Saturday, July 11, 2015

Saturday Extras!

Prompt: If you could describe your life in only 3 words, what would you say?


Melody Joy wrote:

Fear, brokenness, restoration.


Dana Lee wrote:

Unique. Fun. Loving.


Prompt: Write a short story about the invasion of undead insects.


Chuck C. wrote:

It was a cool, breezing night in the small villa outside of St. Petersburg, as were most fall nights in Western Russia. It was a quiet, unassuming village. Nobody ever really thought much of it. That would all change though.

Roman, the local spice merchant and town bard, was just getting home from his work of the day when the ground beneath him began to shake. He looked around to find the source, but could not find a thing. Roman, a former Soviet tank commander, decorated war hero, and former KGB agent, felt like he was suddenly back in Afghanistan as the entire area around him erupted in explosions. He dropped his wares and began running towards his small house on the outside of the city. As he ran the ground burst open in front of him. He barely had time to dodge as a huge beetle emerged from the gaping hole, along with a swarm of insects. They had a gray pallor and bright red eyes. They began to swarm the town, wreaking havoc.

The most shocking thing to Roman was not the fact that what seemed like undead bugs seemed to be invading his little hamlet, but who rode the largest of them. None other than former Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nobody had seen him in years. It was rumored he was holed up on an island somewhere in the south china sea.

As what seemed like an infinite sprawl of bugs made their home in his town, the beetle with Putin atop strode towards him.

“Roman, as I live and breath” Putin shouted. “Never thought I would see you again after that scrap in Kandahar.”. Roman stood in disbelief. Nothing in his well travelled and seasoned life ever prepared him for the sight of Vladmir Putin riding a giant undead beetle. His voice was casual, but assertive and powerful as he remembered. “Its time to bring Russia to its former glory.” He said, his beetle firing a burst of plasma from its mouth into the air. This only perplexed Roman more.

“I chose this village for a reason, you are hear to witness the beginning of history. The only question, comrade, is what side of history you will be on, the winning or the losing.” Putin shoutted. The beetle lurched forward, bowing to bring Putin down to Roman's level. “Come with me, comrade, let us restore Russia to glory!” He said, extending his hand. Roman paused for moment, but made his decision quickly. He grabbed his hand and swung up onto the beetle.

They rode forward, to glory and to restoration. Thus began the great Necro-Bug war of the 21st century, and we all know how that turned out.


Dan Christmann wrote:

The army of undead insects were a force to be reckoned with. They were created years ago in a trailer by Doktor Ulrich Applegänger Von Strange, in a laboratory somewhere south of Kalamazoo. Right next to the meth labs and the strung out WMU students, the Doktor had worked for many months on a ‘cure’ for what he called the “sickness that is the death.” It may be important to note here that Von Strange was born in Mecosta county and has never been out of the state, despite his admirable attempts at a Swabian dialect.

However, despite the fact that he had little formal education, and, as I have noted before, couldn’t put on an accent for anything, the Doktor was actually a brilliant chemist, with a strange penchant for understanding the neurocircuitry of certain small invertebrate. And so, one night during a conveniently placed thunderstorm, Doktor Von Strange placed a bit of liquid from a small eye dropper on the corpse of a small stag beetle and watched it for signs of life. Lightning flashed. The beetle’s leg twitched.

“Heureka!” cried the linguistically confused Applegänger.

Over the course of the next few nights, more beetles were found, more of the mixture formulated, and more leg twitches were made to opportunely timed lightning strikes. After several more months of formulating, and finding the most deadly specimens of insect available, the Doctor was ready to begin. One quiet night in October, just as the leaves were beginning to fall in incredible oranges and reds outside the trailer, Von Strange created his first army. His army of Undead Insects.

As per usual with a supervillain who has not quite found his legs yet, Von Strange sent his undead insects on several ill-conceived bank robberies and assassinations before realizing that, while vastly more intelligent and even tempered than your normal group of undead insects, his had no particular ability to rob banks or to kill anything larger than a very small, very sick squirrel, and even he was unsure of this, as it was difficult to tell if the squirrel had died before or after they got there. In any case, Doktor Applegänger had a conundrum on his hands.

One day, while pondering his woes, Von Ulrich was pacing up and down the street, his tiny insect minions shambling sluggishly behind him, when he noticed a music store. Having found Bach to be soothing on his mental processes, and especially sonatas and partitas, he decided to venture in, just in case he could catch a listen to one or more of those melodious notes.

