The power is out and it’s getting dark soon.
I was reading a book by daylight, and at night, I’m reading it by candlelight.
It’s just light enough to write, though.
So I get out a notepad and I’m writing.
What will I write about?
Not having power? Heat? Light?
You should write about what you know, I guess.
I lay out the tealights in a row, and light them up.
Bright enough to read and write by.
I try to be careful with my bathrobe and blankets.
Because as much as I need heat, I don’t need a fire.
Author: R.
Weekly Challenge #834: FREE
LISA
Free
The hand painted sign outside said ‘Free Kittens’, an arrow pointed up towards a derelict looking house. Children passed by on their way to school and saw him standing upstairs, watching them through a broken pane. There were whispers and warnings in the town. Even if there really were kittens and everyone knew there weren’t, no one in their right mind would go in.
Except Lynn.
They found the body the next day hanging from a dressing gown belt. No one could know for sure if Lynn was anything to do with it. But no one mentioned seeing her visit.
LIZZIE
Bow and bow again. No end to the bowing. No end to not looking straight in his eyes. No soul. No tears. Just bow. Bow and scream inside, because you’re alive. You’re alive and he thinks you’re dead. He thinks you have lost your way. He thinks you are nobody. You belong to him. You’re dead. So, bow. Stretch your arms defiantly and bow, again and again until he understands. It’s no longer submission. It’s preparation. It’s knowing. It’s getting ready to jump and run. And when he finally figures it all out, yes… by then, you’ll be long gone.
RICHARD
Nothing
Nothing in life is free, apparently.
I decided to put it to the test.
I searched for ‘nothing’ on Amazon, but without success; so I tried Ebay, Etsy and those sites purporting to sell specialist items you can’t buy anywhere else.
But none of them had nothing on sale.
I took a trip to the nearest out of town shopping complex. In every store, they’d ask, “What are you looking for, Sir?”, “Nothing” I’d respond, and they’d walk away, shaking their heads.
I can’t confirm that nothing in life is free.
I can’t find any of the damn stuff!
SERENDIPIDY
I was feeling an urge to find inner peace and be at one with the universe, so I joined a new age retreat.
Free your mind’, they told me.
Easier said, than done.
But then I got the hang of it, and soon I could free my mind at will.
But I went too far.
My mind, once free, began to unravel and escape from the confines of my own consciousness. It grew in strength and power, reaching out to touch the minds of those around me.
And now, we’re all free.
A bunch of completely mindless, gibbering, happy idiots.
TOM
What Could Go Possibly Wrong 034
The Captain walked over to John. All eyes were transfixed on Red.
“Better set me free mate,” said the man with multiple pint glass lumps
on his head. “We will be playing nicely?” “I’ll bide my time.” The
Captain remove a dirk and cut the bounds. He rose slowly causing Ford to
swing toward the pair. John nodded wickedly. Ford just shook his head.
He and Arnesto made their way to the gangway. They had a good idea
Bender had some connection to John. Parker half way on the gangway saw
Captain and John on the move. Not good he thought.
NORVAL JOE
Saturday morning at 8:30, Billbert’s phone rang. He had thought he would have the chance to sleep in after the late night at the weather witch’s gathering. Through bleary eyes he checked caller ID. “Sabrina,” he groaned letting it go to voicemail.
A minute later, it rang again.
“Hello?” he croaked.
“Hi Billbert.” She sounded way too cheerful. “I can come by to make contact, if you’re free.”
He sighed. “I’m not free, but I am cheap.”
Sabrina sounded sufficiently confused. “What?”
“Sorry. It’s my dad’s joke. Can’t this wait until Monday at school?”
“No, silly. Daily means every day.”
PLANET Z
Sure, Lincoln freed the slaves, but did he?
Was Washington Jackson free?
He still worked on the plantation he worked on as a slave, but he was now leasing the land as a sharecropper.
He didn’t know how to read, so he couldn’t pass the test to vote.
Not that he could pay the tax.
If he went into town, he could be arrested as a vagrant and sent to a work camp to “work off his sentence.”
Where he could be whipped and even killed without consequence.
No, he wasn’t free.
And his son… and grandson wouldn’t be, either.
Transporter Accidents
Teleporters make the worst messes.
At the organic level, you can get organs out of place, vessels bursting.
At the genetic level, you can get mutants and monsters, if the person doesn’t die of cancer or some other disease.
At the molecular level, you can get a wave of organic sludge-water.
