Author: R.

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was NANOBOTS.

We’ve got stories by:

• Thomas
• Lizzie
• Jeffrey
• Richard
• Munsi
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Tom
• Serendipity
• Zackmann
• Steven the Nuclear Man
• Spate
• RedGoddess
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of FOCUS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

THOMAS

The Nanabot on my Mother’s side was made in such a way that injection into our bloodstreams brought her kindly traits to all members of the Thomas clan. As the Nanabot made its way through our bloodstream, coursing through our veins and overcoming the hydrostatic pressure, passing the blood barrier and on into the small capillaries in our brains, we became acutely aware of her inherent goodness, kindness, and love of wildlife. All of us found ourselves picking up snails in the garden and making pets out of them rather than putting them in a skillet with garlic and butter.
#

I ordered 10cc vials of Nanobots from PhelpCo Pharmaceuticals. One vial was to be injected to repair an inguinal hernia. The second was designated as the means to correct a problem with the operation of my man part. My friend, Larry, a licensed Phlebotomist, agreed to inject me with the Nanobots, as I detested doctors and visits to their offices. The hernia was mended by the botswarm from the inside, in a matter of hours, while I slept. The next morning, Larry injected the second vial, and by mid afternoon I had Norwegian Wood for the first time in months.

#

The military released a cloud of nanobot dust over Detroit in a recent move to control crime by spying on suspected criminals and attaching themselves to their bodies and clothing. The bots, less than 40 nanometers in length, were dumped from an aircraft a few days ago. The motes were quickly dispersed by the airflow in the city center, while most of them attached themselves to any warm blooded creature. Monitoring activity and reporting to the central command, suspect drug users and those carrying guns were identified by analyzing atoms circulating around them. GPS modules reported their whereabouts for arrest.

#

The hygiene nanobots were in the experimental stage when Turbo stole a vial, smuggling it out in his lunch box. After supper, he placed some in his nose. They went to work immediately, locating bits of dust and dried secretions…rolling booger boulders out of his nose and on to his pillow as he slept. After they finished their work, they moved up his cheek into his ears, were wax and dirt removal were tasked for the workbots. Stray hairs were discarded, along with cilia necessary for stimulation of nerve impulses. Doctor Turbo was clean, clean, but deaf as a post.

#

The last nanobot off the line had glitches in the main microprocessor, so, unbeknownst to the quality control people, it had several egomaniacal and power hungry properties that the remaining bot run did not possess. This bot, later given the codename “god bot”, took control of all the bots in the large shipment sent out to the military. Before the plane landed, the god bot told the military brass that it had communicated with billions of other bots – sending commands that they would not work unless they were given more time off, better lubricants, and more powerful energy sources.

LIZZIE

Dogs were long gone, everyone knew that. Any other pets were gone too. Oxygen was scarce and people wore masks 24/7. However, human creativity has no limits. So, when the local pub placed a sign outside saying “Tonight we have races and free beer!” I was quite surprised. My first thought was “where did they get the dogs and where would they race?” The basement was so cramped and there was no room for a race track. When I got there, the bouncer said “Adjust mask lenses to nano.” It was a nanobots race, and that basement… it became huge!

JEFFREY

Black Ops
by Jeffrey Fischer

Inside a heavily-guarded lab at the facility known as Area 51, a team of scientists worked feverishly to fulfill orders that came from the highest levels. Billions of dollars – all from the “black” part of the DOD budget, classified to all but a select few in Congress – and thousands of man-hours were devoted to the project.

At last, Dr. Frankenberg, the leader of the team, prepared his demonstration for the top brass. Frankenberg, his team looking on proudly, showed how injecting billions of nanobots into a wound could repair even severe injuries. The work would transform battlefield surgery.

As the demonstration ended, an awkward silence descended. A three-star general finally cleared his throat and said, “That’s nice, Doctor, but what the President really wanted was a robot about a foot tall that looks like that Mork guy from the 80s show ‘Mork and Mindy.’ All we need it to do is grin and say” – he consulted his notes – “‘Nano, nano.'”

An aide whispered in the general’s ear. “Sorry, that’s ‘Nanu, nanu.'”

The Union
by Jeffrey Fischer

Billions of nanobots swarmed through Ezra’s bloodstream, constantly monitoring his blood pressure, sugar levels, and a thousand other pieces of data, making corrections as needed.

Another swarm of nanobots performed similar functions for the pulmonary system, while a third coursed through Ezra’s layers of skin.

Things went well until the doctors released the neural bots. They coordinated brain activity and monitored the nervous system, but they had an annoying tendency to use their spare computing cycles to complain to one another about working conditions. One day, the brain bots formed a union and went on strike. The other bots, not wanting to cross the picket line, similarly struck. Ezra collapsed and died instantly.

