Mindy was the finest event planner in the world.
Fundraisers always call Mindy. It isn’t a party without her.
Finding perfect venues, perfect caterers, perfect decorations and entertainment.
“Mindy throws the best parties,” attest many of the attendees.
They hand over checks, some discreetly, and some flamboyantly, with oversized symbolic checks to stand with and hold up and get their photo taken.
Then the perfect cleaners come to clean up.
“Sorry,” Mindy says to the fundraisers, taking her fee. “There’s no money left. But it was one hell of a party.”
As her cell phone rings… another event to plan.
The Fake Zoo
The zoo has had a problem with animals escaping.
“Danger Zoo!” the headlines called it.
So, they put in better fences, and ran training drills.
Zoo workers put on lion suits and roam around the zoo.
Then other workers then implement crowd control, collaborating to contain the fake animals and returning them to their cages.
The visitors love to watch these exercises.
So much, the zoo got rid of all the animals and just displayed people in animal suits.
“Escaping” every so often.
As for the real animals, they’re roaming loose in the city.
Here, put on this lion suit.
Lie Lie
Back in college, I called some people friends.
Every so often, we’d go to a dumpling house and order a whole table of food and split the check.
Pass plates around, maybe there was some left of what I wanted. But, usually, the others gobbled it up.
Then they’d order too much of something only they liked, or extra things to go, like vegetable dumplings.
We graduated, some of us still went there, but the bullshit continued.
Someone’s sloppy kid was knocking over plates and glasses. I blew up.
I threw a twenty on the table and never looked back.
Weekly Challenge #837: THICKET
LISA
Deep in the Forest
He knew Little Red was heading his way. It was Sunday afternoon she’d be going to her Grandma’s house. The canopy of trees overhead sheltered him, like a leafy cave. He ran his tongue over sharp glistening teeth, sighed then in a contented fug curled up in a ball and slept.
She was stood over him when he woke holding her father’s hunting knife aloft.
“What a big mistake you’ve made Mr Wolf. Grandma needs a new fireside rug.”
She clasped his neck, stroking his hackles gently whilst deciding where to cut.
She chose.
And the thicket swallowed his howls.
RICHARD
The Orchard
See that thicket of trees, down at the bottom of the garden?
There were no trees there when I was a lad, and I used to sit there in the sun, eating apples and throwing away the cores.
Over the years, I grew up, and so did the seeds I’d sown. They became saplings, then trees, and there you see them now.
They remind me of those happy times: The freedom of youth, and the simple pleasures of childhood.
More than that, their gnarled and twisted bodies reflect my own.
And I sadly recall, that I am older than they.
TURA
Thicket
———
I heard a story from a Vietnam vet. “Fifty men walked into a thicket and never walked out again.”
That’s it, see. That’s the whole story.
I’d actually encountered it before, in a great-great-grandfather’s memoir of some colonial war in darkest Africa. “A hundred soldiers went into the jungle and never came out again.”
Back in Roman times, veterans would tell of three Roman legions that marched into a forest and never marched out again.
“All is vanity,” saith the Preacher, “There is nothing new under the sun, and fifty men walk into a thicket and never walk out again.”
LIZZIE
The tiny hops of joy brought light to a golden field. The sun. The warmth. Her smile covered by a mask. She motioned to pick a flower, but hesitated and smiled.
It wasn’t the time. Let them live, she thought. Let them live.
Cast a spell, the old woman had said. And she smiled once more.
Kindness. She nodded. Was kindness a spell?
Early bird and all that, but with kindness.
The tiny hops of joy brought a glow she could not explain, a glow of gold, a smile of joy. And she hopped, her face covered by a mask.
SERENDIPIDY
“Let’s play hide and seek!” You said.
I knew you would, it was what you always wanted to play. I never got to choose.
“I’ll hide, and you can seek” you said, “Turn around and count to a hundred.”
I turned around, and dutifully started counting. Like always. I never got to hide, you’d always become bored with the game by the time I found you, and then it was all over.
One hundred.
I won’t bother searching. You’d be hiding in the thicket. You always were.
I waited for the screams.
So, I see you found my man trap?
