The Wreathmaker

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I work for a place that makes wreaths.
Year-round, we make memorial wreaths.
But during the holidays, we get a lot of orders for Christmas wreaths.
Sure, they’re just fancy flowers and branches and twists of wire, but each one gets a serial number and a chip in them that lets us double-check and triple-check they’re going to the right place.
Nobody wants to hang a memorial wreath on their front door. And the one time we sent a Christmas wreath to a funeral, well, this is why we now keep one or two extra wreaths in the delivery vans.

Unusual Creatures

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I know you’re familiar with butterflies.
But are you familiar with I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butterflies?
They look like butterflies.
They fly like butterflies.
And, if you lick them, they taste like butterflies.
But the truth is, they’re not actually butterflies.
They are Something Else.
Unless you have a microscope, you won’t see the gearworks poking through the body that make the wings flap. The faint glow of lights in the eyes. And there’s no way you can hear the faint ticking.
So realistic. So beautiful.
You’ll believe it’s a real butterfly. And, really, isn’t that all that matters?

Baby Jane D’oh

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Usually, we find any abandoned babies at the back door of the hospital.
Once or twice, they been left in a dumpster. The mother’s afraid of being caught on tape, and they call from a pay phone to let us know.
And then hang up.
This was the first one we’d found in the parking garage, happily sleeping in her carrier, in the middle of an empty parking space.
The carrier was rather expensive.
Too expensive.
While we waited, a Lexus drove up and screeched to a halt.
“I must have put her on the roof, reached for my keys…”

The Girl Who Sneezed Dimes

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I once knew a girl who sneezed dimes.
Yeah, she could pay her own way when we went out to dinner, but have you ever eaten with someone who’s got a nasty cold?
Not all that appetizing.
The sex was okay, but I caught a snot-covered dime in the mouth more than once.
And she didn’t like being taken from behind.
It just wasn’t working out.
Over time, she’d saved up enough to pay for art school.
She packed her things, called a cab, and dumped a handful of dimes in the driver’s hands.
At least she’d washed them first.

Utah

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Wyoming is a rectangle. So is Colorado.
Nobody knows what the hell Oklahoma is shaped like. Rivers and valleys will make that kind of contoured mess on a map.
But Utah… it’s not quite a rectangle, but not quite a squiggle, either.
It’s a regular hexagram, all ninety degree angles, but uneven sides.
It’s got to have a name. Besides Utah-shaped. Or “Big Thick L.”
I ask the local math professor what that’s called.
He takes one look at the map.
“A polygamygon,” he says.
I thank him, and write this down for my report.
Yeah, I got an F.

Weekly Challenge #186 – Stuffing

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Eighty-Six, 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… was…. um…
It’s Stuffing!
The excellent theme music is by Guy David.
VOTING

Which stories were the best this week?
Steven
Lynda
Katharina from Vienna
Erin
TJ
Justin
Norval Joe
Davy
JRadimus 1
JRadimus 2
JRadimus 3
Great Hites
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


Steven

Fluffles the Bunny looked over the flesh crowd. A few other clothies
were here, but they were more concerned with not being smooshed
underfoot than listening.
Snookums Bear studied the crowd over Fluffles’ shoulder. “Ugly crowd, boss.”
Fluffles narrowed his button eyes. “It’s the first anniversary of our
struggle, when Dan Bear stood up to the humans.” The bunny took the
microphone and began his speech.
“Do I not have eyes? If you prick us, do we not bleed?”
Fluffles then noticed polyester fill poking through one of his seams.
The crowd kicked the stuffing out of him.

Lynda

My grandmother’s stuffing is legendary, brings all the grown men in my family to tears!
One Thanksgiving, my wife–new to the tasty taste sensation–tried to guess what the little morsels of juicy deliciousness scattered throughout the cornbread were.
“Pork?”
“Family secrets!” is all she ever says. It’s funny, but the year she confessed that to my wife, Grampa Jed burst into tears.
She’s never revealed her mystery ingredient, although I think my uncles figured it out a while ago. Strangely enough, once they work out the recipe, no one wants to eat it anymore.
More for me!

