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.
Bubbles stop
Sometimes, father Burke would lose it during confessions and yell I wish I had held you under the water in the baptismal font until the bubble stopped. I mean, that’s perfectly understandable for serious things like murder and rape, but littering is not as bad. Unless of course the person threw a banana peel on the sidewalk and father Burke slipped on it and broke his leg. Jenny burst from the confessional, crying and running, father Burke tried to chase after her, but with his cast and crutches he wasn’t fast enough. He smack her during choir practice, he figured.
The finest
Henderson Hills is an exclusive gated community. Only the finest people live there. Only the finest students in their school. Only the finest restaurants delivering the finest food to the finest servants who packed the finest picnic lunches for them. Only the finest ants at their picnics. The finest etymologist, EO Wilson, assured the finest staff that these were the finest ants of all. he had measurements, proof! He even wrote a book about it. It was the finest book, the number one best seller at the New York Times. Which, these days, I’d hardly describe as the finest newspaper.
Fishing with Frank
Frank in room seven had been an avid fisherman, but his kids come to visit maybe once every few months and they don’t take him out like they used to. So he dresses up in his fishing gear and puts a chair by his bathtub and sits there for hours. His roommate Joe decided to play a prank on him and while Frank was napping by the tub, he put a fish on the hook. You caught one, Frank! Frank reeled it in and yelled at the confused cafeteria staff to scale and cook it for him. It was delicious.
Necronomicon 2.0
Some say that the Necronomicon is a powerful book, while others say it’s just the spells contained within it are what’s powerful. Lucius decided to run an experiment. He transcribed the spells in the Necronomicon to simple looseleaf notebook paper. They were just as powerful and demonic in the trapper keeper. He took photos of the spells and printed them out. They were also just as powerful. Finally, he made an e-book out of the spells and sold them for one cent on the Kindle marketplace. A massive supernatural tsunami tore the Earth apart. Lucius never collected his sales.
Meridian seven
Due to a programming error, the terraforming probe that landed on Meridian Seven ingested all of the wrong compounds and tried to stitch together a suitable habitat for the incoming colony ships. By the time the colonist arrived and were revived from hibernation,, Meridian seven was a bubbling, putrid mass of tentacles and fangs floating in boiling oceans of acid. The colonist went back into hibernation after sending a message. Wake us up when you fix this crap. The colonization ministry sent another ship out and 100 years later it vaporized the sleeping colony ship and the Meridian seven disaster.