“Whose turn is to load the toaster?”
“Mine,” chirped Emma.
Mom handed Emma the slices of bread, which she carefully loaded into the slots. “I hope it’s Eggs ‘Bunny-Duck’ today,” wished Emma, not quite wrapping her tongue around ‘Benedict’.
“No,” interjected Alex, “it’s gonna be chocolate cake!” He always hoped the toaster would return chocolate cake.
“We’ll see in 2 minutes,” Mom sang cheerfully.
The bell dinged, and the children squealed. Mom opened the toaster door, and pulled out … 4 slices of unevenly toasted bread.
“I think the toaster’s … like, magic, or something. It somehow cooked our bread.”
This was written on the twin prompts of "Who knows?" & "Magic Toaster", for Weekly Challenge #179, for the week of 9/26/2009.
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
24 April 2014
23 April 2014
100 Word Story - Worth the Price (Repost from Facebook) 3 October 2009)
The pain was indescribably excruciating. She passed out at least four times during the first seven-hour session, but lost count after that. By the end, she thought she was going to die, but she didn’t. This wasn’t Tabitha’s first tattoo by any stretch, but it was her first enchanted tattoo, and thus, her most complex, expensive and painful, one by far. After thirteen tortuous sessions, it was done. Full-sized angel wings sprawled across her back. And when the moonlight kissed the ink, all the pain was forgotten as she flexed her feathery new outgrowths and took flight.
This is my entry for this week (10/3/2009), Weekly Challenge #180, "Wings".
This is my entry for this week (10/3/2009), Weekly Challenge #180, "Wings".
100 Word Story - An Uneasy Peace (Repost from Facebook, 22 October 2009)
The war began instantly. The fighting had been intense, the losses devastating. Across the battlefield, amongst the mangled weaponry and war machines, lay the bloody, dismembered corpses of the lucky, the maimed, moaning bodies of the unlucky, and the scattered pieces of the rest.
The aggressor was merciless. He ordered maneuvers without regard for his own casualties, only how much it would destroy his enemy. It was a carnal blood-lust.
Suddenly, the commander instantly ceased his rampage with as little warning as he had begun.
“Matthew, dinner!” the young warlord’s father called.
“Yes! Spaghetti!”
This peace would only be temporary.
This was my entry for the Weekly Challenge #183 - "Peace" (Week Ending 10/24/2009).
The aggressor was merciless. He ordered maneuvers without regard for his own casualties, only how much it would destroy his enemy. It was a carnal blood-lust.
Suddenly, the commander instantly ceased his rampage with as little warning as he had begun.
“Matthew, dinner!” the young warlord’s father called.
“Yes! Spaghetti!”
This peace would only be temporary.
This was my entry for the Weekly Challenge #183 - "Peace" (Week Ending 10/24/2009).
100 Word Stories - Oliver vs. The Interloper (Repost from Facebook, 14 November 2009)
Oliver tore into the interloper with abandon. “Rrrr … Unh …. Rrrrrr-rah! That’ll show you!” The interloper stopped resisting, and lay limp and lifeless under Oliver’s grip. Just then, the front door opened. Oliver froze as Trish and Jay walked in on an interesting scene: their Beagle sitting amongst a blizzard of cotton batting swirling around him, with Trish’s favorite Teddy Bear pinned under his paws, the stuffing knocked out of it.
“Oliver! No! Bad boy!”
Oliver slowly released the plush rag. He sat up, his tail curled around his butt and his head dipped submissively.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.
This was in response to the prompt of "Stuffing" for Weekly Challenge #186 (week ending 11/14/09) for the 100 Word Stories weekly podcast. It was the first of three I wrote on this topic. My mind had gone in several directions, and I knew that the possibilities were wide open. So, I asked Trish to give me a topic/genre/idea to go with, and she said "stuffed animals."
“Oliver! No! Bad boy!”
Oliver slowly released the plush rag. He sat up, his tail curled around his butt and his head dipped submissively.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpered.
This was in response to the prompt of "Stuffing" for Weekly Challenge #186 (week ending 11/14/09) for the 100 Word Stories weekly podcast. It was the first of three I wrote on this topic. My mind had gone in several directions, and I knew that the possibilities were wide open. So, I asked Trish to give me a topic/genre/idea to go with, and she said "stuffed animals."
