George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
There was a pirate who was even worse than George, though.
He called everyone “Bro” and tried to give out fist-bumps to everyone.
An even bigger landlubber than George, who talked big but couldn’t hold his own.
Everyone called him a phony and a poser.
Except for George. He just let the guy bluster.
“Don’t tell me how to load a musket!” he growled. “I’ve been shooting muskets for years!”
The musket exploded, killing the rookie.
George rifled through his pockets and threw his body overboard.
“See ya, Bro.”
Author: R.
George the charm
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The captain always left George behind when he put together landing parties for raids.
“Watch the ship,” he said. “And don’t touch anything.”
George stood on the deck and did nothing.
He was good at doing nothing.
When the captain and the landing party returned from their raids, bringing back treasure, they were surprised that nothing awful had happened in their absence.
“Nothing’s on fire,” said the captain. “The ship hasn’t sunk. Everything’s fine.”
Nothing bad ever happened when George stayed behind.
George became the ship’s good luck charm.
George in a museum
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
This didn’t matter to graverobbers. They just wanted pirate corpses that they could sell to museums, where they were stuffed and displayed in historically accurate dioramas.
Schoolkids would walk past the scenes, going “YARRRRRR!” and swaggering like Johnny Depp in those movies.
Then they’d beg their parents to buy them plastic swords and eyepatches and cheap paper pirate hats from the gift shop.
Or they’d steal something from the dioramas. Sometimes, they’d knock over a figure.
Raising the next generation of thieves and plunderers.
George would be so proud.
The Great Georgetator
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His ship struck a small boat, a boat on which the leader of Tomainia had been fishing.
George bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead man sinking into the water.
So much so, he was grabbed by the special secret police and rushed to the country’s capital.
Dressed in a military uniform, addressing the crowded stadium, George stood there and froze.
What would he say? What would he tell the assembled masses?
What deep wisdom could he share to make everything better for everyone?
George passed out and collapsed.
George’s lunch
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
The other pirates didn’t respect George.
When he put his lunch in the ship’s refrigerator, someone would always steal it.
“I marked it with my name, guys!” yelled George. “I used the marker that’s clipped to the fridge!”
Someone stole the marker, too.
George began to carry his lunch around with him as he worked.
Sometimes, he’d drop it during a battle or a raid, and someone would step on it.
“You did that on purpose!” George would whine, and stab the offender.
It became his whiny, annoying battlecry.
Weekly Challenge #920 – Trailers
The next topic is Eaten by lions
RICHARD
At the movies
They say TV is no substitute for movies on the big screen.
But, to be honest, going to the cinema can be a depressing experience.
To begin with, there’s the hassle of parking the car, then you have to queue for tickets, before bankrupting yourself buying popcorn and coke in quantities that could feed a third world country for a week.
Not to mention fighting your way through miserable people already comfortably seated to get to your own seat.
But worst of all, realising the movie is total crap, and you’ve already seen the only good bits in the trailers.
LIZZIE
A pot of tulips. Why hadn’t she tossed it in the garbage when Mr. I-Love-Tulips left her? No, she took it to the trailer, all she could afford now. When enough tulips had bloomed, she cut them all off and sent them to his workplace, with a note. “You forgot these.” Yes, it was petty. Yes, it was vindictive. However, she decided to grow some more tulips and send them to him for his birthday. She was sure he’d be horrified to see tulips without a pot. Dead and all that. Life’s tough. But at least, he would have tulips.
SERENDIPIDY
I was brought up in one of these trailers.
Trash, they called me, and they may have been right, but I really didn’t care.
I filled my days with hard drugs, moonshine and whoring.
Although, to be clear, I did none of that myself. I was more a coordinator and manager; or if you prefer, dealer and pimp.
Eventually, I became a major player, and if not gaining the respect of my community, I certainly commanded their loyalty.
Now I’ve risen to the top of the pile.
I still live in a trailer, although with gold fittings and satin sheets.
