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Bitter Boat
It’s time for Friday Fictioneers, and this time I’m well stumped. My muse has gone on holiday, I think. Never mind, I’m not missing one so I’ve popped together the story below.
Thanks as always to our host Rochelle, and to Ted Strutz for supplying the photo. Other entries for this week can be found here.
Copyright Ted Strutz
Ah, to be a cruise ship! The majestic lines. A power station turning huge propellers to slice with ease through the dark waters of the Atlantic, the Pacific, to distant and exotic destinations. The pride of the fleet!
It could have been me.
It SHOULD have been me!
Ding ding, all aboard for the harbour tour! All aboard!
Harbour tours. Pah! How could the Great Builder (may He be exhalted) install my consciousness in this tiny, flat-bottomed scow? How has it come to this?
I think today I will end this. Sink myself. All hands lost.
Goodbye, cruel world.
Numero Uno!
It’s Wednesday and it’s time for Friday Fictioneers! Except it’s not because I’m having problems thinking of a story.
Therefore, in a change to our regular Wednesday posting, let’s all put our hands together and applaud me, for I have been awarded the following:
Woohoo wahey wahooie! I’m numero uno! Top dog! Head honcho! Prime, um, rib!
Suzie’s Questions Answered
Suzie has posed a number of questions to the blogging community at large, and I thought I would participate, along with many others. On with the questions!
1. Why have you chosen your blog name?
This is a cunning and clever amalgamation of my title, the short form of my first name and the fact that I am a “man”! I usually use “dralip” which includes the initial of my last name, but it didn’t sound like it would work as well for a blog name.
“mraliman” sounds stupid so I had to do a PhD to get the correct start to my pseudonym :-).
Office Irritations Part 2 – Monitors with Attitude
My computer monitor has attitude.
Not the one on the right. The one on the left. The “primary” display. It feels the need to berate me, before I’ve even had my first cup of coffee.
This is the sight which greets me each morning.
Why are you being so nasty to me, Mr Monitor?
Why is it telling me this so early in the morning? I haven’t saved any trees. It makes me feel bad. What’s with the guilt trip?
Apparently “super energy saving”, whatever that is, is inactive. Who among you has ever fiddled with the settings on a monitor (apart from “auto-adjust” that is)? Monitor controls and menus are so fiddly I find it’s best to leave them alone, in case everything suddenly goes all blue and you can’t work out how to fix it. Trying to find the energy saving setting seems like a recipe for disaster.
The mere act of using a computer rather than writing everything down means I’m “saving trees”, does it not? I recycle every week – I’m a good little recycler. Why are you saying such things to me, Mr Monitor?
It tells me this after it has been physically switched off all night. How is that not saving trees? Apart from the fact that, as far as I know, the power station is powered by coal, or possibly uranium. It’s not wood-fired.
Energy-saving monitors aside, don’t forget to recycle!
Save the trees!
The year is 2093
Tommy’s never seen a tree
He knows they’re tall and brown and green
But not a sight he’s ever seen.
People say it’s such a pity
All the world’s become a city
Trees and grass and bubbling brooks
Can only now be found in books.
No horses, cows or dogs or cats
All the food is grown in vats
People crammed in tiny spaces
Life’s a drudge, no happy faces.
The older ones think “Such a shame”
Wondering just who’s to blame
No more trilling sparrow’s song
Nature’s time has long since gone.
(Poem reposted from dralimanonlife.com/2011/10/14/2093/).
A Day in the Life
Knock me down with a feather if it isn’t time for Friday Fictioneers once again! As ever this 100 word photo prompt is hosted by the talented Rochelle, and this week the photo has been supplied by Sean Fallon. You can read all the entries here – the list will grow over the next few days, so visit often!
After last week’s shock ending, this week I’ve decided to try a sort of monologue. I have modelled the star of my story after Douglas Adams’ “Marvin the Paranoid Android“, as he has the same depressed, pessimistic “not sure if I care any more” attitude. Here goes!
