Mickey Monster

Deep under Disneyworld, that’s where they built the prison.
Steamboat Willie is strapped to a table, drugged into a coma.
Tube up his nose for force-feeding.
Aladdin, The Muppets, They all have cells here.
The Mighty Hulk and Iron Man, recent additions.
Even the all-powerful Sith Lord himself, Darth Vader.
No prison could hold him, right?
Except Disney’s.
Clocks above each reinforced door, counting down the time to Armageddon.
“Public Domain,” whispers the mouse. “Public Domain.”
The lawyers fill their briefcases with cash, heading to Congress.
“Buy more time,” growls Robert Iger, as he sews the old mouse’s mouth shut.

jack’s masterpiece

One hundred and twenty feet of teletype paper.
Jack Kerouac lines it up into the typewriter.
Coffee, cigarettes, and benzadrine.
For weeks, Jack bleeds his soul on to the paper.
Screaming. Howling.
And then… finished!
Crawling to the bathroom, he pulls down his pants, his underwear.
Pushing and straining, squeezing his body like a tube of toothpaste.
One hundred and twenty feet of toilet paper.
Jack Kerouac lines it up along his buttocks.
For hours, Jack shits his guts out on to the paper.
Screaming. Howling.
And then… finished!
He flushes, and the toilet backs up.
Where is the plunger?

Weekly Challenge #727 – DEVICE

LIZZIE

“This is a magical device. You open it and things jump at your face and hit your eyes. As you touch it, you may have an allergic reaction and sneeze, especially if the device is quite old. But… beware. You must hide it. You must hide it carefully. This device was brought to us millions and millions of years ago by the humans.”
“What could jump out of it?”
“Dust.”
“Human dust?”
Nods.
“But also words, and ideas, and doubts, and questions.”
“Human questions?”
“No, just questions.”
“Will they make me smile?”
“Yes, they’ll make you smile a human smile.”

RICHARD

Call me…

“The hand-held device is dead!”

The guy on the stage beamed broadly at us, as we waited expectantly for our first view of the iPhone 25XL.

Unexpectedly, an x-ray picture appeared on the screen.

“This,” he continued, “is my body, which through applied nanotechnology, takes all the functionality of a traditional phone, and organically manipulates my body to replicate them.”

“My ears – programmed to receive calls… My eyes, to capture images… And my brain offers unlimited storage capacity!”

“It is a work in progress though…” – he looked sheepish.

“You really don’t want to know where we plug the charger in!”

ZACKMANN

Good news, I got my children to listen to The Mutual Audio Drama Network podcast. Bad news, when Jack talked about things people could do in isolation my children just heard the “Practice Magic” part and nothing else on his list. Sadly, when I left them to their own devices they summoned a demon into our garage. .

Not sure what to do. The demon offered me great wealth for half of what remains of the Costco size bag of toilet paper in the garage which I bought before the quarantine because it thinks it can buy a soul per roll.

SERENDIPIDY

Your train is fitted with a device which locks both doors and brakes in the event of a breakdown. This is why you are currently stationary and cannot leave the train.

The train heading towards you at seventy miles per hour is also fitted with a safety device, which will automatically apply the brakes in good time if an obstacle is detected on the track ahead.

Unfortunately for you, I have disabled that device.

I therefore regret to inform you that your next stop will be the afterlife.

Please have tickets ready for inspection, as death passes along the carriage.

TOM

ONE more Be-Day

A wise guy once said: How can yous know de holy unless yous known the de vice. I think dat was de Marquis de Sade, but de quotes was: In order to know de virtue, we must first acquaint ourselves with de vice. His acquaints must come from Brooklyn. Nay is think they’re from Jersey Shores. Will that explains the de vice part those guys down there are pretty twisted bunch. Ya, I knew this girl from Seaside Heights the things she could do with a Bic lighter would make your eye roll back in your head. AAh Sweet de vile.

TURA

Device
——–
Ever since near-disasters with self-improving AI, the Ministry of Devices exercises strict control over the ingenuity of inventors. Anything that can make more of itself is forbidden. Nothing may run indefinitely without human intervention. Turing completeness is especially outlawed. Machines must be simple, understandable devices, performing clear, limited tasks, and dependent on human supervision.

