McKinney

639172

McKinney. Leader of the pack.
I grew up watching him on late night specials, learning his voice, his gestures, his jokes.
The unknotted bowtie hangs around my neck just like his.
Martini glass in hand, one olive on a glass spear.
I do his routine at retirement homes, people old enough to remember, too old to put up with the new stuff out there.
Keep it familiar.
McKinney’s fame was wider than I’d thought.
Broadcasts, deep in space.
That audience came for him.
They found me.
Now I’m touring the galaxy. Rich as hell.
But no olives to be found.

You Breathed

546076

Why did you do it? What put you over the edge?
You were so happy when I saw you yesterday. So full of the joy of life.
What made you pull the trigger. Twice.
What horror filled your mind with despair and hopelessness What could possibly drag you down so deep?
Twice. Did you pull the trigger?
Or did someone else do it?
They shot you twice and put the gun in your hand.
Then, as they waited to call for help, you breathed.
“I heard the shot. I found him there. I found him dead.”
But you still breathed.

My Spot

639171

There are five booths in Bill’s Diner.
This is my spot.
Second to last booth, seat facing the door.
Nobody takes my spot. If someone does, Bill tells them to sit somewhere else.
If they don’t move, he puts their coffee down at the counter.
Even the mailman knows this is my spot. He doesn’t even bother to deliver my mail to my apartment or my office.
He puts it down at my spot.
Same with the paperboy.
Bill asked if I wanted like a metal plaque or something to mark my spot
There’s no point, really.
Everybody already knows.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #95

798902

The doctors hauled Abe’s gangly frame out of the theater and across the street.
The bed was too short, so they laid him upon it at an angle.
Mary Todd was a wreck. Not only was her husband mortally wounded, but the theater owner refused to give a refund.
Abe’s son Robert pondered the situation: “Surely, God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, man was made for immortality!”
Abe wheezed, sighed, and breathed no more.
The President was dead.
“Never mind,” said Robert.

Weekly Challenge #137 – Blow Pops and Water

7300410

Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Thirty-Seven 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 Blow Pops and Water
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories of Weekly Challenge #137?
Tom
Norval Joe
Justin from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr_Zu6vxWEo
Anima Zabaleta from http://http.zabbadabba.com/
Eva Moon from http://evamoon.net/
Byz
Guy David from http://www.guydavid.com
Ashley
Caleb from http://blacktiemartiniclub.com
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com


Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):


TOM

They drained the water out of the pool, then pulled Bruce onto the deck. In spite of being very dead and very wet Bruce had a exceedingly large smile on his face due to a number of blow pops shoveled into his month. Lt. Roveochvski thumbed through his copy of The Guinness Book of World Record under lollipops filled with bubble gum. “It says 14 by Lionel Mountbatten of Sheffield.” The forensic guy pulled out 16 pops. “Seems he literally gummed himself to death, should have stuck to cigarettes probably lived longer.” Roveochvski popped a lifesaver and tagged the toe.

NORVAL JOE

The Brain sat beside the hospital bed of his life long companion, Pinky.
He stroked the silky fur between Pinky’s large floppy ears to calm his thrashing in his pain killer induced delirium.
Developmentally delayed from birth, Pinky developed juvenal diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, Charcot-Marie-Tooth syndrome, hemophilia and teenage onset bi-polar depression.
The final insult came with HIV tainted blood from a transfusion.
Pinky opened his watery eyes and gazed sightlessly at his friend.
“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?” “I think so Brain, but I forgot the blow pops and water.”
Desolate, Brain lowered his head and cried.

JUSTIN

The humpback whale lay on the Oregon Coast, fins flopping. An accident by someone watching whale and not the road caused a truckload of blow pops spilled all over. Someone had an idea. Soon spectators chewed on the blow pops and got the gum ready. When there was a huge glob of gum, they carefully put it in one of the whale’s blowholes. Then they hooked a mix of oxygen and helium to the other blowhole. The bubble formed from the blowhole and the whale floated and was guided by a kite flying expert back to sea. Pop! Splash! Freedom.

ANIMA

Kellie loves to knit. Really makes the needles fly.
First it was scarves for friends,
then more difficult techniques, like felting and spinning her own yarns.
Once she went experimental, I don’t know of anything she didn’t try to knit.
Dad got slippers knit from the skins of organic banana peels;
Jenna, a blanket made of bank statements,
I received a barbed wire hobo bag.
But not every project was successful…
Kellie wore a SWEET cotton candy cardigan, with blow pops for buttons, to the church picnic.
Needless to say, she was a big hit at the water balloon toss.

EVA MOON

The popping bubble sounds were coming in a steady, unbroken stream at last.
The rush of pleasure at his accomplishment almost overshadowed the pounding headache.
Zoran was a master clarinetist, but one skill eluded him: circular breathing. Without it he couldn’t play continuously. Until now.
The old methods are often the best: Want to learn circular breathing? Get a glass of water and a straw. Have your teacher stand behind you with a stick. Blow bubbles in the water. When the bubbles stop, you get whacked with the stick.
Trust me, in no time at all the bubbles don’t stop.

