Cinder block

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As I hug this cinder block, I ponder our long relationship together.
We’ve been through a lot.
I made a bookshelf out of cinder blocks and slats in college.
The only thing that kept me from being blown away by the hurricane last year was hugging this cinder block.
I take it with me everywhere now as a good luck charm: the movies, the bank, grocery shopping.
I guess bringing it skydiving was a bad idea. I’ll just let it go and meet it on the ground when I land.
That playground down there doesn’t look too full, does it?

America

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Here lies America, and all of America’s lies.
All the lies we told the world and all the lies we told ourselves.
In the home of the brave, we move the fences in and jog the bases to thunderous applause.
In the land of the free, we doubled the price so we could buy one and get one free.
A thumb in every balance pan, a fox in every henhouse.
Eat chicken for dinner too many times and you will discover there are no eggs for breakfast.
Don’t scream at the fox to lay eggs. He has eaten and left.

Miss November

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In the old days, you ran out of film.
Now, with these digital cameras, your battery is always dying.
Miss November passes out, her nose bleeding from snorting enough lines of cocaine to line Ebbets Field.
They got enough pictures to last her shelf life, every angle, every expression.
Everything uploaded, scanned, rendered, and ready with a single click of the mouse.
Backdrops and shadows are her passport, just lay her over, matte, and print.
“What were her dislikes?” asks the publisher, lighting his pipe.
The coroner suggests hard linoleum, shaking his head at the corpse on the bathroom floor.

The Wacky Adventures of Abraham Lincoln #90

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Cows, everywhere cows!
Lincoln couldn’t believe the sheer number of cows roaming through the streets of Washington.
Going forth like swarms of Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and other green thing.
“Where did all these cows come from?” he asked, but nobody had an answer.
As always, Abe came up with a solution. He commanded the city to hold a carnival and a massive barbecue.
Under his direction, the cows were caught, slaughtered, butchered into steaks, and cooked in the remnants of the public parks.
A good time was had by all.
Except for the cows, of course.

Weekly Challenge #132 – Clowns vs. Ninja

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Welcome to the Weekly Challenge Number One Hundred And Thirty-Twowhere 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 Clowns vs. Ninja.
The excellent theme music is by Guy David
VOTING

Which were the best stories of Weekly Challenge #132?
Almo Schumann
Laieanna from http://hodgepodgepoint.libsyn.com/
Jeff from http://GreatHites.blogspot.com
Ashley
Justin from http://www.thebeandom.com/spaceturtle
Tom from http://midi.libdyn.com
Steven from http://ideatrash.blogspot.com
Philip
Anima from http://zabbadabba,com
Planet Xray from http://planetxpodcast.com
Terry Tee from http://www.terrytee.com/
Guy David from http://guydavid.com
Planet Z
  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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


ALMO

The couple sat on opposite sides of mahogany table. She with her lawyer, he with his.
She glared at him. He studied his nails.
He thought, “I should have known this marriage would never work. We were always so different. But there was a burning passion there.”
He sighed.
She sat perfectly still. She looked good in black although you could only see her eyes. They made her leave her sword at the court entrance.
He felt suddenly sad and blew his bulbous red nose, dabbed at his painted-on tear.
“Divorce proceedings can begin,” said the judge. “Clown vs. Ninja.”

LAIEANNA

Korzo the psychotic clown barreled into the fight between clowns and ninjas.
His rage rang out in a deep yell and constant squeaking of his bicycle horn.
Hariku the feather ninja, so light on his feet no one believed he truly
touched the ground, somersaulted before the clown, his sword drawn, edge
out. Korzo stopped just five feet short of bursting through the ninjas gut.
The front of his near empty shoes still jiggled from the speed of his
run. Hariku
bowed, eyes remaining on the clown, and whispered, “Prepare to Fight.”
This is awful. I’m going back nanowrimo. Bye!