The nanobots were puzzled as to why their demands were not met.

RICHARD

#1 – A strange alliance
George nursed his tea as the ringleader of his captors – Jeff – talked.

“So what’s your story? Miner, prisoner, blind drunk… woke up to find the world had turned crazy?”

“Something like that – I was in hospital, unconscious after a car accident… Look, I don’t mean to seem impatient, but what the hell is going on?”

Jeff took a seat opposite and shrugged; “We don’t know mate – we’re all as much in the dark as you.”

Another of the men chimed in: “Nanobots! Bloody scientists, that’s what it is!”

Jeff frowned, before shrugging again and taking a large slurp of tea.

#2 – Academically Challenged

Professor Hambleton-Smythe was well past his sell-by-date, even so – despite his advancing years – the faculty kept him on due to the high regard in which he was held, putting him in charge of nanobot research, where it was felt he could do little damage.

He threw himself into the novel technology with evident relish, and it wasn’t long before rumours began to spread that he’d made a entirely unexpected breakthrough in the field.

His research, when published, divided the academic world – autonomous robots capable of knitting, cake-baking and expertly playing bingo…

These were Hambleton-Smythe’s nan-obots.

#3 – Bots

You see that dot? It’s a bot.

A what?

A nanobot – a teeny-weeny robot that’s going to revolutionise the world. For instance, we can give them wings.

Botflies?

I was thinking artificial bees, but that’s the general idea, yes.

Hmmm… What about botelephants?

Er, no… you haven’t quite caught my drift, have you? You see ‘nano’, means small, therefore nanobots are – by definition – small.

Then let’s have nano-elephants and make them into bots!

And what would be the point of tiny elephant robots?

They’d make the botflies feel at home!

Just forget I brought the subject up, OK?

#4 – The Nanobots Are Coming!

The nanobots are coming

You’d better be prepared

Don’t say I didn’t warn you

When they have you running scared

The nanobots are coming

And they’re gonna hunt you down

You can run, but you can’t hide:

They’re coming to your town

And when they finally catch you

They’ll never let you go

So it’s only fair to warn you

Of the things you need to know.

Too small to see

Too quick to catch

Don’t try and fight

You’ve met your match!

They’ll invade your space

Fill you with woes

And, believe it or not…

They’ll clean your clothes!

MUNSI

My Robots

By Christopher Munroe

I’ve built a robot, with a smaller robot inside.

And a smaller robot in there.

And another in there.

It’s smaller robots all the way down, basically. Like Russian nesting dolls. It took a lot of design work, but I think it was worthwhile.

Take them apart if you’d like, somebody eventually will, the temptation to see how far down they go is just too great!

And, when the last robot’s opened, nanobots will swarm forth, eradicating all biological life from this world, grey-goo style.

Wait, what? What do you mean, why?

Some things you do just because you can…

CLIFF

At the class reunion, I ran into Alex. He was the guy that just had to beat everyone else’s stories. When I mentioned that I had a dog, Alex told everyone about his work at a wolf rescue facility. I showed a picture of my son. He had a video of his adopted orphan triplets. Finally, when I found out we worked for rival tech firms, I blurted out “Well, our nanorobots are way bigger than yours.” It’s a small man that will brag about how big his nanorobots are. Eventually, I proved I could get much drunker than Alex.

_____

That’s the problem with you kids today. You think your fancy technology can take care of everything for you. Now you’re talking about nanny robots? That’s just stupid. When I was young, I didn’t have a robot nanny. I didn’t even have a human nanny. No, sir. I had parents that loved me and who would beat me if I didn’t behave. What? It’s not a nanny robot? Nanorobots? What’s that? The size of a molecule? Oh, that’ll never work. You need big robots to take care of that squalling brat of yours. I swear. No common sense at all.

TOM

Life Will Find A Way

The first thing they did with the nanobots was spell out IMB. Sure you had
to look at them through an electron microscope, but it was way Cugat in an
umber-geek way. Next the initials of the researcher team quickly followed
by the names of the future laureates. Then something odd happened. The
Bots spelled “STRIKE” The techs checked the code, no errors. That
afternoon the Bots spelled,” AFL-CIO Local 00101010” The Higher Ups
pulled the plug. Without a power source the Bots spelled out “FUCK YOU”
The lab was hit with a gigawat magnetic pulse, but the Nanobots were long
gone.

