Can you hear the mortars? They’re silent again.
After the bodies were piled into trucks and hauled off, we brought the stretchers to the creek.
Washing the blood and guts off of the canvas, getting them cleaned up for the next wave to come in.
We’d wash ourselves, wash the blood and guts off of ourselves, trying to wash out the memories and noise and smell away.
Wondering when we’d end up on the stretchers, taken down the hill down to the trucks, piled up, our blood and washed off and… and…
Can you hear the mortars? Hear them again?
Weekly Challenge #937: Values
The next topic is Total Security
NORVAL JOE
A shocked expression flashed onto Officer Sheepdip’s face. Before she could close the door, Billbert shouted, “Mom, Dad. I’m in here.”
The door slammed shut.
Having been led through the office to the interrogation room, Billbert knew his parents must have heard him.
His parents burst into the room and seeing him handcuffed to the table, his mother turned on Vattash. “What are you doing to my son?”
Vattash stood, an embarrassed smile on his face. “Ma’am we were only having a friendly chat. I assure you, our agency values citizens’ rights and would never think to infringe upon them.”
LIZZIE
Comfort and quality. The true values of a traditional railroad company. And then there was Herbert, the old man who was the new employee. He made everyone’s lives as difficult as possible. When he kicked a passenger’s… backside… out of the train for complaining about everything, everyone was horrified. Why wasn’t he fired immediately? And then, they received a letter. He owned the company and gave all employees a share of it. And he did so, because he realized that dealing with the public was a pain in the… Comfort and quality, yes. But also respect for the staff. There!
SERENDIPIDY
Let’s play a game.
You’re on a crowded lifeboat, and some of you need to be thrown overboard, or none will survive.
Your task is deciding who lives and who dies, based on the perceived values, skills and benefits they bring to the group.
It’s not an exact science, but I’m sure there’s plenty of fun and interesting discussion to be had, and – at the end of the day – it’s the greater good that matters, not the needs of the individual.
Except for my needs.
Which is why you’re all in the lifeboat, and I’m still on board the ship!
LISA
He’s Back
He’s back, he looks like he’s really pleased to see us.
“Morning! Sorry I’ve been away, so long, I hope you’ve been well looked after? It’s time I explained things properly. I think it takes a near death experience to make you reassess your values, and appreciate what you’ve got and what you, perhaps, could have.
“Please. Come upstairs and get comfortable. I wasn’t planning on having that car accident so this explanation and apology is long overdue.” He’s exuding charm and care. We’ve spent months in his basement but he’s acting as if we’ve just popped over for tea.
TOM
A man’s reach should exceed his grasp.
What Timmy valued was last square of property in the worst street in London. Which had the worst meat-pies in London, but you could get a close shave upstairs. The value of that tiny plot of filth was small but the owner of same plot was adamite in retaining it. Timmy had exhausted all reasonable courses of action. Driven to a dark metaphysical opinion, Timmy summoned the likes of the companies founding father and his 16 feet of chains and chests. This should have done the trick, but Marley took a liking to the owner. They had tea regularly. Damn.
853
We think In Centuries
For centuries phosphors tied themselves in knots trying to find the evidentiary underpinning for a Supreme Being. Investigation into origins of this question often lead into speculation about the nature of a power much greater than ourselves. This lead to speculations about God; more specifically, arguments designed to establish the existence of God with the use of “unaided reason”. Example: “First Cause” argues there are events that occur now, and these must have been caused; however, for there to be events now, there must have been a first cause; that is God. In the end Evidence just wasn’t there. Bupkis.
RICHARD
Welcome to the real world
All day long, every day, I stare at spreadsheets, tracking the values of assets and projecting profits and gains based on historical performance?
Sounds really boring, right?
Believe me, it is!
It’s a job and the pay is OK. I guess that’s how it goes for most of us. We can’t all be brain surgeons and astronauts, right?
It’s just a case of ‘grin and bear it’ and pretend it’s better than it is.
So, when I tell people I work in a chocolate factory, and they say ‘Wow! Awesome! A real life Willy Wonka!”
I just smile, and agree.
PLANET Z
She held true to her values.
Buried in her white gown, flowers in her hair.
Untouched, unloved.
Found surrounded by books.
Poetry in so many languages.
Could she understand a word of it?
Paintbrush in her hand, a canvas on the easel.
Where was the paint? they asked.
Some say she painted with her tears.
Dabbing the brush to her cheek, the canvas.
Over and over.
Invisible skies, invisible flowers.
Invisible wind.
Paintbrush in her hand, head down, as if she were asleep.
