promptsforanewyear-blog

[promptsforanewyear-blog]

You, as a joke, scan yourself at self-serve checkout.  Surprisingly, it beeps.

           Beep.

           I stared down at the screen.  Josh leaned over.

           “Looks like you’re only worth $4.16, my dude,” he said, his thin voice tinging with a snicker at the end.  “Look, you’re labeled as ‘homo’.  Ha!” He laughed.

           “No, this doesn’t make sense.  I don’t even have a bar code!” I replied incredulously, gesticulating at the screen. “This was just a joke!  And that doesn’t say homo, it says....”  I peered more closely at the screen.  “... Homo.”

           “The screen doesn’t lie, Naeden.  Good luck explaining this one to the counter lady.”  Josh snapped his gum, the pink bubble fizzing out as it popped.   “Is there something stuck to your shirt or something?”

           “No—dude, you literally watched me swipe my wrist.”

           “I wasn’t paying attention to you, I was paying attention the manager over there. Looks like she’s on her way over.”

           Sure enough, a young woman with mousy brown hair was sauntering over to the check out.  Her bangs were too long and fell into her eyes.  She tossed her head as she got closer, a streak of electric blue peeking out before slipping back underneath her curls.

           “What seems to be the problem gentlemen?” she asked, her voice smooth as silk.  “You guys are holding up the line.”  I looked between her, Josh, and the machine.

           “I, uh—“

           “You see miss, my buddy here,” Josh put his arm around my shoulder in a brotherly fashion.  I desperately wanted to punch him.  “He went to check how much he was worth, and it appears that he is not only worth $4.16, but also a homo.”  Josh’s shit-eating grin could have shattered a mirror.  I smiled sheepishly and stepped aside, trying desperately to cover my embarrassment.  

           The woman, whose nametag read  ‘Sheanine’, stepped forward and began to touch the screen.  I looked at Josh, who was shamelessly staring at her non-existent ass. I took my opportunity and shoved him.   He shoved me back just as Sheanine looked back.

           “Alright, I fixed it.  Sorry about that.  Our scanners are super sensitive and this guy Rob from corporate got fired last week and before he left he messed with our systems...”  Her voice trailed off, almost as if she had realized her audience and understood that we didn’t care about Rob or corporate or anything that did not remotely get us out of the store faster.  “I hope this doesn’t deter you from shopping here again,” she said with a smile.  “I’m going to report this right now.”  

           I smiled back at her.   She turned away.

           “Have a good day, guys,” she threw over her shoulder.  Suddenly, she paused, turning to look at me directly in the eye. “Oh, and no worries about the homo thing.  It scanned me as one too, and unfortunately I am but a mere heterosexual.”  And with that she was gone, her smile rattling around in my skull like the beeps emanating from the scanners around me.  

[promptsforanewyear-blog]

Go

A story that starts with “The End” and begins with “Once Upon a Time”

Janet: The end.

Boris:  You can’t tell me it’s the end.  We’re only just beginning our lives here.

Janet: I want to go home.

Boris:  You can’t go home.  This is your home now.

Janet: A house is not a home, Boris.  Especially not a house like this.  It’s a piece of shit.  I never wanted to move in here.  I didn’t ask to move halfway across the country for your sorry ass.

Boris: If you didn’t want to then why did you?!

Janet: Because I wanted this to be perfect. Us.  Everything.

Boris: You’re the one who always insists that perfection doesn’t exist, Janet.

Janet: Close to perfection is good enough for me!

Boris: Then why are you fighting me about this?

Janet: Life is too short for me to sit here and be miserable.  I’m sorry, Boris, I really am.  I need to leave.  There are too many love stories that end with once upon a time.

[promptsforanewyear-blog]

SMOOTH OPERATORS?  MORE LIKE SNOOZE BLOCKYEREARDRUMS

You are a very passionate saxophone player. You are given a chance to write an article about the failing jazz band who rejected you a few months earlier. Write this article.

             SMOOTH OPERATORS?  MORE LIKE SNOOZE BLOCKYEREARDRUMS

           I sat in on “Smooth Operators” for one of their sessions last night at “The Blue Dingo” down on 24th and East Street.  “The Blue Dingo” is one of the hottest nightspots in town right now, having played host to some of the most successful new jazz bands on the circuit. In fact, my band plays there almost every Thursday night. The atmosphere is perfect for some smooth jazz, a nice cocktail, and a blind date.  Alas, this poor reporter was not out on a date, but out searching for the next Great Jazz Band.

