My therapist told me that I should get on with the day to day things and deal with each situation as a single event, minimizing the life wreckery of it all. Thanks, doc, easy to say isn't it? Small bites of life are easier to chew. Easier until you step off the edge of the plate and fall right into the stew pot. Then what? So, here I am in the grocery store staring at this fucking moose and wondering what the fuck it all means. Bruce gets it, he's two dimensional. He has a purpose, a reason stand there. What am I doing? I have to walk away. Bruce, my man, what have you done?



Someone has an existential crisis involving grocery mascot Bruce, the Produce Moose.

He lied. 

He lied every day until you believed it. 

He told you everything you wanted to hear, every day, until you believed it. 

He lied for the greater good.

He did, eh?

There was nothing hard about my job at Compound-18. Walk the rows, check the cages, report to the science lab. And, here I was doing just that, but today, cage 426-B was compromised. I moved quickly to the intercom and stammered out the code for immediate assistance. Then I waited. I was uneasy, shit like this was not supposed to happen, I double checked the connections on my air system. Biohazard came barreling in and sealed the row. We discussed the situation and they got to work on disposal. I was sweaty and uncomfortable in my hazmat gear. I knew we weren't going anywhere, sealed in, till the quarantine expired. I went over it in my head, I didn't miss any steps, none of this could be on me, I did my job. Who fucked up, though? It would drive me nuts if I didn't find out, but I knew if I pressed Biohazard for information they'd report me and I still wouldn't know shit. They were incredibly efficient, I enjoyed watching them work. Once they were done we still had about 20 minutes to wait for release and I could tell they were talking about the exact things I wanted to know, but they were linked and I couldn't hear ANY OF IT! I groaned in frustration and stared at my feet. The green light came on with a pleasant mist and the door slid open. I thanked them for their help and headed to the lab with my clipboard and my report that simply stated:

Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo.

It's an honored Basque tradition for men in their 25th year to follow the odyssey of other men in the family. Andoni was very close to this day and he was delighted. There were tales told of previous men's exploits, some more sophisticated than others. Andoni's older brother, Josepe, advised him against following in his footsteps knowing that his admiration would lead him in that direction. His coming of age was one of those less glamorous stories, he was a wild boy with no regard for convention or traditions. He told him "Unless those poor dipshits eat this sauerkraut, that piss horror we agreed not to mention anymore won't have done anybody a lick of good." Andoni nodded in understanding, realizing what his brother had been trying to tell him all this time. His mother would be happy and his father proud, and he would finally be a man.



Writing prompt: a piece in which a character uses the line, "Unless those poor dipshits eat this sauerkraut, that piss horror we agreed not to mention anymore won't have done anybody a lick of good."

"You may open your baskets."

African cucumber. Silken tofu. Astronaut ice cream. Indian papadum.

All motion is accelerated, my mind is swift. I've got this in the bag, there's no way she can beat me. I work well under pressure and everything is coming together just like it should. Slice, scoop, smash, saute, score, season, scramble, simmer, split, spread, stuff, sprinkle and plate. It's perfect, just perfect. I won it all, I knew I would.

"Thank you judges, I've prepared for you...

UFO tofu"

It seemed like just yesterday that she was racing across the prairie holding tight to the mane of her nag, her own hair blowing wildly in the wind. Seasons had come and gone, lives had changed, hers especially. Frontier living demanded a sturdy resolve which she'd developed when life forced her hand, but it came undone as they all dropped off one by one with timing so cruel that grieving for one hadn't ended when it began anew. She didn't know how to hack it anymore and had left her horse where he'd fallen more than a week ago. The wind kicked up outside, a black blizzard was closing in and she hoped the whole homestead would be swept away with this one. Familiar sounds twisted and rumbled into something else, something off. A glance out the window settled her hunch and she stood with wide eyes wondering what the sam hill was actually creepin up. Everything swayed in the wind, debris pelted the windows, and that cyclone of darkness made it's way ever closer. She held onto the doorknob thinking that the whole shack might rip free from the groundwork and fly away Kansas style, but it all fell silent. There was still a light, dusty breeze when she went onto the porch and no explanation on God's green earth for what she was seeing. She decided in that instant that there was nothing to lose. Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.


Write a story that ends with the following sentence: Debra brushed the sand from her blouse, took a last, wistful look at the now putrefying horse, and stepped into the hot-air balloon.

