If Sie were here, she would be commenting about the upcoming holiday, which is the greatest holiday of the year. Valentine's Day?
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| Sam Sykes has #WolWednesdays and they are most amusing. |
No, that's Single-Awareness Day. Presidents' day?
Nay, my friends, the greatest holiday of the year . . .
Cheap chocolate day! It's like Halloween, but for adults, and comes in pink. Anyways, that's your exciting holiday update. Now onto our competition!
And Obey
Judge This Week: Mars
Word count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). Only one entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT!
Results announced: Next Wednesday (late afternoon).
Remember: The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Photo prompts are added for inspiration only (and our amusement) and do not have to be included in your entry)
Word count: 300 max
How: Submit your stories as a comment to this post, along with your name, word count, and title (and Twitter handle or blog if you've got 'em!). Only one entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT!
Results announced: Next Wednesday (late afternoon).
Remember: The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Photo prompts are added for inspiration only (and our amusement) and do not have to be included in your entry)
Prompt
"Are you sure about that?"
Changing the World
ReplyDeleteMaggie Akhurst
@MaggieAkhurst
299 words
“Are you sure about that?” Tara asked, dubiously. She eyed the mechanism suspiciously. “You’re telling me that this machine will change the world. I find that hard to believe.”
Finks wiped the soot from his goggles and beamed at her. “Of course it will change the world!” he exclaimed. “This little beauty will let our ships fly!”
“Flying ships? Really?” She shook her head. “The Engineers gave up on that idea years ago. It’s impossible. You need to accept that we are stuck in this city. There is no way out, Finks. The volcanic gases would kill you, not to mention the ash.”
He bounced on the balls of his feet. “Tara, if we could get a ship to fly high enough, the gas wouldn’t be a problem. We could go out and explore, search for other surviving cities! We can’t be the only ones to have survived the Vulcan Fallout.”
Tara bit her lip. What he was saying was ridiculous and impossible, but she also wished it could be true.
“What if we could find a place that was unaffected by the fallout?” he whispered, eyes shining. “Imagine that, Tara! Imagine being able to see the sun again and feel the wind in your hair! There might even be grass!”
His enthusiasm was damnably infectious. She could feel a smile breaking out. With a sigh, she relented. “Okay, Finks. Have it your way. What do you need me to do?”
Flashing her a dazzling smile, he showed her an empty cavity in his machine. “I need you to steal a power source for me,” he said nonchalantly.
She growled at him. “Why can’t you ever ask me for help with something legitimate?”
“Because you’re so good at the illegitimate stuff.” He waved at her. “No time to waste!”
I enjoyed this! I liked the hints about the world and characters you drop as you go. I'd read more set in this world.
DeleteThanks Sara! :)
DeleteIn Need of a Doctor
ReplyDeleteBy Sara Codair
@shatteredsmooth
291 Words
“Are you sure about that?” asked Captain Jones. His brow was creased and he couldn’t take his beady eyes off of my cruiser.
I nodded. “As sure as a man can be, in this kind of situation.”
He let out a slow, whistling sigh and uncrossed his meaty arms. “We’ll have to continue this conversation inside.”
“Yes, Sir.”
With a shake of his head, he turned toward the station. I took one more look at the blue phone booth and the cruiser’s bisected front end before following.
Inside, the clock ticked while Jones listened to me repeat my story. The creases on his head deepened. When I finished my tale of how that damned telephone booth just appeared in the middle of the road while I was chasing a drunk, he shook his head. “Had you been drinking?”
“No.”
“Were on drugs?”
“No.”
“Taking any medications? Maybe pain killers for your back?”
“No. Not even aspirin.”
He sighed like a deflating zeppelin. “You know, he doesn’t exist.“
I opened my mouth to agree, but no words came out. There had been someone in that booth, but there had been so much chaos. All I saw was a blur. It could have been him.
“And phone booths just don’t appear,” continued Jones. “But the force of a car might be able to drag on into the street.”
I nodded. Jones was never going to believe me,
“You’re suspended until further notice. Dr. Martins will in touch.”
Jones’ eyes shifted to his email.
Dismissed, I got up and left. When I got outside, the phone booth was gone, and there was a man leaning against the hood of my car. He wore a long brown jacked and his face was cloaked in shadows.
Arg...of course I notice a typo's after I post.
DeleteIn the last line, "jacked" should be "jacket"
Hehe, sounds like Doctor Who! :D
DeleteYes, or some other being pretending to be him to it gets power from his fans. ;-)
DeleteMeals on Wheels
ReplyDelete286 words
@el_Stevie
#FlashDog
“Are you sure about that?” Aidan asked, turning off the main road onto what seemed no more than a rutted track.
“Positive,” said Cally, smiling. She had travelled this path too often to make a mistake, a family tradition that she continued. He was definitely heading in the right direction.
Aiden sighed as the car jolted along in the darkness, its headlights occasionally picking out the barrier of skeletal trees and hedges standing between them and the emptiness of the night-bound fields beyond. Above, the dense cloud that had followed them all day finally began to lift allowing the moon’s radiance to pierce the gloom.
