My grandfather loaded up the boat with our fishing gear, and we went out on the lake.
“The lights in the sky are real,” he said.
“They’re stars,” I said. “They’re planes. They’re helicopters.”
“No,” he said. “The other ones.”
And he’d offer his flask, and I’d just drink my coffee.
And we never caught any fish.
Years later, I took the boat out on the lake.
I had his flask with me, and drank a toast to him.
Up in the sky, I saw the lights.
They weren’t stars. Or planes. Or helicopters.
And they got brighter. And brighter.
Author: R.
A liberation of sorts
The bloody body of the dictator was shown on television.
“Liberation!” said the headlines. “Everyone rejoice!”
People wanting to see the body went to the palace and joined a queue, and then were ushered into waiting rooms.
After a few minutes, they walked into a viewing room, where they saw a bloody corpse.
Some spat in his face. Others dropped their pants and pissed on him.
But there were a few than bowed.
They were taken off to another room.
Where they met the very-much-alive dictator.
He thanked them, handed them guns, and sent them after his less respectful visitors.
The dream weaver
Got bad dreams?
Hire a dream weaver.
Dream weavers come to your house with a case of tricks.
Candles, chimes, and aromas in jars.
Pills of strange colors and various sizes.
“No, that’s not a pill,” says the dream weaver.
Meticulously curated music playlists to lull you to sleep.
Some will massage you, touch you all over, rub you with oils and other substances.
And then… you fall asleep… and you’re awake again.
The bad dreams are gone. But you didn’t dream at all.
Doesn’t matter. That wasn’t the deal.
Oh, and cash, please. And nothing bigger than a twenty.
Torches and pitchforks
A crowd gathered in the town square.
Some had torches.
Others had pitchforks.
Bob had a pitchfork on fire.
The others mocked Bob.
“They ran out of torches, and I really wanted a torch,” Bob told his wife after the gathering.
“Someone with a torch could have traded with you,” his wife said. “Besides, we have torches in the closet.”
“You said those were the good torches for company,” said Bob.
Bob and his wife had soup for dinner.
Then went to bed.
Bob dreamed of a gathering in the town square.
He had a torch.
And he was happy.
Fireball pitcher
Smithy was a fireball pitcher.
After ten seasons without a World Series ring, the eleventh was the same futility.
He demanded a trade to another team hot in the race for one.
Come November, he flashed that ring around his new city like there’s no tomorrow.
So much so, he blew out his elbow.
When it was time for the Hall of Fame, he wanted his plaque to show the new team’s logo.
He only wore it for three months.
The old team convinced him otherwise, with videotape of him and some of his young fans in the locker room.
The mad wooden boy
After escaping the whale’s belly, Pinocchio and Gepetto fell off of their raft and washed ashore on a small island.
There were plenty of trees and vines to lash together into a raft, but they had no tools.
Instead, Gepetto used vines to tie down Pinocchio.
Then he demanded that Pinocchio tell lies, and Gepetto used a pair of rocks to snap off the end of his nose, over and over again.
The pain was excruciating, and it drove the puppet boy mad.
When he had enough wood, Gepetto lashed together a raft.
But Pinocchio stabbed him with a stake.
Weekly Challenge #943 – All our tomorrows
The next topic is PICK TWO Express, In my hand, Expected, Cut and dried, Desiccation, Blocker
LISA
All Our Tomorrows
I’m not sure if it was the heat from the fire, or fumes, or if I was just overwhelmed by being out of the basement but I felt really light headed.
In his explanation he kept repeating that he’d chosen us and the importance of ‘all our tomorrows’. That particular phrase was repeated over and over again.
Later, he led us up a very grand staircase. We had a bedroom each. Mine had a massive double bed and a sofa in it. The weirdness wasn’t the opulence though; it was being separated from the others after being so very close.
LIZZIE
We gathered by the fire. Questions and more questions. One wanted this, the other that. And we all shared our fears and our hopes. There was laughing, crying, and yelling too. Not many believed we would make it out there. We all shook our head. We all chuckled. We knew. They didn’t. We would make it! When the nurse came with the pills for the evening, we all agreed not to take them. The nurse said, take the pills, come on. And… I stood there alone. The others ran and hid in the darkest corners of my mind. The cowards.
RICHARD
Undated
We spent an absolute fortune on the new computerised diary system. The programme basically runs the whole business. We’re totally reliant on it, which – if you ask me – is never a good thing.
