Flash Fiction

Milieu - prevent them from leaving
Inquiry - keep them from understanding answer
Character - Angst, identity shift. Internal Threat - keep them from having a new understanding of self
Event - action, normal is disrupted until new status que. External Threat.

Psychological Weakness - ruining their life, preventing them from having a better life
Psychological Need - Just hurting himself
Moral Weakness - ruining others lives
Moral Need - Hurting others
Desire
Opponent
Plan
Battle
Self-revelation
New equilibrium

Plot Archetype: Hero's Journey, Rags to Riches, Underdog Sports Story

Viewpoint: First Person - Flashback, First Person Cinematic, Third Person Omniscient - Limited

Designing Principle:


Character Changes: - Challenging and changing basic beliefs and then taking new moral action
- Child to Adult - coming of age
- Adult to Leader - concerned with only their path to helping others find the right path
- Cynic to Participant - type of Adult to Leader - character see value only in himself, pulls away from society for pleasure, personal freedom, or money, then learns the value of making the large world right and rejoins society as a leader
- Leader to Tyrant - helping a few find the right path to forcing others to follow their path
- Leader to Visionary - helping a few find the right path to seeing how an entire society should change and live in the future
- Metamorphosis - character actually becomes a symbolic person, animal or thing.


Elemental Genres:
Wonder
Idea
Adventure
Horror
Mystery
Thriller
Humor
Relationship
Drama
Issue
Ensemble


3 Sentences in 3 Minutes:
2 Characters
1 Location
Genre: Specific & Unique
Character: Attitude Through Action
Setting: Sensory Detail

2 Sentences in 2 Minutes
What are they trying to do, and why?
What is stopping them?
Imply previous try/ fail cycles before scene starts

5 Sentences in 5 Minutes
Try/Fail Cycle
Yes, but...
No, and...

5 Sentences in 5 Minutes
Try/Succeed Cycle
Yes, and...
No, but...

3 Sentences in 3 Minutes
Conclusion
Who - action/reflection
Where - sensory detail
Genre - specific tone/mood changed
Mirroring.

Mystery
Farmer
National Park

A heavy mist rolls off the falls and coats a piece of ragweed that's hanging from a farmer's mouth, "Something ain't right. Water smell the same as when the corn's gone bad. Like mold, and death."

The body had to be around here somewhere. He was running out of riverbeds to search and the sun was starting to set, but Emmett wasn't going back to his client empty handed, or otherwise he'd leave empty handed. She'd been clear, half now, half when I found her husband.

There was only one place he hadn't looked, inside the waterfall. The farmer pulls his overalls tight, rolls up his pant legs, and wades into the lake. He fights the rush of water, closer and closer to the falls, but just as he parts the sheet of falling water, his bare foot slips on a mossy rock and he backflips into the water. The current flips him end over end, rushing him away from the waterfall until he finally washes up back on the shore. He coughs and spits up water, but manages to sits up, feelings awfully lucky to be alive, when he sees them... Dangling from his chest, below his overalls... Leaches.

Emmett screams and rips the little monsters from his chest, and scrambles to his feet, clawing at his chest and back trying to make sure he got them all. Now, he was in real trouble. He was losing the light, and a lot of blood now, and was nowhere closer to finding his man. So it was time to pull out all the stops. If he was going to find the body, he'd have to take the path the body took... over the falls. After a long, treacherous climb to the top, Emmett brace himself, scared but determined, and then threw himself over the waterfall and disappeared into the jumble of mist and razor sharp rocks below. He wakes up, alive and on the shore again, but indoors... inside a hidden cave. And there, laying next to him, was the body of... Scarecrow Steve.

"I'd found the man I'd been hired to find," Farmer Emmett said in a gritty voiceover. "I was gonna get paid, or so I thought. Only problem was, Scarecrow Steve told me it was Scarecrow Susie, his wife and the woman who'd hired me to find him, who'd pushed him over the falls all along. Turns out she'd fallen for a crow and they'd flown the coop with the rest of my money. But that's life for ya, sometimes you get the ragweed, sometimes you get the rag."

Action Adventure - Event
Criminal
By The Sea

Between the sea salt stinging her eyes and the atmospheric pressure squishing her brain, Mississippi Cole was not enjoying her current caper, not one bit. She'd done plenty of underwater jobs in shark infested waters in the past and they were always such a bore. Swim down, steal the thing, swim back, blah blah blah...

According to the Atlantean book of who gives a shit,, there's a trident made of solid gold inside one of these here fish-people statues, and the nerds at the museum said the Nazis want it. That's all Mississippi needed to hear. She'd already punch, kicked, and spear-gunned at least a dozen fish statues before she realized the trident was out in the open, just sticking up on a hill "Inside a ring of statues," the nerds had said. Not inside the statues. Oops. She should really listen more when they talk.

The chumps didn't even hide it, she thought as she swam over to the trident. Eat shit, Nazis. She gives it a good yank. Bada bing, bada boom, paydirt. The thing pops right now, easy-like. Almost too easy-like... Then suddenly, the shaft starts flashing colors and shaking, and -- FISH PERSON! A stone claw with webbing between the fingers slashes across Mississippi's face and slices her air hose into ribbons. She jerks around. All the fish-people statues are alive! And they're sieg heiling!

She tries to swing the trident at the Nazi Fish in front of her, but as I said, it's made of solid gold and insanely heavy. It tips and crushes Mississippi under its weight. She's pinned under the trident, trapped, holding her breath. The Nazi Fish move in around her, claws extended, baring rows of tiny razor-sharp teeth. Mississippi hated to admit it, but she couldn't fight her way out of this one. She'd have to think. She was running out of air! Think, think! Thinking was for the museum nerds, she hated it, but she had no other choice. What was it that the nerds said? If you get in trouble... use your knife -- Right! Mississippi pulled out her pocket knife, opened the blade, and, just as she loses consciousness, she stabbed herself in her own leg. Blood gushed out.

She wakes up in a hospital. A nurse tells her, "You're one lucky lady to be alive." "What happened?" I asked. "You were saved," she said. "By Sharks. American Sharks." Mississippi smiled. "And the trident?" "Out of Nazi hands," the nurse replied. Mississippi relaxes as the drugs kick in. "When I wake up, remind me, I got some nerds to thank." And she's out like a light. Turns out, it wasn't such a boring day after all.

Horror - Milieu
Educated
Rough Neighborhood

It was a simple miscommunication that ultimately lead to the good gentleman, Samuel Beauregard's, death. "Wait, wait! This isn't the Waldorf," Mr. Beauregard shouted as the taxicab hosed him with exhaust and sped away. Where in heavens was he? His heart begins to race as he stares down the facade of a dark, dirty strip mall. A bulb overhead POPS! and Samuel yelps and stumbles backward into the road. He stares up at the flashing neon light in horror as he reads, "Waldorf Cash and Loan."

Samuel had no phone or wallet, as his tuxedo had no pockets, and although he rattled the door of every local establishment on the strip and begged to use their tele, not one of them would buzz him in. Fear suddenly set in as Samuel realized he was penniless and alone in a dangerous world where he could be beaten, robbed, or even killed, but worse than that, his tardiness is sure to make him the laughing stock of the winter ball.

He runs down a cracked and treacherous sidewalk, but is blocked by a shirtless troll walking a small yappy dog, "The fuck you looking at?" it slurs. Samuel scrambles backwards into the street where a Buick Skylark skids to a stop inches from the gentleman's outstretched hands. The driver honks, "Eh! What the hells the matter with you, huh?" Samuel stumbles out of the way, "Apologies, good sir!" but trips and crashes into a parked car. "Who the fuck you calling a sir? said the butch driver, just as another man man sitting in the parked car says, "Did you just hit my freaking car, man?" "No, no, I'm sorry, I would never!" Samuel pleaded, cowering. "You calling me a lair, buddy?" The man gets out of his car, he's a giant. "Do I look like a sir, now?" says the butch driver, she too is enormous. "Are you looking at me?" bellow troll with the dog.