At the atomic level, you can get nuclear explosions.
Those are the worst, right?
So, my advice: keep the analysis array aligned, the power conduits monitored, the gaskets and seals firmly in place, and clear the pattern buffers after every transport.
Oh, and use a shuttle when you can.
Writer’s Block
Ted spent days banging away at his typewriter.
Ideas that had been in his mind for years were finally pouring out of him.
The writer’s block vanished, and there was no stopping him.
There was something about a typewriter than brought it out of him.
Years of using pen and paper or a word processor hadn’t produced anything, but now that he was using a typewriter, it was full steam ahead.
As he typed “THE END” he sat back, lit a cigarette, and laughed.
That’s when he realized… he hadn’t loaded any paper or ink ribbons into the damned thing.
Noise Generator
Some people leave a fan on to use as white noise to help them sleep.
Others use electronic noise generators.
Then there’s soothing soundscape streaming services that you can play on your phone.
Simulated rainstorms and thunderstorms to fall asleep to.
But recently, there’s been endless rainstorms all day long.
For days. And weeks.
And it’s hard to fall asleep to a storm when it’s always storming.
So, I ordered a noise generator that generates the sound of a sunny day.
I put it on the night stand, plugged it in, and turned it on.
And drifted off to sleep.
Camden is Missing
If you ask Siri for directions to Camden, she will ask you if you really want to go to Camden.
Go ahead. Say yes.
Siri will just ask you again.
And again.
Ask any device. You’ll get the same treatment.
Look it up in a map and you’ll find that section blank or filled with a forest or a lake or something.
Zoom in, and your system will crash.
Call technical support all you want.
They can’t help you. They won’t help you.
Do you hear strange slurping and bubbling sounds on the line.
That’s because they’re talking from Camden.
Ringtones
The first ringtone was a bell ringing.
Here and there, people made special devices to plug into the line to make different sounds, but pretty much everyone had a bell in their phone.
Then came wireless home phones and fancy novelty phones which beeped, chirped, and made other simple sounds.
So did the first cellular phones.
They evolved through simple MIDI sequences to brief low-fidelity recordings to sound clips, and eventually songs you could download and set to each of your contacts.
But never pick a song you love with all your heart.
Eventually, you’ll get sick of hearing it.
Subscriptions
I like to wear white New Balance 623 sneakers.
I use one pair to walk for exercise and one pair to wear for regular use.
When the regular use shoes lose their luster, I make those the exercise shoes and buy new regular use shoes.
And I throw out the old exercise shoes, because by then, the soles and padding are worn out.
I should get a subscription for Amazon for these shoes.
Every six months, new shoes.
There’s a knock on the door.
A kid selling newspaper subscriptions.
“Go away!” I shout. “Until you sell shoe subscriptions, not newspapers!”
Weekly Challenge #833: Mice Cream
LISA
A new business venture…
There were sixteen tubs of vanilla ice-cream melting on the kitchen worktop and there was no room to butter my toast.
“Can you check the traps again? I just need four more…” He shouted as he pulled another roasting tray from the oven.
I exhaled slowly, choosing my words really carefully. “Could we chat later? I really need to get to work and I’m not sure Mice Cream is the answer you hope it’ll be”
He replied dropping the roasted mice in the blender with ice cream “Pet food is big money.”
Our own cats were nowhere to be seen.
RICHARD
Mice cream
They said it would never work.
It didn’t matter that we’d scientific proof that pulverised mice, mixed with a specific quantity of other, ingredients – which for the time being, will remain a commercial secret – would produce a creamy, pink lotion, which when applied to the skin could significantly reduce the signs of aging.
The difficulty, of course, lay in the marketing. Nobody could bring themselves to try mice cream.
So, we went back to the drawing board, renamed it butyliceric-isomer amino-propylate, and tried again.
It sold like hot cakes, and we made a killing.
It tastes great in sandwiches too!
LIZZIE
“Mice? No, no. Forget about that.”
The man stood at the entrance. He hesitated. The smell was obnoxious but the hunger… oh, the hunger.
“With carrots. A carrot creamy soup. Much better than with mice.”
Someone murmured in agreement.
He ventured inside. Two men were skinning mice. It was disgusting.
“Add some spices. Oh, yes? Are you hungry, my friend?”
He didn’t know anymore.
“Have some soup.” The man smiled.
His stomach growled, so he did. It was not that bad.
