Most kids, when they get thrown out of school, it’s with paperwork. Other times it can be somewhat literal, with the cops coming and dragging the kid out. But Eloise, well, she kind of set her self up for it. when the woodshop teacher asked the class to build birdhouses, she built a fully functional trebuchet, siege engine. Well, the birds can nest in the basket, but I wouldn’t recommend it, she said. Two of her classmates were horsing around and sure enough one ended up splattered across the basketball courts.. the principal was rather impressed, but the authorities weren’t.
Sneakers
Billy kept his sneakers by the door. Every morning and every evening he’d put them on and go for a leisurely walk through the old neighborhood. He’d get an apple from the corner grocer and eat it during install. Sometimes he’d stop for a pint at the bar check in with the bartender maybe even read a little bit of the paper. Walking past the school, remembering his days there the teachers, the principal, the school nurse – they were all gone. He walked back up his steps, opened his door, took off his sneakers, and placed them by the door.
New World
Francisco wasn’t a particularly bright boy, but his mother and father had high hopes for him, so they put him on the boat to America. he had a small cardboard suitcase with some clothes and some food. He waved as the ship left the port. But there was a huge storm and the captain turned the ship back. We’ll head back out tomorrow the captain said. But Francisco, being so stupid, thought they’d landed in America. He got a shoe shining job and delivered papers and saved his money. You never figured out why everyone in America spoke Italian though.
Weekly Challenge #1066 – PICK TWO Poetry, Pancreas, Freakshow, Frankenfood, Postage stamp
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Lisa
- Norval Joe
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Planet Z
LISA
A Tale as Old as Time
Tonight was Deborah’s creative writing class, her husband, Dave, called it freak show night but it was her night to be her. She enjoyed crafting new worlds at her evening class.
The lesson that week was ‘a letter that you’ll never send’; a chance to be open and honest with no fear of recrimination.
She wrote to Dave. The message was clear. Exactly how she felt. Others dropped their letters in the bin, filed them for reference. Debs bought a stamp, posted hers to him and checked in to a hotel while she looked for a new place to live.
LIZZIE
Poetry, a freakshow in the making. Add a postage stamp, someone yelled. He continued. Something about his pancreas. She felt sleepy. He spoke louder. She stood, right there, in the front row, but she felt sleepy. She must’ve fallen asleep standing, because when she opened her eyes, the room was empty. The stage was empty. Where’s the freakshow? Where is he and his pancreas? As she started toward the door, a piece of paper fluttered to her. It said “Violets are red, roses are blue, my pancreas will burst, and so will you.” It must be love then. She smiled.
RICHARD
Getaway
I’ll be honest, my getaway plan was severely lacking in detail.
So lacking, you could easily have written it out in full on the back of a postage stamp in thick magic marker.
It was basically, one single word: ‘Run!’
But, that was more easily said than done. I mumbled I needed the bathroom, with any luck it would have a window I could crawl through to freedom.
On the way, I peeked into the bedroom, and immediately wished I hadn’t!
‘What is this freakshow?’ I murmured to myself.
‘You’ll find out, soon enough’, came her voice over my shoulder.
SERENDIPIDY
Poetry in motion.
With a single, fluid sweep, my knife cut deep, slicing through his stomach and pancreas, with a slick, smooth follow through, up behind the rib cage, cutting deeply into his left lung.
Theatrically, I swung myself in a wide arc away from his body, withdrawing the knife and flicking a spatter of blood across the wall and ceiling.
It was beautiful, almost balletic in execution.
Slowly, and dramatically he slumped to the floor, life ebbing away.
He’d been my high school drama teacher.
I crouched and whispered in his ear…
“Not a clumsy kid any more, right?”
TOM
Too Much Time On My Hands
If silence is gold; noise is lead. Splitting the difference a gentle hum of reality is copper. Should every level of sound have a corresponding metal? Can there be negative sound sucked out of your brain stem. You most likely need a mess of dark matter for that. Manufacturing dark-metals would be process intensive, cost a lot gold coin to do. And you bet it would be hecka louder than a data center. Which sure would be the opposite of silence, which does meet metaphoric standards. Will infinite silence collapse to a negative waveform in the present of dark matter?
