Tag: fiction

Bang, Extract, Braid

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Lemuel saw a crowd gathering in a field just a few yards from the dirt path he’d been following. They seemed to grow in numbers, coming from all directions. He stood on his tip toes but couldn’t see past the backs of people huddling. Slowly he made his way over, moving his head side to side as if a slit or crack would appear.

Reaching the crowd, he made his way through a few people to the front. There Lemuel saw two men facing each other. By each of their sides, a woman was crying. He watched as one of the women took out a knife and cut off her long braid, stuffing it into the pocket of the man on the right. The other woman hugged the man on the left.

Each of the men was holding some sort of object made of metal and wood. They pushed a rod into the holes in the metal and tapped it down a few times. A man from the crowd, holding something in his hand that was connected to a chain that ran to one of his pant pockets.

The man raised his hand and the women dispersed back into the crowd, being held by other people. The two men stood back to back, pressing their heels into the heels of the other. They stood this way, all three of them, for what felt like minutes but really only a few seconds had passed.

The man dropped his hand and made a strange sound from his mouth. The two men began taking long, slow steps in opposite directions, putting both feet together after each step. They did this for 20 steps and then stopped. The man with the chain waved his hands to the crowd on either side of the men. The crowd moved to the side so there was no one facing the men in either direction.

Then the man put the object in his pocket, the chain still dangling. He moved back into the crowd opposite Lemuel. The two men had their objects of metal and wood tucked into straps at their sides, their hands hovering over them. One of the men waved his fingers slowly.

There was silence. Lemuel was fixated. His feet felt rooted to the ground. Then he heard a noise from behind him say something, it sounded like “hey, get that kid out of here.” But Lemuel had no clue what they meant or that they were talking to him. He realized quickly, that everyone, including the man with the chain was staring at him. Someone grabbed his shoulder, but he didn’t budge, he wouldn’t move. He wanted to see what was happening.

Then someone grabbed him around the waist and picked him up. They carried him back through the crowd and halfway up to the path. The man who set him down made more noises and thrusted a pointing finger toward the direction of the path. Lemuel stood still, facing the crowd. The man spun him around and gave him a shove toward the path. Now he got the message.

He reached the path and kicked at the dirt, sending up a dust cloud. He started walking in the direction he had originally been heading.

BANG! Lemuel whipped his head around. A scream and a wail went up from the crowd. Then some noise from someone that sounded like “no, no, no, no, god, no.” He tried to find a crack in the crowd so he could see but the crowd had moved even closer to the men.

Lemuel stood on the path and closed his eyes, wrapping crossing his arms and holding each cheek with the opposite hand, the iterations of the Lemonmouth. Something didn’t feel right and so he looked inside for answers.

Die, Mug, Silence

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

The waitress eyed his mug like a Black Friday shopper eyeing the father who just grabbed the last Tickle-Me-Elmo. His knuckles white from keeping a tight grip through the handle around the sphere of the terracotta cup. His eyes glancing at the waitress and back at the coffee, half full and still steaming in his hand. The waitresses grip on the coffee pot equally as tight, a white band appearing where her choke hold on the handle, pressed against her wedding band and drained the blood around that finger.

He watched as she delivered a plate of egg whites to an older man two tables away. Then she walked over to his table.

“How is everything?” her question a distraction to her real intention. A rope-a-dope as her coffee pot hand darted forward across the table toward his mug.

“Everything is great, thank you.” He said, taking a sip from his coffee and bringing closer to his being, away from the hovering mother ship of coffee.

“Great, I’ll be back to check on you.” She wavered eyeing the mug, her hand beginning to shake from the extension of the nearly full pot in her hand. The moment passed and she retreated, moving on to the next table, where their mugs were exposed, and she filled to the brim each one with steaming coffee.

His mind was quiet. Eating alone, he’d become accustomed to the silence in his immediate vicinity. The conversations and cacophony of forks, knives and cups clattering spilled over into his space, but that was to be expected.

The waitress stopped at the coffee maker and began reloading her pot. She glanced back at his table; the mug still locked in his hand. She nearly spilled the coffee but there was more than enough in the chamber to cock back and fire more coffee into his cup, no matter how full it may have been.

She walked straight back to his table. “Refill?” The pot hovering inches from his mug-holding hand.

“No thank you,” he replied.

“Are you sure?” She insisted, pushing the pot closer to him until they nearly made a toast.

“Yes, I’m quite satisfied with the amount I have, one cup is enough.”

“Well, refills are free, sir, don’t be shy.” She was on the attack. He still stayed on the polite defense.

“That’s a great policy but I think I’ll have had my fill with just this one cup, thank you.”

“Okay, I’ll be back to make sure.” She fired back. This shot wiped out his front line and civility became the casualty.

“Ma’am, no need to come back. I only want one cup of coffee.” The smile on his face turned a few degrees to a thin line.

“Okay, we’ll I’ll be back in a few minutes to make sure. People change their minds.” She threatened to leave but her smile faded, and she stayed, her arm shaking from holding the full pot out in front of her.

“Do not come back. I have finished my meal and once I finish this very cup of coffee, this single cup of coffee, I will pay my bill and leave. Should you continue insisting, I will be forced to leave only a 10% gratuity.”

“Sir, are you not happy with our service?” Her brow furrowed and the line became a frown. His brow furrowed and the thin line became a frown.

“Your service is excellent, perhaps a bit too much. It could be said that there is too much service. And if there should be too much of something, it is still inadequate.”

“I will refill that mug.” She pushed the pot against his mug, threatening to tilt its spout into his mug.

“You will not.” He pulled the mug away.

“I will provide this service as per our policy.”

“Policy be damned, I would rather die than accept your refill.”

Sleep, Store, Offense

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Lemuel rested his eyes, just for a moment. The last few days had forced him to be alert, but the moment he let down his guard, he was out. His eyes fluttered rapidly behind his eyelids as his mind processed all its eyes had taken in.

Lemuel watched skeletons running around on a beach with black pebbles. Their bones clacking on the rock as they swiveled their heads around, which, their heads were cameras. Cameras with long lenses that whirred when they zoomed and had cables attached that ran all the way to somewhere Lemuel couldn’t see. The camera head skeletons crowded around Lemuel, pointing their lenses at his lemon stuffed mouth.

The setting and characters shifted. The clacking bones and whirring lenses morphed into the strange noises coming from all the people in the marketplace. All the strange noises from the other creatures in cages also stirred into the blurry soup being made in Lemuel’s mind. He stood in front of a long table, octopi crawling all over each other and up the pillars holding up the tent. A man came out making guttural noises from his mouth and maybe even nose before taking out a giant clever and hacking at the squirming maw of tentacles and beaks on the table. Heads, beaks and tentacles still suctioning flew everywhere.

One landed on Lemuel’s face and he tore it off with a hiss and pop. Lemuel stared horrified at the massacre of the sacred creatures he was taught to hold in reverence. The providers of the ink that allowed the lemonmouth to speak, to stand out amongst themselves and the rest of the world. The ink that allowed them to tell their stories, both ancient and new.

Lemuel began to cry, his tears hot and angry. He began to shake violently. His arms and legs stretching and growing wider all at once. Tiny suction cups dotted his growing arms and he grabbed at anyone with his new tentacles, anyone in the marketplace, but their quick pace and constant noise prevented them from noticing anything was going on. Every person Lemuel grabbed continued making their noises and looking around as if they had forgotten something.

Then Lemuel woke up. Someone was shaking him. He looked up into the eyes of a woman, she smiled but there was no lemon in her mouth and also not a single tooth. She spread her arms wide in the greeting he understood. On her bare chest, between a shirt, he could see the lines of the lemonmouth, from a different ship most likely, and quite old judging by its faded color.

The lines on her chest told a story of motherhood, of disgrace, of shame. There was also a new line, one Lemuel hadn’t initially noticed. It was a skeleton hand, it’s pointer finger and pinky sticking straight up while the thumb and other two fingers were pressed into the palm, almost like a head with horns. Lemuel didn’t recognize that symbol, but in looking up at her face and keeping the new lines in his mind, he noticed a strength.

She motioned for him to follow and he did, this being the only other lemonmouth, or closest thing to one, he had found in a few days.

Canvas, Excavate, Term

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Stretched out before him was a blank canvas. Lemuel dipped his fishbone quill, into the inkwell fashioned to look like an octopus fanning out its legs, its bulbous head removed and shaped into a bowl. He hovered the pen over the paper, thinking hard of what he should daub. Looking over at the rest of his shiplings who were already daubing the familiar shapes of fish, boats, mermaids and lemons. He looked back down at his canvas and found that ink had dropped in a small crown on the page.

The instructor came by and shook her head. “Lemuel, you must look around you and put down to the canvas what you see. Remember, we are what we see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Don’t think so hard, it needn’t come from within you.”