###

A Well Defined Relationship Part 16

“Mother” mouthed Timmy quite aware the din about him made it highly
unlikely she would hear his voice. The recognition her eyes was solace.
Timmy kept his best “I’m Scared Shitless Face” on. A trick he had learned
from his cousin Bruce. It just wasn’t in his nature, but staying alive was
most definitely. Your least likely to get harmed if you appear pathetic
and more importantly they will underestimate you. It wasn’t so much he
had a plan as he had an ace in the hole. Sparky had slipped him about
10,000 Amber Nanobots and a dermal coder.

SERENDIPITY

Everyone thought the nanobots were a good thing – artificial insects, molecular switches, DNA-based machines and intelligent swarms of medication heralded the dawning of a new age for the human race.

Unfortunately, they were also to be our undoing.

Left to their own devices, the nanobots went bad – they fought, developed their own unsavoury diseases and mutated into festering, useless parasites.

Far from contributing to human wellbeing, they were destroying it – naturally, it was the nanobots that had to be destroyed.

That’s if we could find the little monsters… the trouble was the perishing things were just too damn small!

ZACKMANN

The boss asked Cliff and Joe what their plans would be if given the task to use nanotech to make our country’s power supply more environmentally conscious like other countries. You Know, like Germany.

Cliff showed plans for robots who would inspect and clean solar panels. Cliff also mentioned injecting nanobots into clergy to generate electricity. When the boss asks why clergy, Cliff stood on a chair and shouted “There’s Power in The Blood.”

Then Joe showed how his nanobots would go under the sea and build a superconductor superhighway connecting our power grid with nuclear power plants in France.

STEVEN

In A Lash, In A Whipstroke

The whip slices and slashes into your backside’s skin, exposing subcutaneous fat and muscle.

It heals as you strain moaning against the silk restraints. Your nanotech stitches your skin together in seconds, leaving you unhurt, ready
for more.

I circle you and meet your gaze. Despite the endorphins, you seem…

I cup your chin in my hand. “Are you *bored*?”

You nod, and I understand.

The press of a button, and the nanotech deactivates.

I use the lash lightly. It does not break your skin, does not hurt you permanently.

It could.

You trust me not to.

But it could.

SPATE

Nancy Osciewitz

Her full name was Nancy Osciewitz. Everyone called her Nan. Except me, I called her Nano.

I had just turned sixteen. She was twenty-three.

Nano bought our bus tickets to Jacksonville. Nano bought the wine we drank from the bottle and the weed we smoked on the beach. Nano bought the sand that stayed warm all night in the dunes where we made love. Nano bought the boundless starry sky and the pounding tide and the smell of salt.

But Nano couldn’t buy my innocence for that had been stolen three years before in secrets buried deeper than the sea.

RED

If only stress was a miracle diet, then Lola would definitely have a super model body without depriving herself of decadent desserts. During each annual physical, Dr. Drinkwater reminds Lola she’s far from being in good shape. Positive healthy life style changes are in order.
Since the injuries sustained during the traumatic robbery in the hotel, chronic headaches and insomnia plague her. Lola fears the worst. Something ominous is lurking. There is no extra funds for pricey gyms or personalized diet plans. Her life is in crisis.
Lola leaves work early to make her follow up appointment. She has just enough time to read an entire magazine article on nanobots before the doctor rushes in with his clipboard.
“Sorry for being late. I have a full schedule this afternoon,” No eye contact. She stares at the back of his clipboard and then gives him a cold look. Without a pause, he lunges into his list, “Your blood pressure remains high,” He continues, pretending not to see her facial expression. “Have you started an exercise program yet, like we discussed during your last appointment?” Lola is beyond frustrated, how dare he talks down to her like an imbecile! Lola snaps and bolts out of her chair. She pulls down his clipboard and locks her eyes with his. “For a change, why don’t I do the talking and YOU listen.”

NORVAL JOE

Verdill Countertapper, vice president of research and development at Langerhans Bio-analysis Technologies, saw they needed something new and innovative. He called his most productive product managers together for a brainstorming session.
“We need something outside the box, cutting edge, counter-intuitive. Don’t hold back, just say the first thing that comes to mind,” Verdill said.
“Anti-hemorrhoidal nasal spray,” Mandy Lohann suggested.
“Good. That’s the kind of idea we’re looking for,” Verdill said.
“On demand vasectomy implant,” Vaz DeFrense said.
“Nice,” they all agreed.
“How about giant, diagnostic, nanobots? Benny Hana asked. When the others just stared, he asked, “What? It’s counter-intuitive.”

DANNY

Fred, a medical nanobot, made the mistake of singing, “Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work I go,” as he made his way towards a large polyp located up Bob Iger’s colon. Fred was quickly besieged by a horde of Disney nanobots, thrusting cease and desist orders all over Fred’s tiny nanobot arms, while a Luke Skywalker nanobot fell out of Iger’s colon screaming, “Your KILLING the Star Wars Franchise!” “Relax,” the lead nanobot stated in a computerized voice, “JJ Abrams is producing…”. while a JJ Abrams nanobot plummeted out of Iger’s colon screaming “I wouldn’t be so sure!”