1066
It was a total freak-show. First, we are fighting the god dam north men. Slog-fest. Then we got march across the whole fucken island to kick Norman ass. We are all dead tired but we put up a good fight. Then this stupid hunk of wood kills the king. The stuff of poetry, I’d say. Bet they will be singing about for the next 1000s years. Pain in the Pancreas if you ask me. When I get home my misses is going to be major piss-off. Never got over that roman leaving town thing. What next the house of orange?
NORVAL JOE
A large manila envelope waited for them on the stone porch of the Weinerheimer home.
No post mark identified the origin of the letter and a postage stamp with Cyrillic writing made it even more mysterious.
Inside, they found a small book of poetry, five tickets to the Sonoma Raceway, and a note.
The note simply read, “Read the book and meet me at the race.”
“That’s perfect,” Billbert said. “Mom. You and Dad can drive the three of us to the race next weekend.”
Sabrina wiped the tears from her eyes. “I thought we were taking Bobbi, not Mandi?”
PLANET Z
Every few years, there was a new variety of pepper that the news would call the world‘s hottest. It would have some crazy name and hot sauce makers would ship out bottles with skull and crossbones or flames or other crazy labels. Are they put warning labels on them with tongue and cheek advisories. Joe never fell for that trend. He liked a little bit of a kick, but he was into flavor, not pain. What was the sense of eating chicken wings if you couldn’t enjoy them? The waitress whose hits you’re staring at, isn’t impressed at all, bro.
Done dirty dancing
“Nobody puts Baby in a corner” was the last thing Johnny said before everything went black.
When he woke up, he was on the floor of a white round room.
He was in a hospital gown and the back of his head was sore.
He slowly got to his feet.
No door. No windows.
He felt along the wall. No seams.
The cops questioned the staff and the guests, nobody knew where the dancing instructor went.
The owner said he chased after his pregnant girlfriend.
But she never head from him since she left.
Years later, the camp closed down.
We are Texans
There’s only one way to separate the Californians from the Texans.
Shout THE STARS AT NIGHT ARE BIG AND BRIGHT!
See who claps four times and shouts DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS.
Those aren’t the Texans.
Those are the Californians, pretending to be Texans.
Hit them. Kick them. Beat them down.
Hang them by their entrails.
We fire our guns in the air and eat our Whataburgers and drink our Lone Stars and cheer.
We are Texans. And we are loud and violent and proud to be Texan.
Wait. Who is that? Who is drinking a Bud Light?
Californian!
I wish I could make this moment last forever
I wish I could make this moment last forever, said Arthur. He was happy, but the happy times don’t last. So when his family died in the house fire and the grief seemed endless, he realized that happiness speeds up time and grief slows it down, so the suffering lingers. After years toiling in his lab. He figured it out and the next day his lab assistants saw the horrifying result. Arthur stood there, as still as a statue. They couldn’t move his limbs and he didn’t fog a mirror, but he was still alive in his horrifying, miserable stasis.
Morgan
As famous as Morgan was, he doesn’t have a headstone. When he died, he was cremated, and his ashes were buried next to his mother‘s coffin. There is a statue of Morgan outside of the stadium. He played in for 13 years and broke all kinds of records. Every year, players and coaches vote on an award named after him. But when it comes to himself, he didn’t want anything more than a spot by the people who brought him into this world and raised him. Those who know, they still bring flowers. Sometimes a bobble head or a football.
Midseason replacement
When Judy died in a car wreck, the fans warned. The producers wondered how would they finish the next season of the animated show she starred in. They tried to harvest the previous eight seasons for voice work, but it wasn’t enough. They fed it into an AI powered audio generator, but the performance fell flat. None of the sound alike actresses sounded quite like her. Eventually they enlisted her twin sister. She didn’t have the acting range, but the fans gave her a pass on that. Ratings continued to decline, and the show was canceled before the finale aired.
Ghosts
My grandfather was 19 when he enlisted for the war the night before he shipped out, he married my grandmother and promised that he’d come back. But he never did. This plane went down, killing the whole crew. My grandmother was in the middle of writing him a letter letting him know she was pregnant when they knocked on her door back then you couldn’t end things like you can now, so our family pulled together. My father’s first word was daddy. My grandmother had never used that word or mentioned her husband around the baby. Maybe he saw ghosts?