Dani's Shorts 3 Read online

  "Mum! I've had a change of heart! I don't think I'll play 'Peter and the Wolf' for my recital!"

  54 - BBC Surreal Satire at its worst

  (Ensign Chekov, scrapbooking convention, airport security, watermelon)

  Charley watched as the new arrivals landed and queued up for passport control. Unfortunately, he hadn't felt well for days and this was his first day back after a week of illness. After ducking down to take a glass of water, he came back up to see that the first arrival through was a 6' watermelon carrying a purple rucksack.

  "Err...good day."

  "Good day." The 6' watermelon passed Charley an EU passport.

  "Is, err, is this your passport?" asked Charley, a little confused.

  "Why, yes, it is. Anything wrong?" The watermelon scratched its head.

  "Well..."

  "I've just come back from a scrapbooking convention in Phoenix, Arizona, you know? Very enjoyable, very nice."

  Scrapbooking convention? Sounded awful, a bunch of old girls with photos.

  "Sir…" He called a watermelon sir? "This picture is not you."

  "Sorry? What? Not me? What do you mean?"

  "The picture in your passport doesn't match your present appearance." How could it?

  "Of course it's me, who else could it be? That's my passport."

  "Your passport?" Charley looked at him, shiny and clean, probably extraordinarily juicy inside.

  "Yes, that's my passport and my picture!" The watermelon stamped its 'feet'. Charley scrutinised the picture more.

  "But this picture looks like Walter Koenig, aka Ensign Chekov from the Original Star Trek Series. In fact, I'm sure this IS a photo of Walter Koenig, aka Ensign Chekov from the Original Star Trek Series cut out of a magazine." He showed it to the watermelon, holding it up against the inside of his glass cubicle.

  "Oh yes, really, I do see a similarity of sorts…" confessed the watermelon.

  "I'm afraid I'm going to have to call airport security." Charley moved to his intercom and went to hit the buttons but the watermelon, now sweating, pushed itself against the cubicle.

  "Look, you've gotta help me. There's a particularly unfriendly cuccumber back there I'm trying to get away from. I'm sure he's after me, I'm sure he's after my pips." Both Charley and the watermelon looked down the line, and there it was, a large 8' tall cuccumber waiting in the long queue, menacingly staring at them.

  "Sir…" Again with the sir? "I'm trying to do my job here and if you have a grievience with any of your fellow passengers then please take it up with either them or your airline service supplier. My problem is that this picture is not you, it is Walter Koenig who played Ensign Chekov in the Original Star Trek Series, and not that there is an 8' tall cuccumber in the queue behind who is after your pips."

  "Oh, alright, it's a fair cop, guv'nor. I got that picture at the convention."

  "Thank you, sir. Now I'll just contact airport security and we…"

  The watermelon was off, running across the hall of cubicles, looking for a way out of the terminal, bashing into people and falling over baggage.

  "Not another watermelon, eh?" said Charley's colleague.

  "Yeah. It's strange, you usually only see them at the weekends."

  Weekend Quickie 25 - Mardi Gras balls

  (image - Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo, element - Mardi Gras beads, emotion - curiousity)

  "She just flashed her boobs, Jeff!" screamed Bob. He'd never been to Mardi Gras before, it was all a bit much for him.

  "Yes, Bob. She did it for those Mardi Gras beads. Calm down, we don't wanna get any unwanted attention. Here." I passed him the bottle of Jack and he took another swig.

  "Where are we, Jeff?"

  The other guys whispered to get rid of him. I said they should go off, I'd catch up later.

  "Bourbon street. That's probably why that girl got away with it. If she'd done it in the Garden District the cops would've got 'er."

  "I want some beads, Jeff. I want some!"

  With drink in him, Bob's IQ had gone down about 60 points. Never again.

  "Look! 'Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo'! They'll have some beads!"

  "No, Bob, they only have trinkets and voodoo..."

  "Yeah, but I'm curious!"

  "Bob, you get beads from the floats, they throw them at you when they pass. I've heard, though, that if a guy is brave enough to flash..."

  His trousers were down, showing both his crown jewels and knobbly knees. It took the cops five seconds to arrest him.

  "Bye, Bob."

  "Jeff? Hey, Jeff! Jeff!"

  55 (Grudge 5) - Pimp my ride, Sonny!

