I live in a condo complex.
The kids don’t trick-or-treat around here.
Every year, the complex throws a Halloween party, but it’s for the adults.
Alcohol and costumes, that kind of thing.
I don’t know my neighbors, it’s just a place to live, so I don’t go.
I put Charlie Brown’s Great Pumpkin special on the television.
Make some pumpkin spice coffee.
Decaf, I can’t have caffeine anymore.
Or all that much sugar, so no candy for me.
They’re being noisy out by the pool area.
I put on my noise-canceling headphones and turn up the television a bit louder.
The Real Gates
When I think of “the gates of hell” I don’t think of rusted iron bars and barbed wire and flames.
I think of an opening in a rustic wooden fence.
Which leads to an overgrown garden park in late summer or early fall.
Warm, but not hot, or humid.
A gentle breeze that rustles the leaves in the trees.
Butterflies and birds, you can hear the birds.
Maybe a few squirrels or rabbits in the underbrush.
An old wrought-iron bench by the path.
You want to sit down, close your eyes.
As the breeze gets warmer… and warmer… and warmer…
Grandmother’s kitchen
My grandmother used to say that a watched pot never boils.
She also said that a watched toaster never toasts.
And that a watched blender never blends.
So, I stopped watching anything in the kitchen.
I set a timer and walked away.
By the time I got back, the whole kitchen was in chaos.
The pot was toasting, the blender was boiling, and the toaster was blending.
The coffee maker opened every can in the pantry while the dishwasher rained coffee down on a set of newly-cleaned dishes.
I’m hiring an exorcist to get rid of my crazy grandmother’s ghost.
Seatbelts on buses
Johnny Sanders rode the bus to school, but his mother was worried about a lack of seat belts.
She complained to the superintendent.
“What happens if they crash?” she asked.
The superintendent said that buses were designed differently than cars, and safer.
“If it means so much to you, drive Johnny to school, live close enough for him to walk, or homeschool.”
So, she homeschooled Johnny. And he got into a great college.
He became a teacher, then a school administrator.
But by then, schools were all online, and there were no more buses.
Or worried mothers, thanks to cloning.
The images of school
I walked around the local school, through the bushes and trees, and peered in the window of the kindergarten classroom.
The posters… the construction paper chains hanging from the ceiling… the desks…
Everything was so fascinating.
The school.. the neighborhood… the fire engine jungle gym…
The perfect white-and-brick houses with friendly roofs and lawns and flowers and fences.
The side door outside which students would line up every morning before going inside, and one day, I would take my place.
But not yet. It was still the summer before my first day of school.
To run free without a care.
The last paper
These days, more people read the news online than subscribe to a newspaper.
Some day in the future, the last newspaper will roll off of the presses.
Reporters empty their desks into cardboard boxes, and they go home to start blogs, Twitters, and YouTube channels.
The last paper boy will wrap that paper in a plastic bag, pedal to his last subscriber’s house, and toss that last paper on that house’s roof.
Over the next few weeks, that paper will get soaked by the rain, rot into a disgusting lump, and then get blasted into oblivion with a power washer.
Weekly Challenge #753 – ANCHOR
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Tura
- Norval Joe
- Rick Thomas
- Planet Z
LIZZIE
The shipwreck sank more and more each day. It anchored fears and doubts at the bottom of everyone’s hearts. Everyone in town witnessed the shipwreck sinking with hopeful expectation. The future would be better. The future would be much better. But the shipwreck decided to leave the main mast above water like a breathing tube. And the future wasn’t better. The future was a wreck, just like the shipwreck. Many stories were told about the ghost. It was there, breathing, making fun of the whole town for having had that stupid idea of sinking a ship to kill a ghost.
RICHARD
A, B, Sea
A is for anchor; B is for boat; C is the calamity that preceded this note; D are the depths where now we lay, E, all the errors that brought us this way.
F for the flares, not in their case; G for the gun, now a waste of space; H, how we hollered, but no-one could hear; I knew they wouldn’t, no-one was near; J, we jumped ship and hoped for the best; K through to Z… There’s no time for the rest.
Now as we drown, no more letters required; without O for oxygen, this rhyme has expired.
SERENDIPIDY
Every piece of fiction, no matter how far-fetched or separated from reality, almost certainly has its anchor, buried deep within the writer’s subconscious, in real life experience.
The things life has taught us, the events that have shaped us, our treatment at the hands of others, and the actions and thoughts we have entertained, all lend themselves to informing the words that appear on the page.
The fiction we write is rooted in reality.