JEFF

“Are you the clown or the Ninja?” The director said looking at his clip board.
“You can’t tell man?” I answered.
“Well, you have the black on so I could assume you are the ninja, but what is with the big floppy shoes?” He stifled a yawn.
“Come on man, I am a ninja clown.” I couched in my most menacing ninja stance, then worked the squirt flower.
“A what?”
“A ninja-clown, maybe I should go with clown-ninja, I don’t know what do you think?” I asked.
“Personally I think you need to find a new line of work. Next!”

ASHLEY

To one side he stands slightly hunched and a spectacle for all to see. He wears his bulbous shoes, puffy stripped gloves and a perfectly round bright red nose with pride. In his hands, he wields a seltzer bottle cocked and ready.
Opposite from him she stands, resplendent in her matte black attire. Weapons bristling from every unseen pouch and strapped gaudily across her back. Proudly wearing the black mask of the assassin she stands erect, proud and full of potential lethality.
Soon the war will begin in earnest.
Afterwards, the only winner will be the divorce court lawyer avatars.

JUSTIN

“OK kids, who wants a balloon hat!”
“This clown is lame and scary!”
“How about you Timmy, it is your birthday after all!”
The clown twisted together some balloons. Little did the children know that the balloons would be twisted into an evil shape that would eat the mind of Timmy, feeding the clown.
The clown raised the diabolical balloon hat to Timmy’s head. Two bright glints of metal flew through the air, slicing through the balloons, popping them, then burying into the clowns chest.
The clown toppled over, dead.
The children cheered.
“This is the best party ever, Timmy!”

TOM

The Clown acknowledged the ninja’s indiscretion and so Pie Kata was chosen as the means to maintain honor. Through analysis of thousands of recorded piefights, the Clowns have determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any pie battle is a statistically-predictable element. The pie Kata treats the pie as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically-traditional trajectories of return pies. In 20 seconds a 12in pie tin was complete drive down the ninja’s throat. Clown vs Ninja. Ha!

STEVEN

The antiseptic hospital stink makes it through the red rubber nose.
He shuffles faster, seeing her outside his son’s room. His ex-wife’s
distinctive braid swings over a black clad shoulder, a katana across
her back.
He yells over the flapping of his oversize shoes. “A ninja? In a hospital?”
“He likes ninjas!”
“That was a year ago! Clowns make everyone happy!”
He realized that wasn’t true as she hit him.
Later, the police handcuffed them outside the room. Bobby beamed out,
cancer forgotten at the spectacle of clowns fighting ninjas.
His real smile was far bigger than the painted one.

PHILIP

Black. The assassin struck in the darkest hour of the night.
Red. The mark lay in a pool of his own blood.
Black. His clothes, to match the night, shrouded the assassin’s entire body in black, except for his eyes.
Red. His hair, soaked in the blood where it pooled around his head, blood red.
Black. Yellow lights reflected in the assassins black eyes.
Red. Shiny, patent leather boots, not black, but red, below red and white striped stockings, on the lifeless feet.
Black. The black blade, invisible in the night, took down the mark. Ronald didn’t stand a chance.

ANIMA

The Clown: A fuschia ’72 Volkswagen, fueled on 95% personality, 5% luck. Push starts were the norm, and there was always room in the back for more kids and dogs. The Clown had the last laugh, leaving me stranded in Atlanta.
The Ninja: A 280Z in stealth black, with red interior. I was fast, but the Ninja was faster. We would race serpentine mountain roads. It took them 4 hours to free me, the night she tried out Kung Fu moves on the switchbacks.
And now I have Mom. My handicap converted Caravan chaperone… At least I still drive, right?

PLANET XRAY

The promoters were calling it Clown versus Ninja, the match that would set the standard of wrestling for years.
The Clown, Leonard Crapalotski, had just finished an unsuccessful low budget movie and was in the need of a job. Standing at 6′ 3″, and only weighing 125 pounds dripping wet, Leonard was the perfect Clown.
The Ninja, Lo Hung Wang, had just arrived in the country to continue his occupation of loan enforcement. Weighing 200 pounds with quick reflexes, Mr. Wang was the perfect Ninja.
Now, what the promoters really needed was writers and a great script for the match.