Spring. Guangdong China. Day three of the Lunar New Year, "Day of the Poor Devil".

Eye witnesses report several individuals fleeing the scene of what appears to be a cruel and senseless crime. Juān Lau recounts "It was brutal, I couldn't believe I was seeing it happen. And then, they just ran off. It was awful." Police have not issued an official statement.

A dog. A panic in a pagoda.

They called her a hoarder, and by definition she was, but clinically she was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive personality disorder. Her collection stood in opposition of her condition, but the manner in which she maintained it was textbook, everything clean and organized. The affliction was obvious, but so well managed, impressive to behold. Room by room, every drawer and cabinet filled with neat, flattened bundles of cartons. Every variety dismantled to it's basest form and laid in perfectly organized stacks. Folding cartons, egg cartons, aseptic, gable top, all of them. Her grocery trips were predictable and she always checked out in the same lane. Her cashier was a bland woman in her fifties who never had much to say, she liked that. She lived in the community but no one knew her because she kept to herself, maybe too much.

There was no information about what happened, it was like her existence had been expunged. Was she really my neighbor at all? She was gone as if she had never been there.

No trace, not one carton.

There was no way. I had plans, a life. Every thing I'd thought of had fallen through, I was stuck. He sat on the sofa looking solemn, he didn't want to believe any of it. Not that it was true, not that I would follow through, not that it would be over...for everyone. He'd been avoiding eye contact since I stepped up onto the stool.  I didn't want this, but I was out of options. I slid the rope over my head and tightened it up a little. I should have said goodbye, but instead I let the pregnancy test fall from my hand and kicked the stool aside. A hotness spread across my face, the pressure was so intense, I could feel my body moving in spasms. He reached for the test on the floor and a morbid understanding spread over him. My eyes were fixed on his heaving back, weeping into his knees, as the light around me faded away. 


Write a short scene in which one character reduces another to uncontrollable sobs without touching him or speaking.

So, palindromes are turning out to be great writing prompts, I'm loving it. This one took me down a rabbit hole of logic twisting words that made no sense to my non-math brain. I guess I've heard of transcendental numbers before, but being completely uninterested in, and no good at, math I never thought to read about them. Um, fuckin wow. Even the first sentence of the Wikipedia entry, meant to be a concise and basic explanation, lost me. I'm a pretty smart lady, but I guess I fell off the math train before it even left the station. I still do long division, soooo. "Wtf is long division?"  I know, right? Anyway, a transcendental number is a number that is not algebraic. Simple enough, huh? Except for all the exceptions and parenthesis and brackets and equations and commas and possible this' and thats. And, apparently it's extremely difficult to prove that a number is transcendental, so there are some "proven" numbers and some that "may or may not be". I read about these mysterious and amazing numbers for, like, an hour, at least. My eyes were burning and watery by the time I decided to stop. It could have been the dust from sweeping the garage or the glare of the computer screen, but maybe it was my own frustration at not being able to grasp any of it. Now that I've started writing again and am loving it, should I expand on other things in life?  Like math? The pretzel that my brain was left in after trying to understand that says no, but you have to learn things right? We shall see, I suppose.  Who wants to teach me math? It might be the fact that it's the only one I'd heard of previous to my foray into transcendental number land, but it suffices to say, at this point...

I prefer pi.

Check it out for yourself. If you get it, hit me up dawg. I'd love to get it, too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_number

She dragged hard on the cigarette hanging from her lips as she pulled the last curler out of her hair, leaving a deep red ring on the filter. Finger combing the curls out made them last a little longer. She shook her head and dropped the cigarette in the toilet. The depleted glass on the counter sent her to the kitchen for a refill. Bourbon was the easy choice. Back in the mirror, she laid thick black lines on her eyes and feathered her lashes to disguise the age that her face had not acquired through time, but circumstance. She was wearing a soft, tight skirt and a low cut top to flaunt her breasts. She slipped on a pair of heels and reapplied her lipstick before leaving for the night. Purse check; money, cigarettes, lighter, drugs, check.

They all knew her here, she was a regular. The whiskey she'd drank at home kept her loose and friendly from the get go. She chatted her way around the rail, eyeing potentials and waving the bartender over to take her order. "Tanqueray, baby, rocks." As she slid her cash across the bar she noticed a guy at the end checking her out. Within minutes she'd gotten a light for her cigarette and had him engaged in meaningless conversation.

Tulsa night life; filth, gin, a slut.