Half paying attention, Lemuel dipped the quill again, this time down to the fingertips holding onto the bone. More drips appeared all over the canvas. He whipped his hand away, sending a line of paint streaking down one side of the canvas. The sight of it excited him. The line curved upwards to a point, reminding him of the crest of a wave. He looked over at the instructor, smiling and nodding at the illustration of fish and boats.

Lemuel dipped his pen again, this time intentionally getting his fingers and half the pen dripping in ink. He whipped his hand in the opposite direction, sending lines and splatters down the right side of the canvas. Something inside him was waking up, something that had been buried deep below everything he was told but something that he felt was right and true to the patterns of ink appearing before him.

Again, he dipped the ink and again he whipped his hand over the canvas until before him was the rough shape of a choppy sea. The dots, he thought reminded him of the spray that splashed off the crest of two waves coming together or from the bow of a ship crashing through the water.

He hadn’t noticed that his fellow shiplings had ceased their daubing and began huddling around him, watching him furiously swish and splash paint onto the canvas. Lemuel felt as if he were the very creator, whipping up the ocean and providing it with movement, light and life. These lines did not resemble anything created by daubers before him, but he wasn’t thinking of that. Right now, he was only following something inside him that told him this was right and true.

“Lemuel!” shouted the instructor. “What are you doing?”

Lemuel was shaken out of his daze. He looked up to see all of his peers staring. Some snickered, some looked horrified and the instructor stomped over yanking the canvas from table.

“These are not the lines of a lemonmouth. This is blasphemy. Perhaps you do not know what you have done but in creating such chaos you have also created an imbalance in the sea. This does not bode well. I will show your grandfather.”

The instructor rolled up the canvas, smearing the wet paint and ruining what Lemuel had thought was something he had never seen before. His excitement turned to disappointment and quickly into fear. His hand was covered in ink and his pantaloons had black splatters. Then he looked at the table, it was covered in wild lines turbulent drops, resembling the waves he was creating on his canvas.

Lemuel couldn’t quite put into words what he had felt while painting but he knew that he needed to feel it again.

Reservoir, Material, Crack

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was the last of the water supply. A large artificial lake and there was a crack. The only materials left to patch it would contaminate the water.

But one dude was like, I can fix it. And then he shot himself in the head, just above the crack. His plan, I can only guess, was to use his body to stop the leak. The problem, in the long term, was that his body would eventually begin to rot and therefore contaminate the water supply anyway. The problem, in the short term, was that he hadn’t accounted for the steep curve of the wall. So his body rag-dolled down the slope, not even close to the crack. Ironically, he had landed where the water was pooling so that nobody else could at least enjoy the runoff.

Then some other chick said she could fix it. She cut off her hair until it was just above her ears. she wadded up the mess of hair and began stuffing it into the crack. Not a bad idea, except that she had to cut her locks into smaller pieces to be able to fit. So people were constantly sticking out their tongues and grabbing small hairs for weeks after. Eventually the hairs either rolled outside of the reservoir or drifted into the water supply.

Then some priest was like, I’ll pray about it. For all we know he’s still doing that.

Then some politician was like, I’ll fix the crack. What I’ll do is collect a small percentage of all your money and with that I will be able to find the appropriate solution. The money was raised quickly, the first time. He took it and then declared, well first, we must have a building dedicated to researching a solution for the crack. So the money went into the building.

Then again, the same politician told the people that for a small percentage of money he would expand on the research. He could update the facilities, which he also called home on the top floor. This update would allow them to hire the best scientists and equipment which would this time guarantee a solution for the crack.

More money was raised, this time a bit less. but the raising of money continued and more buildings were erected.

Now a female priest came along and said that the prayers of the other priest were incorrect. So she went on the opposite side of the reservoir and began her version of prayer, which to the rest of us looked very similar to the first guys. Anyway, she’s still there and water is still leaking from the crack.

The rest of us figured we’d just go for a swim while there was still enough water to do so. While down there, one of us got too close to the crack and the small part of their back received a small hickey from temporarily getting stuck in the crack.

One of the kids smiled wide and grabbed an old sheep bladder. He swam down to the crack and place the bladder just in front of the crack, watching as it seemed to grab onto the wall. From the other side arose a cheer, the leak had stopped.

At this the priests, both of them, leaped into the air and said, I told you my god would deliver. At the same moment, the politician appeared in his window and said, I told you the schools and research buildings I built would solve the problem.

We told them to fuck off.

Guitar, Waiter, Poetry

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was Flamenco night. Some black haired, olive oil skinned man was grating his finger tips on the guitar. A woman whipped her skirt around her legs with one hand while clacking castanets in the other. A spot light illuminated the two on stage, the only other light coming from the candles at each table.

“More sangria, sir?” the waiter hovered his pitcher over my glass. I nodded. He poured. I chugged.

I chewed on a bit of apple that made its way through my teeth and watched the Spaniards sweat on stage. The woman began to sing. A haunting wail that sounded like the agony of regrets. She twirled and sang words that sounded like the poetry of the dead or the drunk.

It was my fourth Sangria. My eyes began to water and tear splashed on the table. Maybe it was the music or maybe it’s because mixed drinks are hard to judge.

I looked around the room. A woman with white hair and spectacles clapped her hands. A man with a bald spot threw his shoulders back and forth to the rhythm. A young couple was making out in the corner. The waiters danced with their trays between our tables.

I looked at the empty seat across from me but didn’t feel regret. I couldn’t place the feeling.

I flagged down the waiter for another Sangria and sat, trying to figure it out. All this raw emotion and rush of feelings but I was alone. In younger days it was easier to identify my feelings. This is happiness. This is regret. This is anger. As I grew older, the feelings tied themselves to memories and experiences, making it harder to untangle one emotion from another.

And so this is it. A moment. The moment. It leads into the next and swallows whole each moment until you find yourself alone. It wasn’t pity I felt for myself, just a reminder that when life is around you, it must be grabbed, touched, caressed, held, laughed at, cried with, struggled with…

To feel it all, all at once and acknowledge that I was feeling. That’s all that was necessary.

The waiter filled my glass. I took a sip before setting it down to enjoy the rest of the show.

Field, Carrot, Clock

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Immediately, he thought about Alice in Wonderland. The white rabbit frantically leaping into the air at every glance at his oversized pocket watch.

He snapped off the end of his carrot and kept thinking. More than a cup of coffee, chewing woke him up in the mornings. This morning, however, his mind seemed to be stuck in that fog between dreams and the reality of the world that his eyes took in.

He stared at the clock, hoping against hope that a story would come to him. Something resembling a beginning middle or end, but no matter how much he chewed or looked around the room, he stayed in his daze. A story was unable to develop, he was only able to fish out words, sentences but nothing that connected into an overarching narrative.

SNAP! He was getting closer to the end of his carrot but still no more alert than when his alarm had gone off. This morning, writing felt like dipping an oversized spoon into a bowl of alphabet soup. He was unable to be as precise as he’d liked and so meandered along, tapping away at the keys like a jazz pianist.

Tossing the end of his root vegetable in the trash, he turned to look out the window. His eyes finally registered something that pulled him into the land of the awake. A figure maybe 200 yards away, stood in the empty field near his house. As soon as he looked, the figure begin walking towards him. He turned back to his keyboard and typed:

A figure protruded from the weeds in the empty lot.

It was a good start, and further than he had written that morning. He looked back outside. The figure was still walking towards his window. A small mouse, crawled up his leg and bit his left calve.

Flinching from the pain, he reached down and touched the area. The mouse chomped down on his finger and hung, dangling with each of his movements.

Looking out the window, he could see the figure, now across the street, biting the air, holding out his hands to secure an invisible cob. The mouse crawled up his arm and reached his shoulder, biting down on the skin inside the clavicle. Right up against the outside of his window, the figure was smiling and licking at the invisible cob, furiously whipping his tongue side to side and shaking his head along it’s length.

He jumped up from his desk, flung the mouse from his hand and crawled back into his bed. Maybe sleep was better.

My last confession

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
1,407 words

I must be falling. My suit jacket is bunched up under my arms and flapping around my head. A strip of polka dots slaps around my face. My calves and white cotton socks exposed. Shoe laces whip my shins. The wind changes pitch as it passes through the circle I’ve formed with my lips.

Forgive me father for I have sinned; it is…

     The air is getting colder. I look down and see flecks of shine coming and going on a canvas of blue. The ocean coming up to greet me. I make out, almost directly below me, the Golden Gate bridge.

I pray I hit it so the story ends.

The bridge whistles past and out of instinct I point my toes to the water and press my arms to my sides. The air rushes into my lungs just before water rushes in my nose and past my ears. My eyes are shut but less and less light makes it through my eyelids. I put my arms out to slow the dive.

