Weekly Challenge #441 – Brass

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This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic: ALWAYS

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The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of SUPERCONDUCTING…

Missy!

JOHN

The Brass, Not Impressed
by John Musico

I didn’t get the promotion to head of IT, because of my reply to: “Demonstrate your enthusiasm for the job?” I replied; “ A dog, never walked, angst when other dogs heading towards greater things trotted by the window.
Then one day, the owner clipped a leash on him. The door opened in slow motion, as golden sunshine flooded in. At the curb, he was unclipped, and galloped into the sunset, ears flapping in the wind, thundering to the mountaintop.”
I then galloped down the executive table, smiling widely. They didn’t smile. “We don’t hire people as odd as you.”

Everything You Never Knew About Brass
by John Musico

Brass conducts sound well, so, it is used as the material to make musical instruments as trumpets.
Brass, traditional in Indian tableware, contains copper which makes it antibacterial.
Brass hat; the metal braid on a high military officer’s hat commonly thought to be made of brass.
Brass monkey; shaped like the rack to carry billiard balls; the rack that held the stack of cannon balls on a ship. Incidentally that was called a “monkey” because it was manufactured by the Monkey Brass Company.
Brass doesn’t rust.
Getting down to brass tacks; the basics, as the anchoring tacks of upholstered furniture.

LADY BLUE

The Siren Hunter

I took brass bullets
and the occultist’s advice:
Aim between the eyes
and shoot her twice.

I hunted her down
and dreamed of the day
that I’d kill the one
who that took him away.

To avenge him,
and pay my dues, too,
with determination
I sailed with my crew.

In uncharted waters,
we would find her.
But our spells
could not bind her.

She stood with two others
as I aimed my gun;
but before I could do anything,
her song had been sung.

I couldn’t move.
Bound as I was,
to the siren’s spell
and my lost cause.

JEFFREY

Tacks
by Jeffrey Fischer

I’ve never understood the concept of “getting down to brass tacks.” Getting down how? Like K C and the Sunshine Band, getting down tonight? Going down to the farm? Or just sitting down? And brass tacks. Those seem expensive compared with regular tacks, so you’d only use them for special occasions. They still seem sharp, however, so sitting down on brass tacks seems needlessly painful, and expensive. The whole expression seems like something old people made up to confuse the young. Damn wisenheimers. Wait a minute – what’s a wisenheimer?

The Mall
by Jeffrey Fischer

Harry dreaded shopping at the local mall. He much preferred to buy what he could online, and let the mailman deliver the goods. Every so often, however, he found himself entering the gates of his own private Hell. The teenagers running around as though they owned the place bothered him, but not nearly as much as the rude sales people – the aggressive kiosk owners, the indifferent department store clerks, the snobbish hipsters in stores that wanted to be trendy, and wanted nothing to do with Harry. All of this was capped by an intrusively loud sound system that always seemed to be playing a brass band’s cover version of a Metallica song.

RICHARD

#1 – George’s Story – Part 72: ???

George’s search proved fruitless and, by the time he’d finished, he had a sneaky suspicion that this wasn’t the trauma ward at all… there were just too many prostates for his liking.

He fumbled the crude map he’d drawn from the plan at reception from his pocket and almost immediately realised his error – it would help to have it the right way up.

He left the ward, heading across the corridor to an entrance opposite, where an imposing brass plaque proudly informed him he was entering the ‘Sir Donald Cuthbertson Trauma and Surgical Wing’

He entered, leaving the prostates behind.

#2 – Brassed off

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, your kids are never satisfied.

My son’s fourteenth birthday should have been awesome, but he spent the day sulking after opening my present to him. The trombone wasn’t appreciated, yet I was sure he’d said he wanted to be in a brass band.

I tried again the following year – the oil drum did not go down well. My guess at steel band it seems was also wrong.

His sixteenth left me stumped… was it lead, copper, iron? Finally, I gave up and asked him:

“It’s heavy metal, dad! Just buy me a guitar!”

