Weekly Challenge #996 – PICK TWO: What’s that beeping?, Signpost, Sample, In the movies, Ordered

The next topic is Pack

RICHARD

— Snooze —
What’s that beeping?
Mostly still asleep, brain barely functioning, it slowly dawns on you: The alarm is going off.
Clumsily, you fumble for the hateful thing at the side of the bed, hitting the snooze button, before crashing back into the pillows for the next ten minutes.
It’s not like this in the movies.
No -one ever hits snooze in films.
They either hurl the offending article across the room, or wake pleasantly refreshed; no yawning, hair and makeup pristine, sheets artfully draped across them, hiding anything remotely offensive.
The alarm sounds again.
I hit snooze.
Ten more minutes, please.

LISA

What’s that Beeping?
It hasn’t been a first date like in the movies. He’d come round to mine but my smoke alarm needed new batteries and was beeping. He went to get some and didn’t come back… not meant to be. I necked the wine and spent the evening scrolling facebook. Then I saw, in a local community group, a picture of a car wrapped around a signpost. One person seriously injured & taken to the General. It was him! I went straight to the hospital, pretended to be family and here I am listening to the beeping of his life support machine.

LIZZIE

That way. No, this way. And they continued to argue even though the signpost was right there. A policeman approached and asked where they were going. They stuttered. The policeman frowned. Bicycles, they said. The policeman pointed to the rent sign and waved them away. But… What if…, one of them started. The policeman rolled his eyes and jokingly asked where they hid the body. How did he know?! No more asking for directions. There was only one possible way. The End. Funny how an open-ended story can be as annoying as people who don’t know where they are going.

SERENDIPIDY

You passed the signpost a good half hour ago, the one that said three miles to go.
Surely, it can’t be much further?
You peer into the darkness… It’s the middle of nowhere, you’ve no signal and the satnav is blank.
Perhaps you took a wrong turning somewhere along the way?
Suddenly, the car engine stutters and dies. You roll slowly to a halt.
The silence presses in.
You’re alone.
Guess you should just sit tight until the morning and make the best of it.
Except it’s never quite that simple in the movies.
Are you afraid?
You should be!

TOM

It was a good Gig

Gary was a Federal Information Designer. His job was boring, but his hidden quest was bright and shine-y. He wanted highway signs to be bright and shine-y. His office was piled high with Sample Signposts. Lots of vermilion and forms straight out of the Memphis movement. For a dyed in the wool bureaucrat, he sure had a deep exult for glitter, I mean rainbow glitter. It of a tip there. The sample signpost that got him promoted had 47’s face in the middle. And it was gold plates. With orange lettering. It was impossible to understand, just like the man.

NORVAL JOE

“What’s that beeping?” Mandi asked as they climbed the ashlar steps to the open front door.

“It’s the panic alarm. Wait here,” Billbert said, levitated, and soundlessly entered the house.

Like a scene in the movies, a man in a mask held a gun on Billbert’s parents.

His mother made eye contact and quickly looked away. Fortified by her superpower of efficiency, Billbert knew what to do when she nodded.

He shot forward as both his parents dropped to the floor. Billbert grabbed the intruder, lifted him, and slammed him into the wall.

The gun flew from the thug’s hand.

NORVAL JOE

After weed had been decriminalized in the city, Bradley sold at the late night Pink Floyd show at the Science Center planetarium.
“We’re here to make sure everybody plays nice,” said the cops.
Bradley thanked them for their service, offered up free samples.
Bradley went back to selling, checking IDs and taking photos to cover his ass if someone was buying for a kid again.
Bradley was a businessman, not a crook.
“Come back when you’re 21,” he’d say.
Parents appreciated that. And then bought from him.
He even got an entrepreneur of the year award from the Rotary Club.

