George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
So he was given all of the worst tasks and chores on the ship.
Every few months, the crew unloaded, grounded, and turned the ship over for a careening.
While the rest of the crew partied on the beach, George spent days scraping barnacles and seaweed off of the hull.
“This is fun!” George happily lied. “I’m so glad I have this task all to myself!”
Curious, other pirates asked if they could help, but they were too drunk and passed out.
George sighed and went back to work.
Author: R.
George the Werewolf
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate. Every time the full moon came out, the next day he would wake up covered in the blood and guts from all of his murdered crewmates. It made him wonder if he was a werewolf. It kept happening over and over with every ship that he ended up on. The truth was, George was a werewolf. But he didn’t slaughter his crewmates with his teeth and claws. He killed them with his really bad cooking. Apparently, his signature full moon five alarm chili is a weapon of mass destruction.
Weekly Challenge #972 – Mister Right
LIZZIE
Mr. Right lived in the lighthouse across the street. The place was hideous and no one ever visited it. Mr. Right was the typical know-it-all. When proven wrong, he’d blatantly lie. Everyone hated him, everyone except his neighbor who’d often ask to see the gallery because, as he said, “he enjoyed the fresh air”. And he tried, he tried many times. Mr. Right knew the neighbor wanted the lighthouse. Some plan to increase the flow of tourists and become the mayor. It turned out, Mr. Right wasn’t Mr. Stupid so he never stood alone on that balcony with Mr. Ambitious.
RICHARD
– Mister Right –
She peered at me critically over the top of her horn-rimmed glasses.
“It’s Mister, right?”
I was confused.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”
She sat back and sighed, folding her arms.
“Your personal pronouns! You need to tell me how to address you. I’ve learned the hard way not to make assumptions!”
“Ah, right”, I nodded, “yes, it’s Mister. Mister is just fine.”
She turned back to her keyboard, and tapped a few keys. “We’re done.”
I stood up, and glanced at her name badge, “Well, thank you, Miss Philpot.”
“It’s Mister!” She snapped, with a frown.
TOM
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step
Men are searching the world for the perfect woman. Women not so much, with a choice between the perfect haircut or the perfect Mr. Right, you known in your heart, a reasonable quaff, wins hands down. It would be great if Mr. Right was a hairdresser, not likely. Wasn’t that the central plot of the film Shampoo. Let’s get back to that perfect Mr. Right crossing the globe in search of Miss Right, as always, don’t rule out Mrs. Right. Hell it’s American, it’s what we do. The weary Mr. Right will wander before her without her taking a step.
NORVAL JOE
Walking along the dark street, Linoliamanda suddenly asked, “Why were you staring at those teenage volunteers?”
Not realizing she had noticed, he stammered, “Well. I guess I was thinking. Those girls are so pretty, they would never notice a scrawny kid like me.”
“Do you think I’m pretty?” she asked.
Then he really stammered, “Um. Yeah. Sure. Why?”
“Daddy’s older than Mother and he said he’s amazed that Mother would love an ugly old man like him. And she says, she always knew he was Mr. Right.” Linoliamnada stopped Billbert. “The right girl will always love you, no matter what.”
SERENDIPIDY
He always had to be Mr Right.
Always holding the moral high ground, always the one to win an argument, never one to back down or give way.
He was arrogant, uncompromising and incapable of admitting defeat.
It was these qualities that attracted me to him.
Don’t misunderstand me; it wasn’t that I like those sort of character traits – no, I loathe them with a passion, but he was precisely the sort of person that I love to put firmly in their place.
And that place, was six feet underground.
You really can’t say I was in the wrong.
Right?
PLANET Z
Every time we come across a mass grave, we excavate the site and sort out the bodies.
The few with identification, we send to the agents to contact any remaining family for handling and burial.
The many without, we take DNA samples and cross-reference genetic markers with genealogy databases.
Most families ended up in the same mass graves, so there’s a lot of dead ends.
There’s not much money and jewelry left to loot. The regime cleaned them out pretty thoroughly.
After all is said and done, we put the bodies back in the site and place a stone monument.
Hanging laundry
After I finish laundry, I hang it.
No, I don’t hang it up. I literally hang it.
I put all my laundry on a chair.
Then, I tie a noose at the end of a rope, throw the other end over a tree branch, and tie it down.
When a crowd gathers, I put the laundry in the noose and ask if it has any last words before I kick the chair out from under it.
The laundry jerks around a bit at the end of the rope before it stops swinging.
You shouldn’t have rustled all those cattle, laundry.
I am an imaginary friend
It’s not easy being an imaginary friend.
Especially to a kid they’ve pumped full of drugs.
I feel a bit guilty, since it’s my fault they’re doing this to him.
Seeing him out in the playground, talking to me.
The teachers were concerned.
The other parents at the school.
After that, his parents.
And finally the doctors.
They tried therapy, then went to the pills.
Sometimes, the pills work, because there’s a jump in time for me.
But I still come back.
Maybe he’ll talk to me. Try to hug me.
And other times, he covers his ears and screams.
Clean out the closet
I want to clean out the big closet.
Got a lot of stuff I don’t need in it.
Trash bags full of papers that aren’t important anymore.
Boxes for things that probably won’t need boxing up ever again.
And the boxes are too big to let the cats play in.
Or, I suppose, live in if I decide to quit my job and become a bum.
I’m a little too old to make a play house out of them.
