George the brand

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
So he quit his job, started a supply company, and he sold high-quality equipment to ship captains.
Pirates would then attack the ships and steal the supplies.
He indirectly became the most popular brand of pirate supplies in the world.
Pirates would proudly wear his George the Pirate gear, and civilian posers would buy it up to look cool, only for the pirates to steal.
He started a chain restaurant franchise, built a theme park.
Proudly shouting “THAR SHE BLOWS!” and cutting the opening day ribbon with his cutlass.

George on the moon

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He was always stopping and asking for directions.
This was awkward at best, and dangerous at worst.
Stopping in the middle of a battle for directions led to many unnecessary confrontations.
Trying to make the best of it, the crew would board and capture the enemy vessels.
One time, George got so lost, he wound up on the moon.
Nobody’s sure how he managed that, but the lack of air made it very hard to sail.
And breathe.
“Hard to starboard!” gasped the captain, and the ship turned around.

Weekly Challenge #1001 – PICK TWO The sparrow, Waveform, Limited edition, Ouroboros, Broken glass

The next topic is You’re not going

RICHARD

— Glen Talnara —
Sometimes you have to treat yourself, even if it means being extravagant. Everyone deserves to feel special every now and again.
My treat? A forty year old, limited edition single malt.
Lovingly distilled on a remote Scottish island, following a family tradition, centuries old.
It wasn’t cheap. Actually, it was eye- wateringly expensive, but I felt I deserved it.
I was out the day it was delivered.
UPS left a card.
They also tossed the box over my eight -foot fence, where it landed on a pile of rubble.
So, no whisky for me, just a box of broken glass.

LISA

The Start of a Not Normal Day
It felt like the outside was inside and everyone was in a temper. Glass glittered the carpet and Dad was looking for someone to blame. We were shouted at to keep back but the cat didn’t listen and ran through the shards. The glass had gone into my brother’s school shoes.
A speck of blood from the cat’s paw painted red on the carpet. I wanted my breakfast but I didn’t dare say. Dad had something else to shout about as the cat dragged a half alive sparrow from behind the TV.
We were going to be late for school.

LIZZIE

Sparrow, a limited edition of dolls, had everything but sparrows, the symbol of protection and hope. A doll house, doll furniture, doll-everything. It looked dark and gloomy. An adult now, his sister still loved dolls, the pink kind. He hated his sister. When he gifted Sparrow to her, she loved it. Well, that didn’t work, he thought. So, he got another doll, wrapped in a white shawl, a reminder that even when you’re trying to get revenge, there is always a glimmer of hope. OK, great, now he wanted to destroy the damn thing. He smiled. Perhaps that would work!

SERENDIPIDY

Isn’t the birdsong lovely?
Most would agree, but not I.
You see, birdsong is by no means cheerful or joyous. In reality, it is bleak and despairing.
The sparrow sings of pain and anguish, of death and destruction, of such sorrow it would break your heart.
The songthrush sings of shattered dreams, like broken glass shards, harsh and piercing.
The robin, mourns each passing day, cursing life and its misfortunes.
Songs of woe, of loss and melancholy.
But, not the crow.
The crow’s harsh cawing is a joyful, happy sound.
He’s laughing at all the other birds, poor, sad things!

NORVAL JOE

Peering through the broken glass of the small window, Billbert saw that Sabrina was blindfolded and gagged, and wore oversized coveralls with the arms wrapped around and tied in front of her like an ouroboros.

A dot of red light appeared beside Sabrina. A laptop computer sat on a table next to her. Its webcam had just come on. Were her captors in another room watching Sabrina from a distance or was the camera aimed at the window, watching him?

The back porch door burst open and feet pounded down the wooden stairs. Billbert had the answer to his question.

PLANET Z

I don’t know why I collect Pez dispensers, but my closet has dozens of bins of them. They’re all kinds of different designs and colors and characters. If I get one from a series, I have to complete the whole set. I used to have them out on shelves to display. But after we moved, I haven’t taken them out of the bins yet. There’s one that was a limited edition Tiffany glass dispenser, but I think it got broken in the move. So instead, I’ll probably put my Millard Fillmore dispenser on the lit rotating stand on the shelf.

George the porno star

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Which made him the perfect patsy for Long John Silver.
What? You don’t remember George from the book Treasure Island?
Well, that’s because I’m not talking about Robert Louis Stevenson’s book.
I’m talking about Treasure’s Island, a porno flick in the Seventies.
Treasure was a chick with huge tits marooned on an island with a pirate.
“So, why do they call you Long John?” was her first line.
And last one.
After that, they did things that I can’t tell you about here.
Go rent the movie yourself, cheapskate.

George’s models

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He liked to plan raids.
Maybe overplan them.
He’d draw up detailed maps from scouting missions, lay out a model on the table with intricate hills and trees and ships.
“They have working sails and bells!” said George, flicking a tiny bell with his finger.
TING!
He spent so much time planning, thee was never any time to conduct the actual raids.
So, his crewmates would sell his models to museums and rich aristocrats.
“Hey, we’re low on art supplies,” said George. “We’d better plan a raid on Michael’s.”

George’s disappointment

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He wanted to fly a Jolly Roger over the ship, but he wasn’t very good at sewing.
The first flag came out all crooked.
“Looks like the Jolly Rickets,” said the captain. “You know, because of the bones.”
“I get it,” grumbled George, and he tried again.
“More like the Jolly Osteroperosis now,” said the captain. “Maybe we can check eBay?”
George kept trying and failing.
Eventually, he ordered a He-Man cartoon Skeleton iron-on patch.
“Have I mentioned recently how much of a disappointment you are?” said the captain.