Katharina

After 2 hours in the oven the chicken should be pretty much done. Apparently, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gone for the biggest one – but I wanted to impress. The skin already looked delicious… dark gold and slightly crunchy. Going for a dish typical for the region I grew up in was a conscious choice. I wanted him to know where I came from. The potatoes under the chicken looked already done as well. My only worry was the stuffing. It should be firm and not soggy, soft but not dried out. I took a deep breath and opened the oven door.

Erin

Stuffing a toy turkey seemed a little absurd. Whatever happened to kids playing in the woods like in the good ole’ days, you know when the only entertainment they needed was nature itself. Now, Sally wants plastic ponies, dolls, and over the top stories about sparkling vampires. Jimmy wants electronic toys guns that emit piercing sounds along with video games, hence his white complexion from never going outside. Oh and the baby, only the best in over priced cloth toys, hence why I myself am stuffing a turkey to add to her ever growing collection, instead of breaking the bank.

TJ

In the wake of the explosion, there was little left to identify. The car’s interior was scorched and its inhabitants immolated. The minister’s domestic staff were questioned individually and while there were the usual missteps and discrepancies, they revealed nothing conclusive. By the close of the week the household staff were informed their services would no longer be required and it was at that time Mother Postworth, sometime spy and governess, packed away with her knitting a quantity of cotton stuffing, one quite similar to the amount of plastic explosive hidden inside the teddy bear carried by his lordship’s son.

Zachmann

Kevin invited our family over for the Thanksgiving meal. He was worried about the meal because he had never cooked a Thanksgiving meal before and never made stuffing. Kevin’s roommate told him he could buy stuffing from Wal-Mart. Most of the meal was very good although the turkey was a little dry. Some one asked “What was the white stuff inside the turkey?” Kevin’s roommate said “It is my fault because I didn’t know how stressed Kevin was and when I said buy stuffing from Wal-Mart I didn’t think he would buy the stuffing from the arts and crafts section.”

Justin

Brobby dug into his pockets for the things he had stuffed in them while exploring.
He played with some twigs for a bit, trying to stand them up like a tepee. A small stone glittered while it tumbled in his fingers. One real lucky find was a splacknuck tooth.
His mother heard him sobbing, and seeing the tooth asked if he had cut himself. He uncovered a limp little man, bent all wrong. Brobby’s mother consoled him and told him that a human was too fragile to survive in his pockets and that he should try a jar next time.

Norval Joe

His face was frozen in a rictus of pain. His eyes bulged out of their sockets and hung, as if on strings sewn through the back of his skull. His mouth hung open, evidence of his silent scream.
The pain was intense, unbearable, it filled his world. He wished he would die, or at least pass out from the pain but still he endured.
The giant creature sat on his chest, pinned his arms and legs to the ground, displacing and crushing his insides mercilessly.
The little boy laughed sadistically and pulled the stuffing from the torn teady bears chest.

Davy

He surveyed the mess, scattered all over the kitchen floor, shaking his
head in disbelief.
“That bloody dog! I’m going to pull its teeth out if I catch him!” he
yelled.
“What is it, dear?” asked his wife, rushing in to see what the fuss was
about.
“One hour to go until we serve up Thanksgiving dinner and this happens!
The stuffing is everywhere! Dinner is going to be ruined!” he sobbed.
“Now there, don’t fret. We can sort this in no time at all,” said Mrs.
Bear, bending down to pick up her husband’s fluffy innards and stuff them
back in his belly.

JRadimus 1

While driving my bus through the scrubbers after my route, I kept seeing a fuzzy brown face press against the windows: brush – brush – brush – FACE. Another driver must have found a teddy bear fallen off a lorry’s grill, and tied him there. We see ‘em all the time. I was overcome by sentiment; to their amusement, I slogged through the brushes to free the little guy. I scrubbed him up and poked his stuffing back in. He watched us wash our busses. Then he watched me drive ‘til I retired. Now, Bus Wash sits and watches me watch telly.

