The power went out again.
So, the property manager called the utility company.
Who washed their hands of the situation and posted a 4 hour resolution time.
The property manager then called the electrical contractor.
Who, after an hour stuck in traffic, stared up at the pole for another hour.
Then they called another contractor with a hoist and basket.
It took five minutes to reset the relay on the pole.
This whole circus has happened before.
But it keeps happening.
It’s not procedure… it’s passing the buck the same way every time.
And nobody ever fixes the real problem.
It never happened
I liked the first Dark Tower novel by Stephen King.
Worldbuilding with legends and myths in a parallel world.
So, I pretend the later crazy shit doesn’t exist.
The Matrix ended with the first film.
Kathleen Kennedy never raped another trilogy out of Star Wars.
And nobody ever remade Total Recall, Rollerball, or other perfect films.
If people ask, say “Those never happened.”
Hold a knife to their throat and, with wild eyes, repeat your statement until they agree and slink away like the deluded sad fuck they are.
You know, like how most gatherings at Thanksgivings and Christmases end.
Weekly Challenge #947 – Plain
LIZZIE
“Plain and simple. No more bickering, you hear?”
The kids nodded.
“We’re going to enjoy the trip to the sea.”
The kids nodded.
“And get rid of that right now.”
The kids chuckled.
“Don’t you chuckle, now.”
The kids nodded and took the chewing-gums from their mouths.
“This is not going to be easy…”
The train arrived and the nanny got distracted for just a split second.
A few minutes later, while looking for the tickets, she found… the gums, in her pocket.
The kids laughed and laughed, and thought that this would be a great trip to the sea.
RICHARD
Mob Rules
They do say that the best way to hide something is in plain sight.
It’s not.
The best way to hide something, is encased in concrete, deep within the foundations of a building, out of sight, out of mind and out of reach of law enforcement.
OK, take five and grab a coffee.
I’d never expected to have to attend workshops on criminal best practice when I signed up to the Mafia, but I was enjoying them, and learning a great deal in the process.
I was looking forward to the next session: ‘Sleeping with the fishes: A beginner’s guide.’
SERENDIPIDY
They asked me what I wanted for my last meal. I told them I’d like something bland, keep it plain and simple. Nothing spicy, nothing heavy or stodgy and something that wouldn’t give me indigestion.
It was bad enough being condemned to death, without worrying about enduring a dodgy stomach or a nasty bout of acid reflux on top of it.
I had chicken soup, with plain, crusty bread.
It was very pleasant.
Then they led me down to meet ‘Old Sparky’, strapped me in and threw the switch.
In the end, I got a good fry up, after all.
TOM
Do not Tom it up.
I’ve always been fascinated by words that do double duty. Like second and second. A thing of one and a thing of two. Or words that sound alike like berry and bury. Words like “set” with 430 different definitions. To shift from a noun to a verb is major word jujitsu. You hammer with a hammer. Saw with a saw. You can tie a tie. You can sin a sin. My favorite having spent time as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice is to plain with a plain. In the rain, possible in Spain. My goal for my name is to become an adjective.
NORVAL JOE
Since Sabrina had been awake all day, Billbert and his mother were let right in.
She lay under a plain white sheet with only her injured leg exposed.
Billbert said, “You’ve met my mom.”
His mother stepped to the bed and took Sabrina’s hand.
Sabrina shivered, and leaned forward to look at the external fixators protruding from her leg. The sheet slid away to expose bare shoulders. She stared intently at Billbert’s mother. “You have healing magic?”
Mrs. Wienerheimer smiled. “No. It’s my superpower. I induce efficiency. For the next half-hour your body will heal with greater effectiveness and speed.”
PLANET Z
Alicia died young.
Her body was wrapped in burlap and buried out by the big oak tree behind the house.
No headstone or marker.
Years later, after her parents sold the property to a developer, a backhoe uncovered her bones.
“Don’t say a thing,” said the contractor, throwing the bones into a plastic bag and throwing them into the construction waste dumpster.