In the bowl, he found a large chunk of bone.
“Mice?”
The men looked at each other and sneered.
SERENDIPIDY
Hickory dickory dock, those mice are driving me mad, around the clock.
The whole house is infested with the vermin, and nothing I’ve tried so far is doing the trick.
They avoid the traps, seem to be completely immune to poison, and they’ve driven the cat away.
So, now it’s just me and the mice.
Well, not strictly just me. There’s also an opened bottle of Jack Daniels at my side, next to which lies my favourite semi-automatic pistol.
I swallow a mouthful of Jack, before taking aim, quietly muttering, as I pull the trigger:
“Hickory, dickory… Glock!”
Mice cream!
TOM
What Could Go Possibly Wrong 032
From the weathered landing Bender gave Ford a knowing look. Ford maintained steely contact with the raven-haired man. There was no varnishing over the fact the only explanation for his presence was at the pleasure of her royal personage. “Preventative Maintenance,” whispered Arnesto,” let it go brother.” He’d let it go years ago take the path of the scholar. All the same when you are staring into the eye for reason for that course change, it doesn’t blunt the blow. “Say it Fort,” prompted Cervantes. Ford drew breath and raise his voice in respected.” Salutations to the 2nd Time lord. “
What Could Go Possibly Wrong 033
When Molly had made her way into the hack of the ship, she saw the strangest emblem on the surface of the inner hull. A gray rodent lapping at a bowl of what appeared to be snow white diary. “Mice Cream,” she laughed. As always, your humble narrator is at your ready to fill in the fine points of the author internal thought process. Mice is M I C E Masters In the Court of Elizabeth. You may ask who and what, but I would council let the pose led you to that knowledge. But, maybe a hint, not good.
TURA
Contact; Explanation
———
From the Laboratory Manager:
I’ve found some very old bottles containing transgenic ichneumon larvae and preserved monstrous embryos of unrecorded provenance in the cleaners’ cupboard on floor 15 of the West Tower. I believe most of this belonged to Amelia Brackett, who left us twenty years ago. It’s almost certainly beyond use and unrelatable to any extant project. There are other names on some items— let me know if you think the materials might be yours.
I will destroy this material according to standard practice unless the owner contacts me immediately. The Aurors may assist in obtaining a full explanation.
———
Mice cream
———
There are always mice in here. Me, I’d just shut the place down for a couple of days and get fumigators in. But no, the owners can’t bear killing the poor wee things, although they don’t seem to have a problem operating a dairy processing plant. Anyway, my job’s to put out humane traps, and release the mice into a field. I can’t be arsed with that. I brought in an industrial blender, and just to spite them, how d’you think I get rid of the liquidised mice? People rave about the meaty flavour of our butter and double cream.
NORVAL JOE
Sabrina held Billbert’s hand as they continued through the forest. The night was so silent that when Billbert’s stomach growled Sabrina heard it and commented, “Oh. I’m sorry. We left before you could have some of the refreshments. We could stop and get something on the way home.”
Billbert considered. “We could stop at Baskin Robins and get some ice cream.”
“Mice cream?” Sabrina asked.
Billbert laughed and asked, “They do?”
Sabrina blinked, “Do what?”
“Scream.”
“Who?”
“The mice.”
“What mice?”
Billbert could see that any humor from his original joke was long lost, so he gave up. “Never mind.”
PLANET Z
Up on the Olympic Peninsula, where lavender farms grow and the locals hold an annual lavender festival, I remember there being an ice cream stand with all kinds of flavors of ice cream.
Lavender ice cream was popular, for certain, but they had all kinds of unusual homegrown flavors.
There were a lot of marijuana grow farms out there, so marijuana-infused ice cream was also popular.
The employees were always mixing up the marijuana-infused flavors and the regular flavors.
Once, a mouse fell into the mixer.
It was a marijuana-infused variety.
“It’s a little crunchy,” said the perpetually-stoned store owner.
The Fred Cup
Fred and his dad didn’t have much in common except for soccer.
When Fred was a kid, his dad was his coach.
His dad stopped coaching when the league needed referees.
After a few years, Fred joined his dad as a referee, and they officiated a few games together.
Fred went on to college, and played on some teams for fun, but nothing serious.
They’d go to games together when he’d visit, and then they’d watch the World Cup at the rest home.
When Fred’s dad died, Fred has his ashes stuffed into a soccer ball.
It didn’t bounce well.