This piece was written in response to this photo on the Unicorn Challenge.

The selling agent, dressed in garish clothing and with a considerable belly hanging over his tightly cinched belt, took a jaundiced look at me before saying ‘I’ve given up my golf game for this so you better not be just another mooring rope kicker.’

‘No, no, not at all’ I protested. ‘I’m a genuine collector and I’ve been enthralled since I saw it on SeaBay.’

The agent began his pitch. ‘This craft is a meticulous reproduction of Black Bart’s Royal Fortune.’

I interrupted him with ‘Which one?’

‘What do you mean, which one? This is unique.’

‘Sorry, I’m not suggesting it’s not a unique copy. It’s just that Black Bart had several ships, all named Royal Fortune. So which one is this a copy of?’

The agent, reassured that I was indeed a genuine collector, said ‘I’ll look into that for you, sir. But as I said, it is a unique copy of … what it was copied from. I apologise for my scepticism earlier. It’s just that we get so many smart alecs wasting our time. You know the sort of thing. “How many miles to the galleon?” “Is it aaaaarghed to handle?”

I indicated my sympathy and said ‘That’s OK. I only have one other question. Do the masts fold down?’

‘I’m sorry, sir, I ….’

‘It’s just that if the masts don’t fold down, I won’t be able to get it into the bottle.’

The agent’s face went from red to puce and I took off.

This piece was written for The Unicorn Challenge 250 word max. weekly photo prompt from the Gray/Ayr empire.

It had taken seven years for him to complete his glass-domed memoir with the sunset diorama in the background. From his wheelchair, every evening and most days would be spent working with tiny tools and a high-powered magnifying glass, to re-create the boat haven near where he was born and lived as a boy.

The marina and every boat were true to that time. The final touch was the fading sun nestled above the palms and the stick forest of masts, symbolising both his early hopes for the future and the meandering journeys in his life as he waited for its end.

His father took him fishing there when he was a boy. Catches were rare but, along with the wisdom imparted by his father as they surveyed the scene before them, they were worth the wait. One evening he said to his father, ‘Dad, what are those boats made from?’ His father sat silently for a while, as he often did, and then said ‘Bullshit, mostly.’

Sensing his son’s puzzlement, he went on. ‘Most of the people who own these boats made their money from selling dreams and illusions and things no-one really needs. And people bought them. And that’s where the money came from to build the boats.’

So the boy grew up not wanting to own a boat if that was the price but he always wanted to remember where and how that happened and encase it for posterity.

This piece is my response to the photo challenge that is the latest in Jenne and CE’s excellent adventure, and where no unicorns are harmed during production.

Don’t judge. You’d be depressed too if you had to sit here and listen to the same old shite every day from idiots dragged here by their better half and determined to make them pay by mocking all they don’t see.

Singing Gloria Gaynor off key, ‘First, I was afraid, I was petrified’.

‘Wonder if he’s got a wooden heart. Har, har, har.’

‘Make a great fireplace feature. Har, har, har.’

‘Wooden it be luvverly. Har, har, har.’

If only the Gods of Art would grant me special powers of metamorphosis, to be re-born as an avenging angel, travelling the world and meting out justice to the pea-brained philistines who have spread like a plague across the cosmos, aided and abetted by the WWW (World Wide Wankers).

Let me be able to paraphrase the words of Ezekiel and Samuel (updated for modern inclusiveness), ‘The path of the righteous man and woman is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men and women. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger, for you have attempted to poison and destroy my brothers and sisters.’

And let me be able to leave them in my place in the gallery, listening to ‘I think this must have been the inspiration for Norwegian Wood, if you get my drift.’

Let them serve their time doing har, har, hard labour.

This piece was written for Jenne Gray and C E Ayr’s weekly Unicorn challenge to write up to 250 words based on a photo prompt.

So where is this masterpiece you promised me, Leonardo?

You’re looking at it.

I can’t see anything except a ladder leaning against a wall.

That’s it. That’s your masterpiece, as ordered. ‘Ladder’ by da Vinci.

But it’s just a ladder. Did you make it?

