Weekly Challenge #158 – Knock Knock

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Fifty Eight, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was… was…. um…
It’s Knock Knock.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Planet Z
D
Justin from http://www.thespaceturtle.com
Danny from http://dannymachal.com/
Anima from http://zabbadabba.com/
Sophie
Michael S
Lynda from http://sisterpepperspray.blogspot.com/
Lance from http://twitter.com/writingdad
Elisson from http://elisson1.blogspot.com/
Guy David from http://guydavid.com/
Tom from http://footnote.libsyn.com
Ishtar from http://ishtarskiss.blogspot.com/
Manata from http://manata.net/
Norval Joe from http://www.norvalsoutlook.blogspot.com/
Melissa
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):


Planet Z

After years of painstaking research, the dolphin language was finally deciphered.
Nothing but dick and fart jokes. Totally lowbrow humor.
We had hoped for a knock knock joke or two, demonstrating at least a basic level of interactive modality, but dolphins don’t have hands. Or use doors.
Irony is lost on dolphins, and don’t get me started on how they ruin Polock jokes.
Our grant was revoked, our findings buried.
We need a big success to keep from getting fired.
Next week, we start trying to translate Chinese. I’m so sick of having to point at pictures on a menu.

D

Please help me!
A strange man has locked me up in a very small box.
I can fit because I am a midget, but that’s besides the point.
This guy makes me read horrible stories, and if I refuse he feeds me olive
loaf.
Normally he feeds me macguffins with too much baconsalt.
This is not a real 100 word story, this is a cry for help. Please save me
from this man!
Sometimes he calls me names like Two Dogs.
He constantly knocks on the box. Going mad.
Oh, here he comes. Please, I’m begging you, record your stories!

Justin

Danny delved into the cave. Shadows played over the cuneiform letters etched into the walls, his torch flickering. Following the clues on the ancient parchment, he found the door.
He knocked.
The door opened.
A djini appeared.
“Two wishes! Speak carefully.”
Danny considered.
“I want a website template customized to make my website look great and load fast.”
“Done”
The djini produced a laptop to show the results.
“Sweet! Now I would like, a really snappy outfit to wear.”
Danny found wearing nothing but snapping turtles. Screams echoed. The djini laughed and turned, revealing a cracked shell. The door closed.

Danny

Horace adjusted the windage and elevation knobs on the ruby crystal telescopic sight of his 67dm Sniper Rifle. The knocking of the robots steel heart pounded at the drums in his ear.
‘One shot to open the can, another to put the bastard down,’ Horace thought to himself.
It was cold, damn cold. His finger trembled on the trigger as he squeezed. Before the noise of the explosive shot would reach the robot’s sensors, the chest would already be torn open. The second shot would be well on its way to impact before the mechanical systems could respond.
Long live humanity.

Anima

Knock knock knock
I search for the trigger, the one that will reveal the secret passage. Horatio told me of it just before he died. Where is it?
Within lies a chamber where mystics meet in the small hours. Should I gain passage, I can learn wonderous, magnificent things!
Sssh! Do you hear that? Shuffling footsteps behind the walls. They congregate again.
Frantically I search, but to no avail…
“How long has this been going on?”
“Over a year. The death of her uncle unbalanced the girl; All she does now is mutter to herself and rap on the walls.”

Sophie

Knock, knock. “Police open up.”
The door slowly opens.
“Sir, are you Tom Price the owner of the dog in the front yard?” the officer asks.
“Yeah, what about it?” Tom asks.
“We have evidence that you leave her chained without food, water or shelter and occasionally beat her.” states the officer.
“Don’t matter none, she’s my property.” Tom sneers.
“Not any more.” Sheila from the Rescue Society says as she approaches the door. “This dog will be relocated.”
“This is your third strike Mr. Price.” The officer says as he cuffs Tom. “You will be euthanized in 72 hours.”

Michael S

All was going well with our drug deal. I was counting the money when the new kid from Boston I had watching for cops started screaming, “Knock, knock.” Hell, I thought he was telling somebody a joke. Turns out he was saying, ”Narc, narc,” in that special Boston accent. That was years ago and to this day I break out in a cold sweat when I hear a “Knock, Knock” joke.

