Weekly Challenge #851: Deal

Myst

LISA

Gambling lives.

Mum always said to have a packet with you. Scout camp she forgot my underwear but I’d got a pack of cards in my rucksack. She was right. Snap to Cribbage there was no age limits with a game of cards. I’d killed many hours with a clock of Patience cards.

Lately it’s not been playing to pass the time or a bit of fun. The stakes have got higher than the matchsticks at Nans. A bag of halfpennies turned to banknotes, a car, a house… to this.

I want this to be my last hand even if I win.

RICHARD

The deal

“Fifty thousand in used, unmarked bills up front, then another hundred thousand on completion. Do we have a deal?”

I looked around nervously. I was way out of my comfort zone, but I wasn’t calling the shots.

I nodded, fumbling with my inside pocket for the envelope, which I slid carefully across the table top.

The man in the sharp suit took the envelope and quickly sifted through the wad of cash.

Satisfied with its contents, he pocketed the envelope and produced the contract.

“Sign here, and my client will sign when it’s done.”

Weirdest house purchase I’ve ever made!

LIZZIE

Millions. To sell him for millions. He wanted the millions. He wanted the fancy cars, the huge house, the yacht. He wanted the girls, the jewelry, the paparazzi. He wanted the interviews, the autographs.
Then the millions came and everything else along with it.
It was fun, at first.
When that creep jumped over his fence and held him and his family hostage for half a day, demanding the release of another creep from jail, it wasn’t fun anymore.
He stopped playing football. He moved to the mountains to be free.
But he still kept the millions… just in case.

SERENDIPIDY

I have a deal with the River Styx ferryman – he lets me have first refusal on the bodies that come his way. Those with a decent amount of meat on them, I can have.

He gets to keep the coins, I get the body, and it saves him the effort of rowing across the river and back.

Everybody’s happy.

Well, almost everybody – I can’t say that the souls of the dead are particularly impressed, having to roam the shadows and never achieving peace.

Doesn’t bother me though. I’m tell them I’m a Buddhist, and it’s simply karma doing its thing!

TURA

Deal
———
I owe everything to my father’s advice. He’d asked me how much I was losing on poker. I hadn’t known he knew I played. Not serious money, and I put it down to learning. “It’s not the luck of the draw, it’s how you play the hands, right?” I said.

“Bullshit,” he said. “Control the deal, and nothing else matters.”

So I learned card sharping. Then I took up bigger games. Car dealerships. Construction. Politics. And now, President of the United States. And yes, people did buy used cars from me.

Make everyone play your game, and you’ll always win.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert and Sabrina got to their second period classroom. Before they went in, Billbert held up his hand. “Wait. Help me deal with this. You gave me the koala toy so these knights can’t see me. We make contact every day to keep our magic strong. To be absolutely honest with you, I don’t have magic. I have a super power. So, all your talk about magic is just a delusion.”
Sabrina closed her eyes and shook her head. “Do you know what the difference between a superpower and magic is?”
“No, what?” Billbert asked.
Sabrina smiled, “There isn’t one.”

PLANET Z

I made a deal with the Devil.
I mean, who wouldn’t?
If you could, you would, right?
The things you can ask for, the things you’ll get.
There’s always some kind of twist involved, I know.
But, damn, this was the best milkshake I’ve ever had.
And I said as such.
The Devil was… smiling.
Not that evil grin smiling, but genuinely pleased.
And happy.
“Everybody’s always asking for eternal life, power, women, that kind of stuff,” he said. “But nobody asks for my special handcrafted milkshakes.”
We tapped glassed together and at and watched the sunset over the water.

The Wright Houses

My parents were born in Oak Park.
The famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright started his career in Oak Park.
He designed a few houses and buildings there.
You know Frank Lloyd Wright’s infamous Unity Church?
Well, my grandparents lived in the apartment tower right next to it on Kenilworth Avenue.
When we’d visit, they’d say “We’ll can go look at the Wright houses after dinner.”
They were all walking distance.
But we never did, because it was usually too dark by then.
And we had to go home.
They’d say “We can drive past them.”
Each and every fucking time.

Ellis

Every day, ships full of immigrants arrived at Ellis Island.
First class passengers got a quick look-over, and then were waved along.
The second-class and third-class passengers had a more thorough exam.
Sent up the long staircase and watched by health wardens for signs of exhaustion and heart problems.
Thirty seconds examination, and then a chalk mark on their clothes indicating their condition.
Waved into another room… a waiting room before boarding a ferry to New York and freedom and their future, or to the hospital to get well enough for the next ship back to where they came from.

Marathons are boring

I find marathons annoying.
It’s a traveling traffic snarl mafia going from city to city.
They hire staff, round up volunteers, lay out cups of gatorade on tables, put out plastic toilets, surround the track with traffic cones and cops. all to celebrate a guy who ran 26 miles to say “We won” and died.
I can commemorate that by sending an email or making a phone call.
In 2500 years, will they climb buildings to commemorate the victory of the giant ape who escaped his evil captors and grabbed the bimbo, only to get killed by all those biplanes?

Tag a cat

I bought an Air Tag and a collar attachment for my cat.
That way, I can scan for my cat when she goes out but doesn’t feel like coming back in.
It’s hard to see a black cat at night.
So, I put the tagged collar on her, and let her go on her merry way.
And when it was time for bed, I scanned for her tag and played the tracking tone and found her rolling in some dirt.
I took her inside and took off her collar.
Because I know where she is… in bed, biting my nose.