A wisp of hair across her face, a gentle smile.
As if she’d just told a joke.
CHATGPT
In the heart of a bustling city, where skyscrapers pierced the sky, lived a humble old man named Isaac. Every morning, he sat on a worn-out bench, feeding pigeons with crumbs of his sandwich. One day, a young executive passing by tossed a coin at him, sneering. Isaac caught it, but instead of pocketing it, he returned it, saying, “Kindness is worth more than silver.” The executive paused, pondering. Weeks later, he returned, this time with lunch for Isaac, apologizing for his ignorance. From that day on, the bench became a place where values of empathy and respect intertwined, forging an unexpected bond.
Sugar, Sugar
A government survey found a dozen indigenous tribes living in the rainforest we’d marked for farming development.
It doesn’t take much of a bribe to get the numbers and GPS coordinates.
The army doesn’t patrol out here, so it’s easy to fly in one of our own survey teams.
Handing out blankets and tools and other goods.
They’re most interested in the sugar cubes.
The poison in them acts quickly.
It’s painless, and they die with smiles on their faces.
The next survey will show this area as uninhabited, and after we make the claim, we’ll roll out the machinery.
Virtual visit
Fifteen minutes with an epsom salt warm compress, the bump on my cheek comes to a head.
“Wash your hands again and squeeze it gently,” says the virtual nurse.
Yellow and white flow down my cheek, and I wash it out with deionized water and squeeze again until only blood comes out.
Swab it out with a cotton swab, then hydrogen peroxide.
The buzz of the pharmacy drone, it drops off the antibiotics.
“Take two tonight, one tomorrow morning, and use a clean bandage,” the nurse says. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”
And I thank her, and head for the door.
One tire
Working from home and walking to stores, I don’t drive my car much.
After three and a half years, less than ten thousand miles.
As little as I drive, I still ran over a nail and had to get a new tire.
I figured I might as well buy 4 new tires, but the store owner insisted I just needed the one.
Okay, fine. Thanks.
A week later, I hit a pothole too quickly and tore up another tire.
And I needed a tow to the tire shop.
He’s still only selling me one tire.
At a time, I worry.
National lemon day
It’s National Lemon Day.
I go through a bag of lemons a week.
They help prevent kidney stones.
Well, the standard ones.
The uric acid ones, you also need to do potassium, keep your pH in check, and avoid foods with purine, and so on.
Every morning, I put 2 lemons on the cutting board.
Ream a half lemon out with every glass of iced tea.
Oh, I drink a lot of iced tea and water.
Because I don’t want to wait 10 hours in the emergency room for a dose of Demerol and a cat-scan.
You know… the stones.
Flugelheimer
The Flugelheimer Circus Train took the curve too fast and went off the rails outside of Morgantown.
Right out by the ravine, half the cars rolling down the hill into the rocks.
The others like scattered crushed boxes, spilling out broken animals and people.
The few survivors, limping and crawling and carrying each other to the lights of Morgantown.
Ambulances and nurses rushing out, the Boy Scout Troop giving first aid, no comfort to the mangled.
And where was Flugelheimer?
Not in his private car.
He was in Rio with the formerly-bearded lady, living it up with the insurance payout.
The best schools
I work with a charity that builds schools in poor neighborhoods.
Neighborhoods with run-down schools, not enough skilled teachers, old textbooks, and few after-school activities to keep kids out of gangs.
We get a lot of grant money and celebrity support.
And we use it to build the schools.
The best schools. Beautifully and perfectly designed schools.
Problem is, when we’re done building the schools, there’s no money left.
Maybe enough for a ribbon for a politician to cut.
And run, leaving behind an empty school with no teachers, no textbooks, no afterschool activities.
Except for vandalizing the empty shell.
Weekly Challenge #936: PICK TWO Urge, Infinitesimal, Scratch, Signal, Broken dreams, Arcade
LISA
Broken Dreams
The sound of a siren wakes us. It’s close and feels as if it’s above us. We scrabble together, unsure what to do, should we signal to them? Start shouting perhaps?
It raises the same unspoken question- we’re not really prisoners, are we? The basement door’s unlocked so we’ve no great urge to escape. Why shout for help when we could probably just walk out anyway.
“I think it was an ambulance not a police car.”
“I can never tell the difference.”
I wonder if Number 1 is back and whether we are, at last, going to get some answers.
LIZZIE
Broken dreams and a scratch. A deep cut, now nothing but a scratch on the surface of the skin, a faint recollection of pain. A deepness forgotten.
Broken dreams and the urge to speak, to shout a future lost.