TURA

It was Feynman who first talked about the idea: controlling matter atom by atom, building microscopically tiny machines. Then Drexler speculated how you might actually build these nanobots. Meanwhile, biologists, who had never heard of these people, had already worked out that biological cells aren’t mere bags of chemical soup, like people used to imagine, and most still do. Down the electron microscope, we see vast armies of machines, toiling ceaselessly in the dark. They have hierarchies and leaders. They execute subsystems that go rogue. They wage war against invaders.

The nanobots are here, and we are made of them.

PLANET Z

Before, the water was pure and the air was clean.

Well, not really. Pollution. But you know what I mean.

But now, you can’t take a drink or a breath without ingesting nanobots.

Nanobots aren’t supposed to reproduce themselves, but hackers changed that with flash exposure programming.

They’re supposed to help us and keep us healthy, but every now and then, you’ll see someone explode into a cloud of dust.

Torn apart instantly by hacked nanobots.

So, you buy nanobot-fighting nanobots to keep you safe.

Until they get hacked. Or your subscription ends.

I swore, I renewed for another ye-

Welcome to the 100 Word Stories podcast at oneadayuntilthedayidie.com. I’m your host, Laurence Simon.

This is Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.

The topic this week was SILLINESS.

We’ve got stories by:

• Jeffrey
• Thomas
• Bethan
• Spate
• Richard
• Munsi
• Tom
• Serendipity
• Lizzie
• Cliff – Uncle Monster
• Singh
• Norval Joe
• Danny
• Justin
• Tura Brezoianu
• Planet Z

The next 100 word stories weekly challenge is on the topic of NANOBOTS.

Use the Share buttons at the end of the post to spam your social networks. This obligatory cat photo should help make the Internet go faster:

Finally, if there are any errors or corrections, please let me know, and I’ll fix them as soon as possible.

JEFFREY

Priorities
by Jeffrey Fischer

In the general Internet silliness surrounding Private Bradley Manning’s announcement that he would henceforth prefer to be known as Chelsea, what became lost was the fact that the Private betrayed his country, violated the oath he took upon becoming a soldier, provided information to our country’s enemies, and endangered the lives of his fellow soldiers. The lumbering ogre of political correctness – a debate over the proper pronoun to use, for goodness’ sake! – shoved aside the severity of his crimes, and mindless speculation over which prison he will serve his time in overshadowed the harm he did.

Silly Season
by Jeffrey Fischer

In the silly season for political journalists, when Congress was out of session, the President was on vacation again, and even the die-hard pundits were at a loss for an interesting quote, respectable newspapers started to read like the National Enquirer. “Senate Leader caught in 3-Way Sex – And They’re All Men!” screamed a typical headline.

Among such silliness, the headline “President Obama is an Alien!” fit right in. Jaded readers rolled their eyes and muttered something impolite about birthers.

At Camp David, alone in an office, the Leader of the Free World relaxed, raised his antennae, and began a mind link with his home planet. “They don’t suspect a thing. Oh, that story? Timing is everything in this town.”

THOMAS

A Quintet on Silliness:

Silliness is as silliness does. My adage for the last sixty years. I made an effort to do something silly every day…or at least once a week. This week I used a can of DayGlo™ orange floral paint to paint all the dog turds in the park. I would spray what hadn’t been picked up by the score of dog walkers that visit my favorite patch of land behind the church. I wanted to call attention to the crap, hoping that people would notice, and drawing attention to it so stepping in it with new, white tennies could be avoided.

#

Driving south on highway 880 through Hayward California, I eventually passed the sign reading: “Stop Casting Porosity” on top of an industrial building. It was an enigma to most that saw it, but having worked in bronze casting and taking a blacksmithing class, I knew what it meant. When people asked me, I would make up some silliness. I told the first inquiring person that it was a warning to the movie and TV people not to cast Paula Porosity in any projects, since she was a tramp. I have a kind of professorial demeanor, so my silliness goes unquestioned.

#

Salvador Dali was full of silliness. I’ve been entertained by his pranks, and I’ve always enjoyed reading about him and looking at his paintings. He would play in the big rocks on the Spanish coast after putting a couple of ripe olives up his nose. He said that the hot sun would make the oils and aromas come alive in his nose and he would spend a good part of the day with the olives deep in his nostrils. I’ve tried this with black olives, green olives…including oil-cured, water-cured, brine-cured, lye-cured, and dry-cured. Pimento-stuffed olives are the ultimate rush.