     I open my eyes. All around are people. Some swim gracefully above, others motionless and fall past me. I see a man in shorts and a polo pushing past a motionless woman in pearls and an apron. Her hair wrapped around her face, pointing her way to the surface. People were everywhere, submerged, floating and swimming, looking around confused.

I look down. A mass of behemoth black shadows swirls below me. I look up. Pants, belts, socks, skirts, blouses, bras, thongs, ties, jackets, shoes falling toward me. People kicking and thrashing toward the light. I see people at the top burst through the surface and take a breath of air. My chest starts to burn with envy. Naked bodies fall toward me.

I need oxygen.

O’ my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…

     I started to push up as if there were solid objects below my feet and hands. I am heavy with wet clothes. A woman removes her shoes and fights upward. I pull at the water to fight up. I kick off my own bloating leather soles and pull off my socks. A loose tie wraps around my neck as I push upward. I tear it off and begin removing the rest of my clothing, always gyrating upwards toward the light. The burning in my lungs starts to feel like the image of a film reel being eaten up by a flame. I’m feverishly kicking like a frog while my hands tug away at the belt. I pushed off my pants. The shirt doesn’t tear quickly enough. I look down and begin to panic.

     The shadows seem closer and the light farther away. Something touches my foot and instinct kicks in. I look straight up, now completely naked and cup my hands for full force. I’m beginning to exhale in short bursts that grow longer with each snort. I’ll run out of air soon and then, out of habit, inhalation will take over.

I am sorry for these sins and all the sins of my whole life…

     Next to me, a man grips the legs of the person above, trying to pull himself up. He exposes the man’s ass and they both fall further down. They reach for me while their mouths fill with water and sink to the swirling black masses.

A woman below me reaches for my leg. I kick at her hand, but she grabs my ankle. A bubble of air leaps out of my throat but the muscles tighten their grip on my body, and I pull both of us forward. 

     I won’t make it to the top with her extra weight. The burning in my chest has been replaced by spasms. My lungs pounding in their cage. I begin to sputter. Whatever air is left in my lungs turns to bubbles in the water. The light is just a few strokes above me. I look down and see a man grabbing at the woman hanging on to me. I kick at her hand, she lets go, now fighting off her own leech. I push forward and in another two strokes, the light blinds my eyes.

Thank you, father.

The light disappears.

#

In an abandoned house off the 215 freeway I go to confess my sins. The minister sits behind a plaster wall from 4:00 pm to 4:52 pm. He enters through a hole in the outside wall because the front door is boarded up. Sitting in the master bathroom, he takes confessions through a glory hole. 

I walked in with the dead eyes of a junkie, unsticking my eyelids from the caked cocaine and running eyeliner. Another day wasted. Given up to the night before. I had time to confess before Father Ibsen spent the rest of his night suckling at any booze he could find, nursing his own demons. I stooped to put my face by the hole. Parting my dry lips with my tongue, I recited the script.

“Father forgive me for I have sinned again.  I know not what I did but I know a blue-eyed, red-haired devil in fishnet stockings made me do it.”

A lighter clinked and hissed. Tobacco hit my nose. Smoke poured through the hole and made my eyes well up. His words curled through the haze.

“Tell me son, what have you done that you say the devil made you do?”

My eyes tried to focus. I listened to my breathing and my mind clarified for a moment. Guilt has a queer way of turning me into a saint. The few moments in between coming to and my next blackout I find myself curling into a ball and begging my inner child for forgiveness. My ego quenches the thirst, but my self flushes it into oblivion. However, feelings don’t mean facts, so I answer honestly.

“I don’t know but the evidence keeps piling up behind me.”  Father Ibsen passes the cigarette through the glory hole, filter ripped off. I extend two yellow fingers to accept. 

“Son, in my terrifying experience the demons don’t scratch, tear, bite, claw, scream or yell, rip, shred or gnash their teeth. No, they brush your hand, touch you lightly on your thigh and whisper in your ear. They’ll give you sweet words and pour confidence down your throat, inject self-esteem into your veins and breathe life into your nose. It’s a slow seduction.”

I took a long pull from the cigarette. With no filter, the smoke punched a hacking cough out of my lungs. I choked it down to hear the rest of Father Ibsen’s sermon.

“They make you think you are doing all the work. That you make the decisions and take charge of your destruction. So that by the time you feel the scratching, tearing, biting, clawing, screaming, yelling, ripping, shredding, and gnashing of teeth you think it’s the demons but it’s really the angels giving all they have to try and pull you back. While the demons lay back, pissing and blowing snot bubbles all over themselves with laughter at the violent struggles of their boy scout doppelgängers.”

Father Ibsen stuck two fingers back through the hole. I handed him the cigarette and he continued.

 “That is the devil’s greatest pride. She twists her forked whiskey-soaked tongue around yours until you can’t tell the difference and when you think you know, she has you.  Her trick is making you think all the rules and regulations will save you, but the fortress is really a prison.”

The words were ironic coming from the fiery, vodka drenched breath spurting out of the hole. He chuckled and finished his impromptu sermon to the choir.

“So, it makes me laugh, son, until tears stream and sides ache, when I hear one of my children say, ‘the devil made me do it’ because son, aren’t we just the devil?”

His final words sounded like an admiring mother mildly scolding her mischievous child.  I heard his chair creak as he stood up. He passed his collar through the fuck hole, spotted and stained with sweat and semen, and spoke the last words I ever heard from his mouth. “Time for this devil to change costumes. But you should sit on this side of the wall. Hearing the insanities of the other, keeps one’s own in check. Their ain’t no glory on this side of the hole, any stone age queen will tell you the same.”

end

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Multimedia, Bite, Eagle

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It used to be a symbol of freedom and strength, bald though it was called. There were statues in official buildings and statuettes on the tops of flag poles. It was tattooed on the soldiers, officers and citizens with overwhelming pride. The eagle.

Now the laser shows had taken over. Lights pointing in all directions, splayed in all sorts of colors. Dots on walls, shapes bouncing off flat surfaces.

At first there were lasers only in the hands of civilians. At sporting events and theaters, jokesters would point single, red lasers into the eyes and crotches of athletes and actors. The more responsible among us used the lasers in academic settings, pointing at important points within lectures. Then video went viral and seemed to spark the consciousness of all mankind onto one laser beam.

A young girl, taking her parents lasers and adding some of her own, taped all of them together and stuck them on the weather vain of her roof. As she stepped back to admire the lasers whipping in all directions the wind would blow, she fell off the roof and never was the same, but neither was the world.

An explosion of tributes made to the girl, Lucy, became know has Lucy’s laser’s. People were putting together lasers with everything, on lawn mowers, through cereal boxes, on car windshield wipers, their dogs tails. They started adding other media to the mix, lasers playing out the scenes of movies to music and interpretive dancing. Soon, there wasn’t a time of day or night, or a direction in which you could look when a laser beam could not be seen.

This was the end of the eagle. So fickle were the people of the country, that they blamed the eagles weak eyes on the biblical downing of great birds. Almost like a plague, the baldies fell from the sky. Chomping their beaks and grasping with their talons on the way down, seemingly hoping to clutch a branch or telephone wire.

“The laser and its beams are what make us strong now. We were wrong to follow that stupid bird.” And so at every official gathering, public event, statue and statuette, the eagles were slowly replaced with lasers, light shows and multimedia extravaganzas.

This was the way the country found something they could control.

Extraterrestrial, Prisoner, Distance

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Dust. So much swirling in the air that it became mud in the eyes and chewed up cake in the mouth. Their ears built dams of wax and stone. Their noses reduced to only to hold up glasses, unable to pass air in or out from the mucus and wet clay caking its opening.

This was where we sent our poorly behaved, even badly behaved of society. Those who lost their cool or nerve or patience and acted. They were not banished to a cage, safe and warm and well fed. They were sent to the far end of the western United States, on the outskirts of Bakersfield, California. Once the heartland, now simply a vast swirl of dust from the beaches all the way to middle of the eastern country.

To resume their lives and learn from their mistakes, they’d have to find the lines of wire that ran from West to East, leading them home. Or die. There were checkpoints with food and water but they would have to be found. Often times they were lost in the dust storms. Missing a check point meant starvation and none of the safe houses along the way were evenly spaced out. There were no calculations to be made along the way. No planning or rationing, just pulling oneself along the wire to the next symbol of hope.

It might take months, or years. Never less than months to make it back to the livable Eastern United States.

When the prisoners arrived, they would be so fundamentally changed, that the states called each survivor a “remarkable recovery.” Under their breaths, however, officials were more terrified of the blank stares, lean muscle and wild hair.

These men and women crawled their way back to what, at the beginning of their journey’s, they called home. Upon arrival, however, there was nothing comforting or homely about it. For the rest of their lives, their minds would be trapped in the swirls of dust. Their bodies would wander through their former lives like cosmonauts on an unfamiliar planet. Aliens to all those around them and to themselves, living in an alien world.