100 Word Stories - Coco Bunny (Repost from Facebook, 14 November 2009)
We received a mysterious invitation to the Magic Friend Factory. We entered, feeling not entirely unlike Charlie Bucket. We were led through corridors, confused, but curious. In the Friend Picker, our tears were sampled, and a few minutes later, a plush sock-body twin of our late Coco came down a chute. They put it in the Stuffer, and we watched the body fill. They stitched her closed and handed her to us. When we held her, she transformed: no longer a stuffed animal, but an immortal surrogate for our lost friend. There’s a lot of magic in a little stuffing.
This was written in response to the Weekly Challenge #186 - "Stuffing" (week ending 11/14/2009) for the 100 Word Stories weekly podcast. It was the third story I wrote for this prompt, but was the most personal. It was a Fairy Tale rendition of our journey to Build-a-Bear Workshop to make a stuffed animal in tribute to our pet bunny rabbit who died this past spring.
This was written in response to the Weekly Challenge #186 - "Stuffing" (week ending 11/14/2009) for the 100 Word Stories weekly podcast. It was the third story I wrote for this prompt, but was the most personal. It was a Fairy Tale rendition of our journey to Build-a-Bear Workshop to make a stuffed animal in tribute to our pet bunny rabbit who died this past spring.
16 October 2006
My View on Superheroes
A while back (probably in June or July...) Yahoo! Answers had a question posted by movie director John Woo. Now, although I was only mildly awed by this fact (because I think the only movies of his I ever saw were Face/Off and MI:2. I'm not even certain that those were John Woo movies. That's how unaware I am of who he is besides that I'd heard of him, and knew that he includes doves, and mismatched handguns in all his movies.), I did want to answer his question. It was a great question: "Our fascination with comic superheroes is time-tested. Why do we continue to relate to them?"
I was amazed when it was all over how many people had answered along one of these lines: they didn't think that we are fascinated by them, that we don't relate to them, or that our fascination was not that time-tested. My amazement at this was first that if they disagreed, why did they bother sharing this opinion (other than the free points for answering), and by the time that it was done, 2500 people had posted their opinions on the subject. I think this fact says that, especially to the population that likes superheroes, there's a fairly strong sense of relating to them somehow. I'm rambling along a tangent here, and, in my opinion, that's best done on a long car ride, not on the internet, so to my original purpose:
After it was done, I realized that I had no idea which answer number I was, so I had no idea which page my answer would be found on. And I realized that the post in Yahoo! Answers was the only record of what I felt had been a brilliant impromptu exposition on superheroes and what they mean to us. And I'm ignorrant enough of Yahoo! Answers that if there's a way to find a specific answer wihtin a question, I don't know about it. So, I found myself copying and pasting into Word for the first 10 pages, and then saving the complete web pages for the next 10 (pages 11 -20). I left it for awhile, then today saved pages 21-30, then jumped ahead and saved pages 51-70. I then started at page 51 of my saved page documents, and started looking for my post.
Now look here, if you can't keep from calling me names, you're welcome to leave, now. I know it's a bit (OK, a lot) obsessive, but there were at least a few months between the first phase and today's venture back into the abyss of my insanity.
Ahem - now where was I? OK, so on page 52 (see? I only had to look in 2 pages!) I found it. And I had promised myself that when I finally found it, I would post it here for easy future reference. Unfortunately, my own insanity still has me wanting to eventually get all the answers into one document so that I can read them all eventually. There were some really good ones and some really bad ones! Now you know that I wasn't just being dramatic when I referred to my insanity as an abyss, huh?
As you read this answer of mine that I thought was so amazing to be worth the headache and annoyance of all that searching and saving, keep in mind that, other than casually thinking about the question for a day or so before I actually answered it, this answer came out extemporaneously, as is. I did not work through it in drafts, or work on it a little at a time over a day, or more. I cranked this out over about an hour or two between tasks at work. With all that being said, here is my original post, as I originally posted it:
"It goes to the basic need we all have for hope, purpose, escape and familiarity.
"We need to be able to hope for something better. Something bigger. We face a world of despair and sorrow, especially if we look in the right (or wrong, if you will) places. Superheroes, the ones who are moral constants, provide an icon of hope for peace, order, idealism, good triumphing over evil. In those worlds, you can always count on a superhero to set things right when the rest of the world has failed to do so. They usually face unimaginable odds, and yet still triumph. There is always hope.
