The predator lay in a growing pool of his own blood, flowing over the photos and newspaper clippings he’d taken to remember his crimes.
I’d shot him in the hands, the feet, the legs, the arms.
He begged for mercy as I reloaded my gun.
I ignored his pleas and the growing sound of sirens.
He then found some courage. “Who are you to judge me?” he growled, “You have blood on your hands too.”
And, so I did.
“But it’s your blood,” I said. “Hardly innocent.”
And then I shot him in the chest, again and again.
Click. Click.
How Cats Defeated Hitler
In an underground cafe in Berlin, sitting at a table with a bottle of something dark and crisp, an old man hobbles up to me and hands me a fluffy grey cat.
“Cats defeated Hitler,” he said, smiling.
And he walked back into the shadows.
I looked at the cat.
The cat looked at me.
And purred.
I wanted to get up and follow the old man and ask him what he meant, but the cat was so soft and furry, and the purring was so nice.
So, I just sat, drank my beer, and surrendered to the grey cat.
The Bully
The Bully watches the playground, grinning.
Kids are swinging on the swings, sliding down the slide, and they’re all having fun.
Nobody is fighting or crying.
He can’t remember the last time there was any trouble in this playground.
The other bullies are gone.
Back then, he had heard kids crying, and instead of bullying them, he bullied the bullies.
And won.
A girl runs up to him and puts a flower in his lap.
“Thank you,” she says.
The bully reaches for the flower with his good hand and smells it.
It’s wonderful.
Then he steers his wheelchair home.
Gertie and Eustus
My rich Great Aunt Gertie lays in bed, eyes closed, arm around her beloved cat, Eustus.
He’s not the original Eustus.
Gertie tried cloning. Cloning is hit-or-miss with personalities, though.
Luckily, the last came out nice and docile.
Now, she’s trying out the latest in hologram fields.
Before, they just rendered dusty, translucent ghosts.
These days, they’re quite lifelike with tactile presence.
Eustus wakes up, stretches, and curls back up, purring contentedly.
Gertie flickers for a moment, smiles in her electronic sleep.
She left everything in her will to Eustus.
(Even though he’s just a cloned copy, my lawyers say.)
Weekly Challenge #237 – Penguins
Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number Two Hundred and Thirty-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 Penguins!
VOTING
Go ahead and listen to them and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):
Tom
His black coat glisten in the sun. Black pear eyes glared at the Anaheim studio. As he dropped the violin case it rotated and he flipped the clasps. Out popped the min Uzi “Say hello to my little friend” yell the penguin. A hail of bullets dropped a dozen Disney execs. They crumple like autumn leaves in a Osterizer. From under a desk someone cried “Why?”
“You stole my life story so dance bastard” He peppered the floor will bullets. Up popped the CEO in the middle of a buck and wing the penguin dropped him
Happy feet my ass
AM Earley
My home has become a black, white, and pink warzone. I’m outnumbered six to one, even the dogs are females. If I am not going to loose my home when puberty comes around I need to make allies – quick.
Fortunately, my three daughters are obsessed with only penguins and princesses. Movies, Plushies, toys, everything.
So I gave my oldest all my old Batman comics, starting with the ones featuring Penguin.
I made my middle one is a sports nut. Guess which hockey team is her favorite?
The last one is the challenge. How do I connect with a toddler convinced penguins are perfect ballerinas?
Earley Midnight Production & Design
Life is our Art
Searching for a Medium
Steven
?She doesn’t know what to make of me. “You’re a long way from home.”
I waddle closer. The male with her frowns. “Don’t polar bears eat
them things?”
She leans over and smiles at me. “They live by the South Pole.
Didn’t you pay any attention to the movie?”
He grunts and tries to kick me. I waddle to the side and peck her
ankle. She screams as I dive into the bushes.
Next month, in the full moon’s light, I will meet my werepenguin
bride. We will hunt the man.
And he will feed our chicks all winter long.
Katwood
There comes a time in every young penguin’s life when they must venture out from the colony and see the world. For Pengy, this time had come. After packing his things and saying good bye to his friends and family, he left for his travels. During his adventures, he encounters numerous strange and interesting creatures, many of which become his lifelong friends and allies, and…
“No,” the boss said, “Why bother even trying to write for a kids’ game? Go get the license to something that’s currently popular and use one of the templates instead. Those brats’ll still buy it.”
Zackmann
Isn’t it weird how those animal rights activists “rescued” us from that horrible place that we had
trained the people to feed us?
Although I enjoyed being waited on hand and foot by those zoo keepers, all safe from hunters
and predators, this adventure has been fun. I have never been on a ship before since I was
born in the zoo.
Does it snow in the Galapagos Islands where the zoo keepers said we came form? All this cold
and snow I don’t think we can survive here. Some penguins don’t belong near the South Pole.
Danny
After the loud explosion, the two Penguins spent what seemed like months stuck in the same cage. Luckily, the food and water was plentiful, no need to eat each other. Fortunately one day, without warning, the door to the cage opened, and the penguins emerged from their prison, breathing the fresh air of freedom for the first time. The air smelled strange, like death. The buildings were destroyed, the streets were in decay. Humanity had finally destroyed itself. Then, one penquin turned to the other, and asked, “What’s the point of this?”
