Sunday, February 26, 2012

Weekly Story Prompt: The Meaning of Life

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/02/26/weekly-challenge-305-the-meaning-of-life/


The Meaning of Life
By Chris Munroe

Life’s what happens when you’re making other plans.

Tho’ in my case, I didn’t make plans.

I didn’t have time to, between my day job, the writing, the comedy projects and endless drinks with friends. There was always too much going on to stop, focus and make plans.

Does that make my life less meaningful?

The meaning of a life is shown in what you choose to focus on, but I’ve been so unfocused…

So I’ll put it to you: what does this make the meaning of my life? I’d love to ponder it, but I have shit to do.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Blackouts


So: Here I am. Hanging upside down from a helicopter while a man fires down at me with an Uzi.

Fortunately, the chopper’s pilot has long since been killed, and as the helicopter spins out of control the man’s having a harder and harder time aiming the weapon.

Due to this, he’s yet to hit me as I swing back and forth from the rope that ties my ankle to the helicopter, but he’s come close more than once.

And as all this is happening, I’m wracking my brain, trying to remember…

…how on Earth did I wind up here? 

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Weekly Prompt Story: Crack

It's that time again! Here's the link:

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/02/19/weekly-challenge-304-crack-updated/

...and here's the story!


Crack
By Chris Munroe

If I understand correctly, people with cancer cook meth.

Right?

I mean, that dude from that show that one time had cancer and he cooked meth like crazy! By the end of the second season the cancer was in full remission.

I don’t completely understand what the connection between the two is, I’m not a doctor, but it was pretty clear.

Cooking and selling meth cures cancer.

I think that’s how it works, anyway. There could be something I’m missing…

But it’s all very abstract. I don’t have cancer.

I just have a lingering cold.

So: Wanna buy some crack?

Thursday, February 16, 2012

The Best Seat in the House


He’s a hack. A charlatan.

He travels from town to town, lying to grieving widows and wounded parents, and they line up and pay him for the opportunity.

They’re actually grateful for it.

He doesn’t care how much they’ve suffered, or about the desperation that drives them to him, he sees them as little more than marks to be fleeced for whatever he can get from them. He makes whatever promises he needs to, and knows he’ll never be held to account for any of it.

He can’t speak to the dead. Trust me.

I’ve been up here, near the skylight, screaming at him since his little show began. If he could hear me, he’d have acknowledged me by now, if only to tell me to shut the hell up.

But even if he did, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to.

My wife’s in the third row, you see, and watching her stare at this con man as though he was her only hope of salvation is tearing me apart. She’s better than this, she shouldn’t believe his line of nonsense. But grief does funny things to people, I suppose, and it’s not like I’ve been there to provide the comfort she needs myself.

So she paid two hundred dollars for a ticket to see a man who’ll lie about messages from me, and when it’s her turn to be interviewed privately after the show he’ll mouth a few empty platitudes about how I’m in a better place and how I want her to get on with her own life. And if he does that job well enough, she’ll maybe buy a t-shirt.

He’ll do the best he can to help her come to terms with her grief. After all, he dearly wants her to buy that t-shirt.

Maybe it’ll actually help her, I don’t know. She’d always been more open to this sort of supernatural mumbo-jumbo than me.

It’s just not how I’d have dealt with it, is all.

But how she deals with things is no longer a matter I have any say in. I haven’t had a say since they put me in the ground.

So I’ll wait, up here, and watch the show.

And when she goes for her private interview afterward, I’ll hope the “message” he receives from me sounds something like all the things I so desperately want to say…

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Weekly Prompt Story: Tunnel

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/02/12/weekly-challenge-303-tunnel/


Tunnel
By Chris Munroe

“See that light at the end of the tunnel?” Ben Affleck asked.

He was a professional, and he could do this. He was an actor, actors do their job without editorial, and he’d manage.

It just didn’t seem fair.

He owned an Oscar. An Oscar for screenwriting. To be reduced to dialogue like this…

But it was his own fault. He should’ve demanded a complete script, but he’d signed on to make the movie because Daredevil was awesome, and it was too late to back out.

It was time to finish his line.

“That’s not heaven, that’s the A train.”

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Exercise


Whenever I see a cop, I run away.

And I don’t mean I run a little. Nor do I mean I subtly make my exit.

My eyes go wide, I stop where I am, I let out a little yelp and I book it.

The cops, obviously, give pursuit, and in general they catch me. I’m wrestled to the ground, cuffed, and led to wherever they’ve parked their police car.

They wind up having to let me go each time, of course, I’m not wanted for any crime.

I just need a source of aerobic exercise.

And a little excitement.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Weekly Prompt Story: A

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/02/05/weekly-challenge-302-a/


A
By Chris Munroe

Plan A is to come up with something completely new. Something that’ll shed new light on the human condition.

I’ll use my words and the perspective of my life experiences to craft a piece of work filled with relatable characters in realistic situations addressing concerns that effect us every day.

In doing so, I’ll change the way we see ourselves, and hopefully put how we treat one another into better perspective.

Plan B is a hodgepodge of dated pop-culture references and nonsequiters designed to invoke nostalgia as I gently mock already familiar targets…

We’ll see which film gets funding first.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Immortality

After dinner I retired to the living room, where I proceeded to live forever.

At first it was magnificent, never aging, never worrying my lifestyle might catch up with me. But after I’d buried the last of my friends and loved ones a sense of ennui set in.

I found myself becoming distant from the mass of humanity as I watched empires rise and fall and mountains gradually crumble into the sea.

By the time the sun finally went nova, I couldn’t even bring myself to care…

But I fear I’ve gotten ahead of myself.

The dinner itself was delicious.