Orion, the Heat Machine

How the dog clears the room ...

Silent, but deadly ...

The Solution is Cookies!

Prompt from Writer's Digest like 3 or 4 years ago. Unfortunately I forgot exactly who and when it was written because I dug this story while cleaning out my computer. I often used Writer's Digest prompts to speed write something in 30 minutes, so I tried to keep what I wrote while cleaning up grammar and thoughts. 

Prompt: To get the story straight, Dave, we think, has become a chicken. Just the worst of luck with that guy. Tom is claiming he married the futon that’s now covered in yogurt, Carl is on the chandelier with the dog and you just walked in after getting groceries. What the heck happened here?

        This was to be the party of the century.

Introduce Lucia, party, grocery run, etc.

I opened the door with the huge bags of groceries, and a fantastic sight hit my eyes.  My house was in complete disarray. A chicken ran around in circles underneath a swaying chandelier. Carl somehow was perched on the chandelier with the dog under his arms, screaming “Bloody hell!” and stuff like that. Only slightly less bizarre than the chicken and Carl, Tom sobbed at the futon, which was covered in blueberry yogurt. Dave was no where to be seen.

“What the heck happened here?” In my surprise, I dropped the bag with the eggs. The carton cracked open, spilling and breaking eggs aplenty. The chicken, pardon, rooster, was not pleased with this and ran into the kitchen.

“Don’t eat Dave!” Carl yelled at me.

I opened and closed my mouth, before gathering enough sense to ask, “What? And why is there a chicken in here?”

“Dave is the chicken. Don’t eat him!”

“Tom! Can you explain anything to me?”

Tom kept sobbing, moaning, “Oh! My beautiful Ikea. What a wretched state you are in now!” Then he proceeded to do the weirdest thing that I have ever seen the Vulcan man do - he proceeded to kiss the futon and whisper all shorts of amorous poems.

I pointed out that he was kissing a futon, he snapped, “She’s more than a futon. She’s a queen.”

Exasperated, I picked up the groceries and proceeded into the kitchen. “Dave, where are you? I need some help and a sanity check for Tom and Carl!” The rooster came in again, bawking and flapping his wings as if attempting to communicate something. I briefly considered that maybe Dave was the rooster, but quickly pushed it out of thought as there was no possible way that a human could become a rooster.  

I went back to the living room, determined to get to the bottom of this, or at least get Carl and the dog back down on Earth. “Carl, will you please get down?”

“I can’t!”

“Why?”

“Then the dog will melt into the floor.”

“The dog will not melt into the floor. Give him to me. You’re going to drop him sooner or later.”

“No! You don’t believe me.”

“Have you listened to yourself lately? Are you high?”

“No, I don’t think I am.”

I stared at him in complete bafflement. Just then, the doorbell rang.

Praying that my evening would not get any crazier, I opened the door to my next door neighbor, Lucia. Behind me, Tom loudly lamented the futon’s fate, Carl nervously looked down, the dog started to howl, and the chicken stood in plain view of Lucia. My face immediately grew red.

“Oh dear, I fear I came at a bad time.”

“Oh no.  Not at all.” I closed the door behind me, so Lucia and I were alone, outside, under the full moon.

“I brought some cookies over and I have some bad news.”

Frantically, I tried to think of what possible bad news she could give me.

“Please don’t think I am crazy, but I am a witch and I may have accidentally casted an astray spell on your house. The spell was originally supposed to turn everyone into his or her best selves, but instead it turns everyone into the first insult that they say.”

My mind exploded. “So, if someone says “You’re a chicken,” or “Lava games are for children,” or “Your wife is so fat, she could be a futon,” then the respective things would happen to them?”

She looked confused, though I admit - my friends have a competition for coming up with the weirdest insults. "Yes.  But the cookies should solve all of that!”

560 words in 30 minutes

Cookies are always a good answer.

Dog Temperature Meter (comics)

Dog Alarm Clocks (comics)

Unwritten stories

         There are so many unwritten stories, including yours. Don’t let your life be ruled by the stories already written. ~LL

Original writing of thought, date unknown