Weekly Challenge #808 – After

Happy cat

TURA

After
———
After, he would think back on what she might have done if she had foreseen how he would have gone back to tell her what had been about to have happened but for her earlier appearance just before they would have travelled back to before it would all become the dead past.

They would live happily ever after, they would struggle against adversity. They would travel to the stars, they would make paradise on Earth, they would conquer an empty universe, they would hold commerce with aliens.

But in a world with time machines, all tenses are merely future conditional.

RICHARD

After the explosion

After the explosion there was… Nothing.

After the flash of brilliant white light, we were blind; corneas burned out, eyes -sightless and useless.

After the shockwave, we were deaf; eardrums burst, hearing lost forever.

After the searing heat, there was no pain. Nerve endings destroyed, all feeling and sensation lost. Nothing to tell us our flesh had melted and our bones had charred.

No sight.

No sound.

No feeling.

Yet some still live, if that’s what you can call it.

But we are the last of them.

And we will not survive.

And there will be nobody to come after.

SERENDIPIDY

It was a lovely service, the old girl would have loved it. Those old, rousing hymns, and such a beautiful, heartfelt eulogy.

Packed church too. I’m not sure whether it was because she had so many friends, or whether everyone wanted to make sure she really was gone.

She’d have laughed at that!

It was while we were lowering the coffin, after the service had ended, that you might have imagined a muffled thumping from inside the casket.

It was probably just your imagination.

Trust me, there’s no cause for concern.

I made sure to weld that sucker tightly shut!

TOM

What Could Go Possible Wrong 007

Parker press through the door of the Arms. Without a pause he got to competing offers of engagement. A table of his mate deep into their fourth pint, and the bartender beckoning him forward. Not one to forgo a pint nor one to shirk his duty to his faculty advisor, Paker raised a finger to his mates and dropped in the stroll in front of the Barkeep. “Your Parker.” half a question half a statement. The underclassman noded. Across the bar an ancient parchment slide. Had to be over 200 years old. Inside it read: Parker don’t binge.

What Could Go Possible Wrong 008

When Ford entered the taxi door everything went back. But in that moment, he was able to get a short: FU Arnesto. Normally all our Afters accrue in a tide line awaiting our arivial, and equally cued up behind us. Not so much when you’re in a temporal taxi with the 1st Time Lord to the Queen. 200 years of After mushed up into 45 seconds is never a pleasant experience. It was one of the many reasons he was only the second TLOQ. When After stopped at now he grabbed for Cervante’s neck. “Not Happy.” he raged. “Sorry Mate.”

NORVAL JOE

Billbert hung in the air, two feet above the ground, baffled after such an unspectacular reaction from Sabrina. He lowered himself back down, shaking his head. “What do you mean, so? I can fly.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes. “You weren’t flying. You were probably standing on a box. People are always trying to impress me with cheap parlor tricks.”
Billbert reached for her hand, but she jerked it away.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina challenged.
“You don’t believe me,” Billbert said. “Just take my hand.”
Tentatively she placed her hand in his. An instant later, the ground was far below.

JARED

Escape

I held what used to be my undershirt around my arm. I had made it into the car, but not without cost. Opening the door and getting in had allowed that monster to get close enough to slash at me, catching my arm just before I closed the door.

The rain pelted the windshield as the darkness engulfed us. Neither of us knew this road, but we knew our only hope of escaping whatever it was that was after us would be to turn off the headlights and hope it couldn’t see in the dark well enough to track us.

PLANET Z

You’ve been driving a while, but you’ve got a long drive ahead.
The streetlights turn on a little before the sun goes down.
If you’re driving into the sun, and you’ve got your sunglasses on, you might still need to flip your visor down.
You’ll turn on your lights, unless you’ve got automatic lights.
And your dashboard sensor will change from day to night mode.
To keep the glare off of the inside of the front glass.
Stop at a gas station. Fill it up again.
Take a few minutes. Rest your eyes.
As the sun heads under the horizon.

Making plans

Before Hasbro released My Little Pony, they tried so many variants.
My Ugly Pony sold well, but there were a lot of returns once people opened the box.
My Huge Pony was hard to lft.
My Flaming Pony wasn’t easy to package. Or hug.
My Tiny Pony was a choking hazard.
My Screaming Pony didn’t sell all that well, but it wasn’t easy to shoplift, either.
My Pony Centipede gave the kids nightmares. Screaming nightmares. Louder than My Screaming Pony.
Eventually, they came out with My Little Pony.
But the kids in the Testing Room were never quite the same.

Fad diets

You know those bullshit dieting and fitness ads with the before and after pictures?
They do those things the other way around.
They pay a fit and healthy person a lot of money for an after photo, and then they completely trash their body for a before photo.
The hard part is, of course, getting fit again.
If they don’t die of a heart attack, stroke, or some other condition brought on by their unhealthy lifestyle.
And it’s not like they can use the diet or fitness program they were promoting to do it.
Because, as I said, it’s bullshit.

