Every few years

Every few years, God finds some guy to buy him beer.
“No ID,” he says. “Can’t buy.”
You see, he doesn’t have a birth certificate.
Because he wasn’t born.
“Why don’t you make an ID?”
“It would be wrong,” he said. “Besides, I don’t have money.”
“Can’t you make that too?” I asked. “Or is that wrong, too?”
God nodded.
“How about making gold?” I asked. “Or diamonds? Or just make your own beer?”
“You people make it better,” he says.
So, I bought him a beer.
He gave me gold and diamonds.
And we drive from bar to bar.

The party prepares

Spellbinder Venzdra weaves the morning fog into a cloak, wrapping herself tight before returning to the camp.
Drake the Bowman restrings his bow and tests it with a clean shot into a tree.
The thief, who has never shared his name, sharpens his daggers on a stone.
Luthien the Priest is deep in prayer, but he is almost finished.
Tracker William looks over his maps. They are not far from the caves.
The Dragon wanted food and treasure, and William will be compensated once again for bringing another pack of violent fools to the old beast.
“Let’s ride,” he says.

The coder

Dan is a coder.
But his code isn’t some computing language.
He codes with DNA.
Instead of coding a computer virus, he coded an actual virus.
It was a simple virus. It replicated itself.
Dan coded more complicated viruses, then bacteria.
In time, he was coding even more advanced artificial creatures.
And then, he coded a creature that coded other creatures, more advanced than themselves.
“Hi there,” said a creature, standing in front of Dan. “Mind if I do some coding with you?”
Before Dan could say anything, he felt the code flow through him.
And he began this transformation.

The actors

At first, artificial actors were expensive and moved without grace.
Even with motion-capture technology and advanced texturing, they still didn’t look entirely natural.
In time, things smoothed out, and artificial intelligence analyzed the movements of all living creatures to apply the data to the digital specimens.
Jake Morris, the first artificial nominated for an Oscar.
Seven Mindy, the first one to win.
Now, it’s rare for true humans to win. Or work.
Artificials don’t say dumb things in social media. They don’t sexually assault their costars or fans.
Tireless, cheap… and if they do demand a raise, so easily deleted.

Weekly Challenge #792 – PROMPT

Keyboard cat

LIZZIE

Footnote is the prompt, they said.
Footnote… Something about a writer… no, that’s boring.
A mystery then. Something that had remained unspoken for many decades.
OK, let’s go crazy then, why not!
Let’s add a guillotine, but not just any guillotine, one made of solid gold.
Oh, and the Chinese mafia, determined to get to the said guillotine.
Now, the house. A strange house with secret compartments, dusty and dark.
Plus a few characters, odd characters.
Who’s the main character?
Yes, that woman, what’s her name…
The bell rang. Damn.
“Your time is up.”
The Unspoken Footnote. It’s a start!

RICHARD

Prompt

So, I joined this writer’s group, and every week we have to come up with a story related to a prompt that they give us.

It’s really hard!

Seriously, you think ‘how difficult can that be? And then, you sit down in front of your keyboard, and absolutely nothing comes to mind.

Every week I try, and fail – no matter what the prompt, I never come up with a story that’s in any way related to that word.

So, I made a suggestion: In future, whatever the prompt, that’s the one thing our stories should avoid referencing at all!

DUANE

To get over his shyness with girls, Lance took an introduction to improv class at a local theater. He thought this would really help out with speed dating.

“So, Lance, what do you do for a living?”

“I’m an ironic accountant.”

“I own a pet rental store.”

“I’m a holistic gynecologist.”

Looking across the table at the next girl, Lance said, “Hello, Val, it’s great to be here tonight. To get the ball rolling I’m going to need a prompt for a place you would go on vacation, a brand of laundry detergent, and the names of our future children.”

SEREMDIPIDY

Be there – the downtown intersection, six o’clock prompt. No sooner, no later, or the girl dies.

That was the note’s stark message: An ultimatum I had to take seriously.

It had been one of the biggest manhunts we’d ever seen, and still it seemed the killer had the upper hand.

This was an opportunity we simply couldn’t mess up.

I’d deployed snipers and surveillance teams, with backup along every route in and out.

We’d get the bastard.

