I went out to the cemetery, found a place to sit, and read a book about zombies under the moonlight.
After a few minutes, zombies appeared through the trees, shambling across the grass and headstones.
I got out my lighter, and set the book ablaze.
The zombies burst into harmless puffs of flame and ash before vanishing.
Neat trick, right?
You ain’t seen nothing yet.
That’s when opened the magazine I found under dad’s side of the bed.
And… then… a zombie centerfold showed up, moaning “BRAAAAAAAAAINS!”
Sure, that’s in her LIKES list, but I think I’m going to run.
Share Eclair
Judith and Claire
A curious pair
When told to share
A single eclair
One rose from her chair
The other did stare
“What would be most fair
To share this eclair?”
Said Judith to Claire.
“Cut the thing there?”
“No, Judith,” said Claire.
“If you’d compare
The halves cut from there,
One’s sizeable fare
While this one is spare.”
She pointed with flair.
“Let’s cut the thing there!”
“We can’t cut it there!
That cut is not square.”
Harsh words filled the air.
There was pulling of hair.
Such an awful loud scare.
They never did share.
That single eclair.
Weekly Challenge #241 – “It seemed like a good idea at the time…”
Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Forty-One, 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 It seemed like a good idea at the time…!
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
And if you want to spam your social networks with this episode, use the Share buttons at the end of the post.
Craig
What these “nut bin” clowns don’t know, is that I am close to befriending a telekinetic embodiment of Christ, in the ward and very near my escape. Tranny-psychopath left an archipelago of revolting milky stains on my bed during recreation group. Endure this…refocus on laundry cart.
Psychiatric meds are inflicting torpidity in all of us inmates; even the geniuses sleep. Spattered feces in the halls…. Holy shit; perverted apes must be getting ready to prey on me. I’m scared… no security on shift except nurses.
Concealed, in the laundry cart – I deserted Jesus and escaped!
“Medication time… doctor? Doctor Yoon…?
Danny
Summer 1987, time for our annual college rafting trip. I’m introduced to a cute girl, I just had to impress her. Grabbing the rope of a homemade swing along the river’s edge, I jump from the height of a 3 story building. With a drought causing the river to be unusually low that year, I miss the water, instead smashing into the rocks of the river bank. My right leg, cleanly broken, all ligaments of my ankle, completely torn. All to impress a woman who married someone else less than 6 months later. Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
AM Earley
“Listen,” Don said defensively, “We all know this marriage isn’t going to last six months.”
Kelly’s response was to grab the scruff of her cousin’s neck and forced him out of the hotel.
Wil looked at the other woman who was barring his and Don’s way. “Don’t bother calling the cops,” Darla stated. “They are already inside.” Wil looked in the ball room and confirmed five important members of the law inside.
As he picked up Don off the side walk, Wil didn’t question offering his services in divorce proceedings at a rehearsal dinner. He did wonder if he should have given his business card to the two mothers of the couple.
Jeffrey
After all what is wrong with a little D and D game. I mean we
all love it, and who wouldn’t, the roll of the dice, the hit
counts, the nine grown men all with duct-tape on some part of
their attire. It was a great time until the screaming
started, and the midwife sent the rest of them home. How was
I to know that she was a level 11 dungeon master. Now the
guys say they don’t want to play at our house any more. But
the midwife invited us to her place, so it all worked out.
Tom
When I was young I heard tell of a cowboy who took off all his clothes ran head long into a cactus patch. Upon extraction he was asked why on earth he did it. His replied “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Last summer my oldest friend from high school was diagnose with a critical heart condition. His resolution to this was a walk down the railroad tracks and waited for an on coming freight. At the wake the family wonder why. I said “It must have seemed like a good idea at the time” Silence ensued.
Steven
I stop typing when Bob’s fetid breath flows into my cubicle. “Write
the good idea episode.”
“Huh?”
“Write where his companion says it seemed like a good idea to
gallavant across time and space in a telephone booth – but they miss
their regular boring day job and regular boring life.”
“Already?”
Bob nods. “There’s discontent. People are starting to want more from
their lives. Time for their hero to say that regular boring lives
are… important.”
“Time for him to lie again.”
“Exactly. Allonz-y!”
“On whose authority?”
A pepperpot’s shadow slides past my door.
“The highest authority. The highest.”
Zackmann
We thought cashing in on the Snowman Offsets was a good way too get rich. Hiring farmers
in winter to make snowman when they couldn’t work in the fields, Great Idea. At least until
someone discovered Snowmancromancy and used the snowmen to take over the world. Okay
just the northern states and Canada. One day the snowmen became self aware and stopped
taking orders. Snowmen put us in this igloo prison. We are hoping escape will be aided by an
early spring. After escaping, we could go inside Leavenworth for our crimes but at least we
would be warm.
TJ 1
On the plus side, it had quieted them down immensely.
Four fussy kids packed up on a cross-country car trip quickly got on
their dad’s nerves, and by day three his nerves were clinically
jangled.
So it’s easy to see the logic of dropping them in a safe place while
he and his wife stepped across the way for a quiet, sophisicated meal in
an upscale restaurant.
By and by, that silence became deafening. They hurried across to
discover that, as it turns out, four kids playing hide-and-seek can hide
themselves pretty darn well in the Museum of Natural History.
TJ 2
Bread in the ficus. Nearly a week’s worth of damp newspaper, and a few
half-filled spray bottles and water pistols. Rice crunching everywhere.
