Author: R.

Hamilton sacrifice

A tornado wiped Hamilton off of the map. The handful of survivors thanked God for sparing them. Little did they know it had been God that had killed their community. The mayor of the adjoining town Bowden regularly conducted animal and human sacrifices to convince God to spare his city. And God would send his wrath to Hamilton. However, the humans and animals the mayor would sacrifice had come from Hamilton, and as the survivors abandoned the runs, another storm was brewing. Nobody wanted to volunteer for a ritual sacrifice. By the time they drew lots, the tornadoes were coming.

Weekly Challenge #1057 – PICK TWO Speeches Discard Mine An empty cup Kitchen

The next topic is Roger

RICHARD

Noir
An empty cup sits on the table in front of me, drained of coffee.
Like my soul, its contents had been cold, dark, and bitter. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
I rose from the cheap plastic chair, grabbing the cup to discard carelessly in the trash can. Again, the act mirrors my state of mind.
Outside, the cold is biting, the wind harsh, and the steady rain soaks through my coat. Above, a streetlight flickers.
I fumble for a cigarette, and inhale deeply; somewhere in the distance, a saxophone plays.
I walk slowly away, into the darkness.

SERENDIPIDY

No speeches, no reception, no wedding breakfast, no party. No church either, just a farmhouse kitchen.
And no, there weren’t any guests, just two witnesses, as required by law, and the local minister who’d been paid handsomely for his time.
The father of the bride was in attendance, but no tux for him, neither was his daughter attired in silk and lace.
What there were in abundance were shotguns.
Both witnesses and the bride’s father held them ready, locked and loaded. Just in case.
The minister turned my way, asking the question.
“I do”, I answered.
I could hardly refuse!

TOM

Glass half empty

Timmy was a motivational speaker. The corporate hire to blunt the shock of firing, oh so happily. Cuss management is chicken shit. Timmy had a number of standard speeches. His favorite was: The empty cup speech. He poured water in to ceramic. “At this moment in your life make a choice on how the see the cup.” Said Timmy placing the cup in front of Susan from accounting. “I see a glass half broken,” said the 60-year-old woman. Timmy in cloud of confusion gave the room, a corporate smile, that was went Sue picked up, broke it on his head

NORVAL JOE

When Patrick sat, Billbert’s mother said, “Listen. Now is not the time for speeches. CPS is coming in three hours, and we still have the kitchen to clean up, and the front yard.”

Patrick shifted as if getting up to leave.

“No, Patrick,” she said. “I need you here to answer their questions, to make it clear that Sabrina was treated terribly in her Foster Care placement.”

Patrick folded his arms. “That’s going to get me in trouble, too.”

She nodded. “That may be, and you certainly deserve what you get. But I can help things go smoothly for you.”

PLANET Z

I was watching a documentary and found it strange that the presenter was referring to an American aircraft carrier with the pronoun She, yet all of those aircraft carriers are named after men.. It’s long-standing naval tradition to refer to boats with female pronouns. However, the Department of war directives say that chips should be referred to with the neutral pronoun it. this is not to dismiss or integrate the gender claims of the historical figures. These ships are named after. I mean, do we really know what happened behind closed doors with Abraham Lincoln and his wife’s clothes?

Agent 12

Agent 12 accidentally tripped an alarm. The office he was in was surrounded and there was no exit. He didn’t have anything useful in the office that could be use as a weapon to fight his way out. His orders were blunt? Do not be captured alive. He took out a pill from my pocket and looked at it. Then he put it in his mouth and put down on it. He’d heard that the poison would taste like almonds, but it taste like watermelon. Then he wondered. And felt bad for the kid he’d given some candy to.

Highway 10

Insurance auditor checked the statistics of Highway 10 and noticed a dramatic increase in the number of accident claims. He drove down to Highway 10 and didn’t notice anything unusual. No construction, no dangerous on ramps or off ramps. So he turned around and was coming home when he noticed a billboard with one of those codes you scan with your phone on it so he did and promptly got into an accident. When he came to in the emergency room, he picked up his phone. Through the cracked screen, saw the code was for his insurance company’s website.

Thunderball

50 years ago, Hamilton Gotha appeared as Blitzkrieg on the German version of the American gladiators television series. Just like his American counterpart, when he wasn’t on camera, he was soaking in ice baths and shooting up with steroids and painkillers. He knocked out a lot of contestants, and put several in the hospital. When he killed a contestant on the Thunderball game, the series was suspended and Hamilton was arrested. The charges were reduced to unintentional manslaughter. He was released and put on probation. These days, he runs a bar in Berlin and cuts off, overly intoxicated customers quickly.