Rugby, Shy, Shine

Flat-nosed. Ears like used tinfoil. Arms, legs and a neck like chiseled stone from a sculpture still in progress.

Ashley stood on the sideline of his final game, waiting for the coach to put him in. His knees and spine had only enough thread for 3 or 4 more scrums. Only the adrenaline from the roar of the crowd and the knowledge that millions of viewers around the world were watching at home. He just waited for the clock to stop before entering the game.

In an interview the day before, the reporter had asked why Ashley had not opted for the Rejuv. Procedures. Athletes at the age of retirement were extending their careers, and their 7 figure contracts, by the 10’s, 20’s and 30’s. Why had Ashley decided against it.

Whistles blew and the clock stopped. The coach twirled his hands around indicating a switch, when the line referee lifted up the placard with his number, the stadium came alive. They chanted his name and stomped their feet.

“Ashley, Ashley, Ashley…”

Ashley put up a hand, waving as he approached the young teammate whom he was replacing. They hugged and Ashley tussled his hair, playing up his image of the older player.

The whistle blew again, but the crowd still chanted his name. Ashley barely realized that he had already locked into the pile of the scrum. His muscles taking over for memory, they began pushing the pile toward the goal line. The rock came loose and the younger players ran, lateraled and jumped until the next scrum.

Ashley’s neck was sending images to his brain. Images of frayed wires barely connected, a rope swinging in the middle of an old, rickety mine shaft, scissors hovering over the last wire connecting a bomb. Before the impact, Ashley knew this would be the last hit his body would withstand.

As a kid watching his idols play on TV, Ashley realized all his favorites eventually had to stop playing. his eyes would shine with sadness but there was the anticipation of new players with different styles and personalities.

Then Ashely started playing professionally and many of his idols had returned, thanks to the Rejuv. procedures. New players were rarer everyday, until the league was filled with players able to continue their careers. But Ashley noticed that no one player really stood out anymore.

Ashley blinked. His eyes watered and his nose curled. Smelling salts.

This was it. He couldn’t move, yet, his legs tingled, his back ached and the crowd was silent. He had earned this without enhancement and would be forever remembered because of it. This was an ending.

Be right back

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
825 words

Bob looked down at the floor. The shoes around him were new and pregnant with the identities of the partiers around him. His own shoes had no slashes or colors or stripes or patterns or loud brand names, only thick black soles and two Velcro straps creased perfectly around his feet. 

He looked up at the faces of the other guests. Nodding, smiling, winking, head-tilting, lip-biting, red cup sipping, arm touching, eye fluttering, eye fucking, and jealousy. Bob noticed it all in those faces. He took a deep breath and downed the rest of his drink. What was he doing there?

Looking around at all the tight-skinned faces, he was beginning to think he had overstayed his welcome. Nobody at the party would catch him slipping out the back. They were all too busy looking up at the sky. Bob had been that way once. Always staring at the clouds, scheming and dreaming. Dreaming of changing the world. The clouds looked the same. Never closer but never further away. He thought about all the things other people had achieved and perfected in his lifetime. The automobile. Telephones. T.V.s. Computers. The internet (apparently people spent all their time in the web, it sounded like a trap to him.) Faster food, faster service, faster payments, more nudity, less danger and sensationalized news. Working, making and consuming distractions. Everything was strange entertainment.

If he had slept for 50 years and woken up on this same day, he would be just as confused, disoriented and unsatisfied. To be honest, he felt cheated. All those promises and hopes for the future yielded nothing but more ignorance and more dependence. Hell, he remembered when a car would still start if you had enough people to push it.

     “Gads.” 

Bob startled himself. He looked around. Nobody spared a glance. The two kids he had met at the bar were now schmoozing at a couple of young ladies across the room. The girls were cute, sure, but they looked as if they would giggle at the news of their parents’ death. For that matter, so did the boys he came with.

He had met them at a bar when they started philosophizing with him. They bought his drinks, so he played along.

     “What do you think about Obama?”

There was no such thing as a free drink. He blew out all his air, pushing out his lips.

     “I’ve been asked that same exact question my whole life, just a different name at the end. Bush, Reagan, Roosevelt, Truman, Bush. The question is old. The name changes, the face changes, they die, soon I’ll be dead and something similarly different will happen.”

The two kids were impressed. Or at least impressionable. They invited Bob to the party, and he went. Maybe it was the free drinks, but Bob remembered when he was like them. He would have believed anything that came out of an old drunks’ mouth. He would have thought ‘boy, this guy’s been through the ringer, he must really know something.’ Now Bob was that old drunk and he knew that nobody knows and that’s the truth. Some are optimistic and others pessimistic. Some believe in god and others don’t. Some pretend and some don’t. Just having a mind is too much. Or maybe it’s not. Only a few wrinkles, a drowning liver and a bald head separated Bob from those boys.

Bob set down his cup and made his way over to them. He stepped up behind the two Romeos and clapped them on the shoulders.

     “You boys need anything?”

They looked at each other and looked back at the girls with wide eyes. Bob was a malignant tumor to them now.

     “I’ll be right back.” He said.

Bob walked off through the crowd and out the door. He looked up at the night sky. No clouds and not a visible star. That was another change. Edison eventually did away with staring up at the stars, now he looks out the window and sees the glow of television sets from every house, apartment, and trailer. He got in his car and lit a cigarette. He had only agreed to come because the party was a couple blocks from his house. The ignition turned over and the gas pedal felt like a pole in a tar pit. He pressed his foot down and the rest was mechanical: Left, stop, go, stop, go, right. Four houses down Bob slipped into the garage and closed it behind him. He put the car in park and cranked back the emergency brake. The window popped out of its crease as he pressed the button down. Leaning back in the driver’s seat, he dragged slowly from his cigarette before dropping it out of the cracked window. He pumped the gas pedal, revving the engine a couple of times. Then held it down at a low RPM, going nowhere. He closed his eyes. Maybe tomorrow or maybe nothing.

end

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Voice, Dock, Hushed

It only takes a moment for our animal instincts to take over us. A hushed whisper of a thought becomes the booming voice of vice.

I live in the Pyrenees. Away from the middle of anything, where lonely figures get noticed. Anyone visiting the Pyrenees or any mountain setting are nagged by the thought to return home.

In a small cabin tucked away behind a cluster of pine trees, I kill the rest of my time. Only the birds get wind of my existence when the smoke from my stove floating like ribbons in the wind up into the sky.

I leave my boots, muddy from the river banks, by the front door. The fish make a slapping sound on my cutting board/dining table. An urge hits me when I hear the slap. From my brain, a messenger couriers quickly through my blood stream heading south for the waste and procreation department. In its mailbag it carries a million years of evolutionary instinct. Pushing past letters of food and shelter, it grabs an envelope marked longevity and delivers it, creating a bulge with its contents.

The fish is best when gutted and cleaned as soon as possible after being caught. That ship had sailed and it was time to find a place at which to dock my intentions for the newly received message.

With the feeling of having controlled my instincts, I went back to the fish. There would be more slapping before dinner was finished.

Deer, Crackle, Leave

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

The match struck and illuminated her face in the bloom of the flame. She touched the living flower of orange and yellow heat to the wick of a candle on her table.

Now she could see the task of the morning. It involved pouring two elements; liquid and solid into one bowl. An alchemy resulting in a new element.

She took the cardboard box in her hand, listening to all the parts shifting within. The other hand took the plastic jug labeled milk and tilted it into the bowl until a plain of white stretched across the bowls surface.

Next she tilted the box and let tumble tiny pebbles that hit the milk with a “snap”, “crackle” and “pop.”

The mixture was alive. With a spoon, she coaxed the crackling pebbles deeper into the liquid. When all of the mixture was set, she placed the bowl into a refrigeration unit.

This was to be consumed later, she would need to leave and come back before it could be done.

…

He worked from 10PM to 10AM. By the time he got home, his brain was on fire using all its capacity to stay focused on every task in front of him; unlock the car, key in ignition, reverse, turn right, stop–and so on until he made it to the house he shared with a roommate. He opened the fridge and looked at the only thing residing in its coolness. A bowl of beige mush. Trying to comprehend what his eyes were seeing, he looked very much like a deer in headlights, paralyzed with the process of understanding and possibly fear.

Leaving the fridge open he grabbed a spoon from the drawer. He pulled out the bowl and dug the spoon into the meat of whatever was in the bowl.

“What the hell is this?”

The once unique and separate pebbles had congealed into a singular blob with the help of milk and time. He pulled a piece away and it jiggled on the spoon toward his maw.

A couple of chews, that was it. He realized the genius of the concoction. The sugars blended into the milk and the milk puffed up the crispies into a delicious breakfast blob.

