Christine studied the man lying with his back to her, asleep.

She smiled. She knew she should probably get up and go to the bathroom, but she wanted to retain the moment for as long as possible. The bed linen could wait until morning; it had been worth it.

John had taken her – probably both of them, to be honest – to a place she hadn’t been for years, had thought perhaps she wouldn’t ever visit again. He knew: he always insisted that he could tell from the glow around her neck.

Thank goodness life continued to be full of surprises.

She spent nearly an hour selecting the perfect card for his birthday. How could he be seventy? Where had the years gone?

She looked through old photo albums for inspiration. Pictures of days she remembered clearly now looked like the relics of a lost civilization. She touched his smiling face as she thought of all the things she could write: “I’m sorry I was an obnoxious teenager. I’m sorry we don’t talk more. Why don’t we start now?” There was so much to say.

He opened the card and read what she’d written: “Happy Birthday, Dad. Love, Jen”                  

“So, man ... how’d your exams go?” Frank asked. “Not too well,” Ed replied. “That Econ class really got the better of--holy! Why are we suddenly lifting off the ground?” Frank’s eyes darted left and right. Sure enough, the two of them had started to sail slowly into the air. “No clue, but this is just weird,” Ed stuttered. Frank’s eyes gleamed. “I got it! We had one too many coffees in our late-night library session yesterday.” Ed shot him a look. “Dude, we’re college students. There’s no such thing as too much coffee.”

She was so tired of her hair. It was always the same – boring. If only she could get to a hair salon . . . Oh, well. Something must be done. She went online, surveyed her options and made a choice.

In a city far away, a shipping worker picked up an order. “100 bottles of Lightest Auburn!” she said. “This can’t be right. It should have gone to our wholesale department.”

A fellow worker glanced at the slip. “No, it’s OK. Look at the address.”

HRH Rapunzel
c/o Royal Guards
The Tower

Emma Baird started this off on 31st January 2014:-

THE STUDENT

“Oh wise one, I need help with my writing career – what dost thou advice?”

“My child, indeed thou hast taken much advantage of the 100-word story exercise. It is now time to move onto the next level. Ist thou ready?”

“Master Lawrie, I have looked within my soul and I am.”

“Student Emma, it is now time to step up to the 140-character challenge. You must abandon fear and embrace the Twitterati.”

“Master Lawrie, I am filled with fear but I shall doest what thou says. Soon. Can I stop with the thou's now? It feels a bit peculiar...”

Gordon Lawrie added part two on the same day:-

THE TEACHER AND THE STUDENT

Student Emma gazed in amazement at the sight before her. @masterlawrie sat cross-legged and with folded arms, but hovering eighteen inches above floor level. His eyes were closed, his expression calm.

“@master, teach me, what is this great thing that you do?

@masterlawrie intoned, “It is the first great Twitter skill you must learn. I am #trending, and you must learn to #trend, also.”

“But how shall I ever learn to hover?” Emma wailed.

“Hovering is the second great skill, @Emma. #Trending is #learningtocrossourlegs first. Fat, stiff old people like me find that the hardest bit.” 

Eli held the menu while Joe, flipping through the juke box selections, stopped at Johnny Cash’s “Walk the Line.” Eli wore a black patch over one eye.

“Why are you wearing that patch? Detached retina?”

“Nah, conversation starter.”

“Meaning more women will talk to you?”

“If you insist.”

June walked over to take their orders.

“You fellas want coffee?”

“Just coffee,” Joe and Eli answered in unison.

June left.

“Hey, she didn’t ask about your patch.”

“She could be my mother.”

“Like that’s stopped you before.”

“You have serious psychological problems.”

“I’m not wearing a patch I don’t need.”                  

Tiny opened his eyes and blinked as he adjusted to the sunlight. The power nap had done him good. He looked around at his partners who were busy at work. Life was hard nowadays. Living space was short too as the population around them grew.

Stepping outside Tiny noticed newly assembled building equipment. New flats would soon grace the landscape.

Tiny sighed. What had happened to the good old days when one could choose where one lived? He pushed the thoughts aside. There was work to do but where does an ant go when humans invade his space?

"I had a dream." "It woke me."
She sits, staring at and through the darkened TV.

"Tell me."

"I was in Viet Nam," (she had been there once. ) "not in the war."

"I had a boyfriend, they killed him right in front of me...."

"In some sea-side resort, I was cutting his hair" (she had never cut hair), "Some group of kids ratted him out as a spy."

