Help Line

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Prompts = Sink, Celebrity, Verify

Hello, Apple help line, Valerie speaking, how can I help you today?

Uh huh

Mmm hmmm

Yup yup

Ok sir, I understand you’re upset, but I do need to start with verifying your identity.

Uh huh

Mmm hmmm

Yup yup

Ok sir, I understand you’re some sort of celebrity on YouTube, but I do need your Apple ID please.

Uh huh

Mmm hmmm

Yup yup

Ok sir, I understand that you feel I’m not being helpful so far and that you’ll make a video with the express purpose of sinking my customer service rating, but I do need you to…

Outside On The Deck

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Prompts = Easter, Labor, Soothe

As I sit and write this, the day after the day after Easter (yes, that’s Tuesday if you’re counting), I can hear the natural sounds of birds chittering and chattering and the mechanical white-noise monotony of the bedroom’s heat-exchanger blowing hot air out onto the deck.

For the first time in three months, I’m sitting outside this morning. Normally my story labour is in the afternoon, but circumstances prevented that, so I’m watching the sun rise, breathing fresh air (the air quality measurement coming in at a comfortably non-toxic level).

Outside — what a breath of fresh air!

Don't Wallow In Spilled Milk

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Prompts = Brace, Quash, Wallow

My mother used to tell me “Don’t wallow in the spilled milk.” It’s a strange expression, I know, but English isn’t her first language. Her point was that once something bad happens, fix it.

I’m a prosecutor. Earlier today, the judge on the case made a decision on a defence motion; despite my valiant attempts to quash, it went their way. Now, instead of a bit of spilled milk, I’ve got a proverbial tanker truck that just jackknifed and spilled milk everywhere.

But I’m not wallowing, Ma. I am, however, bracing for a tense press briefing tomorrow with several whiskeys.

mouse and Brash Trash

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Prompts = Supplement, Enable, Brash

my business partner calls me mouse i guess because i’m quiet and shy and i also chatter on and on when i’m nervous like i am right now watching you take notes on what i’m saying. he proudly says we sell brash trash but you know all in caps because he shouts it to anyone who’ll listen. you could interview him you know. anyway he calls himself brash and the trash part is teaching people how to supplement their income by enabling them to work more efficiently but it’s really just endlessly repeating pithy phrases. i teach, he’s the accountant.

Healing Vibes, Dear Reader

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Prompts = Bare, Arrow, Cover

Dear Reader,

Sometimes I wonder why it is I pick the prompts that I do. “Bare, Arrow, Cover.” It lends itself to a story about a naked bow-hunter waiting for Bambi to pass by.

Disgusting. I refuse to write that.

There’s plenty of stories I can write using these words. Plenty!

For instance…

Bombi, Bambi’s older brother, was walking along when he saw something strange in the underbrush: a human half-covered in mottled green clothing, squatting and groaning, bare bottom quivering, bow and arrows discarded, obviously sick.

Bombi sent healing vibes and walked away; the human needed privacy.

A Fish Leonardo

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Prompts = Fish, Tank, Disaster

Leonardo DaVinci, artist (ex. The Last Supper), designer (ex. the tank), and scientist, had a major advantage: opposable thumbs. Do you have any idea how hard it is to draw schematics for an improved containment-breach mechanism with fins? Of course you don’t. But all fish do.

However, even if I had thumbs it wouldn’t matter. I glare at my owner as she draws and paints on paper, canvas, and electronically. Do my supplies orders get filled? No.

She thinks it would be “a disaster” if I succeed with my plan. Maybe so. But I won’t stop trying to try.

Knock Knock It Off

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Prompts = Policy, Market, Scrap

*Knock knock*

‘Who is it?’

‘What do you mean, “who is it”? This is a market, right? You have food, I need food, match made in Heaven.’

‘Yada yada yada who?’

‘Ah, c’mon! This isn’t funny. Let me in, shop, and get home. Please. And thank you.’

‘It’s a new policy I’ve instituted: you need to prove not only that you are disease-free, but are also of sound mind. I’ll ask again: Yada yada yada who?’

‘Do you only have scraps and you don’t want me to see, Shopkeeper?’

‘You’re fine so long as you don’t need TP.’

‘Damn.’

Be The Character

Prompts = Commit, Frighten, Out

I’ve got to commit to the role, the character. Put it out there and leave nothing behind. Act as if you’ll never act again.

There’s a complicated backstory here, so bring nuance. He’s despicable, but his arc allows for salvation; show it. Be rude, be nasty, but don’t frighten; his heart is small but not violent.

Energy up; they’re almost ready for me. I’ll finish costuming by putting on this large green costume head and oh my it’s stifling. Can’t see anything either.

“What? What?”

- Thoughts I might have had getting ready to play The Grinch at a school function.

Drink Deep

Photo by Manuel Meurisse on Unsplash

Prompts = Skills, Items, Map

A map, found hidden among a deceased warlock’s possessions, marks an arduous path to a fount of enormous power. Mercenaries with the needed skills hired. Equipment, provisions, transport, and a few select magical items all acquired. The adventure begins.

Time and distance wear us down, as do enemies of increasing strength, as if some malignant intelligence is aware of our approach. Undaunted, we fight on.

Exhausted after our final battle with the Guardian of the Fount, my hirelings make camp. My greed won’t allow rest; the fount is mine.

I drink deep…

…and become the next Guardian.

They must perish…

Birthday At The Bar

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Prompts = Forty-five, Blue, Gracious

I was feeling lost, depressed, forgotten. What should’ve been a day filled with family, friends, and celebration (you only turn 45 once, after all), was nothing of the sort; for a complicated set of reasons, I was alone. Colour me blue. Midnight blue.

