Prompt: Purple

Veteran

"So what else do we know about this guy?"

"Well, one thing – you won’t believe it..."

"What’s that?"

"They say he recieved the Purple Heart after the third war."

"This your idea of a joke?"

"Afraid not."

The third war didn’t leave injured soldiers. Might sound humane, and if you consider efficient killing to be humane, it was. Your ship takes a strange-matter torp in trans-planetary flight, you don’t limp home with a broken leg.

"That clinches it. The stories aren’t real. Just some pseudonym."

"But..."

"And if not, he’s got problems enough without us at the door."

Prompt: Triangle

Diary

My favorite thing is playing the triangle in band because we have a concert and in the third song because I have a solo on the triangle. A solo is where everyone else stops playing and I play and everyone listens. I like this because nobody listens to me most of the time usually they just give me funny looks and I dont know why they are looking like that but I feel like they are saying something I dont understand and it makes me feel real sad sometimes. I dont feel sad when I am playing in the band.

Prompt: Bag

Double

"Oh, could you double bag those?"

"No, sir."

"What?"

"I’m can’t double bag your groceries."

"Why not? All the other baggers always double-bag for me. Besides, I only have one bag."

"But imagine the consequence if your action were universalized. If every customer got twice the bags, you can see that the result would be unacceptable."

"But does everyone even ask you to double-bag?"

"No matter. You must act according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Damn. Just my luck to get the Kantian bag boy.

Prompt: Mess

Cleaner

I look on a mess of epic proportions. Corrosive purple goo coats every surface of the barn’s interior. Bizarre internal organs, still weakly pulsing, and chunks of shimmering gray metal, in strange, twisted, forms, litter the floor. If any of this were found by civillian authorities, any sample brought to a laboratory, the lid would be off the entire operation.

I curse the field operatives under my breath. They act like they’re the whole show, out zapping baddies with stolen or reverse-engineered alien technology, making however much mess they want. No thought for the guys with mops and buckets.

Double Drabble Sunday! Prompt: Pancake

Again

"Pancakes again? We had them less than two weeks ago."

"We’re not having pancakes, we’re having pancake."

"So what’s the difference? Singular, plural, same thing. Just less of it."

"Honey, it’s not up to us. The choice is out of our hands."

"Why would they pick it again so soon? It’s not like there was much to do with them the first time around. Now we get them again?"

"At least this time we got them on a Sunday. Getting them ready before work on a Friday was even worse."

"I just don’t see how they could be so lazy."

Flat

There he was, flat as a pancake. Just like in a cartoon. I’d warned Donald several times about the roller’s bad brake, but I guessed he hadn’t got it fixed, judging by his current state.

But that got me wondering. Could it possibly have gotten enough speed on such a slight incline to run him down? Wouldn’t he hear it, get out of the way? I felt riduculous, standing over my one-dimensional foreman wondering about foul play. ‘Course, guy wasn’t too well liked on the crew, but nobody would do that. Right?

Well, I’d better get this cleaned up.

Prompt: Touch

Promise

"We should keep in touch."

"Sure!" Never mind that we’d spoken three times in the past four years; we were all giddy with transition, and such pledges were flying every which way.

A week later I got the first call.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Mike."

"Who’s this?"

"Josef. We said we’d keep in touch."

"Oh, yeah. So, do you want to hang some time?"

"No." Click.

After that, he called weekly. I finally started screening my caller ID. Three weeks after that, Josef arrived at my door.

"A promise," he said sternly, "is a promise." He walked slowly to his waiting cab

Prompt: Skull

Waiting

The site was precolumbian, and the skull seemed contemporary. Nobody would have taken notice, but for a study being run on bone density and nutrition in the area’s early inhabitants.

The device, the size of a small pea and made of an unknown black metal, was embedded in the occipital ridge.

Initially there was resistance from tribal groups, who demanded burial for the remains. Then the DoD got involved, and things raced ahead.

Now I sit in quarantine, wondering if volunteering for this was a good idea. The incision behind my head tingles. I wait for whatever might happen next.

Prompt: Sometimes

Joy

The butchering is a careful process. I do respect the life I take, and I like to avoid waste where possible.

First, I immediately bleed the animal. I cut off any clothing with my belt knife. Next I remove the internal organs, carefully saving kidney, liver, heart, and sweetbreads.

I neatly portion out the flesh; some goes in deep freeze, some I cook fresh or smoke.

If it’s a buck, and I’m in the mood, I might cook the animelles and eat them fresh. Or I might freeze them for later.

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t.

Prompt: Polka

The Lion’s Den

"This is it. This guy will bring polka back. He tests great across the target demo, without alienating existing fans. We sign him now, or we let some other label pick him up, and wave at his rocket as he flies to the moon."

"But he’s such a loose cannon. You know we can’t afford another burnout, not now. We sink the resources to break this kid, we’re dead in the water if he doesn’t–"

There’s a dull "clunk," and the importance of the situation fades. Roy and I step out of the urgency simulator; the next customers file in.

Prompt: Obnoxious

Diabolical...ish

"Now that I have you out of the way, Captain Astounding, nobody can foil my plan -- and it is my most brilliant yet!"

"Worse than your Slight Itchiness Ray?"

"Far worse!"

"Worse than your plan to shrink everyone’s underwear half a size so it kind of bunches?"

"Worse!"

"Then what?"

"This machine, which I will turn on in just thirteen minutes, at the strike of midnight, will turn off every alarm clock in the city! Can you imagine wat would happen if everyone came in late to work?"

"You wouldn’t! Think of the lost productivity!"

"Just watch me, do-gooder!"