On the eve of her return to the land of the living, Hades thanked Persephone for her company.
He handed her a map with some wine and food, in case she got hungry along the way.
The next morning, Persephone began her journey.
It took longer than the journey to Hell, and she sat by a stream to rest.
She drank some wine, ate some food.
Then she realized: it was the rest of that apple.
“Six more seeds,” grinned Hades. “That makes twelve. The world is mine.”
Far above them, leaves turned brown again, and snow began to fall.
Author: R.
Imagination
I’ve been told that when you turn 100, The King of the World grants you a wish.
Every day, I imagined what he’d look like. He grew more magnificent each day, silken robes and a golden crown with shining gems.
Until, one day, he was there. At my hundredth birthday.
“Make a wish,” he said.
“To be young,” I replied.
He laughed. “You imagined me all your life. As youth is imagination, so then you are young.”
I blew out the candles on my cake, watching the smoke twist and curl into flying dragons and magnificent castles in the clouds.”
Same Shit, Different Asshole
Election Day is over, and we’re sending a new guy to Washington.
The old guy, who never did anything, packs his stuff and comes home.
The new guy is full of enthusiasm and ideas, and he gets immediately to work.
Well, not yet. He needs new furniture for the office. He has to hire a staff. He has meetings to attend.
When he’s ready to sit down and get to work, he gets up and… heads off on the campaign trail.
It wears him down, and after a few terms, he’s accomplished nothing.
The old guy laughs at us.
Suckers.
We Are Fargo
The kids at William G Fargo High school have the badest assess varsity team in the state. Not once in 50 years have they lost the New York State Barrel riding competitions. You think football is tough ha. Wrestling ha ha. Try dropping 167 feet with 8 million cube feet pounding down on ya with nothing more that 20 egg crates and jock strap. That’s the rule in Buffalo naked Over the falls in a barrel. The team motto leave with your barrel or over your barrel. Cool thing about this sport are points are award even posthumously , actually most.
Macarena
Jose Menendez was known far and wide as The King of The Macarena.
He was constantly putting his hands on his hips, jumping, and turning from morning to night.
Then, one day, he was doing the dance up on a bar and slipped on some spilled peach Margarita mix, and hit his head on the floor, putting him into a coma.
His living will said to play his Macarena tape by his bedside. If he didn’t get up and dance, pull the plug.
So, we did. And he lay there still.
We pulled the plug… on that damn tape player.
Sleep Disorder
After a battery of tests, the doctor gives Jose the results: he suffers from somnambulism, walking around in his sleep.
Jose scratches his head. “How?”
And he pats the handles of his wheelchair. “I can’t walk.”
“Only when you’re awake,” says the doctor. “But when you’re asleep, you walk around.”
Jose remembered the car crash, the surgeries, and getting the bad news: “You’ll never walk again.”
He told them then that he’d prove them all wrong.
“I guess I have,” he mumbled.
“I’ve got good news,” said the doctor.
“What?”
“You’re also a narcoleptic, Jose. More time for walking, right.”
Nanobots
Long ago, Sally would have had to clean her teeth with a brush, fluoridated goo, waxed string, and medicated rinse.
Now, it’s done with nanobots. Tiny robots programmed to scrub away food particles, eliminate bacteria, and rebuild any damaged surface material.
Everything is done with nanobots. Zapping cancer cells, replenishing muscle fibers, healing bone, and enhancing nerve signals.
They’re not supposed to go into the brain, but they do.
The tooth maintenance routine doesn’t quite work in the brain, neurons sheathed with shiny hard enamel.
Sally collapsed in the mall, staring blankly, with a perfect dead smile on her face.
Weekly Challenge #242 – “Playing Doctor”
Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Forty-Two, 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 Playing Doctor!
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
[polldaddy poll=4236104]
And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.
Tom
“Want to play Doctor.” he slyly said
“Let’s check those vitals” she wryly replied removing a thermometer from her med bag.
As the light ran along the glass rod a disturbing thought crossed his mind.
“That’s not oral is it?” “Nope, but actuate”
“You sure have a talent for killing the moment”.
“What’s amatter pookie don’t want to play Doctor any more?”
“Not if it’s going to involve foreign objects. I am no longer in the mood.”
“Aha come on. we could play the little match girl and the salami salesman.”
“Ok but I get to be Giuseppe this time.”
Zackmann
Hello, Realtor ? I need to move away from my crazy neighbors. I told them, I am not a doctor, I
only play one on TV. Their kid was sick and they gave him the medicine from my ad. Then they
were angry with me when the medicine didn’t work. What did they expect, when I said I was not
a real doctor right in the commercial? I need it by October because I got that part as a zombie
in The Walking Dead and I really don’t want to take the chance of them blowing my brains out.
