I woke up in agony.
My first two kidney stones ever. From my right kidney.
They say this is the closest a man can come to experiencing the pain of childbirth.
Except, instead of a 6 to 7 pound baby, it’s 4 millimeter-wide crystals.
I’ll call them AAAAAARGH! and Steve.
My whole life must change.
No more coffee, no more caffeine, no more sodas.
Count my sodium, milligram by milligram.
And lots and lots of water.
So much water.
If I ever need to donate a kidney, for the love of God, take the right one, not the left, okay?
Author: R.
The Bombs
The first explosion bloodies the legs of everyone at the sidewalk cafe.
A bomb filled with screws and nails, covered in rat poison to keep the wounds bleeding.
Smoke and screams, cries for help.
Bind them with napkins and tablecloths until help arrives.
That’s when the second explosion happens.
They meant for it to kill medics and police and the doctors who rushed to help.
Afterwards, the men in bright reflective vests, gathering shredded limbs and bone and fingers, toes in a baby’s shoe, where is the other one, bagging them up, sending them off.
So nobody is buried unwhole.
Good movies coming
A lot of good movies are coming to the theater, but at my age, it’s a challenge to make it through an entire movie without needing to go to the bathroom.
Now that I’m on Flomax, it’s even more of a challenge. Just one sip of water or lemonade, and I’m rushing for the toilet.
So, I look at adult diapers. And catheters. And even stranger devices.
Maybe I should just not drink as much before the movie starts?
Nah. I’ll just wait to buy it online on Amazon and watch it at home.
And then for free on Prime.
It’s hard to write when
It’s hard to write stories when you’re doubled over in pain and clutching your gut and back.
You can’t see the screen or reach the keys.
Pen and paper doesn’t work when you’re curled up in a tub of water, crying and waiting for the pills to kick in.
Even voice to text software won’t recognize the words through clenched teeth.
Why why why is this happening?
Why why why is this happening to me?
Make it stop!
Then, the cool wave comes.
Pain floats away.
You can breathe. You can think.
But for how long before the pain returns?
Weekly Challenge #689 – PICK TWO reason, discretion, zone, stunt, simple, deadwood, Tuba
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Tura
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
RICHARD
Deadwood
As I rode into Deadwood, there was a palpable change in the atmosphere. People discreetly disappeared into the shadows, mothers hustled their kids indoors, curtains twitching behind hastily slammed windows.
They knew who I was and they knew my business… And they wanted no part of what would shortly unfold, plain and simple.
I secured my horse, and stepped into the bar.
The room fell silent. Every face turned to look at me.
I reached for my side and drew… A bunch of tracts from my pocket.
“Do any of you good folks know Jesus as your Saviour?” I asked.
LIZZIE
The reason why I’ve decided to leave was quite simple. I was tired of everything and everyone. I was especially tired of him. Yes, that guy who worked at the cafeteria. He didn’t do anything to be honest. He never said anything either. He was just there, staring at me all the time. When I found him standing across the street from my door, I packed and left. Now, I live by the sea. It’s beautiful. It’s actually more than I could’ve wished for. The guy next door… He stands at his window and stares at me all the time.
TOM
It beat to panning for gold
He play tuba in the Deadwood Civic Opera. In year three the city was the first electrified urban center in the country. Han’s had no trouble reading the sheet music in front of him. The lighting in the pit was excellent. Superior to the Munich Opera house. The pay was good, but he wasn’t about to quit his day job. In fact a year later he had found a vein that allowed him to purchase the Opera house. Play tuba up on till the panic of 1895. Die the next year of the flu. On windy nights you can hear …
SERENDIPITY
They say discretion is the better part of valour, which has never made any sense to me.
For me, discretion is definitely the better part of not getting caught, and trust me, there’s no valour in being found out for your crimes.
There are those however for whom notoriety is very appealing; which never sits well with being discrete. The public must know your exploits without working out your identity.
It’s a dilemma that often leads to failure… Let’s consider another proverb: Pride comes before a fall.
I’ve decided to take the middle ground – taking pride, in being discrete!
