Weekly Challenge #798 – DISCARD

Sleepy

TOM

Magic

Over the last two years what has kept me sane, while sheathed in place and
a half dozen gigs getting canceled is: the practice. Run tricks over and
over. Refining the patter, removing steps, shifting point of view. Moving
from process, to practice, to presentation has been leaps of effort. I’ve
discovered I have a deep river of fear, that the brain is not aware of,
but the hands sure are. I can’t even duplicate the tremors in my fingers
while I seem to be totally at rest. Luckily I can fall back on the
knowledge about Dis Card though.

RICHARD

Magical

My uncle Albert is the worst magician in the world.

Let me give you an example of just how bad his tricks are: He’d shuffle some cards, hold them out and ask me to pick a card, any card.

Then he’d remove my card, put it face down on the table and discard the rest of the deck, before pointing at the remaining card with a flourish and asking, “Is that your card?”

It all ended very badly though…

Last week, he tried the classic ‘detachable thumb’ trick.

After the hospital re-attached it, he vowed never to do magic again.

LIZZIE

Warm and cozy. Discard.
Tea brewing. Discard.
Books and more books. Discard and discard.
That’s what he had said. Discard.
But she loved her warm cozy room. Books were her life. How could she discard all she cared for?
And then she would hear his voice, roaring inside her head, discard, discard, discard.
Had he discarded everything too, she asked in a barely audible voice. He turned to face her. If looks could kill…
Discard, you hear me.
And she did.
Becoming a secret agent was not for her, but they sure taught effective ways of.. getting rid of anything.

SERENDIPIDY

I’m very proud of my green credentials!

I try not to throw anything away, and do my best to restore, recycle, repurpose and reuse things that most people would treat as junk.

It makes me feel good, so much so that I’m more than happy to collect all the crap in the neighbourhood that other people discard, and recycle that too.

Especially what they abandon in the local cemetery. All of that good meat going to waste… It’s a crying shame.

Not any more though!

And my new meat pie business is doing a roaring trade too!

Totally environmentally friendly!

JARED

‘No Free Lunch Goes Unpunished’

Speeding down another side road, he checked his rear-view mirror again in a way only obsessive paranoia can provoke. He again replayed the linchpin moment his life now pivots on:

“I found a tool bag after the last time one of you guys was here. ‘S’it yours?” The office manager casually gestured to a tattered canvas tool bag sagging in the corner, my employer’s faded logo on the side.

I didn’t know who left it, but then I thought ‘Hey, free tools!’ So, I gave a nod, shook his hand, and loaded it onto my cart.

Shouldn’t have looked inside…

NORVAL JOE

Billbert was speachless at the girl’s odd response. What more could she help him with, besides showing him to his homeroom class?
He held up the paper. “All I really need is to get to my homeroom.”
She smiled again. Her teeth appeared unnaturally white. Was it because of her glowing yellow eyes? “You can get rid of the paper. I’m in all of your classes. You can follow me.”
Billbert wasn’t ready to discard his schedule just yet. She’d hardly looked at it and he wanted to insure that she was taking him to the correct rooms each time.

PLANET Z

There’s a bronze statue in the middle of the university of some wise old man standing there, one hand holding a scroll and the other arm outstretched, palm up, gesturing to something.
One Friday afternoon, the students put a six pack of beer in his palm.
A tradition was born.
Every Friday afternoon, a six pack of beer appears.
At first, some student would put it there.
Then, increasingly elaborate ceremonies.
Runners relaying the beer around campus like an Olympic flame.
The thing is, nobody has ever seen what happens to the beer.
One moment it’s there, then it’s gone.

The Good Catholic

My girlfriend Megan’s a magician’s assistant.
She’s a good Catholic, and she’s saving herself for marriage.
So, she borrowed two sets of Mismade Girl boxes from her boss.
Her roommate Sally got into one set, and Megan separated her into four sections.
“Now do it to me,” she said, getting into the other set.
She then had me put her head on Sally’s body.
I opened Sally’s head box. “Are you okay with this?” I asked.
“Fuck her brains out,” she said, grinning. “God, she needs it.”
So, I did.
I ended up marrying Sally.
Because her blowjobs were spectacular.

