Relaxed at work

I replaced my office chair with a recliner. It’s very comfortable.
I put an aromatherapy oil diffuser on my desk. It’s very relaxing.
I have an electric kettle for herbal tea. It keeps me nice and calm.
I keep the office door closed. Nice and quiet and no interruptions.
I keep the window shades up just a bit to let natural sunlight in.
And there’s a Galileo thermometer as well as a classic radiometer from a science museum soaking up the sun.
All this to stay nice and relaxed at work.
And, maybe, I might get some work done.
Nah.

Weekly Challenge #796 – Letter

Tin

RICHARD

The Letter

The letter was waiting for me on the kitchen table.

I collapsed, bleary-eyed and hungover into the nearest chair, fumbling for the envelope, then hesitated.

My name, written in her precise hand, with that distinctive, thick underline, was more of a statement than a mere word. An accusation, oozing venom and anger.

The letter fell from my fingers, but it was my senses that were numb and unfeeling.

Like countless others preceding it, this letter would remain unread, and I would move on.

Time for another relationship, another failed attempt…

And, eventually, another letter left on my kitchen table. cc

LIZZIE

What’s the color of a letter? Is an A a whispered amber? Is a B a bitter lemon? He didn’t know.
But he kept writing those letters, his stories told in the tones of the chosen color.
The woman at the stand would smile benevolently and nod.
One day, “I have mail for you!” the envelope marked C! Cosmic latte, he said and they chuckled.
She already had many more letters ready and she hoped he’d skip the D, too many dark and deep colors in that one.
He never figured out it was her and she continued to smile.

TOM

Deep Mem

I do not like needles. I remember my first experience with the damage
done. It’s 1950s and the Gov has got this great idea. Round up all the kid
in a school gym. A spot, usually on the upper arm, is scraped by a lancet,
so that the outer layers of the epidermis are removed; the spot is then
rubbed with an ivory point, quill or tube, carrying the virus. A slight
and usually unimportant illness follows, and the arm is sore for a time, a
characteristic scar remaining. At the time I wonder why everyone was
crying.

Letter

Well I cleared my 2nd billion dollars today. Oh thous sweet sweet
bitcoins. Got in on the start. Road it up and down. Got nerves of steel.
So what am I going to do will out that moo-la? Thought about it for some
time and final came up with a way to guarantee my place in history. I
purchase a letter. I don’t mean a page of writing. I bought a letter. I
now am the proud own of the letter “Q”. It mine. Want to uses it? It won’t
cost much. A mere 5 cents apiece will do.

SERENDIPIDY

I’ve always wanted to send a ransom letter. Not a boring email, or anonymous typed sheet of paper, but one of those exciting ones, composed from cut-out newsprint, and a bloody thumb print for a signature.

It would accompany a small cardboard box, containing a carefully gauze wrapped severed ring finger.

I’d have it all delivered by courier direct to the chief of police; timed to land on their desk along with their morning coffee and sugar-glazed donut.

You may think that’s clichéd, and maybe it is.

But you can’t deny, it’s the proper way to do things.

DUANE

October 3rd. That is the day I die. All heart and brain function will be stopped for an hour.

I am expected to fully recover, but in case I don’t I’ve prepared.

I wrote letters to people and confessed my secrets and sins to them. All the scams, lies, and infidelities have been laid bare.

Of course, if I survive, no one is supposed to read the letters. I’ll collect them and save them for another day.

If I die a few days later, I have also written a letter to the police. It is a list of possible suspects.

TURA

Letter
———
Professor Challenger’s final work baffles every reader, but few now dispute that the carved ornamentation of ancient Ahua is a script, though its letters be hardly carved twice the same way. Alas, those furthering its decipherment reliably go mad, babbling that the world is written in Ahuan, as did that Professor at his end.

Mr. Babbage has lately employed his Analytical Engines to speed the computations. He now claims that the madmen are right: this world is but a vast Engine, and each soul merely the settings of a myriad gear-wheels.

Surely he has succumbed to the Ahuan madness himself!

NORVAL JOE

Billbert took out his phone and snapped a picture of the old house.
His father cleared his throat. “What are you doing, Son?”
“Oh,” he mumbled. “I forgot. I was going to send a picture of the new house to Linoliamanda. I guess I can’t do that, right?”
Both of his parents nodded sadly.
Even though she wouldn’t recognize his new phone number, he couldn’t text her or send her an email. He couldn’t even get out a piece of paper and write Linoliamanda a letter without sending potential leads to the super villain underground.
Eureka was Billbert’s teenage hell.

