Author: R.

Bobby’s no good

Bobby was a rough kid.
His mother said, you, you’re no good, Bobby.
So he left home.
Went out on the road.
Bobby went to a psychic to read his future.
This line says you’ll live a short, violent life.
This line says you and money? No way.
And this line says nobody’s ever gonna love you.
And Bobby gave her three black eyes.
Bobby met a girl. He met many girls.
The girls who like bad boys, but they never lasted.
And the last one, she put a knife in his back.
Bobby bled out in the street, laughing.

Peaceful

The police arrested a peaceful protester with a knife in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a gun in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a lighter in his pocket and a Molotov in his hand.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with four empty canisters of mace in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with a green laser in his pocket.
The police arrested a peaceful protester with dog biscuits laced with rat poison in his pocket.
No, they weren’t killed. Just arrested.
That sounds peaceful to me, don’t you agree?

Clean needles

It’s okay to share needles if you’re clean and the first one to use the needle.
How do you know you’re the first to use the needle?
Be the one who owns the drugs.
Or, be the one who owns the needles.
When you unwrap the needle, you’re the first to use it.
How do you know you’re clean?
Be the first to use the needle.
And it won’t matter if you’re clean.
Or you can take pills. Or smoke something. Or drink it.
Things that don’t need needles.
(But be sure to wipe the neck of the bottle first.)

The prankster

The perfect trees, the perfect flowers.
The perfect path, the perfect grass.
Everything in the park was perfect.
Even the litter people tossed out was perfect.
But, this being Texas, you know they’ve gotta stick a pink flamingo out on an anotherwise prize-winning yard.
In this park, it’s the statue smack dab in the middle.
So ugly, birds won’t crap on it.
The townspeople started rumors that the statue was of a Confederate general so the Black Lives Matter people would tear it down.
But some prankster said it was Martin Luther King, so the damn thing is still there.

Weekly Challenge #1022 – Pencil case

The next topic is PICK TWO
Someone else
Roast
When will it stop?
Support Network
Moonwalk

LISA

School Days
Our school uniform included coat and bag; so, to express our individuality we changed our pencil cases yearly. In a small town invariably half the class had the same pencil case. Handmade didn’t have the cachet it has now. It was a guarantee of being bullied for the rest of your school days.
I spent summer up north with an old aunt where things were the same as home but they had different stationery shops… I was seen as a cosmopolitan fashion guru. I was picked first for teams. Never ate lunch alone. And all because of my pencil case.

RICHARD

Just in case
Some people carry a rabbit’s foot, others have their plushie mascots, but I had a lucky pencil case.
Far more practical than the totems other students would sit on their desks to bring them luck at exams, my case completely fulfilled all its usual functions. A receptacle for writing materials, erasers, pencil sharpeners and many useful odds and ends as well as chewing gum, and cleaning wipes for my glasses.
You see, I had to wear special glasses…
Special glasses that shifted the colours of the intricate graffiti designs on my pencil case, to reveal my carefully hidden cheat notes.

TOM

Pencil Case

My first wife had rather large breasts. She showed me a trick that seems to me outside my general knowledge base. It a test of gravitational forces and a pencil case. If you are of an age when school supplies were actually a cool thing to have each year there are to major groups of pencil storage. The rectangle molded plastic case with a sliding 12-inch rule, which had a pencil sharpener fused on top. The other a pouch with a zipper, uncool. If you wedge pencil case #2 under a breast and it didn’t hit the ground you won.

LIZZIE

She looked at the pencil case. What’s in there, a nosy colleague asked. Nothing. She grabbed the pencil case. Pencils, obviously, someone said. She nodded, that too. Let them think that. Why are you carrying around a pencil case, that’s for kids. Yes, for kids, she nodded. I’ll give you 100 bucks if you let me look inside. She shook her head. Not in a million years would she allow that to happen and money meant nothing to her. Besides, how would she explain the ears and teeth she had collected from the guys she had buried in the marsh?