No, I found it here. It’s called found art or objet trouvé as the French would have it. I’m an artist. I found it. Ipso facto, it’s found art. Did you bring the 50 florins?

You have to be joking. You expect me to pay you 50 quid for a ladder?

But it’s not ladder now, is it? It’s a da Vinci. Look, it’s against the rules for a found object but I’ll sign it somewhere discrete, so only the cognoscenti know. That’ll add even more value. I reckon that piece will double in price by next week. Canny investment that.

Not happening, Leo. You can keep your 5 quid deposit I paid and I’ll take the ladder. The gardener can always use at my villa.

Wait, you can’t move it, mate. It’s an installation. If you take it away it won’t be found art anymore.

Well, people can still come around to my place and see it. I’ll even tell the gardener to leave it leaning against a wall when he’s finished. Then if some muppet wants to fork out 50 quid for it I’ll split it with you. Can’t say fairer than that.

Philistine!

This piece was written for Jenne and ceayr’s new photo prompt up to 250 words challenge. Check it out and join in.

WWWally: ‘Well, if it isn’t old Stop-Slow-Go himself. Come down in the world have you, down with us peasants on the footpath. What happened? Your life support system run off to be a pole dancer? Bet that made you down in the dumped. Har, har, har.’

Triocular: ‘Not at all. I’ve simply decided to hibernate for a while to consider a new non-trinary life, one which lens itself to a more nuanced view of the world, one less cynically cyclical. A sort of paradise shift if you will.’

WWWally: ‘So what does all that gobbledygook mean when it’s at home?’

Triocular: ‘It means the lights are not on because the old me is no longer at home. With the guidance of my patron saint, St. Oscar of Wilde, I’m here in the gutter looking up, through the glass darkly, at the stars.’

WWWally: ‘You’re mad. And you’re a wanker.’

Triocular: ‘Perhaps you’re right on the first count. As for the second, I’m here alone because I no longer wish to participate in the mass debating that passes for conversation amongst the World Wide Witless.

WWWally: ‘Think you’re better than me, don’t you? Well, you’re going to get yours when the Trump-ettes sound at the Second Coming. And, believe me, that’s not fake news.’

Triocular: ‘Oh, I know. My mind’s eyes have seen the glory, glory, hallelujah. And that’s why I’ve decided to no longer be joined at the lip. Now move on. You’re holding up traffic.’

This piece is in response to the weekly Min Min prompt at https://sixcrookedhighways.com/min-min-weekly-prompt/ . Jump in, the water’s fine.

The world thought it had seen everything until all the guns went limp, like Dali watches. Monty Python-like, armies were reduced to yelling insults at each other. When they tried to throw hand grenades they found blancmanges in their hands. When they fixed bayonets, they found their swords were only drawn and not real.

Gangsters became a laughing stock when they had to resort to ‘bang, bang, you’re dead’. The best that potential school shooters could manage was ‘I hate Mondays’.

Lions fell about laughing when all that popped out of the end of hunters’ rifles were corks on strings. (Mind you, their revenge was thwarted when they found their teeth had turned into marshmallows.) Ducks danced on the hats of men camouflaged in the marshes.

Soon the world realised that it wasn’t just guns that had become laughing stocks but the plague of benevolence and good will had spread to all the micro aggressions that had become rampant in modern times.

Perpetrators of rude finger gestures found they now had a hand full of sausages that couldn’t be trained to type or hold a steering wheel or steer a motorbike. Thugs and wife-beaters found their hands had turned to fairy floss and they were besieged by children.

Politicians discovered that anything stronger than ‘yah-sucks-boo to you’ stuck in their craw. Social media trollers watched in horror as their digital diatribes fell from their screens like confetti before they could become fully formed.

And everyone lived happily ever after.

This piece was written for the Min Min weekly prompt challenge for 27 January 2023.

Adam lived in a weatherboard cottage in Tasmania, surrounded by his apple orchard.

Sales of his annual apple crop were declining due to the perfect storm of the Australian market’s demand for certified organic versus the demands of their Japanese customers for unblemished perfection. As Adam’s hitherto simple life began to unravel, his nights became increasingly apocalyptic.

