Dawson’s Creek

Bobby Dawson lived by the creek, so he called it Dawson Creek.
Ginger Blake lived in the house next door.
She hated Bobby Dawson, so she insisted on calling the waterway Blake Stream.
Brook Parson was on the other side of Bobby Dawson, and she hated both of the other kids.
He lived by Parson Brook.
Ginger would mock Brook by saying “Why don’t you call it Brook’s Parson?”
Ginger disappeared, and a pile of rocks appeared in the waterway.
“That’s Blake Island,” Brook told the police.
It took them an hour to dig Ginger’s body out from under it.

Weekly Challenge #770 – Get a life!

Tinny hoodie

LIZZIE

Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Trip, fall, get up, stand straight.
Drip, crawl, fed up, stand straight.
Drip, maul, fed up, stand.
Blip, tall, fed up, stand.
Trip, trip, drip, blip.
Sip.
Stand.
Straight.
Hate, hate, hate!
Hate…
Well, trip, stand, wait.
The tap sang this song. Drip, trip, blip. On and on.
Stand, wait, stand, wait.
The tap sang this song. On and on.
Skip, blip.
Skip, stand.
Skip, wait.
Skip, the tap sang this song, skip.
No.
Skip.
No.
Slip.
No.
Stand.
Life? What? Life?
What life?
Get a life.
Trip.

RICHARD

Ambition

I really need to get a life!

All day, every day, I spend my waking hours sat at this keyboard, staring at this screen.

My sleepless nights are filled with restless thoughts, mind churning constantly with ideas and plans, few of which ever come to fruition.

Then it’s back to the keyboard.

Coffee. Aspirin. Irritation.

I thought I was pursuing something noble and worthwhile; something rewarding and respectable, but what it all boils down to is…

Me, sat at this keyboard, staring at this screen.

My only achievement: A hundred words about how I really need to get a life!

SERENDIPIDY

Tonight I’m going out.

I’m going out to get a life, to take it from another and make it my own.

I will drink their blood, feast on their flesh and steal their soul, and when I am done, they will be no more and I will live once again.

Every night another life, another victim – their passing is my sustenance, one more day that I shall survive and live to kill again.

I consider it a fair trade: An eye for an eye, a life for my life; survival of the fittest.

And so far, it’s always been me!

TOM

A Retiring Position

I spend my waking days interviewing county officials. I would be cooler if the ceiling in the room had a field of stars in a deep sky blue. A visual cue which could only be enhanced by red robes and a fully functional rack in the corner. I joke: “Let me show you the instruments of the question.” Funny, no? Some might say, you really need to get a life. I return, If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged. Who’s next?

NORVAL JOE

Mr. Blanketmaker put his arm around his wife. “Honey. I know you’re upset. We all are. You can’t allow yourself to become consumed by a personal vendetta.”
Billbert’s mother looked at her husband crosseyed. “I think the one with a vendetta is Nuclear Fission. I’d like to tell her to get a life and move on, but you have to agree. She’s a little more invested in this battle than that.”
Billbert cleared his throat. “Um. Mom. What does Nuclear Fission have against you?”
She shook her head. “It goes way back. She and I used to be best friends.”

JARED

“If It Seems Too Good to Be True”
Warren couldn’t wait to get to school and show those jerks he wasn’t the loser they thought he was. He had ordered a new Life from the back of a comic book and it had finally arrived. He didn’t really know what it was, exactly, but he he packed it carefully into his backpack and walked with pride and purpose to the bus stop. His bubble was quickly and thoroughly burst.
“Dork!”
“Weirdo!”
“I didn’t think you could be more of a loser.”
He thought back to the ad. And the $1.99 price. And learned , you get what you pay for…

RICK

Get A Life

“Get a life” they said.
Problem is that’s kind of vague.
Life comes in all shapes and sizes …
Some people fill their life with family … friends, others … perhaps … with work, achievement, and material possessions.

Some spend their adult years cherishing memories of youth, while others are faced with the task of trying to drink away nightmares scenarios, or acts of horror that have played out before their eyes.

Frank’s life had been the latter type.
A failure of a son.
A failure as a parent.
… alienated everyone who had tried to befriend him.