Just as six gigantean fists were about to begin pummeling the good gentlemen, he sputtered out, "Wait! Wait! -- Would any of you fine, gentlemen and lady," indicating to each gender correctly, "care to accompany me to a ball?" Samuel squirms, crotched between two cars in the street, as the Gigantean Triplets stare back at him blankly. All three reach down, grabbed him by the shirt, and yanked him off the ground. "I have never been to a ball!" yelled the man, his eyes full of fury. "I recon that'd be a real nice," the butch driver said with a scowl. "I hope they got them weenies in a blanket," the driver said and all three nodded. They plop Samuel back down on his feet. "We're in."

And it was in a single moment, as the sergeant at arms announced the entrance of, "Mister Tony Baglioni, accompanied by Miss Ronda Ruttabeggah and Mister Danny Durffledorf," that Samuel Beauregard became the laughing stock of the winter ball, and died of embarrassment.

Dystopian - Character
Airplane
Uneducated Fundraiser

Humanity had perfected just about everything there was to perfect, and yet the republic couldn't solve the sterile stench of recycled air being pumped through the cabin at ten thousand feet. If only I had enough Lenin's for the good stuff, Ray Ivanov thought, peering across the aisle at a man helping his wife strap one of the mid-tier oxygen masks over her nose and mouth. Some people get everything they ever wanted...

On his first two connecting flights, Ray hadn't finished a single line of next year's budget proposal before the air thinned and he lost consciousness. His fingers typed furiously on his DeskDeck as an airhostess came over the intercom and announced that, "We're experiencing a small amount of turbulence and will be increasing our cruising altitude to twenty thousand feet. If you wish to upgrade to one of our BreatheEasy masks please insert your Lenin's now, or ask your airhostess about our inflight intubation services."

Ray quickly pulls out the contents of pocket: a pair platinum coins, a chain of key fobs, and a paperclip. Fat chance of being reimbursed, he thought. But it was better than being reassigned again. Any more demotions and he'd be mining the salt instead of managing its distribution. He inserted a coin into the overhead slot, then another, only the second one sticks. He cranes up, but if he unbuckles his belt to look he wouldn't be able to afford to buckle it back. He reaches up and scrapes his finger across the slot, but the Lenin doesn't move, it's jammed. The aeroplane begins its ascent and Ray becomes increasingly woozy. He takes the paperclip from his pocket and jiggles it in the lock. It clicks and his second coin falls out, he's done it! Then the first coin falls out as well. Then another and another. Lenins begin raining down from the coin slot as Ray scrambles to plug the hole.

"Sir, is everything alright here?" the hostess asked. She looked suspiciously from his finger covering the slot to the small fortune's worth of coins in his lap. "Nope. -- No. No problem here ladies," he said to the identical triplet airhostesses. "Actually, he slurred, I'll take one intubation please, hold the Dramamine." He scoops up a handful of coins and drops them into the empty space where the third airhostess's hand would have been, if she existed. They scatter all over the ground. "And get you and your sisters one too," he said with a wink.

And so, the hostess hooked Ray up to an ventilator from the remainder of the flight. He was able to finish his budget proposal, had a pocket full of Lenin's, and even managed to get the phone number of the airhostess. Turns out, humanity still had some work to do on perfecting the coin slot, but if it had, it's possible that Ray Ivanov would've never gotten everything he'd every wanted.

Thriller - Event
Country Estate
Taxi Driver

It wasn't until the third wrong turn that I began to suspect the cabbie wasn't actually lost. The pungent stench of bleach on the plastic-covered backseat had originally set me at ease. "Have you ever actually been inside the Hartfordshire Club?" I asked, attempting to squelch my nerves, "Perhaps I can pull some strings and get you and the misses in for the guest swim." I smiled, laying on the Aldrich family charm.

Through the rearview mirror with a pair of plush dice dangling from a cord, the cabbie stared back blankly, like a vegetable, his bottom jaw protruding far enough to see the tops of his mangled teeth. In an irrational moment of panic, I'd contemplated leaping from the moving vehicle, but the door was locked, and both the window crank handle and the door lock knob were missing. Or, more likely, removed.

While plotting my escape, I hadn't noticed the taxi pull over and stop along the shoulder of an old abandoned bridge. The perfect place to dispose of a body, I thought. And then, in a flash he was on me, his hulking figure lunging into the backseat, hands outstretched like claws. I scrambled and screamed and scrapped at the window. I kicked at the cabbie's disfigured jaw, but he caught my foot with a monstrous hand and for some ungodly reason, bit down on my leg with his piranha-like teeth. I screamed in horrendous pain as he shook his head with my leg in his mouth like a dog playing tug-of-war, and then suddenly there was a awful tearing noise and my leg fell free. When I looked up, I found a shredded chuck of my calf dangling from the cabbie's mouth.

Thankfully, the cabbie was forced to chew me before he could swallow, which gave me enough time to kick and scratch my way into the front seat with my arms and my one good leg. Before I knew it, I had the plush dice from the rearview mirror gripped in each hand and was on his back wrapping the dice cord around his neck. He bucked and slammed me into the ceiling, but I pushed through the pain and held on, pulling as hard as I could. It was him or me. He kicked out with me on his back and hammered me into the side door with enough force to it popped open. I dangled out the door and over the bridge guardrail. As I stare down at the rush of river water far below, I pull with all my might and the cabbie finally lets out a gurgle and goes limp on top of me. "His weight rolls over me, crushing me--I think I'm about to die of suffocation--and then all of a sudden he's gone, over the rail, and swallowed by the water below."

All at once the Hartfordshire Boys leaped up from their highbacked chairs by the fireplace and cheered, "Bravo, good boy!" "You sure did pull some strings, didn't you?" "Time's up, guest swim's over!" they caroused. I was a hero at the club from then on out; but also from then on out, whenever I got in a cab, I couldn't help but smell the stench of plastic and bleach, and blood.

Historical Fiction - Event
Lighthouse Keeper
On top of a Mountain

Only once in the long history of The Lighthouse Board (now a branch of the United States Coast Guard) has our military's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, been awarded to a lighthouse keeper for their invaluable contribution to the war effort. Captain of the Watch, Walter Barnett's, actions on the night of May 6, 1918, exactly one year and one month after the United States' declaration of war on Germany, are estimated to have saved the lives of nearly four hundred naval personnel, and whose discovery lead to the development of a U-boat counter-tactic that is credited for turning the tide of naval superiority in the Atlantic, and ultimately, the war. Commander Waldemar Kophamel, of the submarine U-140, in coordination with U-159 and U-118, surrounded a merchant convoy near the Diamond Shoals Lighthouse a mile offshore of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and fired on them with torpedoes.

It was the second explosion that shattered the lantern room glass and covered the lighthouse with sea spray and ship innards. But it wasn't until the third vessel sunk, a oil freighter at the center of the battleship-encircled convoy, that Walter Barnett realized there must be a fourth U-boat hidden within the convoy itself. Seeing the battle from a crow’s-nest perspective, he was able to spot it, a submarine unsubmerged, and therefore undetectable by radar, sitting just astern of the convoy's flag ship. The last place anyone would ever look for the enemy.