"With hope comes purpose. If we can hope for greatness, then there is an inherent challenge to be the one to meet that challenge and be that hope. Superheroes, with their causes, mantras, senses of duty, etc., provide us with solid examples of people living their lives with a purpose, and fulfilling that purpose, again while facing great odds. By following their lives, and watching them act because of a greater calling, we gain a sense that we, too, can live life with a purpose, with a sense of a calling, and have greater meaning in our own lives for it.
"But sometimes, life is just too much. As I stated earlier, it's full of despair, failure, anger, sorrow, pain, death, some very ugly and nasty things and all other manner of unpleasantness. When we're down, or overwhelmed by it all, it's unspeakably nice to be able to visit, even if only temporarily until our mom calls us to take out the trash, a world that, no matter how many people wish it would, cannot possibly ever exist. These completely fantastical worlds are similar enough to ring familiar, yet exotic, bizarre, just a little bent enough that we can pretend to be there rather than here. And what makes it even more comforting is the presence of old friends, doing amazingly impossible things, that, even long after we've been called back into our real world, we fantasize about what it would be like if we could do them here. I don't think there's a child out there who has enjoyed superhero comics and books, who didn't think about being able to fly, have super strength, be invisible, and how this would help him or her conquer a bully, impress their friends, or just make taking out the trash easier. This escapism also provides great fuel to fire the hope I spoke of earlier.
"But beyond the fantastic and impossible, there is an element of reality and familiarity. If the worlds and characters are too unfamiliar, they can't inspire us. They can't touch us. While we want to hope, need a purpose, desire to escape reality, in all of that, there is an undeniable reality to these characters. They still have weaknesses. They still struggle. This familiarity is founded on a sympathy, an empathy, an emotional bond that comes from understanding how they feel. And those "super-anti-heroes", the ones who are a little more flawed, a bit more fractured, than the rest, offer some a glimpse into a darker world, but one that they can say to themselves "Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been there." They haven't literally wrestled with demons or monsters, but emotionally or psychologically they have. And they can look at this familiar theme, and feel that, through it all, despite it all, they are somehow not completely alone. Even if only fictionally, someone out there knows how they feel.
"And these disparate reasons explain why there are so many superheroes, and why there is such a wide variety and diversity amongst them. Depending on which of these four needs resonates most strongly with us, depending on what reality we live in, we will be drawn to different superheroes that most thoroughly fulfill that need, that most strongly connects to us.
"The imperfection of our world brings about these needs, but it is the genesis that creates the fulfillment of those needs. Strife and struggle may make life suck at times, but it's that 'suckiness' that motivates some to improve, and others to just make it easier to deal with. If we actually lived in a perfect world, we would have no need or desire for these stories of superheroes. How boring would life be if everything went right all the time? And as nice as that world might be, I can't help but feel that I wouldn't want to live there. Not without superheroes."
You're free to leave your comments, thoughts, opinions, etc. Just remember that I have a fragile ego, and too many negative vibes may drive me to suicide. Or worse: to write a Sit-Com!
And I stubbornly maintain that this random posting of a personal opinion and self-serving publication of a piece of my writing only further enforces the fact that this is not a blog.
I was amazed when it was all over how many people had answered along one of these lines: they didn't think that we are fascinated by them, that we don't relate to them, or that our fascination was not that time-tested. My amazement at this was first that if they disagreed, why did they bother sharing this opinion (other than the free points for answering), and by the time that it was done, 2500 people had posted their opinions on the subject. I think this fact says that, especially to the population that likes superheroes, there's a fairly strong sense of relating to them somehow. I'm rambling along a tangent here, and, in my opinion, that's best done on a long car ride, not on the internet, so to my original purpose:
After it was done, I realized that I had no idea which answer number I was, so I had no idea which page my answer would be found on. And I realized that the post in Yahoo! Answers was the only record of what I felt had been a brilliant impromptu exposition on superheroes and what they mean to us. And I'm ignorrant enough of Yahoo! Answers that if there's a way to find a specific answer wihtin a question, I don't know about it. So, I found myself copying and pasting into Word for the first 10 pages, and then saving the complete web pages for the next 10 (pages 11 -20). I left it for awhile, then today saved pages 21-30, then jumped ahead and saved pages 51-70. I then started at page 51 of my saved page documents, and started looking for my post.
Now look here, if you can't keep from calling me names, you're welcome to leave, now. I know it's a bit (OK, a lot) obsessive, but there were at least a few months between the first phase and today's venture back into the abyss of my insanity.
