A New World
Here is my contribution to this week’s Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle.
To read the other contributions, click on the blue froggy. This week’s photo was contributed by Kent Bonham.
Copyright Kent Bonham
Trak. Surveillance for the paranoid age. Keep Track on Your World with TRAK!
Husbands watching wives. Wives watching husbands. Lovers, friends. Employees can’t take a leak without employers knowing. Employers, in their turn, watched by their staff.
Everyone’s watching everyone else. And Trak gets richer. They have no competition. Trak shut them down. Because Trak was watching them.
But who watches the watchers? Trak.
Trak watches everyone. The new World Order.
So come on in and buy a package. It’s your turn to watch your loved ones twenty-four seven.
Because you know they’re watching you.
3 Quotes Day 3
Here is my final quote for the “three quotes in three days” challenge. I think we can all get behind this one. Thanks, Bill and Ted, and Party On Dudes!
MFTS – Chad and Brad Make a Film (Almost)
Here is my contribution to Mondays Finish the Story, hosted by Barbara Beacham. We get a photo, an opening sentence and 150ish words. Yes, Chad and Brad are back!
The opening sentence is in bold, and to read the other contributions, click on the blue froggy.
Copyright BW Beacham
“Hey boys, how ’bout y’all makin’ yer Ma some wind chimes?”
With those words she raises the vicious stick threateningly. Terrified, the exhausted boys crawl back to their workspaces in the tiny, sealed room and begin to build the wind charms with trembling fingers…
“Wait, wind chime sweat shops?” Chad grabbed Brad’s smoke and sniffed it suspiciously.
“Yeah, dude!” said Brad, grabbing his weed back and puffing furiously. “They’re rife! We have to make this film to raise public awareness!”
“There’s no such thing,” said Chad. “How about ‘Save the Whales’?”
“Why would we want to save Wales?” asked Brad.
“Dude,” said Chad sadly, puffing away furiously.
“‘Dream Catcher Sweats Shops – the Untold Story’?” tried Brad. Chad shook his head. Brad took another drag. Chad went to the “special” cupboard to fetch the bong.
“That’s it!” cried Brad. “Exposé – The Horrors of the Bong Sweat…”
“NO!” said Chad. “Dude, seriously. Let’s just watch a film instead.”
“Bill and Ted?” asked Brad hopefully.
“Party on dudes!” they chorused happily.
3 Quotes Day 2
Here is my second “three quotes in three days” quote. I don’t really know any inspirational quotes, so here’s one of my favourites from one of my favourite authors.
This is from “Lords and Ladies”, by Terry Pratchett and describes the “Big Bang”. The image (which I’ve altered a little bit) is from bbc.co.uk.
Literary Lion – Homonyms
I have finally got round to my Literary Lion post for this week, with only two days to go. This is hosted by Laura at I Smith Words and involves a word prompt, supplied by our friend the Literary Lion, and up to 400 words.
This week’s prompt is “morning”, and I have written a sort of inner monologue and jumped around a bit like I imagine his thoughts might in this situation. I have used a picture of the sun coming up at my workplace to illustrate “morning”. It doesn’t really have anything to do with my story :-).
Morning. Time to get my shit together.
Mourning. Hah, homonyms. Mourning in the morning.
Patent leather shoes, freshly-pressed trousers, white shirt with black tie. Top it all off with black jacket. Not cheap this suit. Hope they appreciate it. The other mourners.
Seems weird going without the wife. Well, she’ll be there I suppose. In the coffin. But it’s not really the same.
Never even knew what hit her. Never even saw it coming.
I can hear them now. Downstairs. Congregating, ready to head out. To the funeral.
Ready for mourning in the morning. Hee hee! Whoa, gotta get my shit together. Hysterical gigging won’t do. Won’t do at all.
This suit really suits me. Another one! I’m on fire today! Okay, gotta concentrate.
Shoot. Shoot. Cameras and guns. Is that a homonym? Or is it essentially the same word, different context?
So much I never told her. I used to run with some pretty dodgy people. She never even knew. One of them was the bloke I hired to shoot the wedding photos. Another was the bloke I hired to shoot my wife in the head after I found out she was sleeping around.
She shouldn’t have done that.
Okay, game face on, look sad, here goes…
3 Quotes Day 1
I have been challenged by The Storyteller’s Abode, A Smith’s World and Story Teller to post three quotes in three days! I’m also supposed to nominate three people each day, but I think everybody has already done it, and I’m never comfortable nominating people for things, so I won’t 🙂
Here is my first quote. It’s an old classic, spoken by one of the greatest philosophers of “a long time ago”, Master Yoda.
Sharing My World 2015 Week 24
Here is this week’s Share Your World, hosted by Cee over at her photography blog.
What’s your favourite charitable cause and why?