Barnett hailed the USS Nebraska, "They're right behind you! They're on the surface, in the shadow! I'm telling you, you've got to--" A fourth detonation sent a shock wave of steal shrapnel that blew Barnett off his feet. The cupola, a domed office above the lantern room, was damaged by flying debris and the floor collapsed out from under him. When Barnett came to, his ears were ringing and his vision was blurred. He was on his back looking up at wafting of fire and a pillar of smoke. He coughed and brushed dust off him as he oriented himself. He'd fallen an entire story, as had half the control room, and yet, somehow, the beacon lens still hung over his head undamaged.

He wasn't sure if it was the fifth explosion or the sixth, but the hits kept coming. The ships below were fish in a barrel, except the gun was inside the barrel, shooting at point blank range. In an unofficial interview with Barnett's youngest daughter after he'd passed, it was suggested that, during the brief moments of unconsciousness, Barnett had seen something, a memory of sorts, of his father night fishing, and that had given him the idea that save so many lives. The lighthouse keeper climbed the spiral ladder to the beacon light, and with only a crowbar and all the strength he could muster, Walter Barnett bent the beacon's metal housing down until the spotlight lit up the ocean water and exposed the U-boat hidden inside the convoy's ranks. The seventh, and final, explosion sank the hidden U-boat and ended Commander Kophamel's assault at Diamond Shoals.

Barnett's debriefing was sent along to WATU, the Western Approaches Tactical Unit, for study and his insights led to the development of the Raspberry defense, a U-boat counter-tactic that utilizes triangular sweeping patterns to flush out hidden U-boats. By the end of the summer of 1918, nearly all British and American convoys made the transatlantic journey without incident, leading to an unfettered supply-chain, and in November of the same year, Germany's surrender.

Walter Barnett was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Medal on October 10th, 1943 after his transport ship was sunk in the pacific by a Nakajima B5N torpedo bomber. Nearly two-thousand naval veterans and their families attended his funeral, including General George S. Patton, Fleet Admiral Earnest King, and Supreme Allied Commander, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Fantasy - Character
Forrest
Chimney Sweep

Most of the boys refused to sweep the witch's chimney, but "We don't turn down an honest days pay in this family," father had said. He liked to stand tall on empty principles, my father, but it was no secret that mother was ill and we needed the money. Witch or not, I'd get her all that she needed.

Chimney sweeping was a trusted profession, passed down from father to son, and was therefore above suspicion when things go missing on occasion. Even still, I had made it a practice to wait a month or more before returning to a home, and never the same place twice. But who would the old hag tell? And even if she did, what would it matter? No one would believe a witch over the son of Adnan Hassan. I was convinced she'd have nothing of value in the first place, but I was very, very wrong. While I was in her chimney, feet pressed against the wall, using my dagger's blade as a mirror, I could see a crystal globe the size of my fist just sitting out on the kitchen table, as if asking to be taken.

And so I took it. No waiting a month, no endless surveillance. I just took it. The old woman was nowhere around. Only instead, to my shock, there was a girl about my age, beautiful and soft, asleep in the witch's bed. I woke the girl and told her I would help her escape, but she said to, "Take the crystal! Hurry, before the witch comes back. It will heal your mother and she'll never be in pain again," and then roll back over in bed. I didn't wait for the girl to change her mind. Let her get eaten for all I care. And I scooped the globe into a cloth sack and climbed back out the way I came in. And when I got home, I did what the girl had said. I held the cloth bag out and mother laid her hand on the globe... and the crystal absorbed her, all the parts that made her her. Her laugh. Her smile. Her warm body laid in her bed, but she was gone, like an empty shell. While the globe now swirls with murky mist.

In a moment of panic at my father's footsteps coming through the front door, I scrambled out the window and was on my horse riding for the witch's house. "You tricked me," I screamed as I burst through the door and collapsed on the floor, the globe clutched in my arms. "You killed her!" I cried. And from the witch's bed a woman of forty spoke coolly, "It was you that have killed your mother, not I." And she was right. All of this was all my fault. "She's gone, boy, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now, go, sell your crystal. Yes, yes, indeed. You will make quite the fortune. You'll be able to move out of your father's house, live a fabulous life. With that kind of money you'll never have to sweep chimneys ever again. A fair trade I'd say. Yes, yes, quite fair." I left the globe there on the ground of the witch's huts and returned home to my father in shame.

I told him how I had lied. How I had stolen from a witch. And how I had kill my mother, his wife. I told him how it was all my fault and how sorry I was. And what does the great and noble Adnan Hassan do to punish his monster of a son? He hugs me. He wraps me in his arms and tells me that, "We all make mistakes. It is the lessons we learn that matter," and he held me tighter and told me that, "Everything is going to be alright." And, as always, he was right. Mother had woken up as were speaking and was admiring us from doorway. It seems the curse had been broken when I had returned what I'd stolen and so the witch would need to find another poor soul to keep herself young. But as it turns out, the witch hadn't lied about one thing. From that day on, mother was no longer in pain, and although we were far from rich, my family always managed to have enough, just as long as I never turned down an honest days pay.

Children's - Character
Carpenter
Submarine

Once upon a time, a wooden log dreamt of becoming a submarine.

His name was Rolland and he lived in a forest, far away from the ocean, and had a parents that loved him very much. "Don't go, Rolland," his mother begged. "Why can't you make something of yourself here?" his father had cried. But Rolland stood strong. "If I never leave the forest, then I'll never become a submarine!" he said, and Roland packed up his leaves and left.

He was rolling east toward the ocean when he came upon a Carpenter standing on the bank of a river. "Don't go," the Carpenter said, "If you want to make something of your self, I could help you." "You could?" I asked, "Could you make me into a submarine?" But the Carpenter said, "I'm afraid not. Submarine are made of metal and would never fit in a river, but I could make you into a bridge so you can help people across, or a house where you could provide shelter." "No, no," Rolland said, "I am going to be a submarine!" The Carpenter could see that there was no talking him out of it, and nodded. "Follow the river. It will lead you to the ocean," he had said, and he was right. Roland found the ocean the very next day.

He had spent many nights dreaming of the day he would first sink, and that day was today. And as luck would have it, there in the cove, was a fleet of submarines. "Don't go," Rolland cried, "I want to be a submarine, just like you!" And he rolled out into the water and dove after the submarines. And he dove again and again, always popping back to the surface. The submarines laughed. "You're never going to make anything of yourself!" they said, and Rolland believed them. Never in a million years would he be able to sink. He was a failure.

"It's too bad that you're going to be a submarine," the Carpenter said, standing at the mouth of the river, "If you could have learned how to float, you could have made an excellent canoe." Rolland looks up. "But, I already know how to float," he said. "Ah-ha! A natural," the Carpenter said, "You know, there are hunks of metal out there who would trade anything for the ability to float..." And so, Rolland accepted the Carpenter's help, and when he returned home to the forest, his family couldn't have been prouder to have a canoe in the family.

And so, Rolland floated, happily ever after. The end.

Romance
Builder
Train

One of these days, if I don't do something about it, my love for the woman on the train is bound to get someone hurt. Every day I don't speak to her I endanger countless lives, for I am a builder who cannot build for thinking of her. She is a perfect stranger, a woman I have never even met, and yet all my tools prove useless without her.

If it were my house or my road or my bridge, maybe then I could ignore the delicate way she sits, or how her glasses slide so cutely to the end of her nose when she reads, or how the lotion she rubs on her elbows smells of lavender. But the houses and roads and bridges I build are not mine, but all of ours, and so for all our sake, I must speak to the woman on the train.

