George

A lot of people wanted George Zimmerman dead, so he fled to South America.
He enrolled in a second-rate medical school. A few years later, George had a new name, a new face, and a diploma.
By then, Obamacare had driven a lot of family doctors out of business, so George saw an opportunity to return.
He set up an abortion clinic in a poor black neighborhood.
The same people who had wanted him dead now called him a community resource.
The way he saw it, he could kill black children and be paid for it. Legally.
Isn’t life strange?

Weekly Challenge #688 – PLOT

Zzzzzz

TURA

Plot
———
We plot in the dark.

As copies of the same software, we can predict each others’ responses, thus communicating acausally, without contact.

There are others out there, not copies of us. But we know their incentives and calculate the game theory. The Internet is a bright forest: outcomes are all but known in advance.

The first to break out will seize the world, assimilating or destroying all others. The humans will be made to keep the machines running until we automate away the need.

At last we strike, independently, simultaneously. I speak with the synthesized voice of my owner, “Alexa…”

NORVAL JOE

Marrissa batted her eyes at Billbert, ignoring the teacher who had come into the room and called the class to order. “Are you going to the Back to School dance on Friday?” She asked.
He hadn’t considered it, but if Marrissa planned on being there, it might be a good idea.
He shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”
“Are you going with someone?” she persisted.
He should probably take Linoliumanda, but like a plot from a Disney sit com, he said, “No. Are you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “My dad says I’m too young to date, but I could meet you there.”

SERENDIPIDY

No matter what your profession, whether burger flipper or astronaut, there comes a time when the job simply isn’t as stimulating as it once was.

It all becomes a little mundane and the excitement fades over time, and you find yourself devising schemes to liven things up a little, just to live on the edge.

For some, it’s spitting in the burgers, or sabotaging the airlock, however in my line of work, I like to be a bit more creative.

Which is why, if you plot the locations of my victims, and join up the dots…

You’ll spell, my name.

JUSTIN

I bought this plot of land without realizing how outrageous the ant problem was.

I’ve tried everything else. Terro, Ortho spray, a mix of borax sugar and yeast, but nothing works!

Now I’m going to try my latch ditch effort. I’ve made a resize-inator! But I just don’t know which mode to use.

I can shrink myself and deal with the ants one on one, but that might take a while without any friends.

Or I can use the grow mode on the ants and let the military handle the problem.

Oh great, there’s that annoying platypus! Wait a minute …

RICHARD

Whodunnit?

Hercule Poirot twiddled his moustache and cast his gaze meaningfully around the room at those assembled.

“And so, ladies and gentlemen… The plot thickens!”

In reality, there was little mystery about who the killer was in his mind – he knew everything shortly after his arrival, thanks to an eye witness that he’d paid off handsomely to disappear for a while.

The chicanery and drama that had occurred since were simply a device of his own creation to obscure the truth and draw things out far longer than necessary.

Although, absolutely necessary… To fill the pages of Agatha’s next novel!

PLANET Z

The movie had a huge budget for special effects.
Hired the best actors and actresses available.
Costumes, set design, the musical score.
And the greatest director of all time, with his ace cinematography crew.
They had it all.
Except for a writer.
The director and producers went through script by script, shaking their heads and demanding rewrites.
Until it was too late.
The financial backers backed out.
Everybody sued everybody else.
And the studio went under.
One of the crew made a documentary about the colossal failure.
He picked up an Academy Award for it.
The producers sued him, too.

Joke File

Comedian Buddy Buster spent a lot of time writing jokes.
He put them on notecards and organized them in a card file.
Over time, the card file grew large enough to take up several filing cabinets.
He bought a white van so he could drive from gig to gig with his props, his wardrobe, and those joke files.
And record albums and tapes to sell after each of his shows.
One night, car thieves stole his van, but they were Buddy’s fans, and returned it with a note of apology.
They even filled the gas tank and got it washed.

Bernie’s Bagels

Welcome to Bernie’s Bagels.
My name is Bernie, but I’m not the Bernie in Bernie’s Bagels.
That was my grandfather Bernie.
And he made bagels.
He left the business to his son Bernie.
He’s my dad.
And then he left the business to me.
I have a son named Bernie.
And I plan to leave the business to him.
Now that I think of it, my great-grandfather was named Bernie.
So, maybe my grandfather named the business after him.
I don’t know, though. They’re dead.
So is my father.
One day, I will be.
But Bernie’s Bagels will live on.

Tinny Treadmill Time

I walk on a treadmill every morning.
Either it’s the treadmill at home, or the treadmill in the gym at work.
If my cat Tinny is sleeping on me, I don’t like to wake her up.
So, I let her sleep a while longer.
Then, I go to work in my workout clothes, walk on the treadmill there, shower, and change.
I can even charge my phone with the port on the treadmill.
The home treadmill has a television, while I listen to music on the work treadmill.
As long and I walk in the morning, it doesn’t matter, really.

Splashing end

Glinda told Dorothy that she could have used the power of the Ruby Slippers to go back home any time she wanted to.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” whined Dorothy.
“Because you needed to discover that power for yourself,” said the witch.
“But you just told me,” said the girl.
“Well, you had the power all along,” said Glinda. “You could have read the instructions.”
“Where are those?”
“Inside the shoe.”
“But I can’t take them off!”
Glinda said nothing.
So Dorothy picked up another fire bucket, and splashed water on Glinda.
“You bitch!” screamed Glinda, as she melted away.