Steven
I read a chapter of the self-help book, then the entirety of _Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas_. It’s a potent combination: 12-step uppers
with sentence fragment gonzo hallucinogens.
The arthritis pains come with the first real snows, beautiful stabbing
aches as white flakes. Pain induced insomnia turns everything into
buzzing noise. I read another self help chapter, and see myself, my
patterns in the book. Then I mainline British science fiction.
Is love always portrayed as codependence?
I watch Fight Club again instead of staring at her picture.
I wonder if self-medication always feels like this.
Danny
Once upon a time, playing doctor as a child was innocent enough. You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. A child’s innocent curiosity is satisfied, too young to understand the meaning of sex, or the harm of having an innocent question answered. Fast forward to today. Children who dare play doctor today can look forward to a small army of state workers removing them from their homes, placing their parents in jail, putting them through counseling, and labeling them sexual predators for the rest of their lives, as if they are adults preying on children. Our age of innocence is over.
Jeffrey
“The term practice has never really instilled any confidence you know doc?”
“Jake, you are not going to go all fraidy-cat on me now are you?”
“I’m just saying.”
“Alright then, just sit here in the chair, and I will tighten the straps.”
“Are you sure you have to strap me down.”
“I don’t want you to accidentally move and have something go wrong.”
“‘I guess that make sense. Doc, how many times have you done this?”
“Oh many.” He flipped the switch, Jake twitched, once and started to smoke. “Maybe I should’ve told him I was just playing doctor.”
Justin
Christopher and Pip sat at the table, looking bored.
Christopher sat up with an idea.
“Let’s play Doctor!”
“OK, what do we do?”
“Come on, into this fort I built.”
“Since when do Doctors have forts?”
“Well, it’s a fort, but pretend it’s the Doctor’s home. It’s kind of a fort.”
“Why would I go to the doctor’s home and not his office?”
“What? He has an office? I never saw one. Here’s his gear. What time should we go?”
“Go where, and what’s this stuff? Why are there headphones on this screwdriver?”
“That’s his sonic screwdriver. It does everything!”
TJ
It had to be ironic on some level. Laramie, backstage, snogging with
Deedee Feetch while understudying for Doc Feetch in the lead role of the
community theater production of “Playing Doctor.” Doc Feetch was
called away on a fake emergency Laramie had called into the hospital
across town. So… Laramie was taking a break from playing a fake doctor
in “Playing Doctor” for a real doctor so as to play doctor with the
doctor’s wife while the real doctor was off playing doctor somewhere
on a doctored call… when an audience member fainted. Is there a doctor
in the house?
Norval Joe
All Marcus ever wanted was to help people.
As a child he was always playing doctor.
He lived in a poor, crowded neighborhood, so the imaginary illness were often obscure and complex.
He joined a make-believe Independent Provider’s Network to compete with the HMO’s, but reimbursements were so low it was difficult to pay off his student loans.
After a failed plastic surgery he had to pay Joey Swartz a weeks worth of lunch money to avoid a lawsuit.
When he graduated college he became a lobbyist for a drug company, the only way to make money in medicine anymore.
Planet Z
I live in a small town.
We’re all close. Real close.
At the end of the year, we put on a show.
This year, I’m the sheriff.
Sheriff’s playing the judge.
Judge’s playing the doctor.
Doc’s playing Postman Joe.
Everybody’s a part of it, playin’ everybody else.
Ain’t nobody in the audience but cameras.
(I told you I live in a small town.)
When we’re done, we turn off the cameras, put the tapes in the players, and watch ourselves bein’ each other.
If we haven’t had a fight durin’ the play, well, this is when the claws come out.
…
…
…
And here’s my entry for Steven’s contest:
The Falling Leaves
It takes two hours to reach this spot, but it’s worth the journey.
See those trees? The ones with the red and orange leaves?
They’re just about ready, I think.
Spread out the blanket on the perfectly smooth grass, lay back, and look up at the sky through the branches.
Then, with the first breeze, the leaves start to fall… upwards.
Into the sky they rise, up and out of sight.
I don’t know why the leaves do that.
Maybe it’s a gravitational anomaly, or perhaps something in the leaves.
Just lay back and watch them rise, up and away.
Gum Wad
I chew a lot of gum.
And when I’m done with it, I keep it all.
Ever since I was 8, I’ve added to the gum wad in my room.
When I went off to college, I took it with me, and I stuck it in the back of my closet.
I went into the Army, somehow managing to get through Afghanistan without losing the gigantic gum wad.
Now, I’m back home.
I made my home out of the gum wad.
Here. Have some gum. Enjoy.
Just give it to me when you’re done. I want to build a patio.