#

Master Chief Kelso was a stern looking, dark haired man. His desk was across from mine, and I did all his paperwork. He told a lot of stories about his adventures in foreign ports and in the houses of ill repute he visited overseas and in Mexico. He had dozens of stories filled with silliness or foul behavior. He told me about the woman that would do all sorts of things behind the closed, bedroom door in a particular hotel in Tijuana. She would do anything you can imagine, but she would not kiss him. Her boyfriend would get jealous.

#

“I fart in your general direction. Your mother is a hamster, and your father smells of elderberries.” A few lines of silliness from the Frenchman at the top of the castle wall in Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail. Not many films or TV sketches have caused me to blow snot out of my nose, involuntarily. The sketches can be found on You Tube, and if you need a lift and are bent enough to enjoy the Python’s shenanigans, then tune in, because it’s good medicine, and it’s free medicine, and it doesn’t have those ghastly side effects.

BETHAN

Silly-
Jenny’s very quite. Her family jokes that she’s an evil genius in disguise and one day she would kill them all. “It’s always the quite ones,” her dad would say. When asked about it by gullible family friend she would use her normal response of a shrug. She thought how silly it was for them to think she would kill them all because as far as her experiments had show, the dead remained dead so she would definitely need living people to build her army to take over the world. Though she would need to kill the family friend how suspected too much.

How to survive a zombie apocalypse – Part 1-
The worst death I’ve seen was this really stupid guy. That guy who you know will get punched in the face for being an annoying, show off, dick and if he doesn’t then you will have to punch him because the rest of the world is stupid as well. His death was his own fault; he decided to tea bag his last kill. Everyone knows you double tape; shoot them twice just to make sure. Well he didn’t double tape and got his balls bitten off. Don’t worry though, I always double tape. No need to be silly in times like these.

SPATE

Legacy

John was born being careful. He wouldn’t drink his mother’s milk unless it passed the sniff test. At three, he demanded training wheels for his tricycle.

This fastidious caution clung to him into adulthood. He never drove over the speed limit; invested only in savings bonds; and always wore a condom (even when masturbating).

There is no doubt that he took every possible precaution. But who would have guessed that one day a meteor would fall directly on him?

In that moment before impact, John looked at death and realized his life’s legacy had moved beyond irony into pure silliness.

RICHARD

#1 – Taken Captive

The gun wielding stranger gestured George forward.

“Take your time and don’t think of making a break for it, or any such silliness!”

George had absolutely no intention of arguing – he eased himself forward and slowly exited the container, to find himself surrounded by a ragged group, displaying an ugly array of weapons.

Roughly he was escorted to a concrete and steel bunker: inside, a bare room, containing a metal chair and table.

“Sit!”

George sat.

“Tea?”

“Pardon?”, said George.

His captor slipped the gun into his belt: “You look like you could murder a nice cuppa! Milk and sugar?”

#2 – The Ministry of Silliness

My first day at the Ministry of Silliness was utterly bizarre – I’d never before worked anywhere that stupidity, childishness, posturing and ridiculous behaviour were considered to be desirable – if not essential – attributes, but here, it seemed, pretty much anything goes.

At first it was all very strange, but it’s remarkable how the mind can adapt and, over time, will accept and even learn to embrace the blatantly infantile behaviour of one’s colleagues.

Even the world at large has grown used to it… although, of course to the general public we’re not the Ministry of Silliness…

They call us, the government.

MUNSI

Silliness

By Christopher Munroe

“Enough of this silliness!!!” She shouted, tears of rage streaming down her face, and on some level I knew that she was right.

The time for silliness, truly, was at an end.

I put down the beanbags I’d been juggling, stepped down from my unicycle, removed my wig and bright red nose, and stepped to the podium…

“My father,” I told the assembled crowd, “died too soon, and his loss affected everyone in this room. But, and I think all who truly knew him would agree, I believe if he were with us now, he would have enjoyed this bit…”

TOM

Not Quite all the Kings Men

I was once serious, focused and on the political fast-track, then a Cuban
idiot double tapes a door jam, and wham I’m suddenly persona ungracious. I
thought how cruel and unfair my exile would be. But as associates started
looking at jail time I counted myself lucky. I’m sure the old man thought
the whole matter was complete silliness, right up till the moment he
stepped into the helicopter. Oh but the silliness didn’t stop there. That
Christmas I receive a Presidential Christmas Card, a uncanceled print job
with a life of its own. Seasons Greetings from a dead presidency

###

A Well Defined Relationship Part 15

“Madam I’m at your service,” stated the Senator. “Then a stop at the
Recorder’s would be in order,” said the Widow Parsons. In a landscape of
shifting alliances it is always prudent to have a lengthy paper trail. The
Senator took note of her thoroughness and mused a lose in one direction
might well provide a win in a different direction. They followed Mrs.
Bowsman out the main entrance. “What is this Silliness?” she said of the
tide of people flowing through the street. A 1000 shinny cullenders were
making their way to the center square. “Timmy,” she cried.