Lynda

“Why is the sky blue?”
“I don’t know, probably some mysterious cosmic coloring, like eggs.”
“What about eggs?”
“Well, they’re yellow and no one knows why.”
“The chickens know, but we ate them!”
“That’s right sweetie! All beat up with a little mayo! You’re so smart!”
“I got a joke!”
“Let’s hear it!”
“Knock knock!”
“Who’s there?”
“Two dogs fucking!”
“Honey, that’s not really something you should say for another fifteen years at least.”
“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY TWO DOGS FUCKING WHO?!”
“Okay, okay…two dogs fucking who?”
“You.”
“Wha–ARGH!”
“You’re silly!”
“Get them off me!”
“I want a puppy!”

Lance

Knock, knock.
“Trick or treat!”
“Well, aren’t you the cutest little fairytale princess. Here you go, darling. Happy Halloween!”
“Thank you!”
Knock, knock.
“Trick or treat! Arrr!”
“Well, shiver me timbers! ‘Tis a fearsome pirate an’ no mistake. Here be yer booty, ye scurvy dog.”
“Arrr. Thankee! An’ a Happy Halloween to ye, me hearty!”
Knock, knock.
“Braaaaaaains.”
“Wow. That is absolutely the best zombie makeup I’ve ever seen. How many hours did you have to sit still to look like that?”
“Braaaaaaains?”
“Sure, I understand. You’ve gotta stay in character.”
The zombie uprising began under the cover of Halloween.

Elisson

“Knock, knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“The Interrupting Pirate.”
“The Interrup…”
“Arrrrrrhhh!”

This joke used to crack us up when we were kids. Timing was everything.
I wasn’t laughing right now, though. Somali pirates were attacking our ship. The crackle of small-arms fire filled the air as the Somalis prepared to board.
The usual game. Hold us hostage, collect the ransom, move on. Insurance would pay the owners.
Not this time. As the pirates strode confidently on deck, laughing, Charlie interrupted them with the M134 Minigun, which promptly converted them into piles of gristle amidst pools of blood.
Yep: Timing is everything.

Guy David

Janice was a practical joker. The number of times we had to ask her “who’s there?” was ridiculous. We tried to stay away, but she would follow us, never understanding the hint. When they fired her, we all cheered. It was later that we read about it in the papers. She jumped off some bridge or another. Now she wonders the office floor telling her knock knock jokes. If someone refuses to play along, he suffers dire consequences. Only five of us are left. Here she comes. Let me utter the magic words that would keep us alive: “Who’s there?”

Tom

Knock Knock
“Hey kids what’s that sound?”
asks Snowball the clown.
“It two dogs …”
Ringmaster Fred quickly steps in cutting off Old Captain Billy before t slips out into the 2 million plus new York jersey TV market.
“Yes kids it seem the Captain as been sipping a little to much of his oj this morning.”
“Frack the kids” snorts Captain Billy
“The joke is in the Whiz bang you morons”
High above the sound stage in the control booth Mr. T Whitesides founder f Baby Bottom Soap is not happy.
“Fire that fucking clown” he yells

Ishtar

“Lock the door he’s almost broken through” Yells Clyde slowly shaking in
fear. His ultimate end was just around the corner.
Oh sure it was a harmless prank. No one really liked the new guy in town.
So round in the middle. Those horrid looking red boots he always wears.
Who would think he would go so far. Just for spray painting Puc Man
on his mail box shouldn’t cause this.
“Knock Knock Knock, I know it was you Clyde. Look at what I did
to Inky and Blinky. Yum Yum Yum. Your next. No one Fucks with
Pac Man.”

Manata

Amnesia is a bitch. Ever since the accident I can’t even remember who I am. It makes my life a living hell. The truth is, if one more person asks me my name, I’ll probably snap.
The only way I can deal with it is to stay high. I get my drugs at this speakeasy near my house. The only problem is the password. I bite my lip, approach the door, and whisper the code: “Knock knock”.
“Who’s there?” came the reply.
That’s it – the last straw.
I scream, “I DON’T KNOW! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! I DON’T KNOW!”

