Red dye

We built a line of snowmen along the driveway, all with twig arms out in salute.
My dad would drive past them and salute back.
Then, we’d knock over the snowmen and spray red food dye on them.
When dad came back, he was horrified at the carnage.
But the real horror wasn’t until Spring.
Because the red food dye was toxic to grass.
We ended up spending the summer reseeding, resodding, and fertilizing the bald patches in the lawn.
And when the winter came again, we weren’t allowed to make snowmen again.
Or go anywhere near the kitchen cabinet.

Weekly Challenge #763 – PICK TWO: reward, puppet, global, gear, shop, pit stop

Baby panther

LIZZIE

She hated being a puppet in his hands. What gave her some peace was walking down the pathway with the old trees. One day, she noticed something shiny to the right. A marble perhaps? The next day, she brought some beads and left them there. And that’s when the gifts appeared on the pathway. First a bit of glass. Then, a button, an old key. It made her smile. It gave her strength. And she said “no more”. She walked away from him, for good. Today, she still walks that pathway, exchanging gifts with her new friend, a very generous crow.

RICHARD

Scum

“Got any gear?”
I looked at the kid with distaste. He was every inch the stereotypical druggie: Shambling and sniffing, his vacant eyes darting around in paranoid fear from his sallow, pock-marked face.

I nodded. “For the right price.”

He fumbled a handful of dirty bills from somewhere deep within his sweatpants – now you know why I always wear gloves – and I slipped him the small polythene packet.

I despise scum like him.

And I imagine that you despise scum, like me.

But, I’m just a puppet. It’s the people pulling my strings you should despise most.

I do.

SERENDIPITY

Have you ever wondered why so many serial killers remove their victims’ body parts to take as souvenirs?

It’s our reward for a job well done.

After all, no-one else is going to congratulate us on our work, so we have to take things into our own hands.

But, what to do with all those body parts, once we’ve got them? We can’t exactly put them on display or show them off to our friends!

So, I turn them into children’s toys: Lovingly crafted marionettes and puppets from stolen parts and pieces.

Perhaps your kids would like one for Christmas?

TOM

Cluster Fuck II

The woman who had set this in motion gave me that second grade teach stare. “Inappropriate language Master Marquette.” I always vexes me when someone with multiple children takes umbrage with the term. How the fuck did you end up with them, but say cluster fuck, well that just not polite intercourse. So I looked at her and gave her a “WE BE ADULTS HERE LOOK.” I wanted to say “I an’t no reward puppet, you call me up to dance, you better have a band a hand.” But she had dash back inside the hall as the music played.

TURA

Gear; Pit stop
———
At car races nowadays, the cars drive themselves, and the pit stops are totally automated. The machines can swap out a busted gearbox in seconds. No-one programs anything, the robots learn by competing against each other.

Rumour is that there’s no longer any human input, from the racetracks, to the factories, to the mines and oil wells. New tracks get built without anyone asking for them. There are twice as many as two years ago, and they’re bigger.

It’s still the most popular spectator sport, but soon the world might be just one huge racetrack, with no-one left to watch.
———

NORVAL JOE

One of the federal agents shouted at Mrs. Blanketmaker. “There’s a global conspiracy to turn all of you heroes into villains. You’re walking into their trap. Before you know it you’ll be puppets of their evil organization.”

Mr. Withybottom blustered at the agent, “Are you telling me that skinny little kid over there is, in fact, a superhero?”

The agent turned his back on Billbert’s mother. “We suspect he is. We will reward anyone with firsthand knowledge of him or anyone else using unusual powers.”

Mr. Withybottom pushed Linoliamanda forward with an evil smile. “Linny. Tell them what you know.”

RICK

General Store

Jerry had an old farmhouse, wrap around porch, big … BIG front room. And Jerry is always been something of a hoarder … food, water, cleaners, paper goods … He was set for the next 20 years.

Had a handpainted sign that read …

“General Store”

… If the sign was out front he was open for business … If not … then not.