Moving offices

I recently moved offices.
I threw out the stuff I didn’t want to move from the old office, boxed up everything I wanted to move, and carried it across the hall to the new office.
It took a while for the facilities crew to move my desk. I didn’t want to move it myself because it was big, heavy, and my back was hurting from moving the boxes.
I worked from a small side table for a day.
Once the desk arrived, I arranged my shelves, hung poster frames, and connected the equipment back up.
Then, I shut the door.

Frog Virus

I twisted the lid off of the jar, bent over, and shook the frog on to the grass.
The frog righted itself, licked its eyes, and hopped away.
“Happy hunting,” i said.
Two months later, the mosquitos in the area were gone.
The frog I’d released had a virus which inserted DNA into other frogs that caused them to gorge themselves on mosquitos.
The virus had spread quickly among the population.
No more nasty pesticides. No more fervent searches for stagnant water.
I smiled, and licked my lips.
No more mosquitos to eat.
Maybe a nice cheeseburger will do instead?

Weekly Challenge #687 – LOGIC

Myst

LIZZIE

There used to be a little heart in that garden, filled with hope. And that heart grew and grew. The little heart wasn’t so little anymore when it decided to leave the safety of the garden. He still recalled the butterflies and the tree house though. He even recalled the weasel and the pelican. When the little heart was arrested, the only thing he could think of was how far away the garden was and how he wished he could go back. But then he remembered… he had torched the garden, because that had been the right thing to do.

RICHARD

Illogical

One of my friends in school was known by the nickname ‘Spock’.

It wasn’t that he was incredibly intelligent and able to employ his razor sharp scientific observations to solve the most difficult problems. Neither was he a nerd, geek or trekkie – if anything, he was rather mundane, and preferred soap opera to sci-fi.

He didn’t have jet black hair, styled in a bowl cut, slanty eyebrows, or pointy ears. In fact, he was blonde, fat and nondescript.

So why Spock?

Well he was Scottish, and we already had one ‘Jock’ in our class.

That’s kid logic for you.

SERENDIPIDY

Logic dictates that any serial killer will eventually be caught.

They will either make a critical error of judgement, a simple mistake, or establish a pattern of activity that, by a series of logical deductions, leads to their downfall.

Advances in forensic psychiatry and geoprofiling have made it ever more difficult for the dedicated sociopath to hide their tracks.

Logic, not the law, is the killer’s worst enemy.

And that’s why my killing sprees are random, chaotic affairs. No patterns, no commonalities, no particular rationale.

I simply kill when I feel like it – anyone, anywhere, any time, any method.

TURA

Logic
———
“What I hate about humans,” began Spock, “is that they lie. They speak truth only by accident.”

“Feelings are irrelevant,” said Seven of Nine.

“We Vulcans master our feelings,” said Spock, “never obey them.”

“We Borg have no feelings, only intentions,” replied Seven. “But I concur with your assessment of the humans’ character.”

“Yet we are both half human.” They looked inquiringly at Data.

“My creator was human,” said Data, “and made me to aspire to that state. This corrupts my judgement.”

They agreed. “The humanity we acquired to decide their fate, prevents us deciding.”

Thus humans continued to live.

TOM

If Not to the Swiftest, Then Who?

Carl was the worst cross county racer at our school. Hell it was the worst cross county racer in the whole district. From the first steep to the last, he was losing ground. Lord the kid had heart, pump those leg just as hard as he could. Just didn’t have the raw talent to compete. Still for four years he ran. You’d think he’d at least the respect of his fellow runners, nope. Didn’t matter to Carl, he just ran. In 1992 an airplane when down in the Chilean desert 125 folk never made it out One man did.

Spokian Logic

When I was in college in 1972 one of the problems in my logic text book was how to find the weight of one coin heaver or lighter of 12, in just three weightings. This problem was an even one, and in the convention of college text had to solution in back of said text. Fast forward to 1992 ending up in a college logic class, same text, same no solution. But in 2012 the miracle of the internet produced the solution. The answer lay in the number of coin in each weighting 4-3-1. And bit of Modis Tollens

PLANET Z

The banks buy everything back to New York.
Treating the rest of the country… the world as their taking.
The Yankees buy all the talent back to New York.
Treating the rest of baseball as their farm team to plunder and pillage.
Everything about New York… the restaurants, the theatres, the comedy clubs.
They take and take and take.
And then, one day, the rest of the world stopped letting them take.
They sealed the tunnels, blew up the bridges, and sank all the ferryboats.
Build walls around the burroughs, sealing in New York.
And protecting the world from greed.

The Forest of Death

Johnny was ten years old, dressed in Union blues and holding the flag high as he ran through the trees with his father, his uncles, and his brothers to charge the grey Rebel lines.
Bullets everywhere. Men and boys, screaming and falling into the dirt and mud and water.
Blood and death, bodies trampled into the earth, into the shadow of night, where you couldn’t tell where man ended and ground began, or the blue from gray.
Johnny dropped his flag, stopped, and stared at the surrounding carnage.
He fell to his knees, and instead of a prayer, he vomited.