Norval Joe

He rapped the back of his hand against the rough wooden plank, his knuckles making more of a sharp tapping sound since the flesh had worn away from the bones.
Knock, knock. The sound was faint through the thin layer of dirt hastily thrown over the wooden box.
Unable to call out, the muscles of his chest were too week to draw breath into throat and lungs clogged with maggots and worms.
Dead and animated, he didn’t think; he only hungered. He hungered to be free from this wooden box. He hungered for revenge against those who put him here.

Melissa

I could see it. Our lives, our future, coming up so fast, I couldn’t catch my breath; I felt the pang of need for oxygen in my lungs! There she was I couldn’t and wouldn’t move, I was entranced. Our destinies were intertwined and the heat was creeping up my back into my shoulders in my ears. I was capturing the butterfly and….
“‘KNOCK KNOCK! Sam are you listening to me?’” came the shrieking sound of Leila’s voice, my band mate from hell. Not even the sound of a derailing train could muffle the searing sound of her voice

Shutterbug

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A while back, I had to go to a place and shoot pictures of an awards ceremony.
When I got there, I realized I had forgotten to bring any film.
I walked around, pretending to snap photos, but all I was doing was pressing the shutter.
No film, no photos.
So when the ceremony was over, the organizer tapped me on the shoulder and said “I guess there won’t be any pictures.”
I held up my camera. “I took a lot of photos,” I said. “Just gotta develop the film.”
The organizer reached over and took off the lens cap.

The Chicken Password

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Ever forgotten a very important password?
I once forgot the password to a secure system that didn’t have a way to recover the password.
It was so secure, the software author couldn’t even get into the system once it had a password added to it.
In the end, I had to go to a hypnotist to get them to dig around my mind to find the password.
They snapped their fingers, and I thought I was a chicken.
“Bawk!” I screeched, and I flapped crazily around the room.
The hypnotist typed in “Bawk!” and the system booted right up.

Swine Flu

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The Big Bad Wolf didn’t care about this whole Swine Flu scare. He was hungry.
So he huffed, puffed, and coughed for about a minute.
A window opened in the straw house, and the first little pig laughed.
“Caught a bad case of the flu, wolf?” he asked.
The wolf grabbed at him, but his muscles were aching badly and he missed.
Two more pigs walked up behind the wolf.
One hit him in the leg with a piece of wood, and the wolf fell down, howling with pain.
The other pig hit him in the head with a brick.

Stick it to The Man

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Things are always getting worse for me and Joey.
Joey lost his job. My hours are getting cut back. The apartment’s a wreck.
Nothing ever works out for either of us.
Joey’s always saying we gotta stick it to The Man.
But Joey never says how we’re supposed to stick it to The Man.
What glue sticks it to The Man?
Do we use staples and thumbtacks?
And what exactly is “it” we’re supposed to stick?
Joey says I’m too literal.
I say Joey needs to provide concrete examples.
He shrugs.
Is this how The Man sticks it to us?

April White

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I knew this girl. Her name is April.
But she was born in May.
Her full name was April White.
Except, she was black.
Her whole life was a bunch of opposites, one after the other.
Some folks could handle them and others couldn’t.
I thought I could, but each time I thought I knew her, she turned out to be someone completely different.
So, when we were supposed to be coming closer together, we ended up drifting apart.
Until one day, she was gone.
Or was I gone, and she was where she’d been all along?
I’m so confused.

Liberated

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We were liberated by the British.
The Americans, they bring doctors. They bring food. They bring water. They bring medicine. They bring trucks and jeeps. They talk and they cry.
The British, they bring nothing. Not even clothes.
I ask one for food, and he turn his back on me. He get into his jeep and drive off with other soldiers.
I cannot eat freedom. I cannot wrap myself in freedom.
We wander in the street, the forest.
We do not know where to go or what to do.
It starts to rain, and we open our mouths to drink.

