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!). One entry per person.
Deadline: Midnight tonight, PDT!
Results announced: Next Thursday afternoon.
Remember: Your entry must begin with the prompt! The prompt can be mutilated, but not beyond recognition. (Pictures do not need to be incorporated into your stories, they're for inspiration (and sometimes our amusement)).
Prompt
"You'd think I'd notice if my best friend were a robot."
Tickled Slink
ReplyDelete300 words
kellygriffiths.wordpress
@GriffithsKL
"You think I'd notice if my best friend were a robot," Jude said as he spun me and gathered my hair in his fist, exposing my neck. "No 'on' button there," he whispered huskily, "How do I turn you on, Kate? I'm so very hungry..."
I stared flatly into the eyes of my arch-enemy, barely holding the stoic mask. Suddenly he jerked my arm straight up. "...Here?" He asked, tickling me with artful precision until I squirmed and shrieked, breathless at the silken touch.
"Let me go!" I screamed with zero conviction. Jude cinched me to him, and with one thickly cabled arm pinned my writhing form to his.
"Found the 'on' button, Kate. Any chance I can program you to do my bidding?" Jude swept his arm around the disheveled area like he was Vanna White displaying my prizes, as opposed to the gross accoutrements strewn around the tiled room, evidence of just how much he needed me to "do his bidding." My jaw dropped open as I understood what it was he wanted me to do. He couldn't possibly think I'd lower myself to this paltry undertaking, overcome my ascetic nature and touch those things, did he-- because he was charming me inside out? Jude, the enemy of my better sense, the man who crushed all sound thinking with a flash of his disarming smile. Jude had only to ask, and I'd fold into his will. But this was too much.
My disgust must have shown on my face, for he began his assault afresh, sending me into spasms and giggles. "A friend would do it..." he pressed.
Where we were joined his body seared me, melting my willpower, overpowering my nerve.
"Never!" I laughed, and he knew he had me.
"Come on, Kate. Make me an omelet."
The Hitchhiker Who Never Left
ReplyDeleteYou'd think I'd notice if my best friend were a robot.
We have travelled together for a lot of years. A lot of water has flowed under a battalion of bridges that we’ve crossed.
I remember the day we met. September 6, 1953. Hec Logan had paid me off and closed down the Camp. “Too hot to log, Gil. This heatwave is a bitch.”
Hec’d already let go of his main workforce but kept me on to caretake River Edge Camp thinking the heatwave would pass and we could kick into gear by September.
I had my old Chevy Station Wagon, a Woody, sweet but suffering from prolonged lack of care. I bumped my way out the old logging road and hit the highway at noon. There he was, by the side of the road, thumbing a ride, dressed up in a striped seersucker suit and sporting a red bowtie. He was a sight to behold but I’d been bushed so it didn’t strike me as all that strange.
I pulled up to him, rolled the passenger window down and said, “I’m for the bright city lights, fella. If you want a ride, you’re welcome to hop in.”
He flashed me a humongous grin and said, “It is hot. A ride in your vehicle would serve me well.”
Politest hitchhiker I ever met. Odd way of speaking though, but, to tell you the truth, I didn’t give it another thought. He got in and we toddled down the highway.
From then on, we were as thick as thieves. Gorp…I know…a clue, right? Well, Gorp seemed content to be my number one buddy. Two peas in a pod. Over time, he even started to look like me.
Or was it other way around?
Gorp was an easy being to have around.
300 reasons to be suspicious
@billmelaterplea
www.engleson.ca
Clearly the second to last line is missing a "the" which pushed the piece over the 300 word threshold. To compensate, I would sacrifice the first me (my better half) in the fifth to last paragraph.
DeleteWord count:298
ReplyDeleteEulogy
You’d think I’d notice if my best friend were a robot. But no. I, like every single one of you sitting here today was too self-absorbed in my own life. I was too busy running after three crazy children, looking after a house upside down, cluttered from the messiness of everyday life, to notice that she was trying to keep hers glued together perfectly. I remember feeling hate and envy towards her, wanting her perfectly sculpted life rather than the unsatisfying glob of a mishmash I had built for myself. On a good day I would wear pants to drop the kids off at school. She would be perfectly made up and dressed to the nines. On a good day I would walk across the living room floor without tripping. She would go to the gym daily. On a good day I would throw hot dogs in a pot to boil. She would plan every meal in advance for a week. She did it all. Tending to her husband’s needs, making sure her children were brought up properly, sharing with those less fortunate. She did it all. Parents evenings, school bake sales, work functions. She did it all. And not once did she complain or ask for help.
Did you think you didn’t count? Did you believe that by being perfect we would love you more? Did you want us to try harder in our own lives?
My best friend does not lie here dead today. A robotic product of her own making, who invaded her sense of self-worth, does. A robot who tried to do everything and tried to be everything to everyone around her does. I will never again complain about my cluttered, muddle of a life. At least it reminds me that I’m still alive.
Gotcha!
ReplyDeleteWord Count: 292
@whithernow
Marj Crockett
"You'd think I'd notice if my best friend were a robot."
Jan smiled at the policeman who had pulled her over. He did not smile back at her.
“Ma’am, you know the rules. Anyone who looks like they’re Enhanced needs checked out. And your passenger sure looks like one of them to me. Please step out of the car... Both of you.”
Slowly, Jan undid her seatbelt. She knew that the slightest misstep could make the policeman angry and dangerous. I undid my seatbelt too. I didn’t want to jeopardise or compromise her in any way.
“Place your hands on the car please. Both of you.”
We did what he asked. Truth was, in the pouring rain, we all wanted to get this over and done with and be on our way.
The policeman pushed my legs apart a bit further as I leaned on the car.
“Papers?” he asked, frisking me from head to toe.
I passed him my driver’s license. He glanced at it, then at me, then back at the photo. The flashlight illuminated my face, making me blink. His eyebrows rose.
“Oh sorry Congressman. I didn’t see your face,” he stammered, “I’m just…”
I stopped him from making himself more of a fool than he already had.
“Officer, you’re just doing your duty. I am pleased that you are upholding the laws about Enhanceds so competently. I commend you on your diligence”
He coughed and handed the license back to me, obviously wishing he was elsewhere
“That’s all. Sorry to have bothered you. Have a good evening.”
That was it. The police car left, red lights fading in the distance.
Jan and I waited until he had gone, then slipped off our masks.
“Well that worked!” she/it said.