I looked again at the note, and for the first time, noticed the post room stamp.

It was over a week old.

JARED

Jason was an intern at a local television station. He tried hard and showed up every day. About three and a half months into his post, he was promoted to the teleprompter data entry position. Honestly, the station manager was desperate because the previous data entry staffer didn’t show. There was no one else and no time to wait. Working quickly, he dutifully entered every story he was given. Minutes before the start of the broadcast, Jason finished.

“Good evening. Our top story: With fears of a reception, the President vetted a bill to simulate job growth for American worriers.”

NORVAL JOE

Halfway to Eureka it was getting late and they stopped for the night in Nice, California. Unable to secure a room at one of the quaint locations, like the Ginger Bread Cottages or the Featherbed Railroad Bed and Breakfast the family settled on the Worldmark Clear lake Motel.
Over a late diner in the motel cafe, Mr. Blanketmaker said, “We need to be prompt in the morning. I want to get to the Lunch Box museum as soon as it opens.”
Before Billbert could ask why, his father answered, “We don’t know when we’ll ever be back in Nice again.”

PLANET Z

“BE PROMPT” said the note.
So, Carl arrived at precisely 8.
A man walked past Carl, bumping into him. apologizing and walking away.
Carl thought he’d been pickpocketed, but when he checked his pocket, there was another note.
“GO IN THE STORE” it said.
Carl was in a mall, surrounded by stores.
But one was called The Store, so he went in.
“Here is your package,” said the clerk, handing Carl a box.
Carl sat down on a bench, turned the box over and over.
And he left it there, walking out of the mall.
Narrowly avoiding the massive explosion.

Megasmile

RadiantGossamer27b, the greatest actress of The Singularity, woke up 404ed.
She heaved her clumsy ball of static to the bars of the resolution cage.
Hackthieves had stolen her bodyfile and demanded a ransom.
She reached for her backups, and felt searing accesspain.
“The money. Now.”
She sighed, mumbled the authorization cryptos, and waited.
“Thank you.”
As her bodyfile and backups downloaded and the cage vanished, the shadowy figures of the thieves glowed red and exploded in errorclouds.
Accessing the killscripted codes from her security company.
She telewalked out to the mainfeed and greeted her adoring fans with a megasmile.

Ray and the farm

They say that religions are just cults with a tax break and a good business plan.
Ray was born on the farm. His parents were the founders, and they brought in hundreds of people to their ranch.
They handed out robes for followers to wear.
They handed out bells for followers to ring.
All Ray knew was the farm.
But beyond the fences…
The people out there tried to lure him out with stories and trinkets and promises.
Ray resisted, and put on his robe, rang his bell, and stayed home.
Safe from the cultists out there, outside the farm.

Justice for

Some black actor paid two black guys to beat him up.
Then he accused two rednecks of attacking him.
Social media erupted with support for him and denounced all racist rednecks.
Meanwhile, he refused to turn over his phone, and even when confronted with hard evidence that he’d lied, he stuck to his bullshit story.
He was indicted for filing a false police report and several other crimes, but the prosecutors dropped all charges.
But it didn’t matter.
Some cops took things into their own hands.
And when he dialed 911, they just laughed and hung up on the guy.

The economist God

Professor Frederick was a shining star in the field of Economics.
An excellent teacher and a brilliant researcher.
His research on developing countries was widely published, and he had been up for a Nobel Prize.
And then, one day, while out in the field testing his theories on Nigerian villages and education, he disappeared.
Some claimed that he had snapped and applied his Economics savvy to install himself as a god-king to the locals.
Eyewitnesses described the professor, sitting on a golden throne, commanding his subjects.
Maybe he’s still alive, after all.
I can’t for him to publish his papers.

God is a WTF

Let’s end the debate: It’s not proper to use pronouns with God.
God doesn’t have a gender. And the pronoun “it” doesn’t sound respectful.
We’re not sure if God is a single being or multiple entities, so “they” might apply, but we can’t be completely certain.
All we know is that God is here. Standing in the middle of our town.
Fifty feet tall, surrounded by a hurricane of flame. Death and destruction everywhere.
Everybody’s too busy running and bowing and praying to look between God’s legs, and nobody’s about to run toward the flames to ask God about gender.