The Rainbows

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Maybe you’re familiar with the story of The Rainbow Bridge?
Kitty Heaven, a place to visit
It’s not quite true.
Rainbows do soar over the meadows of Heaven, majestically, but not at any bridge.
They wait for the storm to pass, the Lord’s tears dry, and they look down at the world, searching.
Like Valkyries searching for the bravest of the fallen, they seek out those who have loved and been loved the greatest.
And guide them to where that love is eternal.
No pot of gold at the rainbow’s end, but a greater treasure awaits.
The rainbows search anew.

Coffee Down Under

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When it comes to the marsupial family, the koala is the heaviest drinker of coffee.
Kangaroos are already jumpy enough without caffeine.
However, they can easily afford to hop to Starbucks time and time again because of their deep pockets.
Possums enjoy a good cappuccino now and then.
Wombats prefer tea. And Tasmanian Devils use diet soft drinks for a quick boost of energy.
Technically, the duck-billed platypus is a monotreme and not a marsupial.
Nobody has ever seen a duck-billed platypus drink coffee, but then, nobody has seen one play a tuba, either.
There’s always a first time, though.

Masturbation

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If you’ve read Fark, you’ve heard the adage: Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten.
So, every time a cat masturbates, does God kill a baby?
I know the answer. And the answer is YES.
Malnutrition, ad genetics, crib death – the government and WHO make excuses, but you’ll never get the truth out of their reports.
It’s masturbating cats killing all the babies! Damn them!
Very few people know. Bob Barker is one of them.
Why do you think he kept saying to spay and neuter your pets?
It was for the children. It was always for the children.

The End

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“Tell me a story, my beloved,” said the king, “Or the sun will shine over your headless corpse.”
Scheheradze smiled and recited the same story she’d told every night for the past three years.
The king was cruel, yes, but also senile.
He woke up every morning, free from memory of the day before.
So, when he’d ask for a story, it was always new to him.
Just once, she grew tired and changed it.
“Why did you change the story?” he said.
She was confused… frightened. He… knew?
He was laughing as she buried a dagger in his chest.

Random Dave

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Every fifteen seconds, Dave hits the Random link in Wikipedia and learns something new.
Hypotrichosis is when you have less than normal amounts of hair, for instance. Dave looked in the mirror and smirked… he might have that.
He kept clicking until he found an article about himself.
He read it from top to bottom.
Everything… his birth, his school days, his career.
It was all there. Boring as hell.
So, he changed it.
He added a wife and kids. Made himself a retired football star.
Everything was great.
Until, of course, someone deleted the page by accident.
Bye, Dave.

Mall Santa

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Yeah, I punched a mall Santa in the face.
Guy had it coming. He was drunk and falling all over himself.
Plus, it was July.
That drunk bastard should be up at the North Pole, making toys.
Instead, he’s making faces at the kids and puking on himself.
There’s enough of that in December, but I won’t want to have to see this crap in July.
Who do you think makes all the fireworks for the Fourth of July? he drools.
The Chinese, I say, and I punch him again.
Santa goes down, and I take his sack of fireworks.

Weekly Challenge #116 – Popular Mechanics

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Sixteen, 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 selected by Tom of Footnote, and we went with Popular Mechanics.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Robert
Guy David of Guy David
Thomas Merkel
Sister Mary Edith
Jeffrey from The Great Hites
Justin the Space Turtle
Sougent
Anima
Steven the Nuclear Man
Tom from Footnote
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


STEVEN THE NUCLEAR MAN

The wrench flies from the engine, close enough that I taste flecks of
rust. Grandfather yells, a balding series of spheres in the front
seat. I already know I’m worthless, thanks. I wipe the grease onto
my ruined shirt, he dabs a pressed handkerchief at his forehead.
The wrench and my hand slide back in. It – he won’t identify it –
must be held just so. The key cranks, washing the smell of exhaust
and gasoline over me.
The car roars to life. He lumbers inside, shouting how he fixed the car.
The wrench smashes a beautiful music through the windshield.

