Back in the old days, if you wanted to ride a dragon into battle, you had to hatch a dragon’s egg, train it, feed it, and house it.
Now, thanks to Uber, all you need is to call for a dragon, and one will arrive.
Sure, you can pay for options, such as flame breath or extra large size, but they’re usually just for show.
You’re only supposed to ride the dragon to battle and then get dropped off.
If you survive, you can hail another dragon.
Don’t forget that battles will increase dragon demand, so prepare for surge pricing.
Salmoning
“Salmoning” is where a bicyclist goes against the flow of traffic in a bike lane on a one-way street.
It is not where the cyclist leaps out of the bike lane into the road to pass another cyclist. That’s called “Getting hit by a cabbing.”
Nor is it when they pull over to a fountain, lay their eggs, and then suddenly die. There’s no word for that.
Finally, Salmoning is not where you offer salmon to passing bicyclists. That’s just creepy.
Plus, they always ask for cream cheese and a bagel.
Do I look like a deli, honey? Keep pedalling!
Sub Rosa
Your mission is to save my soul, be I alive or dead.
Do what you will.
Bless me. Immerse me.
But you will find no soul remaining.
It is here, in the stories.
Which I envisioned every day.
Dipped a side of my soul into my blood.
And pressed these stories into time.
One by one.
Always searching for a side yet without stain.
It takes longer every day.
Soon, there will be none left to tell.
I am out of ink.
I am out of facets.
I am out of time.
My testimony complete, let me rest forever within.
Staycation
Ted booked a week off, and he had planned to travel somewhere during that time, but he decided on a staycation instead.
But he forgot to remove the Facebook and Twitter announcements about his plans.
Burglars had read these posts, and planned to rob Ted’s place.
Instead, Ted shot the burglars as they broke in.
It was all very exciting, from the attack to his eventual exoneration by the district attorney. Better than any vacation than he’d ever had.
So, when his friends needed a house sitter, he volunteered and brought his guns.
And had them post about their vacation.
Suicide Hotline
After Robin Williams died, a lot of people posted on their Facebook timelines all kinds of videos, photos, and noise about harassing depressed people to go seek help.
They think this is helping.
Yeah, I fight with depression. Heck, I used to have the National Suicide Hotline on speed-dial, but one time I accidentally butt-dialed it and they thought I was going to kill myself.
After ten minutes of arguing, they said: “Then why do you have the number on speed-dial?”
I hung up, and realized that I don’t have to answer calls like that all day.
Life’s good, really.
Christopher Gunness
Christopher Gunness
You fucking tool
You fucking fool
Do you let Hamas hide rockets
Up your ass
Or is your lying crying head
Jammed too far up there
Your schools
Teach kids to hate
And crave death
Your hospitals are ammo dumps
Rocket launching sites
And command centers for murderers
Reporters and civilians
Who call you on your lies
Are shot and killed
And dragged through the streets
All that concrete
To rebuild schools and hospitals
And homes
Used to build tunnels
Built by child slave labor
Drag out those dead children
Claim they were
Shot
Bombed by the Jeeeeeeeews
Weekly Challenge #719 – PICK TWO: pulled from the water, quirk, pride, ploy, goof, exposed
- Dave
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
DAVID
The dead don’t move very quickly. If they get lucky, they don’t have to. There was a time when the dead didn’t move at all. Those times are gone. Now the dead come back and not the Jesus way either. That would have been better for me. I take no pride in saying, it’s like those old horror movies, but a little different. If they bleed, they stay dead. Headshots are not necessary. But I still do. In the left eye only. I don’t know why, call it a quirk. Up close and personal. Too personal. It got me too.
LIZZIE
They look off.
They don’t!
They do… is this a… tentacle?
The two friends tilted their heads.
You are crazy. I’ve been eating fish from these waters for months, said the merchant, adjusting the back of his shirt.
I don’t think we should buy these…
Come on. I’ll give you a special discount, how about that?
The two friends exchanged looks.
Well, OK then.
A month later, they were selling fish on the pier. The merchant had been promoted.
They too adjusted the back of their shirts.
It was a nuisance the shirts didn’t have room for the damn tentacle.
RICHARD
Richard the Pirate
“Let’s throw him overboard!”
And that’s exactly what they did.
