At low tide, the lighthouse keeper could walk from the lighthouse to the shore in order to pick up supplies. At high tide, the lighthouse was completely isolated from the shore.
Insulated cables carried power to the spotlight and the lighthouse keeper’s cabin.
The toilet emptied directly into the sea.
When he was drunk, the lighthouse keeper enjoyed climbing up the stairs to the spotlight and pissing over the rail into the sea.
This wasn’t a problem when the skies were clear and the winds were calm. However, when there was a storm, he always regretted pissing into the wind.
An hour
Our baby. Our baby is coming.
Our baby is here.
Our baby was born without kidneys.
She lived for an hour.
In that hour, we held her. We called her beautiful.
We prayed. We prayed a lot.
We had her baptized. A splash of water by the priest.
And we held her some more, and told her that we loved her.
Then, before we realized it, she was dead.
We held her for a while longer, said our goodbyes, and the nurses took her away.
How long, I don’t know.
Should she never have born?
Just scraped away?
And gone?
Simpsons
The Simpsons premiered while I was in college.
We’d watch the episodes together in groups.
I watched it for a few seasons.
Then, I kinda lost track of the show.
There’s video tape, DVD, Blu-Ray, and online collections, but I never bought any of them.
Years later, our cable provider offered free on-demand streaming of some shows.
Well, it’s free with the cable subscription.
Among the crappy shows these days, there it is: The Simpsons.
After all these years, it’s still going.
I connect my laptop to the television and start the treadmill.
Who says you can never go back?
Sand Castle
Neddy built a little sandcastle.
He filled his bucket with wet sand, turned it over, and lifted up the bucket.
He was very proud of his simple sandcastle.
So, he built another.
This sandcastle housed the enemy of the first sandcastle.
But he was the biggest enemy of all.
He threw rocks at the first sandcastle. And then the second sandcastle.
Both of the sandcastles were damaged.
Neddy laughed.
But then, a rock hit Neddy.
“Ouch!” he said.
Then another. And another.
Rocks hit Neddy from all directions.
Neddy fell apart into a pile of sand.
The two castles rejoiced.
Weekly Challenge #680: PICK TWO: Hire, Heart attack, Strip, Weaponize, Fink, Nancy, Bumbling, Volt
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
TOM
A Cirus Life for Me
Nancy Volt was billed as the “Human Lighting Rod”. She performed, if one could call lighting up like a Christmas tree performing, for Gill Brother Circus during the 1920’s. The high point of the act was when a random member of the audience was picked to give Nancy a peck on the cheek. The sad rube would make contact a blue plasma arched across his lips follow by a 10 foot backward ride through the air. When the circus disbanded in down state Illinois. She married a farmer in Olney, IL. Had three kid with electric blues eyes.
LIZZIE
“Yes, I hired it.”
“You hired a heart attack?! How can we hire a heart attack?”
“Talk to it and settle for an amount. Easy.”
The prosecutor looked at the judge. The judge shrugged.
“When did you talk to this heart attack then?”
“Two months ago.”
“And it said it would kill your boss?”
The defendant nodded.
“Are there many heart attacks around doing hit jobs?”
“No, there’s only one.”
“And what’s its name?”
“Cock-eyed Paulie.”
“Ah, that’s why your boss is still alive.”
The room burst into laughter.
A few weeks later, the prosecutor died of a heart attack.
RICHARD
Strip
“Strip!” was the stern command.
I gulped. Offering personal services for hire on Craigslist, you never know what your customers may be like, and this was probably the most intimidating one so far.
Dressed head to toe in latex, she stood before me, invading my personal space, giving the distinct impression that she was very much in complete control of whatever happened next.
However, I’m made of stern stuff, and a domineering customer wasn’t going to faze me.
“I’ll get right on it “, I said, climbing my stepladder.
“And once I’ve stripped this wall, I’ll start painting the hallway”
SERENDIPIDY
Shock humour is all the rage these days – YouTube has thousands of ‘prank’ videos, where unsuspecting victims are subjected to terrifying ordeals in the name of entertainment.