Every meeting, appointment and booking, past present and future are managed by the system. All our tomorrows, yesterdays and todays: categorised, organised and optimised, and all supervised by the system to ensure maximum effective use of time and resources.
Neat, huh?
Until the system goes down.
Like it did today. And the engineer can’t come until Wednesday.
So, at least for the time being, tomorrow is cancelled.
SERENDIPIDY
The photo album tells the whole story.
Every page, full of special moments; memories of times past, the family happy together, smiling and loving life.
Every page, that is, right up until the day our lives crossed with his. And then, everything changed, forever.
After that, just blank pages.
No more photographs, no more happy smiles, no more family. All our tomorrows, wiped out in an instant.
My family, destroyed. And, myself, the only survivor.
And him? He’s doing just fine.
Or, so he thinks.
Because I’m on a mission to get even.
So, let’s see what tomorrow will bring.
NORVAL JOE
Like a plot twist in the telenovela, Todos Nuestros Mañanas, as Billbert touched Sabrina’s hand, her eyes flashed open and she tried to sit up. She shouted in pain and the monitors flashed and beeped.
Lightning struck a tree outside the window and thunder rattled the room.
The nurse rushed in. “I’m sorry, Billbert. You’ll have to leave.”
Sabrina clutched Billbert’s hand, gasping, “No. He has to stay.”
The nurse scowled and reset the monitors. Sabrina’s heart rate and respirations had begun to normalize.
“I can’t explain why,” Billbert said. “But I need to stay, for a while at least.”
TOM
When you get to the fork in the road
Sister Fran was a devotee of the ancient sage Yogi of Berra. His collective works were some of few written records from the past that survived. Fran spent hours in deep contemplation on each of the holy koans. She read the gold leaf script with head bowed. The future ain’t what it uses to be. A soft wind blew through the arched window of the monastery. As the western sun melted in the forest she lifted her head. With silver ink Fran wrote the following: All our tomorrows were yesterday. I have taken the fork oh great sage, She mused.
PLANET Z
Mrs. Rettig asked each student to bring in a calendar.
At the end of every day, she’d give out stickers.
Green for good, yellow for needs improvement.
I got a lot of red and black stickers.
At the end of the year, the kids with red and black stickers earned a field trip to the police station.
“This is what will happen if you keep this up,” said Officer Kick.
And he was right. The moment I graduated from high school, I entered the police academy.
I especially enjoyed when I arrested Mrs. Rettig for speeding in a school zone.
CHATGPT
In the city of Allor, time was a fickle mistress. The citizens lived for tomorrow, always planning, always waiting. Their town clock, an ancient artifact, ticked only for future dreams. Sarah, a young artist, painted vivid tomorrows on every wall, each stroke a promise. One evening, the clock stopped. Panic spread, but Sarah saw it as a chance. Gathering the townsfolk, she led them in creating a mural of their today. As they painted, they realized the beauty of the present. The clock began ticking again, but now, Allor lived for today, knowing each moment was a precious thread in their tapestry of tomorrows.
First marriage
Having Asperger’s and parents who were in denial about it will mess you up.
They were proud of my perfect brother, but ashamed of me.
My father would tell people that I was from his wife’s first marriage, so don’t look at him.
My mother would tell people that I was from her husband’s first marriage, so don’t look at her.
I was the sick joke they shared.
So when my father died and my dementia-ridden mother was left destitute, the retirement home called.
“Don’t look at me,” I said. “I’m from her husband’s first marriage.”
And I hung up.
Swimming lessons
When I was two, my mother forced me into summer swimming lessons.
It was at the community pool, and she’d deliberately park far from the entrance.
The blacktop was hot, and I cried in pain as I burned my feet.
The only sandals I got were the ones she hit me with.
So I ran from her abuse, nearly getting run over several times.
Finally making it to the cool wet grass at the lot’s edge, I kept running.
She caught me, and hit me more.
I never learned how to swim.
And I never learned to stop hating her.
Sesame spank
When my mother wasn’t dumping me in daycare while she bowled, it was in front of the TV.
The television wasn’t just my babysitter, but it was my teacher.
I watched Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street and Romper Room.
Learning really stupid things.
One lesson was that a puppet cop could hold up his hand and stop traffic.
So when I ran out in the street in front of our house and played Monkey In The Middle, all I needed to do was hold up my hand.
It didn’t stop the spanking punishment.
I spanked my stuffed Grocer in retaliation.