So, it's our job to entertain them (as pain management and medications may allow). I say we provide about a story a day for as long as we have stories. Short, simple, amusing stories. Giant pig-goddesses and modesty gourds are welcome, but nothing depressing. They can be something you wrote before, a personal experience, a long set-up for a horrible pun--whatever. Just make them entertaining.
Email me with your contribution (kersley.fitz at yahoo dot com) if you'd like to see them on the site. Send them to the drop.io ( fridaychallenge dot drop at drop dot io) if you want to keep them publishable. I'll feature one every day as we have a supply.
My humble contribution, scoured from the dark recesses of a blog, stand below:
17 Feb 05
Oh, my great stars and garters. Do any of you realize what a cruel and terrible thing has happened here tonight? Tragedy and abuse beyond measure. Things only imagined of in the dark recesses of a dark mind. A small, innocent child was incited--nay! forced!--to use his electric Tigger toothbrush instead of his beloved killer whale toothbrush. The weeping and moaning has been going on for ten minutes. Oh! The inhumanity one soul can inflict on another! And this only of casual negligence of the most horrific kind. The vile perpetrator should probably be strung up by her toenails. She should probably stop posting to her blog right this very instant and commence self-flagellation. But she won't, cus that sounds like it hurts. And, you shouldn't flagellate yourself if you don't know how to spell it. (spell check)
Alas. The sounds of weeping have quieted. The small, innocent child is weary and scarred for life but ready to read "Hop on Pop." Another tragedy witnessed, documented, but passed with no judgment.
18 Mar 05
You people are, once again, witness to cruel, heartless abuse. If Stephen King were to document the goings on of this tormented household he would be banned forever from making another single keystroke. The pain, in the depths of the soul; a brick weighing down the heart until it arrives later somewhere in the vicinity of the left foot...
The object of unrequited desire seems innocent enough. A single pill, pressed into the shape of an animated young cave-boy. He's purple with white and red flecks as if to represent the purity and pain of he who so desires the magical icon. A simple little thing meant to heal and bring strength is refused, not only withholding essential vitamins and minerals but that very denial injures a young soul--beyond the breaking point? Will this be the final outrage that finally brings the innocent heart to do unspeakable acts in later life? Only time can tell.
So, what will you do, people?! Will you sit idly by, living in your comfortable homes, sitting in your comfortable office chairs, turning a deaf ear to such misery? How many injustices have to be committed before you will act? Will you only act when the horror comes to your own door?
While you sit and ponder, the child mourns. He has been doing so for perhaps 20 minutes. Fatigue is beginning to set in--the deadly, still pauses between the cries grow more common and lengthen. Meanwhile, the vile perpetrator of all crimes in his young life contemplates adding more sorrow. Yes, she thinks that maybe he *hasn't* outgrown his afternoon nap after all and that small slice of freedom he had begun to enjoy less than a scant week ago will be mercilessly withdrawn.
But still, in the depths of her cold, dark heart, she is firm: he may not have his Flintstone's vitamin until he stops crying.
17 Sep 05
There have been times when this mighty soul in a tiny body has railed and moaned and beat his chest in response to injustices. (Anyone remember the great vitamin wars?) But our diminuitive hero is slowly growing in strength and comprehension. He is no longer to passively weep when great injustices come upon him. No longer will he cower behind closed doors in a pathetic display of impotence. He has reached a new stage in his development into the warrior he will become.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we are witnessing a full-blown temper tantrum!
Oh! Avert your eyes! Cover your ears! Such violence is not meant for human witness! Amidst the crying and pain, do you hear it? Actual sharp interjections. The striking of a tiny fist against a mattress. What will this mean for our future? Only time can tell.
One thing is apparent. Such an intense exertion of bile takes time to learn to sustain for any duration. The outbursts last only a moment. The entire display only five. Still, the evil enchantress cannot help but wonder when another storm, longer in duration, more violent in content, will occur in the middle of the Commissary.
All because our heart-wounded, enslaved, tragic hero was told he must get dressed before breakfast and, yes, Ava's soccer game is outside so he must wear shorts.
23 Oct 05
What does he mourn? Can anyone really know that beyond he from whom the tears fall? I think I can answer that question. Another great tragedy but this one with a twist.
The neighbor boys, 9 and 5 1/2, were here for much of the day while their hard working parents went for a hike. At the appointed time, the small creature was forced into his den for a time of rest while his compatriots were impelled to play Gameboy on the couch. The wailing started there and continued for 20-30 minutes, long after the peripatetic parents had returned and collected their offspring. So, yes, he was weeping because he wanted to play with the people who weren't there.
Now, he cries again. I hear his sobs, "I don't want to take a nap." He wants to "rest and play" (codename for: mommy needs a nap but you don't so you better not make a sound; not applicable this day). So, yes, gentle readers. The creature is mourning because he doesn't want to take a nap, completely unaware that he just spent the last hour and a quarter sawing logs and has reached the hour where his nap is over.
13 Nov 05
The volume of the cries has diminished--slightly--but the words are no more comprehensible than they were when first begun, five minutes ago. No...wait...I think I do hear a certain pattern to the moarnful words, "I want to let the dog out."
It certainly started innocently enough. The creature, small yet slightly larger than in the past, finished with breakfast, starts to let the beloved household pet in from her morning detention outside where she cannot steal aforementioned creature's eggs and the creature's maternal unit will not have to continually scold, "Dharma! Off! Lay down!" which really ticks her off. At any rate. Our young hero makes to open the door but turns to make a simple comment: "Mommy, I wear my shorts with my penis."
An innocuous enough statement, if fairly ridiculous. Unless you return to events an hour previous. Like any young clothes horse, our protagonist has taken to changing his clothes several times a day--to include changing his jammies during the middle of the night. Strangely enough, he seems to think that this requires a change of undies, as well. So his supply of approximately 15 pairs of underthings becomes extinguished before the laundry scheduled to be cleaned weekly. Thus, after a thorough scrubbing wherein his arms and legs were cleansed of "washable" marker", he is at a loss. This is a double underwear change situation as it is morning and a bath has ensued but alas! There are no clean undies to be found! The evil matron, ascertaining that a bath was taken last evening and he probably changed his undies again before bed, tells him to put on some old ones, confident at least two pair, barely worn, will be found on his bedroom floor.
Fast forward back to the present. Our young charge stands in all his commando glory. He is impelled to forgo his current activity and retreat, post haste, to his den and retrieve that which he so independently rejected. To add insult to injury, the dog is also retrieved, alas!, without his assistance.
Hence the moarnful cries, which, admittedly, abated several paragraphs ago. Someday, someone will come to the rescue of this small child, so blown about by the winds of adult arbitrariness. Until then, he will ride his bike around the backyard, constantly forgetting that his neighbor friend is inside, recovering from having his tonsils out and unable to join him in the fight agains orcs, sleeping grass, and Jared's older brother, Alex.
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