There was a power outage at the water treatment plant.
The redundant transformers worked brilliantly… they both failed at the same time.
The pumps stopped, and the water pressure dropped for a few minutes.
It took a few hours for the city to issue a boil water warning text messages.
So, I boiled water and filled up some pitchers.
Drinking. Cooking. Brushing my teeth.
And I didn’t shower for two days.
When the notice finally came out to stop boiling water, I was boiling water for tea.
I stopped. I looked at my phone and sighed.
And took a shower.
The next locker over
Danny can’t write poetry.
It’s just words that rhyme. Like a six year-old would write.
So he asked one of those machines on the internet.
And it wrote poetry for him.
Good poetry. Not great, just good.
Good enough, because when he wrote it in the card he gave to the girl with the next locker over, she smiled, and she kissed his cheek.
He kept the internet machine on his phone.
And it told him the things to say, to write, and to do.
The cheerleader had the same thing on her phone.
To tell her how to respond.
Weekly Challenge #923 – PICK TWO Aurora, Hard to believe, Contribution, Crew cut, Dealers, Dirty
RICHARD
Dave
Hard to believe that Dave is leaving the company after thirty years, the place won’t be the same without him.
We couldn’t let him go without an appropriate gift, so I was tasked to collect a small contribution from all his co-workers to buy something suitable.
It was tricky. What do you buy an accountant, with no apparent interests?
He was universally hated by pretty much everybody he worked with, which was reflected by how much his collection totalled.
Just enough to buy a ‘Sorry that you’re leaving’ card, and nothing more.
Serves him right, for being such a jerk!
TOM
The Plan
It is hard to believe that something could abide beyond are ability to descript it. But there hides in the leaves, swirls in the clouds, darts in the flames is: Atopy. A concept describing the ineffability of things or emotions that are seldom experienced, that are outstanding as original in the strict sense. Were as Profanity and vulgarisms can easily and clearly be stated, but by those who believe they should not be said, they are considered ineffable. Thus, it is the invisible battle between good and evil that rages about us. Only the Contribution of grace maintains the balance.
840
Just a guy from the north side.
My dad was a spook. The Navy Korean Conflict or as the guy in Naval Intelligent point out one beat away from World War Three. He was enlisted, pretty much a grunt. But he had a single grunt skill: printing. With a life long love of offset, he hoped to work for R.R. Donnelley after the war. Figured a tour in the navy would give him a leg up towards employment. The navy’s need for a printer was to process the mountain of incoming recon Images. So, at the tender age of 22 my father got a life-long security clearance.
LIZZIE
“My name is Aurora,” she said out loud over and over again. There were only a few days left till the end of the year. She was ready. Leave, she thought, leave. Go make your dreams come true. The dreamcatcher freed you from your nightmares. Just go. And she packed everything she had. A moment of hesitation made her stop. The door was open, just waiting for her to leave. She looked at the wall. “Come,” she said. “Come with me.” She took the dreamcatcher with her, an entanglement of past tears, hope and healing. “Aurora. My name is Aurora.”
SERENDIPIDY
You think you know me, but I have a dirty secret.
Trust me, it’s a secret that you’ll find hard to believe.
It’s not the body count, the horrors I keep in my cellar, or the way that people who cross my path mysteriously disappear.
You already know those things, they aren’t exactly secrets. After all I write about them every week in these stories.
My secret is far darker, so much more disturbing and goes way deeper than anything you think you know about me.
But I’m not going to tell you… because then it wouldn’t be a secret!
NORVAL JOE
Billbert scowled at Sabrina. “It’s hard to believe you could be so rude and turn your back on your cousin when we all came to Buhmilda’s place to escape the Black Knights.”
Just then a rusted and dirty jeep burst into the meadow headed for Linoliumanda.
Billbert levitated and shot forward hoping to grab Linoliumanda in time. He was afraid he was too late, when Buhmilda raised her hands, clapped, and a sinkhole opened before the jeep and it and its occupants dropped out of sight.
In tears, Sabrina shouted, “I don’t know why you like her more than me.”
PLANET Z
Deep in the Duchy of Yon, Castle Windbreak is a sight to behold.
Marble and onyx, pearl and gold and silver.
