21 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “A lie you told and got away with”
“Wolf! Wolf!” you yell, running through the town. This is going to be so hilarious, you think. These dummies are going to run out of their houses and chase after this wolf that doesn’t even exist.
Except even though you’d intended it as a lie, it wasn’t actually a lie.
The villagers are unable to save you from the wolf as it pounces upon you from the shadows and tears you limb from limb. But they will forever tell the story of the brave child who warned the town, at the risk of their own life, when a ravenous, bloodthirsty wolf came to devour everything in the village.
18 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “It was the first time he had ever gotten into a fight, and it was in a _____ of all places.”
It was the first time you had ever gotten into a fight, and it was in a digestive tract of all places. And you battled valiantly with that esophagus, but I’m afraid your efforts were to no avail. Maybe if you were a more highly trained pugilist, you could have fought your way out of the giant monster’s belly, but you are, both figuratively and comparatively, kind of a lightweight here.
16 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “What broke your heart”
After you sprang the sorceress from the dungeon, she was so grateful she decided to grant you a boon.
“Look,” she says. “Magic has all these weird conditions to it. There’s usually a huge cost to pay unless you cast spells that are a bit … indirect. But I’ve got one I’m sure you can turn to your advantage.” She mutters some strange words, makes a few hand motions, and throws what looks like glitter in your face. “Okay. The next song you listen to? You will embody that song. Make it a good one.”
“Wai–” you say, but she’s already gone. I guess if you’d spent three years in a dungeon this dismal, you wouldn’t have stuck around either.
All right. So, Eye of the Tiger, right? Just get out your phone and – wait a sec. She said the embodiment. Does that mean you would literally have a tiger’s eyes? Is that what you would get out of embodying that song? That – seems like an odd choice, actually.
Okay, okay. We Are the Champions. Except … now that you’ve thought about that thing with Eye of the Tiger, maybe you should refresh your memory on those lyrics. And right there, lines three and four: “I’ve done my sentence / But committed no crime.” Oof. Unjust imprisonment, no thank you.
This is going to take some thought.
Hours later, you’ve left the dungeon far behind and you’re wandering the main road back into town in silence, staring at Genius Lyrics on your phone as you walk. You don’t even see the car coming toward you and slowing as it approaches you until it’s too late.
The driver stops next to you, rolls down the window, and asks, “Can I give you a ride?”
You barely notice what he’s said. All you can hear is what’s on his car stereo.
Once I had a love and it was a gas
Soon turned out had a heart of glass
Seemed like the real thing, only to fi-i-ind
Mucho mistrust–
“Get out of here!” you scream at the man. He seems alarmed by your reaction, but then much more alarmed by the fact that shards of broken glass are exploding from your chest.
14 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “Choose a family story for which you were not present. Choose the narrator of the piece (your mother, your older brother, your great-great-great aunt) and write the event in his or her voice.”
“So this one time, I was down at the skate park, and I did the most gnarly frontside 180 kickflip,” your older brother Doug says.
That’s how most of Doug’s stories begin. That’s how most of them end, too. He’s not much for elaboration.
“Cool,” you say.
“Yeah, it was pretty sick.”
Doug nods stoically for a while. You go back to playing with your phone.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I went from a 360 pop shove it straight into a hardflip?” he asks.
“I’m not sure.”
“It was friggin’ sweet.”
“Is that the one where you touch the edge of the half-pipe with your hands?” you ask.
Your brother stares at you like you’ve just said the dumbest thing ever.
“How’d you get so good at skateboarding, anyway?” you ask.
“Oh, super easy,” he said. “I made a deal with the devil.”
You burst out laughing.
“True story, man. Hand to God.”
“So, what, you’re the Robert Johnson of skateboarding? Sold your soul to the devil for some rad ollies and kickflips?”
“Naw, dawg, I ain’t that dumb. I ain’t gonna sell my soul,” he says.
“Right, right, so what did you sell? Your pog collection? A rare Pokemon?”
“Ten years off your life.”
You laugh again, but it starts to turn into nervous laughter when you see a guilty look instead of a mischievous grin on Doug’s face.
Things are quiet for a while. And then Doug meekly offers, “I didn’t think it’d really work.”
“Ten years? Ten years for some fucking skateboard tricks?”
“Hey.” Doug says. “I’ve won competitions, dude.”
“That is fucked up,” you say. “You shouldn’t get to promise someone else’s life in exchange for what you want.”