His nightmares always began with a tympanic pelting storm besieging his eardrums akin to being duct-taped to AC-DC’s concert amps, punctuated by thunderclaps of Biblical proportions and the sound effects of Cyclone Tracy.

The overflowing water flooding into his brain began to short out his synapses and sizzling spark-fests criss-crossed his lobes in a chain lightning reaction.

The ventricles of his heart began to sport stalactites, transported via the ice in his veins, and driven by the Antarctic blizzard invading his gasping mouth.

He loved God but now saw him as a sadist.

Until the arrival of Eve, carrying a backpack, and asking if he had any work available. Adam was immediately smitten and invented a job on the spot, with no idea how he was going to pay her. He needn’t have worried because Eve immediately took stock of the situation and re-positioned the business as ‘Hissy Fit Cider – The Asp-irational Drink’ and she appeared on the label, picking apples, naked.

Now Adam welcomed the cyclone of orders that kept him up all night.

This piece was written for the Min Min Weekly Prompt Challenge for 20 Jan 2023. It was inspired by ‘The Pict Song’ by Billy Bragg, with lyrics by Rudyard Kipling.

It began with tea and tears. Sophie had been sacked by the local supermarket.  

‘I’ve been replaced by a self-serve scanner. What am I going to do, Gran? How am I going to pay the rent and everything?’

Gran said ‘Let me think about it. We’ll find a way. Now, wash your face and go home to your family.’

After Sophie left, a plan began to take shape. She hit her email list, filled them in on Sophie’s story and arranged the first meeting of We Are One.

The next day, some members of the group each collected a large trolley, filled it to overflowing with randomly selected items and presented at the traditional check-out queues. Simultaneously, another group did likewise but entered the self-service checkout corral. There they laboriously scanned each item, including large bags of apples, which they weighed and checked individually. It was not long before there was a logjam at the ‘Not OK Corral’, so legitimate customers headed for the now burgeoning queues at the two checkout desks that were open. When every checkout was opened, Gran blew a whistle and the members left. And Sophie was called in to help put all the goods back on the shelves.

Gran’s email to the supermarket chains was succinct. ‘We Are One. Remove the self-serve checkouts immediately or we will send you broke. We refuse to be cyphers. We will be counted and we will counter. We Are One. And this is just the beginning.’

As my modest but loyal list of people who read my blog know, for some time now I have regularly taken part in the weekly ‘Six Sentence Challenge’ run by the wonderfully generous and very talented Denise Farley. I used to enjoy being part of a group of writers of talent, wit, and skill.

However I have gradually become more and more concerned about the agendas of some of my fellow travelers.

I now find myself amidst:

– people beating the drum for climate change denial and the continued exploitation of dangerous forms of non-renewable energy

– a contributor’s home page that promotes an anti-abortion agenda

– fatuous Bible quotations popping up in the comments, with one seemingly for every occasion

– people who want to move to Mars to get away from the mess they’ve created on this planet

– ‘contributors’ that seem to think SSC is a Facebook page and that ‘I saw a bird in a tree yesterday’ constitutes creative writing.

The older I get, the less I want to be around people who make me grind what’s left of my teeth, so I’m moving on from the Six Sentence Challenge.

Those whose work I have appreciated and encouraged know who they are and I wish them every success in their ongoing writing endeavors. As for the rest, keep pleasuring yourselves; you’re good at it.

This piece as written for the Six Sentence Challenge, with the prompt of ‘vault’. Trigger warning: Silliness lurks here.

Vault     1. German pronunciation of Walt

                2. Cryptic definition of catacomb (or the smaller version, the kittycomb)

(see also megavault – humungous vault and microvault – mother’s handbag)

                3. Be promoted beyond your level of competence e.g. appointed to management

                4. Watt happens between two points at one’s ohm

Pole vault – Uprising in Warsaw

Re-vault – To vault again

Summervault – 360 degree acrobatic revolution only performed when sunny

Killervault – Lethal electric shock (see also gigavault – danger to guitarist performing in rain)

Cranial vault – Cavity in head whose walls are used as a measure of intelligence, varying from permeable to thick as a brick.