the page is snowy white
a surface of purity
of blankness
but what if the page was green?
lush and fertile
would it be easier to write?
or would I take off my shoes
and run through it
passing off future possibilities
for the moment?
the page on which I write
is marked
with satisfaction
A man walks into a bar. He goes up to the bartender and says, “I’m the guy.”
“What guy?” Asks the bartender.
“The guy who walked into the bar.”
“Huh. You got a horse?”
“Nope.”
“A dog?”
“No, I don’t have one of those either.”
“So what’s so special about you?”
The man widens his stance and puts his hands on his hips, and says, “I’m self-aware.”
The bartender stares, speechless. He stares for so long that the man begins to feel uncomfortable.
“What?” says the man eventually.
The bartender points past the man to the door. The man turns and sees every character that has ever walked into the bar. As one, they kneel down and chant, “WE’RE NOT WORTHY!”
And then the bar falls down and turns to dust.
***
A man walks into a bar. Stop me if you’ve heard this one.
bearing in mind
the bare facts
fuzzy-wuzzy
may have been
a threadbare
bear
“But Martha! You can’t start a soap opera in the middle! People will never watch!”
“Oh Peter, you idiot. They do it all the time! They turn on the television one afternoon and they sit down with their glass of scotch and they’re hooked!”
“They do?”
“Of course they do. Do you think everyone who watches an afternoon serial started at the beginning? For God’s sake, Peter! Most of the shows are older than their viewers!”
“So that means…”
Martha raises one perfectly plucked eyebrow.
“That means…”
“Come on, Peter, spit it out!”
“That means we have viewers!”
“By George, I think he’s got it! Someone give the man a cookie!”
may your clouds be always fluffy
may your fruits be ever fresh
may your tests not all be toughies
may mozzies* be stopped by mesh
may your holidays be jolly
may your sleeps be peaceful too
may your dreams not end up folly
may you never get the flu
happy may!
*mosquitoes
“You know,” I began. My brother doesn’t know anything, so it was a rhetorical statement. “If you cross a giraffe with an elephant, the result will just be a scaly grey giraffe. They have the same tail.”
“But it has to have a trunk!” he exclaimed.
“If you give it a trunk it will topple forward. I won’t be able to get from tree to tree in order to eat.”
“It doesn’t need to eat! It’s just a picture!!”
He had a point. I handed him my grey crayon and let him get on with it. But I couldn’t watch.
Author’s Notes:
1. I don’t suppose this character is “zany” as much as childish, but this is what I ended up with and I’m sticking to it.
2. I think I only ended up with one or two “adult content” posts. None were particularly naughty. Ah, well. It’s been fun doing this challenge with characters. Thanks for reading.
you wind me up
and hold me
you let me go
i fall
and spin
and hit bottom
and wonder
if you’ll jerk me back up
or leave me dangling
while i wait to find out
i’ll just walk the dog
“Some gay people are sooo cool, you know? I mean, I like so many of them.”
“I know, right? They’re so easy to get along with.”
“But not all of them. Some can be downright rude.”
“That’s what I meant.”
“Did you see that guy I was talking to last night? The one with the blue hair? He was sooo gay. And he’s, like, checking out all these guys and asking me what I thought of them…”
“I saw you talking to him! I thought he was really cute!”
“He was NOT cute. But his clothes were, like, out of this world gorgeous.”
“Well yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Author’s Notes:
1. I realize “Xerox” is a bit of a stretch for the subject, but “xenophobe” seemed too obvious. People who lack opinions fascinate me, as do those who agree with everything everyone says. I had a boyfriend like that once. The relationship didn’t last long.
2. I have no plans to write Adult Content fiction pieces for this challenge, but it happens, and it’s sometimes beyond my control if I’m to remain authentic to my muse. I will place a warning in the title of those posts which fall under the AC category.
Oh woe is me
as I sit here
in a puddle of spilled tea.
My hot ass
is by far hotter
than it was but five minutes past.
And just as I
was about to walk
out the door on a date with a guy.
His ass was hotter
than mine yesterday
but now, alas, my hotpants are no better than a blotter.
Oh woe is me
I must get changed
into beige-ly boring cloth, and sadly covered knees.
Author’s Notes:
1. Some characters fall easily into poetry. The sadder they are, the faster they fall, in my experience.
2. I have no plans to write Adult Content fiction pieces for this challenge, but it happens, and it’s sometimes beyond my control if I’m to remain authentic to my muse. I will place a warning in the title of those posts which fall under the AC category.
“So I said to him, I said, ‘If you’re gonna cheat on your wife, at least cheat with a good-looking chick!’ ‘Coz you know, this woman he was seeing, I’ll tell you something. This woman this guy was seeing was uuggglllyyy…? Oh my God she was ugly! But then his wife wasn’t any kind of looker either, so you can see why he’d want to cheat on her. But you know, guys like that… and I’m not saying I have anything against guys like that. I’ve been there myself, more than once. But guys like that, they’re just asking for trouble, you know? They’re just here and there, and their minds are, like, all over the place! They can’t keep a straight thought in their heads any more than they can keep their dicks in their pants, you know?”
“Uh huh. Hey, do you know if this plane is going to make any extra stops?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Emergency landings?”
“No. No, I don’t think so. But about this guy…”
Author’s Notes:
1. For my next trick, I’ll be Donald Trump’s speech writer!
2. I have no plans to write Adult Content fiction pieces for this challenge, but it happens, and it’s sometimes beyond my control if I’m to remain authentic to my muse. I will place a warning in the title of those posts which fall under the AC category.
Linda G. Hill 