"I wish I could write screenplays. (She used to work in film) "A love story gone wrong. A movie we wouldn't go see -- too real"

She turns, staring at and through the darkened TV                  

That cunning little son-of-a-bitch, thinking he could waltz off with the whole family pie. What a parsimonious, little anorexic squirrel feigning loss as he squirmed in his chair and fingered the last will and testament. His eyes studied the way others devoured their food. How he loathed them.

“Lily-livered, food junkies,” he muttered excusing himself to the john where he could admire his razor sharp jaw line and deathly eyes. Gaunt was fucking glorious. Scare the bejesus out of them, what better way to turn a profit on family pity? Wimps.

He’d forgotten about the guy in the corner. Checkmate.

Dee waitressed in a pizza joint; Ann was a nurse. I imagined her as tall, slim, and pretty in her cool, white uniform. Dee moved slowly and looked unhappy; she was 26, ancient to me. I couldn’t imagine the sun rising in her eyes. Gary asked Dee about Ann’s availability. Ann was busy—had a boyfriend. Then Dee made it clear how tired she was and ended the conversation asking if we wanted fries with the milkshakes. Then we left for New York but kept going. We parked on the street in Boston and slept in the car.

Written in honour of the bard's birthday:-

“Ye cannae write that, Rabbie!” Jean said. “Just because she gie’d ye socks agin’ fir yer birthday!”

Burns read his new poem aloud. “There gaes ma Auntie Aggie’s face, Queen Grumpy ‘o the pudden race... It’s perfect,” he declared.

“How about another nice animal poem? They’re popular. Like those ones about mice and lice. How about a cat?”

“Emma Baird does them.”

“A dug?”

“Jane Reid.”

“Tiger...?”

“Some Englishman called Bill Blake. And ah need a rhyme wi’ ‘Aggie’.”

“Ach, cam awa’ an hae yer tea. It’s yer favourite.”

Burns looked at the plate. “Short, fat, hairy legs, rhymes wi’ Aggie’s....”

“Snow,” grumbled John. “My meteorological arch-nemesis.” Scraping the ice off his car was slow going, especially due to the mixture of the white stuff and freezing rain that was currently falling. “There must be some way to make this snow vanish and make the warm temps return.” To his amazement, with those simple words, his windshield started to clear, and the air felt substantially warmer. “It is summer. I am in Hawaii, in my swimsuit, surfing and sunbathing.” In a matter of minutes, it felt like spring. The power of visualization strikes again!

Did you ever stop to think your face gets exercise when your lips, teeth, tongue, and jaw, masticate thoroughly? Teeth are born to chew and contribute to the sensual pleasures of your gums and soft tissues. Chew more and your saliva prepares the food perfectly for digestion in the stomach and this allows more effective disbursement of the nutritional values to your whole body. THIS is where you can become kick-ass smart.

The more you chew your food the more satisfaction you guarantee your body AND that creates this cost effective equation:

LESS food + THOROUGHLY masticated = EXPEDIENT nutrition.

On the 20th January 2014, Jane Reid returned to a familiar them:-

His new catering business was succeeding even beyond his hopes. Now Carlos was setting up to provide lunch for exhibitors and spectators at, of all things, a dog show.
It was an informal community show, not an official AKC function. And he was only feeding humans, not the dogs (which were very particular, he had been told). Still, it was a challenge. Carlos wasn’t really accustomed to being around dogs, although he liked them well enough.
Suddenly chaos broke out. A small creature streaked across the tables. Dishes went flying.
His staff hurried to clean up. Carlos sneezed.

Four days later, she added the following:-

Dog show II

When a cat created havoc at the community dog show, the allergic Carlos took refuge in a back room while his well-trained staff set tables to rights and mopped spilled refreshments. There was now no sign of the cat, and they assumed it had run out the open door.

Fortunately, all the dogs had been leashed or in cages. But suddenly a large black dog ran through the room and over to a window, growling. A cat jumped from behind the drapery and fled the building.

A woman hurried in. “Oh, there you are, Flora,” she said.

Alex ordered a beer and watched city workers pouring into the pub. He felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to face G.L. who wasted no time on formalities. “I hear you’re the best.”

Alex smiled. “What’s the job?”

“I’ve been having problems lately. J.M.K. has offered to help but I need a permanent solution to avoid future problems. Can you fix it?”

“Of course.”

Alex headed straight for the site. Finding his target was easy. It was over in minutes.

G.L. smiled as he read the text message. “Programme software upgraded. Posting problems resolved. All win – no fee!”

She dusted framed pictures of their beautiful family and smiled. After putting away the cleaning supplies, she looked around and took a deep breath. The house was immaculate.

