Day: November 17, 2020

Finding Your Chee

Fandango12 Comments

“Have you found your QI yet?” Donna asked her boyfriend.

“My chee?” Ted asked. “You mean my key? I haven’t lost my key. Why do you ask?”

“No, not your chee or your key,” Donna said. “Your QI, as in Q-I.”

“Do you mean I-Q?” Ted asked. “My IQ is fine. Maybe I’m not a genius, but it’s pretty damn good.”

“No, not your IQ, your QI,” Donna said. “QI comes from Chinese philosophy and medicine. It’s your life force.”

“My life force?” Ted said. “You know, Donna, at times you can really be ostentatious.”

“Me? Ostentatious? Seriously?” Donna said. “You forever cling to your narrow way of looking at things, Ted. You need to open up your mind to alternative, new age perspectives. I wish you’d show more enthusiasm for some of my philosophical beliefs. Can’t you at least try to be just a little more exuberant?”

“New age perspectives?” Ted said. “Last month you were into ouija boards. Two weeks ago you were all about astrology. Now it’s Chinese philosophy. Maybe I’d show more exuberance if you joined the rest of us here on planet Earth.”

Written for these daily prompts: Ragtag Daily Prompt (QI), Word of the Day Challenge (ostentatious), The Daily Spur (forever), Your Daily Word Prompt (cling), and Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (exuberant).

Truthful Tuesday — Let There Be Light

Fandango8 Comments

Frank, aka PCGuy, has published another one of his Truthful Tuesday posts. This week Frank wants to know…

Have you ever been accused of making light of someone else’s situation, either by that person or someone else?

I don’t know that I’ve been accused of deliberately making light of someone else’s situation in a mean or nasty way, but I probably have made light of such situations in an attempt to offer solace or encouragement.

Unfortunately, they are mostly empty platitudes, such as:

It’s not as bad as you think it is.
It could have been worse.
You’ll get beyond this.
This, too, shall pass.
You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.
There’s light at the end of the tunnel.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.

When what I really feel like saying is:

Get over yourself.
You’re so fucked.

Space Sax

Fandango10 Comments

When I saw this Photo Challenge from Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie, I was going to title my post “Sex in Space,” but Jim Adams beat me to it. So I came up with a far less provocative title, “Space Sax.”

Lucy was thrilled to have been selected by Elon Musk to be sent into space on his next SpaceX launch. Here she was, a girl from a poor coal-mining family in West Virginia and she was going to soon be joining other astronauts on the International Space Station.

Aside from space, Lucy’s other obsession was playing the saxophone and she was very good at it. All during her training she would entertain the other astronaut candidates with her saxophone playing.

When she learned about being selected for the upcoming launch, Lucy wanted to know if she could bring her sax with her so she’d be able to play in while in the space station. But when, in her thick West-Virginia accent, Lucy asked her trainer if she could bring her sax with her, it came out sounding to him like she was asking if she could have sex in space.

“Lucy,” her trainer said, “I know that you consider West Virginia to be almost heaven, but you’re going to be in space for a number of months, so I think you need to get all of your primal urges out of your system before the launch. I suggest, if you need to, you should confine yourself to sex an Earth.” And then he added, “Just don’t get yourself knocked up, Lucy. There are no OB-GYN docs on the space station.”

What Do You See? — The Knocking

Fandango12 Comments

The knocking was relentless. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. She sat up and stepped from her bed. She started to nervously pace back and forth in her small room. She moved her hands up to her head and covered her ears. But the knocking persisted. Where was he? Why wasn’t he answering the door?

She continued to pace, trying to will away the knocking, but to no avail. She went to the door of her room, which was always locked, and slowly turned the knob. She was surprised when the door swung opened. The knocking grew louder and more insistent. She looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings as she followed the sound of the knocking and navigated toward its source.

It led her to the front door of the small house. The knocking suddenly stopped as she cautiously approached the door. She pulled back the deadbolt, turned the knob, slowly opened the door, and tentatively peeked through a glass pane. She saw a man and a woman walking away from the house and getting into a black sedan. She heard the car’s engine start and watched as it slowly pulled out of the driveway.

She tried calling out, “Help me!” But her voice, which she seldom used, had little volume to it, and there was no way the two people who had just driven off could have heard her cry for help.

She closed the front door and made her way back to her room, where she had lived ever since she could remember. She closed the door and laid back down on her bed. There was nothing she could do but wait until her captor returned to feed her. To bathe her. And to rape her.

Again.

Written for this week’s What Do You See? prompt from Sadje. Photo credit: Phmaxiestevez @ Pixabay.

FOWC with Fandango — Exuberant

Fandango26 Comments

FOWCWelcome to November 17, 2020 and to Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (aka, FOWC). It’s designed to fill the void after WordPress bailed on its daily one-word prompt.

I will be posting each day’s word just after midnight Pacific Time (US).

Today’s word is “exuberant.”

Write a post using that word. It can be prose, poetry, fiction, non-fiction. It can be any length. It can be just a picture or a drawing if you want. No holds barred, so to speak.

Once you are done, tag your post with #FOWC and create a pingback to this post if you are on WordPress. Please check to confirm that your pingback is there. If not, please manually add your link in the comments.

And be sure to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this prompt. You will marvel at their creativity.