Weekly Challenge 983 – PICK TWO Aviator Circuit Twice Chamber Squirrel

The next topic is Caught in time

LIZZIE

What is that?
A map.
Of what?
No idea.
North Pole?
No.
South Pole?
No.
Then what?
No idea.
Speak louder, my hearing aid is not charged.
NO IDEA.
No need to shout.
You told me… Ok, never mind.
So, it’s not the North Pole or the South Pole.
Nope.
What is it then?
I don’t know, I forgot to bring my glasses.
Aviator’s map?
No.
Well, when I look at it this way, it kind of looks like a squirrel.
A what?
A squirrel. Just squint and you’ll see.
Short circuit alert. Later.
It’s a squirrel, I tell ya!

RICHARD

— Chocks Away! —
Three solo circuits around the airfield and you’re an aviator, according to our instructor. The rest of the lads, like myself, had their doubts. Most of us had never even sat in a cockpit until a week ago, and now here we were, flying!
After a fashion, anyway, but we weren’t learning to be stylish. As long as we could get up into the air, stay in the air, and read a map we were good to go.
Now, it was just a matter of waiting.
For the sirens, scrambling us to take flight, and take on the enemy planes.

SERENDIPIDY

I won’t tell you twice.
Tell me what you know, or it’s the torture chamber for you!
And you know what happens there, don’t you?
Little boys like you don’t last very long on the rack, and it’s surprising how talkative you become once I start to tighten the thumbscrews.
So you should probably reconsider your attitude.
Today’s test is on your multiplication tables, so tell me what you know and prove that you’ve been practicing, and doing the homework you were set.
Or, I very much regret, that the next lesson you’ll be learning will be very painful indeed.

NORVAL JOE

As if he might see Sabrina outside, Billbert gazed out the window into the courtyard where students locked their bicycles. Sabrina wasn’t there, but Bobbi was, wearing aviator glasses and walking a circuit around the bikes. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the mirror-like lenses, but Billbert was sure Bobbi was looking for him.

If he could find her at lunch, he would ask her what her problem was. Was she a spy or running interference for her brother, the bully?

Though he searched at break and lunch, he saw neither Bobbi, nor Sabrina, for the rest of the day.

TOM

In honorable company

From his angle he could clearly see twice the number of chambers were loaded. “Say my good-fellow your second seem to have chambered a second.” The duke hefted the pistol level to his hip. “Why I do believe you are correct.” “I will wait till corrections are in order.” The duke just smiled and raised the gun higher. “Not very sporting old man.” “Rank has its perks.” “So does being raised on the streets of London.” If he had been twice the gentleman as the duke all would have ended with biting words instead of business end of a dirk.

TURA

Chamber; squirrel
———
My job at the research institute is putting the selection into selective breeding.

The slug loaded into the first chamber smacks into the branch the squirrel is hiding behind, panicking it into motion. The shot pattern from the second brings it down.

The squirrels eventually got smart enough to just freeze onto the branch. At first, I could sidle around for a clear shot, but now they’re smart enough to not panic, and keep hidden. I don’t let up though.

After making intelligent squirrels, we’ll try bigger animals: wolves, bears. Humans need more competition these days, to keep them sharp.

PLANET Z

When you load a squirrel gun, be sure to load a squirrel in every chamber.
Load it right, so it comes out head first.
You don’t want to point it at a guy, pull the trigger, and come up empty.
And never point a squirrel gun at anyone unless you intend to pull the trigger.
Otherwise, you’ll get a reputation for giving empty threats.
Hold that squirrel gun like you mean it.
No backing down now.
And don’t stuff it down your pants like some kid.
You don’t want that thing going off and shooting a squirrel in your pants.

George and gunpowder

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He heard that the great pirate Blackbeard put gunpowder in his rum, so he thought that if he put gunpowder in his rum, that would make him great, too.
George snuck into the ship’s powder hold and grabbed a bag of powder.
The problem was, he’d grabbed a bag of saltpeter that hadn’t yet been mixed with sulfur and charcoal.
When George poured it into his rum, well, let’s just say that George wasn’t very good at something else.
“No wonder why Blackbeard doesn’t have any kids,” said George.

George has mandatory fun

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Which is why he would get excited when the captain would take the whole crew to an off-site team-building fun day.
“No plundering and pillaging!” cheered George. “Yay!”
The last time, they went to a bowling center, which also had pool tables, darts, and other activities.
The problem was, the pirates with peglegs couldn’t bowl because of the shoes, the pirates with hook hands couldn’t shoot pool, and the pirates with eyepatches couldn’t throw darts.
Tempers flared, fights broke out, and they ended up plundering and pillaging the place.

George the bad poet

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He also wasn’t a very good poet.
He’d write his poetry, put on a beret, and sneak into coffeehouses and dives to read them.
People would smoke their joints, sip their cappuccinos, and snap their fingers.
Nobody would judge. Everyone got the same snaps.
So, George didn’t know he wasn’t a very good poet, and he had no incentive to improve.
Nobody took him under their wing to teach him about good poetry.
And he got so full of himself, he didn’t listen to anybody else’s work to learn.