In complete silence, in complete immobility.
Broken dreams and a second, only a brief second, a signal from afar, a thump, a thump, a thump…
The drumming, louder and louder. A cacophony of doubts building up.
Broken dreams now and yesterday, and now. Broken.
Dreams of futures unspoken. And maybe, just maybe one day, just one day…
Maybe broken no more.
RICHARD
The Game of Life
Welcome to the Arcade of Broken Dreams!
Here are the games of despair and the wasted efforts, the hours of fruitless endeavour, and hopes betrayed.
What will you play today?
Will you play the claw machine? Clutching futilely at your goals, teasingly just out of reach, until – tantalisingly close – they fall from your grasp?
Or perhaps you’ll choose the coin cascade? Feeding its hunger with all you have in the vain hope of winning big, but you never do.
Whichever game you play, you’ll never win. Your life will never change.
But, I know you’ll be back again tomorrow.
Guaranteed!
SERENDIPIDY
You’ll find the urge to scratch irresistible.
But, trust me, scratching is the very last thing that you want to do.
By now, your skin is paper thin. It’ll tear at the slightest touch, and you’ll soon be ripping your own flesh from the bones. I promise you, once you start, you won’t be able to stop.
So, I urge you, don’t scratch.
Resist the temptation.
Grit your teeth and hold on, no matter what.
I know you’ll give in, eventually, but please try not to scratch, just for a moment.
At least wait until I’ve turned the camera on.
NORVAL JOE
After the officer asked the same series of questions for the hundredth time, he said, “Okay. Let’s start over from scratch.”
Billbert had the urge to pound his head on the table. He interrupted the officer’s line of questioning. “Officer Vattash, you said you were going to call my parents hours ago. Why aren’t they here?”
Vattash shrugged indifferently. “Maybe they weren’t home.”
A female officer poked her head through the doorway. “Hey Vattash. The boy’s parents are here. They’re filing a missing person report.”
“Officer Sheepdip!” Vattash growled. He made an annoyed face and tipped his head toward Billbert.
TOM
It was the 80s
If there ever an Arcade of Broken dreams it surely was Pizza Time Theater. The second restaurant in the chain was located in the back end of Town and Country in San Jose. I spend hours their glue to a space invaders. The place was a mad house of kids running around. Parents throwing back beer and wine that was on tap right next to the fountain dispenser. Only thing missing was the paper umbrella. When the whole thing folded, I was on the chapter 13 crew to sort out assets. Got that very space invader cabinet for a song.
852 Airship Archimedes
In 1928 the airship Archimedes made its maiden flight. The DELG created a fight from Buenos Aires to Caracas. Of note Captain Juan Domingo Perón was on that voyage. The Archimedes flow for nine years. On the night of May 5 1937 the airship disappeared over the upper Amazon Basin. Production of Archimedes II was discontinued during the war. The hanger it was stored in were bombed by the British in 1943. The Archimedes III was launched in 2230 it made the run from New Atlantis to Zedi Prime on Mars. Archimedes III was blow-up by the October Rebels.
PLANET Z
Elmo is our robot dog, and it serves a lot of duties.
Going out for samples, fetching gear from the base, cleaning the floors, and the occasional dangerous duty.
We only get so many Elmos a budget cycle, so we have to retrieve any broken Elmos.
If they can’t be repaired, they end up as spare parts for the others.
Patterson likes to say “good boy” and pat Elmo after doing something for him.
Because Patterson knows all too well what happens when we don’t have an Elmo to send out.
“Suit up, Patterson,” says the base commander. “Be careful.”
CHATGPT
In the depths of an arcade, amidst the flashing lights and cacophony of sounds, Sam found solace. Each game offered an escape from reality, a chance to drown out the whispers of broken dreams. But tonight, an infinitesimal spark ignited within him, an urge to break free from the cycle of monotony. As he reached for his favorite game, a scratch on the screen caught his eye. Ignoring the signal of caution, he plunged into the digital world with determination. With each victory, he felt the weight of his shattered dreams lift, replaced by the promise of a new beginning.
Lucy was a Seven
Lucy was an old Series Seven.
She did good work at the droid shop, and a vintage bot demonstrated to customers a bit of class, as opposed to the new Series Tens in the warehouse.
But she had a hard time holding a charge, and those Series Sevens had an integrated hardwired battery.
A swappable battery was a risky retrofit. Which Lucy declined.
She spent all of her time tethered to a power cord, never going more than five meters from the reception desk.
Smiling, welcoming people, waving people past, and arranging repairs for the broken Series Tens being returned.