BYZ

Ten years old and full of mischief, Lara, wandered along the sidewalk with her lollipop jammed into her mouth. A Blow Pop to be exact. Temptation had greedily lured her into stealing money for the favored sweet. Her conscience pricking her just enough to take the edge off her blissful state.
Rounding the corner, her young body ran smack into a huge man. Looking up she saw a policeman.
Her mouth opening on a shriek saw the coveted Blow Pop fall into a puddle of muddy looking water.
Instantly her mom’s words, “crime doesn’t pay”, ran guiltily through her mind.

GUY DAVID

The packet of Cherry Flavored Charms Blow Pops was half buried in the water. Little Linda bent over and tried to pick it up. It was stuck. The kid pulled at it. The packet seemed to pull back at her. She pulled harder. The packet also pulled harder until it knocked Linda off her feet and started dragging her into the water. Linda just wouldn’t let go. She really wanted those colorful yummy looking lollipops. Eventually, she was pulled right into the water where a shark with a fishing rod put her in a basket and walked away with her.

ASHLEY

The kid took two licks of the tootsie roll blow pop and accidentally dropped it.
“How many licks to get to the middle?” he exclaimed.
An owl silently swooped down on the fallen blow pop and bit it in half.
Unfortunately for the owl, he just crashed a pool party complete with swimmin pool, slip-n-slide and a sundry of water balloons.
Some of the other kids started pelting the owl with water balloons. The owl turned his head completely around startling the kids, then silently flew back into the woods, blow pop in tow.
“So it takes three licks, “sighed the kid.

CALEB

“Robot, is Stacy home yet?”
“In the Garden, Sir”
“Did you get the stuff for the play date tomorrow?”
“stuff, Sir?”
“The shopping list I left on the fridge for you!”
“You did not specify…”
“It doesn’t matter what size water, half liter, 20 Ounces, whatever”
“You did not specify…”
“What kind of lollipop? They’re kids it doesn’t matter. Cherry, Strawberry, Schnozzberry for all they care!”
“You did not specify it was a Shopping List, Sir”
“What the hell else…?”
Just then Stacy ran in saying she’d seen her dad lying dead in the pool with no pants on, smiling

PLANET Z

Just a kid, a stupid kid, a drug runner who didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell to get out of the ghetto, he tagged the bricks with shapes and colors because he didn’t know how to read, didn’t know how to write, didn’t know how to think, didn’t have a future, ran to the dealer and said “Tucker want two kilo blow, Pops.” and the dealer smacked him hard, hard enough to knock out a rotten tooth and make his eyes water “Don’t you call me Pops, I ain’t your poppa, I just fucked your momma, boy.”

The Tongue

639174

Robert Pastorelli’s been dead for years, but that didn’t stop me from dreaming about him.
His corpse had been torn to pieces and I had stumbled across his tongue, a throbbing slab of redness inchworming its way along the pavement.
I placed a resonating gadget to its tip and it spoke of his death and subsequent desecration.
When I found the rest of his head, I placed the tongue back inside and it babbled nonsense.
Why I dreamed of Robert Pastorelli, let alone his severed head, tongue torn out, I have no idea. I haven’t watched Murphy Brown in years.

Guards

639157

The brothers stand at either side of the door, wearing their finest red military parade jackets.
Even though they each had a musket on their shoulder, the guns hadn’t been fired in years.
When had they been fired? Let’s see…
I know. I remember.
That day, the brothers had challenged each other to a duel.
After walking ten paces, they turned, and fired.
Both brothers fell over, dead.
I had them both stuffed, dressed, and propped up at either side of the door.
They are pretty useless as guards now, but then they were pretty useless as guards back then.

Half the moon

halfthemoon.mp3

Which half of the moon do you want?
The left? The right?
Waning? Waxing?
Or perhaps you want the top of it?
Don’t forget the bottom.
Maybe you want the side that faces us. Certainly you do not want the side that faces away.
What do they call it? The dark side of the moon?
Take your time. It is an important decision.
What of the other half? Who gets that?
Is half the moon not enough for you? Need you have more?
I can understand. What good is half a moon?
Better to have none at all, I suppose.

Art Museum

639160

Every day after work, I go to the art museum.
It is on my way home, next to a family grocery that always has the best apples.
You aren’t supposed to eat in a museum. But they let me bring an apple in.
Or an orange, if I am not in the mood for an apple.
Museums often display just a part of their collection to the public. The rest is in storage or being restored with touchups and cleaning.
They let me look at the many works sitting in storage, admiring the Junior Varsity squad of the art world.

Goalposts

639159

There’s no greater thrill than when your team wins the championship and the crowd tears the goalposts down.
I wish we had stopped at that.
After the goalposts came down, we started tearing up the field, ripping huge sheets of sod and tossing them around like bathroom mats.
Then we busted up the concession stands and the bathrooms.
The seats and bleachers took some effort, but soon enough, we were throwing seats around smashing them to bits.
The rest of the stadium required heavy construction equipment, but we were persistent and fired up.
A final cheer, then we went home.