LIZZIE
“Nothing but a crappy painting. A bunch of odd flowers on a dark blue background,” she said. The neighbor advised her to have an expert look at it. “Preposterous!” She knew her art. So, she tossed it in the dumpster. When it was dark, the neighbor grabbed it. He wasn’t stealing it! He had it appraised and… it was worth a million bucks! He bought a new house and a new car and told everyone he had won the lottery, just in case. Oh, and he still drives by the old house to check the neighborhood dumpster for crappy artwork.
RICHARD
Stolen!
I’ve been a victim of identity theft.
Some lowlife criminal is pretending to be me. They go through my trash at night, and somehow they’ve stolen my credit card details and the passwords to my social media.
To be honest, I’m not that bothered about it.
In fact, I’ve been leaving personal information for them to discover for quite some time now.
My credit has been maxxed out for years, my social reputation is at an all-time low, everyone’s chasing me for money.
Now, I just blame the scammers.
I’m perfectly happy to let them take on my failings!
LIZZIE
Stolen
We’re now knee deep in November and no further forward with the case. A case so clueless it doesn’t even have a catchy name yet, just an awful lot of missing women.
Inside is brighter than outside, the mood lower than the cloud on the moors. Oddly, it feels like the sun coming out when after discovering another body we realise he’s taken a necklace from this girl too.
It’s not much is it? But it’s something, another piece in the puzzle and progress of sorts. Our man takes souvenirs. We just need to find him and his treasure chest.
SERENDIPIDY
Sixteen years they kept me chained in the cellar.
My youth, stolen, thanks to their evil deeds.
They’re dead now, by my hand, and nobody holds me responsible. They had it coming, they say, deserved everything they got.
I’m happy to let them believe that.
But the truth of the matter is that they never locked me in the cellar at all. I made it all up – a story to justify my actions, and everybody believed me.
My youth wasn’t stolen at all. I had a great time growing up, I just hated my parents.
So, I stole their lives.
TOM
All the Presidents Kids
He always knew the election was stolen. That other dick had been a better dick by rigging the total in the city. I was child the time that happen. I was a very young man the second time, but a well place young man. I was on loan to Joe Woods group was a single propose. To route the calls from down state. IT was simple hack that surely would be fixed in the next election but not that night. The numbers came in late the so the Chicago machine could offset total, Nixon take the state, wins the election.
NORVAL JOE
Sabrina pulled out her phone and called her grandmother. “Hi Granny…”
She held the phone away from her ear and Billbert could hear the old woman shouting.
“No,” Sabrina said. “No one had stolen my phone. It’s a long story, but we’re in town and Billbert’s eyesight’s been stolen, and half his hearing.”
She put the phone back to her ear as her grandmother had stopped screaming.
“Yes. I know that’s a classic Black Knight’s move, but I can’t do anything about it. Can you come straighten him out?”
She put her phone away. “Grandma Buhmilda will be right here.”
PLANET Z
The Bleeb are an ancient race.
Once rulers of a massive empire, reduced to wanderers of the galaxy, searching for the remnants of their shattered homeworld.
Scanning… testing… analyzing chemical signatures…
Piece by piece, they reappropriate their planet.
Gathering asteroids, hurling the massive rocks through hyperspace channels.
Lifeless planets to shatter and sift.
It is when there is life that the moral question rises.
The Bleeb are honest brokers, and offer fair compensation.
Transport to new worlds. Terraforming technology, vast eons of knowledge to impart.
Some resist.
Just more to sift through when the Bleeb shatter their worlds to dust.