JEFFREY

Going Down with the Ship
The sirens Rang out all over the ship.
“What the hell is going on?” The captain asked over yet another explosion.
“Sir, we seem to be having some problems,” The engineer answered with a sheepish smile on his face.
“I’m getting that feeling, can you be a bit more specific?”
“Well sir, that is a problem, see the book does not mention anything like this.”
“What book? What are you talking about?”
“The book, the one that I get all the ideas from.”
“Show me this book,” he pulled out an ancient looking magazine. The title barely legible, ‘Popular Mechanics.

GUY DAVID

Chaketo Chirapa was reading an edition of Popular Mechanics. It amused him how human technology resembled early Chirapa technology, but failed to capture some of the essence that was the heart of that technology. He was especially amused by Jay Leno’s Garage. The view of the famous television show host seemed to be especially distorted and misinformed. The laws of mechanics would bent in his column into a new shape altogether. Chaketo Chirapa had no illusions about Chirapa technology though, and he often mused in his podcast about the way Chirapa science and technology would advance in the foreseen future.

THOMAS

The Saga of the Carson Brothers Body Shop
Fred and George Carson were the most popular mechanics in the tri-state area. They weren’t the kind to fix automobiles, or even young ladies in low budget pornos. They fixed bodies.
The dollars rolled in as their fame grew. The rich, the very rich, and the damned, sought the young brother’s services: limb augmentations, neural transmitters, ocular replacements. Everything was coming up roses, albeit genetically enhanced ones. Eventually, the enhancements stopped working and people started dying, realizing too late the energizer bunny doesn’t live forever.
Quietly, the brothers flew to Cancun and retired…sorry, but richer…a lot richer.

MARY EDITH

Cleaning out grandma’s attic was like going back in time. In the corner was a Popular Mechanics from 1902!
Inventions:
-The Vacuum Cleaner: Will it lead to uppity home-makers?
-The Submersible: What leviathans of the deep await?
Opinion section:
-Alternating Current- a death-trap in every home T. Edison
Interviews:
-Robert Falcon Scott on new Horse-Based Vehicles vs. primitive dog sleds in the race to the South Pole
-Roosevelt’s Gun Cabinet: The president guides us through his collection from the Winchester Moose Whacker to the ladylike Beretta Butterfly Blunderbuss
And slipped between the pages? An article rejection letter! Poor Grandpa Tesla.

ROBERT

She gets crazy sometimes, with these machines; like you couldn’t drag her away, but what’s to do?
She made this little robot with pigtails and a bright bunched up face just like hers, and took it to school for show and tell, and the thing told the story of it’s life, which was like two days long, beginning with it’s slick metal brain being screwed, finally, into place. I guess everybody loved the thing, because Sarah came home, alone again, and without a word went back to her tiny pink laboratory, the door closing smoothly, ending with a “snick”.

JUSTIN

Lenny fixed everyone’s car. The competitor, Charles, had to close shop
because Lenny’s such a popular mechanic. Charles is still bitter.
Lenny used to swear constantly. Even a slight bang on his knuckles
would get him cursing. When his wife gave birth to their baby, he made
the promise to stop cussing as best as he could. He still cursed at
work sometimes when something really bad happened.
One day while Lenny was working under a car, Charles knocked the jack
out from under with a sledge hammer. The car fell, crushing Lenny’s
legs.
“Aw Charles, still peeved are you?”