The bartender read my mood; she kept the shots flowing, got me talking, was an angel. Although I’d determined to drink myself blind, she saw the point when I was inertial drinking: drinking because I wasn’t stopping (but wanting to). That’s when she ordered the cab and graciously walked me out.

I think I’m in love.

The Seas Of Love

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

Prompts = Nine, Year, Anniversary

Imagine yourself as a ship sailing the wide ocean seas. Some days are sunny, others stormy, the winds blowing or becalmed. Each day a new day, even though it may look eerily like so many others.

Each person encountered in life also sails their own vessel. Some paths only cross once, some meet intermittently, and a rare few sail a parallel course for any length of time.

Nine years ago today, a mast appeared on the horizon. At first, distance dictated the use of signal flags and homing pigeons, but soon enough, two ships became one.

Happy Anniversary, Aleesha Isvari.

A Modern Hero

Photo by Etienne Martin on Unsplash

Prompts = Incite, Bank, Classic

From the classics to modern tellings, it’s an age old tale: the hero slaying a monster. Those stories can inspire us to greatness.

Which brings me to an incident the other day.

Lunch hour is the only time I can bank, along with half the city. Many of us were eating lunch while in line, but the bank manager announced that it was prohibited.

His announcement incited angry shouting from half-full mouths, pausing in their chewing. Emboldened, I “slew” the monster with my foot-long meatball sub.

The stories never mention police or cleaning bills for tomato sauce stains.

Ze Finalize Treatment

Prompts = Finalize, Grease, Blanket

Photo by Ayurmana Ayurveda on Unsplash

‘Bonjour Meezeez Thompsun, how is your treatment so far? Verrie pleazing, I hope?

‘For zis last treatment, we must moove to zaa different room, ver vee keep ze vats.

‘Pardon? Ah, oui, I did say “vats”. For zis finalize treatment, you vill recline on zah sloped bed az ze finest varm oil is poured ever so gentlee over vous. A delightful blanket ov ze senzations, n’est-ce pas?’

In truth, the oil was whatever they could get on the cheap. If it was greasy, it was good. 

Same with employees: cheap was good. A good fake French accent was better. 

April Jewels

Photo by Nadia Valko on Unsplash

Prompts = April, Fool, Morning

‘This is Diamond Dave from Diamond Dave’s Diamond Centre telling you that when I hear April Fool’s, I think April jewels.

‘Guys, you know what I’m talking about, when you trick your lady into wearing a chicken costume to a fancy dinner party and made her the laughing stock of your social group, that’s the time to show her the 24 carat gold, 8 diamond masterpiece, with “I gotcha” inscribed with unfinished silver. Let me tell ya, it helps keep you from waking up on the couch the next morning, know what I mean?

‘C’mon in and get yours today!’

A Snail's Tale

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash

Prompts = Equinox, Escargot, Escape

“C’mon family! Not far now!”

I’m lying, of course; everything’s far away when you’re a snail. That whole “snail’s pace” thing? Totally true. But I have to encourage my family, all 800 of us, to safety.

It struck me as I lay in my comfy shell (my one for work chafes, but it suits the suits) that the transiting of the Sun was the reason for the Great Turkey Invasion twice yearly. The Equinox, it turns out, turns innocent snails into tasty escargot for hungry birds. We’re escaping the slaughters and moving somewhere safer.

Maybe turtles will be better neighbours.

Leased Car Blues

Photo by Ante Hamersmit on Unsplash

Prompts = Little, Course, Lease

Over the course of the three years I leased my car from the dealership, things happened to the car: a ding here, a bump there. It was never anything big, always little stuff, like that one time the oil light came on and I forgot to go to the shop for like a week. Like I said, little stuff.

You wouldn’t have guessed that when I returned the car at lease end. The list of supposed damages and needed repairs ran six pages! Crazy long!

So I refused to pay. I’d show them.

What did they do? They sued me!

Who Gazes Back?

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Prompts = Describe, Window, Clothes

“Doctor Brenzinger, gaze into the eyes of this woman and describe what you see.”

Brenzinger did as his colleague asked, then stepped back, puzzled. “Is this some trick, Doctor Wrongle?”

“And how, my dear fellow, would I pull something like that off?”

It’s said the eyes are the windows to the soul. Currently, peering into Madame Margot’s is literally like looking through a window and seeing a room beyond, where a figure, dressed in clothes considered fashionable several centuries ago, looks back at you.

Margot, a patient at St. Chad’s Hospital for Really Weird Cases, sits, catatonic, mentally locked away.

Forbidden Love

Prompts = Alter, Porcupine, Moustache

I know it’s forbidden love. Maybe that adds to the allure, I don’t know. But when I’m with her, it’s magical. Angels sing, the stars halt in their flowing across the sky to watch, it’s all that and more. 

She feels the same about me too; she told me while we held each other gently, tenderly. We leaned into each other, ready to kiss… then pulled away: spines poked my paws and the whiskers of my moustache poked her nose. 

I’m a cat, she’s a porcupine. We’ll have to alter how we interact to make this work, but it will. 

Snack Bag Snafu

Prompts = Episode, Laxative, Positive

Photo by Tetiana Bykovets on Unsplash

Don’t ask me how it happened; me, suffering intestinal cramps, trying to go fast, my body not cooperating, in the middle of Star Wars, Episode 1. This does not bode well for lasting through the other eight movies. To make matters worse, my date is waiting (probably) patiently (I hope) for me in the theatre.

Ok, so I know how it happened, but don’t ask me how it is that it happened. I’m positive that made no sense whatsoever. What I mean to say is I have no idea how the chocolate-flavoured laxative ended up in my snack bag.