This piece is a response to the Six Sentence challenge for this week, with the prompt of ‘theory’.

Einstein may well have cracked the code for the way that physical phenomena interact in both special and general ways and led to a new understanding of gravity, despite doubters who discounted his theories on the basis that, in their view, gravity is not real; it’s just that the earth sucks.

Be that as it may, let me posit a Theory of Irrelativity, which suggests that members of families, whose entire interactivity is based on who begat whom in the generational recreational activity of horizontal folk dancing, create a complex web of social interactions and expectations that bear no resemblance to any rational form of connectivity.

Applying the principles of evidence-based science, I put it to you that multiplying the mass of shared DNA (M) with the coefficient of Connectivity (C), multiplied by itself as dictated by social mores, is not equal to the energy (E) applied to the maintenance of the social construct we call ‘families’ and their mythological-based equivalents, ‘friends’.

Indeed, in what other branch of science, especially those based on the Darwinian concept of evolution, would humans choose to congregate in such existentially destructive social events as Christmas, monogamous marriage, dinner parties and mutually incompatible football allegiances.

Hence my Theory of Irrelativity, grounded in the incontrovertible evidence that the likelihood of a person achieving happiness, let alone enlightenment, is inversely proportional to the time they spend with kin and social associates who live on fast food, are emotionally engaged with ‘reality’ TV shows, are active members of Q-anon and poison every interaction with their egocentricity.

Subscribers to my theory will, therefore, go forth and multiply with randomly selected partners from  outside their gene pool, excommunicate their birth families, and choose their friends from responsible compatibility sites, thus ensuring that Bob is never your Uncle (let alone a dinner guest).

Written for the 42 word poetry challenge . with the prompt ward of War.

The world is simply divided,

armistice we are unlikely to see.

There’s no-one who is undecided

White flags there never will be.

Pineapple is an abomination

Say the denizens of the purist army,

whereas pineapple proponents

say pizza without it is barmy.

Written for the Jan 7 99-word Flash Fiction challenge with the prompt words of ‘butterfly’ and ‘stone’.

When you were small, you used to call butterflies ‘flutterbys’ and you’d chase them through my veg patch and I’d pretend to be angry but you’d just laugh and keep running. When you got older, you’d stone the crows in my corn patch because you were going through your ‘everything has to be yellow’ phase and you made me plant a hundred sunflowers and buy a golden retriever. When you visited with your daughter and she chased the flutterbys through the veg patch, the wind blew dust in my eyes and I had to rub them for a while.

This piece was written for the 6 sentence story challenge with the prompt word of ‘Distance’

For Gerald, the plague represented a blessing from on high, rather than a sign of God’s punishment of a sinful, unrepentant world, as posited by some parishioners at his local church (at least the ones who weren’t positing that it was a hoax). He was in a state of bliss at not having to travel with crowds of BO-venting people on the bus and train to the office where he worked and not having to listen to his colleagues inane prattle about football, TV, children and social media. Annoyingly, he did have to acquire a laptop so he could ‘attend’ the odd virtual meeting but he counted that as a minor expense in the grand scheme of things that comprised the nirvana of isolation. Home-delivered groceries did away with the living hell of negotiating supermarkets, which in turn led him to the ever-expanding universe of on-line shopping and (ahem) certain other activities. As a nominal Christian, he felt a little guilty that he occasionally prayed for the plague to last forever, now that he had found Paradise on Earth, but he knew that some bright spark would ruin everything eventually by coming up with a vaccine. In the meantime, he reveled in what others reviled, namely, keeping his distance.

Back in May, I submitted a story called The Smiling Roses to the Carrot Ranch’s regular 100 word weekly challenge, which concludes with a man’s ashes being scattered under some roses. I have since discovered that this would have made the roses very ill indeed, which would have defeated the point of the insult. So this is the re-write; hope you enjoy it.

As Phoebe drove home with her husband, Spike, strapped into the passenger seat, she decided it was time for him to hear some home truths.

‘Spike, in all our married years, never once did you praise anything I did or nourish me when it mattered. Far from putting me on a pedestal, you never missed an opportunity to put down my ‘stupidity’.’

Silence.

Phoebe arrived home, unstrapped Spike’s urn and removed the lid. She emptied his ashes into the instant-mix concrete slurry and completed her path to the front gate.

‘You can look up to me now, Spike. Every day.’