           I would like to say that, as a saxophone player, I like to think I know my way around the keys. That includes, but is not limited to, being able to use my mouth piece correctly.  Unfortunately, “Scrawny Dave Politski” (as he is known on the jazz circuit) knows as little about his mouth piece as he does the inside of a woman’s vagina how to come off his bandmates and create a sense of unity.

         Unfortunately, this band has very little perception and understanding of how a jazz band is supposed to play.  I could sense that the audience had come for something a little more than electronica sax.  The music was more similar to ska music than anything, and the normal crowd was obviously a bit traumatized upset by this change in plans. Maybe if they had spent more time auditioning people as they did criticizing them, they might have gotten some applause.

If you’re interested in jazz and want to see a band that doesn’t suck and would like to see more of the scene, “Barry Chase and Bingadeers” will be playing this Thursday at 8 pm.  Do not arrive any earlier unless you wish to experience “Smooth Operators” trash music.

 - Barry Chase, journalist

[promptsforanewyear-blog]

A Fruitful Hunt

Write about someone finding a talking unicorn, only to find out it’s a complete dick.

           The night air was so crisp that Jasmine felt she might shatter at any moment. Her dappled cloak flowed angrily behind her, gripped by fervent wind.  Chips of ice bit into her face, having been snow when they first left the clouds they fell from.  She gritted her teeth, yanked her hood over her dark pleated hair, and trudged onward.

           Gareth had promised her that the only way to find a unicorn was to be alone in the middle of a snowstorm.  He had also promised her that this would be one of the most fruitful hunts that she would ever participate in.  The virgin nonsense  that she had been concerned about had went clear over his head when she had questioned him about it, and as she trudged through the growing snow bank, she began to wonder if this suicide mission was worth the reward.  

           Jasmine had been walking for over an hour now.  The beaver fur around her cloak was matted with ice and sweat, its brown coloring lost almost completely in the darkness.  She took a moment to look up at the stars, breathing heavily. Only two had graced the sky tonight that she could see, but she knew that there were a million more out there.

           If only I was positive that this unicorn existed, she mused.  And as her eyes turned back towards the ground, she saw it.  

           Forty feet in front of her stood a large black beast.  The only white on its body was stretched over a spiral horn almost two feet in length coming straight out of its forehead.  It turned its massive head to look at her, pawing at the snow.  Its mane rippled regally in the wind.  

           Jasmine froze.  She could hardly breathe in the cold air, but this was more than she had been expecting. The unicorn locked eyes with her.

           Without feeling her legs, Jasmine began to move forward, her legs coaxed by what could only be described as electric pinpricks.  The snow piled over her boots as her legs dragged along, her eyes fixed only on the mythic beast in front of her.  The snow was coming down much harder now, but her mind felt like mush. Her lips parted slightly, she took one last step forward, closing the gap between her and the beast—

           And it was over.  Almost as if the snow had never been there, Jasmine found herself in a spring meadow, fresh as a daisy.  She was incredibly warm here, her frozen breath no longer clouding in front of her. To her left stood the black unicorn, flipping its long mane demurely.  Shedding her cloak and fur overcoat, Jasmine trained her eyes on the horn.

           She had been sent here for one thing—to kill the beast.  Unicorn blood was the most valuable currency at her outpost. She had already spent much more time than she had intended there, never saving up quite enough to buy a one-way ticket out of a ghost town that was only missing the ghosts.  But now...

           “You can stop looking at me like I’m some piece of meat, Cathy,” said the unicorn.   Jasmine blinked, taking a step back in shock.  “I’m not just like, here for your gaze okay?”

           “I’m s-s-sorry!” Jasmine stuttered.  “I-I-I’ve just ne-never seen a unicorn befo—You can talk?”  She fumbled for a moment, dropping the dagger she had been struggling to take out inconspicuously.

           “Ugh.  I bet you’ve never even thought a unicorn could be black, huh?” The unicorn snorted, pawing at the ground.  “Well, I’m not here for some conquest, babe.  I’ve got this horn and I’m not afraid to impale you, okay?”

           “Okay,” responded Jasmine, her mouth suddenly dry.

           “We come in black, okay?” said the unicorn.  “And my name is Jonathan, and you can say whatever you want but I’m not going to let you ride me.”