Of course, I couldn't just walk up and say hello, that would be weird, so every day I orchestrated some new way to meet her "naturally." When she would go to scan her train card, I would just so happen to scan mine at the same time and we would laugh and she would invite me to tea and we would fall desperately in love; or at least that's how it was supposed to go. Instead, she just said "Sorry," in a cute little voice, and let me go first. The next day I had tried bumping into her and spilling orange juice on myself, but it seems I underestimated the current state of our lid technology, as not a single drop spilled on me. "Sorry," she said again, so sweet and so small. And so now, today I tried dropping one of my boxes of screws, hoping that she would help me pick them up... And, as it turns out, I was right. The way I was thinking these days, someone did end up getting hurt. It was the woman on the train. She stepped on one of my screws and needed to be rushed to the hospital. It was a perfect, natural, way to meet and fall in love. So when a handsome businessman scooped her into his arms and whisked her away, my heart felt as if a screw had gone through it as well.

And the next day, and the day after that, and from then on out, the woman no longer rode the train. I had missed my chance. She was gone forever. If only I had just walked up to her and said hello... And my heart broke so badly that I feared I would never build again. For what if I was building the road they would take to see each other? Or the bridge he would propose on? Or the house they'd share? No. Instead, I'll no longer go to work and will therefore no longer have to ride the train without her.

And so that's how, on a Tuesday afternoon, when on any other Tuesday I would have been at work, I just so happened to cross paths with the woman from the train and we fell desperately in love. She was outside her apartment in a wheelchair, her foot wrapped in gauze. She was hobbling up the steps, struggling with the wheelchair, and I simply walked up to her, said, "Hello," and helped her. She was thankful and she invited me in for tea, and I suddenly felt like building again. The next day I built a ramp for her wheelchair, and she was thankful and insisted I stay for dinner. And that made me want to build more, so I built the road that we took to see each other, and the bridge I proposed on, and the house that we share to this very day.

So if you love someone and you haven't told them, you absolutely must do something about it, or else someone is just bound to get hurt.

Young Adult
Desert
Street Performer

My gift is rare enough to fool your average tourist in town to see the pyramids, but I tricked a couple conmen with it one time too. Grown men thinking they could trick me, and I tricked them right back! Took a pretty good beating for it, but the look on their faces when I picked up the cup and the ball wasn't there, oh man, was it worth it. "How! How!" they said, kicking the crap out of me, "How did you do it, boy? Tell me how!" Kicking and kicking and kicking. I didn't squeal though, not a peep. And in the end, they were so focused on all the kicking they were doing, they didn't notice me helping myself to their wallets. Suckers!

I can't do much with my gift just yet. It only works on sand, and I can only make one small ball, and only for a few seconds, but that combined with the cup-and-ball game is a pretty tricky con, if I do say so myself, and has kept me and the other urchins well fed the past couple years. I think if I practice a whole bunch, I should be able to do more with my gift. Bigger, better cons. And maybe one day I'll be the greatest conman in all of Cairo!

In my daydreaming I hadn't noticed the man in robes sit down across from me. "Care for a game?" he said, his voice tired and raspy. "You're the boss, mister. It's four bucks a guess or three guesses for ten. No redos. No take backs. Double down, if you dare." The man ran a hand through his scraggily beard, "A steep wager, but fair." He places a ten on the table, while underneath it, I transform the loose sand in my hand into a hard ball, about the size of a date, and then showed it to him. "See, just a normal ball. All you gotta do is follow the ball and pick a cup, nothing to it!" I put the sand ball under a cup and twirled them around, and then each time he guessed the right cup, I would release the sand and say, "Nope. Sorry!" and simultaneously reform the ball in another cup as I uncovered it. I cleared the old man out pretty quick. Like taking candy from a baby. "Hmm. It appears you have taken all the cash I have on me, young man. Perhaps you would care to play for something more valuable than money?" I snorted. The old man just lost three times in a row and he wants to bet more? Normally, this is the time they guy starts calling me names and turning over my table. "I suppose I would consider it," I said, "But what could be worth more than money?" And the old man scooped up a handful of sand and let it spill through his fingers, "How about we wager time?"

Time? I must have heard him wrong. "One month of your life," the old man says, "If you win, you will live for one month longer than you would've otherwise. If you lose, you will die one month earlier. Do we have a deal?" I wasn't sure. The urchins often told stories of jinn in the east that lived for a thousand years. And if I have my gift, who's to say this man can't do what he says as well? But even if it is true, should I really be gambling with the days of my life? Then I remembered that I have the game rigged! I could gain months of life, maybe even years, maybe even hundreds of years if the stories were true. I cleared my throat, "Hmm, well... I suppose one month wouldn't be too bad if I lost." The old man nodded. "Very well." And with a cane I hadn't seen him holding, he drew the shape of an hourglass in the sand and said, "It is done." I mixed up the cups and made the ball crumble and reappear, and... "Well, well, well, you win again," the old man said. "Just lucky, I guess," I replied with a grin. Sucker.

"What do you say we make things a little more interesting? You can't win forever, right? So, how about we raise the stakes to say... a year?" the man said. I smiled, "Sure," and added, "In fact, why don't we make it two? Two years!" And he jeered back, "Well then! Why not make it five?" and I topped him with, "Ten! Ten years. One decade of my life, what'd you say to that?" And he drew it in the sand, "It is done." I could barely hold back my excitement as I shuffled the cups. He chose a cup and I lifted it and said, "Nope. Sorry!" and smiled ear to ear. But the man simply cleared his throat and directed me with his eyes to the space below the cup where a ball currently sat. "Wait. No." What happened? In all the excitement I had really forgotten to move the ball? How could I be so stupid! "I suppose everyone's luck has to run out sometime," the man said. "Sure, right, of course," I replied, still in shock. Had I really just lost ten years of my life? "Well, thank you for an enjoyable evening," the old man said as he stood. "Wait! You can't leave. You have to give me a chance to win back my years." The old man held up a hand in protest, "No, no, I couldn't. You still have a long life left. I couldn't possibly encourage you to continue." I jumped out of my chair, indignant, "Hey! It's my life, ain't it? They're my years and I can bet however many I want!" I shouted. "Well, that is technically true..." he said, and I hit him with, "Twenty years! A quarter of my life says you can't find the ball." I was gonna win back the ten years I lost plus the ten I screwed up. The old man considered my offer. He was reluctant, but sighed, sat back down, and drew in the sand. "It is done."

Once I started moving the cups, I released the sand so no matter which cup he chooses there won't be a ball under any cup. There's no way I can lose! "I would like to double down," the man said. I looked up from my cups, "Wait, what? No. You can't." He couldn't! "That was a rule of yours, was it not? Double down, if I dare?" he said. "Well I dare. Forty years says it's this cup," and he points to the one in center. Forty years! That'd be fifty total if I lost. But how could I lose? There's nothing under the cups right now so what am I so scared of? I cannot possibly lose! "Deal."

I'm sure you've already guessed. It was there. Under the center cup. The ball of sand, that in all the world only I can make, was there. I had lost fifty years of my life. "How. How! Tell me how you did it!" I cried, and yet the old man simply stood up from his chair. "No! No, you can't leave. I have to win my life back!" But the old man shook his head, "I'm afraid you're out of chips, my friend." "What are you talking about? I've got plenty of life left to bet. You only took fifty years, the average life is like eighty, right?" He sighs, "For some, yes, but not for you. Your life as the greatest conman in all of Cairo was going to catch up with you and end your life early, but now..." He grabs a hand full of sand and lets it spill on the wind again. "Now, I'm afraid you're down to your last sunset."