TOM
What Could Go Possibly Wrong 037
Bender took a step back from Red. So did Arnesto. Red’s eyes went wide, but she kept her composure. “No sudden moves love.” “Define sudden?” “One where we disappear in a cloud of smoke.” “Your move love.” Red lowered a hand to grab the com. “Ok boys and girl, clear the bridge. That mean both of you two.” she said to Cervantes and Bender. While unhappy with being removed from the equation, both back out gracefully. “So, where did you procure that hype-factoid?” Ford tapped the edge of the glass,” A thicket in Yorkshire in a very old Viking briar. “
NORVAL JOE
Billbert’s mother smiled and blinked rapidly several times. “See Billbert? Sabrina just wants to be your friend. Nothing dangerous.”
Billbert sat up, keeping the sheet across his lap. “She’s a witch, mom. She could cast a spell on me in a second. Wiggle her fingers and say, ‘Rabbit in a thicket’, and I’d be twitching my nose and hopping away.”
His mother laughed. “Son. You have quite the imagination.”
Sabrina nodded her head. “She’s right, Billbert. You have a really good imagination. The spell, Rabbit in a thicket, doesn’t turn you into one, it only makes you fast like one.”
PLANET Z
We pick up the map, and into the woods we go.
The witch waits for us. Watches us in her crystal ball.
An open fire.
A potion bubbling in her cauldron, green fog spilling across the weeds.
The woodland creatures breathe in the fog, their eyes glowing green.
And they sing. They sing a low, moaning tone.
And walk, and crawl, and fly around the cauldron.
“Hi,” we say, holding out the map. “We got your invitation.”
The witch sticks a finger in the potion, licks her finger, and smiles.
“It’s ready,” she says, and we all have a drink.
Into the river we went
Back in grade school, we stole a canoe from a shed and paddled out to a small island in the middle of the reservoir lake.
We named it West Muenster, even though we lived east of Muenster Texas.
And none of us liked Muenster cheese.
We only liked the name of it.
Every Saturday, we’d bring wood and nails and tools to the island, and we’d work on our clubhouse.
Until one day, the canoe was gone from the shed, and when we looked through binoculars out at the island, the clubhouse was gone.
So we used the shed instead.
Poppy
Children of all ages, far and wide, love The Poppy Show.
Government stations air it twice a day.
Six and six.
Large monitors in every public square.
Everything stops so citizens can watch.
And when it is over, they applaud. And cheer.
They make such a show of applauding and cheering.
But not out of compulsion, mind you.
Everyone truly loves The Poppy Show.
They’d watch it more, if they could, but twice a day is all a person can handle.
I’ve seen what three viewings in a day can do.
I’ve seen the asylums.
And cannot unsee the horror.
Little red
Little Red Riding Hood hated her grandmother.
The old bat insisted on living in a remote cottage in the woods instead of moving into a retirement home.
Forcing her granddaughter to bring meals every day, bring medicine, do chores, and so on.
“I need to go to school,” said Red.
But her mother would hear nothing of it, smacking her daughter and sending her to the woods.
“I can help you with your problem,” said The Big Bad Wolf.
Red agreed, and the Wolf ate the grandmother.
“Oh thank God,” said Red. “Thank you.”
And then, the Woodsman showed up.
811
You’re supposed to call 811 before you do any digging.
That way, you can avoid hitting buried cables, or water mains, or gas lines.
Ted didn’t call before he dug a hole.
But he didn’t hit any power lines or pipes.
Instead, he uncovered an ancient stone stairway that went down beyond the range of his cell phone’s built-in light.
Strange whispers drifted up from the depths.
When Ted called 811, the city sent out a team of priests and a goat to sacrifice.
“If we’re not back in an hour, cover the hole,” they said, and descended the stairs.
Shelley
Shelley was a great actress.
One of the greatest.
Winning awards, and losing jealous actor husbands over them.
She packed on a lot of weight to play a role, won an award for it, and then found she couldn’t shed those pounds.
Leading roles for older fat women doesn’t exist, so she dove into supporting characters and made them her own.
Cranky, bossy, and always funny.
Never holding back.
And winning more awards.
A heart attack left her bedridden.
Where she watched her old movies and many appearances on chatshows.
Sipping her water, smiling, and remembering the good old days.
Food Truck
If you can’t afford to rent a building to start your restaurant, you can always buy a used food truck and outfit it for your concept.
Park in a good spot, get cooking, and people will come to you.
If you’re really good, businesses will invite you to their private parking lots for a food truck day for their employees.
A bankrupt mall came up with an idea to turn its parking lot into an open air food court.
Rows and rows of food trucks.
But they left no space for customer parking. Or seating.
And it rained a lot.