George meets Werner Herzog

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
That didn’t matter much to Werner Herzog, the famous documentary filmmaker.
He followed George around with a camera, capturing the life of a typical pirate at sea.
Or, in George’s case, in the sea, as he had a habit of tripping and falling overboard.
When the ship encountered a cargo vessel, ripe for plunder, the only two men who weren’t fighting were Werner and George.
“Just sharpening my cutlass,” said George, drawing his sword against a whetstone over and over, looking over the rail nervously at the battle’s progress.

George plays with a cat

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
He spent most of his day sitting in a deck chair, petting the ship’s cat while looking out at the ocean.
The ship’s cat was supposed to catch and eat the mice and rats in the hold, but it preferred to lay in George’s lap and sleep.
Every now and then, George would swab the deck.
The cat would curl up in George’s deck chair and nap.
After George finished swabbing the deck, George would pick up the cat, sit in his chair, and pet the cat some more.

George rubs his eyes

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
Instead of fighting and looting and pillaging, he’d rub his eyes for a while, and then marvel at the strange colors and patterns that danced before his eyes.
“If you keep doing that, you’ll go blind,” said the captain.
“That’s what my mother said about other things,” said George. “And my eyesight is fine.”
Pretty soon, the entire crew were rubbing their eyes, and watching the strange colors and patterns dance around.
Well, except for the captain. Someone had to steer the ship and watch for vessels to raid.

Weekly Challenge #982 – Taradiddle

The next topic is PICK TWO Aviator, Circuit, Twice, Chamber, Squirrel

TOM

Really Old Stuff

Of the epoch of earth history, no age in more disputed then the Moretaish. Few fossils recorder have been found, say for the long legged Taradiddle. And even the Taradiddle comes with it share of mystery. We are not sure if she was a mammal or a proto reptile. It appears they travel in moderate herds, but often broke off into small family units. Oddly they might be the first animal to bury their dead. Vast Taradiddle gravesite are found in central Europe. Currently the University of London has an ongoing dig in Turkey. Summer internships are available through Ensco.

RICHARD

— The Ballad of Tara and Jake —
I once knew a girl named Tara Diddle
She played in a band on the fiddle
Off to one side, never middle
So she could nip out quickly
If she needed to piddle
I knew a guy by the name of Jake
He was in a band: his music was fake
He wasn’t plugged in, and the sound was on tape
Until the crowd found out
And threw him in a lake
Tara and Jake got married one day
I was invited, the organ to play
No Wedding March, I’m sorry to say
But their greatest hits, to my dismay!

LIZZIE

It was official. He left her. How would she face the family? The friends? The people at the tennis club? So, she told everyone that he would be away on business…. for a year. That should be enough to find someone and not look like a total loser. And then she got his text: I loved you at your darkest. She was confused. Darkest? She always wore white because of that positive energy crap. And if he meant her insecurities, she had none. Note to self: buy horrid new tennis skirt model that everyone was now wearing. At your darkest…

SERENDIPIDY

Taradiddle Forest may have an amusing name, but the reality is that it’s no laughing matter.
People fear to venture into its depths and speak in hushed tones of the rumours that surround it.
There is talk of demons, and that the trees whisper fearful secrets as their leaves rustle in the wind. Stray from the pathway they say, and you will never find your way home: condemned to wander ever deeper into the darkness, never to return again.
So, nobody ever ventures into the forest.
Except me.
I live there.
It’s really peaceful, and it keeps unwelcome visitors away.

NORVAL JOE

Billbert and Bobbi stared at each other for an embarrassingly long moment, as if each expected the other to say something profound. Instead, they simultaneously turned away and headed to their classes.

Billbert found his seat in English as the teacher wrote a long word on the white board.

She smiled. “You each have a dictionary on your desk. Without using your phones, look up the word, Taradiddle, and use it in a complete and coherent sentence.

Halfway through the letter ‘R’, it hit him. Sabrina was usually in every one of his classes and she wasn’t at her desk.

PLANET Z

They built a Walmart a few years ago, and all the small specialty stores closed one by one. A few holdouts remain along the main road, and they’re pretty convenient for walking in and picking something up. There’s a specialty grocery that has homemade stuff, as opposed to the stuff in the big store. A few coffee houses, a few chain stores. When one location closes in the strip mall, it takes a while for something else to take place. There’s a new tea house opening up soon. Although I prefer sipping tea on my own patio when it rains.

George is net neutral

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
When the captain asked him about Net Neutrality, George looked at the netting in the cargo hold and wondered what was so neutered about it.
“It just holds things in place when the seas are rough, right?” said George. “I’m not sure why so many people are so up in arms about this stuff.”
He tugged on the netting a bit to make sure that the cargo was secure, and he smiled proudly.
The captain made a note not to ask George about complicated social and political issues anymore.

George and his boomerang

George was a pirate, but he wasn’t a very good pirate.
His grip wasn’t very strong, so he was always dropping his cutlass during swordfights.
And when he fired his pistols, the recoil would kick them up and out of his hands.
He tried to tape his sword and pistols to his hands, but that messed up his aim and made it hard to reload the pistols.
The captain gave George a boomerang.
George threw it, and it circled around and hit George in the back of the head, knocking him out.
“Good,” said the captain. “He’s such a complainer.”