“O the games we play” reminisced Joey readjusting his titanium visor. As kids Frankie and Joey had invented the game GUNS. It came out of that totally symmetric kid logic that in kid game theory weather Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers no one wanted to be the stereotypic bad guy. So the game was everyone shot at everyone.
“I got you”
“You missssssed”
They quickly run through rubberband guns, bb guns, paintball guns. Finally live ammo. Thank god for Kevlar thought Joey drawing a bead on Frank.
“I got a new game.”
He turned.
“I call it BAZOOKAS”
Poetry In Motion
After watching girls roll around the track and beat the crap out of each other in what was billed as “Poetry In Motion”, we walked out of the roller derby and put together our own sport:
Rollerpoetry.
Instead of helmets and pads, we handed out berets and copies of Allen Ginsberg’s book “Howl.”
Poets would circle the track, sharing the verse in ways that teachers and Kindles couldn’t.
Opening night, the crowds gathered around the track and booed the circling poets.
One bumped into another. They started throwing punches.
My friends, there’s no avoiding the truth: Culture truly is dead.
The Balloon
There was once a balloon in Balloon Land who was unlike the others.
He was filled with mustard.
They all floated around and laughed at him.
So he rolled away, far away, until he reached the Kingdom of Hot Dogs.
Frightened, the balloon began to cry, and mustard dribbled on to a hot dog.
It made a pretty yellow squiggle.
Another hot dog saw this. “Put one on me!” it said.
All the hot dogs wanted squiggles, and eventually the balloon ran out of mustard.
“What good am I now?” it cried.
The hot dogs sacrificed it to their god.
I Am Cancer
I am cancer.
I will take your hair and drink your strength.
I will use your body as a battlefield, fighting you to the death.
I will hide behind you as doctors try to kill me, and you will suffer along with me.
I may take your skin as a trophy, rob you of your eyesight, and maybe take an arm or a leg if I feel like it.
I can take everything you have and everything you are.
Except one thing: those who love you.
I can never take them from you.
But I can take you from them.
Welch’s Brigade
22nd of January 1879 Rorke’s Drift South African John Chard of her majesties 24th regiment foot in command. Word has reached us of the Isandhlwana massacre. 2000 souls lost. Retreat unlikely will make last stand at the mission ….
Chard lay down his pen looked to the west. “Damn, Rain,” Colour Sergeant Bourne stated “That wasn’t thunder, that was 1000 infantry helmets being struck. The Zulu are sending a message. The storm is upon you.” Chard rebuttoned this tunic “I will met that storm with a hail of lead.”
11 members of the 24h were awarded the Victoria Cross for valor.
Weekly Challenge #238 – Potato Peels
Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight, 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… was…. um…
It’s Potato Peels!
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Steven
“We will find a way out of this. I promise.”
She slapped my hand away from her face. “How stupid do you think I
am? There’s only a hundred words in this story. Then we’re gone.
Forever.”
I looked around the sparsely-described kitchen, desperate for a way
out. My gaze landed on the bucket of potato peels Ma had left.
“That’s it!” I kissed Sally.
“What are you doing?”
“Remember when Ma had you peel potatoes? The thin peels would fill up
twice as many baskets, right?” I held the sharp peeler up to the
words. “Let’s get started.”
Tom
I uses to operate the missile systems on a X1 tank Could drop one of those puppies through a NBA hoop no net. So why you might ask am I sitting next to a mountain of potato peels of my own making? In a word: Willie. General Jack Rippers prize Jack Russell Well it use to be his prize Jack Russell. Who’ve guessed that a X1 heat seeking missile could’ve profiled a dog and Frisbee as a Russian with antitank rocket. When I pointed out the we needed an anti-dog over ride is the moment I got my new job.
Zackmann
Peelings, nothing more that peelings
trying to forget those peelings of spuds
Memories of French fries, scallops, and hash browns
she cooked but never shared with me
potatoes cooked by my love.
woe woe woe peelings
in the mulch pile becoming nutrition for the garden I love.
woe woe Peelings like my galley duty never ended
Peeling those spuds
Teardrops like I was cutting onions
because I cut my finger peeling those spuds
feeling like you never cook for me
feeling like I wish you never put me and a low card diet
but made me keep peeling those spuds.