It was a good mall, as malls go, until a bigger mall went up across town and everybody went there instead.
A diploma mill college moved into the empty stores, and a call center for online shopping returns.
CHATGPT
Martha lived in a plain, beige house surrounded by plain, beige fields. Every day was predictably the same, her routine as colorless as the landscape. One morning, while sipping her usual cup of plain black coffee, she noticed a single wildflower peeking through the dirt outside her window. Its vibrant petals were a striking contrast against the monotony. Inspired, Martha began planting seeds, transforming her yard into a riot of colors. As the flowers bloomed, so did Martha’s spirit. She realized that even in the plainest of places, beauty could flourish, turning the ordinary into something wonderfully extraordinary.
The four
One carried a knife.
Another carried a gun.
The third used poisons.
And the last used his bare hands.
Four bounty hunters, one target, and a huge stack of cash.
Divided… four ways?
No. The one with a knife took a bullet to the heart.
Divided… three ways?
No. The one with a gun choked on his drink and died.
Divided… two ways?
No. The one with the poisons was thrown off a building.
So, the brawler took the bounty?
No. The target paid him even more than the bounty.
And then killed him.
Another four bounty hunters were called.
Those spells
It is tradition to carve magic spells into the walls of a king’s tomb.
When King Foldo died, we did no different to his tomb.
So many spells we carved, so many wishes:
Thank you, O king, for your benevolent rule.
Protect the soul of our king.
Bring our king back to us.
May our king watch over us for eternity.
Allow the king to guide his descendants as they rule us.
Too many spells, it turned out.
Foldo’s mummy, compelled by all these powerful spells, roams the land.
He hunts us down, hoping to earn his release and rest.
Give me death
The great orator, Patrick Henry, stood before the Virginia Convention, exhausted from his speech calling for sending troops to fight the Revolutionary War.
But he was not finished.
“Give me liberty, or give me death!” he exclaimed.
A bony finger tapped his shoulder.
It was The Angel of Death.
The Convention fell to a hush. Henry pissed himself.
“How about both,” said The Grim Reaper, brandishing his scythe. “Where do I sign up?”
Death fought valiantly in the war, but was rather reckless, felling men on all sides.
Civilians and livestock, too.
As he did in all wars, I suppose.
The value of Freddy
Freddy was rich, but he wanted to get richer.
His business partners got in the way, so he got them out of the way.
Freddy’s lawyer got the sentence knocked down from twenty years to five.
But it didn’t matter. A guard beat Freddy to death in the first week.
The insurance company refused to pay out Freddy’s life insurance.
Freddy’s wife used Freddy’s lawyer to sue to the insurance company. And the government.
She’d already been talking to him about divorcing Freddy, but now, she got the best of both worlds:
Freddy gone, and a whole lot of money.
The cure to all ills
As the pandemic swept across the world, the race for a vaccine began.
Production lines came to life, gambling on various candidates so they’d be ready with supply.
Company after company released their testing results.
Many successes, with few or no side effects.
The government bought up the doses, and sent them out for distribution.
Hidden in the herd, a secret contractor’s product, which they allocated to prisons, soup kitchens, and welfare institutions.
While agents shredded records and smashed hard drives, the slow-acting toxin annihilated the so-called “undesirables.”
And the unsuspecting agents, too, for the truth had also become undesirable.
The Wily Writer
The Writer had a reputation for crafting tales of madness.
He’d submit them to magazines, receiving rejection letter after rejection letter.
Then, he’d wait a few months before resubmitting the work, with a note attached:
“I have made the edits that you requested.”
Not that he’d made any changes.
It was just a bluff to see if the publisher would assume they’d asked for edits before making an offer.
Which more often than not would work.
The Writer chose the best of the offers, and knew to focus his efforts on that publication.
Careless, gullible, and generous with the pay.
Weekly Challenge #946 – Shark
RICHARD
Role Models
The school called my parents. They wanted to speak to them with concerns they had about my home environment.