           “I don’t want—“

           “And no blood taking, or horn snapping or any of that.”

           “I understand.  Uh, my name is—“

           “Jasmine, yeah.  I know,” snapped the unicorn.  “You’re not a virgin, so you shouldn’t be able to see me.”  The unicorn bared its teeth uneasily.

           “Excuse y—“

           “Yeah, didn’t think I’d know that, did ya?  You must be some sort of mythic creature or something to be able to see me.”  Silence. “They don’t put white unicorns out in the snow ya know.  You wouldn’t be able to see them.  Because they’re white.”

           “I can see how that could be a problem.”  Jasmine slowly bent down to pick up the dagger, but the unicorn pawed angrily at the ground, lowering its head threateningly.

           “I’m not playing,” Jonathan warned.  “I’ll spear you clean through.”

           “I’m just putting it away,” Jasmine huffed, hesitating before kicking away the small dagger.

           “Yeah well, fuck you humans, I know you and your games.”  

           “Whoa, that’s a really gross overgeneralization.  Not all humans are bad.”

           “You can say whatever you want, prissy-pants.  I wouldn’t expect a girl to understand.”

           Jasmine’s hands clenched into tight fists.

           “I’ve been murdering beasts like you since before you were born,” she snarled.

           “Unlikely,” replied the black beast.  “I was born 12,000 years ago.  Just because your outfit predates that doesn’t mean that you do.”

           Jasmine’s lips twitched.  A sharp twinge ran through her top front teeth.  Her poker face revealed nothing.

           “You know my name, not my story,” Jasmine hissed.  In a flash, she was across the meadow, long nails tearing into the flesh of the unicorn’s flank.  It whinnied in pain and bucked.

           “You’re not a human!” the unicorn screeched.  

           “That’s right, you fucking asshole!”

           And then, silence.  Blood splattered across white snow, the cold returning as if it had never left.  Her mouth covered in magic blood, Jasmine smirked, running her hands along her fangs.  The vampyre stood in the darkness, letting the snow hit her cold face. A fruitful hunt indeed.

[promptsforanewyear-blog]

PROMPT: A young woman from a neighboring town is seeking a dragon raiser / enchantress.  The enchantress uses her aesthetic as  a scare tactic.

Mandatory words: Lemons, moldy, wrinkles, combustion, toe ring, “dab”, “whip:, flicker, beeswax, blunder, unnecessary.

           Evelyn dipped her fingers into the beeswax concoction, wrinkles forming over the glistening surface.  It smelled strongly of lemons and felt much like how she imagined the twinkling of stars to feel.   Inhaling deeply, she brought her hand to her mouth, the thought to taste the mixture suddenly overwhelming her good sense.  

           “If you taste that, you die,” Callahan’s voice carried through the air like a whip.  Evelyn immediately snapped out of the trance, hesitated for a moment, and then shook her hand wildly.  From the darkness, Callahan emerged.  Evelyn felt a strong grip on her wrist as the enchantress wiped the beeswax from her fingers.

           “Didn’t your father ever tell you to mind your own beeswax?” the enchantress mocked. Evelyn’s face flushed.  Callahan’s penciled on eyebrows narrowed sharply. “What?  Thought that saying came from the air, did you?  Hmph.”   Dropping Evelyn’s hand, Callahan paced nonchalantly over to her cupboard, built sturdily into the walls of the cave.  Evelyn rung her hands and watched, unsure.

           “Do you ever speak?” Callahan eventually questioned, throwing a bottle haphazardly over her shoulder.  Evelyn ducked instinctually, but after not hearing any glass splintering, looked up. Amazed, she watched as the bottle, filled with a fine green dust that sparkled in the sunlight, floated weightless in front of her.  

           “That’s not going to hold forever you know,” continued Callahan, throwing another bottle over her shoulder.  “If you intend on making yourself useful in any way, now would be a wonderful time to start.”  Evelyn reached out just as the bottle fell from its perch in the air.   More bottles were floating now, each one containing a different herb or powder.  Finally, only one remained in the air.

           In front of her, floating delicately, was a large glass bottle filled with iridescent scales of cerulean and amethyst.  She grasped the bottle tightly, catching the light with each scale and watching it cast beauty throughout the cave.  