A cozy chair in the living room called to her. She selected a book from the bookcase and curled up with it. She let the phone ring twice before answering.

“It’s time,” the voice said.

“I understand.”

She hung up the phone and returned the book to its place on the shelf. Taking one last look around, she walked out the front door and headed to her next cleaning job.

It’s hard being a divorced working mother with six children to support. That’s right. Six! All boys, and they all look like their father, especially the twins, Gordon 5 and Gordon 6.
Fortunately, the boys are very creative, ambitious lads and good with their hands. They’ve already invented an electric grill, a hamburger fryer and other small kitchen appliances.
The earnings from the sale of their inventions supplement my income until their father gets out of prison and can resume paying alimony and children support.
Right now my ex is doing three to five in the state pen for bigamy.

I remember you from a photograph, a nude, I saw on the wall of a ratty third-floor walkup in a fashionably bad part of town. Yes, I lived there. Actually, it wasn’t you in the photo; it was someone who resembled you. Quite funny, what? But that would be a subtle, rare kind of humor—simultaneously obvious and dry—like a particularly delightful wine enjoyed on a Saturday Fall evening by a few friends in their early thirties who had known one another (intimately in some cases) throughout their youth. It may be too much to expect.

Glopotek strummed his flishu. Paraoyt shivered appreciatively, relaxing amid the purple foliage. Only one thing was missing.
“Louder, Glopy,” said Para. “Maybe no one can hear. And if not tonight, we’ll have to wait for the next cycle.”
The thought was unbearable. Glopotek and faithful Para had already waited too long.
Then it happened. Through the purple, now darkening in the setting suns, came Jroximm. Happily, the trio engaged, now assured of progeny.

Below me, two men are wielding chainsaws with much enthusiasm. They feed branches and trunks into what looks like a giant shredder. It spews out chips and sawdust to the ground below.

I sigh; bye bye trees. They used to shelter the train platform from the wind and the views out across the town. They hid grey houses and vandalised buildings, but their tips touched on the bottom of the mountain views.

Pity... But progress is progress after all, and it's either hidden views OR delayed trains. The regular commuter (me) can't have it both ways.

Far into Andromeda, Agnes looked out of the window.

“I wonder what it was really like flying those cramped old space rockets,” she said. “How did they stand it? No shower, no pool first thing in the morning. Ugh!”

Charlotte nodded. “It took so LONG. Thank God we live in the age of megalightspeed travel. When are we due to land?”

“A couple of hours more, Charlie,” Agnes said. “Time you were going. How long have you got, by the way?”

“The room’s booked for forty minutes.”

Charlotte set off to fetch that Australian from the top deck. He’d do.

Spindly fingers moved like spider legs to find the perfect grasp of his cappuccino. His lonely eyes prohibited the slightest wriggle in the still, foam mountaintop as he brought the cup toward his lips at a snails pace. His nostrils flared. Oh, how he wanted to ravage this prissy, sexy beast. Desperately. But he’d trained himself to wait knowing how much better it tasted after deprivation.

The tip of his tongue quietly licked just below the white foam while the aroma teased his senses. Pulling back with the tiniest smile, he puckered his lips for a kiss and white mustache.

Moving day. The old family house was empty; Jamie's car was packed, ready for the drive to a friend's house out of state; and an old scooter, chipped and faded, leaned forlornly against the mossy stone wall in the backyard. Jamie reminisced about how much she had longed for a scooter of her own, and how excited she'd been when she unwrapped it at her 8th birthday party. Feeling a bit silly, she went for one last ride around the backyard, patted it fondly, said goodbye, and got in her car as a warm summer rain began to fall.

Strange week it’s been. I’ve been feeling low lately what with the wife running off with another bloke and losing my job. So Friday I go down to the pub for a drink with the boys. One of them says to me, “Could you kill someone Dan?”

“Who’ve you got in mind?” I ask.

Truth be told I didn’t know the gun was loaded with live ammunition. I also didn’t know the “someone” he was referring to was me.

So now I’m dead and it isn’t great either - different world, same crap. Think I’ll go back as a ghost.

Since Danny, SuperParkingAttendant, had embarked on his admittedly enforced 5.2 diet, his concentration had improved remarkably, allowing him to pursue the transgressors of parking regulations with renewed vigour.

Remarkable, thought Alice, the enforcer of the 5.2 rules. Her partner was a sight to behold these days. He ran, rather than walked. He fired off parking tickets like they were going out of fashion.

She had been writing down what she fed him. With a little tweak here and there, she reckoned, she could create a diet all of her very own, publish it and make millions...