Bless his heart, the Lake George Foreman named all of his sons after himself. I mean, if you want to do that, OK, but when they grow up to be the mayor, governor, congressman, Senator, vice president, and president, you’re not doing the country any favors. Some people on the press would use their numbers like fifth and fourth. Others just use their titles. In the end, nobody really cared since they all ended up doing a really good job and were reelected time and time again, and retired into various jobs in the community. Except for one, that jerk.
Weekly Challenge #1060 – Omnibus
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
LIZZIE
The omnibus edition included three of eight books. The release would take place in a week. However, the printing took longer than expected. The printer kept having to reprint everything. Odd pages would appear. After a few attempts, the editor decided to just print it and see what happened. We’ll say it’s a special remixed edition, he said. Right before the release, the editor leafed through the book. There was nothing wrong. And then he noticed it. There were not three but four books included, all in perfect order. Sometimes, we just have to let magic happen on its own.
RICHARD
Bus Stop
Omnibus… an old-fashioned word, yet so descriptive. A versatile prefix instantly saying everything to know about the object it describes.
An omnidirectional microphone, the sort that can pick up sound from any direction. An omnipresent being, depending on your deity of choice, is a presence that is everywhere around us, (yes, even in the bedroom, where you get up to ‘things’.
And let’s endow our deity with omnipotence, just to round things off nicely.
Have you noticed though how we’ve stopped using omnibus, and now just use ‘bus’?
Because they don’t go any bloody where you need them to!
TOM
The Chevrolet 2037 Omnibus
See the USA in your Chevrolet America’s asking you to call Drive your Chevrolet through the USA America’s the greatest land of all On a highway or a road along a levee Performance is sweeter, nothing can beat her Life is completer in a Chevy So, make a date today to see the USA And see it in your Chevrolet Travelin’ east, travelin’ west Wherever you go Chevy service is best Southward or north, near place or far There’s a Chevrolet dealer for your Chevrolet car See the USA in your Chevrolet. Chevrolet Omnibus seats 160 luxury on gravedigger’s wage.
SERENDIPIDY
My parents were avid readers of horror stories, but they didn’t really have much class.
Rather than spend good money on decent book collections, they’d buy those big, thick omnibus volumes of dubious horror. Unknown authors writing bargain basement trash; but my parents were of the quantity over quality school, and the thicker the collection, the better, in their minds.
I read them all, of course, and I knew right from the start, I could do so much better myself.
But, to write decent horror, one has to undertake copious research.
After all, they do say to write from experience.
NORVAL JOE
When the social worker arrived they all sat in the living room as Sabrina told her story.
The woman closed one eye skeptically. “You’re telling me that this boy’s parents kidnapped you to create a tsunami to wipe out a coven of witches, and then they were carried away in a tornado?”
“No,” Sabrina said. “Only his father was.”
“Well, that makes it all better,” she said with heavy sarcasm. “Let me add that to my omnibus of pitiful excuses. I’ll have to take Sabrina and find a more appropriate placement for her.”
“Please,” Billbert’s mother said. “Wait one moment.”
PLANET Z
The route to my grade school went along a road with a lot of construction. And they were frequent potholes and carve outs in the narrow lanes. Our usual bus driver navigated these rather skillfully. Never driving too fast. However, when they took a day off, the substitute driver was reckless. thankfully, We made it along the rough road easily, but when we turned into a residential area, he hit the speed bumps pretty hard. The kids in the far back were thrown against the ceiling. One broke his neck and died. And I didn’t get home until after dark.
McCafferty
It was weird how McCafferty just showed up one day at a team meeting. There wasn’t a job posting, there weren’t any interviews. He just showed up one day and he had a badge and a laptop and a parking space. Human resources didn’t remember hiring him, and the boss didn’t remember anything. And he knew the company and the projects and all of our platforms and software and tools perfectly from day one. The next day, he was gone. No one remembered him ever having been there. It made me wonder about my own existence and I’d disappear suddenly.
Turnabout
My wife and I had work schedules that made it difficult to get to the bank together, but my mother always insisted on putting both of our names on any checks she sent us. I told her not to do that, but she kept doing it. I’d end up shredding the checks because it was so inconvenient to cash them. When my parents had financial difficulties, I would make the checks out to my mother and a completely random person. That way, it was just as inconvenient if not impossible for her to cash those checks. Turnabout is fair play.
Memory pack
Before a soldier is cloned and his backup, reloaded, instructors walk them through the situation that got them killed. Haverford have been killed 23 times before he got out of Boot Camp, and every time, it look like he learned from his mistake, but he’d make an all new mistake. When he finally made it out to the front lines, he was an absolute machine. He cut through the enemies position like a hot knife through butter. He racked up every metal available. The instructors patted him on the back, not knowing they had installed a different soldiers memory pack.