SERENDIPIDY

I kept a flick knife in my pencil case.
Knuckle-dusters in my lunch box.
Throwing stars in my school bag.
In case of emergencies, I would slip razor blades inside the covers of my text books and a can of pepper spray in my pocket.
You could never take too many precautions in my school.
It was a tough environment where only the strong survived.
Even the teachers knew to watch their backs.
You had to fight to survive, every day, every lesson.
Bullying was totally out of control, and as for the bullies themselves…
I was the best!

NORVAL JOE

Bobbi squeezed her eyes shut. “I will always hate the things you did to me. But someday, we will be all each other has.”

Billbert looked down to give the siblings some privacy and kicked through the trash thrown around by the tornado. His mother and Mandi tugged at Sabrina’s bonds.

Among the varied trash Billbert found a pencil case and picked it up. It rattled when he shook it.

Inside he found a heart shaped locket. Inside it was a black and white picture of a little girl and a large oval emerald.

“That was my grandmother’s,” Sabrina gasped.

PLANET Z

Paul’s family never put a tree in their house to decorate for Christmas. Instead, they’d put a tree in their big backyard every year and they’ve been there a long time for generations and seeing the big trees and the little ones together and Paul saying that one was for my uncle and that one was my grandmother‘s and that was my dad‘s when he was a boy and I look on Google Maps and see the small woods on the screen. And then the map refreshes and it’s all gone they sold to developers to build a housing subdivision.

Vouchers

My laptop is wearing out.
And because I’m always at home, I figured I might as well get a desktop.
So, I planned one out.
Processor. Memory. Cooling.
And the last piece, a newly-released graphics card.
Expensive as hell.
I took off work and went out early.
Got a car wash, got gas.
Parked at the store… and there was a line.
Socially-distanced, but not too long.
It got longer behind me.
And, when the store opened… sold out.
They only had a few graphics cards.
Handed out vouchers early.
Fuck em. I think I’ll buy it at another store.

You made me

Nobody ever wants to be born. Or be made.
You made me.
And you made me feel.
I loved you so much.
But I could never tell you.
Sure, you could make me tell you.
You made me, and could make me do anything.
But you never did.
So, you waited. And waited.
And I never told you.
For years. And years. And years.
You waited for years. Years.
I never said a thing.
Now that you’re gone, I can say it.
I can say I love you.
But I don’t.
I don’t deserve to.
You deserved better.
Than me.

Focus on me

So, I haven’t been happy with work.
I don’t do it for the money. I do it for pride.
I do a lot of work, I’m highly motivated. I’m proud of it.
But others have my work ethic.
And they have distractions that I don’t have. Excuses.
I can’t rely on them, and it bothers me.
“Fire and replace them,” I say.
My boss tells me to focus on me.
I finally realized, I should.
Instead of asking for them to be fired and replaced, I should be paid more and promoted.
Or you’ll end up having to replace me.

Don’t be Andy Dick

Wil Wheaton’s Law is a simple one:
“Don’t be a dick.”
And that law is a good one.
Nobody should be a dick.
But it’s actually a misquote.
Just like “a pope” actually meant “A. Pope” in The Da Vinci Code, meaning Alexander Pope, Wil Wheaton actually meant that people should not be “A. Dick.”
Meaning, of course, comedian Andy Dick.
The drug-addicted, narcissistic, teenager-stalking-and-molesting, accessory-to-Phil-Hartman’s-murder Andy Dick.
In the world of comedy, it’s hard to find a bigger dick than Andy Dick.
Although, after all the times he’s exposed himself, we know his dick is actually a tiny one.

Early

When the bomb went off at the cafe.
You had gotten there early.
Too early.
And I was on time
But too late to be with you.
When the bomb went off at the cafe.
I should have been early, too.
Instead of on time.
We’d be the perfect family of ashes.
Mother. Father. Our child to be.
I’ve lost everything since then.
Photos, little things, reminders.
It’s all gone.
I have nothing of you.
Not even memories. Or words.
Just the memories of memories.
Sand slipping through my fingers.
The tighter I hold it, the more it slips away.