Limited Test Subjects

My uncle would be classed as insane by most, but since he had made millions off his work with computers, he was eccentric.

As his sole living relative and heir I would often visit him. He was always going on about his work, which I never understood.

That is, till the day I went to his mansion and he excitedly showed me a flying monkey in a cage. He explained that his invention finally worked, and that he could pull anything on a screen into real life.

I probably should have checked his heart before using it on porn though…

(Thanks to Jed for the Suggestion!)

Site News: Challenge Week 2- Drabble Harder!

It worked well before, so we're doing it again. All this week I'll be doing drabbles based on suggestions from the wilderness that is the Internet. If you have an idea you want to chuck my way, feel free to do so below or via my twitter, (@MassiveQ) Thanks!

Eyes on the Clock

“And now on ‘Searching For Stardom’, we have a mother and son double act, please welcome to the stage The Fabulous Celeste and Rupert!”

The crowd politely applauded as the middle aged woman walked out on stage, a small boy by her side, being dragged out by the hand.

“So what shall we be getting here?” asked the vicious, nasty judge. The camera trailed over a table covered in various household metal objects.

“Watch as I make these mundane items fly!” Celeste said, striking a pose while squeezing the boy’s shoulder.

And that’s how humanity saw the first true psychic…

Requests in Haste

The results of her outburst were a shattered glass coffee table and a silence broken only by the ticking grandfather clock in the corner.

After a few clearly marked seconds, I turned.

“Well if you’re not going to get the broom…” I muttered.

“THAT’S MY FUCKING POINT! I’m so sick of not getting anything from you! All I want is some fucking emotional depth! Just once could you react emotionally and not just coldly deduce-“

The results of my outburst were a woman with a broken neck, and a silence broken only by the ticking grandfather clock in the corner.

Breaking Free

On a suburban street, a man sat in a car, thinking. Around him sprinklers ran, a bird cleaned itself in a tree, life moved on.

But Charlie’s mind was far away.

“How did I get stuck here? I used to be free, I used to be able to go anywhere I liked, eat whatever I wanted, not care about anything. But one single screw and now I have to be the responsible one! I have to provide for my kids! Screw it!”

The driver started the car, and then almost immediately hit Charlie as he swooped down from the tree.

A Lack of Charity

She rang the doorbell, the door opened.

“Hello, I’m here on behalf of the Red-“ she began.

“Look lady, no offence, but go fuck yourself.” snapped the man who opened the door. He then slammed the door shut.

She went to leave when the door reopened.

“I’m sorry, that was totally uncalled for, I’m just in the middle of a divorce and my job is… Never mind, here.” he said, scribbling out a cheque for her, leaving the payee blank before closing the door again.

She slipped the cheque into her bra then went back to door-knocking for blood donations.

Dr. Seuss Writes A Penthouse Letter

Sally sat on the bed and looked up at me.

“Put your wood into me, I wish to stop with playthings, I want a big man in me!”

I know you hear this all day, but she was a dish. I got her gown in my hands and got it on the bed near her.

Her pink box was a mess, all wet and open. My wood was red and big, as I put it in her.

It was good in her, too good. I went to stop but my milk shook her to the top.

It was good fun.

The Umbrella For Rain Always!

It was the umbrella that really threw me.

I mean, you’d think it would be the fact that right outside the porthole was a young girl, standing on the choppy surface of the sea as if it was solid ground, with a bright pink umbrella to keep the rain off her. I could even see the cute cartoon rabbit on one panel.

I glanced at the bottle in my hand, and then when I looked back up she was right there, looking at me.

I tried to speak, but nothing came. She giggled, then… phased through the window.

And me.

Dirty Tricks

She slowly stood up, and through the fog and mist, she saw the banners slowly come into view. Row after row of soldiers, their armor no longer shined due to the thin layer of grime that was so prevalent in this swamp. Thousands of them, all coming for her.

She guessed that it was inevitable given how she had demanded that the kingdoms bow down to her, but still, the size of the army marching forth was impressive.

At least it was, until she closed her eyes.

And then each and every man found that the grime began to burn…

Trusted Storage Options

Agent Darcy strode into the bank, scanning the room for threats, a hand hovering over his sidearm. Whereas Agent Byrne simply walked up to one of the tellers.

“Hi, we’re here for a safe deposit box?”

The teller showed them to the vault.

“Go.” Darcy ordered. After an apologetic smile from Byrne, she reluctantly left the room as Byrne opened up the box.

“So, is the data there?” Darcy asked. “The fate of the world rests on it!”

“Depends…” said Byrne, as he lifted up a stack of 5 and 1/4 inch floppys. “You know of any local flea markets?”

Wrestling With Emotions

As the Champion entered to loud cheers from the crowd, the Challenger forgo his usual dismissive lounging in the corner. Instead, he looked lost in thought.

The announcers sold it as going over their past history, how their careers have been seemingly intertwined, forever teaming, breaking up, fighting, reuniting.