George vs Maui

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
While sailing around the Hawaiian Islands, he called “hard to port” when he meant “hard to starboard”, and ended up running into some very hard rocks.
“Welcome to Maui,” said the natives, handing out flower leis to each crewman who crawled out of the wrecked ship.
While the pirates enjoyed the… um… hospitality of the island, George worked on repairing the ship.
It took him three weeks, and the crew begrudgingly set sail again.
And hit the rocks again.
“Hooray!” shouted the crew, crawling back to the happy natives.

George, Coffee, and Tea

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Some people like coffee. Others prefer tea.
So, when his shipmates raided and plundered, George would grab the tea and coffee.
The tea was useful for bribing British Navy vessels to let them go.
The coffee was useful for bribing American Navy vessels.
George couldn’t stand either coffee or tea.
He preferred rum. Lots of it.
So much, he was pretty much wasted off his ass all day.
No wonder why his aim was so bad with the cannons.
And he tended to steer into the rocks so much.

George the booth babe

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He also wasn’t a very good public speaker.
At the annual pirate conference, the keynote speaker dropped out at the last minute and the organizers begged George to fill in.
“Sure,” said George. “When is it?”
“Right now,” said the emcee, shoving George on to the stage.
George rambled about himself for an hour, telling endless boring and pointless stories.
The audience booed and rushed the stage, dragging George to the exhibitor’s hall where several vendors were proud to demonstrate the latest available in plank-walking technology and hangman’s nooses.

Weekly Challenge #1000 – Narrow

The next topic is PICK TWO The sparrow, Waveform, Limited edition, Ouroboros, Broken glass

RICHARD

— Narrow —
As things go, it was a pretty narrow requirement, some would say overly-restrictive and limiting.
I guess that was the point, really.
It’ll never work, I thought. It’s not sustainable, people aren’t going to like it, and it’s not something I could ever imagine having any real longevity.
I’d give it a few months, maybe a couple of years, at best.
Still, nothing wrong with giving it a shot – what was there to lose?
Anyway, I was wrong.
But, to keep a long story short, I’m sticking to the formula.
I’ll leave it right there, and keep it brief.

LISA

The Straight and Narrow
There was a pleasing symmetry to the fact that it was Michael’s first day at the job centre and Peter’s first day out of prison. They looked equally uncomfortable as they sat either side of the desk. Meanwhile gossip spread round the office quicker than blood on lino.
Michael was oblivious and asked “What experience do you have?” before checking his computer. “Well,” Michael didn’t flinch as he saw **MURDER CONVICTION 2001** capitalised in bold across his screen. “There’s an opening at the Abattoir?”
The office fell deadly quiet as Peter shot Michael a killer stare. “Excuse me. I’m VEGAN.”

LIZZIE

Tea, toast and UFOs. Why not? By then, UFOs were part of everyone’s lives. They had come from a planet with an unpronounceable name, waved a lot of hellos when they landed and everyone was totally smitten. How cute, how nice, how… someone ventured the word cuddly, although no one knew how that conclusion was reached and everyone preferred not to know. When the UFO exploded, everyone rushed to help. Oh… It was a different kind of UFO. Who are these now?! Well, they were certainly not cuddly. “How is your tea, and toast, sir?” The alien waved him away.

SERENDIPIDY

It’s just as well you lot aren’t narrow-minded.
After all, my stories aren’t exactly polite after-dinner conversation. They’re not particularly, fluffy, fun-filled or family-friendly.
Unless, of course, your family happens to be into murder, desecration, body fluids, cannibalism, rot and decay…
And, if that’s the case, perhaps you should invite me around for dinner sometime, and maybe we could some exchange ideas?
You could be featured in my next story!
Or, I could just report you to the cops!
Then again, there’s a good chance I might murder you gruesomely, before feasting on your warm flesh!

TOM

Not still waters

For many years we had a small home in British Columbia. It was on a rather small island wedged against a rather large island. To navigate between the two was a salt water channel named Seymour Narrows. Any one reviewing a Nautical Map would be greeted with a mass of jumbled tide lines. Dozens of reforming whirlpools. For centuries it was considered the most hazardous waters in North America. A graveyard of broke hulls. In the 1950s the largest mass of TNT in history blows a hole in Seymour Narrows. All the same pilots treat the passage with extreme care.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert went back to his room, got dressed, and pulled on his jacket. He pushed up on the wooden window frame, to slip out, but it stuck, leaving only a narrow opening. He squeezed through as quietly as possible and flew straight to the house with the van in the backyard.

The van was there with, ‘It’s a Dirty Job Septic Service’ painted on the side.

“This must be the place,” Billbert muttered and floated from window to window, looking for any sign of Sabrina.

Finally, through a basement window, he saw her, blindfolded, gagged, and chained to a chair.

PLANET Z

The font that I use the most is Arial Narrow. It’s compact, clean, and easy for me to read. In the past few years, My eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be. Other fonts like Times New Roman with its serifs look blurry at that size, even that impact font that gets used a lot with memes. For the longest time I was in denial, and I kept getting bigger monitors. Then I stopped using 4K mode so I wouldn’t embarrass myself with magnification and zoom mode. At least the text to speech button is easy to click.