  (coyote, snow plow, 1936 Chevy Corvette, the Zombie Apocalypse)

  The TV blazed on, loud and strong, repeating the same report over and over again.

  "Grandpa! Can you shut it off? There's nothing new! They'll keep repeating that thing until their power's gone! And you're wasting our electricity!"

  "Eh?"

  Grandpa had run out of batteries for his hearing aid days ago and kept turning the TV on for more news about the situation. The generator had a few more days in it so he couldn't feel the change, this zombie 'apocalyse'. My parents had sent me here to Grandpa's place, a remote house outside of town, as soon as it began. I hadn't heard from them for a fortnight, I suspected the worst.

  "What's that, sonny? The TV's too loud!"

  "Turn it off!" I ran upstairs and switched it off. "Grandpa, they can hear us, okay?"

  "Eh? Who's that, sonny?" He shuffled over to the TV in his comfy slippers, ready to put it back on.

  "The zombies, Grandpa!" I spotted one climbing over the fence and took Grandpa's pump action shotgun, opened the window and aimed. Headshot. Then I saw them.

  "Grandpa! Err...I think we've gotta get out of here!" A handful of cartridges weren't enough to stop what was walking down the road towards us.

  "Eh? Oh, visitors, and so many!" Nothing wrong with his eyesight. "Gimme that." He grabbed the shotgun and took out one more. "Ah, I've still got it. Sonny? Let's go."

  It took ten minutes to get to the garage door. Grandpa stopped.

  "Grandpa?" Another came close. Headshot.

  "Shhh, I'm peeing."

  "Grandpa!"

  "Okay, okay, sonny." He opened the door to reveal his old snow plow, unused for over 20 years.

  "What the...? Grandpa! That thing doesn't run!"

  "Ah, but this one does." He shuffled further back into the garage and there it was, a small red sports car.

  "What's that, Grandpa?" Headshot. Five more cartridges.

  "A 1936 Chevy Corvette." We jumped into the two seater.

  "1936? Isn't that a bit old, Grandpa?"

  "Yes. They only started making them in 1953."

  "What?" Four.

  "This is a 'hybrid', sonny. Back in 1936, me and my guys took a Coupe and suped it up with a 1933 Bugatti Grand Prix engine we 'borrowed' and brought over to the US. My, was that Fitzroy Somerset angry!" Grandpa laughed and hit the pedal, crushing two zombies under the wheels as we left. We headed out towards his fishing hut at the lake, hidden on an island.

  "Are you telling me you 'pimped' an old Chevy Coupe?" It ran superbly.

  "Pimp my ride, sonny!" He pushed the pedal down and we flew through the bends. In a few moments we arrived at the lake.

  "Wow, Grandpa, that was...!" His body lay slumped on the dashboard. "Thanks, Grandpa." He'd given his last to save me. I laid him back into his seat.

  While rowing across to the island, I glanced over to my new home. On the bank stood a lone coyote, watching intently.

  "Just you and me now, ol' buddy."

  Weekend Quickie 26 - The unexpected

  (image - meteor/comet over Stonehenge at night, element - a message in a bottle, emotion - intrigue)

  Driving down the A303 at night, trying to get back to London after a rainy two week holiday in Torquay, Susan spotted what we'd missed on the way there.

  "Look, Daddy! I can see it on
the horizon, as plain as day!"

  "Susan, it's nighttime."

  "You know what I mean."

  As my wife slept in the passenger seat, Susan and myself admired the view of Stonehenge as we drove by. Once I'd put my eyes back on the road, Susan shook my shoulders.

  "What?"

  "Stop the car, Daddy."

  "Not again, Susan. Can't you hold it until we get home?"

  "No, not that. Look."

  I parked the car in the nearest layby and turned back to see a green tailed meteor hurtling to the ground, only a few hundred metres away from the famous landmark. There was a flash of light to suggest an impact. Intrigued, I got out of the car and Susan followed. With no one watching, we jumped over the fence encircling Stonehenge and found the meteor's crater.

  "Go on, Daddy."

  I climbed into the hole and found something extraordinary resting in the earth at the bottom.

  "Daddy? What is it?"