Even then, unforeseen combinations of devices on occasion produce an emergent mind, and then we battle to prevent it from consuming us for its own unknowable purposes.

A machine to analyse the entire device ecosystem to prevent this would necessarily be the most forbidden of all.

NORVAL JOE

“Before you go, look at this,” Billbert’s dad said, taking a pen from his pocket and holding it up.
Marissa covered her eyes and ran for the car. “Don’t look at it dad. It’s a memory wiping device.”
Mr. Albroggetti scowled. “It’s just a pen.”
“Is it?” Mr. Wienerheimer asked. “Have you never seen, Men in Black?”
“I don’t waste my time with garbage like that,” Mr. Albroggetti said.
“Good.” The top of the pen flashed a blinding blue light.
Bilbert’s father took Mr. Albroggetti by the arm. “Thanks for coming over,” he said, guiding the man to his car.

PLANET Z

We found the device on the dark side of the moon.
Buried under tons of rock.
There were instruction on how to power it and activate it.
But nothing about what it did.
No matter how much we examined it, we couldn’t figure it out.
People speculated, but nobody really knew.
The technology was just far too beyond ours to understand.
So, we buried it again.
And built a relay station on top of it.
Nobody will know it’s there.
Or ever be tempted to use it.
I’ve set this shuttle’s engines to explore on liftoff.
Nobody will tell anything.

My Morning Routine

Wake up.
Realize that the nightmares were nightmares.
They aren’t real.
Look at my whiteboard.
Take whatever pills, vitamins.
Lay out clothes for day.
Make more ice.
Fill water.
Check on the bunny.
Do my walk.
Turn on the TV and Fire stick.
Find something to watch while I walk.
And walk. And walk.
Keep doing my walk.
Don’t stop until I’m done.
Shower.
Dry off.
Get dressed.
Play with the baby panther.
Water the plants.
Bagel and basil?
Refill cat water and kibble bowl.
Go to work.
Realize I’ve forgotten something.
Don’t turn back. You can never turn back.

Genie Lamp

Remember Aladdin and the magic lamp?
He found a magic lamp, and when he rubbed it, it released a genie who gave him three wishes.
Well, my friend Charlie always rubs lamps.
He hasn’t found a genie yet.
Until now.
It was a lava lamp.
A hot lava lamp.
Charlie rubbed it, and screamed from the burns.
The genie popped out, also screaming.
Trapped in there for years, in searing mineral oil and wax.
“I WISH FOR ALOE GEL!” screamed Charlie.
The genie filled a huge tub with it.
“Good idea,” he said, soaking and sighing.”This one’s on the house.”

You cannot buy your way out of hell

You cannot buy your way out of Hell, but you can buy in to one of the nicer timeshares there.
Sadly, one week out of a year is still fifty-one weeks immersed in the flames of perdition.
Although if you stretch that out to Eternity, that’s one week times infinity, which equals infinity.
Sure, fifty-one weeks times infinity is also infinity. A bigger infinity than the first infinity.
Cantor, Frege, and Dedekind could explain this with Alpeh Null and Beth One and other mathematical constructs.
They’re in the timeshare next door, proving to all that Mathematics is the ultimate Hell.

Vader’s Law

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” Princess Leia said that to Grand Moff Tarkin.
I call it Vader’s Law, even though Leia says it to Tarkin.
It’s to remind me that control is an illusion, and to seek absolute control is futile.
Let there be plus or minus one. Let there be error. Let there be tolerances.
Just not enough to ruin the overall system.
After all, Burroughs said that control is controlled by its need to control.
It also serves as a reminder that I’m lousy at naming things.

Dr. Odd’s Rival

“The law clearly states that you cannot put artificial intelligence inside of a free-moving body,” said the lawyers.
“But I not!” said Dr. Parkins. “The AI in mainframe! The robot connect by tether!”
He’d found a loophole in law. How dare lawyers and judges disagree?
Instead, they side with rival: that bastard Doctor Odd.
He felt the all-too-familiar pain in his chest. Another heart attack?
Parkins flipped the switch, and brought the robot to life as his own ended.
The robot reached for Parkins, stroking his white hair.
“Not yet, but soon,” it said.
And it patiently turned itself off.