TERRY TEE

Only a few days left until the elections, and in the last couple of weeks my home phone has been ringing off the hook with messages from both parties.
They ask questions like; what is more important to you? Health Care? The Economy?
What they really should be asking is, do you think that people are dumb enough to believe the crap that each of the parties is saying about the other?
When it comes down to it, they are politicians after all, and for my money, it’s the Clown versus Ninja, what I ask is which one is which?

GUY DAVID

The plane was crowded with people in Halloween costumes. Chaketo Chirapa stayed hidden under his cloaking device and watched in horror as a man dressed in a clown costume assaulted a woman dressed up as a ninja. He couldn’t hear what they where arguing about from his hiding place, but when the man pulled out a gun he was sure he wouldn’t make it back. Thankfully, the clown was nailed down and arrested by a mean looking stewardess before the actual takeoff. As the plane took off, Chaketo Chirapa wondered what his Chirapa where doing back at their underground alcove.

PLANET Z

They were identical only in appearance. The twins were like night and day for everything else.
Especially when it came to birthdays.
Billy wanted a clown, but Bobby wanted a ninja.
“What that?” their mother asked.
“He’s quiet and deadly and all dressed in black,” said Bobby.
“We’ll have to ask your father,” said mom.
Bobby’s heart sank as he watched the clown make balloon animals for Billy.
All the kids were laughing and cheering.
Until… a flash of steel from the shadows.
The clown’s head fell from his shoulders.
“Happy birthday,” whispered a fluttering blur, and it was gone.

Devil’s Night

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They call this night the Devil’s Night because kids set fires to usher in Halloween.
One year, they got what they wanted, and The Devil showed up to survey the damage.
“You call this devastation?” He howled. “I’ve seen entire empires laid waste, nothing but ashes from ocean to ocean!”
He spat at on the sidewalk and laughed.
The kids burned more houses, but it wasn’t enough for The Devil.
Cops arrived and arrested the kids.
Instead of becoming Satanists, jail house imams converted them to Islam.
For them, any size fire was fine.
Especially when it involved killing Jews.

Pumpkin Screams

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This genetic engineering shit gives me a case of the heebie jeebies.
These newfangled pumpkins scream and ooze blood when you carve them.
When it got to Thanksgiving turkeys that gobble to the tune of “over the river and through the woods” even after you cut their heads off, I got worried.
How did it start? Let me think… It started with a simple splice of DNA to produce Yule logs that burn with natural cinnamon spice scent.
All downhill from there, rabbits laying eggs and crazy shit like that.
Oh. Great. Here comes Santa Clone.
Earlier every damn year.

All Locked Up

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I forget when I lock things, so I made a key chain with little plastic reminders when a door is locked or appliance is on.
Instead of worrying, I now just look at my reminders on my key chain.
I was in a rush this morning and forgot to set the reminders… Or did I?
Or did I forget to reset the reminders from when I last unlocked those things, and then forgetting to lock them again, so…
I throw away the key chain, lock the locks, sit in my chair, and hum happily in the darkness.
All locked up.

The Battery

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The monks bring out the iron chest and assemble the relics upon the altar.
Tears from a thousand saints poured into the Holy Grail, iron from the gates of Heaven and Hell wired with a slender silver thread that was hammered from Judas’ coins.
They connect the wires around my horns.
“Do you see The Light?” asks the abbot.
I wait. There is a buzzing in my ears, but no light.
“I am deeply sorry, Lucifer. Redemption is beyond your grasp.”
I crawl back to The Pit to continue my plans.
“A Hallmark card, perhaps?” says a demon.
Infernal fools.

Bacon

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The Law of Bacon is an axiom of our existence.
Creation’s purpose is two-fold: to evolve a form of life to generate a source of bacon and a form of life to consume bacon.
This is the Meaning Of Life. One without the other shatters the fabric of reality.
The wine and wafers are gone, replaced with strips of bacon.
The pews are filled with the faithful, led by the aroma and sound of sizzling in the skillet.
Today, we burn a heretic at the stake, a nonbeliever in our midst, the grease of turkey bacon still on her lips.