Today we’ve got too many professional law-upholders sittin’ at home, out of a job. Why? ‘Cause they do their work too well! Nobody treats crime like business anymore. It’s a risk versus reward thing.
That’s why I got a government bank account and a brand-new job description: increase the reward.
“Catrina,” said Professor Brownhair, “you’ve been marking students’ papers with blue ink. What is the meaning of this!?”
“Red is so… angry,” said Catrina.
Professor Brownhair proffered a photograph of a winged child holding a pickaxe. “They mine the red ink,” he intoned. “Save the cherubs’ jobs, Catrina. Save them!“
She explained to me that produce was essential to progress. “Science?” she would say. “Show me science on an empty stomach!”
Farming was her calling. Everything else, she said, didn’t really matter.
A twist of fate brought me, undeserving, through the famine, left alone to carry her message of life.
“Help me, Doctor!” yelled Harry.
“What’s the problem?”
“I can’t write 50-word stories.”
“I’ll check your head bumps. A-hah! Your Inflated Prose, Trivial Detail, and Superfluous Description bumps are too high. I’ll lower them for $300 cash.”
Harry paid.
“Brace yourself. This is going to hurt. Nurse, hand me that sledgehammer.”
Michael A. Kechula’s flash fiction and microfiction has been published in 132 magazines and 42 anthologies. His four books of flash fiction are available from BooksForABuck.com.
He was a subculture within a subculture. Cowboys called him “bisonboy,” which wasn’t technically accurate, but it had a better ring to it than “buffaloboy.” He listened to country southern music and wore a 9-gallon hat.
But when he was sad, his tears made mud puddles, just like everybody else’s.
This story was based on a title suggested by @metcarfre.
It was late. Mintred and Neldred were on their way home from Neldred’s retirement party from Municipal Dolphin Transport.
Suddenly, they heard a shout and a splash. Hardly thinking, Neldred dove and kicked, arriving just in time to save the man’s life.
Thus began a series of new aquatic adventures.
This story is based on a series of tweets in which I asked people to guess what form of transport I was riding.
It was Mars-ish. (Mars-like? Hmm. Red and dusty, anyways.) Regardless, it was his backyard, and he was proud of it.
Land ownership was one of the purest forms of power, and it felt good. He knew his great-great-great-great grandfather Karl would agree.
Now all he was missing were some factories.
This story is based on a title suggested by King Kool.
“Didja see that new offer on the television set?”
“Yeah, I seen it.”
“Sez we can get internets fer only a coupla bucks a month!”
“I said I seen it.”
“So, d’ya wanna?”
“Heck, alright. How’d we go ’bout it?”
“Offer sez order online.”
“What’s ‘online’?”
“Heck if I know.”
This story is based on a title suggested by @klancashire.
I hope site issues don’t come in threes, because if they do, we may be in for another one before long.
Having recently solved the “slow site” problem, I’m now trying to figure out why story ratings aren’t working. You can mouse-over the stars, but they don’t register a click.
I still have hope that there will be a way to solve this. So far reinstalling the GD Star Rating plugin from scratch (after backing up all of the ratings and settings) hasn’t worked, nor has reverting to an earlier version of the plugin. If I’m not able to find a way to get ratings going again, I’ll have to find some form of alternative, preferably one that allows me to keep the history of past ratings.
I’ll keep you updated. Until this gets resolved, you can always express your opinions about stories by leaving a comment, instead, or by sharing the ones you like using the buttons underneath each post.
He really didn’t want to go in.
He’d heard stories about this place, and they weren’t good. The person in charge was mean and scary.
He knew that once he was in, there was no way back: he would be trapped – at least until his mum collected him at three.
Mike Jackson is a retired primary school head teacher who is enjoying having time and freedom to write. You can read more of his writing here.