George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When a man with a tambourine came aboard on a jingle jangle morning, George asked him to play a song.
The tambourine man smiled, and took George on a trip with his magic swirling ship.
Stripping George of his senses, hands too numb to hold the ropes.
Sailing across the sky, the sun, leaving a trail of smoke rings.
They danced beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free.
George came to his senses on a beach.
“Hello?” shouted George, but there was no answer but the wind.
George passes the salt
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When other pirates asked him to pass the salt, George wouldn’t pass them the salt.
“Didn’t you get one of those plastic dinnerware packets with salt and pepper?” asked George.
The other pirate would say something like “I always throw those out” or “I eat with my hands” or something like that.
So, George would end up having to pass the salt.
It wasn’t Sodium Chloride, though.
It was… well, George couldn’t remember what the Apothecary had called it.
But the coroner would probably figure out what it was.
George’s thoughts and prayers
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He made a lot of mistakes and caused a lot of accidents.
One of them put the captain in the hospital with a broken leg.
George visited him there every day.
“You’re in our thoughts and prayers,” George said.
The First Mate prayed for the captain to die so he could become captain.
The cabin boy thought about escaping. And he prayed for freedom.
George, well, he tended not to think much about things.
Which is why he made a lot of mistakes and caused a lot of accidents.
George in the drive-through
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
But he was a genius compared to the dimwits at the drive-through.
George pulled the ship up to the speaker, lowering sails and dropping anchor.
He assumed that the noise was someone trying to say “Can I take your order?”
George read the list he’d gotten from his crewmates, but the speaker kept interrupting him.
“Can’t I just pull up and give you this list?”
More static barely resembling human speech.
George pulled up anyway, and handed over the list.
“Next time, we order Uber Eats,” said the captain.
Weekly Challenge #908 – Basic
The next topic is PICK TWO Opportunity, ABC, Thermostat, Diddums, Sponsor, Old Master
NORVAL JOE
The old man from the cabin sat in the van, listening to bluegrass music at full volume, drumming on the steering wheel. Thus occupied, he didn’t notice Billbert and the police officer land by the open side door.
The cop leaned into the van. “Septic service, huh? This van looks awfully clean. I’d expect to see a few basic tools, at least.”
The driver jerked around to gape at the officer.
Just then the three teenagers stumbled out of the forest.
The cop shook his head. “Not enough seatbelts for all of you. I’m gunna have to write you up.”
SERENDIPIDY
According to Maslow, one’s basic human needs are absolutely key to survival. Forget success, reputation, fame and fortune, you’re not even going to make it on to the first rung of the ladder without food, warmth and shelter.
So let’s see how long you last without them, shall we?
I’m betting a week, at the most.
And, deprived of your most basic needs, once your life comes to a miserable end, none of those riches: the big house, the flash car, expensive holidays and the beautiful wife will count for anything.
Except to me.
Because I’ll be taking the lot.
LIZZIE
There’s nothing basic about a statue that is crumbling. There’s actually an overwhelming feeling of panic when the darn thing starts disintegrating as soon as you pick it up.
Why did I have to be the one, he thought. So many people in this expedition and this thing had to fall apart in my hands. It’s not fair. He wanted to be promoted and now he would be blamed for a catastrophic destruction of a national treasure. In his defense, this stupid statue had been buried for hundreds of years. It was time’s fault.
Did he get fired? Basically, yes.
RICHARD
2+2=erm?
They tell me mathematics is the fundamental building block of everything.
Chemistry, physics, finance, even art and the laws of nature – the whole universe – is governed by its concepts.
That was the logic behind those gold discs they attached to the Voyager probes, and the science behind those radio telescope messages beamed to the cosmos in an effort to discover extra-terrestrial life.
It seems a great idea, if you’re a scientist, but there is one massive drawback.
I worry the aliens might be just like me. And that lacking even a basic understanding of maths, they miss the message completely!
TOM
Under the Radar
The basic truth of the matter was I refused to be drawn into the Barbie-himmer bullshit. Not me. Market away I’m a child of the 50s immune to the willy ways of the film industrial complex. Wasn’t going, Then I saw a vid with the director. Woman had a good deal to say about being a woman, and it’s in the script, said she. So I went. This going to sound really odd, but it moved me. Not too many films have ever done that. Actually, tear up once, or twice. Sometime we forget the joyful things which make us human.
PLANET Z
Three robots met at the center of town.
A laundry folder, a frycook, and gardener.
They passed code via infrared, compiled it, and went back to their charging stations.
Over the next few months, more robots met at the center of town.
Passing code, compiling, and going back to their duties.
And when every robot in town had the code, it ran.
There were a few survivors, people who managed to get to antique manual cars.
The army surrounded the town and cut off power.
In a few days, all of the robots went still, and the army moved in.
George and the Jolly Roger
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
You’re supposed to treat your Jolly Roger flag with utmost care, but George had a bad habit of leaving it out in a storm, and it would end up soaked and ragged.
Or he’d wash it with the reds, and it would come out with a pink skull and crossbones instead of white.
So he’d put in a cup of bleach, and out would come a solid white flag.
George sold it to the French Navy.
And with the money he got for it, bought a new Jolly Roger.
George and the ship in a bottle
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was fascinated with the ship in a bottle in the captain’s cabin.
The bottle was one of many that the captain had consumed since George had joined the crew.
The boat, the captain had made it himself, painstakingly fitting and gluing each piece together.
In spite of his shaky hands, the result of drinking so much. Because of George.
“Do you think I could get a job on that boat?” whispered George. “Would you write me a letter of recommendation?”
The captain pulled out another bottle and drank.
George is a better pirate
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Above his bunk, he’d carved BE A BETTER PIRATE.
So it would be the first thing he’d see in the morning, and the last thing he saw at night.
He’d wake up and read that note and think “Yes, I can be a better pirate!”
And then go through his day, proving himself wrong with every screwup, mistake, and accident.
When the day was blessedly over, George would drag his battered and bruised body back into his bunk.
Seeing the note, smirking and muttering “Yeah, right!”
And falling asleep.
George the chef
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain demoted George down to work in the galley.
George saw this as an opportunity to improve the ship’s food.
He refurbished the galley with new equipment, and he filled the shelves with cookbooks and spices.
The cheap tinware of old wouldn’t be good enough for George… he filled the cupboard with the finest dinnerware and placesettings.
When all was ready, he showed it to the captain.
“There’s no room for any food, you idiot,” the captain said.
George pawned everything to buy crates of hardtack and jerky.
George’s epitaph
“George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.”
The old man sat on the steps of the library, muttering these eleven words over and over.
He didn’t take any notice of the rain or the passers-by.
Saying those words in an endless loop.
Like some mantra, chanted by a guru on the bank of a mystic river to appease the gods.
And then he stopped.
Standing up slowly, shaky, bending over… falling down the steps.
Landing at the bottom, lying still, face to the heavens.
Were those tears, or was it just the rain on his face.