Gun in his mouth
Frank pulled the trigger.

cPLANET Z

Laws are lies we tell ourselves and others to do better.
But, really, we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually do better.
Deficits are lies that we tell ourselves that we can afford whatever this is.
That we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually afford.
Debts are lies that we tell ourselves that we will pay this all back.
That we can’t, or shouldn’t, or won’t actually pay.
We can’t keep lying to ourselves.
We shouldn’t lie to ourselves.
But we keep lying to ourselves about the lies.
We say that we’ll stop the lies.
But we can’t. And won’t.

Knave James

The team’s owner said that the superstar would make them great.
To sign him, they had to trade away all of their other players and hire scrubs at the league minimum.
The superstar couldn’t do it all on his own, so the team came in last for the season.
The fans left in droves, the front office were all sacked, the owner declared bankruptcy, and the team was sold to new ownership.
They received premium draft picks as part of the sale, and the next year, they were great.
“Okay, so they’ll be great next year,” said the previous owner.

The P in ESPN stands for Parasite

A reporter was fired from ESPN for leaking company information.
He’d built his career off of gathering leaked information from sources, and the network gladly broadcasted it in between their commercials.
But when the network itself was the story, they fired him without hesitation.
Nobody surrounded the network, harassing the executives and staff for information.
They just read the statement on the air, and breathed a sigh of relief that they also weren’t fired.
Parasites never like to be picked from a nice juicy source of blood, and that’s why they hiss when you pierce them with a hot needle.

The comfortable chair

I have a decent office chair, but my guest chair is boring and simple.
Oh, sure, it has wheels, but it’s not very comfortable.
That shouldn’t be a problem, considering that I don’t want guests to stay long in my office, but they stay even longer to complain about how uncomfortable the chair is.
Or they stand, complaining about the uncomfortable chair.
So, I ordered a comfortable guest chair.
Now, guests stay even longer, saying how comfortable the chair is.
I gave up, took my laptop outside, and worked from under a tree.
It’s okay… until it starts to rain.

The biggest city

The city is huge
It’s the biggest city I’ve ever seen.
Because it’s the only city I’ve ever seen.
Long ago, there were many cities.
And they grew. And grew.
Until all of the cities came together.
And there was just one city left. As big as the world.
Then the city grew the only way it could grow: up.
And the city grew up so far, that the city became bigger than the world itself.
So far, the air got too thin to live in.
Sealed windows, and one fool tapping on the glass.
And then everything blew apart.

Astronomer

We bought Jimmy a telescope for his birthday.
He’d stay up late and watch the stars.
Two or three in the morning, we’d have to drag him back inside.
He proposed a new schedule. He’d wake up at dusk, go watch the stars all night, and then go to school.
When he got home from school, he’d go to sleep.
It’s not like he did any afterschool stuff, like football or baseball or even the chess club.
He thought about starting an astronomy club.
But other parents weren’t as willing to let their kids flip their schedule like we were.

Yanny and Laurel

The Hirschfelds named their twin daughters Yanny and Laurel.
I guess it’s all about how you pronounce it.
And they dressed them the same, even though people thought the dresses were two different colors.
I guess it was how the room was lit.
When the Nazis came, their mother Sophie could only save one.
And she saved Yanny.
Or was it Laurel?
Her mother never wrote down her name.
Only speaking it.
The girl grew up so very confused.
“WRITE DOWN MY NAME!” she screamed.
And her mother screamed her name.
And fell to her knees. And cried. And cried.

Rick – Why is Mother Crying?

Creep Herder

There was always something about mama that Drew me in. Good looking … sure … But there was something else. Something about her seemed to flip a switch in creeps and pedophiles. It was that way since she was young …
It was the same for my little sister.

Mom would meet a man … a creep … and within a week or three, inevitably, they would try something inappropriate with Sissy and Mama would catch it on film …

It was pay up or go to jail!

Over 20 men dropped off envelopes of cash … REGULARLY!

Mama could sure pick em …
She could work em too!

Weekly Challenge #769 – Why is Mother crying?