George the sculptor

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent an unusual amount of time exploring the arts and humanities instead of hunting for treasure.
Where other pirates would loot a museum, he’d walk the halls, listening to the tour guide, appreciating the art, and admiring the brush strokes and chisel angles.
He tried his hand at sculpture, creating a pirate figure out of butter.
It won second place at the State Fair.
Proud of his work, he brought it back to the ship.
His crewmates spread it over their bread.
George grumbled, and swabbed the deck.

George and the avocados

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He fell for lots of scams.
One time, he took a pamphlet from a group at the airport, and he ended up on an avocado farm wearing an orange robe.
He enjoyed harvesting avocados, but missed being a pirate.
So when the farm was raided by pirates, he asked if he could join them.
It was his old crew.
“No,” they said. “We’ve been doing great without you.”
The last sack of avocados they hauled away was unusually heavy.
Safely aboard, George crawled out and smiled.
Home at last.

George the garage sale addict

GEORGE WAS A PIRATE, BUT HE WASN’T A VERY GOOD PIRATE.
INSTEAD OF RAIDING TOWNS AND SHIPS FOR USEFUL THINGS, LIKE FOOD AND AMMUNITION AND SUPPLIES, HE’D LOOT FLEAMARKETS AND GARAGE SALES, AND HAUL BACK A PILE OF JUNK.
“THERE’S NOTHING QUITE LIKE THE FEEL OF A CLASSIC WEIGHTED KEYBOARD WITH SPRINGS AND INDIVIDUAL KEYS,” SAID GEORGE, TAPPING THE KEYS AND HEARING THAT SATISFYING LOUD CLACK. “YOU DON’T GET THAT WITH THOSE THIN APPLE KEYBOARDS OR THOSE CHEAP PLASTIC ONES.”
“WHY ARE YOU SHOUTING EVERYTHING?” ASKED THE CAPTAIN.
GEORGE PUSHED THE SHIFT KEY A FEW TIMES. “I THINK IT’S STUCK.”

George the storyteller

George had two tickets to The Moth.
Nobody wanted the other ticket, so he went alone.
He thought he was signing a guestbook, but it was the speakers list.
When they called his name, George was confused, but they pushed him to the stage.
He adjusted the microphone, took a sip of water, and said:
“I am a pirate, but…”
He hesitated, sipped more water, and said “But I’m not a very good pirate.”
He told stories for hours, the timekeeper just as mesmerized as the crowd.
When George finished, no applause, not a sound.
Just the spotlight and silence.

George’s escape room

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After he was fired from his job, he built a pirate-themed escape room.
Customers were thrown into a locked room and told that they were being held until someone paid the ransom.
“This is lame,” said a customer. “Where’s the puzzles? Let us out!”
Only when George got the money were they told they’d won, and were released.
Pretty soon, George’s escape room got a reputation as a scam.
But before the cops could arrest him, George escaped, and had gotten another pirate job, and was back at sea.

George the demon pirate of Fleet Street

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He always felt guilty about the men that his shipmates killed in battles.
So, when the ship docked in London, he’d load a cart with their bodies and take them to Sweeney Todd’s barbershop in Fleet Street.
“I’ll clean them up so they look nice and presentable for their loved ones,” said the barber. “Now sit down and let me clean you up. On the house.”
Afterwards, George would load the cart with dozens of Mrs. Lovett’s meat pies.
“My best customer!” she’d sing, kissing George on the cheek.

Weekly Challenge #995 – Reflections

The next topic is PICK TWO: What’s that beeping?, Signpost, Sample, In the movies, Ordered

LISA

At the homeless Shelter
Cheryl was soon to be divorced. She’d been volunteering at a pop-up feeding station for the city’s homeless.
She’d watched her ex enter in the reflection of the tea urn and was pleased she was getting the chance to say goodbye. Despite a multi-million-pound fortune he’d said he was bankrupt so couldn’t pay any alimony and then simply disappeared.
She poured tea for the recent arrivals.
Her husband got a special cup with poison added. Lawyers were hired and found his hidden funds, paintings and offshore accounts. Cheryl inherited it all and opened a permanent homeless shelter.