It’s strictly sofa cushions at my age.
Get the hell away from my fort.
Or I’ll burn down your cardboard box.
Mister Warmth
Back in the day, you had Sammy and Dean and Frank.
And Debbie and Elvis and all the headliners.
When they were done for the night, they went to see Don.
And Don would rip into all of them, and they laughed and laughed and laughed.
The manager would work the line, picking people out to fill front row seats.
Then, he’d tell Don: I got a fat guy, an ugly woman, a skinny Japanese guy.
“You got any Germans?” asked Don.
The manager nodded, and Don picked up his microphone and walked to the stage.
And the music began.
Tostitos
Tostitos ended their sponsorship of the Fiesta Bowl years ago.
I guess they didn’t want to be associated with exploiting amateur athletes working for millionaire head coaches or the serious injuries that the football industry produces.
Good for them. Nobody with integrity wants to be associated with such an unethical branch of academic institutions as gladiatorial athletics are.
Instead of the resulting concussions and CET and broken limbs that result from football, no matter what meaningless safety measures are imposed, Tostitos now focuses on promoting obesity, strokes, heart disease, diabetes, and all the other medical conditions that their products cause.
Rapture
The skies turned dark, the heavens rained fire, the oceans turned red, and a chorus of angelic voices spread over the world.
“It’s The Rapture!” said someone, and, knowing that only the devout would be taken up and saved, we all fell to our knees and prayed.
All of the sudden, the chorus stopped.
I looked around.
Everyone was still there.
Nobody was missing, no piles of empty clothes, no abandoned cars or anything.
Of course, this meant we were all doomed to Hell for our sins.
“What’s new about that?” I said, and waked to Starbucks for a latte.
Weekly Challenge #971 – Arrested
The next topic is Mister Right
LISA
A New Lead
“Come, look through the window. The curtains are pulled they won’t see you… just peep through the gap.”
A portable TV. Black and White. The picture is fuzzy and keeps rolling.
“Police in Wiltshire have today arrested a man in connection with the disappearance of Katy Creasy.” It’s so loud we hear it from outside.
A school photo appears on the screen.
“Come forward, can you see?” Katy is there at a table; she’s sobbing silently and a man leans forward to wipe away her tears and laughs. He laughs loud enough to drown out the sound of the TV.
LIZZIE
“He was arrested for playing awful music on the freaking harp.”
“What’s that?”
“Crappy music?”
“No. That word…”
“Harp?”
“Yes.”
“It’s that musical instrument!”
“Ah. What happened to the harp?”
“What do you mean?”
“He was arrested. And the harp?”
“How do I know what happened to the harp?!”
“Was it a big harp or a small harp?”
“It was an I-don’t-care-harp.” ”
“Testy, just asking.”
“I’ll have to bond him out.”
“Why?”
“OMG, have you been paying attention to anything at all? The gold is in the harp.”
“Now I’m confused, how can that be an I-don’t-care-harp then?”
“OK, bye.”
RICHARD
Innocent?
It was all a bit of a shock.
I was minding my own business, watching TV with a nice hot cup of tea when they kicked the door in.
Next thing I know, I’m in handcuffs, being bundled into the back of a police van, with all the neighbours looking on with interest.
Arrested.
And I had no idea why.
Of course, I protested my innocence, but they wouldn’t have it, not until the Superintendent turned up, to inform them they were supposed to raid the house at number one, The Avenue.
I’m number ten, but the zero fell off!
SERENDIPIDY
I don’t really like to think of it as ending a life.
Oh, I know that’s exactly what it is, whether you call it murder, assassination or plain and simple killing, but personally, I don’t think those words adequately express the fullness of what I do.
Snuffing out a life in its prime is more than just a simple ending: It’s denying someone of their future and their potential. Those things they might have done and achieved, will now never happen. The difference they could have made to the world is forever lost.
So, I prefer the term…
Arrested development.
NORVAL JOE
“Mother. I want to see Daddy,” Linoliamanda begged.
Her mother blinked back tears. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. These are their rules. I’m sure he’s in good hands and I’ll have him call you as soon as he wakes up.”
Billbert tipped his head toward the exit. “Come on, Mandy. I know the ICU staff from personal experience. If you step on the wrong nurse’s toes, they might try to have you arrested. It’s late. Let’s walk to my house and I can ask my mom to make us something to eat.”
Her chin quivering, Linoliamanda hugged her mother before following Billbert.
TOM
Kid have you rehabilitated yourself.
My first year in high school was in 1969. Lot of stuff was fraying at the edge of society. Into this mix came the Album Alice’s Restaurant. Central theme of the whole side of the record was wound about our hero getting arrested for dumping garbage. In terms of the narrative arch this landing point was theater of the absurd. It didn’t stop there. By the end of the song the question lay at: are you moral enough to kill mothers and babies after littering. Five years later the war was no less absurd and arrested was still a question.
PLANET Z
Rico wasn’t the only dealer in school, but he had the best stuff at great prices.
And he didn’t stab anyone, unlike Julio and Manuel.
We all knew his story about coming from LA was bullshit.
So, it wasn’t a surprise when he disappeared from school along with a dozen kids.
Jessie saw cops at Rico’s house and others.
And none of them came back that year, or the next.
Which was great for me, because I filled the void.
I had enough for State, but as long as the border’s closed, Yale and Princeton are in my budget now.