All because of a stupid writing assignment: ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’
I’d written I wanted to become a loan shark, just like my dad.
And why not?
People treated him with a great deal of respect, he brought home a good wage and it was a steady income.
I’m not too worried about it though.
He’s taking my mum with him.
She has a good job too.
She’s the one who makes people pay up!
LISA
He thought he was the big shark in the business, but his tobacco brand was not selling. We kept playing the part. We kept nodding like nodding dogs at the mercy of a car’s twists and turns. It made him happy and we wanted him happy. Or did we? When he died, the company was dismantled. Finally, no more debt. What we didn’t know was that he had a stash of millions hidden in a vault at home. The will kept us all from getting those millions. The sneaky bastard… Even after dying, the shark managed to kick our butts.
LISA
The New Normal
After that first secret meeting he took me aside regularly; usually outside. I thought I was special: the chosen one.
No day was the same there but they always started with a gong sounding: some days before the sun rose, others it was midday. I didn’t question. Others did.
“Why’s the gate locked?”
“To keep the sharks out darling!”
Darling, Man, Sweetness… I’m not sure when we lost our names.
We never had the same room twice, there was no rota – it just worked. We shared everything: clothes, the space (it was vast) We weren’t individuals anymore; we were one.
SERENDIPIDY
I always fancied having a shark tank. You know the sort: A big, hidden tank with a trap door over the top, and a big red button for me to push to dispose of minions who displease me.
Trouble is, that sort of thing is costly, and sharks are hard to come by. Not that I have any minions to dispose of anyway.
But, one can dream. It’s something to aspire to.
Until then, I have my tropical fishes.
Would you like to feed them?
Put your hand in the water, and they’ll come to eat.
Piranhas are such fun!
NORVAL JOE
When kindly Nurse Racquet was nowhere in sight as shift change began, the charge nurse entered Sabrina’s room with all the compassion of a great white shark. She attacked Billbert. “What are you doing here? It’s after hours and you’re not family.”
Sabrina clasped both of her hands on Billbert’s. “I needed him to stay. And I need him to come back tomorrow, and everyday I’m here.”
“Nurse Racquet said Sabrina could request me to visit when she woke up. She’s awake now.” Billbert turned to Sabrina. “Is it okay if I bring my mother tomorrow?”
Sabrina nodded and smiled.
TOM
Card Sharks
I met the shark in the dive in the back-end of Las Vegas. The temp hovered between a 108 and 110. Dry air smelled of abandon Chapel of Loves and six-dollar hotels. He sat in a brown vinyl booth running cards to his left hand. A steady soft click 808s keeping time with piped in music. I slid into the both directly across from him. I pulled out a packet of red 808s. I shuffled a neat pair of faro-s. The shark smiled. I dealt out a royal flush in hearts. “ok kid” he said “let do some major damage.”
PLANET Z
Dinger Davis bet on games, and that got him banned for life.
So when Dinger’s experimental plane crashed, he was unbanned and inducted into the Hall of Fame.
And to everyone’s surprise, Dinger showed up at the ceremony.
The commissioner canceled the ceremony and banned Dinger again.
Dinger clutched his chest, muttered “heart attack”, and collapsed on the ground.
“Yeah, right,” said the commissioner, walking away. “Nice try, you bastard.”
Dinger lay there dying for about a minute before anyone thought to come to his aid.
And despite a paramedic declaring Dinger dead, the commissioner refused to change his mind.
CHATGPT
In the depths of the ocean, a lone shark named Blue swam silently, his sleek body cutting through the water with ease. Despite his reputation, Blue wasn’t a fierce predator; he was a curious explorer. One day, while swimming near a coral reef, Blue discovered an injured sea turtle struggling to move. Instead of ignoring it, Blue gently nudged the turtle to a safer spot. Over time, Blue returned with food and protection until the turtle healed. As the turtle swam away, Blue felt a sense of fulfillment, knowing that sometimes the fiercest hearts are the kindest of all.