“Your prayer has been heard; your wish may now be fulfilled. But you must now choose your Champion to face The Challenge. Who will you pick?”
“What are my choices?”
“The world’s strongest. mightiest man, the world’s smartest man, or Sister Mary-Hortense, of Jesus-Our-Savior-From-On-High.”
“I choose Nun of the Above.”
Two enemy pilots crashed onto an uninhabited planet while engaged.
They gradually learned to trust each other, and became good friends.
The alien pilot told the human he was pregnant (don’t ask) then died.
The human’s bittersweet joy at this event was interrupted when thousands of baby aliens devoured him.
“I don’t take orders from bricks,” I say.
“What?” she asks me.
“Nothing. Are you ready to go?”
“Aren’t you gonna do something about that window?”
“No.”
“What if it rains?”
“Then I’ll take a shower.”
“What if a bird flies in? What then?”
“Lunch.”
“Funny.”
“Not for the bird.”
The lady got back up, wiped the blood off her cheek, giving me a dirty look throughout.
I feigned interest in the brick, examining it while trying to avoid laughing.
I was surprised when I found an actual message on the projectile, in crayon:
“If you help her, you’re dead!”
The window behind me shatters, and I duck, narrowly avoiding a pavement stone.
Third time this month. I’m not surprised. With my phone disconnected, it’s the second best way to send me a message.
The dame didn’t react quickly enough, though. Now she’s got a blackeye.
“Duck,” I say, smiling.
It’s sunny outside, but I’ve got the blinds closed. I like shadow.
This dame doesn’t. Keeps trying to see my face better. But she’ll hire me regardless.
Someone’s trying to kill her husband, and she’s trying to see if I’ll react to her cleavage.
I open the blinds a bit.
“When the aliens came–”
“You start all your stories with that.”
He disregarded the rude interruption.
“When the alie–”
“Why won’t you tell a different story?”
He sighed.
“Because it’s a defining moment in our history. It changed things forever.”
“History is no excuse for lack of imagination.”
He was never one to read between the lines. Until now, that is.
Fighting his way through some badly-written medieval sword-and-sorcery tale and barely surviving, his mind kept thinking up synonyms to the expression “cruel and unusual punishment.”
He never expected anything like this, when the judge said, “Book him.”
Vampires and zombies emerged at the same time.
Nobody knows why.
They fought for their main resource: live humans.
Eventually, none were left. The zombies and vampires stopped fighting, with nothing left to fight for.
Gradually, with no “food” left, both groups faded away.
Guess that’s a happy ending, right?
I sang my song, and the robot listened intently.
“Let me prove that I can play. Let me add a solo, at the end,” it asked.
I recorded its solo, mixed it in with the song, and we both listened to the results.
The robot seemed content.
I was uneasy.
Writer’s / composer’s / performer’s / music producer’s note: this is the version of the song I originally intended to post yesterday, but I needed help to produce the synth solo at the end, which is why the original version fades out, instead of reaching the original ending I’d recorded. I won’t take credit for the synthy addition, but the person who contributed them wishes to remain anonymous (but not out of shame, from what I can tell.)