Action Park
It was a sad day at action Park. Johnny, the lifeguard had drowned. The Park owner insisted on giving him a Viking funeral. They found a bumper boat in the maintenance shed with a busted engine they could use. They threw his body in it and set it on the wave pool. They tossed in some wood and newspaper and gasoline, and when it was time through in a lit match. It took them three tries before the fire caught. All the other guests and staff raised their beers to toast Johnny. During the ceremony, two more stupid kids drowned.
Walk the walk
I live in a small town just outside of another small town and everything here is walking distance. The grocery store, the pharmacy, my doctor, my dentist, everything. I do a lot of walking through the trees and the paths. It’s healthy, unless walking in the bright sunlight without sunscreen, through mosquito season without repellent, or I pick up a cheeseburger at the burger joint which I have to walk even more to burn off. But in my defense, I don’t get fries or a shake. So in the end, it all balances out until somebody’s car will hit me
Ortho
I watched a video of how they harvest almonds. They’ve got this pair of tractors, one with a gripper that shakes the tree and another that puts kind of a tarp basket under it to catch all the almonds that shake off. They do this with other trees for harvesting. I’d figure it would work with my cousin Ortho, who has really horrible dandruff. We snuck into McGregor‘s farm and got the shaker tractor going. Ortho wound up with two broken legs and a concussion. And the dumbass forgot to take off his hat, so we’ll go out there again.
Weekly Challenge #1059 – Pulse
- Lisa
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
RICHARD
Blinding
I could feel it coming on.
The odd, light-headedness; the feeling I was observing myself from the outside, and the voices around me, as if from a distance, ‘Are you ok?’
I was clammy, sweating, struggling to keep my balance.
Then the pulse of swirling colours, creating wild and crazy patterns in my vision.
I blacked out.
When I came to, it was to a blinding, incapacitating headache. I groaned, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
You know what? If only you could have migraines without the pain, they’d be way more fun than drugs.
Cheaper too!
LISA
Loot or Die
It was hot that summer. No one slept. Bins didn’t get emptied. A simmering anger spread through the metropolis quicker than the fires that broke out at its outskirts. The mayor rationed access to utilities. Flames devouring churches lit the sultry evenings; a pleasing glow through huge intricately shaped windows.
They turned the water off. Soon afterwards, the gas and electricity. All the hospitals were forced to shut.
Prison cells opened. Zoo gates opened. The supermarket’s automatic doors opened and wouldn’t close. The anger built.
The mayor was in hiding.
The city had no pulse.
Then the food ran out.
SERENDIPIDY
No pulse.
I double-check.
Nope, you’re a gonner alright.
I ponder attempting to resuscitate, but I don’t have the energy, or the will.
You’re dead. And that’s the way you’re going to stay.
I’m disappointed. You didn’t put up much of a fight, did you?
Spoilsport.
You were no fun.
It’s not like the good old days, when victims were made of sterner stuff; you could guarantee a good struggle in an effort to stay alive. These days, they just accept their fate.
And I’m happy to deal it out, even if it’s not quite so much fun anymore.
NORVAL JOE
Patrick didn’t look like he was ready to confess anything and eyed the door.
His pulse racing, Billbert dashed to the door and blocked it as Patrick lunged from his chair.
Billbert needn’t have made the effort. Sabrina, nearly half Patrick’s size, tackled him and releasing her pent-up rage, kicked him three times in the crotch.
Billbert’s stomach ached in sympathy as Patrick groaned and writhed on the floor.
Mrs. Weinerheimer held out her hand and Patrick’s silenced as her efficiency helped him to heal himself.
“That’s enough,” she snapped. “Everyone get back to what you’re supposed to be doing.”
TOM
Guns of Christmas
Billy created a pulse gun when he was 13. Well, it was pretty much a magnetic potato gun, but it was a fairly impressive start to a career. His doctoral thesis at MIT was enough to have the North Koreans offer him a billion dollars to build the damn thing. As in all thing North Korean, the west had no idea this was the main military project. They used their ICBM program as a cleave ruse. On Christmas day 2099 battery of pulse gun reduced Seoul to lake of metal. The Chicness cut a deal the next day.
PLANET Z
Chang had a good job. He led an execution van crew. They would roll up to a prison, collect a few inmates, and while driving to the hospital, they would kill them and put them on life support systems to maintain their organs. When they arrived at the hospital, doctors would collect the bodies. Chang never felt guilty for this, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Until Chang was caught posting photos of himself in the van that Amnesty International got a hold of. Two years later, Chang went from a crew leader to a passenger.
Resort life
Edward noticed a discrepancy. A lot more people were dying in nursing homes than when a robot was sent out to help someone with in a home care. The statistics showed an elevated number of assisted suicide requests in the nursing homes. And a few had elevated medication error rates. Because of the turnover, nursing homes could turn through residence were frequently and collect more down payments. Several years later, after all the settlements, Edward retired to a resort on a Caribbean island. All human staff. Not a single robot. his nurse poisoned him, stole his money, and completely vanished.