Weekly Challenge #157 – Falling Bricks Hurt

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Fifty Seven, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
The topic this week was… was…. um…
It’s Falling Bricks Hurt.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories this week?
Ted from http://whineandopine.blogspot.com/
Guy David from http://guydavid.com
Tom from http://footnote.libsyn.com/
Norval Joe from http://www.norvalsoutlook.blogspot.com/
Mike P from http://mjpaxton.com
Anima from http://www.zabbadabba.com
Michael S
Sophie
Lynda from http://sisterpepperspray.blogspot.com/
Justin from http://www.thespaceturtle.com/
Danny from http://dannymachal.com/
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):


Ted

“Life’s full of pain… hemorrhoids, gout… hell, falling bricks!”
Steve instantly regretted giving that last example.
“Dude, I’m done dating… and no more concerts!” Mordecai blurted, flailing his limbs.
“Try not being a putz for five minutes,” countered his companion, wearing a visibly weary visage. “Tell you what, let’s grab a nosh.”
The duo sauntered silently down the sidewalk.
“Steve… she’s just,” Mordecai stopped short as suddenly as he had shattered the reticence.
Steve sensed Mordecai’s mood turn from aggravation to resignation… and he realized this is how his friend would be every time Falling Bricks Hurt played The Palladium.

Guy David

Leon was walking down the street, when a flying teapot landed in front of him. Out of the teapot there came little funny men with funny Gnome hats and half moon faces. “We are the pot head pixies” said one of them, “we are here to show you how to have a good time,” then they kidnapped him and took him to the planet Gong, where they partied all night, and all day afterwards, then Leon awoke in his home with a hangover that was similar to a brick falling on his head, but had some strange colors in it.

Tom

The Urban tribe that occupied the ruined city had a tradition of naming their children after the first thing the mother saw after giving birth.
“Grandpa how did you get your name?”
“I was born during a eatherquake and that is why I’m called Falling Bricks Hurt”
“And Papa?”
“Your father was born on Christmas eve and he is called Batteries Not Included.”
“And Mama?”
“Your mother was born in the last operating taxi in the city and she’s called Objects In The Rearview Mirror May Appear Closer That They Are.”
“Thank you Grandpa.”
“Your very welcome Two Dogs Fucking.”

Norval Joe

Blocks away, across the city park, he set up the complicated apparatus. Multifaceted photoreceptors gathered solar power. He laughed vengefully as he flipped the lever on the clattering machine. A wormhole disintegrated the lower half of his ex-girlfriends apartment building, the upper half of the clay brick structure, subsequently, dropping though.
His victory over the woman, who embarrassed him in front of all his friends, was short lived.
The falling bricks hurt for only a moment, as the last of the upper three floors of apartment building dropped out of the other side of the wormhole, directly over his head.

Mike P.

Most people never look at the other side of sliced bread, unless it
falls butter side down. When the cookie crumbles all the chefs in the
kitchen cry like it’s spilt milk and no one calls for all the king’s
horses and all the king’s men in order to reassemble the pieces. When
the wolf huffs and puffs, people notice that the sticks and straw
crumple while bricks do not. It’s easy to assume that this is a story
about strong building materials, but it’s important to note that the
bricks are actually afraid to collapse. Falling bricks hurt
themselves.

Anima

“Frank –look! The bricklayers are almost done on the upper level . Ain’t it a beaut? Just like when we stacked blocks as kids.”
“Wow. I don’t know what to say Fred. It certainly is an interesting design. I’m glad the homeowner paid you up front…”
“Frank! I’m calling it “Falling Brick”. Aren’t the cantilevered decks just wonderful?”
“Yeah, but 7?… excessive, isn’t it?”
“Why are you always so practical? This way, every family member gets his own barbecue grill…”
“Fred, You’ve got a brick out of kilter over here. Let me see if I can fix that for you…”
“Nooooooo!”

Michael S

Little sister, Running Cantaloupe, run into teepee one day long ago. She been at river with little brother, Falling Bricks.
She scream,”Falling Bricks hurt, Falling Bricks hurt.”
We all go river. Falling Bricks only play like hurt.
Chief Two Dogs Humping not think funny. Take Falling Bricks to teepee.
They come out teepee.
Little brother hold butt and say, “Falling Bricks hurt.”
This time he no play.

