The Puppy

Cassie saw the injured puppy by the side of the road.
It had been hit by a car.
She bundled it up in her purse and took it to the vet.
The vet mended the puppy’s wounds.
They bonded instantly, Cassie and the puppy, and from that day on, the two were inseparable.
Eight years later, Cassie backed out from her garage and ran over her dog.
This time, there would be no rushing to the vet.
The dog was dead.
Cassie was inconsolable. She wept for days.
The neighbors complained, until one got a shovel and buried the dog.

Weekly Challenge #739 – MUSHROOM

Lapcat

LIZZIE

She found a small jar in her granny’s attic. Something sparkled inside.
She placed it back on a shelf and left without telling anyone anything about it.
When her granny died, she went back to the attic.
When she opened it, a swirl of light turned everything into a neon palette of greenery.
She read the small paper stuck to the bottom – “Mushrooms, theirs.”
“Theirs?”
The following night, she was visited by them. The weird ones no one knew about, the aliens.
The attic… well, she turned it into a museum where everyone would see… things that didn’t really exist.

RICHARD

Rubbish jobs

I’ve never really fitted in here at the Weapons of Mass Destruction Tactical Development Division.

I’ve more experience and I’m probably more highly qualified than most of my colleagues, but they can never seem to see past my squint and squeaky voice.

So I get all the rubbish jobs.

While they get to blow things up, play with new technology and generally have a whole lot of fun in the process, I’m left with the stuff that nobody cares about.

Take the current project I’ve been tasked with…

I’m making the mushroom clouds on next generation nukes a pretty colour!

TURA

Mushroom
———
On the Underground platform at Oxford Circus, the only other passengers are a six-foot-tall mushroom and a Japanese salaryman. He topples rigidly onto the third rail and explodes into a cloud of butterflies speaking your name.

A vending machine sells true love, but you do not have the right change.

The carnivorous wall tiles chatter evilly to each other, straining to break free of the cement.

A giant cannonball appears on the rails, moments before it rolls out of the tunnel and stops there.

The hallucinations stop when the mushroom climbs into the cannonball and rolls off down the tunnel.

SERENDIPIDY

Disposing of the bodies is my biggest challenge. I don’t go in for burial, disposal at sea or anything like that. It’s too risky, and there’s always a chance that a stray body part might turn up somewhere.

I prefer to render down my victims, and I’ve converted the cellar into an acid bath system of industrial proportions.

I call it, ‘The Mush Room’, because all that’s left in the end, is mush!

You might wonder what I do with it next?

I simply add a few chemicals, pour into moulds and let it set.

Fancy candles for aromatherapy boutiques!

NORVAL JOE

Linoliamanda didn’t seem phased by her father’s angry tone. She held the phone out so Billbert could hear, too. “I’m at Billbert’s house. There was a misunderstanding and I needed to speak with him right away.”
Her father harrumphed and then a dog barking sounded clearly from the phone.
Linoliamanda gasped. “Oh. Daddy. Please let Mushroom out. She needs to do her business.”
“You can come home and let your dog out yourself,” her father grumbled and hung up.
When she didn’t rush out, Billbert asked, “What about your dog?”
She smiled. “Daddy will do it. He’s such a kidder.”

PLANET Z

Remember the old kids’ show Mister Mushroom?
Year after year, the show swept the Daytime Emmy Awards.
Other shows tried to lure away his producers, his directors, his writers.
But as long as he had the sponsors, he had the money.
And nobody paid like Mister Mushroom paid.
Then, one day, at the end of a show, he took a bow and went out to his car and drove away.
He never came back, and nobody ever saw him again.
Where did he go?
Nobody knows.
Maybe we all just dreamed of him.
And you wake up from the dream.

Statue

They say that you should put a beautiful woman high up on a pedestal.
And that’s where I found her.
Because she was statuesque.
The most beautiful statue in the world.
Absolutely perfect.
And I wanted to make her mine. Forever.
At the auction, I tried to buy her.
But I was outbid.
“You will never own her,” said the agent.
If I can’t have her, nobody will.
So, I picked up a crowbar from her crate, and smashed her.
And I ran.
I haven’t completely lost her.
I still have her hand.
And a ring to put on it.

Three Coins

They say that if you throw three coins in the Trevi Fountain, one day you’ll return to Rome.
The Great Bambini had a magic trick where he’d throw three coins in a fountain, and he’d vanish, only to reappear in the Trevi Fountain in Rome.
Nobody could figure out how he did it.
Camera tricks? A stunt double?
Bambini never told anyone how. He took the secret to his death.
How did he die?
Well, he performed the trick on a day when a maintenance crew was cleaning the Trevi fountain, and Bambini broke his neck on the hard stone.

The Tub

Tom was a drunk and a hitter, but Cindy had nowhere she could go.
“He’s good to me,” she would say.
One night, while Tom was asleep, Cindy sprayed the bathtub with soap.
She figured that Tom would slip in the tub and break his neck.
Or maybe, he’d figure out that it was a trap, and he’d beat her to death.
A sickening crack woke her up, and sure enough, Tom was in the tub, his head at a strange angle, and not breathing.
The tears were genuine as Cindy dialed the emergency number, not from sadness, but relief.

Frozen Pizza

I walked to the corner store for Powerball tickets.
I had a twenty in my pocket, but I only bought ten bucks worth.
That way, if nobody won, I could buy ten bucks worth for the next drawing.
I didn’t want to seem like some kind of gambling addicted sucker, so I bought an ice cream cone.
And some M&Ms. And a candy bar.
Oh, and a frozen pizza.
We’ve got some frozen pizzas at home, but I figured might as well get another.
We’ll eat it eventually.
Unless we win, of course.
Then I’m not eating frozen pizza anymore.

