He scribbled into the volume on his lap, ignoring the cacophony of traffic rushing past his bench toward the freeway.

A shadow loomed over him momentarily.

“Whazzat? A story?” The bum, rancid and bloated inside layers of ratty clothing, settled beside him.

The man ignored his questioner, his hand a blur.

“Hey! What are you, deaf?” The bum poked the man, streaking graphite across the clean page.

The man raised his head. He regarded his tormentor and flipped through the book, located the desired spot, and gently erased a line of text.

The man, alone once more, resumed his chronicle.

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1. The Friday Drabble – Episode 5
2. The Friday Drabble #6: Funny Business
3. The Friday Drabble #14: One-Way Ticket

The Fantasies of Youth

Did you ever want to run away and live in a museum?

Not me! Although I enjoyed “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” as much as the next kid, the MoMA always seemed like an impractical choice for a stowaway.

No, I’d run away to THE MALL.

Picture it: Spend all night playing the arcade games, stuffing yourself silly in the food court, reading in the bookstores until your eyes crossed, and finally, crashing on a Serta mattress.

What do you mean “You’d get caught”?

Why do you think I took this job as a night watchman?

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2. The Friday Drabble #6: Funny Business
3. The Friday Drabble #14: One-Way Ticket

They say you can’t go home again.

They’re wrong.

In fact, with that D-Hopper you’re holding there, sliding through dimensions is as easy as falling off a log. Easier even, given how hard it would be to find a— no, strike that. You still have trees, here.

I could go home at any time. Back to the thick, choking air, noxious and burning in your lungs. Back to the toxic swamps under blood red skies. Back to the cancer that awaits, creeping inside you with every breath.

Yes, I can go home again. But why would I ever want to?

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2. The Friday Drabble #12: Failure is Not an Option
3. The Friday Drabble #15: The Fantasies of Youth

Arms pumping, legs churning, he sprinted toward the finish line. The broken pavement beneath his running shoes tried to trip him up, and only sheer luck kept him vertical, and in the lead.

He flipped a glance over his shoulder, gauging how far back the others were. Could he make it before they caught up to him? Lungs and body burning, he prayed silently that it would be so.

He crossed over the line barely ahead of the pack, and collapsed under their weight.

For the zombies, you see, it was never about the race, but only about the finish.

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“WAAAAH!” he screamed, spying the man in the corner.

Floating.

Above the ground.

“Friendly neighborhood poltergeist here,” the apparition moaned. “I’m supposed to give you a heads’ up about the new Participation Law. Any folks that don’t hand out candy get haunted until next Halloween.”

As George shuffled down the candy aisle, a young man caught his eye.

“It’s gotta be a trick, right?”

George shrugged, and sighed. He was NOT looking forward to the Easter Bunny’s visit next spring.

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He shrugged, grabbed the bottle from my hands and took a swig. “Not sure. But I know what I’d do to make that claim, and I bet I’d even save money in the manufacturing costs!”

“Oh yeah, how’s that?” I asked him, curious.

He grinned. “Just fill the bottle up only 90% of the way. Voilà! 10x more oxygen!”

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This also means that I’ll be having a little more free time to post, which should mean I’m doing more than slinging up drabble every week.  I’ve volunteered to help write some posts for the Scifi Media Group that Budd founded, and I’ve already got some lined up for that (coming soon to a blogspot near you).  Of course, I’m planning on spending a lot of time with my family, too, so even though I’ll be writing more, I might ease back into the posting so not as to overwhelm myself and end up in the same spot I was after NaBloPoMo a couple of years back (where I posted for 30 days straight, and then only had 5 posts in the 2 months following thereafter).

So without further ado, here’s this week’s drabble, in honor of Banned Books Week.

First books were banned, then schools, then education in general.

Soon followed prohibitions concerning consumption of green vegetables, bathing, newspapers (and news reporting in general), public displays of affection, and regimented exercise.  People were at a loss with what to do with all their free time when employment was banned.

But the final straw, which incited rebellion and the eventual downfall of the empire, was the proclamation banning “girls and their cooties”.

Years later, looking back, the historians all agreed that it had been a monumentally bad idea to allow the child-emperor to dictate law according to his 8-year-old whims.

A Slippery Slope

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Fridays are the days I post one or two “drabble“, the 100-word stories that test your ability to convey an entire story idea in an extremely brief format.  Feel free to join in and write your own 100 word stories on Fridays, and tag them with “friday drabble”.  Link to them in the comments and/or on Twitter with the hashtag #fridaydrabble.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

That was basic physics.  Even high school students knew it.  Felix, the biggest nerd in town, definitely knew it.  But every rule has exceptions; every law is made to be broken.

So that Thursday, when the school bully made his usual attempts to humiliate and terrorize Felix (wedgies, toilet swirlies, and petty thefts of lunch money), Felix didn’t react like a victim.  Hands trembling, he cocked the hammer of his grandfather’s borrowed pistol, aimed the barrel, and fired.

All the teachers said Felix was going places.  How right they were.

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When Jeremy was 7, his grandfather told him “laughter is the best medicine.” Jeremy, being seven, believed him. When his sister got the chicken pox, he tickled her mercilessly. He only succeeded in catching it himself, but he wasn’t dissuaded.

When Jeremy was 17, he made an old widow laugh until tears streamed from her eyes. She thanked Jeremy for helping her come to terms with her husband’s death.

When Jeremy was 47, he successfully distilled the giggles into liquid form. Ten years later, his concentrated chuckles proved successful in curing AIDS.

Jeremy laughed all the way to the bank.

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2. The Friday Drabble – Episode 3
3. The Friday Drabble – Episode 4

ALSO! Some of the drabble I am writing are part of the 100 Word Stories Podcast Weekly Challenge! Because of this, I will also post an audio recording of my reading of any challenge submissions.  Hope you enjoy!

My Summer Vacation
by Billy Jenkins

My summer vacation was neat. All 20 of my aunts and uncles came to stay with us. They were mad because they couldn’t live in their houses nomore. Uncle Steve said “Those goshdarn aliens should be shot back into space where they came from”. Momma told him “Hush”. Aunt Verna wanted to stay with us when everyone else caught the shuttle to New Montana, but she ended up going anyway. Mom and Dad and Janey went too, so now it’s just me and Xyzzybrax*CK living at my house. That’s ok with me.

The End

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