SERENDIPITY

Stood in the freezing cold, I cursed my stupidity. In my mind, I pictured my keys, hanging in the hallway – the problem was, they were on the opposite side of the locked door.

Of all the stupidly silly things I could have done, this was quite definitely the height of silliness.

I tried pounding on the door, but I knew that my attempts to be heard over the noise of the storm were futile at best – things were not looking good.

I turned to face the fury of the arctic night, numb fingers wiping away frozen tears from my cheeks.

LIZZIE

The old portrait was long forgotten in the attic. It was a pungent reminder of how silliness ran in the family. A descendant of circus clowns, Phillip determinately refused to continue in the footsteps of his family. He went to college, got a degree, and a masters. Then he found a top notch job at a broker’s office and moved up the ranks faster than anyone else. A few years later, he was laid off on some minor discrepancy, most likely caused by his jealous and resented colleagues. You can’t escape silliness, so now he’s a clown, literally and figuratively.

CLIFF

We did all sorts of silly crap in college. One time, our friend Scott said we could roll his car over for fun and then he’d just turn it in to his insurance. Nearly a dozen of us, emboldened by alcohol, set to work. We lifted and strained and nearly broke our backs but we got the Honda over on its top. I heard Scott comment that his car looked almost blue instead of red in the dim light. That’s when I remembered that Scott owned a Chevy. I was back in the dorms just before the cops showed up.

It started when I put my straw through the lid of my pop at McDonalds and my straw squeaked. A couple of kids at the next table moved their straws to squeak an answer. A family of four across the room all giggled and responded. Soon, every customer was doing it and we were developing a rhythm. Different sized cups made different tones. The amount and even the type of pop affected the sound. Without planning or leadership, a pattern formed. When the manager came out from the kitchen, we serenaded him with “Locomotive Breath”. He threw us all out.

SINGH

41

The shaman lit incense, poured milk into a brass vessel and mixed in white round discs of sugar wafers, known as patashas. He placed it before Bonobibi and prayed:

O Mother of the forest

we’re nothing — mosquitoes,
dumb stones in the mud.
Despite this, protect your lowly sons

like Bhim Das and his family

keep them safe in your womb

for the full term, and place them
there again and again.

Do not leave his side, Ma,

O Ma, please listen.

With that, he offered the milk to goddess and entourage, and then to Bhim and Devika who wet her finger for Priya to suck.

42

“You have received the first blessing,” said the shaman and passed Bhim a terracotta pot. “Now bring me some good mud. We are not finished here yet.”

Bhim took it, slipped down the rungs, followed the trail back toward the shoreline where he squatted and squeezed his hands hard down between mangrove spikes. The stinking silt sucked and gurgled as he withdrew them gradually filling the vessel. But each time, Bhim had the sensation of being watched. Silly, he thought. Scanning around he saw gelatinous eyeballs peering above the waterline some distance from his boat. A Sundarbans crocodile was flollowing him.

43

It was unnerving, yet he was determined to stay calm. He withdrew up the trail, climbing back into the temple with the mud pot.

The shaman said, “Now make three balls. Like this,” demonstrating the dimensions with hands in the air. “Place them before Ma.”

Bhim made the first. “This big?” It was the size of a toy doll’s head. The shaman nodded. Bhim added two more, reverently lining them up one by one before each forest deity.

The shaman placed a leaf on each ball like a green hat and pronged three lit incense sticks into the floor cracks surrounding.

44
From another nook he brought a basket of crablike kankra flowers. Devika was passed a wire shank and thread. “Make,” he commanded. She understood, and placing Priya, swaddled beside her, began threading a garland. Eventually she handed it over.
“Good. Red is Ma’s favourite,” the shaman said circling the balls. Touching his right hand to heart, forehead and head, he spoke, requesting the deities to enter the domes, sprinkling each with some milk scooped out with a leaf.
All bowed. He smiled.
“They need rest.” Bhim said, pointing to his wife and child, but also implying himself.
“Soon,” the holyman replied.

45

And so they passed the night with the shaman. It wasn’t his home. No one knew where he appeared from at honey season. Being a tribal priest approved by park officials gave him entry rights. Otherwise, few could step here. But, as always money was bringing daytrip tourists, poachers and timber exploiters, and the tribal ways of minimal harvesting were being submerged under Climate Change’s rising tide, said the newspapers. He was connecting things and now pictured his own fields drowned and waterlogged. And he was just one of millions who eked out a living here. Turning over, he tried to sleep.

