You’re always one decision away from an entirely different life…

Hey…

I know I’m supposed to communicate via a lawyer, but I was ringing to say that you can keep the house…

No, it’s not a trick – take it, but there’ll be no more alimony payments…

You’ve already got all our savings…

No, I quit yesterday…

because I was only doing it to fund your lavish lifestyle…

So, have me declared bankrupt…

What do you want me to say – There’s no more money!

Here’s an idea – How bout you get a job?

They’re clearly not my kids and they both hate me…

OK, well good luck with that. I’m gonna throw this phone in the sea and go fishing…

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

Hidden In Plain Sight…

Dearest Richard,

If you find this letter, then perhaps there is a chance for us after all.

Do you remember when and where I bought the clock? A bric-a-brac impulse in happier times.

Each hour the little man emerges from his arched door and chimes the hour amidst a tinny fanfare. I imagine he was important once, but like so many things, time marginalised him into an anonymous oddity. In that respect he and I are very much alike. I have placed this missive in his arms. Every sixty minutes he will offer you a way back, if you have the eyes to see and the heart to remember…and if not…

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

Fall at the first hurdle…

Knowing that time was short he traded his vast estate for a lump of Orwellium, the rarest metal on earth, so that when his blood-sucking offspring discovered the treasure map they’d discard the seemingly worthless stone that held it in place and set off on a costly and ultimately fruitless quest…

 

Written for: Twittering Tales

Lovely day for a beheading…

Reginald was strangely blasé about the whole thing.

Occupational hazard of being part of the landed gentry, I guess!

He’d had a good run of it, taxing the hell out of his serfs and romping in the haystacks with an array of morally elastic wenches. So what if his coiffured head was shortly to be separated from his velvet covered body?

He was led to a field awash with spent chopping blocks and the discarded cadavers of his extended family.

‘Looks like you won’t be getting those 30 guineas I owe you uncle Francis!’ Reginald gave the executioner a wink. ‘Man, I’m tired of winning!’

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

Nemesis Convention…

‘Last year’s Nemesis Convention was held in a heavily fortified hollowed out volcano!’

Des Troyer slammed the door on his cape and cursed.

‘Times are tough my friend,’ Kat Tastrophy replied menacingly.

‘It looked way nicer on the invitation.’

‘Well, that’s what happens when you miss your sales targets three quarters in a row. Successfully dissolve a few more superheroes in acid and we’ll see about holding the next meeting in space.’

‘Oh no, look, Booby-Trap’s car’s parked out front!’

‘That’ll be where the front door went.’

‘God I hate that infernal temptress, always out-blackmailing me…And I never know where to look!’

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

They grow up so fast…

August 12th – A day that would forever go down in infamy – the day we harnessed the power of children’s adrenaline. It seemed so simple at the time – take them to a fairground, let them become excited, or better still, a little afraid, (painlessly) extract the chemicals from their tiny bodies and convert them into chalky bricks of unbridled combustibility.

The energy crisis was solved over night!

But then came the drawbacks.

The children became bored with their escapades and ceased to produce the desired fight or flight responses, but by then the world’s economy had been built upon their backs, forcing scientists to find new and ingenious ways to stimulate the release of hormones, heightening tolerance, pumping up body mass and creating something wholly other – unwieldy, petulant and indestructible.

If only we’d gone with green energy, or fossil fuels, or even good ole nuclear – anything but this…

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

Filters…

What little effort it would take to snip the silk strings and banish you from my home – a fleeting act of domesticity.

But what if I leave you be? Let the web reach out and encroach, let the dust reclaim…

Let the phone ring to silence…

…the friends fall away…

…the Career careen off the rails into sidings.

Liquidate and eek out – conventions unbinding.

Unkempt, bedraggled, utterly free.

Not dementia or defeat.

Something other.

Something…

The moment passes

A duster makes light work of a spider’s domain.

A fever dream is, once again, held at bay…

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers 

Pipe-Dream My Ass…

Tragedy struck today at The Science Expo. This photo captured the terrifying moment when Dr. Karen Roe, inventor of an invisibility serum, sat down on Hal Froom, founder of Shrinkray.com. A publicist for the famously roguish womaniser stated ‘It’s the way he would’ve wanted to go.’

 

Written for: Twittering Tales

Donde es Wally?

Down broken back-roads and over hostile territory the journalist journeyed, till finally he arrived at a one-horse town and a nameless bar. There he encountered a sunken-eyed, bearded vagabond.

‘I knew someone would find me eventually,’ the vagabond growled.

‘I’ve come a long way to hear your story.’

‘Mine is a tale of hardship and woe. Have you any idea what it’s like to endure the indignity of being constantly pointed out in a crowd, no anonymity, the butt of every joke and sarcastic aside – forcing you at last into exile?’

‘Why didn’t you just take off the stripy top and stop wearing that bobble hat?’

 

Written for: Friday Fictioneers

Stiff Upper Lip…(Twittering Tales)

…Terribly sorry to impose upon you old chap, but might I beg a brief audience to articulate the pickle in which I find myself. Time is short (as is paper) so allow me to harness the power of brevity and proceed forthwith to the kernel of my concern. I am stranded on a des…

 

[END OF MESSAGE]

277 Characters

Written for: Twittering Tales