Noisemakers scattered among discarded clothing and — perhaps most
disturbingly — a black corset dangling from the chandelier.
Fortescue regretted their staging a local production of “Rocky Horror
Picture Show” as a fundraiser for the opera house — not to mention,
volunteering the Opera House. “Think of the fun! Think of the irony!”
he’d said.
Now all he could think of was the gallons of Febreeze, and the priest
he’d probably have to call in to exorcize it.
DJ
His toes gripped the smooth vine as he squeezed through the tunnel into the Temple. The priest waited at the entrance to the Alter; they bobbed to each other, dewlaps inflating in mutual respect.
He entered the impenetrable darkness.
There was a flash.
He found himself on a bony claw. Glancing back, he saw a black-hooded skull and froze in panic — but it only nodded and gently flicked its hand. He spread his wings to steady himself.
He had wings! Death forgotten, he launched into the air. He laughed, and a gout of flame burst from his mouth….
Norval Joe
The wind was cool and comforting as it blew across his sweaty forehead and through his golden curls.
Everyone had said as he grew, his chubby red cheeks made his face cherubic. Wings would be handy, right then, as he clung to the steeple at the top of the skyscraper.
People milled about, hundreds of yards below, on the street, unaware the masked crime fighter spied from above.
A gang of criminals broke the window of a jewelry store, grabbed as many diamond necklaces as they could hold and ran off.
Too high above help, Flypaper man could only watch.
Planet Z
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
A new fuel source that was rich in energy, cheap to produce, and portable.
What could possibly go wrong?
The world quickly adopted it, and technology advanced by leaps and bounds.
But after a while, what was marketed as a perfect solution turned out to be dangerous to the environment and increasingly expensive to produce.
Still, in the face of cleaner and renewable alternatives, humans refused to give up their oil economies.
War, famine, and death spread across the globe, and the few hardy survivors cursed their greedy and shortsighted ancestors.
When The Ghost
See this chair?
Yeah, it’s a pretty nice chair.
I still think of this chair as being her chair.
Even though she’s no longer here, it’s still her chair.
And, I suppose, it’s a whole new chair.
The old chair broke a while back. But it’s still hers.
And, I guess, the new chair didn’t look so good where the old chair used to be.
But it looked good somewhere else.
So I moved it there.
But despite her being gone…
The chair getting replaced…
And the new one moved somewhere else…
I still think of this as her chair.
Step on it
“Take me to the airport,” said the businessman. “And step on it.”
I looked at the businessman and put my tongs down on my hot dog cart.
“Um, I’m not a cab driver,” I said. “I sell hot dogs. Would you like a hot dog?”
“No,” he said. “I want to go to the airport.”
He handed me a hundred. “And step on it.”
So, I told him to climb on, and I peddled it as fast as I could to the airport.
He made his flight, thank God.
And I sold out of hot dogs at the airport, too!
Emily Litella lives
Ok I’m a bit confused here. Why would you need to put shutters on a wall? I mean what need would they serve? It’s not like you have to keep the rain and bright sun from falling against stone brink or concrete. Further how many would you need? Would you have a mess of small ones or one gigantic iron grate suspended by iron hinges pull open by an army of enslaved orcs.
“pswsha miswsha”
“What do mean I got it wrong”?
“pswsha miswsha”
“The walls shuddered in his advance.”
“My bad”
“”pswsha miswsha”
“Just build a bonfire in back”
The Inner Critic
Now that I’m serious about writing, I’ve been told to watch out for my Inner Critic.
So, I went to the hospital and asked for them to scan my brain to find my Inner Critic.
They did some tests, put me in a big noisy machine.
The doctor showed me on a chart where my Inner Critic was hiding out.
I thanked the doctor, and went straight to the hardware store for a hammer and a chisel.
The Inner Critic was telling me to do it. Almost shouting.
So, I picked up the hammer and chisel… and threw them away.
Advent
I never understood the concept behind the Advent Calendar.
To me, it was just an overpriced fancy package of candy.
Not really much of a calendar, because you shred the numbers to get to the candy, and once you eat the first one… there’s always the second one… and third… and fourth…
Pretty soon, you’re sitting there on the first of the month, face covered in chocolate, and the whole calendar’s been torn to shreds.
There’s supposed to be Bible verses in there, something to do with the shapes of the candy treats?
Whatever. Hand me another calendar.
I’m hungry.
The Not So Merry Go Round
Here we sit on the merry-go-round.
Where some aren’t so merry at all.
Some kids are reaching for brass rings.
Others hold on and laugh.
And then there’s those crybabies, clutching with fear and screaming:
Moooooooooommmmmmmyyyyyyyy!
I’ll just sit on the bench, wondering.
All those tattoos on the arm of the operator.
The smoke oozing out from the machinery.
The gears grind louder.
Which the music almost covers up.
It’s a lot happening at once.
I just want to sit here on the bench.
And watch everything go by.
And listen to the music.
With a few folks, humming along.
The Stone Church
We founded the church on Peter, commanding the funeral masons to shape and polish his remains into a single massive cornerstone.
The Ancestors are hauled from The Garden of Memories, and they are also used as building blocks for the church.
Soon, The Birthing Mine is producing more blocks for the church than children. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I saw a young stoneman walking about.
The Teachers, replaced by the priests as the authorities of our land, were commanded to volunteer themselves for quarrying.
Some resisted, and they were pulverized to provide pebbles for the walkways.