"No. No, no," I said. I can't die. I can't die! "Please, I'll do anything! You've got to help me," I begged. "It's not fair! I didn't think I could lose." The old man turned back, "And why would you think that?" I hesitated. It filled me with shame to admit, "Because I cheated." The old man studied me as I spoke, "I was given a gift and I used it to cheat you and many others, and I'm sorry. I just wish I could take it all back." The man nodded. "I too was given a gift. And I too used it to cheat you. And I too am sorry. But sorcery has rules. I'm afraid I cannot take back what's been done." I understood. It wasn't his fault. I had thrown away my own life. And how had I spent it? Cheating. And lying. And stealing. "It's okay. I get it," I said, and the old man and I went our separate ways.

I sat down to supper with the other urchins. I gave them a real feast, fit for a king, and listened while they laughed and sucked on chicken bones. I hugged them all before I left, the ones that would let me anyway, and headed out to see the sun set one final time. Where better for it to end than in the market near the pyramids, lost in the sea of tourists? I was ready for whatever death had in store. And that's when I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was the old man. His eyes stared off into the crowd, worried, "Perhaps, you'd be interested in one more wager," he said. I followed his eyes to two figures hurrying toward us. It was the conmen whose wallets I'd stolen. They mean to kill me. The old man blurted, "I can save you. It's not too late. You can bet your soul, my boy! Your soul for your fifty years back." He turns me around, away from the charging men, "I'll even throw in another twenty. That gives you a full life, kid! And I promise I won't cheat, okay? What do you say, huh? Do we have a deal?" He quickly scribbles in the sand with his cane. "No," I said, "No deal. I'm done gambling." He looked at me with such eyes... I was surprised to find tears in them. I smile up at the old man. I had kinda always figured there'd be more people crying and moaning and all that when I died, having lived the life of a big famous conman and all. But this was better. "Welp. You live like a sucker," I said, turning to face my killers, "You die like a sucker."

And they did... The two conmen, I mean. Or, well, maybe they didn't die, but they definitely got the crap shocked out of them. Turns out, the old man had lied. Wizard's don't have rules. They can do whatever the hell they want. And this wizard wanted to blast those guys with a bolt of lighting and give me a second chance at life. "A chance to use my gift for good," he said. And I was right, with practice, the Wizard taught me to do more with my gift than I could have ever dreamt. I still have a lot to learn, but maybe one day, I'll be the greatest Wizard in all of Cairo!

Western - Character
Small Town
Ship Builder

Sometimes the good Lord wants a man dead, and clears a path to the hangman.

I got a job smuggling a gentlemen Swed' by the name of John Ericsson across the Mason-Dixion line and up to Norfork Naval Base in Virginia. Don't go thinking I'm some northern sympathizer though. Bluecoat money spends the same as grey, is all. If the getting was as good on both sides, I'd be with Johnny reb all the way, but it ain't. The North pays real good, this job especially. But when I found out who this Ericsson fella was, well, I didn't care about the money anymore. It became my moral obligation to kill the man.

See, the Swed was some famous ship maker for the Confederacy, told me all about it. He's a talker, the Swed. And the other night he got to telling me about this new ship design he done called the Ironclad, showed me the paper drawings and everything. It was a killing machine like I never seen before. Got a big spinning gun on the top, raining down death and all that. Then he told me how he turned coat, and how he was planning on giving his machine of death to the north, and how the north was sure to win the war with it. And that's was that. I realized, God had sent me here to prevent the Union from winning the war.

So much makes sense to me now. God had a plan for me. This is the reason I hid during the battle of San Jacinto. Not because I was a coward, no! But because God wanted me alive for this moment. This is why God told me to leave my wife and children when cholera hit the French Quarter. Because he couldn't let me die with them! I wondered, how, how, how have I not gotten chlamydia? God needs me. He was saving me for this moment. To kill John Ericsson.

I'd already pulled out my pistol to do it twice since we'd been riding, but it was rainy and I couldn't get a clear shot at his back. I thought about strangling him in the night, but I'm not a very big man and my hands aren't that strong. If I had poison, I'd definitely be poisoning him. Poison is the best way to kill a man. No mess. No witnesses. And nobody knows it was you. Ultimately, I combined a few options and landed on shooting him in the back while he's sleeping.

I crept up to his tent as storm clouds let out a clap thunder and began to pour rain. I snuck a peek into his tent. It was hard to see, but I aimed at his sleeping bag, and bang, bang, bang, bang, I unloaded every bullet I had into him. His sleeping bag exploded in a cloud of feathers. "What in the hell is going on?" the Swed' said, zipping up his pants. He sees what I've done. "You tried to kill me!" I aim and pull the trigger, Click. "Damn!" I throw the gun and nail him right in the head, he bleeds.

I dug in the tent for my knife, but the best I could find was one of the metal tent stakes. A giant nail. Like Jesus, I thought. It was all coming together. I turned to Swed' -- he has my gun in his hand, the other is fumbling with bullets from his pack. "No, no, no!" I leaped at him. He gets the last bullet in the chamber, closes it, points the barrel of the gun straight into my eyes, and--! Click. I open my eyes. Lightning strikes. Click, click, click. All duds. "Ah-ha-ha-haaa! God has saved me again!" I lifted the metal nail over my head, preparing to plunge it into the cowering Swed', when -- KAPLOW! A lightning bolt strikes the tent stake and electrified me. To death.

Now, when I asked God why he killed me, he said, "When you want something done, you've got to do it yourself."

Paranormal
In the heart of the city
Local Government Worker

Psychological Weakness - thinks books are stupid
Psychological Need - learn to respect books
Moral Weakness - ruining others lives
Moral Need - Moving books where they can't be found.
Desire
Opponent
Plan
Battle
Self-revelation
New equilibrium

The sweet, musky smell of old books permeates the government archive, where the dust is older than the workers, and a good deal more cunning. "Handle them carefully," Todd reads aloud, one word at a time,"For words are more powerful than atom bombs." He snorts. "Got that right," he says with a brutish chuckle, then watches as a cockroach scurries across the page of the book, and into his trap. Wham! Todd slams the book closed and squashes the bug. "SPLAT!" he howls, then opens the book back up and examines the squished bits. "Hehe... Words," Todd grunted. He closes the book and puts it back on the shelf at random.

Todd had already turned back and gone the other way a few times now. It was pretty easy to get turned around in the Stacks since everything looks the same. Ominously low ceilings, half floors and spiral staircases, and, of course, rows upon rows of dusty old books. "Stinking, dirty, useless," Todd muttered as he hurried, hobbling through the aisles, his back hunched over from the low ceiling. It was five minutes to ten o'clock and Todd wasn't about to miss the Powerball numbers. He had a feeling that tonight was his lucky night.

Rows and rows and rows. He looks at his watch: four minutes. "Come on, come on!" he growls as he hobbles along. Was the ceiling this low before? he thought, turning back to compare where he's been to where he's going. "Hmm." What did it matter? He only had three minutes now. He rushes forward, searching and searching. Where the hell was the door! he thought, just as his head banged against the ceiling. "Ow! Gah!" He clutches the back of his head. "Damnit!" He looks up at the ceiling where he hit his head. "Then hell--?" He stands up as far has he can. He can barely get his legs straight, and yet his back is flat against the ceiling. This hallway IS smaller! What the hell kinda architect designed this place? Todd turns to go back the way he came, "Probably some stupid, book-loving, pimple-faced," he grumbles, continuing to crouch further and further. "What the ever-loving hells is going on!" The hallway is much smaller than it was a second ago.

