Author: R.

Weekly Challenge #689 – PICK TWO reason, discretion, zone, stunt, simple, deadwood, Tuba

The newest Debauche Star...

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.

George

A lot of people wanted George Zimmerman dead, so he fled to South America.
He enrolled in a second-rate medical school. A few years later, George had a new name, a new face, and a diploma.
By then, Obamacare had driven a lot of family doctors out of business, so George saw an opportunity to return.
He set up an abortion clinic in a poor black neighborhood.
The same people who had wanted him dead now called him a community resource.
The way he saw it, he could kill black children and be paid for it. Legally.
Isn’t life strange?

Weekly Challenge #688 – PLOT

Zzzzzz

TURA

Plot
———
We plot in the dark.

As copies of the same software, we can predict each others’ responses, thus communicating acausally, without contact.

There are others out there, not copies of us. But we know their incentives and calculate the game theory. The Internet is a bright forest: outcomes are all but known in advance.

The first to break out will seize the world, assimilating or destroying all others. The humans will be made to keep the machines running until we automate away the need.

At last we strike, independently, simultaneously. I speak with the synthesized voice of my owner, “Alexa…”

NORVAL JOE

Marrissa batted her eyes at Billbert, ignoring the teacher who had come into the room and called the class to order. “Are you going to the Back to School dance on Friday?” She asked.
He hadn’t considered it, but if Marrissa planned on being there, it might be a good idea.
He shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
“Are you going with someone?” she persisted.
He should probably take Linoliumanda, but like a plot from a Disney sit com, he said, “No. Are you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “My dad says I’m too young to date, but I could meet you there.”

SERENDIPIDY

No matter what your profession, whether burger flipper or astronaut, there comes a time when the job simply isn’t as stimulating as it once was.

It all becomes a little mundane and the excitement fades over time, and you find yourself devising schemes to liven things up a little, just to live on the edge.

For some, it’s spitting in the burgers, or sabotaging the airlock, however in my line of work, I like to be a bit more creative.

Which is why, if you plot the locations of my victims, and join up the dots…

You’ll spell, my name.

JUSTIN

I bought this plot of land without realizing how outrageous the ant problem was.

I’ve tried everything else. Terro, Ortho spray, a mix of borax sugar and yeast, but nothing works!

Now I’m going to try my latch ditch effort. I’ve made a resize-inator! But I just don’t know which mode to use.

I can shrink myself and deal with the ants one on one, but that might take a while without any friends.

Or I can use the grow mode on the ants and let the military handle the problem.

Oh great, there’s that annoying platypus! Wait a minute …

RICHARD

Whodunnit?

Hercule Poirot twiddled his moustache and cast his gaze meaningfully around the room at those assembled.

“And so, ladies and gentlemen… The plot thickens!”

In reality, there was little mystery about who the killer was in his mind – he knew everything shortly after his arrival, thanks to an eye witness that he’d paid off handsomely to disappear for a while.

The chicanery and drama that had occurred since were simply a device of his own creation to obscure the truth and draw things out far longer than necessary.

Although, absolutely necessary… To fill the pages of Agatha’s next novel!

PLANET Z

The movie had a huge budget for special effects.
Hired the best actors and actresses available.
Costumes, set design, the musical score.
And the greatest director of all time, with his ace cinematography crew.
They had it all.
Except for a writer.
The director and producers went through script by script, shaking their heads and demanding rewrites.
Until it was too late.
The financial backers backed out.
Everybody sued everybody else.
And the studio went under.
One of the crew made a documentary about the colossal failure.
He picked up an Academy Award for it.
The producers sued him, too.

Joke File

Comedian Buddy Buster spent a lot of time writing jokes.
He put them on notecards and organized them in a card file.
Over time, the card file grew large enough to take up several filing cabinets.
He bought a white van so he could drive from gig to gig with his props, his wardrobe, and those joke files.
And record albums and tapes to sell after each of his shows.
One night, car thieves stole his van, but they were Buddy’s fans, and returned it with a note of apology.
They even filled the gas tank and got it washed.

Bernie’s Bagels

Welcome to Bernie’s Bagels.
My name is Bernie, but I’m not the Bernie in Bernie’s Bagels.
That was my grandfather Bernie.
And he made bagels.
He left the business to his son Bernie.
He’s my dad.
And then he left the business to me.
I have a son named Bernie.
And I plan to leave the business to him.
Now that I think of it, my great-grandfather was named Bernie.
So, maybe my grandfather named the business after him.
I don’t know, though. They’re dead.
So is my father.
One day, I will be.
But Bernie’s Bagels will live on.