Welcome to the eighty-second Weekly Challenge, 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 selected by Michael.
It’s Fear Of Flying
Whew.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
PAUL
Hello, my name’s Bob and I have a problem
[Hi Bob!]
I have this fear of flying.
[What the heck? What did he say? What’s the deal? ]
Which! … Which is why I drink.
[Oh! Okay! He’s one of us, after all. Okay Bob!]
I’m a Consultant. I live on the west coast and work on the East! I have to fly!
But I can’t fly without drinking! One after the other! Calling the attendant for more and more!
[Yep! Been there! Don’t have to fear flying for that! Hard to walk to baggage!]
Then I can’t sleep after drinking all that coke!
[Coke! He’s no Alcoholic! Throw out the Bum!]
LINDA
Frank was stuffed into the Toyota. At Seventy-five MPH it sound- ed
like a beehive. The toll traffic was unbearable. Work sucked.
Suddenly a seagull swooped down in front of his windshield.
Man, he was staying ahead of the car! The bird’s feet were just
touching the windshield!
Frank pulled himself up rooting! This was Frank’s whole problem! A
fear of flying, of braking away and striking out. He could do it!
Screw this commute, this job! You Go Bird!!
Boom! An explosion of feathers. Two stuck to Frank’s windshield. The
bird veered into a truck. 7:59. Late. Work sucked
TOM
He was shaking like a leaf. The stewardess noted the white knuckler in C35 motioned to the head fight attendant. Tom’s new job had him flying regulars to LA for 30 and 60 second spots. It wouldn’t have matter if he taken a train car or rickshaw the devastating motion sickness would have gotten him. It was the curse of his Kingdom and that first ancestor Herb. “Why had that fraking Gnome got himself fired?” he thought. Tom Tomato Plant lost it when the head steward offered him a Snap Toms. Lucky the stewardess had a vegetable barf bag ready.
LAIEANNA
Jimmy purchased a parachute and modified it with a smaller harness
attached to the front for his daughter. He then spent hours
practicing the whole scenario of picking her up, strapping her in,
jumping free of danger and debris, and pulling the cord.
On the big day, Jimmy strapped a helmet on both their heads and held
his daughter’s hand while waiting in line. He was terrified; she was
excited. When their turn came up to board, he made the sign of the
cross and hoisted his daughter into the Carnival’s Miniature airplane
kiddy ride and climbed in behind her.
GUY
The world of open source change is coming
Have no fear of flying
Fragments of human imagination
Caught in a twilight zone of virtual innovation
It’s the golden age of creation
Sweeping through the Second Life nation
Shaking furiously with anticipation
As I crush out of this world of expectation
There’s no denying there is some sort of a revolution here
But the wheels of steel are moving to slow for the kill
The age of open code and sharing is coming
There is no denying that
In a whirlpool of sweet creative melody
Comes the age of enhanced communication
DAPHNE
Standing at the edge of the nest, Stanley looked back at his mother.
She nudged him gently toward the sky. He opened his wings, felt the
wind rush past them, he looked to the horizon, he envisioned himself
soaring with the other eaglets, but he couldn’t move. He was an
eaglet with a fear of flying. He knew he had to conquer this fear or
become food for the beasts that dwell on the ground. So he unhooked
his talons and jumped from the nest…and then… nothing… Stanley woke up
and realized You can’t soar with the Eagles when you are a Turkey.
CALEB
when they came together, zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear
blew off in one sweet breath like dandelion fluff. Her mind was a whirl,
was this the mythical a plus zipless f**k or was it just the Maui Wowee
this guy had brought with him on the Braniff flight from Amsterdam.
Either way, her mother always told her to ‘eschew the ordinary’ and this
Randolph Mantooth look alike was anything but ordinary. She eschewed him
out the door before her husband got home, then Erica Jong fired up her
fancy new bong and began writing the fear of flying.
Z
Sometimes, you’re such a fuckup, you need divine intervention to keep you from being too much of a problem to others.
So many people out there in the world, stands to reason there’s a backlog of cases.
Standards for guardian angels have dropped significantly since Biblical times.
For instance, my guardian angel is afraid of flying.
“How can you be afraid of flying?” I ask her. “Don’t you have wings?”
“I don’t you sticking your tongue in light sockets,” she said. “You have a tongue, right?”
Okay, so maybe she said something other than “tongue” but you get the point.