But what he found inside shocked him beyond belief. Rows and rows of brilliantly colored guitars and basses. Guys in black with multiple piercings shredding, or at least pretending to shred, on the stacks of amps on the right. To the back there was even a skinny girl with blue hair beating out a machine gun tempo on the double bass pedal. But what he found even more amazing was that the insects, upon entering the store, immediately perked up their antennae and joined in. The Hercules beetle picked up a six string bass in his twiglike arms and began to pluck out a riff on the lowest of strings. The Amazonian army ants hopped along the keyboard, banging out a solo worthy of Keith Emerson. And the stag beetle, that first one whose leg had twitched all those weeks ago in Von Strange’s motor home, sidled up to a Gibson les paul, with custom finish and absolutely destroyed all of the other guys in the store with his mad lixx. Not missing an opportunity to jam along with such talented musicians, the girl with the blue hair began to play along with the three, and soon they were playing a redition of Rick Wakemann’s Journey To the center of the Earth.

Doktor Von strange stood, dumbfounded. Soon, he realized that someone else was standing next to him, a man that also did not belong in this hall of music and metal. A man with a dark, grey suit, Armani maybe, and sunglasses that looked like they cost about a years worth of rent at the motorhome. The man had taken off these glasses, and was now rubbing them with a dark cloth, embroidered with the letters GH. He was nodding subtly to the beat.

“They’re pretty good,” said the man, his head nodding subtly to the pure mercury that was flowing out of the amps onstage, “but without a vocalist, they aren’t commercially viable.”

The Doktor considered this for a moment. He looked down. He looked up again. He cleared his throat.

“I could give it a try. I happen to be somewhat of a vocalist,” Doktor Von Strange said, modestly.

“Oh? Classically trained?”

“Of course,” he lied. “But I have always had a raw edge to my voice that lends itself extraordinarily well to this exact kind of music…”

The man in the suit nodded, satisfied with the strange old man’s guarantee, and signed them to his record label on the spot. Ever since that day, Doktor Ulrich and the undead insect army have been touring a nonstop circuit around the nation. They’ve even put out a single that has done quite well on the metal charts, “It’s alive, it’s alive, my god, it’s alive!” It is also packaged with the tiny carapace of a seemingly dead bombardier beetle. But the issuers promise that, once taken home, the buyer is sure to be in for a truly necrotic surprise…



Prompt: What is your favorite multi-player card game? Describe a game as though it was an extreme sport.


Dana Lee wrote:

The cards are on the table. The players are teamed up. The first card is dealt. WHOA! It is a Jack. I did NOT see that one coming. All the players look tense. This HAS to be one of the hardest decisions they have made all day. With the score being 9-9, this could be a deal breaker. The first player passes. The second player commands a pass as well as the third. The deal picks up the card and declares he is going solo. This got really exciting.

First cards are dealt. The dealer wins with the trump, Jack of hearts. Second round. Cards are dealt. Yet again the dealer wins with the Jack of diamonds. Third round. And the fearless dealer wins again! This is unbelievable! Fourth round. Dealer places the King of hearts. Defeats his opponents yet again. Am I dreaming? Last round. Is the Dealer going to swipe his opponents clean? Queen of hearts!

And the victory goes to the Dealer and his partner! That was the most incredible game I have ever seen. Talk about a truly phenomenal ending. This game will go down in history.


Melody Joy wrote:

I have a lot of favorite card games, but Monopoly Deal is probably my current favorite. It’s great. For best results, please read the rest of this in a sports announcer’s voice.

Welcome back, folks. For those of you just joining us, you’ll see that Dana Lee is off to a great start with two full monopolies and several other properties on the table. Her opponent Dennis is doing much better in the financial category with a whole stack of money cards there, and just one monopoly keeping his dream alive.

It’s Dennis’s turn, and he’s drawing his two cards to begin. He’s thinking, and he’s playing a “Debt Collector” card. Oh, man! That’s a huge blow to Dana Lee as she has to hand over the last of her cash. He’s looking a little too excited, if you know what I mean, and now he’s playing two action cards at once, which could only mean one thing. Yes, it’s a double the rent on his green monopoly!

Dana Lee’s in trouble, folks, and she’s thinking hard. You know, last turn Dennis played that house card on his monopoly and she didn’t look too worried then, but now that she owes him 20, she’s not looking too happy. Although, I will say that she is not looking as worried as I would think someone in her situation should be. Without any money on the table, she’s going to have to hand over almost all of her properties at this point, and this might end the game right here.

What’s this? She’s thrown out a “Just Say No” card! Dennis is mad, but what’s this?!? He’s just thrown out his own “Just Say No” card to combat hers! This match is getting intense folks, but Dana Lee is totally fine here because the officials have just ruled his card not valid since he has already played three cards in this turn. They have also issued a penalty and forced him to leave his “Just Say No” there in the discard pile which means he cannot use it now.

Wow. Folks, it’s things like this that remind us how quickly these games really can turn around. In fact, if Dana Lee had not had that “Just Say No” card, the only way she could have survived was to hand over everything but one of her railroads, which would have ensured Dennis the victory. Instead, she kept her properties, and is still in a good position to win the game.


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