Yes, they were just goofing about, but after just a single day at sea, that dunking taught me a profound, and important lesson…
I wasn’t cut out to be a pirate.
It was a blow to my pride and my self esteem: I’d quite fancied the raping and pillaging and evenings drinking rum over a dead man’s chest, but the truth is, it was all a bit rowdy for me.
So I turned in my cutlass and settled for a desk job, instead.
Who wants to be a pirate anyway?
SERENDIPIDY
Every so often, evolution throws up a surprise – a quirk of nature that rarely survives long, and is unlikely to alter the gene pool in any significant way.
But every now and again, nature’s mistakes prosper.
Like me.
I’m not a ‘quirk’… There’s nothing quirky or humorous about me. No, I take pride in what I really am.
An aberration, a flaw in the plan, a glitch in the system.
Which isn’t to say I don’t follow the rules. Darwin makes those very clear.
But, when it comes to survival of the fittest…
I definitely have the upper hand!
TOM
When Shadows Fall
What we pulled from the water was: how you, say it … q-u-i-r-k-y. In my country we would say: odd. Not especial bad, but certainly not your run of the mill: hi mom look what Rudy and me found in the river. It wasn’t so much the number of eyes, lordy there were a lot, or the telescoping tentacles. The quirk was how damn cute it looked. Stuffed teddy bear cute. Rudy just hugged the fuzzy pink fishy thing. We could pry the damn thing away from him. Call be deeply paranoid, I don’t think this is going to end well.
NORVAL JOE
“No really,” Billbert said. “It’s the plastic bag. That’s what makes me fly.”
Marissa shook her head, unconvinced. “I don’t want to hurt your pride, but that’s about the worst ploy I’ve ever heard. Well, the worst next to the story that Jeffery Epstien killed himself. Someone will eventually goof up and the whole plot will be exposed. It was probably the Clintons. They kill everybody.”
“Okay. Well, there’s my mom. I’ve gotta go.” Billbert headed to the waiting car.
“We’ll follow to your house. I’m going to get my flight with you, tonight. Whether you like it or not.”
PLANET Z
We pulled Herman’s car from the water an hour ago.
He’d crashed through the barrier and into the lake.
No sign of Herman, though.
We’ve sent his photo to the media and the wires.
We’ll ask around if anybody’s seen him.
And check the shoreline.
If nothing comes up, we will drag the lake.
It always feels weird, calling the divers “frogmen.”
They look nothing like frogs.
Whatever.
Then we’ll ask the psychics.
See if he’s still in our dimension.
Or if he’s fallen through some kind of rift or portal.
Shame about the car.
Herman sure loved that thing.
Seven Inches
Timmy never felt comfortable as a man.
He’d saved for years, but he was still seven inches from becoming Tina.
Close, but not enough. He kept saving for the final cut.
That’s when the devil showed up.
“I can give you that,” he said. “All of it. 100% natural.”
Timmy happily grabbed the contract.
“Sign it as Tina.”
The next day, she woke up…
Soft breasts, not implants. And the cock… Gone! Labia, vagina, a clitoris! And it felt…
Wait. A hard cot. Bars. Prison cell.
“All natural, death row prime,” whispered Satan.
He’d been given a condemned woman’s body.
Helper Monkey
Eddie types fast. Really fast.
But his coding skills suck.
Bob, on the other hand, writes amazing code.
He just can’t type worth a damn.
So, we paired them together.
Eddie writes for Bob, then Bob corrects Eddie’s code.
Still not good enough.
That’s when somebody suggests a neural link. Wire their brains together.
Bob does the thinking, and Eddie is the output device. A mere printer, or a helper monkey.
Bob thinks this is cool.
Eddie didn’t, until we drugged him. And fitted him with the neural link cap.
Which still needs system drivers.
Who will write that code?
Woody
Woody Allen has used the same typewriter for fifty years.
However, he’s had a few worn-out parts replaced here and there. And he’s gotten fresh ribbons as he’s needed them to write.
Miles and miles of typewriter ribbons. So many miles, they could wrap around the earth…
How many times?
Two? Three? Four?
Or hundreds and hundreds of miles?
Well, it’s not that he’s ties them end-to-end and wrapped them around the earth. He’s too busy writing and producing and directing movies.
But he still has time to tie up his wife Soon-Yi with them, the twisted little nebbish freak.