Captain

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Flying makes me very nervous. When I head out to the airport I have butterflies in my stomach. By the time I get on the plane the butterflies have mutated to condors. Apart from natural disasters like wind shear and freak storms, now we have to worry about terrorists and such. There must be a million parts in a seven-forty seven.
So many gauges so many knobs and gadgets, so much can go wrong. I take a deep breath to calm down. I grab the microphone and announce.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard, this is your captain speaking.”

Fear Of Flying

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Esmerelda had been a witch since the unfortunate incident at Fairy Godmother U.
The unfortunate incident resulted in her expulsion from FGU and a black border being placed on her permanent record.
Now an old withered hag, teeth mostly gone with those few remaining yellowed and broken, long hairs growing from her nose wart, Esme sat by the kitchen’s bubbling cauldron and brooded over the decades old incident.
It was just a school girl prank. A dare from the other girls.
Who would have ever thought the University President would be so pissed over a little Fear of Flying spell.

Just Wondering

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As we headed home yesterday from our mini-vacation in Asheville, we would occasionally see an automobile transport trailer. And it got me to wondering…
You know those Circus Volkswagens that disgorge an army of clowns? When it comes time to transport those Volkswagens, do they use a special carrier? If so, when that carrier arrives at its destination, does an entire fleet of Circus Volkswagens disembark from it, each containing its horde of clowns?
This is the kind of Deep Question I spend my time pondering. A disturbing question, if one fears clowns. Clearly, I am in need of help…

Three Moons

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People are freaking out because there’s three moons in the sky.
The third one appeared an hour ago.
The second one appeared a few hours before the third one, but people didn’t realize it because the first moon had just set.
Folks don’t notice those kinds of things, you know.
It was when the third one appeared over the horizon, they noticed the second one up there.
And the original moon one is coming up now.
Or is it a fourth?
Everybody’s wondering about Who? What? Why? How?
Me, I’m just loading up with silver bullets.
Do you hear wolves?

Walking

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The cost of shoes has skyrocketed.
Shoes used to be inexpensive, but they’re become expensive because of greedy speculators and shoe industry executives.
People are being urged to conserve their shoes, but they keep buying socks that wear shoes out quickly, or they insist on walking when they should be driving.
Or riding a bicycle, but bicycles aren’t exactly cheap these days, either. And our infrastructure just isn’t ready for them.
“We’re a walking economy,” says the President. “So we need to reduce our dependency on foreign sources of shoes.”
Lots of talk, but we never truly walk the walk.

Key Ring

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The super in my building has the most amazing ring of keys.
I swear, it is as big as a hula hoop and has ten thousand keys hanging from it.
No matter what door, cabinet, or padlock he faces, he never searches for more than a second before finding the right key.
“I just know where every key is in the ring,” he says. “Everything has its place.”
He died last week while fixing the sink in 3F.
It was as much a part of him as his nine fingers. I wondered if they would bury him with that thing.

Weekly Challenge #82 – Fear Of Flying

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Welcome to the eighty-second Weekly Challenge, 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 Michael.
It’s Fear Of Flying
Whew.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories in Weekly Challenge #82?
Paul
Linda
Tom from Footnote
Laieanna from Hodgepodge Point
Guy David from Guy David dot com
Daphne of Going Broke
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

Go ahead and listen to them by clicking on the grammophone thingy there in the left column and then vote for your favorites (multiple selections are allowed):

PAUL

Hello, my name’s Bob and I have a problem
[Hi Bob!]
I have this fear of flying.
[What the heck? What did he say? What’s the deal? ]
Which! … Which is why I drink.
[Oh! Okay! He’s one of us, after all. Okay Bob!]
I’m a Consultant. I live on the west coast and work on the East! I have to fly!
But I can’t fly without drinking! One after the other! Calling the attendant for more and more!
[Yep! Been there! Don’t have to fear flying for that! Hard to walk to baggage!]
Then I can’t sleep after drinking all that coke!
[Coke! He’s no Alcoholic! Throw out the Bum!]

LINDA

Frank was stuffed into the Toyota. At Seventy-five MPH it sound- ed
like a beehive. The toll traffic was unbearable. Work sucked.
Suddenly a seagull swooped down in front of his windshield.
Man, he was staying ahead of the car! The bird’s feet were just
touching the windshield!
Frank pulled himself up rooting! This was Frank’s whole problem! A
fear of flying, of braking away and striking out. He could do it!
Screw this commute, this job! You Go Bird!!
Boom! An explosion of feathers. Two stuck to Frank’s windshield. The
bird veered into a truck. 7:59. Late. Work sucked

TOM

He was shaking like a leaf. The stewardess noted the white knuckler in C35 motioned to the head fight attendant. Tom’s new job had him flying regulars to LA for 30 and 60 second spots. It wouldn’t have matter if he taken a train car or rickshaw the devastating motion sickness would have gotten him. It was the curse of his Kingdom and that first ancestor Herb. “Why had that fraking Gnome got himself fired?” he thought. Tom Tomato Plant lost it when the head steward offered him a Snap Toms. Lucky the stewardess had a vegetable barf bag ready.