           “You work slow, girl.”  Callahan’s voice was suddenly behind her, only an inch behind her ear.  Evelyn yelped, dropping the bottle.  The air caught it, a safety net of magic and command from Callahan’s own fingernails.  The enchantress made her way over to a large cauldron, boiling over a fire of moldy logs and wilted foliage.  Carelessly, she began to throw the bottles into the cauldron. Rainbows began to shoot through the air, hitting the cave walls carelessly.

           “So, your father was a carpenter?” Callahan questioned, grabbing a huge wooden stir from the wall.  Evelyn nodded.  “And I suppose he sent you here to... what, stop me?  A blunder that was.”  Callahan let out a sharp laugh as  Evelyn shook her head.  Callahan looked up, her face twitching slightly.

           “Do you have anything to say to me?” she asked, shaking her spoon at the smaller human.  Evelyn withdrew, eyes widening.

           “I like dragons,” Evelyn finally responded.  Her voice was thin but traversed through the cave melodically, as if emerging from a piccolo.  Callahan smirked.

           “Who on this wide earth does not like dragons?” the enchantress asked. She went back to stirring the cauldron, which hissed in response, its contents threatening to combust.  A flicker of sparks emerged—Callahan drew back expectantly and threw another bottle into the pot.  Evelyn sucked on her bottom lip.

           “Carpenters who use wood,” she responded, pushing her auburn hair behind her ear.  “Father’s shop was set aflame by a zmag last—“

           “And that is somehow my fault?” Callahan interjected.  She blinked slowly, black hair raising slowly, like an angered cat.  “I do not raise zmag.  I raise only gyo and ryu here.  Poison and water.  Fire is too dangerous.”

           Evelyn stood her ground, finding strength in her resolve.

           “I know this, but my father could not care less about what you raise.  He considers all dragons the same.”

           “Well,” the enchantress snarled, “they are not.”

           “And that is why I have come to ask you for an apprenticeship,” Evelynn insisted. She stepped towards the bubbling pot, its contents beginning to spill onto the floor.   “My father can offer me nothing.  I am young.  I am strong. I can—“

           “Carry dragons through entire mountain passes?  Resist screaming when poison seeps through your boots?  Wield a quarterstaff?” Callahan was leaning on her stir now.  Evelyn’s face flushed again as she realized the enchantress was mocking her.  

           “I can wield a quarterstaff, thank you very much,” Evelyn snapped, her fingers curling hard around the table in front of her.  “And I don’t have any choice regardless.   I was disowned by my father, and now I am here to seek your...” Evelyn trailed off, her eyes widening like saucers.

           The inside of the cauldron was moving.   Millions of spiders had materialized, their black fuzzy bodies writhing rhythmically.  The hair on the back of Evelyn’s neck pricked with sweat.  She backed up quickly, knocking over a stray coat rack.

           Callahan smiled roguishly.  

           “They’re just spiders,” she said, waving her hair over the top of the pot. The spiders all froze, each one raising its two front legs as if to dab at the air.   There was a mighty scream—or what would have been a scream if they had had voices to scream.  

           “Come look,” Callahan coaxed.  Evelyn stood against the wall and fervently shook her head ‘no’.  Callahan scoffed, rolling her eyes.  “Really now, for someone who claims to be able to handle dragons, this fear is completely unnecessary.”  She and reached into the black cauldron, withdrawing what looked like a handful of eyelashes.  Evelyn bit her tongue, holding back a groan.  

           Callahan retreated into her bedroom, returning with a pot of paste.  She sat at a small table, scattering what had previously been spider legs.  Suddenly, Evelyn found herself being pulled by some force not of her own into the chair next to Callahan.  Her nails gripped the beech wood chairs, leaving small scores in the soft wood.  She felt the small toe ring she wore press harshly against her flesh, acknowledging silently that it would leave a painful indent later.

           Callahan’s emerald eyes met Evelyn’s soft hazel.  Evelyn founds he could not look away as the enchantress applied the paste to the legs and began to place them between her eyelashes.

           “Really, my dear, you must learn to hold yourself much better if you plan on apprentice under me,” she said.  “I can’t have anyone under my power who would so much as flinch at a spider.  Dragons are much slyer, much more cunning.  If you worry that something as small as a spider might come into your bedroom to harm you... Well, as they say.” Callahan blinked for emphasis, her eyelashes much more dark and full now.  “Brave men do not kill dragons.  They ride them.”