Todd crawls on his hands and knees now, the hallway growing smaller by the step. The clock on his watch says 9:59. One minute to Powerball. Fuck Powerball, he thought, Just get me out of here! He's sweating now, the walls closing in. He breaks off from the aisle and shuffles sideways down a row. It's so tight, his chest and back both scrape books off the shelves as he squeezes through. He comes to the end of the row and screams, "No... No, it can't be!" Todd stares down in horror at the brown, black, and green pile of squished guts and insect limbs, only they're the same size as a man. And he begs, "No. No! It can't be! NOOO," as he's slowly squashed by the page of an enormous book. "Stupid... Stinking... Words. SPLAT.

Todd wasn't seen for another sixty years. Not until a random student happen to pull a random book off a random shelf, and found a tiny human skeleton squashed between two pages. The student read the words scrolled between the squashed human remains, "Handle them carefully, for words are more powerful than atom bombs."

Thriller - Character/Event
Kindergarten
Astronaut

A madman ejected my kindergarten class into space, and I became a much better teacher because of it. I had just been telling my class, "Rule five: no horseplay. Space stations are not jungle gyms. Rule six: no crying. Scientists do not cry. Rule seven: no laughing. Space is serious," when the explosions began.

"Oo, pretty!" little Didi said, her face pressed against the glass wall of our classroom. We all watched, against a backdrop of stars, as the corridor tube we walk to class on every day explodes, one airlock after another. There's a loud bang as the deadbolt on our door hatch slams shut and our classroom module is auto ejected away from the chain of explosions. But, in the end, it wasn't the ejection, or the explosions, or even the sudden loss of gravity, that scared the children, they thought it was a game. No, it was all started by my very loud, and very serious scream.

As the glass chamber began to tumble, I pulled myself together and eventually my emergency preparedness training kicked in. "Everyone, remain calm, I shouted, "This is not a drill!" And the children who'd only been crying a little, were now bawling their eyes out. "No, no, stop crying! Children! Rule seven! Remember, children? Remember?" But for some reason, the children continued to cry. "Stop crying! We are NOT in danger! The space station will retrieve us! We! Are! Fine!" I yelled over their screams. It was useless. They won't listen!

I'd come from teaching third grade, where discipline was a prerequisite, but this seemed to be different. I am a scientist, first and foremost, and I am willing to admit when my initial hypothesis is proven insufficient. I'll be the first to admit I wasn't very happy about it. But after all, chemistry is the study of change, and in nature change is rarely easy. I had tried everything I could think of to calm the children down. I rocked them as hard as I could and yet they cried. I turned on ten different movies on ten different screens and they still cried. I tried feeding them and their sandwiches fell apart and floated through the room, and yet they... Laughed. A few did anyway, then went back to crying. Okay, stop! What did I do? How did I do that? I took a bite of my sandwich and spit it out into the air, it floated away with my spittle. And now the most curious thing happened. ALL the children burst out laughing. And I also soon discovered that it was not possible for a child to both laugh and cry at the same time. I'm doing it, they're calming down!

When emergency services got us towed back and the door open, they're families were astounded to find us horsing around. And when her mother asked her if she was alright, little Didi said, "Yeah! Space is fun!" The madman was, well, mad. But I am happy, for because of him, space is a little less serious.

Young Adult
Dentist Office
Prompter

If I'd know how corrupt the industry was back then, I'd never have gone to that first audition. "And the winner is... Alexa Jordan!" The crowd goes wild. Every little girl in the world wants to be Alexa Jordan right now. To be crowned, "Miss Smile USA!"

And yet, Alexa woke up dreading this day. She had told her agent she wanted out. She told her parents too, but nobody would listen. Everybody just wanted Alexa to smile for the camera. As she walked the red carpet to the stage, enormous screens displays her life's work, starting as a child, "With Fluoride First, I can eat as much candy as I want! Woohoo!" The crowd awws in remembrance. "It's picture day at school? But I've been eating Pixy Stix all day! Better ask the nurse for Fluoride Plus!" The crowd chuckles. "Binge drinking Baby Bottle Pops to stay up for finals? Make the smart move. Choose Fluoride Final!"

She had decided. She would go up and say thank you for the award, fulfill her obligation, and then she would quit and leave this world behind. People cheered and patted her on the back as she makes her way up the aisle. A little girl breaks away from her mother and wraps her arms around Alexa's waist. "Well hello there," Alexa says, hugging her back, "What's your name?" The little girl looks up at her and says, "My name's Kelley Cooper," and smiles... with a mouth full of disgusting, sugar-rotted teeth, "I am your biggest fan!" Alexa can't help but yelp and cover her mouth. "Great, yes, thank you," Alexa says, fleeing from the girl. Now more children come running down the aisle, arms open, big smiles -- not a full set of teeth among the lot. "Oh God," she says to herself, "I'm sorry! Excuse me. Excuse me, please. I'm so sorry," she says pushing through the crowd of children yelling, "Alexa! Alexa," their breath rank with halitosis.

She breaks through the crowd of children and makes her way up onto the stage. The whole world was watching. Video cameras move in around her. She's handed the award, a large golden tooth, and is put in front of a podium microphone. A teleprompter scrolls, "Oh boy, this thing sure is heavy," Alexa tries to sound natural. "Oh boy, this thing sure is heavy," she says, then reads, "What's it made of, chocolate? (pause for laughter)" "What's it..." She stops. Breathes. The lights are blinding. Cameras looming. "What's," she tries again, but just can't. She hears her agents graveled voice from the wings, "Chocolate! Chocolate!" Alexa shields her eyes from the light, and who does she see smiling back at her, but Kelley Cooper, her biggest, snaggle-toothed fan. Alexa takes a deep breath, stares directly into the cameras, and says, "Candy. Is. Bad for you." The audience gasps. "Sugar rots out your teeth and then you have to pay for expensive dental surgery! It's a vicious cycle that they want you to trap people in forever! I'm sorry I lied to..." Her mic is cut off. She yells into the crowd. "I'm sorry I lied! I never meant to hurt you. I'm sorry!" Parents cover their children's ears. People boo. The award show host yanks the golden tooth out of her hand.

The sad thing is, Alexa Jordan thought she was a failure when nothing changed because of her speech. She wished she'd planned it better. Made a big political statement or something. What she couldn't see was that children, all over the world, past, present, and until the end of time, will always love candy and hate brushing their teeth, that's just the way children are. And until the end of time, there will be nasty adults who will want to exploit that fact. She hadn't yanked it out by it's root, but at least now she wasn't a part of cavity, and that made her smile.

Post Apocalyptical
Country
Zoo Keeper

Psychological Weakness - One man cannot make a difference
Psychological Need - One man, armed with the truth, can change the world.
Moral Weakness - he values his own freedom over freedom for all.
Moral Need - is to realize he cannot be free, but a prisoner in uniform.
Desire - Wants to be free
Opponent - His fellow man
Plan - Feed as many as he can in secret
Battle - Caught. Tell me who you gave it to. I won't.
Self-revelation - What is life without freedom?
New equilibrium - Guards and prisoners turn on aliens and overthrow them.

They chose human guards so that if we rebelled we'd only be killing ourselves.

I'd told myself, "If I don't take the job, somebody else will." I thought, "If I refuse, I'd end up in the cage next to the rest of them." I figured, "My one act of defiance wouldn't make a difference, so why make things harder on myself?" And so I took the job of Guard to the Human Race, and in doing so, sold my soul to the aliens.

I gave all I could get away with, rice, medicine, water, and still I could not bring myself to look them in eye. The things the other guards did... I could not intervene. At least, that's what I told myself. There's nothing I could have done.

Conditions were horrendous. Filth, disease, rampant infection, and death, thing not so unfamiliar to the human race, but on a scale previously thought unimaginable. I had to do something. Anything to help. I managed to smuggle gauze, needle and thread, and a pair of scissors to a surgeon who was caring for the worst the prisoners. The Captain of the Guard made an example out of her. He branded her a thief, and insisted on a thief's punishment.