Winning it all

When I drive in to work, there’s a billboard along the freeway that displays the jackpots for the Powerball and the Mega Millions lotteries.
I usually buy a ticket on Wednesday afternoon and don’t look at it.
Then, on the next morning, when I look up at the billboard on the way to work, if the number has reset, maybe it’s me that won the jackpot.
And I can delude myself into thinking I can arrive at work, look up the numbers, and tell everyone to go fuck themselves.
As opposed to when I tell them to fuck themselves anyway.

The condemned

After the trial, Gul was dragged out of the courtroom and into the dungeon.
Tradition was that the court would take three days to deliver their verdict.
It came in the form of a dish of sherbet.
White for not guilty, red for guilty.
And condemned to death.
After three days, a guard arrived with a napkin-covered dish.
“Here’s your sherbet,” said the guard, sliding the dish under the bars.
Gul removed the napkin, and saw…
“I’m sorry, but I’m color-blind,” said Gul. “Is it red or white?”
The guard stabbed Gul, splattering blood on the dish. “Now it’s red.”

Put a finger on it

Fister Blake couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
He couldn’t quite put his finger on anything.
He could point. But when he tried to put his finger on things, he’d miss.
Made it hard to use fingerprint recognition on his phone.
And when he tried to tap in a password or on an icon, well, he’d miss.
He used a lot of voice commands, but those only work so much.
So, he used his toes. He put his toes on things.
He could do that all day long.
But he stepped on and crushed his phone more than once.

Doctor Odd’s laws

Doctor Odd was hardly a law-abiding man.
“I follow the laws of physics and the universe,” he often said.
From his various experiments, you’d think he was lying about that.
But he’d pull out a chalkboard and prove how what he did was possible.
Not that people could understand any of the formulas and calculations.
“If it wasn’t possible, it wouldn’t exist,” he said, pointing at the talking monkey or time machine or whatever he’d created.
But when law enforcement showed up to arrest Doctor Odd, he’d vanish into another universe and leave a supernova bomb.
To erase the evidence.

On to the moon

The Pope looked out the window at the moon.
“They want a cardinal,” he said.
“They have a cardinal,” said his assistant.
“He lives here and uses the radiolink,” said the Pope. “That’s not good enough for them.”
First went priests. To tend to the Catholics there.
Then, they needed a bishop to administer them.
One was promoted to archbishop to oversee the cathedral construction.
And then…
“What happens when I call a consistory? Can they come back? They must come back. God forbid, a conclave!”
They talked through the night, argued and debated, and they solved nothing at all.

Weekly Challenge #797 – PICK TWO Can you help me?, Enough, Market, Trial, Bundle, The noise is driving me mad!, Inventory

NOTE: I am transferring the domain to a new registrar and there may be a disruption in the website and server for a few days. Watch the Twitter and Facebook feeds for more information.

Tinny

LIZZIE

“Can you help me? The noise is driving me mad.”
“But you’re already mad, aren’t you?”
“Am I?”
“Yes, you are!”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, for sure.”
“Your hair wants cutting.”
“What? We were talking about being mad.”
“I know, and your hair makes me mad.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. It just does. If you knew time as well as I do… ”
“You wouldn’t waste it.”
“Not it. Him.”
“I’m confused.”
“So am I.”
“Is this a riddle?”
“Yes. Have you guessed it yet?”
“No. What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. And I’m still mad.”

RICHARD

Lost in the souk

They were laughing at me… The group on the corner.

Hardly surprising. This was about the fifth time I’d passed this way in the last twenty minutes. As nonchalant as I tried to appear, they knew just as well as I that I was hopelessly lost and simply wandering round in circles.

