Author: R.

The ship we are

I cannot describe the ship.
Its surface absorbs all light.
Its shape, indeterminate.
One moment, I was standing outside if it, I put my hand out…
And the next, I was inside of it, looking out through a clear surface that surrounded me.
I was standing, but on nothing.
No lights, but I could see all around me.
And breathe.
I felt myself melting, becoming one with the ship.
Knowing everything it knew.
Let’s go somewhere, I thought.
Suddenly, I was out in the stars.
So much darkness, so much light, so much color.
I saw everything.
And we flew.

Pineapple

My previous job would send employees on a two week trip to Hawaii after ten years of service.
When I got to nine and a half years of service, I quit.
You see, I hate long plane rides.
I also hate long vacations.
And I’m allergic to weird foods, such as poi.
They offered to fly me anywhere, but there really isn’t anywhere I’d want to go.
I asked if they’d pay for some tickets to Astros games, but they said they’d get back to me.
But shortly after that conversation, I quit.
They still haven’t gotten back to me.

Wedding planner

Brittany was a wedding planner for dogs.
Crazy dog owners would get their dogs hitched with other dogs, and she’d plan out the party, get the guests invited (and their owners), and hired the caterers.
The flower girl would throw around flowers, the happy couple came in, and the preacher would say a bunch of stuff before asking if anyone had any objections…
That’s when I shout out “WHAT THE FUCK? IT’S A FUCKING WEDDING FOR DOGS!”
Brittany said I was a bigot, a hater. A goddamned Nazi.
How the hell was I to know they were two boy dogs?

Nothing to waste

In his will, Freddy hated to waste anything.
He said he didn’t want to waste a good suit and nice shoes.
Or any wood or metal for the coffin.
And all those chemicals they’d pump into him, didn’t they waste enough of them trying to save him in the hospital?
Wrapping him in a sheet and burying him, that would be a waste of land and the stone to mark it.
So they filled his body with explosives and dropped him on a mosque in Gaza.
That was preaching hate around the clock, and training gunmen, suicide bombers, and kidnappers.

Weekly Challenge #1024 – Cool

The next topic is Correlation

LISA

Boxing Day
The house was clinically clean; guests were due at midday. Mum had baked 36 mince pies – we’d all secretly had ‘just one’ as they cooled.
Just before 12 Mum bellowed.
‘Who’s had a mince pie?’ We all gathered at the kitchen door to admit our misdemeanour to discover there were NO MINCE PIES LEFT.
The dog ran downstairs leaving a brown trail behind him then leapt onto the sofa and proceeded to sick constantly. The guests arrived promptly and immediately offered to take the dog to the emergency vets. We argued over who else could go – the house felt unpleasant.

RICHARD

Laundry
The label said, cool wash. Iron on a cool heat.
What exactly does that mean?
My washing machine has a dial surrounded by indecipherable symbols – nowhere does it say ‘cool’, or anything else for that matter.
As for my iron, the only settings it has are marked one, two and three.
I suppose I can make the assumption that ‘one’ is cool, but how can I be sure.
‘In the end, I threw the shirt in the machine with everything else on the same setting I’ve used since day one.
And forget ironing. The crumpled look suits me just fine.

LIZZIE

It’s a plane, the kid exclaimed, rushing to the carousel plane. His mother shook her head. I’ll be a pilot when I grow up! The mother shook her head. Yesterday, you wanted to be a doctor. The kid stretched his arms, mimicking the wings of a plane swooshing through the sky. Isn’t this plane cool? The mother shook her head. He’d be a carpenter, tops. When the kid from back then, already an adult, showed the mother his pilot’s license, she shook her head. Crazy, dangerous job. The adult walked away, the kid cried, the mother never saw either again.

SERENDIPIDY

I wear sunglasses at night, like in the song.
Cool, huh?
You’d better believe it. It’s a look few can pull off convincingly. You need a quiet assurance; the confidence to be secure in the knowledge you have what it takes, and nobody and nothing can undermine your self-worth.
That’s what I tell people, anyway.
The truth is somewhat different.
I don’t just wear sunglasses at night, I wear them during the day too.
I never take them off.
You know what they say: The eyes are the window to the soul.
And some things should not be revealed.