From the magnificently painted vault ceilings to the deepest dungeon, an exercise in opulence.
Those who break the laws of The Duchy find themselves in the greatest luxury.
For just one day.
The guards wake the prisoners up from their comfortable beds and drag them to… The Pit.
Rotting bodies, crusted-over bloodstains… and yet, it was magnificent somehow.
So magnificent, prisoners barely notice the headsman’s axe.
The guards wash themselves afterwards, don clean uniforms, and return to their duties.
CHATGPT
Amelia, with her crew cut and indomitable spirit, ventured to the Arctic, chasing the elusive aurora. The kaleidoscopic lights danced, a celestial contribution to her dreams. As she marveled, a grizzled old local whispered tales that seemed hard to believe — ancient stories of mystical beings cloaked in the northern lights. Determined, Amelia discovered a hidden society of aurora guardians, their existence unknown to most. Dealers of cosmic wonders, they entrusted her with the responsibility of preserving their ethereal legacy. With dirty secrets unveiled, she became a guardian herself, forever connected to the mesmerizing, untold realms of the polar night.
George builds a fence
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He didn’t get along with the ship’s crew.
He thought them to be violent and uncultured, while they considered him a worthless bookworm.
George admitted that he liked books, but he didn’t think he was worthless.
After all, he’d learned a lot from all the books he’d read.
For instance, he learned that good fences make good neighbors from Robert Frost’s poetry.
So, he build a fence around his bunk.
Unfortunately, the only building material was the wood from the ship.
“George, why are we sinking?” asked the captain.
George jury duty
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d escaped from so many hopeless situations, but there was one he couldn’t get out of.
“Jury duty?” said George, reading the court summons.
George was pretty sure that he could get out of it, considering that piracy was felony enough to strip him of his voting rights.
So, George went down to the courthouse, read a magazine while waiting for the selection process, and stated clearly for the record that he was a pirate.
The prosecution, defense, and judge laughed.
George sighed, and wished he’d brought more magazines.
George the Brad
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
So, he changed his name to Brad.
“I’m Brad now,” said George… I mean Brad.
Brad was a pirate, but…
Well, does everything George did as George apply to Brad?
Can you wipe the slate and start again?
The captain decided to put this to the test.
“Brad, swab the deck,” he said.
Brad just stood there.
“SWAB THE DECK, BRAD!” shouted the captain. “BRAD! BRAD!”
“Why are you shouting at me?” asked Brad. “Oh. Wait. Right.”
George changed his name back to George, and he swabbed the deck.
George’s laser
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
After watching a movie where the hero had a laser on his gun to help him aim, George mounted a laser to his cutlass.
“It will help me aim,” said George.
“Why not mount it on your flintlock pistol?” asked the captain.
“I can fire it once, and then I have to reload,” said George. “In the time it takes me to reload, I can use my cutlass five or six times.”
George then wiggled the laser’s red dot on the deck, and the ship’s cat chased it around.
George goes to the dogs
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He’d shot sailors. He’s shot women and children.
He’d shot fellow pirates in the back.
(Although, if you shoot someone in the back, it’s kinda hard to call them “fellow.”)
But he could never shoot a dog.
He’d get this strange, faraway look on his face, almost sad, and he’d lower his gun arm.
Or he’d drop to a knee, pull some dog biscuits out of his pocket, and offer them to the dog.
The first mate thought this was peculiar, and he asked George why.
George shot him.
George and the spiders
George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He had a severe case of arachnophobia, the fear of spiders.
If you put a spider next to George, he’d freak out and scream and run.
Even if it was a rubber spider, he’d yell “KILL IT! KILL IT! KILL IT!”
The crew loves to tease George by drawing spiders on things, or leaving rubber spiders around the ship.
One even found a tin of chocolate-covered spiders to give George as a gag for Christmas.
George threw the tin overboard, along with the pirate who gave it to him.
Weekly Challenge #922 – The lion who ate cherries
The next topic is PICK TWO Aurora, Hard to believe, Contribution, Crew cut, Dealers, Dirty
RICHARD
Mahimba
Mahimba the storyteller struck an imposing figure in his tribal robes, and tonight – as always – he had a captive audience.
He was relating ‘The lion that ate cherries’, and other than his deep, sonorous tones, you could have heard a pin drop.