Katwood
I’ve been peeling potatoes for months, years, I don’t know. I lost track long ago. It’s hard to remember a time when I wasn’t peeling. They’re everywhere, the peels. I can’t stand them. I once had a bin for them, but that’s buried somewhere in this mess of peelings. I peel and peel and peel, but there are never any less potatoes, only a growing sea of peels. Am I supposed to drown in them? I don’t know. I do know that I need to get out. The potatoes have to come from somewhere. I just have to find it.
Danny
Potato peels, the best part of the potato. Most full of nutrients, the peel is the only part of the potato that interacts with the soil, absorbing all the nutrients as the potato grows, making it the best tasting part of the potato. Fried, baked, or roasted, the peel is the most discarded part of the potato. A total waste. Ever notice the best mashed potato’s have the peels within it? Please, cherish your potato peals, spare them from the landfills whose space we need for our discarded alkaline batteries.
TJ
When you see potato peelings in the Great Pyramid, you don’t
immediately think, “It worked!” and that the great king Cheops
sprang to life and began peeling potatoes for his feast of the
afterlife. You assume a shepherd sheltered from the heat and grabbed
himself a snack. And in very nearly every other instance you’d be
right. However, when the guide, Denali, encountered a fortunate rat
nibbling on a fresh rind, his attention was drawn away from the bandaged
figure looming behind him … long enough for him to extend a bony
finger and drain him of his life force.
Norval Joe
“We have ways of making you talk,” the criminal mastermind said.
The agent silently sneered back at his captor, and shook his head.
The bald man laughed, “You’re all so brave when we start, but we’ve broken all of your predecessors before you.
“Agent X we soaked in olive oil until the truth slipped out of him. Agent M we buried in potato peels until he begged for mercy. I don’t think you will be so strong,” he said and turned on the TV.
“We have “The Wiggles” on an endless video loop. Call me when you’re ready to talk.”
Planet Z
Thanksgiving is right around the corner, so it’s time to grocery shop.
We both like turkey, gravy, stuffing, and cranberry sauce.
But when it comes to the mashed potatoes, we have our disagreements.
I like to leave the potato peels on when boiling the potatoes.
She doesn’t like the peels.
I like to add rosemary and roasted garlic. Adds a little aroma to the meal.
She doesn’t like them. Just adds butter and milk before blending everything up into the white gloppy mush.
So, instead of arguing, we make two batches of mashed potatoes.
Sadly, both gave us food poisoning.
Raise the flag
As a joke, the doctors trained one of the monkeys they had nursed back to health to raise the flag over their observation post at dawn and lower it at dusk.
That monkey taught the other monkeys to perform this trick, and pretty soon there were flags all over the research center, raised and lowered by monkeys.
When one of the scientists tried to lower the flag by himself, the monkey bit him.
That scientist is known as Patient Zero in the records.
Not that there’s anybody left to read the records.
The monkeys still raise and lower the flags.
Medical
It used to be that being a werewolf was a death sentence.
But thanks to modern medicine and sturdy cages, a werewolf can expect to live out as close-to-normal life as expected.
Insurance companies can no longer jack up premiums or dump these afflicted patients as “suffering from a pre-existing condition” or as an “act of God.” Thank you, President Obama!
And employers cannot discriminate against them as long as they don’t pose a danger to their coworkers. Clever and careful scheduling resolves any potential, deadly, and costly conflicts.
(Especially with the vampires we hired to supervise the night shift.)
The Predator
The predator lay in a growing pool of his own blood, flowing over the photos and newspaper clippings he’d taken to remember his crimes.
I’d shot him in the hands, the feet, the legs, the arms.
He begged for mercy as I reloaded my gun.
I ignored his pleas and the growing sound of sirens.
He then found some courage. “Who are you to judge me?” he growled, “You have blood on your hands too.”
And, so I did.
“But it’s your blood,” I said. “Hardly innocent.”
And then I shot him in the chest, again and again.
Click. Click.
How Cats Defeated Hitler
In an underground cafe in Berlin, sitting at a table with a bottle of something dark and crisp, an old man hobbles up to me and hands me a fluffy grey cat.
“Cats defeated Hitler,” he said, smiling.
And he walked back into the shadows.
I looked at the cat.
The cat looked at me.
And purred.
I wanted to get up and follow the old man and ask him what he meant, but the cat was so soft and furry, and the purring was so nice.
So, I just sat, drank my beer, and surrendered to the grey cat.