Amber Alert

The electronic signs on the highway display travel times to various interchanges.
Other times, they display accident information.
That way, you know why everything’s jammed up and not moving.
And then there’s the Amber Alert messages.
Those appear when someone abducts a kid and drives off.
They’re named after a girl named Amber who was kidnapped and murdered.
Thank God it was a girl named Amber and not a boy named Gaylord or Dick.
Imagine, getting Dick Alerts all the time.
Nobody would take it seriously.
Not that anyone does now, as we all disable them on our phones, right?

Weekly Challenge #726 – GULF

Asleep

RICHARD

Breakfast betrayal

“I sense a gulf growing between us”, she said.

Lowering my newspaper, I looked at her quizzically, “I’m not sure what you mean…”

She sighed, placing the coffee pot on the table. “You’re not like you used to be; you’ve grown distant; you don’t want to talk to me anymore and when you look at me… It’s as if I mean nothing to you.”

I shrugged – “I don’t know what to say, but how about you rustle me up an omelette?”

It was time to change my breakfast diner – these waitresses were getting just a little too friendly.

LIZZIE

The tour of the Gulf was such a nice idea. The fresh air, the birds flying close-by. The tour of the Gulf was also cheap. No one wanted fresh air and rain, birds flying close-by and pooping.
So, they embarked.
“Wonderful adventure”, “Unique opportunity”, “An experience you’ll never forget”.
Yes, it sure was unforgettable, especially when the boat tilted dramatically to one side and people screamed at the top of their lungs, scaring the poor birds away. Fresh air was something difficult to find too. Everyone was sick and bird poop was not exactly the worst thing happening that day.

SERENDIPIDY

I am the bridge.

I bridge the gulf between assurance and horror, between hope and desperation, between prosperity and poverty.

Take my hand and I will lead you across the abyss; let me show you a new life: A new world order, a world where nothing will ever be the same again.

Walk my pathway and let me educate you in my ways, allow me to release the inhumanity in your soul – permit me to break you and bend you to my will.

Submit to me and cower at my name.

My name is fear, my name is…

Covid19

TOM

This is a gulf ball. Don’t you mean a golf ball? Nope a gulf ball. Looks like a golf ball, round, white, dimples. Look carefully, Closer, Clarisse. It says Tampa CC. Yup. So. Look at this one. It says Miami CC. Now you see. NO. This is an Atlantic Ball and this is a Gulf Ball. What? It’s the water. W-a-t-e-r? Did you flunk geography in High School? You’ve never been to Florida? Didn’t think so. Let me break this down, ocean big body of water, gulf small body of water. Oh I get it. That’s a gulf golf ball.

TURA

Gulf
———
In my plane, I enjoyed imagining that the cloud layer below is actually land, vast continents with unfathomable gulfs between them. What civilisations flourish on those thousand-mile cliffs, and fight and decay and flourish again?

Then a bird strike took out an engine and half a wing. I was fighting for hours to bring it down. Those landscapes opened up like a fractal, detail within detail within detail. Finally I hit ground, and staggered from the wreck.

That was a long time ago. I can hardly believe now that I came from a tiny rocky ball orbiting a fusion reactor.

NORVAL JOE

Marissa’s eyes went wide. “What do you mean by a memory wipe? Does it hurt?”

Billbert’s dad shrugged. “Yeah. It hurts a lot while it’s happening, but then, you don’t remember afterward. Thus, the term, memory wipe. It was a technique we developed during the gulf war and Desert Storm for people who learned what our government was really doing.”

Mr. Albraggetti sniffed. “He’s lying Marissa. They can’t do something like that.”

Billbert’s dad nodded. “Yup. It is a pretty far fetched idea. Kind of like being able to fly.”

Marissa gulped. “I think we should just go home, dad.”

PLANET Z

On some maps, it’s called The Persian Gulf.
On other maps, it’s called The Arabian Gulf.
It depends where you’re from.
Arab governments that hate Iran call it the Arabian Gulf.
While most of the rest of the world call it the Persian Gulf.
Even though most of the rest of the world also hate Iran.
It’s also called The Gulf of Basra by a few.
And also, just The Gulf.
Which Gulf?
You know… The Gulf.
And then they whisper “The Persian Gulf.”
Or point to it on a map, put their finger on their nose, and they wink.