TOM

1024

I wanted to Paul Newman when I grew up

The generation before me defined the term for being above it all. To aspire to a personality that wheeled a frosty wit. Dry and Chilled. The goal was to be Cool. The easy task for a child of the 50s. The central pillar of Cool was certainty in self. In short having an abundance of confidence. Not an evenly distrusted resource for average teenager. So I have spent decades being uncool. What I learn in that time is: Find something your passionate above. Find folk share your passion. For cool is fleeting. In heartbeat it’s so yesterday. Aura Riss 6-7.

NORVAL JOE

It had been a long day, and it was late. Still, instead of going directly to the guest room, Sabrina took the locket and went to the kitchen where they had kept the box of arcane items taken from the cabin in the meadow.

Sabrina handed the locket to Bilbert. “Hold this.”

Though it had been clutched in Sabrina’s hand the entire trip home, it was cool to the touch.

Sabrina emptied the box one item at a time, placing them on the table until she came to a silver jewelry box with a heart shaped depression in the lid.

PLANET Z

You can bet on anything these days.
Balls. Strikes. Touchdowns. Fumbles.
Even the coin toss.
The one thing I want to bet on is the next person to go to jail for a conspiracy related to sports gambling.
You know, some dude is at the free throw line, chucking bricks, and the cops come to serve a warrant and arrest him.
Because it’s not the integrity of the game they’re worried about.
Nothing to do with honor and competition and all of that.
It’s the future of the business.
Games can only be rigged by the owners, not the players.

Cruella ads

I see advertisements for Cruella all over the place.
They’re fucking obnoxious and ugly.
I don’t know anyone who saw Cruella in the theatre.
I don’t know anyone who paid extra to see Cruella on Disney Plus.
I don’t know anyone who paid for the Cruella DVD.
I don’t know anyone who watched Cruella on Disney Plus for free.
Hell, I know people who will bite out their tongue and bleed to death if they tie them up and force them to watch it.
How the hell can these Disney assholes afford so many advertisements for something nobody wants to watch?

Impact

Books open people to new ideas and worlds.
I think back to the books that impacted my life.
The Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary that had so many words to learn and use.
The encyclopedias in the library that taught me so much about history and science.
The Bible, which taught me about faith and religion, but also of excuses to be hateful and fearful of others.
The one that impacted me the most?
I never actually caught the title.
Only the blows to my head and body when my mother couldn’t find her wooden spoon for the constant beatings and spankings.

Rise up and up

Dan built a platform for the camera. Then he rigged it to a weather balloon.
Filling the balloon, until it was ready to release.
And that’s when Dan cut the tether.
The balloon rose, pulling the platform with it.
But the tether was lashed around Dan’s ankle and he was yanked up with the balloon.
Without a knife to cut the line, he was hauled into the sky.
Higher and higher, colder and colder, until the air was too thin to breathe.
Then, the balloon burst, and the platform fell.
Later, someone found the platform, camera, and Dan’s broken corpse.

Scooter things

I live in a golfing and tennis resort community, even though I don’t golf or play tennis. A lot of people drive around in golf carts. They drive in the bike lanes, which scares the crap out of joggers and walkers and cyclists who are wearing headphones. Even though teenagers can’t get drivers licenses, through a technicality, they can still drive golf carts around, electric bikes, and weird one wheeled scooter things. Every now and then you hear about some kid losing control and hitting someone or something. There’s a lot of white crosses on the side of the road.

Rita

Rita taught English in Dubai and lost her teaching job after she complained that half the kids in her class were named Mohammed. That’s all the administration heard and they fired her right on the spot. It had nothing to do with the fact that the kids all dressed alike, let alone while having the same name. And she couldn’t go by last name because they all had similar last names like Saladin. And the parents got mad when she would give them numbers calling on Mohammed one, Mohammed, two, Mohammed three. She was replaced by a teacher named Mohammed.