Month: May 2022

The Course

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

Read about Ty, who is waiting for his turn to run: The Course, the definitive athletic event of the school year, and the results of which determine everything after. This one was for the Friday Weekly Picture Prompt on The Writer’s Mess, and is inspired by the picture prompt below, and my own personal loathing of Track and Field day in elementary, where I acquired purple participation ribbons like they were going out of style…

Ty hated gym on a good day, but on a course day, he loathed it.

He was near the front of the line, only five people ahead of him. Hopefully the class would be so focused on watching them, that when he started struggling they wouldn’t even notice.

After all, the course was all about being the best, and no one waste energy on watching someone who was slow. His parents certainly wouldn’t, not after his older brother Jo set a course record last year.

He could hear the heavy breathing of his classmates, revving up in excitement, this was it, do or die, for those who wanted to join the fleet.

The course was THE evaluation, and while only the top tier were eligible for the coveted pilot portions, you needed a minimum score to get into space at all.

It was a score beyond Ty’s abilities, and honestly, he was good with that. He always wanted to be an artist, but he knew he parents had loftier ambitions for him and his siblings.

Six out of seven would have to be enough for them though, because he would be lucky to finish the course, he hadn’t the last two years he ran it.

He only had three shots left, one each year on course day, and then the graduation run. Ty saw a lot of family practices in his future.

He took a breath to rally himself, time to go out and fail…spectacularly

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Third Time’s the Charm

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

Continuing on the year theme of, who wrote this, because they are twisted, and murder, here is this weeks short story, a first person POV of the clean up. I admit I watch WAYYY too many procedural crime dramas. I used the #murdercation, which should not be a thing. This was me trying a stream of consciousness, for a psychopath….

You know when you drop a cup of coffee, and like by some miracle the top two centimeters, not even an inch of coffee is all the spills out of the cup, but somehow that extremely small amount of coffee seems to get on everything. Its on you, the table, the chair, the floor, the wall half way across the room, and you can’t quite figure out how that tiny volume seems to have gone so far, and it makes no sense.

Well the same thing can be said of blood splatter, and while the human body only has like 5 liters, or 1.5 gallons of blood in it, it seems like so much more when it’s mostly on the outside.

It just seems so improbable that you can be coated in blood, the body is coated in blood, its dripping from the ceiling, and it can still basically be covering every surface in a small room. Take away the corpse, and ask someone to take a guess, and they would probably say that two or three people had been killed here, not just the one.

All I am saying, is that this is going to be way more clean up than I signed on for, and like the drop sheets I got, might as well not even be there for the amount of blood seeping through the seams and onto the floor. I hope I brought enough bleach for this, because it isn’t exactly like I can go out and get more in my current attire.

Fuck, even my hair is soaked. I guess that shower isn’t gonna wait till tomorrow after all. Note to self: next time wear a shower cap. Also, try and figure out somewhere better to do this. Hopefully, the cement is sealed well enough under here that it won’t stain. I would hate to have to paint the floor, it would really ruin the industrial feeling I was going for in the basement. OH well.

You know, with all the missing blood, you would also assume that the body would get a little lighter, but I guess what they say is true about it being hard to move dead weight. Ha, did you catch that, DEAD, weight.

Ok, she is wrapped, and out of the way until dismemberment. Just gotta, clean this all up before anything stains, and then get some new sheeting for phase two.

Fuck this is exhausting, I am wiped and I haven’t even disposed of the body yet. I wish someone would do this for me. Well, do it and not report me to the police, because I am so not made for jail! Okay, pity party over, now to start cutting.

Shit, wait, almost forgot the wood, five sheets of sub-floor should do it, I don’t want to damage the floor while cutting. Ok, now wrap each piece with an independent sheet plastic, and three to four medium sized rocks. A little on the heavier side, yes, but you don’t want this to be a floater. Then after washing up move this to another wrapping station to wrap in a clean plastic sheet to prevent any transfer in the car. Note to self: Remember to poke a few small holes in each side prior to dumping to allow for gasses to escape.

Ok, and packing the suitcase. Ok good, and loading the car. Great thing is, that I always over pack for vacations, so Sue just thinks that I need two bags for a week long trip. Note to self: Tell Sue they lost one of my bags at the airport. Everyone has at least one bad luggage story, so its perfectly reasonable. Ok, and onto the boat to get to the mainland. Taking my own boat is decadent, night boating is weird, but I have made a habit of it, and voicing my distaste for the ferry, so its entirely reasonable. Also, a lot safer to store my car the dock than at the airport.

Ok, we are out deep enough, jabbing the holes, and 1, 2, 3,4, 5, 6, and 7 , all packages away and far enough apart, just in case someone does come upon one. Though I doubt it would happen; this isn’t exactly a fishing spot, and you would need scuba gear to get down to the bottom here, this is definitely not the place for diving either, too many boats. Ok, and at the dock, hands are clean, clothes changed in case of accidental transfer. Suitcase reloaded with old sheets to abandon in Havana, and I am good to go. Ooh, cabs here too, right on time.

Things are definitely going so much better than they did last time. Oh ya, I am so repeating this next time out. #murdercation

Lost in Translation

~ annemcsommers ~ 18 Comments

So this one was a little office humor, based on a twitter exchange where someone was trying to say “the projects are a shitshow”, but politely in office speak. This is my little version of that for this weeks six-sentence story prompt word of FLUID for girlontheedge’s challenge. Enjoy.

“The situation is rather fluid at the moment.”

Karen didn’t want to have to tell him what the fluid was though, because this whole thing was a disaster from the moment they accepted a contract for a material they were unable to build with, on a time-line that they would never be able to make, but when the client turned to her, she smiled and nodded along in agreement with her boss.

“We will keep you apprised of any changes.”

In exactly the same manner you did Mr. Biquell, three weeks after they were made, with no recourse, and with a handful of surface level apologies that are both necessary and entirely meant to stop you from throwing a tantrum in our office.

“Thank you for your understanding, we appreciate your ongoing business.”

Not that you understand, but we both realize that we are 2 years into this project, it would take longer for you to explain it to someone new and get them up to speed then it would for us to finish with the delays because of all your upgrades, so we are stuck with each other, and when we do deliver its going to be so good that you are going to come back for you next new idea, god help us both.

Uninhabited

~ annemcsommers ~ Leave a comment

I am a bit behind this week, so this one is pulling double duty as a response to the invisible ink challenge of “Write a story about visiting a planet.”, and the Weekly Friday Picture prompt from The Writer’s Mess on the image below. Join Maggie as she steps onto a new world, and sees something amazing and unexpected.

Maggie stepped out of the ship, and froze. This was not the desolate rock she had been briefed on.

Fog drifted over a lush forest, as the sun rose in the distance, and that was the least magnificent part of it. She didn’t know if what she was seeing was towers, or statues, but they were huge, red and white, shaped like dolphins leaping out of the fog, only ripple in the air like they were fluid.

Before she could say anything, radio in, they began to move. At first it was a slow thing, so slow she wasn’t sure it was happening, and then it got faster, a spinning, and then a lifting, and she wondered if they were ships, taking off.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, as great fins broke free of the fog, propelling them though the air, leaving a great blue rippling wake that reminded her of the northern lights.

When they finally faded from sight, she closed her eyes, her eyelids like sandpaper, and when she opened them, it was all gone.

Not just the ships, but the sun, the fog, the forest, everything, like it was never there, but every part of her knew that it had been there, it had been real.

Even after the ships medic told her it was probably just a hallucination from oxygen deprivation, a missed pinhole in her suit. She knew though, it had been real, and she would never forget it.