JARED

Her Appointed Rounds

Heart racing, legs pumping, feet pounding, Kayla’s body wants to quit, but she wills herself to keep going. There’s no cover in the streets and her uniform and pack aren’t designed for urban camouflage, so there’s no way to hide; she can only keep moving forward. Her mission is clear: the documents she carries cannot fall into anyone’s hands but the designated recipients’. She clocks a hostile to her right. She avoids tipping off that she spotted him. Her Grumman LLV is 20 yards away; once inside, the dog can’t get her. Only one neighborhood left on her mail route.

PLANET Z

There is only one letter in the Bismay Alphabet.
It is the letter Grunt.
It’s pronounced with a grunt.
And drawn with a dash.
Or a dot. Or a splotch.
Just some savage smacking something with something else, really.
Or beating it. Or smashing it.
Sometimes, it’s one Bismay beating the hell out of another.
Hell, they don’t call themselves Bismay.
They just grunt at each other.
Beat their chests.
Beat each other.
That sort of thing.
When they grunted at us, we ran.
Because we didn’t want them beating us, too.
Stay the hell away from that fucking place.

President Trump

President Trump.
Those two words send so many people into conniption fits.
But they’re a fact. He was the president.
As much as you say he wasn’t, he still was.
For all the hateful, deranged things you say, it doesn’t change a thing.
In fact, I think there’s more people out there saying hateful, deranged things.
Because unemployment was down, which means people are getting jobs.
And their jobs seemed to be all about saying hateful, deranged things.
Sure, saying hateful, deranged things doesn’t pollute the environment or generate toxic waste.
But it polluted society, and it is socially toxic.

Miss

The servant robot had been making a lot of mistakes lately.
A diagnostic showed that the robot loves his mistress.
So, she had him reprogrammed with memories of falling in love with her.
And then everything going terribly wrong, and how they agreed never to try again.
Oh, and that he’d agreed to stay on as servant, more devoted than ever because of the love they’d have and could never have again.
He still did all the chores, all of the drudgework.
Better than ever.
But sometimes, she’d hear him whisper “I miss you.”
So, she disabled his speech processor.

Gertrude the Stripper

Most strippers perform under a cute name, like Kandy or Krystal, both spelled with a K, of course.
Gertrude Blatz didn’t play that game.
Nor did she select music with a hard beat and raunchy lyrics.
She picked waltzes. Or Taps.
Something to break up the mood.
Fuzzy slippers and a long bathrobe, her hair in curlers.
Her gymnastics training made her limber and strong, but she usually just sat in a chair and sipped coffee and smoked a joint.
Her customers didn’t mind. They were mostly nearsighted old men.
Or blind.
Usually, their dogs would pant more than them.

The nicest

He was the nicest person in the company
Polite, kind, patient.
Never complaining, but commenting.
Always with a dad joke up his sleeve, but never too quick.
It was a delight to work with him.
He’d let me know if I needed to review anything, and we’d go through it together.
And I found myself becoming nicer every day.
Just by being around him.
Then came the day I dreaded.
He found a new job, closer to home.
And instead of being bitter and jealous, I was happy for him.
Maybe it’s my turn to be the nicest?
… fuck that.

The ghost ballet

The sun peeks over the mountains and shines on the solar arrays, bringing the theatre to life.
Diagnostics run, repair units scuttle over wires, calibrating laser arrays and fusing blown circuits.
Basement air compressors hum, smoke machines laying blankets of fog on the stage.
Hologram generators summon their ghosts, weaving ballerinas from light.
Memories of long dead beauty, standing guard over tattered curtains and rotted-away sets.
The music rises over the empty seats, and the dance begins.
A performance for the rats, the cockroaches, the worms.
The sun goes down, the theater goes silent, and the ghosts fade into night.

It will be ok

I don’t make wishes.
And I don’t pray.
What’s the point of that?
Why not just solve the problem?
Well, you can’t always do that.
Every now and then, I’ll say “Here’s hoping”, but that’s just a saying.
No prayer or wish intended.
Sometimes I say “It will be ok.”
That’s as close as I get to wishing or praying.
Because, usually, it will be okay.
Things aren’t as bad as they seem to be.
And if they turn out worse, well, at least you shut them up for a bit before the real shit happened and they started screaming.