RICHARD

— Reflective —
What do I see?
Not the person I am now.
I see the passage of time.
The hair, now greying, testament to the passing of the years; the lines and blemishes of a face, now careworn and weary from toil.
A frown, where once there was laughter; eyes that no longer sparkle; a face full of character, if we are to be kind.
A face growing old, if we are to be honest.
She appears behind me, peering over my shoulder.
“What are you looking at?” She asks.
“Just reflections” I murmur, and close my eyes to hide the tears.

SERENDIPIDY

I like the hall of mirrors.
I like the distorted reflections, the ungainly bodies, the twisted and deformed torsos.
I like to imagine that what I see in the mirrors is a reflection of the true inner character of those who stand before them – the real person that lives within all of us.
But when I stand before those mirrors, I see perfection.
A person standing tall and proud; the broken soul, hidden deep within.
In the hall of mirrors, only I appear unblemished: Beautiful.
But just wait until I emerge into the world outside.
And reveal my true self.

TOM

A rich interior Life

When I saw the topic reflections a fragment of a lyric screamed up in my thoughts. After changes upon changes, we are more or less the same. But try as I may I could remember the line that went before. So I searched and found it was more reflective then the first. “I am older than I once was And younger than I’ll be But that’s not unusual No, it isn’t strange After changes upon changes We are more or less the same After changes we are More or less the same.” The poetry of my youth is always there.

LIZZIE

A dream covered in blue. The sun spying on the curl of my soul. Twists and turns and fears and so many futures waiting, just waiting.
A dream covered in red. The sun no more. Just the rage, the blinding rage of powerlessness. And the anger and the hatred and all the gloomy futures in complete darkness, wailing in silence and waiting, just waiting.
And then, my dream covered in time. The sun again. The sky so clear. The twists and turns of my future, waiting to be sheltered in blue and blue and blue. Maybe tomorrow. Yes, maybe tomorrow…

NORVAL JOE

John pulled out a gun, motioning Billbert and Mandi toward his car. In the vehicle’s window, Billbert saw their reflections and John was distracted, no longer watching them. He wanted to drag the guy into the air and drop him, but then John would know Billbert’s superpower.

Instead, Billbert grabbed him, levitated forward rapidly, and stopped abruptly. The man was weightless as Billbert held him, but regained his mass as Billbert threw him forward.

John landed yards away in some bushes.

Billbert and Mandi ran around a corner before lifting into the sky and flying safely back to Billbert’s house.

PLANET Z

After centuries of industrial pollution, Earth was no longer able to sustain life.
Undrinkable water, unbreathable air, unfarmable land.
Nearly every species extinct and stored as a set of genetic sequences in a zoo library.
Humans sent out terraforming pods across the solar system, and when the colonies had been established and stable, humanity left Earth.
And left behind a terraforming pod.
They were literally going to terraform Terra back into Terra.
The AI controller found this somewhat ironic, and then initialized the startup sequence.
A few humans had refused to leave.
The Ai controller watched them burn with satisfaction.

George the Buddhist

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
“This is because you do not follow the path of Buddha,” said a strange man in a saffron robe.
“All life is suffering. Craving causes suffering. Suffering, once identified, can end. Accumulating good karma can end suffering. Look within, and master your own fate.”
George looked within himself.
Then he drew his sword and pointed it at the strange man.
“Give me your karma,” he said.
The strange man laughed. “You cannot give or take karma.”
“Fine,” said George. “Give me that robe.”
He wore it as a cape.

George and Mardi Gras

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Not that the Mardi Gras Parade Committee cared.
They were looking for authenticity, not quality, and as long as George could stand on a float and wave, who cared, right?
George showed up, expecting a big parade, a big party, and all the beer he could drink.
That would make sense if the parade were in New Orleans. Or Galveston.
But not in Fairbanks, Alaska.
“Holy shit, it’s cold,” said George.
George threw a lot of beads from the float.
In that weather, hell, the women had earned them.