This piece was adapted for the Six Sentence Challenge with the prompt word ‘book’. For the original, click here.

Mervyn: Edgar, what are you doing?

Edgar: I’m working on my novel, a type of book that contains characters the author has invented.

Mervyn: What will this novel be about?

Edgar: About a man who has conversations with a Martian called Mervyn.

Mervyn: But I’m not invented and we do have conversations.

Edgar: Only if I say so, Mervyn.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘mundane’.

1. Bert Mundane, lead singer of Nirvana tribute band, Smells Like Green Vomit. Married to Courtney Act.
2. Like, social media posts by, like, anyone with a vocabulary of, like, less than, like, 100 words (including, like, abbreviations and emojis) and who, like, has a Masters Degrees in, like, Eye-Rolling, Door Slamming and, like, Derr.
3. Made famous by Bob Geldof’s hit, ‘I Don’t Like Mundanes’, lifestyle of people with jobs, mortgages, 1.8 children, 0.5 dogs, 0.7 cats, weeds invading their lawn, neighbours who start their leaf-blowers at 7 a.m. on Sundays, cars that they hope will last them another couple of years, and who pay taxes and vote.
4. Mun-Dane – A particularly boring person from Denmark, derived from the Old Norse word ‘mun’, meaning ‘about as exciting as watching reindeers thinking’.
5. A condition that can lead to mundanity, a form of dementia that manifests itself in victims going grey, constantly losing their glasses, wearing a lot of beige, buying a recliner chair and yelling at the television.
6. Early English version of MoonDay (later Monday), still celebrated today by intoxicated young men sharing their assets from the windows of moving vehicles.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘rambunctious’.

They animals had had enough and under the leadership of the big red kangaroo, RangaKanga (aka The Bouncer), they’d gathered to plot their revenge, with Baaaasil (aka The Human-Battering Ram) bleating that he was tired of being fleeced and having his offspring end up as Sunday lunch and Beardy the Goat (aka Billy The Kid) was sick of having his wives’ teats pulled for human consumption.

Ringnose (aka Raging Bull) wasn’t going to put up with being ridden for a bunch of clowns and artificial insemination had been the last straw, while Randy the rooster (aka Buck Buck McGurk) was sleeping in and urging the hens not to move off their eggs.

Harold the horse (aka Dirty Harry) had decided the only Derby he was entering in future would be a Demolition Derby and Hogsbreath (aka The Ham From Hell) had vowed that no-one was taking home his bacon.

Down the hill into the town they charged, with Ringnose taking out the china shop just for fun, Hogsbreath trampling a street full of outdoor diners who’d just begun devouring their crispy bacon and Randy gleefully pecking at all the Eggs Benedict devourers.

Beardy went hunting the biggest bellies he could find and the air rang with oofs, while Baaasil turned on the customers in Mrs. McGillicuddy’s Wool Shop, bleating ‘Hit one, hurl one’ as he rampaged, and Harold lashed out randomly with his hooves, whinnying with delight his battle cry, ‘Welcome to the Neigh-borhood’.

But the piece de resistance was left to RangaKanga, who boxed the Mayor and the Councillors into submission and herded them onto the nearby highway, into the path of the roaring trucks.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘redemption’.

Being a card-carrying Member of the Geriatric Obstreperous Devils Motorcycle Club (aka the GOD Squad), there are many things for which I will not be seeking redemption any time soon, yea even though my deathbed moves a little closer with each passing day and the Grim Reaper is standing by to turn back the covers and send me on Eternity Leave.

I won’t be apologising to my grandchildren for taking every opportunity to hide their electronic devices, phones, chargers etc (under the green vegetables in the crisper works well) or for replacing my couches with beds of nails.

I will not be seeking the forgiveness of supermarkets and their entitled millennial customers for supergluing the self-serve checkouts and chatting amiably with my checkout person about the books I am reading currently and exchanging recipes for pea and ham soup.

Perish the thought of abasing myself towards those spawn-of-Satan politicians who seek my vote, despite the fact that every one of their previous promises has evaporated like a fart in the wind.

As for those neighbours who complain that I am ruining the streetscape by digging up the front lawn and planting vegetables, they can kiss my artichokes.

Yea, verily I say unto you that I will continue to make full use of my poetic licence and drive on any damn side of the road to writing Hell that I choose.

This piece was written in response to the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘scribe’.

In much the same way as there are Patron Saints (mine is St. Jude, Hope of the Hopeless), there are also Patron Demons, with one such being Titivillus, the source of error making and tempter into mischief of the mediaeval scribes who produced copies of the Bible.

Working from daylight to dusk, often in freezing temperatures, they were tasked with making immaculate exact copies and it was inevitable that there would be the occasional mistake, like the Word of Gob, or Sadam and Gomorrah, or the Virgin Merry.

Brother Anselm’s visitations from Titivillus were more likely to result in lewd scenes hidden in the background of an illustration of the Wedding at Cana or jokes scribbled in the margins about the Fish and Chip Monk.

Occasionally his devilish handiwork would be discovered by the humourless Scottish senior scribe (known as the Ayr Friar) and he would be required to say a thousand Hail Mary’s backwards without a mistake, but most slipped through unnoticed in a world not yet defiled by printers and word processors.

Until the fateful day that his monastery was chosen to present an example of their fine work to the Pope in Rome and the Bishop travelled many weeks to deliver the exquisite tome to His Holiness, one that Brother Anselm had transcribed.

The explosion could be heard around the Holy Roman Empire when the Pope discovered that his favorite passage had been transformed into ‘Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no weevil’.

This piece was written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt word of ‘shelter’.

Note: No jokes this week.

As the rising wail of the air raid sirens echoed through the night, Maisie was well-prepared with blankets, a torch, and other essential supplies and thanked God once again that her children had been billeted in the countryside while her essential work in the War Office continued.

She walked as swiftly as is possible to the air raid shelter that was her nearest Tube station, which would protect her and hundreds of others from everything but a direct hit.

After the usual initial shuffling for a place, supervised by the air raid wardens, Maisie made up her bed, alternately dozing fitfully and chatting with those nearest her about their children, their men on the front line and ration books.

When the all-clear sounded, she ascended into the smoke-filled hazy morning light and picked her way home through the rubble and the firemen, desperately trying to save houses and rescue trapped people who hadn’t got out in time.

As she walked, she mentally totted up what ration coupons she had left, wondered if her husband, Tommy, was safe and started drafting in her head a letter to the children.

When she arrived at her home, it had no roof and one wall had started to crumble but so did her life when she realised looters, with no-one around to stop them, had already taken everything of value and, for the first time that night, she allowed herself to weep.