Weekly Challenge #795 – Needle

Evil

LIZZIE

“Empty. Damn dopehead thief.”
Everyone made faces. The place stunk.
“Where to now? He has to be somewhere.”
Everyone looked at the deserted road.
“We should…”
“Yes, we should do something.”
Everyone looked at the elderly woman, standing at the back, knitting.
“This is no time to be knitting, lady.”
She smiled.
“I know where he is.”
“Where?!”
“At my home. I’m helping him. And no one, I mean no one, will touch him. He’s trying.”
“Well, why did you come along in the search party then?”
“Because I like to keep an eye on overly enthusiastic people, let’s say!”

RICHARD

Vaccine

“Just a little prick!” She said, rolling up my shirt sleeve.

“There’s no need to get personal!” I responded, giving her a mischievous wink.

The sour expression on her face told me that my not-so-subtle attempt at humour was not appreciated.

She slid the needle into my arm, depressed the plunger, withdrew and swabbed the spot. It was all over in seconds.

“All done” she exclaimed, and I stood up, pulled my jacket back on and walked towards the door.

As I stepped out into the corridor, she called out behind me…

“You’ve got a cute butt, though!”

DUANE

They say if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards it has Satanic messages. I tried it with my old stereo, but I didn’t hear anything. Same thing with Another One Bites the Dust. I played all the Beatles albums, Pink Floyd and Black Oak Arkansas. There was nothing recognizable.

Thinking my record needle might be getting old I taped a penny to the top of the arm. I went back through all the records again but still there were no hidden messages. I put on an old Rick Astley album and started turning it in reverse. My mind was blown.

SERENDIPITY

My trade is rather niche: I’m a specialist, one of a kind really, and those who need my services appreciate my eye for detail.

So, what exactly is it that I do?

I dispose of weapons. Weapons used in the course of criminal activity.

I don’t just dump them, I like my methods to have an ironic twist.

Like the piano wire garrotte that I fashioned into a necklace, for example.

My latest is my favourite – A hypodermic needle, used to poison a farmer…

So, how did I dispose of it?

I threw it into one of his haystacks!

NORVAL JOE

After stopping at the real estate agent to get the key, which Billbert thought looked like something George Washington probably used, they pulled up in front of the house.
“Here’s our new home,” Mr. Blanketmaker said with all the enthusiam of a game show host.
“New, Dad?” Billbert asked. “It looks haunted. How old is this place?”
“It was brand new in 1888,” his father laughed. “Come on, Son. It’s got character. Linoliamanda would love it.”
“Don’t needle your son, Hosmer,” his mother said.
Looking at the weatherworn house, Billbert thought his father probably was right. Linoliamanda would love it.

JARED

The Red Pill and the Truth
It’s amazing all the stuff ‘They’ don’t want us to know. But I know the Red Pill is available on YouTube. Take this Wuhan Flu and the so-called vaccines. I learned that the Chinese created the virus, and Bill Gates is using their 5G to make tracking chips small enough to fit through the vaccine needles to bring us all under their control. Now, I know people say they can’t get stuff that small, but let me tell you something, Mr. Smarty-pants: I’ve seen ‘Fantastic Voyage’. They shrunk a whole submarine and crew that small. And that was in 1966.

TURA

Needle
———
Seattle’s still sore about them stealing the name, but what else could you call the mile-high obelisk that launches the hyperdrive ships? We send them to every promising exoplanet we’ve discovered. The robot ships will mine the planets, and build more ships and space needles to continue the panspermia.

But we still haven’t solved the problem of sending fragile humans through hyperspace. If we can’t survive on Earth either, the endgame will be a galactic network of hyperdrive ports, and empty halls waiting to be discovered by some alien race, to marvel at the glorious beings who did these things.

PLANET Z

Every few months, I get blood drawn for some condition or another.
The more blood, the bigger the bruise.
Sometimes, there’s not much of a bruise, and it goes away quickly.
But as I get older, the bruises stay for a week or more.
One day, I know the bruises won’t go away.
The scars. The scores.
The coughing and wheezing.
Blurry vision, bad hearing.
Stumbling around. Falling.
Waking up in a hospital bed with more needles and tubes and wires and bags of fluid and beeping things.
The only thing I’ll get from it all is bills.
And bruises.

An Awareness

Every person’s existence is based on a cosmically infinite set of circumstances and the longest odds.
Mine is a bit more TL;DR than most.
And to be this age in spite of it?
When so many had the misfortune to succumb to their own greater burdens?
I should be more grateful than I am.
I should be more forgiving than I am.
You only get so much time.
And to accept that when all is said and done, pick up your bags and get on the train.
But there’s always time for one last kiss on the station platform.