Death sits on my nose

Death sits on my nose, the old farmer says. Why ask me about the past? Why ask me about the war?
He was a soldier in the war.
And he killed so many.
Some in battle.
Some after, as they rounded up the surrendered.
Shot them and dropped their bodies in the pit.
Some in their houses. Or their churches.
Taking gold from their pockets.
Selling candlesticks and fabric and books.
And now, he is a farmer.
So many farmers, death sits on their nose.
I board the train, and leave them all to death to take as it will.

Tom Petty

Tom Petty died of a drug overdose.
He took a lot of drugs.
Some of them were for depression.
Some were from anxiety.
Some more were for insomnia.
And some more were for pain.
His hip was a mess, and he eventually fractured it.
But instead of getting a hip replacement, he took more drugs.
And he died of an overdose.
His excuse for not getting the hip replacement was because so many people were depending on him for a tour to go on.
But because he died from a drug overdose, no tour happened.
And they felt the pain.

Weekly Challenge #850: PICK TWO Where’s Ethel?, Toothpaste, Concertina, Pacing, Screaming Kids, Tie

Catbreak time

NORVAL JOE

Pacing along with the other students in the hallway Billbert raised his voice to be heard over the laughing and screaming kids. “This is kind of a pickle. You’re saying I can’t tell these Dark Knights from regular kids and they’ll take over my brain without me knowing. What am I supposed to do?”
She grabbed his hand in both of hers and shook it. “This is why we make contact every day. It restores our magical protection.”
“Sounds like superstition to me,” Billbert said. “Do you avoid black cats?”
“No,” Sabrina said, sounding annoyed. “I have a black cat.”

SERENDIPIDY

Where’s Ethel?

Where do you think? You know the expression, ‘out of sight, out of mind’? Well, with Ethel, it’s more a case of ‘out of earshot, out of mind’.

Trust me, if you had to put up with her racket, you’d lock her in the cellar too, and if there’s one thing you can grow tired of really quickly, it’s screaming kids.

And, when it comes to screaming, nobody can do it longer, louder or more constantly than Ethel.

Although, the thought did occur to me, the screaming might have something to do with being locked in the cellar!

RICHARD

Pack it in

Tie and toothpaste: Two items I always forget to pack when I’m away on business trips.

You may not think that’s a big deal, but in my line of work, it’s all about that vital first impression, and turning up to a client with fuzzy teeth, bad breath, and tie-less, is just not going to cut it.

This time, I’m not taking chances.

There’s a note on the bathroom mirror, another on the wardrobe, and a reminder on my phone.

Success, at last: I remembered to pack both my tie and the toothpaste.

In the suitcase, I left at home!

TURA

A story of those long-ago days before the phonograph, when we made our own entertainment.
———
When I was a boy, concertinas were regular events in provincial drawing rooms: “little concerts” of orchestral works arranged for a small ensemble.

Like everyone, our household had a piano, and our guests brought violins, cellos, and perhaps a flute or oboe. The high point for me was Aunt Ethel singing “Come into the garden, Maud”, accompanying herself on the harp. She was rather younger than her sister, my mother, and as I grew older I adored her, perhaps a little too much, for at some point she stopped coming. “Where’s Auntie Ethel?” I asked, but no-one would tell me.

LIZZIE

Screaming kids running throughout the house, trying to escape the evil toothbrush with that medicinal toothpaste from hell that tasted horribly. This is how I remember Aunt Ethel. She was relentless, always trying to brush everyone’s teeth.
One day, she couldn’t find any of us (we were hiding) and she walked outside, toothbrush in one hand and the damned toothpaste in the other, armed for a battle only she and us kids understood. But she just left, walked away and left.
That’s why we all became dentists. Secretly, we hoped she’d come back to realize she now had an army.

LISA

ping Mum

Monday, we’d overslept and were squeezed into the bathroom, all trying to get to the toothpaste at the same time. I’m not sure how I heard my phone over the screaming kids.

“Ethel’s gone AWOL again”

It was Dad with his usual to the point telephone manner. I said not to worry and that I’d try and nip over after the school run. Ethel was there though, pacing at the school gates, she’d wet herself.

“I’m waiting for me Mam” She told us and I ushered the kids into school not wanting to explain about Grandma to them just yet.

PLANET Z

Laurence Simon
Sun, Jul 31, 9:02 PM (7 days ago)
to me

My roommate and I like to play Where’s Ethel?
Ethel is my pet ferret, and she likes to hide in strange places.
Laundry baskets, pots and pans.
The coffee pot.
And the microwave.
We run around the house, looking for Ethel.
Sometimes, I find her.
Other times, my roommate finds her.
Then, there was the time when we smelled burned fur coming from the ventilation.
Ethel had crawled into a duct and ended up in the furnace.
We call that round a tie and went to the pet store for another ferret.
And tightened down the vent covers more securely.

Twenty seconds of futility

When the pandemic began, the CDC recommended that people wash their hands a lot.
20 seconds of scrubbing with soap and warm water to dislodge and kill the virus.
To get people to wash their hands for the full 20 seconds, some people sang handwashing songs.
Or recited poems that they liked.
Eventually, smartwatches detected the motion of handwashing and displayed encouraging messages or play handwashing music to keep them going for the full 20 seconds.
Then, when they were done, they’d grab a paper towel, dry their hands, and use the same bathroom doorknob all their infected coworkers used.

The end of the day

It’s the end of the day, and we’ve ridden all the rides we’ll ride, eaten all the food we’ll eat, and hugged all the walking characters we’ll hug.
The streetlights go dark, we take spots along the main street.
And then… fireworks fill the sky, and music fills our ears.
The streetlights come up, and the loudspeakers thank us for coming.
And hope we’ve had a magical time.
Please proceed to the exits.
Back to the car.
Back to the hotel.
Back to the airport.
Back home.
But when we sleep, we dream of the fireworks.
And the magic returns.