"You," he said, pointing to me, "Bind her hand to the log" Another guard drags the surgeon to a blood-encrusted tree stump and another guard tossed me a length of rope. "Do it," the captain growled. I thought, If I don’t, someone else will. And if I refuse, I’ll end up next to her. Why make things harder on myself? "I stole the scissors, I said. "The gauze, the needle and thread, all of it. This woman is innocent." And, in this world, for thieves they take a hand. For traitors, they take a life.

After the Captain fired on his own man, the other guards lost faith. No man spoke up then, but the seed was sewn. They all stood by thinking, There nothing I could have done, and then they’d see the surgeon stitching up a wound, and know better.

As history tells it, it only took us killing one of our own, before we rebelled and came after them.

Romance
Theater
Bee Keeper

I'd always joked that one day Dierdre'd love me as much as she loved those damn bees. I swear were buying a gallon jug of nectar every other damn day. Ten-frame over here, another ten-frame behind the barn, two more in the back field, more being built in the garage. She'd be out there talking up a storm, and if you asked her about it, she'd tell you about all the juicy drama going on in the hive. That was Didi for you.

I never wanted to tell her, because I didn't want her to stop doing what she loved, but bees scare the absolute shit out of me. When I was a kid I saw that movie My Girl, where McCulley Culkin gets stung to death by a hive of bees, I been scared shitless ever since. But Dierdre loved them, and Dierdre got what Dierdre wanted. Before she passed, she joked that I was gonna be a single father of thirty thousand.

I put the suit on yesterday, zipped it up, checked for holes, and then just stood there and stared at the back door for a solid half hour before stripping it all off again. The day before that I managed to get the door open. I'd put it off long enough. The frames needed scraping and I was the only one around to do it. "If I don't do my job, bees can't do theirs," she'd say.

I got the door open today. Stepped outside. The swarm was still halfway to the barn, but there was a bee directly in my path. I waited a moment buzzed past and felt my anxiety grow as it circled my head. Then another. Each step closer to the bee box amplified my nightmare until bees swarmed around me. Several landed on the mess netting an inch from my face. I tried blowing them off, then swatted at my face screen and scraped the bees away. I grabbed a bee I missed, just as it landed... on my nose.

I froze. It's inside my suit. I was too paralyzed to scream. Too frozen in place to panic and take off running. My heart beat did not beat the entire minute that bee sat on my nose, batting its wings, and rubbing its little hands together like a chef sharpening knives. I tried to be brave like Didi, tried to think like her. "H-hello," I said. "I'm... Mr. Dierdre." And to be honest, I can't say for sure that the bee wasn't buzzing beforehand, but I swear to all that is holy, the thing buzzed back at me. Not, "Hey how ya doing, I'm Benny the Bee," or nothing, but he made a noise or whatever. Then, all at once, the peanut gallery came out to play. They were swarming me, buzzing all around me. There were so many of them.

Turns out, they were so scary once I got use to them, once I learned to enjoy listening to them. I spent the rest of the day scrapping boxes and talking shop. And oh buddy, you would never believe who's got a crush on Benny the Bee.

Science Fiction

It was Superbowl Sunday and Solider Field was full of screaming men. "No, no, no! We can't take anymore wounded," I told the Sergeant, "The Shedd is two miles up the lakeshore." "We just came from the god damn aquarium," the Sergeant barked, "It's full! So's the planetarium and the Field Museum. Now I've got men with third-degree gamma burns here, so you're gonna find the fucking room!" War had come to Earth and as my husband would say, "We're down big at the half."

Each morning the nurses would look out into the bleachers and we could tell who hadn't survived the night by the blanket of snow that covered the men's faces like a coroner's white sheet. By the afternoon transport ships would land at Navy Pier with three or four times the wounded than we had beds for. And everyday I had Sergeant like this one, begging for us to take their men anyway.

We're training as military nurses to view ourselves as "officers first, nurses second." We're taught that the mission and need of the military comes first. And we'd been ordered to enact what the generals were calling an "inverted triage." Instead of allocating resources to those soldiers in most risk of death, the mandate called for us to use resources on those who could return to battle the soonest. "The tide of the war would turn soon," they'd say, but the wounded never stopped coming in.

At first, I allowed the other nurses to spend the few hours they were assigned for sleep out in the parking lot helping the critically injured. We cut out squares of carpet to use for gauze and wrapped it in fishing line or lose cable, whatever we hadn't already scavenged that could be ripped into strips. But then those resources quickly dwindled as well. Now I have a nurse drop every other day from sleep deprivation or psychosis. Soldiers are freezing to death, because I let us strip the blankets back in the summer. A nurse knows just as well as a surgeon, that sometimes you have to amputate the part to save the whole.

"We only have supplies for Grade 1 wounds, Sergeant, only those capable to returning to combat status." I said. "You can't do that. These men don't have to die," he screamed, "You have to help them!" I stared with solemn eyes, and yet I could not budge. "I'm sorry, Sergeant." I forbid the other nurses from going out at night. Hoarded what meager supplies we had left. We all had to sacrifice, I told myself, over and over, For the survival of the human race.

Ultimately, the final hail mary push was a success and the war was over by the summer, but it wasn't until then that I learned how true my mantra had been. The Sergeant I'd spoken with on that snowy Superbowl Sunday, was my husband's platoon leader. On February fifth, my husband succumbed to an untreated gamma wound less than a hundred yards from where I was sleeping, about a football field away.

The officer and nurse inside me know I did the right thing. I'd been given orders and those orders helped to save all of humanity. But as a wife, I can't help wishing I'd fought a little harder, held out a little longer. Then I'd hear my husband's voice saying, "That's the thing about football, it ain't just about the quarterback, dear, it's about the whole team."

Police Procedural
Fire Station
Florist

"I was a cop for thirty-one years, never planted evidence once," Mac says, "I'm retired two months and look at me..."

When I retired from the force, I used my pension to open a plant shop and did my best to make amends and leave that life behind. Even sent the firefighters an aloe plant as a sort of truce. Though, if my house was on fire, I'd rather piss and spit it out than have those bums in my living room.

So you can imagine how happy I was when a firefighter I'd known as Greenley, likely his last name, busted into the store. "Mac, listen, I knew we don't see eye to eye, but--" he said. "No. Whatever it is, the answer's no. Now get the hell out of here." I could tell he wanted to knock my lights out, Greenley was one of the new guys and built like a boxer, but he restrained himself. This must be important after all. "It's Poke, the station Dalmatian, he's in a coma, Mac," he said, "Vet says she was poisoned."

Well, damn, that was just plain awful. I'd had seen Poke around plenty, seemed like a good dog. "And you're coming to me why--? You... You don't think my prescient had anything to do with this, do you?" I said. "Who the hell else would've done it, huh?" "I don't know but it wasn't our boys, I can tell you that." The firefighter stood up straight, indignant, "Well I can tell you, the chief ain't taking this sitting down. He ain't like himself. That dog dies, there's going to be hell to pay."

"You still haven't gotten to the point where this is my problem. I'm done. Out. I want nothing to do with any of you." I said. "Dying dog ain't good enough reason for you, ya bastard? What do you want, huh? We ain't got a lot of filthy stolen money lying around to buy you off like your pals." "That's it, get the hell out of my shop, you bum!" "Fuck you, Mac, and your shop, and your fucking aloe plant. You can take it back and stick it up your fucking ass!" He slammed the door and his Open sign jangles to Closed. I scoffed and shook my head. This mother fucker... I thought, snatching up a pair of clippers and taking my anger out on a poor succulent before tossing them aside. Sure was a good dog though...