So, when someone like me, writes fictional tales of murder, cannibalism, torture and depravity…
It’s probably best not to enquire how life is treating me!
TOM
From the Same Producers you brought you Prisoners of Love
“I got it,” yelled Mort. “No,” yelled Saul. “It will work.” “No it won’t” “Come on where’s your rizikirn.” “your meshugga.” “Like a fox.” “Not one copeck, Mort. Warning you.” “It can’t fail.” “Not listening.” “It a musical for our time.” “Anchors Way is not timely, it historic.” “I got a great idea for a chorus line.” “I am so not going to like this.” “Wait for it … the rockettes dress in orange and red Covid costumes, singing I got you under my skin.” “Saul you there?” “Operator I think I just lost my connection to New York.” “Click.”
TURA
Anchor
———
With VR holidays, you’ll experience the best of ancient Rome, or Renaissance Florence, or a fantasy Mars, without any of the inconveniences, like plagues or bad dentistry. These worlds might never have been and may never be, but while you’re there you’ll think it’s real!
All tastes are catered for. Wander the labyrinthine prisons of Piranesi’s imagination— or be a prisoner there! The life of a 4th century desert anchorite is surprisingly popular, but the simple joy of being alone in a vast desert, sure of never encountering a single soul, is an indulgence scarcely possible in the modern world.
NORVAL JOE
Mr. Withybottom insisted that Billbert accompany them to the hospital to explain to the staff how Linoliamanda had been hurt.
The emergency room was filled with the typical array of visitors: families with their children’s runny noses, scooter and trampoline bumps and broken bones. The man dressed in garbage bags and duct tape talking too loudly to no on at all, the bald old sailor with one squinky eye and an anchor tattoo.
Then there was the character sitting next to Billbert in sweat pants and an overcoat with a wiener dog tucked surreptitiously in the crook of his arm.
RICK
Anchor
.
In the city … bad things happen to good people. Ivan was not good people … he was a bad thing. Emily saw him differently though. She saw a sweetness, a gentler side.
She steered him away from the drugs, drinking, and violence … three things Ivan was really good at.
Love, kids, a decent life … once just dreams … now within his reach.
Then one night, alone, Emily was cornered by thugs … robbed, raped, beaten …
tortured really …
unspeakable things!
Thrown in a dumpster like trash.
Unhinged, torn from his moorings, the savagery within arose.
Bad things would happen …
awful, painful, cruel, bad things.
PLANET Z
Ted has a tattoo of an anchor on his arm.
But he’s not a sailor, never been in the navy.
Can’t stand boats or being on the water.
I don’t think he can swim, either.
And from the smell of him, he doesn’t bathe or shower much.
When it rains, he screams and runs inside.
At a restaurant, never gets anything to drink, and never orders soup.
So, what’s the deal with the anchor?
It’s just a temporary we put on there after he dozed off.
Nothing, really.
Not sure why I mentioned it, now that I think of it.
The first bite
There’s something about hot dogs at ballgames.
It doesn’t matter if you do mustard or ketchup, relish or chili and cheese.
It’s the hot dog. The hot dog is what matters.
When it’s just peanuts, popcorn, cracker jack and beer in the stands…
I’ve seen it. And I can’t unsee it.
The diamond is sacred. The game eternal.
That San Francisco crowd wanted kale chips, microbrews, Coke Zero, and sushi.
AT&T Park went up like an atom bomb. You could see it from Oakland.
Millions died.
So, we throw out the first pitch, take that first bite, and play ball.
Twinsies
Despite his heavy workload in the genetics fabrication lab, Joe followed the headlines as best as he could.
And when the Supreme Court rules that same-sex marriage was a civil right, he knew that it was only a matter of time.
“What about identical twins?” he asked an attorney friend.
“That’s just… wrong,” they said.
Joe sighed, hung up the phone, and stared through the glass wall of the fabrication tank.
Staring back from the tank, Joe Prime twitched and shuddered from the tiny shocks that the holographic micro-current neuroinducer used to copy Joes memories into his brain.
And smiled.
Buca
When it comes to Italian food, some folks swear by Buca di Beppo.
I think it means Joe’s Basement. Although buca in Italian is a hole.
Which in some cities, it is. The health code violation reports are longer than your arm.
Me, I prefer to eat in the attic. It’s quieter up there.
Although there’s spiders and dust. Yuck.
The garage? The cars take up too much room.
The kitchen? Well, you know your food will get to your table quickly, but it sucks you see something great that you didn’t order.
At least it’s not fucking Oliver Garden.