Odysseus

There’s this movie that’s out from a famous director that’s supposed to be really epic and powerful and amazing on giant screens. And there is a big screen in the resort town across the bridge. However, they say that the sound mixing is bad and muddy and my hearing isn’t so great. And there’s some really goofy casting that are politically motivated. However, reviewers on both sides of the political spectrum say it is a spectacle. One that you have to see on the big screen. But it’s three hours long, and I’d have to go to the bathroom twice.

Swag

When I work for a company, sometimes they send out marketing swag. Little worthless trinkets that have the company logo on them. When I leave a company, I tend to throw these away. Unless they’re really useful, like an Eddie Bauer travel cooler that was really nice, but it had the company name on the side. I don’t want to be reminded of this company every time I use it.. I tried to cover up the logo, but in the end, I gave the cooler away to a friend.. let them associate the cooler with me so it’s good memories

11 Downing Street

You know who lives at 10 Downing Street, but do you know who lives at 11 Downing Street?
It’s Nigel Smith. He’s lived across the way from the Prime Minister for thirty years.
And he hates it.
Every morning, some reporter or security guard steals his newspaper or a bottle of milk from his delivery.
It’s so hard to get to his car with the crowds of press.
And the noise at all hours from protestors shouting and throwing things.
Why doesn’t he move somewhere quieter?
“I was here first!” he growls. “Make that pompous arsehole and his gang move!”

Weekly Challenge #1056 – Beginning

The next topic is PICK TWO
Speeches
Discard
Mine
An empty cup
Kitchen

RICHARD

The Word
In the beginning, was the word.
And that word was ‘in’.
It’s right there, at the opening to this piece.
A simple, unassuming word. Just two letters; nothing special about it.
Other than the fact it conveys that sense of place, of presence, of the here and now… even way back when.
It’s not ‘at’ the beginning, ‘on’ the beginning, or even ‘around’ the beginning.
You’re in the moment, partaking of it, at one with it. An intrinsic part of that very point where nothing becomes something, and the intangible becomes reality.
Not bad for a simple two-letter word.

SERENDIPIDY

The detective was one of those ‘no nonsense’ types. Methodical, organised and rather intolerant.
“Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Where were you at the time of the murder?”
He knew, as well as I, exactly where I was, but as far as I was concerned it wasn’t my job to tell him, it was up to him to work it out and build a cast iron case.
My job was simply to come up with an alibi, and in doing so, I would ruin all his hard work.
Still, that’s what he was paid for.
More fool him.

LIZZIE

Many years later, he went back up the hill. The tire swings were still there. He swayed his legs back and forth as they had done. Why did it have to happen? Why? The cold night embraced him, cuddling him in its arms. He started to cry. Why can’t I go back and undo everything? In the distance, he heard a train. Their train. The train that would take them away one day. The train that had killed her… At sunrise, he dried his tears and finally summoned the courage to take the train. For you. For us, he shouted.

TOM

Sugar Babies

In the beginning there was sugar. Lots of sugar. River, Mountains, a great desert of sugar. The people put sugar in all the foods they ate. God sat back figure if everyone was happy, he would just go an holiday. While god come up with real cool stuff, like sugar. I would take the blackest heart of the monkey people to come up with Multi Global Corporations. It took sometime but, in the end, they controlled all the sugar on the planet. Life became sad. When god back for holiday he saw how unhappy everyone was so he invented chipotle.

NORVAL JOE

With the light of understanding beginning to shine in Patrick’s eyes, he glanced at the door.

Mandi, who’s perception was greater than what Sabrina gave her credit for, shouted, “Billbert. Stop him.”

He couldn’t disobey and lunged for Patrick as he dashed for the door. Though the boy was twice Billbert’s size, the strength of Mandi’s ring more than compensated and the two tumbled to the floor.

“Thanks Mandi. I’ll take it from here,” Mrs. Weinerheimer said, and turned to Patrick. “Have a seat, dear. We need to talk.”

Patrick got up, brushed himself off, and obediently sat down.

PLANET Z

Randy was a pretty strange guy. Long greasy hair and backwards, baseball cap. Tall man, making biscuits at the chicken shack. He’d start every batch with quoting the Bible in the beginning. But it go in strange directions with his narrative as he mixed in the buttermilk and needed the dough, rolled it out, cut out the biscuits and put them on the tray and slid them in the oven. He’d speak of dark shadows and strange tentacles from space and weird ceremonies to summon them to ravage the planet. But goddamn, his biscuits were the best I’ve ever tasted.

Maynard

My cousin Maynard was a creepy kid. In kindergarten, other kids drew hopscotch on the playground. He do scary chalk outlines and would smuggle ketchup in his lunch bag to accessorize the outline. When the teacher and principal banned all chalk from the playground and searched Maynard’s lunch bag, he pondered finding a way to keep doing his art. That’s when they found the body in the playground. The police took photos drone outline, took the body away for an autopsy. The official cause was cirrhosis of the liver, but somehow they blamed Maynard. I never saw that kid again.