  "Err, it's a message in a bottle…"

  56 - Hindsight

  (The Curse of the Hope Diamond, deflated beach ball, hyena, a holiday in the country you have never visited)

  "And when we get back we're gonna have to plan the interior of the house, you know, the wallpaper in each room, the carpets and curtains, which piece of furniture goes where, and who uses it, where the TVs go and in which direction the bed faces, does it face the southeast as we originally planned or does it now face the southwest seeing as I read in a Feng Shui book that…"

  Three days. That was already the end for me. The blonde hair, beautiful face, gorgeous body and huge healthy back account apparently wasn't enough for me.

  "…oh, and did you see the waiter this morning? Oh, I could've screamed the way he was walking along and holding those glasses, I'm sure he must've been on medication or something the way he was doing that, oh he was…"

  And that laugh that could cut through paper, like a female hyena in heat. The manager had come to our room with complaints from the other hotel guests.

  "…and what about the, oh look, darling, the bloated whale in the swimming pool, just what does she think she looks like in that bikina, oh darling, if I ever looked like that be sure to shoot me, but I'm only speaking hyperphetically, of course, oh but look, her partner! Oh my, where did he buy those…"

  Just like the curse of the Hope diamond, all hype and no substance. She shines like that large precious stone when you first meet her, but when time passes and you get to know her, the veneer erodes, leaving nothing but the feeling a deflated beach ball gives to a child playing near the sea.

  "Tell me, what do you think? Beige or…no, no, it's definitely this colour, I must find a phone cover which matches this skirt, there's no question about it, and also one for my tablet,although I do like the faded Union Jack, that has to be my favourite of all time, that one, and…"

  I'd agreed to a holiday in a country I'd never visited before and that was my first mistake, I guess, other than the one where I fell for her smile. The musical note earrings, tiny nose stud in one nostril and 2 cm long fake red nails should've told me to stay away, but I must've had one too many that night. And the next. Then her quick one liners slowly disappeared as we grew closer and closer, taken over by this constant verbal dross.

  "Oh, imagine, I was at the Poodle Parlour getting Chichi's hair permed when I overheard someone say that she was having a 4 person jacuzzi installed and would Susan, that's Tracy's assistant, like to come over and try it out and I just had to mention that I'd already had an 8 person one installed the other week and that everyone was invited and that I could also show my collection of bath salts and lotions and…"

  Shoot me, shoot me now.

  Flash in the Pan - Cerreda Medellin Blues - Jack Kerouac

  Even though I had a sister

  I always played alone

  just myself and me

  Hunting in the corn

  I tripped and hit my head

  & got home late

  Broke my toe while walking back

  Crept inside and went to bed

  And nothing more was said

  Never ever looked

  ahead

  DANI IN THE SHADOWS

  WAITING PATIENTLY

  Flash in the Pan – Palindrome ("I madam, I made radio! So I dared! Am I mad, am I?")

  "Is he alright, doctor? Is he?"

  It was difficult to see how the poor man could be, what with the four iron wrapped around his head.

  "I'm going to have to run a few tests, madam. Just when exactly did this happen?"

  "After the swearing, before the ban," said the distressed wife.

  "No, no, at what time did this happen?" The doctor shined a light into the patient's eyes.

  "Oh, sorry, doctor, about three hours ago," stated the women, matter-of-factly.

  "Three hours! Why the hell did it take you this long to get him here?" complained the doctor.

  "Well, I didn't really notice..."

  "Notice? He's wearing a golf club for a hat and you didn't notice?"

  "Well, I noticed that, but..." She was interrupted by her inflicted husband.

  "I madam, I made radio! So I dared! Am I mad, am I?"

  "See? He never made much sense before but now…" apologized the wife.

  "Ah-ha. He has 'palindromitus', a common misfortune on the golf course." The doctor stopped his examination and sat there thinking.

  "So, doctor? What's your diagnosis?"

  "I'll write up a prescription." He wrote down the usual commission based medicine and scribbled his signature down at the bottom of the paper.

  "So, doctor, looks like my husband won't be playing golf for a while. Fancy a set of clubs, without the four iron, of course?" asked the wife.

  "Golf? God! Yawn! Mad on Eve! No damn way! Dog flog!"