LAIEANNA

Jimmy purchased a parachute and modified it with a smaller harness
attached to the front for his daughter. He then spent hours
practicing the whole scenario of picking her up, strapping her in,
jumping free of danger and debris, and pulling the cord.
On the big day, Jimmy strapped a helmet on both their heads and held
his daughter’s hand while waiting in line. He was terrified; she was
excited. When their turn came up to board, he made the sign of the
cross and hoisted his daughter into the Carnival’s Miniature airplane
kiddy ride and climbed in behind her.

GUY

The world of open source change is coming
Have no fear of flying
Fragments of human imagination
Caught in a twilight zone of virtual innovation
It’s the golden age of creation
Sweeping through the Second Life nation
Shaking furiously with anticipation
As I crush out of this world of expectation
There’s no denying there is some sort of a revolution here
But the wheels of steel are moving to slow for the kill
The age of open code and sharing is coming
There is no denying that
In a whirlpool of sweet creative melody
Comes the age of enhanced communication

DAPHNE

Standing at the edge of the nest, Stanley looked back at his mother.
She nudged him gently toward the sky. He opened his wings, felt the
wind rush past them, he looked to the horizon, he envisioned himself
soaring with the other eaglets, but he couldn’t move. He was an
eaglet with a fear of flying. He knew he had to conquer this fear or
become food for the beasts that dwell on the ground. So he unhooked
his talons and jumped from the nest…and then… nothing… Stanley woke up
and realized You can’t soar with the Eagles when you are a Turkey.

CALEB

when they came together, zippers fell away like rose petals, underwear
blew off in one sweet breath like dandelion fluff. Her mind was a whirl,
was this the mythical a plus zipless f**k or was it just the Maui Wowee
this guy had brought with him on the Braniff flight from Amsterdam.
Either way, her mother always told her to ‘eschew the ordinary’ and this
Randolph Mantooth look alike was anything but ordinary. She eschewed him
out the door before her husband got home, then Erica Jong fired up her
fancy new bong and began writing the fear of flying.

Z

Sometimes, you’re such a fuckup, you need divine intervention to keep you from being too much of a problem to others.
So many people out there in the world, stands to reason there’s a backlog of cases.
Standards for guardian angels have dropped significantly since Biblical times.
For instance, my guardian angel is afraid of flying.
“How can you be afraid of flying?” I ask her. “Don’t you have wings?”
“I don’t you sticking your tongue in light sockets,” she said. “You have a tongue, right?”
Okay, so maybe she said something other than “tongue” but you get the point.

Miss

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So many things to miss:
I want to see the sunshine.
I want to feel the rain on my face.
I want to feel the grass between my toes.
I want to feel the wind between my teeth… breathe in…. breathe out.
I want to climb a tree and hang from a limb, just swinging, rocking back and forth, at any moment my legs could slip, but I know I won’t fall.
I thought I wouldn’t fall.
But I did. And I broke my neck.
It’s been years, but every day, someone tells me I’ll move again.
I want to.

The Clown

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I was ten when I got sick.
Took a while for the doctors to figure out it was cancer.
Almost too long.
Every week, during the treatments, Jacob the Clown came by to do tricks. Silly things, cheering us up, made us forget for a while.
Walking to the bathroom, I saw him in the hall, wiping off his makeup.
I sat down, talked to him.
He told me about his daughter, wife, father…
Now he’s got cancer. But when he still can, he visits the kids ward.
Even in between treatments.
Some flowers for his grave?
Yeah, squirting flowers.

Election Day

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Some people want to vote early, but I like the thrill of Election Day itself.
One by one, we approach the booth, make our choices, and step out into the hall.
That’s where the clown smacks us in the face with a pie.
This year, it’s strawberry pies, but in the past it’s been cherry pies, apple pies, cream pies, and pumpkin pies.
I like pumpkin pie the best, so I always vote for pumpkin pie.
Sure, it’s messy, but it’s my favorite and it’s our civic duty to vote.
All those people, voting absentee, getting their pies delivered.
Pathetic!