Sleep

LIZZIE

Why is mother crying?
Why does she not listen?
Why is she stubborn?
Why?
Why does she live in the past?
Why does she have those photos up on the wall?
The architect. The painter. The President.
Why?
They tried, she said once, but she was too good for them.
Why?
She sneered in contempt. She was too good for them.
Why is mother crying?
Why?
They never acknowledged her talent, never.
Why?
She shrugged away their stupidity.
Why?
She doesn’t care. She doesn’t listen. She is stubborn and will never change.
Why is mother crying?
That’s why, that’s why.

RICHARD

Why is mother crying?

Johnny was a wrong ‘un; Johnny was a thug

He got caught up in a gang, hawking a new designer drug

When the cops kicked the door in, our Johnny didn’t run

Three shots rang out, two cops fell dead, thanks to Johnny’s smoking gun

And now his days are numbered, waiting on death row

Two more appeals, and final meals; one long walk left to go

The chair awaits to claim his life; justice will have its way

An eye for an eye, a life for a life, on Johnny’s final day

So, Johnny sleeps; and his mother, weeps.

SERENDIPITY

Miss Appleton crouched to look at my painting.

“So, this is your house, and that’s your dog… And who’s this then?”

Tongue, stuck out in concentration, I mumbled, “That’s mother.”

“Oh, and why is mother crying?” Miss Appleton asked, pointing at the smudged red teardrops running down her face.

“She’s not crying, Miss.” I replied, “She’s bleeding!”

Miss Appleton looked at me curiously, “And why is she bleeding?”

“Because I stabbed her in the eyes with a great big knife!” I chuckled.

Maybe that’s why Miss Appleton called my parents, but it was far too late.

They were already dead.

TOM

Why is Mother Crying?

One minute it was a mixture of laughter and warm conversation. Then I saw the shadow pass her faces. The mussels set and her voice was edged with an empty breath. It got very quiet. Time slowed down, then stopped. My mother glazes was turn away from her assembled children and toward a haphazard pile of old worn books. Of the 100s of books in that house only three were my father’s. He was not much of a reader, but he love Tarzan. I catch my mom’s eye, she knew I knew. I said, “Sabor.” She smiled, then she cried.

NORVAL JOE

The flames of the fire reflected in the tears of Billbert’s mother’s eyes. Billbert saw no need to ask his mother the reason for those tears.
Mr. Blanketmaker put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and hugged her. “I know it’s sad, dear. But we’re insured. We can rebuild our lives.”
Mrs. Blanketmaker shook her head. “It’s true. This is sad. More than that, I’m angry. I’ve had it with Nuclear Fission harassing us. It’s gone on for years, but this is going to end. I’m going to kill her.”
Billbert knew his mother wasn’t one to make idle threats.

TURA

Why is Mother crying?
———
The mothership was less than halfway to its destination, the star directly ahead, still light-years distant. Maintenance droids scurried about, perpetually undoing the work of entropy upon the ship.

But in the most important chamber, sirens perpetually wailed. Softly, so as to not alarm the droids, but Mother would not silence them entirely. For over the decades, the humans carried in hibernation had, one by one, all died. The machinery had been built as well as it could possibly be, but still it was not enough to preserve them through the voyage.

The ship flew on, crying in the dark.

JARED

Mama Cried
My parents are very much against Country music – they didn’t like the depictions of infidelity, and alcohol and drug use. Naturally, in this environment, when I reached my rebellious adolescence, I began listening to this ‘forbidden’ siren’s song. If you imagined these men were singing about their actual lives? I began to understand what my parents had been saying. Merle served a life sentence without parole. Johnny shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die. Hank and his son Hank lamented about the troubles booze has wrought upon them. We can only imagine why their mamas were crying.

PLANET Z

The afflicted stumble the desert in large herds.
Their black robes like shadows on the dunes.
They stop to kneel and pray.
Then rise up together to continue.
To where, nobody knows.
Their faces show determination and direction.
But if you watch them… track them like we do, microchips sewn into their robes, no pattern exists.
Day to day, they wander this way and that.
We leave food and water out for them.
“A MIRACLE!” some shout, falling to their knees, praying.
Are they praying to us?
Their providers? We who watch over them?
Or to be saved from us?