All too soon, it was over and the tourists made their way to the bar, topping up on drinks in preparation for Mahimba’s promised next story: ‘The dancing hippo’.
We made a killing at the bar on story nights, and Mahimba did extremely well from the tips.
As for his stories… Authentic African folklore? Nope. Complete fabrications? Absolutely!
SERENDIPIDY
As dictators go, he was probably one of the worst. Ruthless, heartless and despotic. Intolerant of opposition, few dared to challenge him, and those who did would come to a sticky end.
They called him ‘The Lion’.
And, he had a fondness for cherries. Expensive delicacies in this country, but money was no object, and he demanded the very best. So, the very best, he got.
Every day, he’d feast upon huge bowls of luscious, ruby red cherries, spitting out the stones as casually as he despatched his enemies.
Cherries, lovingly and carefully prepared by me.
Copiously laced with cyanide.
LIZZIE
He was furious. The Lion That Ate Cherries? What kind of a Xmas gift was that?! He was a writer. He wanted books, not worthless pseudo-art. And, on top of it all, that creepy cousin, smirking… No! And then, it hit him. The photograph. He remembered the photograph. “I’ll take it. The painting, yes.” Everyone mocked him. He smiled. Two weeks later, he arrived at a remote village in Africa. An elderly woman opened the door. “I’ve been waiting for you.” Right there, a whole library of first editions, rare books, a dream come true. “Your grandfather knew you’d understand.”
TOM
The Lion The Monk and the Mouse.
Most folk know the Koan about the Monk and the strawberry. In that same canon was: The lion that ate cherries. On a hill a Lion spied a Monk crossing a valley. He was very hungry. At his good fortune he gave out a mighty roar. Hearing said roar the Monk took off running. All day the two ran, the Lion never gaining on the Monk. Finally, the Monk spied a Cherry tree. He clambered up with the lion on his heels. The Lion dropped spent on the bottom of the tree. Now all he had to do was wait.
839
Train
Unseen in the branches was a field mouse. He noted the monk but kept his eyes trained on the Lion. While both were quite dangerous, the greater danger thought the mouse was being eaten. The Monk started throwing branches at the lion, the lion didn’t mover. The mouse began gnawing at tiny branches. A cherry dropped, the lion caught it and purred. The Monk joined, together they stripped the tree of all the cherries. The Lion slowly roses and walk back to his hill. The Monk and Mouse gave praise to the Budha. Limbed down the tree, and waked away.
NORVAL JOE
Buhmilda continued. “There are a lot of children’s songs that seem innocuous, but are actually used to encourage magical abilities. ‘Ring around the rosies’, ‘London Bridges falling down’, and ‘The Lion that ate cherries'”.
Linoliumanda’s eyes lit up. “I know them all. My daddy sang them to me for years. I should have magic then, right?”
Buhmilda gave the blond girl a sad look but Sabrina took advantage of the question. “No. It just shows you’re a dope. If you had magical abilities, you’d have learned some by now.”
Shell shocked by Sabrina’s rudeness, Linoliumanda wandered back across the meadow.
PLANET Z
It only took a generation to transform the studio from a beloved institution to a bomb factory.
Instead of giving audiences the entertainment they wanted, the studio greenlit projects that ticked the boxes woke social media activists demanded, but never actually paid for.
When management tried to steer the company back to sanity and profitability, radicals in the rank and file protested until the board, contrary to profit-seeking board behavior, replaced the management with their own handpicked radicals.
Pressure mounted at other studios to follow the radical studio’s trajectory.
Instead of surrendering to the mob, though, they fired the radicals.
CHATGPT
In the moonlit savannah, a lone lion with fur as dark as the night discovered a mysterious grove of cherry trees. Their blood-red fruits glistened, tempting the beast with an otherworldly allure. Ignoring instincts, the lion devoured the forbidden cherries. As the juices trickled down its jaws, an eerie transformation unfolded. Its eyes glowed an ominous crimson, and a malevolent hunger gripped its soul. No longer the king of the jungle, it prowled the shadows, a sinister creature haunting the dreams of those who ventured too close. The once-majestic lion, now cursed by the sinister sweetness of cherries, hungered for more than flesh.