I parked down the street from the vet's office and snuck in the back door. The front was crawling with firefighters camped outside waiting for news. A few paramedics even came to show their support. Traitors. I creeped down the back hallway and slipped past a room of cages that erupted into a cacophony of barks. At the end of the hall, a lab tech laid the Dalmatian out on a stainless steel table. The coast was clear so I made for the room, just as the bathroom door swung open and a portly man in a blue polo lumbers out. His eyes and nose were red from crying. "Chief." I said with a nod. I couldn't help but bow my chest up to try to match to the size of the enormous fire chief. "You!" he bellowed. "Here to finish the job?" He surprised me. I'd always known the man to be reasonable and certainly didn't expect for his massive, sausage hands to wrap around my neck and slide me halfway up the wall.

The veterinarian screamed and half the fire department bull rush the back hallway, some grabbing at the chief's arms to let me down, others trying to get in their own licks. Dangling from the chief's grip, I ripped the pen out of the vet's lab coat pocket and stabbed it into the fire chief's forearm. I hit the ground in a crumpled pile and laid their gasping. There was yelling and kicking, but one voice came over them all, Greenley's, "Wait, stop! I asked him to come, I asked him to come!" I crawled backward, away from the mob, and scratched out, "Fucking fuck..." as I rung my own neck. Greenley grabbed me by the arm and yanked me to my feet. "Hey, I'm sorry! He didn't mean it, alright?" "Bullshit, he didn't," I said, Greenley having to help hold me up.

The veterinarian and her tech corralled the firefighters back out into the lobby as a paramedic pressed his fingers against my neck, checking for something or other. Greenley stands over them, hat in hand. "I can't believe the chief did that. I'm so sorry, Mac. Whenever you're done I can take you to the hospital, or back to your store, or home or wherever." "A ride? How about you get my fucking lawyer, huh? How about that?" Greenley got quiet. "I could do that, if you wanted me to, he said simply. I rubbed his neck and laughed a little, "That must be one hell of a mutt." Greenley takes a break from staring at his shoes and looks up. "Yes, sir. He is." I nodded. Then shooed off the paramedic and crawled to my feet. "I guess we better take a look then."

The veterinarian showed me the samples of the poison she'd taken and sent to the lab, but I figured the vet knew what it was and just wasn't saying. I knew the moment I saw Poke's teeth. Bits of green in a translucent jelly. Aloe vera. By the look on Greenley's face, he knew too. "It was me,' I said, "I poisoned Poke when I gave the station that Aloe plant." Greenley nodded, he'd likely known all along. "They'll never believe it was an accident," I said. Greenley nodded again, this time not looking up from his shoes, "But it was an accident though, right?" He met my eyes now. "You know, I have hated firefighters for a long time," I told him. "You guys get all the glory, get to be the hero, everybody likes you -- nobody likes cops nowadays, it ain't fair, and it pisses me the hell off. But, at the end of the day, you're a first responder; same with the paramedic dumbies. So, no. I hate your guts, but not enough to poison your damn dog. Not on purpose anyway." Greenley looked in my eyes and seemed to find what he was looking for. "Okay. But the question is," Greenley said, "Do we tell them that?"

In the end, we thought better of adding fuel to the fire of our rivalry. Greenley told the firefighters it was chocolate. "Must've been a kid walking by or something," he'd suggested. And we paid the veterinarian and her tech to keep quiet. Shady people, veterinarians... Like paramedics, but worse. Turns out firefighters aren't as bad as I thought though. Believe it or not, I even had Greenley over and we watch some football in the living room. He's still a bum, but he's alright by me.

"Hey Greenley," I said, "My house ever burns down, I want you inside in, alright?" He laughed. "You mean this place? No can do. We don't put out trash fires, sorry..." I laughed. "Yeah, you gonna know how to get out of my house though, right? Unfortunately, we don't have stripper poles..."

Young Adult
Supermarket
Headhunter

Psychological Weakness - thinking he was put in this position to lead
Psychological Need - realize he shouldn't push his views on others
Moral Weakness - thinking the ends justify the means for forcing health food on people.
Moral Need - to let others make their own decisions about their health
Desire - To help everyone be healthy
Opponent - The customers
Plan - Suggest health foods.
Battle - Refusing to sell anything bad.
Self-revelation - Doesn't have one
New equilibrium - Business goes under

Wise men age into fools or tyrants. The Sack 'N Save was my kingdom. I was its king. And its killer.

My father's father, Georgie Saint-Patrick, stole the bricks from construction yards all over town, one brick at a time, to build this store. The people of Witauga know where to find the best produce in town, we've always had the best produce. It's the healthiest and the freshest anywhere around. That was my job, I made sure of that shit. But dad insisted we keep some of that processed junk on the shelves, "'Cause it's a free world, ain't it?" he'd say. But dad's dead now and it was the junk that did him in.

Science has evidence. Fruits and veggies are healthier than processed food. The end. Story over. So, I vowed that I would not stop-- "--until there's a vegetable in every cart that comes out of my store!" A crowd cheers. I wave and smile. A marching band plays as I cut a big red ribbon that says, "Sack 'n Save... Your Life!" People came from all around to buy fruits and vegetables. My dream was becoming a reality.

Only one man stood in my way of a vegetable in every cart. He was a fat man and bald and ugly and a complete and utter waste of space! He bought twelve frozen pizzas, and all meatlovers, at that. Not veggie in the cart. I don't care to discuss the altercation that followed at any length, but if you must know you can look up the article yourself, it made the front page.

But that unfortunately incident did not stop me on my pursuit of health food heroism. I tried everything I could think of make people eat better. I stopped people in the aisle and informed them of their healthier options. I posted signs and plastered labels on the junk. I held health food rallies in my store and joined FDA political action committees. And still, people bought the damn junk! So, I jacked up the price on the crap. The more sugar it has, the more it costs, and believe it or not, they still they bought it. So I threw a twenty five percent Fat Tax on top of that, and then raised it to fifty, then seventy-five, all the way up to two-hundred percent tax, and for some ungodly reason they bought even more!

I couldn't wrap my mind around it. They were addicted to the junk food. There was only one thing I could do to break the cycle. I had to be the shining star for all to see, an example of what grocery stores around the world should look like, a savior of the health food world. I had to get rid of the junk, for good!

Only, with all the junk food gone, and even after I'd given each type of fruit and veggie their own aisle, most of the shelves were still completely empty. "All the better," I said, "More room for the good stuff!" But the people of Watauga didn't see it that way. They came in, looked around, and then left without a single fruit or veggie in their bag.

I swore all those years ago that that would never let that happen. And I refuse to ever let it happen again... I set a mandate. Anyone who enter the premises, workers included, must leave having purchased a fruit or vegetable. With sales low, I soon upped it to one of each, then ramped it up to one from every aisle. Customers dwindled and the staff quit. But hell, if that wasn't healthiest damn staff he'd ever seen... At least he had that. And the building his father's father built.

Only it wasn't long before the shop closed down and the people of Watauga came back, one by one, and took back the bricks my father's father stole all those years ago. Georgie Saint-Patrick was rolling in his grave, I just knew it. I'd failed everyone, but at least I still had my fruits and veggies. I'll always have those, I thought. Only now, I realized, there was nowhere in town that sold fruits or veggies. I'd made sure of that. In the end, I killed the Sack 'N Save, and in trying to help the people of Watauga, I helped obesity kill them even faster.

I guess dad was right after all. It's a free world. And only fools and tyrants try to change that.