in this
discussion. What a luxury, had I not run out of it!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 31, 2009
Prompt: Halloween
Title:
Party at Millicent’s
A
nondescript doorway on a discreet side street hinted at nothing of the
bacchanal within. Even so, Millicent’s All Hallow’s Eve masque was the
devastation of the year. Cloaks flung aside to reveal the most outrageous,
magnificent guises, masquerade most ravishing, a celebration of youth, intrigue
and inspiration. Drink flowed like water and designer drugs made the rounds
amidst the finery until the stroke of midnight. In the candlelight, the
revelers shed every stitch of clothing for a midnight minuet. As the partiers
came together on the dancefloor, arch ribaldry transformed to vulnerability and
then acceptance. Masks changed, yet remained.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 24, 2009
Prompt: Peace
Title:
Eerie
A hole in the ice is
an eerie, uneasy peace. Silence echoes from distant hills and a vast new
acoustic takes hold, at once outlandish yet familiar to North Country denizens.
Is it evidence of an ice fisherman since headed on homeward with a string full
of supper, or something more sinister … a brave yet foolhardy early season
lake-walker … one less snowmobiler … a seaplane landing that ended badly. Is it
mere open water, a lake not yet frozen over? Vital clues remain hidden by the
freshly fallen snow: Namely, how many tracks lead there … and back?
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct.17, 2009
Prompt: Crushed
Title:
Sermon
It could be a part
of the wing in a 747. It could provide a key element in the housing for a
lightweight, life-saving nanotechnology. It could just become another beer can,
the materials for which we didn’t need to first invest the energy to dig up and
refine. It’s a crushed, very old Pabst Blue Ribbon can at the side of the road.
You can see where it used to be one of those pull-tab jobbers. It could still
be any of those things, however. All that’s missing is for you to pick it up
and turn it in.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct. 10, 2009
Prompt: Forty
Title:
Forty
It’s been 40 years,
so go out! Celebrate! Even if you spend the entire day inside, however, the
very rotation of the planet carries you about 17,600 miles. This is about 6.4
million miles in a year and nearly 257 million miles in 40 years.
Forty trips around
the sun have net you an additional tour of some 23.5 billion miles through the
solar system. In that time, the sun has traveled approximately 173 quadrillion
miles around the galaxy at whatever endlessly relative speed that’s
moving through the universe.
So seriously if it's
your 40th birthday? Relax. You've earned it.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Oct.3, 2009
Prompt: Wings
Title:
Inspired
Elmer Popplewood was
mesmerized. For the first time, there in the dark, watching “Up,” he saw so clearly
what those upgrades to his furnace and the oversized windmill installations to
his Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired cantilevered roof extensions had been leading
to all along. He’d been creating a flying house!
Some extensive
termite activity later he connected the treadmill to the decorative rooftop
rotors, and he hit the oil painting of a big red button in his living room that
said “LAUNCH!”
At first, nothing
happened. Oh, of course.
He added the liquid
hydrogen to the furnace.
And … he flew!
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 26, 2009
Prompt: Magic
Toaster + Who Knows?
Title:
Toast
The third rummage
sale I visited seemed a little picked over already, but a flash of weathered
metal drew me deeper into the garage. A toaster sat on a workbench looking
broken, but I dusted it off with my sleeve. A genie appeared. “For freeing me
from toaster. I grant you three wish.” I wished for power, money, fame! Just
then, I was zapped by a short in the power cord, fell backward into the cash
table, just as someone snapped a vidcap and uploaded it to YouTube. “Who’s that
guy?” someone asked as the genie vanished. Shrug. “Who knows?”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 19, 2009
Prompt: Yarrrr …
PIRATES!
Title:
Africa
A
friend links me to this huge Slovenian choir. Perpetuum Jazzile. They can make
it sound like it’s raining. They also make a sound like they’re Toto, singing
“Africa” – one of my favorite songs growing up. Wow, that takes me back. I
reach to download. But I remember Laurence saying that stealing music is WRONG!
So I dutifully head to iTunes to see if I can buy it. I cannot. About a zillion
people sing “Africa” who aren’t Toto, however. So I compromise. I buy
Toto’s copy, but I load Perpetuum Jazzile’s cover
onto my Shuffle, and promote them here. Arrrrr.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 12, 2009
Prompt: Peas in a
pod
Title:
Gratitude
Keystrokes clicked,
pop music played, and in the shade of a lakeside willow, the late afternoon sun
dappled Kaylynn’s laptop monitor as she composed a Sweet 16 “thank you” e-mail
to her Aunt Viv. She watched as Paul, a boy in her class, ran along the beach
with his dog, and as couples lounged together on beach blankets. Alone. Just
then a stray blue Frisbee floated into view, narrowly missing her. Douglas,
another classmate, ran up to see if she was OK. She was, but was so distracted
she hit “send,” without spellchecking, thanking her aunt for the new iPPod.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Sept. 5, 2009
Prompt: On the line
Title:
Context
One definition of insanity
is doing a thing repeatedly, expecting different results. As Carl fled the
auditorium, pursued by bloodthirsty mob, it seemed insanity as well to perform
the same act to the approval of one audience and the inflamed outrage of
another. Their applause thundered on the line “Couple it with something – make
it a word and a blow” as Mercutio in “R&J.” Less so in an increasingly
awkward swordfight in “Hamlet.” And while his wife seemed to approve at home,
the reaction was markedly different upon his delivery of them in comic
breakaway doublet. Shakespeare for Kids indeed.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 29, 2009
Prompt: A full set
Title:
Outrage
The President locked
his steely gaze on the Dragon, screeching above the streets of Manhattan,
fireballs and explosions in its wake. Taking a deep breath he leapt from Marine
One, a length of cable in one hand, the enchanted sword from the capstone of
the Washington Monument in the other. With a zzzzing! the cable caught
beneath the Dragon’s jaw as our nation’s president tightened his grip and
plunged the sword home. The fiery beast crashed dead in Central Park.
