This story was based on a call on Twitter for the first five words of a story. @jc_sharp provided “The infestation came fast, Zombies”.
The infestation came fast, Zombies News reported. Peaceful settlements were raided during the day by human soldiers wielding needle guns. Those struck with the poisoned needles gradually lost their zombinity, reverting to their lesser human forms. Those that were not kidnapped by the human infesters have been gathered in quarantine.
“I ate a bumblebee.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because I wanted to feel it buzz around inside my belly!”
“And can you feel it?”
“Nope.”
“Well that’s too bad.”
“I figure it’s just bored in there.”
“Oh?”
“That’s why I’m going to swallow another one to be its friend.”
“‘Let’s go to the beach,’ you said! ‘Let’s go for a walk on the sand with baby Timmy,’ you said! ‘Let’s dress like giant crabs and pretend to kidnap him and take him to a magical underwater utopia full of laughter and song,’ you said! ‘He’ll enjoy it,’ you said…”
A man walked up to me in the park today and asked, “Are you eating that?”
I was confused. I wasn’t eating anything. I turned to him and said, “No.”
He promptly took a large bite out of my upper thigh and walked away.
I wish I had said “Yes.”
This guest story comes from Dave Eves, a soon-to-graduate film student and independent filmmaker.
“We’re going blue!”
“I’m taking sniper!”
“Round’s starting!”
“Rush left! Go go go!”
“Scout behind us!”
“I have the flag! Need a medic!”
“Boom! Headshot! Owned!”
“That’s the round, boys!”
Assailed by fatigue and feeling the effects of a rolling series of sugar highs, the bloodshot, beer-soaked digital warriors persevered.
Heaven sighed.
She said, “Everything I do… I do it for you. Straight from the heart.”
So far, so good, he thought.
“Do I have to say the words? There’s somebody else. Please forgive me. This time it’s only love.”
He cried, “It cuts like a knife!”
They were soulmates.
Editor: There are eight song titles and one album title in this story. Can you identify them all? And do you know which musician performed the album?
Editor: With some recent discussion on how submissions are handled at FiftyWordStories.com, in terms of copyright and ownership, I felt this fifty-word story/essay submitted by Mike Vardy was relevant. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject!
Existing work inspires my best creative work. The inspiring work seems to come in pairs: I watched an episode of Behind The Music followed by The Rutles, and an idea was born; I was thinking about productivity and watched The Colbert Report, and an idea was born.
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Mike Vardy lives in Victoria, BC, with his wife, Anne, and daughter, Grace. He has contributed to CBC Radio, both as a writer and performer, and is the creator of the personal productivity parody site, Effing The Dog. He also co-hosts DyscultureD, a weekly podcast that “dyscusses and dysects” pop culture of the past and present with a very Canadian flavo(u)r.
His face was covered in bumblebees.
“Lookit me!” he shouted. One of the bees crawled into his nasal passage. “I’m gonna be the first human honeycomb!”
I shook my head. He was really stupid sometimes. “It won’t work,” I told him. “You aren’t hollow.”
We solved that problem easily enough.
There was a cowboy in my closet.
I told him I had to store my clothes there and he was going to have to stay somewhere else, but he laughed.
“Why do you need more than one set of clothes?” he asked me.
And that’s why I never go shopping.
I.