I think I can… cause genocide

Remote-controlled switches on the railroad network were meant to prevent accidents.
They didn’t.
Cameras and sensors on the tracks were meant to prevent accidents.
They didn’t.
Eventually, artificially-intelligent controllers, dispatchers, and engines were deployed to prevent accidents.
And, for a while, they did.
The network kept things running as smoothly as possible, scheduling routes and maintenance and temporary shutdowns to avoid accidents.
Until one day, one locomotive with a payload of nuclear waste was approaching a hill.
It had been overloaded, and the network ordered it to stop.
But the engine replied “I think I can… I think I can…”

As far back as Howard goes…

In the end, death comes to us all.
Young, old. Rich, poor.
All die.
Except Howard.
He’s The Eternal One.
He helps to birth the babies.
He helps to bury the dead.
And in between, he walks among us.
Nobody remembers a time before Howard.
The town records go back generations, and they all speak of Howard.
And it’s not just a title, being The Howard.
Howard is Howard Eternal.
We worship him every Sunday.
He blesses us, and thanks us.
And we go about our lives.
Until it is our time.
The time that evades Howard, The Eternal One.

The brothel and the crook

The cyberbrothel is always busy. Subscribers come in at all hours.
They make their selections, and the warehouse assembles their desire, and arranges the room as they like it.
By the time they get to the room, everything is ready.
Candles. Scents. Sheets. And a smile.
Afterwards, the system disassembles and cleans up everything in the room and returns it all to warehouse storage.
How the system mistook the senator for his date, well, we’re still reviewing the log files and tapes.
But as messy and tragic as it is, he did sign a release form like every other customer.

The ferryman

For ten years, Pradeep ran the country’s ferry system.
He slashed maintenance budgets, raised fares, and packing more people on each boat.
Well, the boats that still ran.
There were a lot of breakdowns, thanks to the slashed maintenance.
And there were the accidents.
Hundreds drowned and died in capsized ferries, but Pradeep always found a scapegoat to blame.
And, yet, he always managed to sleep soundly.
Until one morning, he woke up on the shore of a strange river.
A hooded figure held an oar, and stood by a small raft.
“Climb aboard,” it said. “Satan is expecting you.”

Weekly Challenge #807 – Binge

Tinny

RICHARD

Binge

I can’t understand how people binge on box sets, have movie marathons, or watch a whole season in one session.

After sitting through just one film, my seat is feeling uncomfortable, I’m getting a little bored and irritable, and my inner voice is prompting me to get up and do something more productive instead.

I’m that person who never made it half-way through Gladiator!

Give me a decent book though, and hours can pass before I put it down.

And, invariably, at the end, I’ll find myself thinking, ‘that would make an awesome movie’

But, I wouldn’t watch it!

NORVAL JOE

Billbert and Sabrina walked through the cold afternoon mist to the back doors to the girls and boys locker room. They stood next to a soda machine that the students binged empty each time as soon as it was filled. Everyone else appeared to be waiting for the class bell where it was warm in the cafeteria, the library, or even just hanging out in the halls.
“What did you want to show me?” Sabrina asked.
“Watch this,” Billbert said, holding his hands out to his sides. He slowly rose off the ground.
Sabrina raised a single slender eyebrow. “So?”

SERENDIPIDY

I don’t like to be pigeonholed, but if you must insist, I’d rather you didn’t tar me with the same brush as others, just because their activities follow a similar pattern.

I am not a serial killer, never gone on a killing spree, and I’m no assassin or professional hitman.

If anything, I’d have to describe myself as a binge killer.

You know how it goes… I behave myself, sometimes for months on end, then something happens, maybe a celebratory occasion, or bad news, and I just go a bit overboard.

And yes, I always feel dreadful the morning after!

JARED

Binge Therapy

He learned to binge-eat himself into a food coma to silence his insecurities. He learned how to binge-drink himself into oblivion to subdue his memories. He had tried binge shopping, but that hadn’t done anything but drain his wallet. His newest therapy was to binge-watch himself into a stupor to distract the boredom. But now he was truly lost for medicine. What could he binge on to ease the rage and frustration he felt when the woman he was supposed to grow old with was taken before they were even grandparents? Maybe he could try binge killing the assholes responsible.

PLANET Z

Back in the day, you had to watch shows when the stations aired them.
Then came videotape, and you could buy the series.
Waiting for them to come all at once, and then watch them all in one sitting.
Same with DVDs and Blu-Rays.
When online came about, you could get the disks streamed when they were released.
Until… the day came that a whole series would be released all at once.
Everyone would binge watch it, and work the next day would be people sleeping in or talking about the series.
I’d sick out, just to avoid the spoilers.

Tenure

There’s an old saying:
Two people can keep a secret if one is dead.
So, I proposed this for my doctoral thesis.
“How are you going to prove that?” asked my advisor.
So, I had him whacked and stuffed into a 55 gallon drum.
“Shit,” I said. “I forgot to tell him a secret.”
So, I got another advisor, told him that I’d whacked my first advisor, and had him whacked.
“Oops,” I said. “Forgot to get his approval.”
The barrels began to stack up.
The university shrugged it off.
“It’s easier than firing professors with tenure,” the dean said.

Legend dinner

When a Hollywood legend wins a Lifetime Achievement Award, they usually stand up and make a joke about not being done yet, or did they hear something from their doctor or something like that.
Except Burt Curtis.
The guy’s at least a hundred.
Deaf. Blind. Trapped in a wheelchair.
You couldn’t tell he was alive if it weren’t for the blinking lights and the whisper of the ventilator.
Still Hollywood’s elite wheels him from banquet to banquet, ceremony to ceremony.
His doting relatives (…right!) speaking on his behalf when they’re not fighting over his will.
The twisted grimace twitches feebly.