Sophie

The headline reads “Falling Bricks Hurt Five”.
The story reads like it was boys night out and something went just a little wrong…just kid stuff.
The story is bullshit, so typical of the “feel good” press we have today.
I saw it happen, heard the screams.
It was nightfall…four teenaged boys standing on the overpass.
They were excited, cajoling, each using one hand to hold up their oversized pants.
They began hoisting cinder blocks over the bridge onto the traffic below, then ran off…laughing.
It was over in less than a minute.
Mayhem ensued.
Five dead.

Lynda

A 58-year-old man from Brooklyn with no prior arrests and no evidence of drug or alcohol dependency was transferred from police custody to the state mental institution after being arrested for disturbing the peace and complaining of auditory hallucinations.
Employed as a bulldozer operator for 30 years, the patient reported hearing screams from the site of a recent demolition. He was found attempting to rearrange rubble, excitedly repeating apologies and insisting the bricks must be reunited.
Prognosis looks bleak as the patient won’t stop trying to introduce the concrete blocks in his cell long enough to take medication.

Justin

Salim leaped the spike pit. It loomed in the middle of a well-traversed main hallway. Rubbish. What if the trap accidentally spung, hurting someone innocent? Salim forgot the spike trap and dodged three circular blades protruding from the walls and spun, moving vertically in a predictable pattern. Once past it, his thoughts moved onto his target: The Golden MacGuffin. Thievery was not his mission though. He wanted to destroy the Sultan’s palace. The man murdered his father. As soon he stole the MacGuffin, the palace would slowly crumble. The foolish Sultan shouldn’t have let videogame designers install the security system.

Danny

Justin wandered about in the shadows watching the fascinating people. He
smelled the breads and listened to the pop of corks for hours before finally
settling on the perfect sunny patch of grass to feast. Justin the turtle
munched on the greenery of the city he loved, Paris.
1,063 feet into the sky, Gaston Space Pierre ran back and forth on the
observation platform of the Eiffel Tower, his parents not at all effective.
A stray brick from a display for Gustave Eiffel found his palm. He tossed it
over the rails.
Justin looked up just in time to catch the impromptu solar eclipse to the
head.

Jeffrey

I had a friend who took all of the hard drives from the old 486 systems as we retired them. We all asked him what he was going to do with them, but he always gave us the same answer, these bricks, they are for my castle in the the clouds. Needless to say he was a little bit off his rocker. He had quite the wall of them when I left that job. He had taken his cubical wall down and replaced it with careful stacked hard drives. Then he was downsized. We heard the screams the bricks fell.

Planet Z

Falling bricks will hurt your grade.
That’s what the architecture professor says as we enter our designs into the weather simulator.
Rain. High winds. Maybe an earthquake if he’s pissed.
One by one, the buildings appear in the holography tank.
I wait for mine to appear.
Russian music begins to play in the room.
A colored brick falls from the top of the display and lands in my project’s gridspace.
Then another.
The professor raises his eyebrow.
Oh. Right. Tetris.
That memory module has my old arcade games on it.
He hands it back to me.
And whispers “F.”

Maggots

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I was in the hospital, laid up with a broken leg when the word got out that zombies were on the loose.
No guns. No machetes. Just fire extinguishers and the occasional bone saw.
That’s when it hit me.
“Maggots eat dead flesh,” I said. “Release a bunch of maggots and they’ll eat the zombies.”
The nurse went down to the stockroom and brought out three trays of maggots.
“Is that all?” I asked. “I was hoping for huge barrels full of the things. Maybe fill a moat with them.”
No.
Bar the doors. And pray the army shows up.

Ringing

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Tom lets the phone ring for a while before picking it up.
“Robots give up after four rings,” he explained. “If my friends really want to get me, they’ll let it ring ten or eleven times.”
The phone rings. Twice. Three times. Four times. Five times.
“What about robots who are your friends?” I ask.
For just a moment, Tom’s look gets dark. Angry.
“I have no robot friends,” he says.
Maybe today, but it wasn’t always the case.
Somewhere, deep in a lab under New Mexico, a mainframe caked with dust and spiderwebs.
Memory banks silent, filled with sadness.