# 3 – Brass

Granddad used to say, “Where there’s muck, there’s brass”

Aye, I believed him too – set up me own business, I did – more fool me.

I’m telling you, all my life I’ve been up to me neck in muck, and never once found a bit o’ brass!

Aye… plenty of gold, tin, even the odd sapphire, and all I made from it, went straight back int’ business… but it did no good – I never found any brass.

Granddad were wrong. So listen to me: don’t believe what they say – brass mining won’t make you rich, but it will make you bankrupt!

TURA

Brass
——–
An alchemist sought to make gold not from lead, like his rivals, but brass. For, he said, brass is already near to resembling gold, and must therefore be easier to transform.

He alloyed copper, zinc, and esoteric minerals by secret rituals, and at last produced metals exactly duplicating the appearance of gold. But they lacked weight, and he concluded that only lead might provide this.

So he encased discs of lead in his finest brass and pronounced this to be the true gold. But so expensive it was to produce, that he spent all his mundane gold in making it.
——–

TOM

A Final Solution

The brass needed a definitive roll into Paris “we are your liberators” moment. If they could get Chalabi in chains leading the parade all the better. The ISiS lads had to have read the collisions playbook and laughter their asses off at the local revolutionary bar. “Crazy Americans.” General Bennet Larson Startlore had an inspired and simple plan. The Joint Chiefs sent to the White House and council mulled over the human right implications. “Are the Germans absolutely possessive of this drugs shelf life ? “ asked the President. “Alph pheroic D metabolic pathways go inert in six weeks time.
 
Join together with the band

My younger brother Len was hell bent on joining a brass band. Once he locked onto a desire he would follow it down to its ruinous end. What he excelled at in terms of focus was matched with a depth of a lack of talent that was apparent to all but he. Len worked two summers to afford a top of the line Trombone. That brass should have produced grace notes, what Len produced drove animals under the bed. This is how I inherited a trombone. I had no desire to play the thing, but it was just sitting there.

Copper and zinc

Every age has its official metal. Iron Age, Copper Age, Bronze Age, the Age of Steel. We of the Silicon Age driven by nano seconds long for a simpler time, but are incapable of leaving our lust for technology behind. So we have create a fictitious age of brass, one with ray gun, goggles, and airships. I guess those wouldn’t be made out of brass, but pretty much everything else. Even brass corsets, or maybe a brass derby. The center of my brass bolection is a masterfully crafted keyboard. All I need is steam power computer and sterling engine mouse.

 
Well Defined Relationship Part70

“Mom, I’ll be ok. Really”
“Bold as Brass same as your father.”
Mrs. Parsons walked towards the Guild.
“Mom?”
“Tell the Duke and Doctor if a hair is harmed on your lovely head I will have their balls.”

“What!” came the chorus?

She didn’t glance behind, nor change her course.

“I don’t think she’s coming with us.” said Sparky cover in mud.

Banister landed the stage in front of the company

“Shotgun?” he yelled tossing Timmy a brass rail gun.

“I’m your man.”

Tim swung up into the jump seat.

They all climbed aboard.

“Off to the Boardland we go-ho.”

SERENDIPITY

I like a brass bedstead – so much more tactile than wood or wrought iron; it gives a sense of opulence that you just don’t get from other materials.

Brass has all the character of gold, but is so much more practical, not to mention, it’s considerably more affordable.

A proper bed, with down-filled pillows and a good, old-fashioned, heavy satin quilt deserves a proper, polished brass bedstead – anything less is just plain wrong.

But the best thing about a brass bedstead is that it makes the perfect blunt instrument, and it’s so easy to wash the blood off!

MUNSI

Marching Band

By Chris Munroe

It seemed like a good idea at the time, allowing the marching band to choose its own playlist.

Students would be more invested in their band, morale would improve, school spirit would soar, what could possibly go wrong?

We agreed it was genius, and so the plan went forward.

It wasn’t until halftime, first game of the season, that we saw the problem with what we’d unleashed.

When the song they chose was Big Sean and Nikki Minaj…

Brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass…

STOP.

Now make that motherfucker Hammer-Time.