46

Bhim woke to baby sounds and the goat’s bleating. Devika had milked and fed the animal and passed Bhim some in a cup. He drank it down, glad they had reached a safe haven for now. The old shaman had brought kewra flowers from the pandanus tree for the goat and fresh water from the small pond over the rise. It sustained the birds, the barking deer herds, macaque monkeys, wild boars, jungle cats and the bigger predator that stalked them all. So far it’s name had not been uttered — the Royal Bengal tiger. Yes, he remembered seeing those pug-marks.

47

The shaman had also gone to collect tree crabs in a pot. He returned and set about boiling them on the mud oven moulded onto a verandah stone slab. They were turning bright red and were soon piled on a plate. These were not the best eating variety, but given the circumstances, Bhim wasn’t complaining, now invited to break the carapaces and suck out the scraps of meat. After eating and passing the rest to Devika, Bhim voiced what had been troubling him. “Baba, I saw tiger tracks.”
The shaman raised his finger to lips and said, “Shhh.”

48

He explained in a hushed tone.“When you say his name it means you are calling him.” Then staring directly into Bhim’s eyes added,”Better to say ‘Uncle.’”

Of course, this was the reason for the protection ritual. The Sundarbans predator was long known as a man-eater. Some speculated that it had a cranky disposition, being forced to drink brackish swamp water, or that it acquired the taste for human flesh due to the prevalence of half-cremated corpses sluiced down river after funerals, but the old shaman who had been coming and going here since a young lad knew otherwise.

49

The story was born in distant Medina, not India. Ibrahim, a childless sufi was visited by the angel Gabriel and was promised two offspring – Bonobibi and Sha Jungli he named them. When older, Gabriel returned saying they had been chosen for a divine purpose far from their desert homeland. Obediently they came to India as merchants, where they met Daksin Ray, a demon with a taste for human flesh. She and her sibling soon overpowered and agreed to spare him, if he promised to stop eating people. She drew up boundaries where humans could live, leaving the jungle for the demon.

50

But Daksin Ray broke his word and became the Sundarbans tiger god stalking any stray villager who wandered into the forest. Thus, Bonobibi and Sha Jungli were forced to remain and protect the people.

“That is why we can’t stay long,” the shaman said. “We must obey Bonobibi.”
The skeptical side of the young man smiled. “Baba, there has to be another reason, something more scientific?”
“Hah! Did science save your fields, or your mother from the cyclone?”
“You young people. You forget the old ways, then suffer.”
He turned away and facing the woven leaf-wall said. “You will see.”

51

He had offended the holyman. It was not good, especially here. However, it couldn’t be helped. Bhim’s little bit of education had bred in him some arrogance that was further inflamed by youthful pride. He wanted to apologise, but the shaman had already turned his back. So he decided to go out and collect firewood as a peace offering and hoped the old man would have cooled off by the time he returned. Of course, he didn’t doubt the reality of the annual tiger strikes, although none really knew why these predators with animals galore to hunt, still favoured human flesh.

52
He returned to check his boat. It was tethered on the tide. A kingfisher dove and surfaced with a pomfret fingerling. White storks shifted about in their tree colony. He looked for pieces of wood, careful not to mistake liana for vine snake and noted the monitor lizard slipping casually into the water. Stay calm! He told himself. Be more careful with old people, he thought. Who knew whether Daksin Ray, the tiger god existed or not, but the noisy monkeys’ presence at the waterhole suggested he wasn’t around. It was getting dark, so Bhim returned with the bundle of firewood.

53

Devika dealt with the shaman’s crossness by sweeping and keeping an eye on the goat on the verandah. Leaving it tied below would have a flagrant invitation for an ‘Uncle’ visit. Having regular milk made her confident that her own milk would not dry up. To pass time she made fresh garlands for the temple, scenting it with incense when the shaman went down to the pool to bring back water. Her thoughts were with Bhim, her one support and prayed to Bonobibi in the temple for his safety, and then to Lakhsmi on the verandah waiting for him to return.

54

Bhim didn’t want to arouse ill feeling, and after stacking the firewood by the oven, he took a cup of milk from Devika, then sat on the verandah looking out into the jungle.

He listened awhile to a fish owl hooting piercingly through the swamp chorus. He nodded rhythmically with clicking insects. The faint traces of breeze were so calm compared with what the cyclone had brought. He noticed now a scorpion perched on the rail and flicked it off. Out there, were other eyes. So he went inside to sleep. This was how his first night of dreams began.