“Yeah, well, what do you expect? It’s the devil,” Doug says. “He’s evil.”
“You’re my big brother! Why would you do that to me?”
“Shit, it’s not like I was the only one to do that to you. Our cousins Mari and Jeff were there at the crossroads with me. They wished for stuff too. How do you think Jeff got so rich?”
“On the stock market?”
“Yeah. Making bets that never lost. If you ask me, though, Mari was the worst. She wished to get her Ph.D.”
“Why is that the worst?”
“Dude, Mari was already super smart. She probably would’ve got it anyway.”
“Okay. Yeah. All three of you are super shitty. But why are you not the worst? They each took ten years off my life for something of real value. You took ten years off my life for stupid skateboarding stunts!”
“Oh, you got it all wrong, dude. It wasn’t ten years each. The devil figured a Ph.D. was worth at least 15 years, and the amount of wealth Jeff got was worth 30. Honestly, you should be grateful all I asked for was skateboarding tricks.”
11 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “Write a ‘bucket list’ for your favorite superhero.”
Superman’s To-Do List:
- Travel back in time and save Lois Lane from being crushed in a faultline.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from superintelligent gorillas.
- Travel back in time far enough to pass eye exam, join the army, and punch Hitler.
- Travel back in time and save Mabel Lonagan, Mark Turullo, David Watanabe, and José Juarez (victims of a random trolley accident).
- Save Jimmy Olsen from time-travelling pterodactyls.
- Travel back in time and save as many victims of the Titanic as possible.
- Travel back in time and save as many victims of TWA Flight 800 as possible.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from mummies.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from lava monsters.
- Travel back in time and stop global warming. (Note to self – what’s the best way to do this? Introduce more efficent combustion engine plans to their inventors? Shut down coal mines? Punch CEOs of companies that are major polluters?)
- Save Jimmy Olsen from superintelligent gorillas (again).
- Save Jimmy Olsen from accidentally irradiating everything.
- Convince Batman to spend at least part of his immense wealth on good schools and other programs that prevent crime and recidivism, for fuck’s sake.
- Travel back in time and save Charlie Morton, Will Edgerton, and Mary Sokolowski from freak bridge cave-in.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from ghosts that smell faintly of blue cheese.
- Travel back in time and save victims of Mt. St. Helens explosion.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from time-travelling pterodactyls (again).
- Figure out what Lex Luthor is up to this time.
- Travel back in time and save Earl Rodgers, Dikembe Ware, Suzanne Framingham, Jun Chang-Xiu, and the Earth-1 version of [insert your name here] from lava monsters.
- Save Jimmy Olsen from switching minds with a gorilla.
09 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “One of your parents has a habit that really annoys you. What’s the habit? Does anybody besides you notice it?”
Your father has a habit of whistling. Especially when he’s nervous. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
And yes, other people notice it, including the murderous cultists the two of you are hiding from.
07 Jun 2021
Today’s prompt: “Rewrite the Gettysburg Address for today’s audience.”
Four score and – wait, no, that’s the old number. Uh, wait, a score is 20, right? So it’s what, 10 score? No, 12, right? I cannot math today. Aw, fuck it, nobody measures things in scores anymore.
Anyway, back in 1776, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation. It has been said they conceived it in liberty and dedicated it to the proposition that all men are created equal. Given the fact that most of these dudes owned slaves, it’s fair to say they got a lot of stuff wrong from the jump and that America has never fully lived up to its promise. But despite our flaws, our history, our institutions imbued with systemic racism, we must attempt to fulfill that promise nonetheless.
And here we are now in the middle of our second civil war, figuring out whether this nation can last much longer. On this very ground we’re standing on, a pitched and bloody battle was fought in that war. We are here to bury our dead and consecrate this ground.
But we can’t bless this ground. We can’t make it any more holy than the brave men and women who gave their lives here do. People like Katie Turpin, Jesus Rodríguez, and [insert your name here], along with thousands of others who have died in the war to protect our democracy. The world will forget what we say here today, but it won’t forget what they did.
Those of us who are still alive must finish their work. And I don’t mean by dying on a battlefield. By making sure they don’t die in vain. By making sure our country remains united, yes. But more importantly, by making sure our country remains a democracy. By making sure our country listens to the will of its people. By making sure that government of the people, by the people, for the people, will not die the way [insert your name here] did.