“It’s been a month since I visited,” said Cally. “Mum gets anxious if I leave it longer. Thank you for bringing me.” She made sure he could see her smile, the promise in her eyes.
“It was either that or spend a weekend marking illegible Year 7 homework,” said Aiden. “No contest.”
They both laughed, both for different reasons.
“Here we are,” said Cally, pointing to a building whose bulk was gradually emerging from the pitch to greet them.
Aidan let out a low whistle. “This is your family home. Impressive.” He followed her inside.
She led him across the pelt-strewn floor, the inheritance of previous generations, to where her elderly parents were seated.
“Nice to meet you, young man,” said Cally’s father. “Always a pleasure to welcome new blood into the family … and just in time for dinner. Since meals on wheels stopped, Cally has had to provide for us. Such a dutiful daughter. Never fails, every month like clockwork.”
Cally looked out into the garden, felt the pull of the moon grow stronger.
“Time to eat,” she said.
Words:299
ReplyDelete@CarinMarais
www.maraiscarin.wordpress.com
Fly Me to the Moon
“Are you sure about that?” Renier asked.
“More sure than I have ever been about anything in my life,” Trevor answered and patted the side of the moon rocket.
“It looks a bit small,” Renier said, sipping his whiskey.
“It’s only for one person,” Trevor said. “It’s supposed to be small.”
“So… when are you leaving for the moon?”
“As soon as I’m finished.” Trevor smiled. “Then it’s goodbye earth, hello moon. A vacation like I’ve always dreamed of.”
Renier finished his whiskey and placed the glass on the workbench between screws, tools, and the detritus of Trevor’s invention.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Renier said and took his leave.
Trevor locked the door after he was gone and walked back to his invention, leaning heavily on his cane. Through the small window of the garage which had become the building platform for the one man moon rocket he could see the full moon in all its glory.
Even with all the space tourism these days he could still remember a time when it was all just dreams and speculation. And he’d promised himself that he would one day visit the moon. One day maybe even live there.
Then it turned out that the space tourism wasn’t only expensive, but also had a cut-off age. And he was too old.
Trevor looked at the rocket. Of course he knew it would never be able to fly, but you needed something to keep you busy during retirement.
He walked to one of the drawers and pulled out a small, hollow replica of the moon rocket. He needed to put it with his will before he forgot. He wiped a tear from his eye and shrugged his shoulders. At least he would have the moon as his final resting place.
Camouflage
ReplyDelete“Are you sure about that?” Though she was smiling, there was an air of aloofness swirling about her as she flung her supercilious scepticism at me. Her aroused brown eyebrows, trim and pointed, lifted skyward, as if she was finally seeing me in a clearer light. Given the irrefutability of what I had said, there was little doubt that it wasn’t so much what I was saying that concerned her but the way I had said it.
Still, how often I’d heard that query. What was it about me that prompted mistrust?
“As sure as any man can be,” I replied. It seemed wise to leave a back door escape chute open for my brittle manly logic.
In my youth, I’d been insufferable. Arrogant, haughty, I had laced every word out of my mouth with irritating dribbles of pomposity. I was a know-it-all.
But that callow youth was no longer me.
I had been fortunate to watch women all my life. More than watching, admiring, I had paid attention, contrary to the uninformed views of a few Doubting Thomasina’s who couldn’t see past my occasional lapses.
When Kate Hepburn said, “I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex,” it had all come together.
“And I’ll repeat it,” I said, confidently, raising my arms like a tent revival preacher, like an Elmer Gantry, straining against the prison of every tidbit of culturally infused puffery that coursed through my veins, “Shout it to the skies if I must. Yes! Yes! WOMEN ARE SUPERIOR.”
I was on a roll.
Years of containing my true belief, tolerating a world which constantly failed to acknowledge this fundamental fact, well, it all scooted out of me like a Facebook opinion.
“Okay,” she softly stroked my enlightened face, “I believe you.”
300 words of what passes for wisdom from this guy
@billmelaterplea
Mother's Voice
ReplyDelete@The_Red_Fleece
www.theredfleece.co.uk
Word Count = 262
“Are you sure about that?”
The little voice that echoes around my head, nibbling away at me over and over, minute after minute, what I do. Some days I'm gratefully for my own personal warning system. Other days I wish it would...well a word Mother doesn't like at all. Go away as she would say.
“Are you sure about that?”
The words are out before I even close the door. I add extra speed to drown it. The crash of wood into the frame doesn't make any difference, just a whimper that it speaks over.
“Are you sure about that?”
The only time the voice went silent was when my Counsellor asked what it sounded like. He had to wait a week for the answer, long enough for the voice to forget the question. When I told him my list of words like near, judgmental and female, he asked me what my mother sounded like. I told him the truth as mother taught me to. He nodded and wrote it down in his notebook. The wrong thing but he wrote it down.
“Are you sure about that?”
“Yes” I shout. I don't normally shout, Mother doesn't like it. I don't normally reply at all but today is different. I have something much bigger under my magnifying glass than my usual spider. Even bigger than my hamster and my cat. I open the door again to check he is still there, my Counsellor bound and gagged. He said horrible things about my mother.
“Are you sure about that?”
Yes, yes I am.