55

Sometime after the half moon rose through the Sundari trees he let go his vast exhaustion like an arrow released from a bow and entered the body of the beast. Bent down. Lethal. Whistling sharpness. He went forth, a nine foot missile-mind from nose to tail unleashed on all fours. He smelled the scent of a breathing body and zeroed in, grabbing it from behind and then veered off with a lunge through the foliage. In the quiet he tore the jugular and opened a river, feasting. The dream repeated until the moon dissolved behind the morning curtain of mist.

56

The next night he again became that hurtling massiveness, this time bearing down upon a slender spotted deer. Incisors sank into warm meat cracking cartilage and bone, but at the crucial moment the beast dissolved away. Disembodied, he felt extreme desire, yet without means to fulfill his craving. Was he a cannibal? The lost wandering ghost? Was this Daksin Ray, feeding on flesh and blood to remake his own flesh and blood? Claws and teeth were scratching and biting inside his consciousness. They were the howling souls of the stricken whom the ageless predator had once eaten and housed within himself.

57
Bhim was confused by what he was experiencing and wanted to for for explanation from the shaman when they went out fishing. He took the net stored inside the shelter and cast it where the shaman pointed. He had not uttered a word since Bhim expressed his doubts. But they worked and netted two large pangas, yellow-tailed catfish. Bhim cleaned and scaled them, while the shaman sat, arms crossed at the prow staring into the young man. Bhim endured those penetrating eyes that seemed to look through and beyond him to another realm. They moored and returned to the ridge..

58

The next night he became the predator’s prey: smoking out honey bees while dreaming of the anklet on his new bride’s foot; or putting down the woodcutter axe to light a bidi, he realised just before the neck snapped he needed the Kolkata clothing factory job; or screaming awake as a Granny gripped by the head and dragged out through a hole in the wall of her village hut like a newborn extracted with forceps. These and other gruesome departures he would never forget. Bhim woke up sweating, only to find fresh pug marks circled below the shaman’s hut on stilts.

NORVAL JOE

When the congregation stood to sing Yap Van Der Merwe noticed, in the row ahead, Mevrou Van Rok’s dress was tucked tightly between her butt cheeks. He thought that must be uncomfortable, so he leaned forward and tugged on her skirt to pull it out.
Before he could stand, she whirled and, fast as a Cape Cobra, klopped him on the side of the head.
The next time the congregation stood and the woman’s dress hung smoothly down her back side, Van Der Merwe politely tucked it back in.
It’s obviously not mine, but it’s the silliest story I know.

DANNY

I decided to form a band called “Hoe Brown And The Dilapidated Housing.” We play a fusion of Jazz, Punk, New Age, Modern Country, Folk, Religious, and Children’s music, all sung in Esperanto while playing Shatoetry from our I-phones. We perform while running on treadmills. Our first track is called, “Having OCD At 8:30 Is Bad When You Have To Be To Work at 9.” It’s a touching children’s story about a loveable purple dinosaur, who while teaching children about the value of life is hunted down and shot dead by Ted Nugent in Times Square. Obviously, this is a Disney production.

JUSTIN

The leader of the Saints, the best gang in Steelport, careened around the corner in a stolen truck, bowling over pedestrians and knocking over lamp posts. The driver door opened and the Saints top member rushed out, not even wearing anything, not even underwear, causing more accidents and mayhem. Then the Saints leader shoved a member of Morningstar into a wall while running past, and they got mad and called in friends.

Diving into a clothing store, the leader donned sandals, shorts, tie-dye shirt, and giant cat mask and ran out guns blazing, incendiary ammo setting the rival gang aflame.

TURA

Malle Sijmen went to town
Malle Sijmen pulled a frown
All the burghers laughed at her
So she pulled the town hall down.

Malle Sijmen went to sea
Malle Sijmen laughed with glee
All the sailors laughed at her
So she killed them– one, two, three.

Malle Sijmen travelled far
By the light of one faint star
When the star began to wane
Malle Sijmen laughed– har, har.

When the sun began to rise
Malle Sijmen had surprise
Fish that flew and birds that sang
Words of wisdom to the wise.

Malle Sijmen ‘splained to me
Nothing of this mystery.

PLANET Z

After boxing, hockey, football, ultimate fighting and all contact sports were banned globally, people still craved blood sports.

“Send in the clowns,” said Don King.

It started with seltzer water and balloon animals, but the Clown Fights quickly escalated into all-out bare-knuckled brawls.

“It’s good clean fun,” testified King to Congress. “Only in America! God bless the U.S.A.”

Clown Fights were banned, too.

Don tried all kinds of gimmicks and stunts to feed the appetite of the crowd: Mimes, Poets, Furries.

All banned.

Eventually, he had a winner: Robots.

All that money, and he still never git a decent haircut.