LIZZIE

A year of planning and a 10-hour drive didn’t discourage Gene. He was used to hardship. Well, he was used to corporate hardship mostly, being the CEO of one of the biggest oil companies. His stress levels had been building up dramatically. So, the retreat would be an intense spiritual experience. At the end of his stay, Gene was feeling great. The problem was when this guy drove into the back of his car on the local country road. Gene was definitely not ready for this kind of hardship. He ended up at the bottom of a hole, intensely dead.

CHELSEA

I never understood why they’re called brass bands. Not all the instruments are made of brass.

Silver flutes and delicate piccolos with there sweet trills,

Calf skinned drums booming out the march,

Clarinets of wood and reed humming softly with the melody,

Tambourine with its gentle shivering tinkle.

Sweet voices telling stunning stories.

Brass bands are just so much more than just brass.

What would it sound like if a brass band was only brass?

They would just sound funny with only the thundering of the tuba, the triumphant trill of the trumpet, and the tremulous vibrato of the trombone.

ANIMA

Jerry, how much further you think we have to go down? I mean, we’ve dug down like 8 feet and I have pricked all of my fingers dozens of times…

Shaddup and keep digging! What did I tell you when we got to the gold ones?

All that glitters is not gold, and to keep digging…

And when we passed through the silver?

Every cloud has a silver lining, but this wasn’t what we were after…

And the lead?

You said to get the lead out…

Hello, what have we here…? At last, We are down to the brass tacks!

DANNY

The devil walked down my driveway today in the odd shape of a redneck woman, her spindly legs barely able to manage the weight of her enormous gut that protruded from her skeleton frame. She was after the soul of my Maltese mix Freddie, who died earlier this week. I stopped the devil by refusing to open the front door. “You have some Brass balls coming here, you cannot have the soul of my dog, he is already in Heaven,” I said. The devil, unable to see her own crotch, walked away not knowing if she had brass balls at all.

DIONYSIUS

Scavenger

It could have been called a mystery but wasn’t.

Nobody paid attention to him except to avoid him — a big, physical teenager — until he was sent up for breaking and entering. When he got out he brought a knife to a fist fight. That’s assault with a deadly weapon.

Even if they’d looked, they wouldn’t have found that single casing melted into the brass by his partner, or noticed the buzzards circling over the rocky ravine out in the middle of the reservation. It was, after all, a country where buzzards circled endlessly over innumerable deaths.

Wherever he’s gone, said the sheriff, he’s there and I’m here. Good riddance.

Brass in Pocket

He was nearly 65 when they met, depressed that he’d never have enough to retire. His wife had lost all interest in sex, unnecessarily, but he was over arguing.

Sitting at the next Starbucks table over, she said, What kind of music do you like?

He thought she must be talking — on the phone maybe? Me?

I want to start a brass band. She was barely 20 if that.

Do you play tuba?

We’re only gonna play brass songs. Like Brass in Pocket.

Lay Lady Lay.

Brass Monkey.

I don’t know that one.

She sang it all the way through for him.

NORVAL JOE

Dergle followed Garbage Man through the door at the end of the alley. Long John had overcome his fear of the ambulatory heap, and dashed through the entryway, sniffing along walls and in corners that Dergle could only imagine in the pitch darkness.
Once the outer door was closed, Garbage Man flipped on an interior light revealing a large windowless room equally as filthy as the alley they’d left. Long John gave up his chase of some small creature and trotted back to the men.
Incongruously, across the room a meticulously polished brass placard on a singular door read, “Death”.

PLANET Z

Mr. Dan, our chemistry teacher, is teaching us about alloys.
Alloys are metals that are mixed together. Or metal and nonmetals.
It gives them special properties, like strength or malleability.
For instance, brass is a mix of copper and zinc.
While bronze is copper and tin, or arsenic.
Steel is a iron and carbon.
I raise my hand and ask if a screwdriver is an alloy of vodka and orange juice.
“Those aren’t metals,” says Mr. Dan.
That’s my way of reminding him to give me an A, or I tell the school board about his drinking on the job.