Also, Ed is inviting everyone to contribute to his site Edwardian Times, which is a great opportunity for more ways to express and create. Head on over there and check things out, and let’s all have some fun and challenge in crafting more imaginations.
LISA
A crap Monday in June
It started badly I’d woken late then I couldn’t find my purse. So I was rushing to work then somehow was lying by the side of the road and seconds later I was in a hospital bed. As I was wondering if the day could get any worse I turned to the monitor – a flat line turned sideways into a ladder promptly climbed by an ape. The music from Donkey Kong rang in my ears.
“Pauline! Can you hear me?”
“I think we’re losing her.”
On the monitor the bonus counter flashed a zero and GAME OVER filled the screen.
RICHARD
Losing to win
The local team got one of those new-fangled digital scoreboards installed at the stadium. The trouble is, they blew the budget on the board and had nothing left over to pay to have it installed.
So, Buck did it for them as a favour.
Only, Buck knows nothing about anything, and he wired it all backwards.
We only discovered after our team lost by minus sixteen points, after sixteen goals!
We figured it out in the end though, and now we’re happy to let our opponents score as often as they can.
Because even zero beats a negative result!
ED
Walking Away
From the dugout, he watched as the grounds crew finished raking the divots and covered the infield.
He glanced up. Visitors 2. Home 1. As the scoreboard lights dimmed, he thought about the glorious ending that almost was. The shot that appeared to be a game-winning homer turned into the last out in a blink with a miraculous grab by the leftfielder.
He’d never had a walk-off hit. And wouldn’t. There was no pro contract waiting, just an office job in Hartford. His walk off was his walking away from the game he’d played since he was 5 years old.
LIZZIE
The scoreboard was off. The race was over.
She had taken her jet ski to the limit and broken it.
The scoreboard would be on again in a few weeks and she had no money.
That’s when her life of crime started. A few tools. A few parts. A whole jet ski, why not!
She painted it in her colors so no one would recognize it.
Now, she was sitting in jail. Not because of the jet ski but because she had messed with… the scoreboard.
She thought, what the heck, I’m not going to be dead in the water!
SERENDIPIDY
You might think it’s a funny sort of game: Two teams, both determined to win at all costs, a referee – that’s me – yet, no scoreboard.
So, how do you know who’s winning?
Well, it’s not that sort of a game.
You see, it’s not about scoring points, gaining territory, or being the best players.
It’s all about surviving, and the only way to win, is to outlive your opponent, until in the end, only one remains standing.
And that’s when I, the referee, step in to deliver the final blow.
Because, in this game, I’m afraid there are no winners!
TURA
Scoreboard
—-
Operating our village’s cricket scoreboard takes keen attention, and over the years I got used to anticipating the result of a ball well before the umpire’s signal.
One day we had a new player batting, unpleasant chap, I thought. I imagined the first ball smashing into the stumps, and then it happened, just like that. So I wondered, was I not anticipating things, but making them happen?
I experimented, visualising each ball in advance. I soon got the hang of it, and I could make the matches go any way I liked.
But as superpowers go, this one’s pretty useless.
NORVAL JOE
On Sunday morning, Billbert was awake, dressed and sitting on the front porch of their tilting three story Victorian home. He saw Sabrina approach and stood, thrust out his hand and shook hers before she could get close enough to lay her lips upon him.
“See you tomorrow,” he said before she could get closer.
Sabrina frowned at him. “Meet me behind the scoreboard on the baseball field before first period.”
Billbert sighed. “Why? Can’t we just high five when we passed each other in the hallway?”
“That is not how it works,” she snapped at him. “Meet me there.”
PLANET Z
I hate playing basketball.
I don’t mind watching it when it’s played well, but I hate playing it.
Shooting baskets for a game of HORSE is okay for one HORSE, but when there’s dribbling, passing, and running involved, no thanks.
In gym, I’d sit on the bench, and when forced to play, throw wild passes or chuck air balls.
“Do you want to referee?” the gym coach said.
“I don’t know any of the rules,” I said. “What’s a double dribble?”
Instead, I volunteered to run the scoreboard.
Dont call it math. It’s just pushing the right button once or twice.