It’s only a matter of time before somebody dies from the shock.
Which is how I came up with my business – ‘Hire a Heart Attack’.
It’s simple: You pick a victim, send me their details, and I surprise them with a scenario so shocking they have a coronary!
It’s a fantastic birthday surprise! I’m also available for other occasions; and if they don’t pop their clogs, you get your money back!
NORVAL JOE
Wanda rolled her eyes. “Don’t have a heart attack. It’s not like I had to hire a private eye to figure out that Billbert has super powers.”
The bell rang telling the students lunch would be ending in ten minutes. Billbert scratched his head. “How did you figure it out?”
“Simple. I live down the street from Linoliumanda. I saw the two of you fly by my house on Friday night.” Wanda shook her head. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not a rat fink. I won’t tell anyone else. Be careful, though. Some would like to weaponize your ability.”
PLANET Z
Nancy hired the strippers for the bachelorette party.
They were dressed as first responders.
A paramedic, a fireman, and a policeman.
“We heard there was a party emergency here,” said the doctor.
And he pulled a Bluetooth speaker out of his bag and started the music.
The bride-to-be had so much fun, she forgot to take her pills.
The heart attack dropped her like a stone.
Nancy dialed 911, while the paramedic stripper said he’d taken first aid classes.
“I know CPR!”
Well, not really. With the first compression, the sweaty hunk crushed the patient’s ribcage and finished her off.
Don’t want to deal
I don’t want to deal with anything today.
I didn’t want to deal with anything yesterday.
Or the day before.
But, for some whatever reason, I’m getting up.
I’m going through the motions.
I’m making this cup of coffee.
And drinking it.
Wash up, get dressed, go out to the truck.
Drive to work and go in the building.
Push the elevator button.
Walk out and down the hall.
Into my office.
Slide the door shut.
Dock the laptop and sign in.
This voice track won’t record itself.
So, I put on Ambient Sleeping Pill.
And close my eyes.
Whatever.
Town Square
Old Gertie liked to sit by the old wishing well in the town square.
She liked to imagine her great-grandfather digging the well and building the frame and cover.
But the truth is, her great-grandfather never left Sweden. It was her grandfather who came to this country.
And her didn’t dig the well or do anything to help build it.
He was in jail for drunken and lewd behavior while Chinese laborers finished it.
He knocked up a hooker, who had fraternal twins: a boy and a girl.
Her parents.
I guess its better she didn’t know the awful truth.
Bitterness
It’s hard not to be bitter about the horrible failures and stress during my time at the TV station.
Eighteen years later, I still feel so much anger and resentment, it clouds any good memories.
Even the rare, few good people trigger the bitterness and rage.
So, I’ve tried to keep my distance, and I keep the TV off, or close the browser windows.
I keep to myself, or escape into places where nothing matters.
But like any poison, it never truly goes away.
Imagining myself surrounded by vipers, they offer to suck it out, digging their fangs in deeper.
Tickle Toes
Ted doesn’t like it when you tickle his toes.
So, he wears thick socks. And boots.
Even when he’s in the shower.
Not that he’s ever in the shower with other people, but he’s not taking any chances.
He locks his bathroom door. And his front door.
All of his windows are barred.
He put up a fence, topped with barbed wire.
The paper boy died trying to deliver Ted’s paper.
Ted was found guilty of manslaughter and went to jail for it.
And he got raped in the shower. Repeatedly.
But, thank goodness, nobody tried to tickle his toes.
The Burning Bushes
Word got around that Yahweh spoke to Moses through a burning bush.
Shops dumped their golden calf inventory and stocked up on bushes.
Pretty soon, everyone was carrying around a bush, waiting for God to call them.
Some people carried around two, three, even four bushes.
The High Priests looked like walking shrubbery.
Practical jokers would wait until the High Priests were asleep, then they’d light their bushes on fire.
The screaming priests looked and sounded like some kind of strange divine intervention, but the holy mood was broken when they stopped, dropped, and rolled to put the flames out.