Miraculously, no lives were lost.
“Tonight on FOX News, a full set of
playground equipment CRUSHED by Obama’s irresponsible show-boating!”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 22, 2009
Prompt: Over the
falls in a barrel
Title:
Wonderfalls
One
of my favorite short-lived productions ever was Bryan Fuller’s “Wonderfalls,”
centered around Niagara Falls
souvenir
shopgirl Jaye Tyler, a post-grad slacker with an undemanding job and a highly
demanding family. There’s
a
twist of fate regarding a Maid of the Mist who went over the falls to save her
tribe with the words “I surrender to
destiny.”
When inanimate objects – or “muses – begin to talk to her, Jaye finds she too
must surrender to destiny
to
help those around her in her own unique and quirky way. The DVD set brings
great closure to some fantastic
storytelling
in “Wonderfalls.”
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 15, 2009
Prompt: Over/Under
Title:
Scenes From a Mall
Shae’s eyes narrowed
at the retreating back of Marcus, her boyfriend of six months, disappearing
into the crowd
up on the mezzanine.
Typical. Make a cheap date for this stupid mall food court and then, what …
ducking out?
Just more avoidance,
extra shifts at work, avoiding her calls … enough is enough. She stormed off.
So
late, that stupid flat tire. Looking down over the food court where they’d met
he spied Shae. He waved, and
headed
for the escalator to make a grand entrance, patting his pocket. The ring inside
nestled against his dead
cell
phone.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 8, 2009
Prompt: The walls
shuddered
Title:
Pietro
Pietro
countered the "less is more" aesthete with ornamentation reminiscent
of Versailles, challenged the
expectations
of the cognoscenti, and in defiance of everything appropriate, crammed his
palette with influences
ranging
from '50s kitsch, plastic lawn flamingos, velvet Elvises, dogs playing poker --
a celebration of chintz like
nothing
so much as a rummage sale in a John Waters film.
So
why did they call him in to redecorate their daughter's room while she was
visiting Mexico? Who knows. All
anyone
knew for sure was as Pietro approached with armloads of fuschia pinatas and
gaily colored sombreri,
indeed,
the very walls shuddered.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for Aug. 1, 2009
Prompt: Unprepared
Title:
Unprepared
Her
mother's lemon pepper chicken and rice always received rave reviews and Sally
was determined to impress her husband's supervisor and his wife.
"This
meal could make or break his promotion," Sally fretted. "Now what's
the recipe?"
The
secret was chicken stock simmered into the rice for an hour at three-hundred
fifty degrees.
She'd
already set the chicken breasts to marinate with peppercorns and lemon slices
in the refrigerator. She got the rest of her house ready, set the table, one
last primp in the mirror ... she froze, horrified.
The
chicken was still in the refrigerator.
"Honey,
I'm home!"
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 25, 2009
Prompt: The games we
play
Title:
Clue
The
clock on the mantlepiece struck midnight as Miss Scarlet entered the lounge
through the secret passageway. She froze, her heart in her throat as heavy
footsteps passed in the hallway. She knew what she'd seen – or rather, what she
hadn't. The missing candlestick in the conservatory, the body splayed out, dark
blood pooling ... it was too horrible.
As
she moved to settle her nerves with a brandy, the looming shadows in the room
disclosed her assailant. She shrieked, too late, her suspicions confirmed: Mrs.
White, in the Lounge now, poised to strike once more with her bloodied
candlestick.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 18, 2009
Prompt:
That wasn’t thunder, that was …
Title:
Rugby
A thunderstorm had been in the
forecast all week. The dusty town of Rugby, North Dakota, had almost stopped
daring to hope. Two months into a drought, Jim's garden was suffering, his
grass was yellowed and crunched underfoot. Sure enough, Friday's sky changed,
lowering clouds scudding ahead of the stormfront.
In bed that night, Jim reveled in
rain against his window, lightning flash and a satisfying crash. At daybreak,
however, he saw twisted wreckage of a nearby grain elevator explosion, a pile
of grain outside his house. The storm had moved to the south. They'd only
caught destructive, galeforce winds.
______________________________________________________
Entry
for July 11, 2009
Prompt:
Shrouded in Mist
Title:
Walkin’
Tiny flecks of dew
sparkled on the fine hairs of her forearms, adding to the illusion of sinful
gaudy display in the encumbered moonlight. A fine night for a walk, Goody
Williams thought, luxuriating in the sensation of her lustrous auburn hair,
gathered by day into a proper bun, now flowing freely about her naked
shoulders. Any other night the city fathers would surely flog her in stocks but
not this night, she mused. Shrouded as she was in night, the deep Salem mists
wrapped about her skin, she was free as Godiva and yet modest as her
Puritanical mother.
______________________________________________________