JRadimus 2

We received a mysterious invitation to the Magic Friend Factory. We entered, feeling not entirely unlike Charlie Bucket. We were led through corridors, confused, but curious. In the Friend Picker, our tears were sampled, and a few minutes later, a plush sock-body twin of our late Coco came down a chute. They put it in the Stuffer, and we watched the body fill. They stitched her closed and handed her to us. When we held her, she transformed: no longer a stuffed animal, but an immortal surrogate for our lost friend. There’s a lot of magic in a little stuffing.

JRadimus 3

Oliver tore into the interloper with abandon. “Rrrr … Unh …. Rrrrrr-rah! That’ll show you!” The interloper stopped resisting, and lay limp and lifeless under Oliver’s grip. Just then, the front door opened. Oliver froze as Trish and Jay walked in on an interesting scene: their Beagle sitting amongst a blizzard of cotton batting swirling around him, with Trish’s favorite Teddy Bear pinned under his paws, the stuffing knocked out of it.
“Oliver! No! Bad boy!”
Oliver slowly released the plush rag. He sat up, his tail curled around his butt and his head dipped submissively.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.

Jeffrey

Arthur always loved going to the teddy bear factory. His parents never quite understood his fascination with watching the little bears get made. He never wanted to take one home, he just wanted to watch. He stood for hours watching the sewing machines, and the stuffing machines and the machine that put the eyes on. He never liked to watch them put the ears on because he said that hurt too much. Arthur always had been a strange little boy, but now that he owns the factory no one questions why he spends time there watching, waiting for Super Ted.

Planet Z

In the kitchen, Papa Buford’s getting the Thanksgiving Turducken all prepped and ready for cookin tonight.
Cornbread stuffing and yam, creole and jambalaya.
That all gonna be a big ol feast, but that bird in a bird in a bird is what we all want the most.
The turkey be dumb, he go down easy. Plucked and gutted.
The chicken, well, they be a chicken. Ain’t nothin special about it.
But the duck, boy did he put up a fight, Papa Buford chasin after him with a knife, duck shouting that AFLAC! over and over.
Can ya smell it?
Mmmmmmmmmmmyeah.

Disinformation Society

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Sunrise. Sunset.
We know that the earth goes around the sun, right?
Dialing a number. Setting sail.
Anachronisms. Terminology based on old technology.
Prostitutes know that the term “making love” has nothing to do with their profession.
The language has become polluted. We have twisted it into the opposite of communicating thoughts and ideas.
It is a tool of miscommunication.
So, we now skip the whole concept of language and communicate directly.
It started with brain-to-brain wires, but it’s all wireless now.
No language. Just pure, honest thoughts and ideas.
The person who invents the oxymoron will become disgustingly rich.

Talons

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A bird came up the walk this morning.
I looked at it. It looked at me.
And then it flew away.
So, I flew after it.
Flapping my arms madly, I rose into the air and gave chase.
The bird flew to the top of a house down the street and landed.
So I did too.
I looked at it. It looked at me.
And then I flew away.
The bird did not follow me.
I landed by a puddle and I looked in the water at my reflection.
I’m a bird.
Well, that explains why I’m not wearing pants.

Fourth Pig

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You’ve heard about the Three Little Pigs, right?
They made their houses out of straw, wood, and brick.
There was another pig. A cousin, who was in The Big House, made of stone and iron bars.
When he heard what happened to his cousins, he broke out.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he asked the cowering pigs. “Did you spend all of my money on these stupid houses?”
The three pigs nodded.
The fourth pig made his house out of bacon, ham, and pork chops.
Nobody, not even the Big Bad Wolf dares to fuck with that psycho.

Rights

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The Legislature voted down the gay marriage bill for the third time in a year, and the governor said he’d just as soon sign a bill that allowed gays to fly.
So, as an April Fool’s joke, the legislature passed that bill. Unanimously.
The governor called a press conference and, in front of a dozen reporters, signed it.
And as he looked out over the assembled group, he noticed a few people rising from their chairs into the air.
Alarmed, he held on to the podium, knuckles white against the wood.
But his feet would not stay on the ground.