Without a store around within 15 mi Jerry did well with cigarettes, soda, beer, and such, not a living … but he did okay.

He did make a killing on the corn liquor and homegrown marijuana!

Jerry what’s the richest guy in the county!

PLANET Z

It’s not like stealing the Mona Lisa, but long ago news broke that someone had stolen Kermit the Frog from Jim Henson’s office.
Sure, he had dozens of the things back in the day, but there was something special about this particular puppet.
And he kept it in his office, and after he died, they found it there, sitting in his chair.
People say it’s cursed. Or haunted.
The janitor at Henson Productions doesn’t even touch it.
Sometimes, when a tour goes through, people claim it’s staring at them.
But that’s just crazy. It only hunts and kills people, okay?

Doctor Odd’s Advent Calendar

Doctor Odd loved the holidays.
Every year, he’d craft some bizarre advent calendar, slowly revealing some nefarious plot to take over the world.
Or destroy it. Either way, he wasn’t picky.
This year’s effort would be his masterpiece.
Each day, he revealed a cure to some disease or affliction.
Cancer. AIDS. The common cold.
By the 24th day, he’d cured everything.
The world sang his praises on Christmas Day.
Then, Odd revealed his Nightmare Plague.
Why did he go through the trouble of creating all those cures?
He wanted a clean slate upon which to test his own newly-crafted disease.

Eartha’s Santa Baby

So, Eartha Kitt asked Santa for a bunch of things.
She wanted a sable coat, a light blue convertible car, a yacht, a platinum mine, a duplex, and checks.
I know she was a champion for civil rights and social causes, but seriously: what a greedy bitch.
In the song, she claims that she passed on a lot of fun and kissing guys, but didn’t the CIA report on her say she was a sadistic nymphomaniac?
Which is it? What’s the truth?
Okay, so maybe she didn’t kiss any of the guys, but if the catsuit and whip fits, right?

Christmas jerky

It’s a family tradition that we hang their stockings from the mantel on Christmas.
That way, Santa Claus can leave presents for us in the stockings.
Grandma hung one of her compression socks from the mantel.
Santa brought her some Ohama Steaks.
She slept late, we had lit a fire in the fireplace, and the compressed steak ended up as beef jerky.
Which Grandma ended up giving to us, since jerky isn’t all that good on her dentures.
“Gee, thanks, Grandma,” we said, staring at the leg-sweat seasoned meat sticks. “Merry Christmas.”
We gave the disgusting things to the dog.

Increased drag Christmas

For centuries, eight reindeer pulled Santa’s sleigh.
Santa expanded the roster to nine when air pollution necessitated Rudolph’s bright nose.
Despite ever-increasing payloads and deliveries, Santa and his crew did their job.
Until Clover the horse wanted to join.
Sure, he was a horse. He couldn’t fly.
But he identified as a pegasus.
“See my cardboard wings?”
“You’re kidding, right?” said Santa.
Clover wasn’t. And he sued for discrimination.
The case went to the Supreme Court.
Santa lost.
He never delivered presents to judges or lawyers ever again.
“Not enough time,” he’d say. “The increased drag is slowing everything down.”

Woke Christmas Morning

People are protesting Charlie Brown Christmas because Franklin the black kid is forced to sit in a lawn chair on the other side of the table.
They’re also protesting Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as bigoted.
And the song “Baby It’s Cold Outside” has run afoul of the Me Too Movement, who claim the lyrics are tantamount to date rape.
Not to mention that some radical Muslims get offended by people wishing them Merry Christmas at all.
I asked Santa for a baseball bat.
Aluminum? Wood? Carbon-fiber? As long as it’s not Whiffle.
I just want to beat myself senseless sometimes.