Nifty, Manage, Call

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

There’s this nifty little device I have that manages all my calls. It’s a little 3D rectangle with a green light up screen that shows my messages. I can hook it to my belt and check my incoming calls.

It’ll beep whenever someone wishes to get a hold of me and then, if I recognize the number, I’ll call back to see what they want.

Sometimes I already know what the message is by looking at the phone number. I know what they want, how much they want, where I should meet them and what time I need to meet them.

When I’m in the park and it’s lunch time, I like to make a big show of being contacted. I’ll tilt the little sucker attached to my belt up at the angle of my face. I know I can simply look down and see it, but then no one would notice that I’m making it that I’m doing quite well.

Sometimes I’ll pull the thing off my belt and hold it up at eye level, not to admire it, but to make a big show that the message is bothersome. This is really impressive because it looks like having the device is no big deal to me, like a necessary evil in my line of work, “If I could get away with not carrying one of these things around (shaking head) trust me.”

You know, that sort of thing.

In my line of work, if done well, only my customers know who I am. They’ll never know anything else, not where I’m from, who I associate with, where I get the products, not anything.

That’s why this little chirping birdie on my belt is perfect. I can only contact others, they shoot messages into the dark.

And, I just remembered, I can turn off the beeps and it will vibrate. On occasion that silence is necessary. The people of this great community and their elected officials aren’t as open minded about the products I sell. So the ability to lay low–I won’t say hide–is occasionally necessary.

I never pass this feeling onto my clients. That’s bad customer service. I don’t ever want them to leave me feeling nervous. They should walk or drive away feeling empowered by their decisions.

Oh, excuse me, I’m getting someone now. See how people are looking over here? I’m a man to be respected, like a doctor or surgeon. I help people get better too.

Dusty, Bored, Thundering

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

At the end of your life you are shown to a theater and given an accounting of all your stats. It isn’t some thundering proclamation from a white haired god. No, by the end of the presentation, most people find themselves bored to death. That is exactly the point.

In the beginning it can be quite interesting. You’re offered coffee, tea or water and shown to a small couch. In front of you is a man on suspenders poised to turn over a large paper flip chart. There is no preamble he gets right into it.

“These are your statistics,” he says.

“Boogers! had you saved all of them up you’d have a gigantic mound of mucus about the size of an elephant.”

(By the way in this scenario you’re 81 years old.)

“Instead you’ve picked, flicked and blew all your not into garbages, toilets, streets, and cars.”

“Earwax!”

He goes on very similarly about the earwax, except its about the size of an SUV, which you think is roughly the size of an elephant and he’s just trying to keep his comparisons interesting.

“Hair! You’ve lost 37,564 hairs from the top of your head BUT you gained 63 hairs in and around your left ear and 59 hairs in and around your right. You had an increase in your nose hairs, both in number of individual follicles as well as girth of each hair.”

“Nutsack!”

It did surprise me that the terms were not more scientific but then again he may be using language I can understand.

“Your has distended 3.73 inches!”

“Fingernails! If gone uncut and unbroken they would now be 53 yards, 2 feet, 4 inches and 7millimeters long.”

Eventually you tune out. The stats become more absurd and then suspenders opens a dusty book and things get interesting again.

“I will now read your language stats!”

“Fuck you’s! 759,000 even. Impressive!”

You think it could be more.

“Fuck offs! 33,542”

“Fuck! 3,259,117.”

“Son of a bitch!…”

“Cunt!…”

“Damn!”

It continues like this for a while and eventually you just sort of die like I said earlier, of boredom. Fuck.

Pushy, Collect, Hulking

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

She kept insisting that I should purchase a red handkerchief, “handmade and lasts forever.”

Great but I don’t want a handkerchief. I told her this over and again.

I was only in the shop to send a package. In the back of the shop someone, her son I think, was getting the labels and everything.

For waiting customers, the owners had items for purchase on display. There were a number of Nascar hats, greeting cards, various candy bars and energy pills. There were also scarves and handkerchiefs.

A combination of items that I imagined slipped out of the trailers of various trucks.

I had made the mistake of sniffer. The lady jumped at the chance.

“You need this handkerchief, it’s only five dollars.” Then began our dance of the Pushy’s and No’s.

No thank you.

It’s a great deal.

I don’t need a handkerchief. I have Kleenex in the car.

Two for five dollars.

Is he almost done with my package?

Two for five dollars and any candy bar of your choice.

I turned at this point to look at the TV behind me in the upper right corner of the room. It had turned on during our banter.

It was the news. The anchor had on an ill-fitting suit. The studio behind him looked like some back room somewhere. He was finishing coverage on a story about the phenomenal cultural shift towards buying greetings cards for every occasion. The next story was a news break:

“This just in, a new law was passed in California banning the use of tissue. Lobbyists for Kleenex are pushing back. The move toward banning Tissue was inspired by the discontinued use of plastic bags by retail stores across the country. Authorities say that using tissue could result in fines of up to $10,000 and 5 years in prison.”

I looked at the lady, frowning.

The guy from the back came out holding my package. In his hulking frame the golf clubs I was shipping looked like a box of toothpicks.

“Handkerchief is now $50.”

“I don[t want the handkerchief, just the package shipped please.”

The two of them spoke in a language I didn’t understand and realized I was getting squeezed no matter what.

If I wasn’t going to fall for their news story, the package carrying hulk would collect.

I paid for my shipping and purchased a nice handkerchief for $200 U.S. A steal, what with the current tissue ban and all.

Heave, Obey, Moult

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

Nigel lifted the tablets. As he did, more hair fell from his head onto the faces of the rock slab he held. He’d been moulting more frequently, now that he was closer to the truth.

Above his head he held the words which were meant to give his life purpose, the words he was meant to obey.

Although his eyes were turned down, away from the sun he was forced to squint. The muscles of his arms were beginning to feel less like stone pillars and more like ropes. Sweat stung his eyes and his hair–it still fell. Now that he held the answers in his hands, tangible and cold, he felt more anxious than ever. He’d begged and pleaded with the sky, against the protestations of his friends and family.

“I need to find the truth!” He told them so while they ate, lounged, partied and laughed, he sought the truth.

Through valleys and deserts, jungles and mountains, Nigel looked for the truth. Every where he went the people asked him to stop and rest but Nigel kept on searching for that something.

The walking and climbing made his muscles strong. The obsession with truth, weakened him. So distracted by finding a clear obvious truth was he that he missed out on everything. It was not all a waste, however, when one day Nigel came across the tablets.

On stones shaped like markers for the dead was a list. On that list Nigel read things which he had to admit to himself were underwhelming and somewhat obvious.

He held them over his head, now nearly bald and standing at the edge of a cliff, heaving the stones over the side with the echo of a crash.

“I’ve wasted my life,” he said, then followed the sound of the crash.

Slippery, Provide, Flesh

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator
Story inspired from sketches by mapka_dgjargorn9

Back then dreams were loosely contained, if at all. The structure of nightmares were slippery and sometimes the subconscious came to life; what in the world of the woke were referred to as myths, legends, fables. These were the makings of story.

Sometimes, like a finger dipped in hot candle wax, flesh was wrapped around those things which drive men to create art; giving form to emotion and feeling.

In this dream walked a procession, four deep. They had come from the hill shaded by the Samanea Saman tree at its summit. They walked; the Cloaked Ruby leading her troupe, stretching and yawning at the sky.

The short but Groovy King of Clash and Bang staring at the Cloaked Ruby’s back.

Towering over the Groovy King was William I, King of Scots. He extended his hand which held the souls of all the picts. The energy of their vibrant spirits and blue bodies radiating around William I.

Snarling at the rear of the parade was the gentle Bovix, carnivorous, yes, but only of that dead meat provided by vanquished enemies.

They marched towards the entrance formed by two gnarled tree trunks. Deformed by the wizardry and witchcraft of so many practicing sorcerers passing by. The tree’s marked the entrance into the waking world, tethered by a tangled wire.

Popcorn, Jar, Bounce

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

“Listen,” I told the cashier, “I need a tent but I’ve never been camping so I don’t know where to start.”

The cashier, who looked like he had just popped in to work at the Big 5 from a life of camping, stroked his beard while staring me up and down.

“Will you be camping alone or with friends and family?”

I cleared my throat and scratched my cheek. Just as I was about to say “alone”, Madonna’s Like a Virgin came on through the store speakers and I changed my answer.

“I’m a camping with friends.”

The man pulled a Mason jar full of water from below the counter and took a swig. His eyes bulged, his cheeks flushed red and he let out a puff of smoke before replying, “well, if you are camping alone, I recommend a pup tent.”

“Why’s it called a pup tent?”

He ignored my question and pulled a small brown sack out from the same place his jar had come from.

“This here’s a pup tent and I’ll give it to you for $25. That’s a steal kid.”