LISA
Too Much Information
There’s been false lead after false lead. It’s not just the local community gripped by this case now it’s the whole country. And it seems they all want to help.
The latest wild goose chase gets the force checking trailers at the stud farm. All the leads are checked out but now with one of their own amongst the victims the police seem to be working with a renewed energy.
The papers are quick to point this out too. The chief had wanted it keeping quiet, for obvious reasons, but now our man knows Pippa is on the force too.
TOM
Coming soon to a theater near you.
Bruce had been making trailers for a generation. He started at Warner’s. Moved to Universal. Spent a decade at TriStar. After becoming dissolute with the industrial model. Bruce only took offers from Indie productions. He knew deep history on that subject matter. He would tell you the first trailer was in November 1913 for the musical The Pleasure Seekers Due to trailers initially being shown after, or “trailing”, the feature film, the term “trailer” was used to describe the promotion; despite it coming before, or “previewing”, the film it was promoting. His current project was Mother Teresa: Last Nun Standing.
NORVAL JOE
Billbert rode in the back seat of Buhmilda’s car with the two girls. He assumed Mr. Withybottom had gone home and not followed them through the evergreen covered hills to Grandma Buhmilda’s log cabin. She parked her car in a big red barn across a meadow from the cabin. Around the meadow, a half circle of rusty old travel trailers were evenly spaced between the cabin and barn.
As Buhmilda lead the kids back to the cabin, she began to sing at the top of her lungs.
Linoliuhmanda wrinkled her nose and grinned. “Hey. I think I know that song.”
PLANET Z
Walt Disney’s dream was to build the city of the future.
Hub-and-spoke peoplemovers, green spaces and company towers, and multiple levels of tunnels to handle freight and waste and deliveries.
It was perfect… too perfect.
After he died, the board and managers met and scaled back his dream to a bunch of theme parks and resorts.
And a government that the company controlled by filling two small trailer parks leased out to reliable company shills.
So taxes went from one pocket to another, safety laws didn’t apply, and everyone was beholden to The Mouse.
And it all came crumbling down.
George’s letters
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Most pirates had a girl in every port.
Sometimes more than one, depending on the money.
George wasn’t like that.
He had someone special back home
George would send letters from every port he visited.
When he arrived back home, they’d read them together under a tree they’d planted when they were young.
Then, one year, George returned home, but his letters were waiting for him, undelivered.
George put them under the tree they’d planted together, where she’d been buried.
His crewmates found his body, hanging from the tree.
George’s Golden Ticket
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When he felt depressed, he ate.
“What is this?” said George, opening a Wonka Bar and seeing a Golden Ticket.
“It says you’ll get a tour of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,” said the captain. “And you’ll get all the chocolate you could ever want.”
They set sail for the chocolate factory, but bad weather prevented George from getting there on time for the tour or the chocolate.
Which made him even more depressed.
He opened another Wonka Bar. Another Golden Ticket.
He crumpled it up and threw it overboard.
George is sorry
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He said “Sorry” a lot, even though he wasn’t genuinely sorry.
He tried to feel genuinely sorry, but he never did.
“You’re not really sorry,” said a man that George had just stabbed.
George sighed. “You’re right,” he said. “I don’t feel sorry. But I want to.”
George sat down and wrote an apology note.
Then, he revised his draft, correcting his spelling and grammar.
Finally, he wrote a clean copy of the note and handed it to the guy he’d stabbed.
But by then, the man was dead.
George reality
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He couldn’t figure out why he was still a pirate.
Why would a crew keep an incompetent like George around?
That’s when George decided he was in a reality television show.
Every now and then, he’d stop and shake one of his crewmates.
“This can’t be real,” he’d say. “Fess up.”
But the pirates were pirates, not actors.
George peeked in every crate and cupboard for cameras and microphones.
Eventually, he gave up, and accepted that things were real.
“Real bad,” said the captain, writing the next day’s script.