ANIMA

POPULAR QUANTUM MECHANICS
Uncertain about your uncertainty principle?
Then you need Popular Quantum Mechanics
The magazine that explains the unexplainable.
Learn how to play the ponies in a parallel universe and win!
Surfing tips for finding the break in your wave formation.
Bonus Blueprints! Diagrams for decks using Planck’s Constant!
Popular Quantum Mechanics.
Where it doesn’t count until you’re out of options.
Looking for something a little lighter, try the subsubcompact “Nanotech News”, where smaller is bigger and a thousand copies fit on the head of a pin.
Popular Quantum Mechanics and Nanotech News, available at W.H. Smith, in all the finer Cosmodromes

SOUGENT 1

As he lay there, all he could think of was the initiation that was to
happen tonight.
It was an exclusive group, almost a secret society. Only the best of
the best got an invite, he’d worked his entire life to prepare, to be
the best so that one day he could be part of the elite.
His father was a member, and his father before him, to fail wasn’t an
option for him, he’d disgrace the family if he failed.
Was he ready? Yes, absolutely.
It’s time….. after tonight, he’d be a member of the Brotherhood of
Popular Mechanics.

SOUGENT 2

When I was a kid I used to go over to my Grandfathers house and he had
a whole stack of Popular Mechanics magazines from the 50’s and 60’s.
I used to spend hours and hours reading them.
I especially liked the articles on the flying submarine, and how to
build your own 30 foot sailboat. And then there was the article
about the what future would be like in the 21st century, the time
we’re living in now.
It didn’t get much right, except for the clothing, that they got
right. Too bad, I really wanted a flying car.

TOM

Mrs. Manicotti complained about a gurgling sound in the back end of her car. Mrs. Genivalce keep hearing a sound sort of like a screaming cat coming from her trunk. Mrs. Leonie hadn’t an idea where the noise was coming from but Rudy of Miracle Automotive always listened politely to the old women’s explanations, went about the task at hand. With a 100mm spanner rapped in a towel Rudy or one of his sons successfully ending the noise. In Little Italy they were very Popular Mechanics.
On the way to the Jersey landfill Rudy thought how threemorsongatastic his job was.

PLANET Z

Break time!
No, I’m not gonna hang out with the losers in the metal shop and the geeks in the datacenter. Ugh!
I’m gonna hang out with the popular mechanics in the repair shed.
Oh, Johnny, the way he sets that oscilloscope. Make my heart beat faster! Faster!
Bobby’s got the coolest flip-top googles. Brings out the blue in his eyes. Totally rad.
And Dave oh, Dave the way he strips and degreases an engine. I wish he’d do that to me some time.
What? It’s two?
Break’s over. Oh well.
I hate work. This place is so high school.

Happy Birthday

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Happy Birthday, America. So, how old are you now?
We’ve baked you a cake. A country-sized cake.
I know, we didn’t have to, but we had all this food lying around in silos and warehouses and store shelves.
It would have just gone to waste. Or food aid to people that hate us anyway.
We’ll dig a gigantic hole and call it your mouth.
Go ahead. Make a wish. Blow out the candles.
Then, thousands of bulldozers will push the cake into your mouth.
Earthquakes will chew it up. Grind it into a sugary mush.
And swallow the cake down.

Armageddon

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Armageddon.
The final battle between Good and Evil.
And here I am, a rifle in one hand and a cell phone in the other, waiting to find out which side I’m on.
Evil likes how I’m a good shot, but Good thinks I’m officer material.
Doesn’t matter which calls. Whatever side I end up on, I’m going to fight.
Phone rings, and I answer it.
It’s one of those automated calling systems, asking if I’ve contributed to the local policeman’s fund.
I hang up and wait.
Looking around, lots of people with guns and phones, waiting.
Maybe this is hell.

Nosebleed

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Ever have a nosebleed and then you sneeze?
It makes a really big mess. Especially if you sneeze on the carpet.
So, there I was, pinching my nose and holding my head back and aah aaah aaah choo!
Gigantic red splatters all over the bathroom mirror. Violent tendrils, splotches, and patterns I can see myself through.
Wicked awesome!
That’s when I got the idea to paint canvas with my blood.
Over and over, I’d pick my nose to get it nice and bloody. Then, I’d tickle a few nosehairs and… voila!
Yes, my friends, I truly bleed for my art.