I looked at the sack, which looked like it had bounced around the back of a pick up truck full of ketchup, mustard, mayo, ranch dressing and BBQ sauce. That’s also what it smelled like.

“Do you have any other–” I began to say.

“No, thats it, the tents you see around are only for display.”

I glanced at the aisle marked CAMPING and saw boxes and boxes of tents.

CLANG! POP! BANG! POP!

I jumped.

The man stroked his beard and took another bug-eyed swig of his interesting water. Droplets rolled down his beard as he reached down and pulled up a camping stove.

“Popcorn?” he gestured with black fingernails. I could see dirt spidering through the cracks in his hands.

“No, thank you. Listen, could I speak to a manager?” I said looking around.

“Manager? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to little feller?”

“Oh, excuse me.” My face curled up unconsciously into disgust as he gently pressed big, damp wads of chewing tobacco into his left cheek, in between large handfuls of popcorn, which he maneuvered to his right side with his tongue.

Accept, Salt, Noiseless

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

Peter woke up. It had been raining and water was running down through his spot on the middle of the hill.

He heard birds chirping and could see some light peaking through a slit in the tarp. He knew it was about 6 AM because the sound of passing cars on the freeway was intermittent.

The clock ticking next to him, he never se to the correct time. The ticking sound was all he needed. He wasn’t sure why but he couldn’t sleep in a noiseless environment.

Peter grabbed his hat and bent to step out of the tent. His breath was visible in the air and he pulled his hunting cap down over his ears.

Peter walked under the freeway and up around to the other side. Following the road for about a mile until he came to a McDonalds.

Peter ordered from the dollar menu. While he waited, he filled his pockets with as many salt packets as he could before the manager chased him off.

Peter walked back to his tent. Before stepping inside, he held the bag in his teeth to free his hands for tearing open salt packets.

One packet at a time he sprinkled the salt in a circle around his tent. Satisfied, he took the bag from his mouth and stepped inside the tent.

Sitting back on his pile of rags, he started a small fire and opened up the McDonalds bag. Once again he threw everything in the middle of the burger out of the tent, keeping only the bread, which he toasted in his hands over the fire.

After having eaten, Peter pulled out a crumpled spiral bound notebook.

On the open page was a drawing of a flag, black with a skull and cross bones. Taking a pen from his pocket, Peter continued coloring in the black of the flag. As he did so, a shudder ran through his body, jolting the pen through one of the crossing bones.

Pale, Review, Expansion

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

Peter sat on the dock, his big right tow the anchor for some fishing line. Although nothing was nibbling, the skin around his big toe was whiter than the rest of his body.

He dangled his feet and looked up at the sky feeling a sense of nostalgia. The smell of the ocean, sound of seagulls and feel of the hot sun seemed to be trying to pull out some distant memory.

Peter had seen something on TV where a guy used one magnet to move around another magnet that was on the other side of a wall. That feeling of nostalgia was like that, a pulling of something that felt familiar but wasn’t seen.

Peter pulled up his feet on the dock suddenly. He cut the dangling fishing line from his toe with a switchblade and stood up. He looked at the sky. Now black clouds were moving to block the sun.

The nostalgia remained but it was blending with a sense of dread. He tried to review the expansion of feeling inside him.

How could he feel so many things? What was that nagging sense of nostalgia bordering on deja vu really about?

Peter walked to where the dock met the sand and picked up a half empty 12-pack of beer. Every time these feelings began to wash over him, he would take a drink. Such a simple, effective cliche. Another thing he had learned on TV.

This time, however, the feelings remained. This time, Peter thought he heard the muffled ticking of a clock and the distant sounds of raucous, drunken singing; chanting following the low rumble of drums.

Peter turned his head to look at the spot where the water met the sky. He finished his can of beer and grabbed another.

The sky above was beginning to thunder. Peter stumbled toward a nearby outcropping of trees and crawled under the tarp he had hung between branches. Before he passed out, he winced at what he thought was the sound of jingling bells.

Remake, Iron, Easy

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

At first it annoyed Henry. All the reports of micro aggressions that were making their way into the news cycle. Little things like a man or woman assuming the boss or doctor being referred to in conversation was a male. Or things like internet celebrities making videos of themselves destroying property and stealing while critics praised their “courage to take comedy to the next level.”

Frankly, Henry had no clue what a micro aggression really was but like a pressure cooker, we decided to let out a puff of steam once in a while so as not to blow up one day.

He started at the movie theater. The film was a remake of a movie that had already been made and remade five times.

During the movie, Henry would shout things out:

“Bullshit.”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous.”

“Why not film a turd in the toilet, it would be cheaper and more original than this crap.”

That’s as far as he got. The ushers escorted him out but in a sense, Henry fell liberated, a little steam had puffed out.

When he arrived home, the mailbox was stuffed with what to Henry amounted to a big wad of garbage. So, he kicked the mailbox off its post and threw it into the garbage, where he felt the whole thing belonged.

After a couple of days, he received a notice from the United States Postal Service stating that he would need to put up a mailbox or else the mail would no longer be delivered to him.

Perfect, Henry thought. It was easier than I imagined. Then he tossed the USPS notice in the garbage as well.

Then it was his cell phone. He stepped inside his house and heard his phone ringing, without looking to see who was calling, Henry threw the phone in the trashcan outside.

Henry began looking through all of his possessions, realizing that they annoyed rather than brought him joy. He deflated his basketball and football throwing them away. He snapped his golf clubs over his knees and threw them away. He did keep his 5-iron because he liked to hit golf balls at the top of the hill overlooking the freeway. Which, he decided, is exactly what he would do after his material purge.

After the golf session, about 15 minutes of screeching tires, broken glass and honking cars, he drove down to the nicest restaurant in town.

Upon arrival, he waited for a table, noticing the sign that said “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” After being seated, ordering and eating, he removed his shirt and his shoes. When the waiter came by again, he ordered dessert and got away with it.

Henry learned that if you’re already in the restaurant, you can break the rules, not a moment before.

Knowledge, Belief, Motivation

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by Dad

Around the ages of 11-13, you receive a beach ball. The ball is fully inflated and you’re instructed to keep the ball in the air while you do all the other things necessary during your day.

When brushing your teeth, you keep hitting the ball in the air. When eating, studying, working, playing, sitting, driving, ordering, shopping, running, walking, waiting, rushing, etc. You keep the ball in the air.

You’re told that the ball is to remind you that you are not in control and that you must rely on an unseen power. They tell you this because then they tell you it’s okay if you drop the ball as long as you pick it up again. That the most motivation they give you, that if you drop it, as long as you pick it up again, you’ll be fine.

You do your best to keep the ball in the air. You drop it a few times while doing your hygiene routine but pretty soon it becomes second nature to keep the beach ball in the air.

The only time the keeping up becomes a problem is when you study. Your mind focuses deeply on the books you’re reading and for those moments you completely forget about the ball and everything said about it. Then you close the book, see the ball and pick it right back up again, tossing it into the air and keeping it up.

Pretty soon you start to think deeply outside of the books. You find yourself detaching the symbolism of the ball from the action you’re observing. You realize it’s becoming a nuisance, maybe even an unnecessary distraction. But you keep it up because they told you all sorts of things to scare you: “Without that constant reminder that you are nothing without the unseen power, you’ll shrivel up and die.”

Then you become angry, realizing that many people do not keep beach balls in the air and they do not look shriveled in the slightest. In fact, they seem more capable of engaging with and participating in the world around them.

You walk up to one of them and ask, “What happened to your beach ball?”

They say, “I dropped it a long time ago and never picked it up again.”

“Why?” You ask.

“I found that when I focused on what I knew, the world became less abstract. I found that the beach ball had really become a reminder that I don’t know as opposed to what it was intended to be, a reminder that an unseen is in control.”

You think, then ask, “So how do you answer those questions the beach ball answers?”

“I don’t. I’ve found that one of the phrases rarely stated confidently is ‘I don’t know’ yet when it is given as an answer, I feel closer to others than any sort of beach ball brotherhood because it reaffirms that we all don’t know, together.”

Imbricate, Pongee, Zucchetto

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by Dad

In the museum I was mostly bored save for a few minor details that caught my attention. Supposedly, at one time there were these organizations, run mostly like clubs with memberships, that had the benefit of being tax exempt. Religious organizations.

Each one claimed to be different but after millions of years of doubt, questioning, corruption, and frivolous rules, the obvious simply became too obvious to ignore.

There was no catastrophic event, it was only a “last straw” sort of situation.

Now I was passing an exhibit that was part of the Catholic section (one of the largest section of the museum). The guide pointed at an old pink colored hat, just large enough to fit on the back of a skull, and said “Notice the pongee on this Zucchetto. Pongee the Chinese silk fabric on a cap traditionally worn by Catholic clergy. Quite the contrast of cultures and beliefs in one little cap.”

