Tuesday, May 17, 2016

These Are Otzi's Mushrooms by Lenitschka

Prompt: tell your version of how The Ice Man died

These were Otzi’s mushrooms, and no one was going to take them away from him. For days he had toiled high in the mountains, gathering every fungi he found. With bag half full he made his way down to the mountain, gathering more mushrooms as he went. He could see smoke ahead of him now. Otzi’s neighbours were very impressed with themselves for their new invention. He didn’t see the point. Food tasted just fine without fire anyhow.

He hugged his cloak more securely around himself as a gust of wind tried to rip it away. He’d won it in a fight the day before yesterday. The other man had got in a few good cuts, leaving Otzi’s chest sore and purple, but Otzi had kept the upper hand, and now the cloak’s first owner was floating down the river. After Otzi had helped himself to his axe of course.
The mushrooms were thinning out the further down Otzi got. He turned back around and started up the mountain again. He needed more if this were every going to work.

Bag mostly full, Otzi congratulated himself on a job well done, wincing as he sat down. Once again he reached for his lower back as another blinding pain shot through him. He never should have tried to grab the arrow. It’d never come out now he’d broken the shaft off.  Still, fleeing for his life from the cloak owner’s brother he’d been full of stupid ideas. He reached for it again in vain. Even if he could grab hold of the spot in his back where the arrow had broken off, how would he dig it out? It’s not as if he could cut himself open. No, the mushrooms were his only hope. He pulled out a handful of mushrooms and smashed them between two rocks. Folks said these mushrooms were magic. They could even heal a man. Otzi scooped up a handful of mashed up mushrooms and took a huge bite, then spat it out in disgust. Why’d the mushrooms have to be magic? Why couldn’t it have been magic goat’s meat instead? Otzi wouldn’t’ve had a problem with that.

Grimacing, he finished off the mushroom paste, swallowed it down with berries and dried bear meat, then sat and waited for the magic to take effect. An hour passed. Then another. The arrowhead was still in his back and Otzi was growing bored.  He got up and started climbing again. Everything was starting to look hazy. There were colours in front of him that Otzi had never seen on the mountain before. It was beautiful. Otzi was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. He stopped walking. At least he thought he had. The world wasn’t holding still so maybe Otzi was still moving. Someone was behind him. Otzi heard voices. He pulled out his dagger, but forgot about the attackers as soon as he noticed how beautiful his hand was. Had Otzi always had hands? He had two of them? Wonderful, beautiful hands. Wonderful, beautiful Otzi. He held his hands to his face, dagger still clutched in his fist.

The whole world was purple now, and Otzi thought it was beautiful. Beautiful purple, beautiful hands, beautiful pile of rocks that Otzi wanted to float over like a bird sailing over the beautiful water. Only rocks weren’t good for floating. Now Otzi was falling. Falling, falling. Hadn’t he always been falling? Wasn’t that what life was? Falling?


There was a loud crack, and all the colours disappeared.

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Gritty Reboot of Bugs Bunny and Tweety show by Jonathan K. Harline



The number 5 bus is the only bus that passes by Old Wood Lane, and then it's only every half hour. The already dilapidated neighborhood was sparsely populated thanks to the Woodland riots of 2013, and the local drug lord, an old ginger cowboy who called himself Yosemite Sam, prevented anyone from moving in or out without his express permission. 

Bugs watched the bus drive through, make a quick stop, and then take off again, engine groaning. The one passenger who had gotten off was a little old granny, whom Bugs thought he recognized but couldn't make out any details of her face or figure since the late night fog was rolling in off the bay. He shrugged, sipped his carrot spice latte, and turned back to the flashing red and blue lights of the crime scene.

He sidled up beside Tweety Bird, M.D., giving him an obligatory but world weary nod.

"Bled out. There's a deep laceration on both thighs, probably severed the femoral arteries. He would'a been unconscious in seconds, painlessly bleeding out after a minute," Tweety said.

"Life's little mercies. Any I.D.?"

A nearby constable spoke up then, a short, girthy fellow with pink ruddy cheeks. "Y-yes sir," he said, 

"He-he-huh-he was carrying a wuh-wuh-wallet." Bugs reached out and took it from the cop. "Hi-hi-hi name wuh-wuh-was-"

"Sylvester James Pussycat, Sr." Bugs finished for him, impatient.

Tweety looked up quickly from his work with the deceased. "Say that again?"

"Sylvester James Pussycat. Senior. Why, ya' knew 'im?"

Tweety's face went white.

"C'mon, what's up Doc?"

"I thought there was something familiar about him, but I never realized…"

"Realized what? C'mon, you're killing me here."

"This is my old schoolmate. I haven't seen him in years, not since high school graduation. He would… bully me, chase me around, threatened to eat me once even."

"Well, looks like someone got the best of 'im for ya."

Tweety was about to respond when another constable showed up. "Detective Bunny sir, I think you'll want to see this. I think the body was left here, but died somewhere else."

The constable led Bugs to a nearby garage, where the door had been torn away and probably used for scrap metal some time ago. As he entered, Bugs noticed the definite trail of blood starting in spurts, smudged in areas, and then a full on streak as it got closer to the pool of coagulated blood in the middle of the floor.

"Someone definitely moved the body," Bugs commented.

"No kidding, but, sir, you're going to be more interested in this." The constable indicated a spot near the north end of the blood puddle.

Bugs' own blood ran cold as he read what was scrawled in the dark red blood of Sylvester J. Pussycat. 

"Who else has been in here? Has this been here the whole time?"

"Only me and constable Porcine have been in here since the call came out Detective Bunny."

"This isn't good." Bugs lost his appetite for his latte as he read again the name of his ex-wife scrawled in blood,

"Lola."