Me! No, only joking. I give to different charities across wildlife and health. If I had to choose just one, I would probably keep giving to Macmillan Cancer Support. They provide support, advice and nurses to help you out. But they can’t help everybody and not for very long because they need money, so that’s the one I would choose.
What colour do you feel most comfortable wearing?
Black and dark blue.
If you had your own talk show, who would your first three guests be? (guest can be dead, alive, famous or someone you just know)
Adrian Edmondson. Comedian, comedy actor (The Young Ones, Blackadder). I’ve also seen him on a couple of more factual shows and he seems like a really nice guy.
Sir Terry Pratchett. Author extraordinaire.
Scarlett Johannsson. Because, Scarlett Johannsson.
List: What are at least five places you’ve enjoyed visiting?
North Wales
Tintagel, Cornwall
Godrevy, Cornwall
Godrevy, Cornwall
Trelissick, Cornwall
Golitha Falls, Cornwall
What was that again…?
So here’s the thing. My head’s been all over the place today and yesterday evening. No concentration or motivation.
I’ve been reading and clicking “like” on people’s FF stories but not commenting – apologies to you guys for that. I had no idea what to write for this week’s Friday Fictioneers (hosted as always by the talented Rochelle). I decided to give it a miss.
Then I wrote a story based around not having a story. I’ve seen people do that from time to time. It would be a shame to miss a week, I thought. So here it is :-(.
Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Did you ever have an idea, a great idea, so awesomely fantastic that more than being just a light bulb moment, it was a whole chandelier full of light bulbs?
And did you ever think to yourself, “Well, I’m quite tired after all that thinking, so I’ll sleep on it”?
And did you ever wake up next morning knowing that you’d had an amazing idea, like it was some new propulsion system or the cure for the all world’s ills, but that’s all you remember?
Like, I’m sure I had a great chandelier-based story in mind last night. Awesome, it was. You’ll have to use your imagination.
MFTS: Reboot – Earth 2.0
Here is my contribution to Barbara Beacham’s Mondays Finish the Story. We get a photo and an opening sentence (which is in bold in my story). Then we have 150 words or so to finish the story. The opening sentence this week was contributed by Eric Wickland of Momus News.
Click on the blue froggy for this week’s other contributions.
Copyright B.W. Beacham
At first, it looked like an ordinary marble, but it was far from it.
Merrax opened the protective covering to reveal a small blue and green globe. He handed it to the planetary mechanic (No Planet Too Small – Call Now!).
“Hmm, yes, funny smell coming from this,” said the mechanic.
Merrax nodded. “I popped some two-legged creatures on there for a science project and now it smells real bad.”
“Yep,” said the mechanic knowingly. “They’ve stunk the place up. Gases, oils, chemicals… expensive to fix.” His eyes gleamed.
“Isn’t there a cheap option?” asked Merrax. His mum was going to be so mad.
“Well,” said the mechanic. “We could reboot the whole… “
“Earth,” said Merrax.
“Whatever. Start anew. Wipe it all off. Much cheaper.”
Merrax had a think. “We’ll do that,” he decided.
“No worries.” The mechanic popped Earth in a machine and pressed a button. If you listened carefully, you could hear the screams of the dying emanating from the little globe.
“There you go, just like new!” said the mechanic. “Factory reset. Earth 2.0!”
Sharing My World 2015 Week 23
Here’s a quick Share Your World, which is hosted by Cee. Just three questions this week, as there was also a poll. I voted but it’s a secret!
For your blog do you basically use Mac or Windows applications. What type of device laptop, desktop,tablet, phone or pad?
I always use my laptop. I find phones and such too small and my fingers are too big to type properly. For a post like this, I type it straight in (I use the “classic” post editor, I’ve never seen this new “beep boop” one). For fiction, I write it in MS Word and then paste it in for preview and editing.
If you were to treat yourself to the “finer things” what would you treat yourself to?
I’m not really sure what I would consider the “finer things”. Weird and expensive food when I would rather have a pizza? Maybe I’d get one of the supermarket’s “premium” pizzas, just for a treat :-).
Although I wouldn’t right now, because my oven is broken :-(. I’ve needed a new cooker for a while as the grill is broken, but now that I’ve lost the oven as well I have re-prioritised it from “at some point” to “immediate”. For yesterday’s Saturday Pizza I had to do an emergency cheese omelette with chilli.
Can you change a car tyre?
Yeah, probably :-). I haven’t had to do it for years. I always jack the car up first, then realise I can’t get the wheel nuts off like that and have to jack it back down again. Duh.
To be honest, if I needed to change my tyre I’d probably root around in the boot for the jack, see if I can find the jack points and ultimately call the AA (Automobile Association). I pay them a fortune and haven’t called them out since 2002. For the near £1000 they’ve had off me in that time, the least they can do is change my tyre.
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