Indeed, the irony was right in front of their faces (or on their heads) the entire time.

We passed a display with all sorts of symbols. The Christian cross was pointed out as another symbol of irony; a torture device used by the Roman Empire became the symbol of a supposedly peaceful belief system.

The Jewish star, a symbol of the merging of heaven and earth, or to others, the merging of male and female. It turns out a symbol of tangled confusion. Most, if not all the symbols had more than one meaning, which, the tour guide pointed out, should have been another clue into the ambiguous nature of religious truths, if it could be called natural.

We passed by books that had been called holy but were now simply considered old and outdated.

We passed miniature cathedrals, temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. All destroyed now and replaced with museums, art installations, libraries or public parks.

When the tour ended, I walked back to the section with miniature versions of the once erected places of worship. They must have been truly magnificent works of architecture and they were inspired by awe, wonder and a deep reverence for something they believed to be as real as the stones, wood and stained glass used to build them.

I stared at one rooftop in particular, the plaque read “This rooftop was built to mimic the imbrication often found in nature. Notice the uneven staggering of tiles, not like a snake or fish but more like that of a pine cone or blossomed flower.”

What was it all about? Who was it really for?

Account, Arm, Sniff

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

The file had been on my desk since my first week at Lav, Slav and Tony investments. It had been put there by an old man, the founder, who wore a tux and stuffed cotton balls into his cheeks like Marlon Brando in the Godfather. He had dreams of going legit but to everyone’s knowledge he had never actually had any illegitimate business.

So I opened the file and started reading the paper. It was a MEMO, a short paragraph that read:

“ATTENTION: All account managers, please do not keep arms at the office.”

At first I wanted to make a joke about how we would do our typing without arms but then I remembered that the MEMO was nearly four years old.

I grabbed the MEMO and slid it into the waste bin. Now I was all caught up with work. I headed out of the office but before I could go Lav and Slav stopped me (Tony was the cotton ball guy, dead now). They invited me out for a drink. As their employee, I said yes.

They took me to this club in the part of town where they store meat, fish, furniture and other wares. A club with a pink sign in Miami vice style writing that said “Lazerbeam” only the “m” was going in and out so every few seconds it was club “Lazerbea”, which I thought sounded cooler.

We went inside and Slav motioned to a waiter who took us to a booth. We ordered drinks, then Lav took out a little baggie of white powder.

“Time to put on my dancing shoes,” he said.

Then he chopped up an impressively straight rail, a real mathematical wonder. He dragged his nostril across the table, which stood out to me because the table wasn’t so clean. I could see bits of lint, dust and Saltene crackers being pulled into his nose. Lav dabbed at the residue left on the table and rubbed his gums with it. Then he jumped up and ran to the dance floor.

Our drinks arrived and as I reached for my Whiskey/Coke, Slav said, “Ah, I notice you didn’t read our MEMO.”

Nutritious, Cap, Measure

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

“Take a swig,” said the Cap. “It’s nutritious and besides that it’ll cure your alopecia. You’ll be as hairy as a Himalayan Yak again in no time.”

I looked at the mixture the Cap had poured. Supposedly, besides being Captain of the Jelly Dodger, he had once also been an herbalist.

I’d gotten alopecia suddenly after seeing a ghost. I was shaving and in the mirror, behind me, I saw a tailor. He was holding up a measuring tape with pins in his mouth.

When I saw him, all the hair on my body instantly fell off. From head to eyebrows, balls to toes. All gone. Then to add insult to injury, the first mate kicked open the bathroom door, followed by a gust of wind behind him. The first mate took a piss and the wind blew all my hair into the urinals at the far wall. I wasn’t even left enough hair to gather and glue onto my chin.

The Cap being the good leader he is, said he had just the remedy: the shit of a seagull, the ink of a squid, coconut water, algae, rat fur and the piss of the hairiest man or woman onboard.

The seagull shit was the easiest to get. All we had to do was climb up the masts and scrape the white chips into a cup. The job could even be done without looking.

The squid ink just took some fishing but eventually we put a squid in a bucket and it inked right away. Two ingredients down.

The coconut water, algae and rat fur were almost simultaneous. We were drifting just off shore and someone noticed coconuts off the port bow, that’s also when we remembered all the algae under the boat, which reminded us of all the rats on the boat.

So we cracked the coconuts, scraped up algae and shaved rats. That was the funnest part, watching the crew shave rats with their razors.

The next part was not so fun. We had to find the hairiest man or woman on board to piss into the soup of ingredients we had collected.

Before my scare, I was the hairiest man. So all the men lined up and we judged who was the hairiest. It was the first mate.

The timing of all this was unfortunate. Our rations were thinning and the only food we had in abundance was asparagus.

Now I held a fowl smelling concoction that was to supposedly cure my alopecia and bring back all my hair.

The color was black. It was thick like paste from the seagulls and covered in millions of tiny hairs. It smelled like asparagus urine.

What would you do?

Master, Grim, Bate

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by @taabithewonderer

She was in a foul bate sitting in traffic. Her knuckles were white, gripped around the steering wheel and she was gritting her teeth. She refused to look at the drivers or passengers in the cars all around her.

“This,” said Master Tempo, “is traffic. People all over the world would travel to places like this.”

“I feel so angry, Master, why do I feel so angry?”

“Because you are human and when you are sitting in your car, surrounded by moving cages, you are directly facing your limitations in that moment.”

“And people did this everyday?”

“Sometimes twice a day.”

“And that’s what stress was?”

“That was one way to feel stressed, one of many. People realized that to eliminate stress, you eliminate options or choices.”

“But doesn’t that go against what you just said about traffic? That the anger of sitting in traffic is an anger at realizing your own limitations?”

“Yes. Excellent, but that is only because of their choice to drive. If you remove that choice then you are a passenger, simply riding along.”

“But someone has to drive.”

“Excellent again. Yes, so long ago they decided that a few would drive, a few voted and elected to drive. Everyone else would just be along for the ride.”

“You’re not talking about traffic anymore are you?”

“No, I’m talking about our new ways. We all have the same jobs, we all live in the same houses, we all have Master’s and eventually we all become Master’s. And we never have to leave the house. Everything is automated and you learn through the audio/visual headset.”

“But what if I want something, something else?”

“You don’t need to want for anything and the best part is you won’t have to deal with anything you don’t want.”

“What about the garbage, human waste? What about sex and human relationships?”

“You’re experiencing that now.”

Sheryl removed the headset and blinked, letting her eyes adjust to the California sun. A car honked behind her setting off a chain of honks. She put the VR set on the passenger seat next to her.

I’d rather have the choice of getting stuck in traffic than that bullshit, she thought, looking at the VR set.

She took her Tesla out of autopilot and stared at the bumper of the proud parent of a child at McKinley Elementary School.

Curdle, Debauchery, Feckless

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by @salgadoarnie

I was at the office. It was 3:20 PM and I was in my cubicle picking staples out of my arm.

Jerry had come by and “filed a couple of reports” which I guess meant put as many staples in my arm as possible before I was able to wrest the stapler away from him.

It’s okay, Jerry’s dead now. Susan came by with a carton of milk that had been in the fridge for two years. She doused him with it. While he was trying to rub away the milk from his eyes, she asked him if he wanted a towel and instead handed him a plugged in toaster.

It was like watching a reverse Frankenstein story. Where the living creature gets jolted, jumped and jostled around until it’s NOT alive.

So that’s how Jerry went. I don’t have to worry about him but Susan, my god what a psychopath.

I need to get out of here by 5 PM but I have to pass the conference room on my way out. There’s supposed to be a meeting in there until 5:30, which I suspect will be a bloodbath. Ever since the former owners son took over, we’ve all been working ourselves to death.

It was now company policy that only combat wounds received in the workplace were covered by insurance, couple that with the totality of anarchy outside the workplace and you were always on high alert, high strung and needing to keep the adrenaline high.

Kristen came around the corner. A trash can on her head, a two-fanged stapler remover in one hand and a long gel-filled wrist rest for the computer in the other. That thing could leave serious bruises if wielded correctly.

I pulled out the last staple and grabbed my keyboard for a shield. Kristen stopped at my cubicle.

“I have no quarrel with you, where is Jerry?” she asked.

“He’s dead.”

“Well, have you filled out his death report? Called human resources? Put out a casualty memo?”

“No.”

“Well, dammit Stan, what are you waiting for?”

“Yeah, no problem. I got it.” I started looking through papers for the right forms, blood was drying and sticking sheets together.

“Have you seen Susan?” Kristen asked.

“Yeah, she’s the one who ‘filed a couple of reports’ on Jerry.” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about, reports? I told Susan to toast Jerry right after he stapled your arm.” said Kristen.

