With a bang, the door swung abruptly open.
She stood in the open doorway and said, “I’m home.”
He leaned against the wall. “I missed you.”
“I know,” she said. “But I didn’t miss you.”
“I know,” he said, clutching his heart as his handgun fell from his blood-soaked fingers.
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.
The entire town had gathered to witness the unveiling of a new method of execution.
A fine specimen of a man was watching with the others. He stood a head taller than anyone else in the crowd.
But after the Horizontal Guillotine malfunctioned, no one looked up to him anymore.
“The next shooter up is One-Eyed Joe, who has selected a well-balanced Luger handgun. Here he goes…
“Oh! Sorry folks, no luck yet.
“Now we have Drunken Donny Davis. He’s really waving that twelve-gauge around! Let’s see if he can put a hole in the broad side of the barn.”
A man, celebrating the long-deserved victory of his favorite football team, bounded out of the dimly lit tavern and into the street. He raised his hands in the air and proclaimed to the heavens the thrill and excitement of witnessing such an historic achievement.
He was hit by a bus.
This guest story was written by Brice Puls. He blogs at http://onedecentguy.wordpress.com.
“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.
The runners toed the line and prepared for the firing of the gun. Muscles tense, they tried to clear their minds and relax. Many years of blood, sweat, and tears had led to this moment. They felt woefully unprepared.
Then—
BANG!
They fell, their wish for freedom finally, permanently granted.
The foreman scribbled calculations on his clipboard. “We’ve done it before, but never on this scale.”
“Cost is unimportant,” said the king, opening his wallet. “She wants it done, so it must be done.”
The foreman nodded understandingly. “If she says ‘move the castle,’ then you better castle queen side.”
Editor’s Note: This story was based on a call on Twitter for two nouns and a verb. @davefp responded with castle (noun), wallet, and castle (verb, as in chess).