The Weather

Please stop accusing me of working for The Global Elders of Zion.
I only work for the Local Elders of Zion, and when I file reports about how I’ve controlled the local banking system or the weather, they escalate those reports to the regional office for review.
Rarely do they advance those reports to the global headquarters, because those guys are too busy controlling the global banking system and the weather and everything else.
They send down their orders, and we here in the local office carry them out.
I wish they’d ask for “Sunny, seventy-two degrees” more often, though.

Doctor Odd and School

When Doctor Odd first went to school, he was bored by the lessons in spelling and rudimentary mathematics.
So, when faced with the laughable challenge of adding 1 and 1, he didn’t settle for just writing down 2.
He pulled Bertrand Russell’s Principia Mathematica from the shelf and worked through the proofs necessary to lay the foundations of existence, basic number sets, and addition.
From there, Doctor Odd dug deeper, tearing a rift in the fabric of space-time which consumed his house.
Exhausted and bruised, he crawled his way to school.
“The homework ate my dog,” said Doctor Odd, collapsing.

Weekly Challenge #738 – WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE

Grooming

LIZZIE

“Where did you get the wound?” asked his boss as he closed the garage door.
The young man shrugged.
“It looks bad. Go to the hospital. Get that checked.”
He nodded and walked away.
“Weird kid. I better check if anything is going on in here.”
The boss opened the door and looked around. Nothing was out of place.
As he closed the door, he saw it. He walked closer.
It blinked.
“What the…”
It was the kid.
“How…?”
Before the night was over, there would be two of him as well.
This was just the beginning of the end.

RICHARD

Posh nosh

I love fast food, microwave meals and TV dinners. I’ve no time to mess about preparing, baking and basting. A good meal to me comes in a bag you boil, or a tray slung into the microwave. Better still, just add boiling water, and I’m a happy man.

Tonight, I was not happy.

My new girlfriend had insisted on a meal out at a posh restaurant, and there was nothing on the menu I wanted.

“You’ve no pot noodle, microwave fries or any convenience foods at all?” I asked the waiter, exasperated.

“No sir, we do apologise for the inconvenience!”

TURA

We apologise for the inconvenience
———
I was at the airport when it happened, flying out to the UN Emergency Conference on, well, everything. Covid-20 even deadlier than Covid-19, escalating threats from the nuclear powers, the Indo-Pakistan war, then the Yellowstone supervolcano.

An announcement came over the PA system. “Attention all passengers. Civilisation has fallen. Passengers should only embark if travelling directly home. Once all remaining flights have departed this airport will close permanently. Personal message for Dr. Brezoianu. The conference has been abandoned, because what’s the point? Apologies for the inconvenience.”

I walked out of the airport and drove home to wait for the end.

SERENDIPIDY

The sign may say ‘convenience store’ but the fact is, it’s for my convenience, not yours.

If anything, I’m the one being inconvenienced by your presence here. Taking up my time, messing up my displays, touching things that don’t belong to you and asking idiot questions.

I’m not here to help you, it was your choice to walk through the door, I never asked you to.

So don’t complain when I refuse to serve you, shower you with abuse and throw you out on the street.

I’m not going to apologise.

But you can apologise to me, for my inconvenience!

TOM

Cold

“We apologize for the inconvenience,” said the metallic voice. It sounded like a cross between Jimmy Seward and Gene Hackman. We had already broken up all the furniture, torn up every book in the library. “I feel like the little match girl,” muffled Linda from beneath her double scarf. “I wonder if you can make wine burn.” We were running out of single toilet paper sheets. I fell asleep about 3:45. Sometime during the night lukewarm air fill the apartment. “One more day,” I said to Linda, “It’s not the days I fear, it’s the nights,” said she.

NORVAL JOE

Linoliamanda took her phone from the back pocket of her blue jeans. “Hi Dad. Oh.”
She took the phone from her ear and pressed, audio. A recorded voice said, “Your call is very important to us. Please remain on the line and a service agent will be with you shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience.” A computer generated orchestral arrangement of “Livin’ la Vida Loca” began.
Billbert scratched his head. “Didn’t your father call you?”
“Yes.” Linoliamanda nodded, smiling. “He does this all the time. He’s a very busy man.”
A man’s angry voice broke in, “Linny. Where are you?”

PLANET Z

We are The Apologists.
We are hired to apologize on behalf of others.
Whatever it is, we come up with a sincere apology and then apologize to the people demanding an apology.
Or we write up the apology and hand the script to the person needing to apologize, and they deliver it.
Virtual technology allows us now to puppeteer a person delivering an apology.
Sometimes, the people who hire us don’t pay us for our work.
So, we render up a new puppet of them.
And we make them say something horrible that they will really need to apologize for.

Art Monsters

I watch children run around the museum, playing tag.
Their parents sitting on a bench, tapping their smartphones.
Instead of reading the signage, teaching lessons from the past.
Keeping them from destroying all in their path. Nasty things.
Their little grubby fingers, pawing the glass.
God forbid we leave something out unprotected.
Velvet ropes mean nothing to these little monsters.
Every time you see a notice that an exhibit is on loan, it’s really in the basement for repairs.
Because of these nasty creatures.
But worst of all, for all the damage they do, we let them in for free.