“Just one last question, Mr. Khan. We’ve covered the unification of the Mongol tribes, developing the Silk Road, controlling huge areas of the world as your conquering armies dominated parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and, of course, Asia. We’ve covered your revolutionary military tactics, your complete trust in your generals, and your enlightened views on many aspects of society and religion. However it would seem that history may remember you most for your unmerciful slaughter of millions of innocent people and the annexation of their lands.  Tell me, is there a geographical line somewhere in your head where you will stand and be satisfied that you have achieved all of your dreams ?” Genghis thought for several minutes about this and then said “Yes, the horizon.”

This piece was written for the weekly 6 sentence story challenge with the the prompt word of ‘change’.

Jaxxon awoke with a start and surveyed, in panic, the windowless stone walls, the metal ceiling with its encaged fluorescent tubes and air vent, the metal toilet and basin, and the metal bed he lay on, with its thin mattress, threadbare blanket and wooden pillow. The Voice said, “Good morning, Jaxxon, and welcome to what will be your new home for some time to come, depending on how you respond. You may be wondering what crime you must have committed in one of your drug-induced manias but you are in fact here to grow up, as it were, or be re-parented as some would call it. Here you will be initially fed nutritious food and then learn how to prepare it yourself, followed by learning how to wash and iron your own clothes, keep your room clean and, in short, take responsibility for all of your actions and their consequences. If you’d rather die we will accommodate you and turn you into compost, so that you will finally serve some useful purpose. If you’d prefer to live, over the next 100 days we will equip you with the skills to make plans, set goals and achieve them, all without the aid of company or distractions like your Xbox, and on your release, you can keep the change.”

One month ago, readers were challenged to write an a-musing Christmas newsletter poem. Humor and terrible poetry abounded, and woo-hoo, I was the winner.

Mabilene’s Christmas newsletter

Merry Christmas to all of you’s,
time for our annual catch up and news
We know you always look forward to this
so everyone here sends a big kiss. XXX

Hubby Dwayne knows it was really dumb-crazy
but since the lockdown he’s been a bit hazy.
Wore a mask to the bank and passed the teller a note;
six months in prison, that’s all he wrote.

Our eldest, Billie-Jean, she’s doing so well,
especially since she learned how to write and to spell.
She’s a Social Influencer now, raking in the money.
Praise the Lord, it’s the land of milk and honey.

Our boy, Nathaniel, is the world’s greatest nerd;
want a new app and you just say the word.
His latest is a thing of digital beauty;
Sort of a cross between the Bible and Call of Duty.

Young Charlene, well, she tries really hard
she’ll never be a whizz-kid or any sort of bard;
but I have to tell you she’s making considerable progress
on her ultimate goal: Member of Congress.

Old Mabel, our dog, she keeps pumping out litters
despite her bouts with the mange and the skitters.
Last winter we sold one to a damned fool yuppie;
it’s now in dog heaven, that poor slush puppie.

I’ll sign off now and wish ‘Season’s Greetings’
(I don’t want to miss one of my AA meetings).
Love to you all and always remember
I’ll be back in your mailbox this time next December.

My response to this week’s December 10: Flash Fiction Challenge « Carrot Ranch Literary Community to ‘write a story about something a character never dreamed would happen.’

Harold never dreamed he would one day build his own classic science fiction saucer, containing everything he needed. Kitchen, sitting room with a panoramic view through reinforced glass, bedroom with a skylight to the stars, composting toilet. (Although he did have to settle for sponge baths because of the weight of water.) Powered by an anti-gravity perpetual motion generator of his own invention and steered by a GPS-guided rudder, Harold could travel the world, and did, chuckling at the UFO sightings reported on the interweb. It’s just as well Harold didn’t actually dream of this because it never happened.

This short piece was submitted to Six Sentence Story with the prompt word of ‘menu’.

I’m driving from Washington, DC to Austin, Texas, imagining myself in every American road movie I’ve ever seen, except it’s all happening on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for an Australian. I discover a new level of terror as I navigate out of the city onto the freeway, where at least there is an expanse of distance between each direction and I get used to the inside and outside lanes being counterintuitive. I overtake another vehicle and return to the correct lane and slap the dashboard to celebrate my graduation from newbie school. I stop for lunch at a truck stop and slide into a booth. I study the menu and a waitress with dyed blonde hair and a distinct shortage of teeth asks me what I’ll have. I give her my order and she looks at me as though I’m speaking Swahili. She says ‘Honey, just point at the pictures and I’ll bring it right over.’