I’d been warned, of course: Don’t try exploring the market without a guide, you’ll get hopelessly lost, and probably robbed and beaten in some dark alleyway.

In desperation, I ducked into a shop and pleaded with the shopkeeper, “Can you help me?”

Slowly, sadly, he shook his head.

TOM

Limited Offer

The add read: limited Offer until supplies run out. Free to the first two
dozen participants. Sam not being one to miss out on anything smacking of
free. Headed down to the listed address. When he got there the parking lot
was empty, say for a single large truck. A guy leaned out the back and
yelled: Next. Sam stepped up and guy drop a bundle of sticks on top of
him. “What with the bundle of sticks?” he yelled back. “Technically that’s
a faggot.” said the man pointing due north. Sam trudged off in the into
the gathering mist.

SERENDIPIDY

He set a bundle of notes down, and slid them slowly across the table top.

“It’s not enough” I said. “Nowhere near enough!”

“If you want to see your daughter alive again, you need to do a lot better than that! A lot better! You have three more days.”

The man left. He’d be back in three days, and I’d take his money, but he still wouldn’t see his daughter alive again.

No amount of money would suffice for that.

She’d been dead for a week already, and when I’d finally fleeced him for all he had.

So would he.

NORVAL JOE

The following day being Monday, Billbert showed up at the Catherine L. Zane Middle School for his first day of classes in Eureka. His mother had taken an inventory of the items in his backpack, signed him into the new school, and thinking she had done enough, sent him on his way.
The bell rang and everyone hurried off in different directions except for one red headed girl in a puffy white jacket. She watched Billbert approach.
“Um. Can you help me find my homeroom class?”
She smiled with bright amber eyes. “I can do that. And so much more.”

JARED

Mysterious Noises
Dozens of embassy staffers were affected: nausea, headaches, dizziness and vertigo… Some of our allies had diplomats who were likewise incapacitated. Our intelligence officers couldn’t find anything about the expats of their allies or any of their local citizens who got sick. Our intelligence director has liaised with the top intelligence officers from the other impacted states, as well as multiple covert-ops chiefs and some off-the-books white hats. According to everything we know, no one on Earth has tech that can accomplish this without being detected. The energy signatures alone would give them away. The noise must come from somewhere…

PLANET Z

Every week, the market took inventory to see if they had enough of everything.
It also helped them to track loss due to theft or spoilage.
At first, the workers went down each aisle with a clipboard.
Then, they used tables and scanners to update a central databank.
Finally, a robot drone went around with a camera.
Sure, it was expensive, but over time it was far cheaper than the team of workers with tablets.
And it was noisy, but the manager ran it overnight and got the results first thing in the morning.
It also scared away the rats.

Hank and Gladys Again

Hank had always thought that stage magic was fake, but standing there, his legs swapped with Gladys’, he knew it was real.
“Can I have my legs back?” Hank asked the magician.
The magician nodded, and his assistants brought out two chairs.
Hank sat in one, Gladys sat in the other.
The magician covered them with a cloth, waved his wand, and pulled away the cloth.
Hank and Gladys stood up on their own legs.
But now had each others middles.
“Don’t even think it,” said Gladys.
Hank groped himself anyway.
Gladys punched Hank’s lights out with his own fist.

Hank and Gladys

Hank and Gladys liked magician stage performances.
One night, they volunteered for a double sawing act, and their lower halves were swapped.
Instead of his pants and shoes, Hank now had Gladys’ heels and skirt.
And legs, hips, and ass.
He peeked under the skirt.
No panties, freshly waxed.
If he had his cock, it would be hard as a rock.
“Hank!” hissed Gladys, standing on Hank’s legs.
Hank grabbed the magician. “Hey, mind giving me my junk back?”
The magician waved his wand.
And the skirt under Hank’s skirt tented up a bit.
“Ha ha,” said Hank. “Very funny.”