But actually he was thinking of their friendship, starting on the first day of training together, through partying, both marrying, both having affairs with each others’ wives, and much more.

He knew that the first move he made would dictate how the match would go.

So he broke the Champion’s nose.

A Very Versatile Word

She fell through the skylight, landing on a steel gantry suspended high in the darkened warehouse.

“Fuck.” she said painfully.

Below her, she saw the flashlights of dozens of guards looking for her.

“Fuck.” she said, shocked.

She removed the clip from her pistol, to find only a couple of bullets remaining.

“Fuck.” she said despairingly.

After a moment she began to move along the gantry, the metal swaying as she moved, despite her attempts to prevent this.

“Fuck…” she muttered under her breath.

Then the gantry gave way..

“FUCK!” she screamed as she fell, desperately hoping for a miracle.

Love Affair

I cradled her in my arms, and planted soft, warm kisses across her skin. She giggled in that cute way she had, and looked up at me, her eyes so trusting, so open, so loving.

I kept my eyes on hers, as I slowly lowered her onto the bed, my hands moving slowly but surely to her buttons. With a slow steady hand I undid them one by one, revealing her soft, pale skin to the breeze.

And then I finished changing her, and then put her in front of the TV. My daughter just loves The Wiggles you see.

Inopportune Teaching Moments

Dear “People Against Science Hoaxing”.

I received your ‘treat’, although I believe you meant ‘threat’ there. Other things I noticed in your aggressive correspondence;

- Professor is two s, one r as you can see here.

- The expression is “blown to kingdom come” not “blow to King Dom’s come”.

- The plural is bombs, not bombes.

- Realty is houses. Reality is everything.

However, all of this is irrelevant as the GPS tracked that activated when you opened this letter will by now have had time to report to the police.

Thank you for your assistance.

Dr. Raymond Jones

The First Step

It was buried at the back of the garden, underneath a rather tasteless garden feature of a vaguely Asian style dog statue.

A small box, silver. After some fooling around in the shed, I managed to pry off the lid.

Inside were a couple of devices, one of them vaguely looking like a coiled spring wrapped around a pole, the other a knob that could twist either direction.

I couldn’t find a power source, or anywhere to attach one, and I assumed it was just junk.

That is, until I held the spring and turned the knob.

Then I knew.

The Realities of Football

On any other team he would be one of the fitter boys, but on this team, he was the ‘fatty’, and he was put in goal. And sure, he didn’t get too much ridicule and teasing from the rest of the team, but also since they were all so good, he almost never saw the ball.

Until, of course, the final game.

If this were a movie, he’d prove himself and stop the all important goal and win the game for the team.

Instead, he let a couple of goals through, but the score was 5-2 so it didn’t matter.

Skipping Days

Leon was getting ansty, so I asked him if he’d been getting enough sleep.

“Well… Don’t laugh, all right?”

I nodded.

“I’m… skipping the boring parts of my life.”

He sighed at my expression.

“Whenever I’m about to do something boring like sleep or make breakfast I just… skip past it. I’m having to eat while holding a knife to my own throat!”

“Well… Why not commit a crime? That way you’ll be under constant danger and/or supervision, and thus not skip.”

He thought it over.

“Hell, always wanted to…” he said as he pulled his knife and stabbed me.

Acoustics

“Two, two, two…”

The sole voice rang out over the rows and rows of chairs. The sole movement in the large room was on the stage, where a man slowly spoke into the microphone.

After a few more repeated ‘twos’, he knelt down and adjusted some knobs on a control panel, and then stood once again.

“One, two, three…”

He looked around the room slowly, his ears absorbing the echoes and reverberations of his words. Eventually he nodded to his unseen audience and headed for the door.

Others would come to hear speakers that night.

But only he heard himself.

The Unthinkable

“And I’m here with the new Member-Elect, the man who has done what no-one in the past 136 years has done and won this seat for his party. How do you feel?”

“How do I feel? I feel like someone who was dumped in a no-win situation by a party that has given up its values in exchange for votes, like someone who was laughed at when he asked for some help from HQ and yet still won, and who still won’t get the recognition he deserves!”

…is what he wanted to say. But instead he toed the party line.

Positive Reinforcement & Remembrance Correspondence

I got this memo from my lawyers.

“Congratulations on your continuous non-death in the past annual time division. May your future annual time divisions be numerous, and all marked with a statistically unlikely lack of major physical damage to your person, property and persons you have a bond with, be it emotionally, financially or social. May they also have an acceptably high level of positive emotional quantifiers, with said emotional quantifiers being shared about equally with those you are bonded with as previously indicated.”

… I think they just wished me Happy Birthday.

And charged me $120 for the privilege.

Rulers Required

You gotta draw the line somewhere.

I mean, everyone knows the best gimmicks are just who you are with the volume turned up. But it’s the other way with feuds. The best feuds are usually between good friends.

