Leave me alone! I know the kids are running amok like a category five hurricane. Being a parent feels mendokusai. I don’t need you judging what a horrible human I am, I just don’t care.
mendokusai ( めんどくさい ) – A Japanese word that loosely translates to something along the lines of tiresome, bothersome, troublesome, rough, difficult, annoying, or a bother to do. It perfectly sums up my week so far and might be my new favorite word/phrase!
The following was written for Fandango’s Story Starter #66 and is a response to “Bait and Switch” one of the entries submitted to the challenge by Paula at Light Motifs II. I recommend reading Paula’s awesome take first and then coming back to see what happens during a chance meeting years later.
Several years later while jumping into the back seat of a Glide she vaguely recognized the driver. “Do I know you from somewhere?” She asked quizzically, “I’m certain we’ve met but I can’t place when or where.”
He grinned, “Remember Mingle, the dating app? We spoke for several weeks through the interface before meeting and then when we did – “
“Fuck sakes…” she cut him off. “You’re the guy who asked for a thousand bucks during our first kiss!” Looks like I made the right decision, she finished the thought inside her head.
There was an awkward silence before he finally spoke, “I was in the data center talking with the techs when I saw your name come across the screen. I wasn’t certain if it was you but I knew I had to take this ride to see.”
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Sawyer awoke in a room strewn with naked bodies. Head pounding from sex and hard drugs. There was a snafu, this meat sack was breaking down. The last two, both the hard option, were overdose emergencies and barely viable.
The next would be soft and healthy, possibly untouched with perfect skin and long flowing hair. Sawyer watched as any trace was erased from the shell and blushed thinking of the pleasure it would bring. An empty vessel waiting for download to commence.
Continue readingHumanity had landed men on the moon and sent spacecraft on missions through the solar system but deep space remained elusive, an expanse too vast for life to traverse. In spite of every effort, no viable options had emerged allowing interstellar travel. Naturally, the human ego determined the physics of space travel impossible. Never stopping to think that maybe humans were the flaw in the equation, not mentally complex enough to comprehend the science required to open a door to the stars.
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Adriel crept down the uneven staircase as the prism of light that scattered through the chapel’s ornate stained glass receded behind him.
The inky blackness consuming everything in its path as he grappled with the cool, damp walls of the hidden passage that seemed to descend into hell itself.
The pungent smell of brimstone grew stronger with each step as thoughts of returning to his previous existence drowned out the knot in his stomach that screamed turn back.
His Mother’s soul did nothing to stop her from shooting too much poison into her veins, it just hovered on the ceiling, watching her suffocate while Adriel beg her to wake up, then fleeing like a petty thief the moment she’d taken her last gasp.
He didn’t want to end up broken like her so he sought out a buyer willing to provide cars, boats, women, and all the lavish perks of excess living in exchange for something he had no use for, his soul.
Reaching the bottom step he could see the Devil and his legal team waiting by an oversized conference table set amidst the endless inferno, contract in hand…
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Jimmy stood six foot two and was handsome with long flowing sandy brown hair. He was already the star quarterback of the Greenville High football team in his junior year. The kind of kid the boys envy and the girls swoon over. Driving an old Ford that he and his father had nursed back to life. Jimmy pulled up to the curb just as I was stepping out the front door.
Me, I’m Bobbi-Jo and I was a sophomore cheerleader with above-average academic ability. My sister insists I was already the frontrunner for Homecoming Queen come senior year. I’d never make it there to find out.
First, we hit the local Sonic outlet for a romantic dashboard dinner. It was where all the boys with licenses took their girls. It may sound all Jack and Diane but no one was suckin’ on no John Cougar chili dogs. After a bite, we headed to the Greenville 3 (because it had three screens) drive-in for the Friday night double feature. I don’t remember what movies were playing but I can still picture the spot where Jimmy parked that Mustang along the back row fence.
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Caleb’s bloody signature was still sticky on the parchment as bullets ripped down the corridor. Innocent souls falling in the wake of his father’s raven-black London Fog. His essence, seized within these walls, promised in return.
Stumbling backward, searing white-hot pain radiating outward… Satan had reneged on the deal.
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He’d broken through the years of armour she’d built around herself. He continued as her defenses fell away, the barrage cutting flesh before plunging into her heart. It was cruel not because of the words chosen but the truth they spoke.
There weren’t enough bandages to hide the self-inflicted wounds. Her fingers rough across the scars she’d bear for a lifetime.
Continue readingMammalian usurpers long extinguished,
Humanity’s short reign relegated,
to the archaeological record.
On the wings of our avian descendants,
Earth’s second age of the dinosaur,
now in full bloom.
Lorenzo stood alongside the back door, blending into the stench of excess discarded in the alley as the discord sounds of an orchestra in preparation hummed.
Vibrating with anticipation in the moments of silence before high society roared to life and music filled the evening air. It wasn’t as crisp or clean as sitting inside the acoustically flawless opera house. Still, when the purest of soprano voices rose above orchestral synchronicity his spirit would swell and soar.
…as one final tragic note slips beyond her lips, a single tear escapes his grasp, and then applause…
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