Ted
It’s our fault Antarctica University closed down.
Some of us kappas got drunk and decided to eat a giant penguin.
A terrible scandal ensued. The President apologized to the U.N., called us barbarians.
The papers asked how it tasted. We told them the truth: the outside was tough, fibrous, hard to cut through, but inside, my God, the flesh was so tender and succulent, though the meat and organs were surprisingly small for such a large animal.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Brian added, “we don’t even have any sports teams! What was Dean Wilson doing in a mascot costume?”
Mrs. Abe
The penguins huddle together, soaked with sweat and urine, smothered under the dark musty blanket.
Suddenly they are seized, plunged into freezing water, and beaten savagely over and over again. Red liquid fills the chamber.
Eventually the beating stops, but they are soon shoved into the hotbox. Scorching blasts of air singe them as they tumble against each other, groggy from the heat and queasy from the motion.
Finally, barbarically, they are turned inside out and left to hang outside–wet and swaying gently in the winter breeze.
Yep, it ain’t easy being penguins on a kid’s red flannel pajamas.
TJ
When zoos invented warm-water penguins so people in the rest of the
world could enjoy them, they flourished in the temperate climates and
lack of natural enemies. They quickly became too numerous and the zoos
made them available for pets. This was awesome. I got one of the first
penguins. I named her Penny. She waddles around and floops into the tub
when she needs a swim. She can get into the tub just fine on the ramp I
made her but she’s sort of … penguin-shaped, so she needs, like, a
boost to get out again. Penguins are AWESOME!
Norval Joe
“How can someone be claustrophobic and aggorophobic at the same time,” Oswaldo asked.
“I don’t know,” Bertram said, “but just look at him. He’s a quivering mass of black and white feathers. One moment he’s hot and bothered because everyone’s standing too close around him. So we all move away to give him space and he’s flapping about and squaking like he’s about to lay an egg.”
“Do you think that’s how he stays so slim?” Oswaldo asked, “all that nervous energy?”
“No,” Bertram fluffed his feathers and said, “he just doesn’t eat much. They says he’s hydrophobic as well.”
Planet Z
The phone won’t stop ringing.
I don’t want to answer it.
I can’t answer it.
I don’t have caller ID, but I know who it is.
Or… what it is.
It’s that damned penguin.
I was at the zoo, I was watching the penguins swim around in the tank.
I was using my cell phone to record a movie of them.
That’s when someone bumped me from behind.
And I dropped my cell phone into the tank.
They must have dried it out or something.
What? It’s someone from the zoo calling?
No. It’s those penguins.
I’m sure of it.
Unfair
It’s interesting to see people adjusting to ever-advancing technology.
From chalk and slate to Microsoft MindLink, teachers preparing kids for yesterday’s challenges, kids distracted by the newest gadgets.
Susie has a dataport on her arm, and she covers it with a long sleeve.
MindLink still has brainwipe issues, her parents say. A class in Chicago got zombied last week.
She pouts, runs to her room, crying.
Plugging in, she updates her journal, tagging it with all the unfairness, all the envy of her friends who got their way.
Just like her daughter will do.
(With the next generation of technology.)
Bed
I lift the covers and slide back into bed.
It still smells of you. I imagine that it’s still warm with you.
I turn off the light, letting my eyes adjust to the dark.
The room hasn’t changed much. A few familiar things gone, a few new things on the dresser and nightstand.
People change. Even you.
That’s when I hear your key in the lock downstairs.
I get out of bed, pull on my clothes, and crawl back out the window.
As I watch you sleep, I wonder if you can feel my warmth, smell my skin.
Sleep well.
A Unfortunate Truth
The grayback move carefully to the edge of ridge. The valley was shrouded in mist that curl about the cliff and the true height of the plateau was hidden . The grayback feel the ground slide, tiny stones rolled forward. He reach out but grabbed only wisps of mist. Down into the valley he tumbled
3.5 million years later a team of Stanford students discover the fossils remains of the oldest know ancestor of modern man. The team carefully loads the plane with the fossils unfortunately a mist shrouded the valley and plane, team and fossil crash into the cliff.
The Creepy Silence
When you live in a world of light, the darkness is what you fear.
And when you live in a world of darkness, you grow to fear the light.
Creeping into the cave, the human bumps his head on a stalactite. “Damn it!”
Waiting for him is a dark elf, watching quietly.
The human hands over a sleeping baby, and the elf hands back a satchel full of gems.
“Princess Garamond wants to talk about alimony and visitation,” says the human.
The dark elf nods. “Less often and for longer, I hope.”
They both chuckle and return to their worlds.
Potion of Sleep
You’ve got troubles, I’ve got troubles, we’ve all got troubles.
Tell me your troubles, and I’ll make you a potion for them.
Got a cut? Got a scrape?
Pour this on it.
Losing your hair?
Rub a little of this one on your head. (And be sure to wear gloves. Trust me on this.)
Love? Pain? Joy?
This one’s special: sleep and death.
Just depends how much you take.
Careful, kid.
I got ’em all in these bottles, every color, every flavor.
Sip this, rub that, some drops in your eyes.
Give me your arm, this won’t hurt a bit.