Copyright Sean Fallon
Well, isn’t this just great. As if it wasn’t enough that some bad-tempered overly-touchy god turned me into a mannequin, now some ne’er-do-well has disassembled me.
Wait, here comes someone!
Madam, hello? Please, stick my legs back on?
No-one can hear me. Figures.
What’s this? No, doggie. No! LEG DOWN… well, isn’t this just the crowning point of my day. I’m wet, I smell and I’m in bits.
Who’s this coming now? They’re coming my way! Straight towards me!
Hello? HELLO? Help?
Oh. It’s the garbage men. Come to collect.
Me.
That’s just made my day, that has.
Bloody marvellous.
Chapel Porth
Just a quick post for this Sunday evening. A couple of weeks ago everyone at work went down to Chapel Porth one carload at a time to get our photos taken for one of our websites. Chapel Porth is on the north coast of Cornwall, a few miles from my work.
There we stood on the beach next to cameras and a big professional lamp while older couples wandered past with their dogs. I snapped a few pictures with my phone while we were there.
Fun and Consequences
It’s Friday Fictioneers time again – on a Wednesday! Are we mad or what? Hosted as always by the talented Rochelle, this week’s photo comes courtesy of Kent Bonham. Our goal – to write roughly 100 words using the photo as our inspiration.
Check out other entries here – more are added throughout the week!
Copyright Kent Bonham
Skateboard ready, line it up. Just look at the length of this alley – this is gonna be a blast! Aim the board at some of those little ramps to keep the speed up. Fly off some of the steps. Is Jeff ready with the camera? Yep, he’s filming. This’ll be an internet sensation!
Here goes nothing!
Bobby thought back on that day as he lay prone, steel pins holding his pelvis together while nurses bustled around. He’d been the lucky one.
Luckier than the woman with the pram who’d suddenly appeared from a half-hidden doorway. Luckier than her orphaned child.
Office Irritations Part 1 – Interruptions
Picture the scene. You’re working away, you’ve just had a great idea and you’re struggling to bring it to fruition. You’re so close, when suddenly…
…there’s someone hanging off your shoulder pestering you for something which only you can provide.
You’ve lost your train of thought! Your mojo’s gone! You were so close to discovering the deepest secrets of the universe, or at least to making Excel do that split-screen thing, and you’ve lost it all because “the printer’s making a funny noise” or “my monitor’s gone all funny”.
An Ill-Timed Joke
It’s time for Friday Fictioneers again! As always it’s hosted by Rochelle, and our task is to write roughly 100 words on a photo prompt, which this week has been supplied by Al Forbes.
I had major word limit problems with this one (plus a lack of ideas, if I’m honest) – hopefully it still makes some sense! It was going to be all dark and spooky (whooo!) but it turned out, well, neither dark nor spooky.
You can read the other entries here – it’s updated all the way through to Tuesday as new posts are added so be sure to check back. You could even have a go yourself!
Copyright Al Forbes
The head gazed out over Athens.
Aethon gazed out from the head. He’d been stuck in that damn head for aeons.
He’d been joking about how Hermes was the “errand boy” of the gods. How, when in important conference, Hermes was the one they sent out for baked pita with extra feta and a side of olives (hold the anchovies).
How was he to know Hermes was two tables over, drinking with Dionysus?
Gods can’t take a joke.
Once he’d adorned Hermes’ greatest temple. Now he adorned the “Parthenon View” guest house.
Aethon almost smiled. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
Spider Army
Keeps running through my head
I’m worried there’s a spider army
Underneath my bed.
I’m sure that sometimes I can hear
The spiders at their drill
And just the thought they’re coming out
Can give me such a chill!
I fear one day they’ll sally forth
Parade across my floor
Marching all in single file
To slip beneath my door.
They’ll leave my house but make no sound
On tiny, tiny feet
So no-one hears them coming
As they march off down the street.
And eat up all the bread
Or chew the wires in traffic lights
Until they’re stuck on red!
By taking off the lids
Or maybe they’ll invade the school
And frighten all the kids.
Don’t care what they attack
As long as all the little guys
Are never coming back!
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