TURA
I play at the back of the band with my tuba
I keep the bass steady and strong
But one day I got tired of the old oompah oompah
Can you say that what I did was wrong?
I began with a high carefree descant
My fingers were nimble and fast
I then ventured ten variations upon it
But the rest of the band looked aghast.
I thought my stunt solo was splendid
But the leader just wanted me gone
So my place at the back of the brass band was ended
Now in private I toot my own horn.
NORVAL JOE
After school Billbert walked to the bus zone in a daze.
The prettiest girl he had ever met said she wanted to meet him at the school dance. Too twitterpated to use reason and realize this was probably a stunt devised by a cold-hearted snob to make the new boy look simple and stupid, he smiled blandly as Tony “The Tuba” Scarpanelli stepped into his line of travel.
He shoved a finger into Billbert’s chest. “I hear you think you’re going to the dance with my girlfriend.”
Discretion also evaded Billbert. He said, “No. I’m going to meet Marrissa there.”
PLANET Z
The late comedian Bob Einstein was best known as Super Dave Osbourne.
He would perform dangerous absurd stunts and get horribly injured when they went wrong.
His last and greatest stunt was playing the tuba while marching through a minefield.
During his test run, he managed to go from one end of the minefield to the other without setting off a mine.
But the reason was that it was winter, and the fuses has frozen solid.
Three months later, when it was time to film the stunt, the fuses had thawed.
The production company forfeited the deposit on the tuba.
Open the door
They open the doors and call out a name that isn’t mine.
They open the doors and call out another name that isn’t mine.
Over and over, they open the doors and call out names that aren’t mine.
Why won’t they call my name?
Why won’t they help me?
Why are they letting me suffer in pain?
Why are they making me suffer in pain?
They open the doors and call out a name that isn’t mine.
The pain is too much to take.
I can’t even remember my name.
The door opens, and I scream until I pass out.
Smartwatch
I bought a smartwatch.
It looks really cool.
Sure, it’s clunky and heavy on my wrist, and I have to charge it every night, but it looks cool.
The metal band gets caught in my arm hair, and it rips out hairs all day long.
Still, it looks cool.
It quietly displays alerts for new email and appointments and meetings.
Too bad that I forget to mute my smartphone, which blares out all sorts of beeps and ringtones at the worst times.
So, sure, it looks really cool.
Sitting there on its charger.
No way I’m putting it on again.
Better
Turn on your pad.
Put in your buds.
Surf, read, listen.
You can do it all.
Everything’s online.
Information, books, music.
It’s all there.
If it’s not online, it doesn’t exist.
Newspapers? Gone.
Libraries? Gone.
Records? Tapes? CDs? Gone.
Money, too. That’s all online.
Everything’s online.
You know the rules:
If it’s on paper, it’s bad.
Put it online.
Makes it so much easier to manage.
For you, and us.
We can make the news better for you.
We can make the music better for you.
We can make everything better for you.
We can make you better for us.
The last time
I can’t remember the last time it snowed.
Oh, it gets cold here.
And it rains.
But it never snows.
“Why doesn’t it snow here?” I asked my mother.
But she doesn’t know why.
“Ask your father,” she says.
He didn’t know either.
My teachers didn’t know.
Father William didn’t know.
Nobody knows.
So, I walked North.
For miles and miles.
I thought I’d walk until I reached the North Pole.
But I got tired.
So, I called home.
My parents picked me up.
Drove me home.
Put me to bed.
And when I fell asleep.
I dreamed of snow.
Nightmare bell
There are two locks on our front door.
One is a normal lock, and the other is a deadbolt.
You can’t disengage the deadbolt from outside, so I’m not supposed to lock it when I get home from work.
Otherwise, Gina can’t get in when she gets home.
We have a note by the deadbolt… DO NOT LOCK THIS.
But sometimes, I forget. And Gina gets locked out.
She rings the doorbell over and over again.
Until I wake up and unlock the door.
I should do that more often, because it’s actually useful for interrupting whatever nightmare I’m having.