The man in white stood atop the hill. “The day is at hand,” he bellowed, “No longer shall we tolerate the infidels. No longer shall they defile the purity of our homes and our land. To arms, my children. So says the Creator!”
Mindless sheep were turned into ravenous wolves that day. Not content with just slaughtering the infidels and their families, they killed those who would not join in, or worse, spoke ill of the man in white.
The man in white’s robes were bloodstained red by the end. He laughed as he spoke, “Purity can come only by death.”
In your dreams you can do anything, be anything. I decided to settle down within my subconscious. My home was now my bed. My residence was my imagination. There I stayed.
In reality, I was sick and starving, but home I was fed and well. Out in the world others forgot me; within my mind they loved and adored me. Why would I ever go back?
Even in my dreams, paradise does not last forever. Billboards popped up advertising real meaningful relationships with actual people could be mine if I just opened my eyes.
I did not. I knew the catch.
I had the greatest idea for a story. I totally did. It was the greatest thing ever.
They say there are at most, like, seven kinds of stories. Or three. Or forty-two. I don’t know. I’m not an expert. But this story, I’m telling you, was something completely different.
It took the entire genre of writing to a whole new level.
I counted and it works on at least fifteen different levels. Fifteen! English professors are going to be writing papers and books about this story a thousand years from now. Or they would…
…if I could remember what it was.
A tall man in a trench coat stood between the potatoes and carrots of the Winn-Dixie swearing into his Bluetooth.
“You can’t do this to me. I’ve been on this case too long to just be thrown away like some moldy,” he looked around for a good noun, “cucumber.”
The other shoppers kept their distance.
“What do you mean he’s already on his way?” the man continued.
Another man in the same trench coat but wearing a goatee stood beside the livid man. “It’s time,” he said.
“Twenty-seven years. Twenty-seven years and this is how it ends?”
“‘Fraid so.”
A muffled shot ripped through the first man’s stomach.
“Clean up in produce,” the intercom buzzed five minutes later.
“Go away. I’m not technically alive,” George said without even looking up.
The knocking continued unabated.
“Look. It’s over. I give up. I can’t take it anymore,” George continued his pitiful rant. He was referring of course to the fact that by some fluke of the universe, during a zombie epidemic, he had retained his cognitive abilities.
The knocking still persisted.
George lifted his decaying body. “I have no one to talk to. I apparently can’t die again.” George opened the door. “So just leave me alo—”
“Hello,” said a disfigured zombie-ette. She was the most beautiful sight George ever saw.
“I don’t like it,” an old man blubbers. “I don’t like it one bit. Why don’t they keep their mosques in Arabland where they belong?”
“Grandpa, please,” Joe looks around to see how many strangers have taken notice. “Not in public, please.”
“I’ve got a right to free speech! I’m an American!”
“We’ve talked about this before, Grandpa. Those people are Americans, too.”
Grandpa snorts.
Joe continues, “They have a right to freedom of religion.”
“When the founding fathers said freedom of religion, they meant freedom of Christian religion—except Catholics. Look it up!”
Joe moves to Canada the next month.
Adventure beckoned and Terrance Mydell took up the call. He was young and brash, but as good with a sword as any. His one downfall was that he was madly in love.
Terrance would spend every night speaking in gentle sighs of the girl he left behind whom he would marry upon return. His other companions kept their distance lest they should be caught nearby when the hour of ironic retribution came.
It was the eve of the final battle.
“Soon, I shall be in the arms of my beloved,” were his last words before catching an arrow through the heart.
“I don’t get it,” Jessica said as she tilted her head to one side. “Is it supposed to mean something?”
Mike sighed in disgust. “It means everything! This painting is my very life, my very soul!”
“It looks like a bunch of paint splatters,” Jim chimed in.
“That’s right! Jim gets it,” Mike said. “The randomness of the splatter expresses the randomness of life, the confusion and frustration, and also the very beauty of life.”
Mike’s patrons stared at the painting a moment longer, and in unison shook their heads and walked away.
“You ignorant savages! You Philistines!” Mike yelled out to them.
Mike’s next project dripped paint onto canvas like the tears dripping from his face.
~~~
Here is something slightly different. This is not 101 words. (Gasp! The horror!) I wrote this in five minutes with only the prompt of a single word: “expression”. While my 101 word short stories challenge my writing skills in terms of brevity and variety, this five minute fiction challenges me in a few different ways (namely, I don’t have a time limit on my 101 word stories). The five minute fiction challenge is held over at Write Me! on Tuesday afternoons, so maybe I’ll participate again. The competition is awesomely more talented than I–an added challenge of stepping up my game.
“Nice of you to show up,” Gerald said walking in five minutes late. He grimaced at Flint’s shirt. “Why you disrespectful little twit! Your shirt’s all wrinkled!”
“My iron broke,” Flint said, “Would you have preferred me late because I was scrambling to buy a new iron this morning?”
How idiotic, Gerald wanted to say but he held back. That was how gracious and kindhearted a man he was. It was a false choice Flint presented. Obviously, he could have somehow ironed his shirt, broken iron or not. Besides, Flint was probably lying anyway. The jerk.
Gerald, surprisingly, had no friends.
A few years ago, I was asked to teach the US Constitution to fourth graders. I have a degree in Political Science, so I guess I’m qualified.
I broke the class into different branches. We had a President and Vice President, three Supreme Court Justices, and the rest were divided between the House and Senate.
The kids made their own law which passed unanimously: HR1 All Candy Is Free Act. I tried to convince the Supreme Court it was unconstitutional, but they found it to be in keeping with Article I, Section 8; that Congress shall provide for the general Welfare.