The Taps

It all started with a pub that offered beer on tap.
Just one beer available on tap. Nothing fancy.
Then, the pub next door offered two different beers on tap.
So, of course, the first pub needed to offer three.
And the pub next door offered four.
Five… six… seven… ten… fifteen… twenty…
Pretty soon, both of the pubs had a massive wall of taps.
The bartenders now spend more time changing kegs and tap handles and checking lines than actually serving beer.
It’s crazy behind that wall.
I like to go in and ask to see the wine list.

Weekly Challenge #762 – Cluster

Mice

LIZZIE

Throw it in the bin and forget about it.
But this area is a cluster of infected cases.
Throw it in the bin and forget it.
Walking away is not an easy task when your conscience nags you.
He had to go back. He grabbed the bin, dragged it away to the dump area and chuck it into the fire.
The bin was closed the whole time. He made sure of it.
When he got ill, he was tossed in that same neighborhood, forgotten.
The others, they kept throwing infected stuff in the bin, carelessly, just like they did before

RICHARD

This is it…

“This is it… We’re going to die!”

Emily voiced what we’d all been thinking, but couldn’t bring ourselves to say.

The cluster of meteorites glittered; green sparkles on the radar screen. Each the size of a football pitch, with a combined mass that meant the earth was doomed.

It was just a matter of time now.

There would be no last ditch space rescue missions, no desperate missile strikes, no long shots… But it might just work.

This was it. Immanent global extinction.

I swallowed, then heard my own voice, matter of fact and steady.

“Yes, we’re going to die.”

SERENDIPIDY

A cluster of deaths.

Such an evocative term.

One or two, or just the occasional passing barely raises an eyebrow, but a cluster is something else entirely.

Follow it with the words, ‘in suspicious circumstances’, ‘in the local area’, displaying the same pattern’, or ‘by an unknown cause’, and you have the beginnings of a recipe for fear, panic and rampant speculation.

And whilst people are entirely distracted by the cluster – my favourite diversionary tactic – I can pick off whoever I want, in ones and twos, occasionally and without displaying any clear pattern or similarities.

And nobody will ever notice.

TOM

The following is more a moment than a story. Also I need to drop the name for those living and dead. A vastly popular women in our county had died. The memorial service was to be done in a theater with over 700 people present. The day of the event I got a call in San Jose they need a sound guy. I had to drive 120 mile in 2 hours. Do the math. Somehow I defied physics and got there on time. The woman who had called me said they had found someone, hadn’t I got the message. I said, “What the fuck, this is a total cluster fuck.”

NORVAL JOE

Dergle Vander Hoont, his wiener dog growling from his hiding place in the bulky man’s coat, joined several other odd looking men and women who clustered around the federal agents. The man covered in dust growled in a genial way at Bilbert’s mother, “You can take your son and go, Gladys. We’ll take care of these two clowns.”

As Billbert’s mother ushered him toward the car, Linoliamanda and her family reappeared from an exam room. Linoliamanda’s head was wrapped in a white, gauze bandage.
“Hold on, Mrs. Blanketmaker,” Mr. Withybottom boomed. “I’d like a word with you about your son.”

PLANET Z

The Cluster is a group of stars, about twenty thousand light years from Earth.
We’ll send you the coordinates and spectral signatures.
There’s a man we want.
What’s his name?
Doesn’t matter.
You’re going to destroy the planet he’s on.
So, here’s a solar detonator.
You blow up the star, the flares destroy the planet.
What about the rest of the people on that planet?
Who cares?
Here’s half the contract, and half when you finish the job.
Just be sure to get out of the system before the star explodes.
Otherwise, I’m getting a half-off deal on the contract.

The Diet

In the past year, I’ve lost almost seventy pounds.
That’s a lot, and it took a lot to do that.
I cut out all candy, all fried foods, all red meat.
Pretty much all meat, really. I’m practically vegan.
No alcohol, either. Don’t drink your calories.
I walk on my treadmill for at least an hour a day.
If I eat more, I walk more and I eat less later to make up for it.
There’s a handy little app on my phone to track it all.
Except for my sheer hatred for all these fast food commercials, of course.