Ahem - now where was I? OK, so on page 52 (see? I only had to look in 2 pages!) I found it. And I had promised myself that when I finally found it, I would post it here for easy future reference. Unfortunately, my own insanity still has me wanting to eventually get all the answers into one document so that I can read them all eventually. There were some really good ones and some really bad ones! Now you know that I wasn't just being dramatic when I referred to my insanity as an abyss, huh?
As you read this answer of mine that I thought was so amazing to be worth the headache and annoyance of all that searching and saving, keep in mind that, other than casually thinking about the question for a day or so before I actually answered it, this answer came out extemporaneously, as is. I did not work through it in drafts, or work on it a little at a time over a day, or more. I cranked this out over about an hour or two between tasks at work. With all that being said, here is my original post, as I originally posted it:
"It goes to the basic need we all have for hope, purpose, escape and familiarity.
"We need to be able to hope for something better. Something bigger. We face a world of despair and sorrow, especially if we look in the right (or wrong, if you will) places. Superheroes, the ones who are moral constants, provide an icon of hope for peace, order, idealism, good triumphing over evil. In those worlds, you can always count on a superhero to set things right when the rest of the world has failed to do so. They usually face unimaginable odds, and yet still triumph. There is always hope.
"With hope comes purpose. If we can hope for greatness, then there is an inherent challenge to be the one to meet that challenge and be that hope. Superheroes, with their causes, mantras, senses of duty, etc., provide us with solid examples of people living their lives with a purpose, and fulfilling that purpose, again while facing great odds. By following their lives, and watching them act because of a greater calling, we gain a sense that we, too, can live life with a purpose, with a sense of a calling, and have greater meaning in our own lives for it.
"But sometimes, life is just too much. As I stated earlier, it's full of despair, failure, anger, sorrow, pain, death, some very ugly and nasty things and all other manner of unpleasantness. When we're down, or overwhelmed by it all, it's unspeakably nice to be able to visit, even if only temporarily until our mom calls us to take out the trash, a world that, no matter how many people wish it would, cannot possibly ever exist. These completely fantastical worlds are similar enough to ring familiar, yet exotic, bizarre, just a little bent enough that we can pretend to be there rather than here. And what makes it even more comforting is the presence of old friends, doing amazingly impossible things, that, even long after we've been called back into our real world, we fantasize about what it would be like if we could do them here. I don't think there's a child out there who has enjoyed superhero comics and books, who didn't think about being able to fly, have super strength, be invisible, and how this would help him or her conquer a bully, impress their friends, or just make taking out the trash easier. This escapism also provides great fuel to fire the hope I spoke of earlier.
"But beyond the fantastic and impossible, there is an element of reality and familiarity. If the worlds and characters are too unfamiliar, they can't inspire us. They can't touch us. While we want to hope, need a purpose, desire to escape reality, in all of that, there is an undeniable reality to these characters. They still have weaknesses. They still struggle. This familiarity is founded on a sympathy, an empathy, an emotional bond that comes from understanding how they feel. And those "super-anti-heroes", the ones who are a little more flawed, a bit more fractured, than the rest, offer some a glimpse into a darker world, but one that they can say to themselves "Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been there." They haven't literally wrestled with demons or monsters, but emotionally or psychologically they have. And they can look at this familiar theme, and feel that, through it all, despite it all, they are somehow not completely alone. Even if only fictionally, someone out there knows how they feel.
"And these disparate reasons explain why there are so many superheroes, and why there is such a wide variety and diversity amongst them. Depending on which of these four needs resonates most strongly with us, depending on what reality we live in, we will be drawn to different superheroes that most thoroughly fulfill that need, that most strongly connects to us.
"The imperfection of our world brings about these needs, but it is the genesis that creates the fulfillment of those needs. Strife and struggle may make life suck at times, but it's that 'suckiness' that motivates some to improve, and others to just make it easier to deal with. If we actually lived in a perfect world, we would have no need or desire for these stories of superheroes. How boring would life be if everything went right all the time? And as nice as that world might be, I can't help but feel that I wouldn't want to live there. Not without superheroes."
You're free to leave your comments, thoughts, opinions, etc. Just remember that I have a fragile ego, and too many negative vibes may drive me to suicide. Or worse: to write a Sit-Com!
And I stubbornly maintain that this random posting of a personal opinion and self-serving publication of a piece of my writing only further enforces the fact that this is not a blog.
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