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.

Darkness Inspires

I’ve had a lot of things on my mind in the past few months.
I’ve tried to draw inspiration from them, but instead, I find myself dwelling, trapped by my thoughts.
Instead of writing my way through the fear and pain, and finding strange new territory to explore, I find myself digging myself deeper into them.
Trapped. Scared. Alone.
The few bright spots are hard to see through the darkness and gloom.
But I know that they are there.
I pet my cats. I watch Netflix and on-demand.
Maybe the light will come back soon.
And I’ll follow it out.

Schroedinger’s Job

I’m scared.
I’m really scared.
I said something I shouldn’t have.
And I totally regret saying it.
Yeah, I was mad.
Yeah, I was frustrated.
But that’s no excuse.
Now, I don’t know if I have a job.
I have to wait for the managers to investigate and discuss the situation.
Until then, I’m suspended.
With pay, but that doesn’t really help in the long run.
I’ve left jobs without knowing where the next job was.
And it’s absolute hell.
The waiting and not-knowing is awful.
I’m tempted to call in and quit.
Just so that I know for certain.

Picnic

I packed the picnic basket, loaded up the horses, and we rode out into the forest.
We rode for half an hour, until I found the perfect spot.
We dismounted, and spread out the blanket.
Then, we unloaded the basket for our afternoon meal.
As I held the bottle of wine, I realized that I had forgotten the corkscrew.
“Should I go back?” I asked my companion.
“No,” she said. She took out a Swiss Army Knife, and flicked out a corkscrew.
So handy.
Unfortunately, the Swiss Army Knife didn’t include a condom.
And nine months later, you were born.

Ice shards

It’s not hard to make ice cubes.
Pour water into a tray.
Then put the tray in the freezer.
Let the water in the tray freeze.
Then dump the ice into a bucket.
Repeat this as needed.
Sometimes, I forget to let the water freeze.
And half-frozen shards fall into the bucket with a trickle of water.
Even if I pour out the water, the ice shards freeze together.
The bucket becomes a solid block of ice.
And I have to bash it against the counter to dump it out.
Then, I get out the trays, and fill them up.

Con Man

Call it what you will:
Three-Card Monte
The Shell Game
Cups And Balls
It’s a magic trick, slight-of-hand, and a con game.
Make people think they have the advantage when they don’t.
Open a fake telegraph office, and take people’s money to tap a telegraph key that wasn’t connected to anything.
Open a fake Army induction office, and while the doctor checked out the men, the nurse stole their wallets.
So, you challenge him to a duel, and he lets you choose a pistol from his set.
And he hands you a bullet.
That turns out to be a blank.

Weekly Challenge #686 – LOSING

Derp

NORVAL JOE

The class bell rang and Billbert’s biology teacher hadn’t yet come into the classroom.

As he was admiring the chestnut brown hair of the girl ahead of him in the row, she turned around and smiled. Her equally dark brown eyes seemed to amplify the brilliant whiteness of her teeth. “Hi. I’m Marrissa. I was just telling my friend, Willhemina, that I think you’re really cute.”

Was he asleep and dreaming or just losing his mind?

Marrissa seemed to drop away.

As Billbert’s thighs pressed to the underside of the desk, he realized he was floating out of his seat.

SERENDIPIDY

Those who think they know me and my ways think it’s a little strange that, amongst my extensive armoury and instruments of torture, I also keep a well-stocked medical kit.

Even more surprising is the selection of painkilling drugs and life sustaining aids that I’m happy to freely administer – when necessary – to the unfortunate victims of my painful ministrations.

But there is a logical explanation for this seeming anachronism.

Because I don’t want my victims losing their will to live…

So, I pep them back up, give them false hope, and start all over again from scratch.

RICHARD

Bittersweet Me

It always struck me as just a little ironic that Michael Stipe was singing all about ‘Shiny Happy People’ one moment, and the next he was ‘Losing My Religion’.

I’ve known churches like that – full of happy clappy, hug you without warning, share the blessing, full gospel types of people.

All very lovely inside the church, but meet them outside and it’s a different picture altogether.

Then they’ll happily judge you for your ungodly ways, condemn you for your sinful life and won’t tolerate a different point of view or alternative lifestyle.

Hypocrites.

Everybody hurts, you know?

Even me.

LIZZIE

Strings left, strings right. They pulled the strings left and they pulled the strings right. The doll swayed on the small stage, left and right. Her face was emotionless. The brush she held swayed with her. Her face was emotionless… And the more they pulled on the strings, the more she swayed. And the more that brush swayed, the more she painted an invisible feeling in the air. It swayed angrily. The doll’s fingers cramped around it tightly. Her body shook and jumped in all directions. And that brush painted a face of sheer anger. Metal dolls have feelings too.

PLANET Z

They say there’s a right way to lose weight and a wrong way to lose weight.
The right way is a sensible, sustainable diet and a reasonable exercise routine.
The wrong way is a starvation diet and a painful exercise regimen.
You’ll just give up and the pounds will come back on.
Same with dangerous surgeries and remedies.
The extremely wrong way is to launch yourself into orbit.
Sure, you’ve lost weight. But it’ll all come back when you return to Earth.
Unless you burn up during re-entry.
That’s also an extremely wrong way to burn calories, so to speak.

BDSM

Down in the dungeon.
That’s where Caroline goes every Friday.
Her hands, bound to the tile walls.
Her ankles, shackled to the floor.
A ballgag in her mouth.
Hot candle wax on her skin.
And a rubber plug in her ass.
No tears. No whimpers.
Sometimes, they whip her.
Other times, they spray her with the fire hose.
Then there’s the times they make microwave popcorn where she can hear it and smell it and can’t do anything about it.
And then they whip her some more.
When it’s all over, they give her the bill.
That’s when she screams.

Down in the dungeon.
That’s where Caroline goes every Friday to play.
Binding the customer’s hands to the tile on the walls.
Shackling her ankles to the floor.
Popping a ballgag into her mouth.
Dripping a candle on to her skin.
Stuffing a rubber plug in her ass.
She listens… no crying, no whimpering.
So, she whips the girl.
Sprays her with the fire hose.
Nothing.
She takes a break, and makes microwave popcorn. Lets the girl smell it, and gives her nothing.
Finally, she tallies up the evening’s bill, and shows it to the girl.
That’s when she screams.

Special Order

Back in the day, if you tried to order something special at McDonalds, the whole place grinds to a halt.
No onions? No pickles?
No way.
But that wasn’t my special order.
I’d try to order a shake with chocolate on the bottom, vanilla in the middle, and strawberry on top.
The flavor depended on how deep you poked the straw.
The pimply-faced teenagers running the place would look at me like I was crazy when I insisted on a triple-flavor shake, but I knew that when the dinner rush was over, everyone mixed them up and tried it themselves.