But then again, sometimes you gotta put a nice guy everyone loves up against a total douchebag, and despite how angry that nice guy gets, you keep booking it because the fans love it. And then the douchebag says something stupid, and the nice guy swings a chair wildly and hits a fan.

As a promoter, you gotta draw the line somewhere.

What You Want To Hear

Miss Debussy, the Math teacher, was sorting her supplies in the store cupboard, idly singing her thoughts, when Mr Walker, the P.E teacher, strode in, closing the door behind him.

“I knew it!” he said, forcing her against the wall. “You’re really a dirty girl!”

“Monsieur Walker, what are you doing?”

“I heard your singing about your ‘love’, I knew that you were another French tart! Stop playing coy!”

She slapped him and ran.

Luckily at the arbitration hearing, Mr. Barclay, who was both Arbitrator and the English teacher, was able to point out that the plural was actually compasses.

Lessons in Growth

I was just admiring how the ceremonial peace blossom garden was coming in when an acolyte walked over to me.

“Where’s the final testing ground?”

I turned to face him and sighed.

“I assume you’ve looked there.” I said, pointing.

He followed my finger to look at his chest. He looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled.

“Oh, I see, to truly test myself and find true enlightenment I must look inside myself! Thank you Sensai!” he said, bowing before he ran off.

I wonder if he ever realised I was pointing behind him and that I’m just the gardener.

Snip

At the bottom of the Mariana Trench, inside the Verne 1, Captain Jericho Kincaid walked into the main lab. He found a scientist, Dr. Andrea Winter, transferring a lobster to another tank. She looked up and smiled.

“Just swapping Nephy into a new home since she’s grown.”

He looked at the animal.

“How old is she now?”

“No idea. Lobsters don’t appear to age after all, as long as they stay safe, they just get bigger and stronger.”

“So… None down here, yes?”

“Oh no, they’d have to be ancient and huge to withstand-“

The vessel’s structural integrity was compromised.

Worst Form of Government Apart From…

It felt weird, being part of a new era. But here I was, about to be part of the first generation to vote via the internet. As I began to jump through all the hoops of proving that I was who I said I was, I watched the introductory vid about how the system now worked, how it made things ‘more democratic’ as everyone could now get involved easier.

Finally I was cleared, and I waited for the party list to load.

Once it got past a thousand I gave up and just picked the first one that sounded nice.

Kicking the Bucket List

96. Win the lottery

He had almost finished his bucket list, a big part of his self-actualisation goals, as he’d been told by his life coach.

97. Do a celebrity

A few entires, he’d admit, were similar, but they were just different enough to count.

98. Do two celebrities at once

Certainly after the… ‘incident’ he was trying hard to be a model patient.

99. Get a world record

One more and he was done…

100. Not kill anyone ever again.

He paused, and then reached for the white-out. They had to be realistic and achievable, his life coach said…

Practical Magic User

Sanstonus strode into the icy cave and looked around. “Well?” he asked, glaring at Kav, his servant boy.

Kav looked around and then pointed into the gloom.

Slowly, a humanoid shape began to approach them, his hands held high. As he approached, it became clear that he was an Ice-man, one of the many magical creatures of the land.

“Kav say you make Sleet fireproof. I love Oxi, she Fire-Spirit, and-“

The wizard held up a hand.

“Sorry, you can’t interact with her, yet you love her?”

The Ice-man paused, and then lunged.

Sanstonus waved his hand and liquidized him.

Bob, John & Tarquin

There were once two shoemakers, Bob and John.

One day, Bob went to Tarquin and asked him for help to sell more shoes. Tarquin, after payment, told everyone that Bob’s shoes were the best around.

Then John went to Tarquin and paid him more. Tarquin then told everyone how John’s shoes were much better value.

They then ended up in a vicious cycle of paying Tarquin more until they both ran out of money and had to close up shop.

                                                          

The moral of the story is that the market decided that it didn’t need shoemakers, so that’s all right then.

Contemplating Posterior Based Music

As I sat there disgusted at a couple of men singing about female posteriors, it suddenly occurred to me that I was being somewhat hypocritical, in that I thought a similar song from my own childhood was goofy fun, but this was crude and disgusting.

So I started comparing the media from then and today. And down the line, everything seemed better, more focused, less committee-drive and safe back then.

But then I thought that maybe I was just viewing things through a nostalgic prism, that I, like everyone, just yearn for my childhood.

Nah, all media does suck now.

A Yearly Tradition

“Father’s Day? It’s such a stupid concept.”

“We know, Dad.”

“I mean, if you need a certain, special day to love someone you’re not doing it right.”

“We know, Dad.”

“And you know how I don’t like a fuss for these sorts of celebrations. By all means when I get a better job or pay off the mortgage, throw me a party then, but for surviving? Why should that be celebrated, you know?”

“We know, Dad.”

“And don’t get me started on the big corporations!”

“We know, Dad.”

“…

I do love all you girls you know.”

“We know, Dad.”