  Weekend Quickie 27 - Mike's Omission

  (image - woman sitting on bed with a bear, element - a handsome newspaperman’s birthday, emotion - a feeling of anxiety brought on by the omission of a comma)

  "Another job well done," smiled the handsome newspaperman as he stood up to get his coat. It was his birthday and all was well with the world. It had been a productive day, sharing out muffins in the morning to his colleagues, interviewing a famous local artist with the paper's smelly photographer Ted who'd almost got attacked by said artist's pet 6 foot grizzly bear when he'd bent over at an inopportune moment, handing the story in on time for the evening's print, sorting out the backlog of emails he'd amassed from neglect, and finally getting rid of that awful coffee stain from the edge of his computer's monitor. Now he could go home to his loving wife and fabulous children to celebrate with a slice of cake.

  "Happy Birthday, Mike!" said Ted, handing him the paper's evening front broadsheet and laughing.

  "Thanks, Ted." Mike's smile wavered as he noticed that the whole office was watching him, laughing. Turning the broadsheet over, he saw the wonderful photograph of the interviewed artist sitting on a bed with her bear, but his joy turned to anxiety once he read the headline. 'Local artist finds inspiration in stewing her bear and other pets'.

  57 - Dennis is a bad boy

  (24 miniature plastic dinosaurs of various kinds, vegamite, Outside Tire Motorcyle, sewing machine)

  Dennis is a bad boy. I don't like him. But he spoils everything. Mummy says I should not blame someone else for the things I do. But he makes me. He is a bad boy. He is stronger than me. I know the things that he makes me do are wrong. I know they are not good for me or anyone. But I do them. He is my friend. Friends do not do things to hurt you. I got dinosaurs for one of my birthdays. He told me to eat them. The doctor told Mummy that he had never seen 24 miniature plastic dinosaurs of various kinds in one child before. I went to bed without dinner. Dennis told me it was okay to cry. He then told me how to use a sewing machine. It was fun. It was very loud. He said it was used to put hair together. He then told me to practise on Grandma. She was not happy. Mummy shouted a lot that day. I went to bed
without dinner. Dennis told me that I can collect my tears in a jar. I put them under my bed to save them for later. But I did not like vegamite. Dennis said it was not a food. He said it was a paint. Mummy had given me it to paint the kitchen. I used a knife to spread it. It was easy to do. Mummy was not happy with my work. Mummy shouted some more. I was sent to bed again without dinner. I heard Mummy talk about a special place I can go. Dennis said it was a nice place. Dennis said I can make a lot of good friends there. Grandpa came to visit me yesterday. He is a funny little man. He made me laugh. Dennis liked him. Grandpa has a funny looking bicycle. He said it was an outside tyre motorcycle. He said it was valuable. I said it was red. He laughed. Dennis said Grandpa is bad. Dennis said Grandpa laughed at me. I like Grandpa. He is a funny man. He let me sit on his funny looking bicycle. Dennis said I should turn the key. I did. Grandpa was not happy. Dennis said to put my foot on a piece of metal. He then said to turn the handlebar. The bicycle moved very fast. I did not like it. Dennis loved it. He laughed a lot. I started to cry. I called for my Mummy. Grandpa ran after me. The bicycle fell over. Mummy shouted. She shouted a lot. Grandpa shouted too. Dennis laughed. Today I am in the special place. There are some nice people here. They like white clothes. They all have big smiles. There are some funny looking children here. Dennis said I will like it here. He said this is my new home. I like my new home. It has a lot of toys. Where has Dennis gone? I hope Mummy will come back soon.

  Flash in the Pan - tiny story based on 2 Shakespearean insults: "Ye Eater of Broken Meats!" and "Have fun, you embossed carbuncles!"

  Time for the kids’ choice, where to spend the last few hours.

  “McDonalds!” they said in unison.

  “Great. Am I doing this one?” asked the ex.

  “It’s all yours.”

  Daily Flash

 

  (5 minutes : Genre - Fantasy, Start with: Audra left her sword at home that day...

  End with: ...and the world was safe once more.)

  Audra left her sword at home that day knowing full well her life and the lives of her loved ones would be in dire need of her immense and talented swordsmanship while crossing the Forest of Dark Shadows and Creepy Crawlies. She did, however, take her eggwhisk. With kitchen utensil in hand, she boldly strode along the worn track leading between the trees. Three deer crossed her path, startled by something sinister and black racing towards her. It was a demon from the depths of Kazahpang! Audra held up her weapon of choice and whisked the demon back to the evil dimensions from whence it came before it had a chance to cut her down. She felt happy and began whistling, happily striding along to her Sunday cake baking class with her fellow Amazonian warriors. The sun shone down and the world was safe once more.