“Oh, okay, I must have misunderstood what he meant, because he walked in talking about reports…” I was getting nervous and starting to drone on. “…but he did staple my arm, he did do that very well, I only just finished taking them out.”

Ridiculous, Sleep, Honk

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by @ladychap84

The medicine man came to town, this time in a new fangled contraption. A wagon pulled not by horses, but by witchcraft or engineering (depending who you are).

We heard him before we saw him coming. He blared his horn and we all ran to our windows. It was nearing sunset and through the dust we saw the shape of his ride; one of those Ford vehicles with a cart hitched to the back that looked more like a fortune teller’s or circus sideshow cart.

we knew it was the medicine man because in between honks he’d shout out our problems then give the answer in the form of a powder, tonic or magic elixir.

“Warts? Cysts? Boils? Scrapes? Bumps or Bruises? I’ve got a tonic that’ll smooth your skin back to its newborn state!”

HONK. HONK.

“Having trouble sleeping? Do you suffer from the terrors of the night? I’ve got an elixir as old as time. A few swigs and you’ll be sleeping like a baby.”

HONK. HONK.

“Can’t seem to muster up the courage to ask out that pretty gal? Trouble speaking up in public? I’ve got the cure! You’ll be gabbing like a child telling Santa what they want for Christmas.”

HONK. HONK. HONK.

It seemed everything he was selling would turn us back into some sort of child. I didn’t understand at the time why that was so appealing. Then again, back then I had to stand on my tiptoes and pull on the sill just to look out the window.

The man parked in the center of our town square and opened up the cart he hauled. My mother took me and my two sisters to see him.

When we approached, the four of us gals were already a little late. We watched and waited as our neighbors, acquaintances and other town folk shouted their ailments and he miraculously provided the cure.

“What do yer got fer balding, kind sir?” asked the town cobbler.

“For the follicular-ly challenged I have this hair powder. Mix with raw egg, a splash of gin and leave it on your head for two days.” said the medicine man.

“How much?” asked the cobbler.

“Two dollars fifty.” said the medicine man.

He probably could have named his price, with the cure for baldness on the table.

“Step right up and let me know your weaknesses, I’ll give you the cure. I’m only in town for a day, business calls me elsewhere.”

“Ridiculous.” my mother muttered to herself.

“What is?” I asked.

“That poor cobbler drinks enough gin to put enough hair on fifty men. He eats only eggs because he only owns one hen.”

“Yeah but he doesn’t put them on his head, maybe that’s the trick.” I offered.

“That’s the trick alright. If he’s dumb enough to put that awful smelling mix on his head and pay good money for it, then he deserves it. But by the time he finds out that medicine man’ll be long gone.”

She grabbed our hands and shooed us back to the house, muttering all the way.

“Two days to leave it on but he’ll be gone tomorrow. Ridiculous.”

Regular, Tiresome, Popcorn

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

A helicopter flew above them, its blades chopping at the air. Below the canopy of the jungle the two of them sat in their foxhole.

Jerry smoked a cigarette and looked at Miles who was alert and canning the jungle in front of them. The sounds of the helicopter faded leaving only the occasional rustling, lonely sqwuak and, thank god (or whatever was up there) nothing else.

Jerry broke the silence. “Why do they call the enemy Jerry?”

Miles ignored him, so Jerry continued.

“I mean, that’s my name and I’m already out here in the shit taking fire for some rich politicians spoiled son and they have the nerve to call the enemy Jerry.”

“What are you talking about?” Said Miles. “That’s what they allies called the German’s in World War 2. Nobody’s saying that now. Relax, man. And put out that cigarette, Jerry will smell it and be on us like green on leaves.”

“They can’t smell shit. They probably in the same position, scared out of their minds–wait, did you just call them Jerry?

Miles laughed. “But seriously, put it out man, they’re sneaky.”

Jerry put out his cigarette and grabbed his rifle, taking a position next to Miles.

“Do you know how out of my mind I am right now?” Said Jerry.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m sitting out here in the middle of a country I hadn’t even heard of until a few months ago, with a guy I hadn’t met until a few months ago with my face painted in black and green sitting in a deep mud puddle. That’s far out, man.”

“Ditto,” Said Miles.

“Is that normal? Just two regular guys sitting out here aiming loaded weapons at nothing?”

“I know man.” Said Miles. “But you better keep that talk between us, it’s tiresome to everyone else.”

Jerry smacked at a mosquito on his arm.

“If Jerry doesn’t kill us, these fuckin’ mosquitos will. God damn!”

“Hey watch my back,” said Miles. “I gotta take a shit, right on schedule.”

Miles hopped out of the hole and crouched behind a tree, still holding his rifle.

“You been going pretty regular, that’s great,” said Jerry. “I’m still at the mercy of the soup inside.”

“Hey,” said Jerry. “what do you miss most about home?”

“Toilet paper,” said Miles. “As many plies as I want plus folded. Toilet paper.”

“I miss the movies,” said Jerry. “You could feel terrified one minute, then walk out of the theater and head home the next. It was just an experience.”

“well this out here is an experience too.” Said Miles, pulling up his pants.

“Movies and a big tub of popcorn. That’s what I miss,” said Jerry.

Flame, Famous, Shy

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

She went on to do great things. Invited to universities she had never attended to give graduation speeches. Invited to television talk shows so her admirers could see she was really like everyone else but in the most glamorous way. Her name was leant to movies, books and T.V. shows as a way to further promote them. She made trips to congress to speak bout issues in which she was passionate. She was loved and adored. Her personal life, however, did not exist.

Her name meant many things to those who followed her but to herself it had lost all meaning. her quiet demeanor was misattributed as humbleness and her few choices of words marked as the attribute of a great speaker, rather than to her shyness.

Long after her body existed, she would live on in the memories of the collective conscience. They would make meme’s of her on social media platforms that generations after would look at and attribute new meaning.

And, of course, she was heralded as a great voice for women all over the world. Though she never directly spoke of women’s rights, her image was used as an example to all women.

To this, she had her doubts. Am I a tool for another’s agenda? Do I belong here for my ideas? Or will I always be a female body with ideas, doomed never to be separated from my anatomy.

These questions would arise in her mind but to them she also rebutted, as long as my ideas are sound they will rise above all superficialities, in time.

She got older and wiser, the political climate changed and issues came, went and came back again. Her image came and went with them.

Now as she neared the end of her life, with only a handful of years to walk this earth, she noticed the same things.

“Here is an example of a woman who has risen above it all to achieve great things, despite.”

“This woman has to rub it in everyone’s faces that she is a woman, just focus on the ideas, lady.”

She had heard the same criticisms all her life, on both sides, calling her woman. They were not wrong but they were miles away from the truth.

As she spent her final days in a house of a quiet neighborhood in some lazy suburb, she would look out the window and watch the world go by, still with that same flame, passion and will. To all of you, she thought, that say I am more than a woman or just a woman, I only ever wished to live as I am.

Yearn, Rasp, Grit

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by @kadeburgercow

“Follow me.” The guy said. He was wearing a wide brimmed safari hat and an all Khaki outfit with zippers zig zagging everywhere. It looked as if the designer had made it their mission to challenge the pre-existing record of zippers on clothes.

From the looks of the outfit, he holds the record.

The guy who said “follow me” was our tour guide. His outfit would have been fine in the jungle but we were in downtown Los Angeles in July. This jungle required less clothing.

Why I was with this gentleman? Well, I wasn’t in my right mind. The Dodgers had just lost to the Brewers and I honored the visiting team by drinking copious amounts of brew. Then I stumbled out of the ball park, took a taxi downtown and realized I was thirsty.

The concrete-Dr. Livingston beckoned to me and now I’m following him, hoping he can lead me to the fountain of youth, or any working water fountain. I was yearning for some H2O.

I was slowing down, however, because of some sand in my shoes. A couple of bigger pebbles were stabbing straight into my foot bones by the toes then shifting down to my heal.

I sat down to take off my shoes and dump out the rocks. The guy came lumbering back, saying, “aren’t you coming? What’s wrong?”

I told him and his answer was, “No grit, no glory. Get up and get on. Tomorrow waits for no man so let’s get on it today. Work–“

His voice trailed off as he stomped away. Where the hell am I? Is this guy Jesus? Is he taking me to heaven? I hope there’s either water there or no thirst.

I stood up and ran after him. My running line zig zagging all over the side walk (like the zippers on his khaki suit) and then all over the asphalt. Then suddenly I stopped running. I was at eye-level with all the car tires and pedestrians feet. A incredibly loud and intense grating noise was in my left ear.

Then I was air-born, looking down at my body being dragged under a Semi truck. A teeth-gritting rasp emitted from the sound of my skull scraping against the asphalt.

I looked up, floating closer to the clouds. I looked over to the sun, feeling its heat and realizing that I was still thirsty.