Weekly Prompt Story: Cranberries

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26792

Assumptions Based on the Prompt “Cranberries”

By Christopher Munroe

American Thanksgiving!

Right?

I assume that’s what the prompt means.

I don’t understand how American holidays are structured, honestly. Our thanksgiving is your Columbus Day? I think?

Your football’s different than ours too, and it’s nearly impossible to get a proper Ceaser down there…

…and don’t get me started on baseball. If you want to watch a sport where a thing gets hit with a stick, watch hockey like normal people!

Ah well, at least your “hit-thing-with-stick” sport isn’t Cricket. I have zero idea how Cricket works…

But I digress.

My point is, it’s American Thanksgiving! Probably!

So: Thanks, Americans!

Notes

Desperation sets in the moment he realizes there’s no way out of the room, and his eyes go wide.

He’s already verified that the door, locked tightly from the other side, is too thick to batter down, and the room’s lack of windows or features of any sort makes it impossible to even consider other methods of escape. The floor is concrete, the ceiling equally so, the walls solid brick once he chips away enough of the plaster to see them. He doesn’t know how he got into the room, but he knows he’ll never leave, under his own power, at least.

And so: In sets Desperation.

Within minutes he’s screaming, within hours his fists have been torn bloody as they pound upon the walls, his voice hoarse as he calls, then threatens, then begs for release.

He’ll die of thirst in a matter of days, but by then he’ll most likely be mad, driven so by the combination of hopelessness and confusion that helplessness and lack of answers brings.

He’ll be a shell of a man, in a corner, babbling to himself. Just like all the other subjects I’ve put into this room for observation.

It’s disappointing, in its way.

People speak so highly of the power of the human spirit.

I have yet to observe it first hand…

Weekly Prompt Story: Community

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26781

Our Community

By Christopher Munroe

I’m proud of the community we’ve created.

We built replicants, from scratch, then programmed them to believe they were actual people, before dropping them into a perfect recreation of an early twenty-first century town.

In this recreation, they work, strive and live, believing themselves to be real human beings, believing their actions to matter in the grand scheme...

Believing nobody’s watching, taking notes.

There’s more conflict than we predicted, but they manage it among themselves, and to date the results we’ve gotten back have been… useful.

We’ve learned a lot, through their simulated lives, about how people lived back then…

Eternity

There is no way to know for certain when your time will come.

Or if, for that matter.

Yes, it is true that every other human life to this moment in history has, barring one or two exceptions depending on your religion, come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that yours will, necessarily.

You might be the first, or one of a lucky few, who simply lives forever, watching empires rise and fall and mountains crash inevitably into the sea, meeting people and losing them in the blink of an eye, kept from getting truly close to anyone by the dispiriting knowledge of their oncoming demise, one which looks from your perspective of millennia as though it looms just around the corner.

Completely, utterly, eternally alone you will walk through the ages, unable to free yourself even by that icy abyss as immortality itself acts as your prison, your Hades, your purgatory.

Wait, did I say “lucky” earlier? Actually, that sounds quite horrible.

And don’t get me started on how bad it would be were your eternal life not to come with eternal youth.

I shudder to think.

So bearing this in mind, allow me to begin again from where we started…

There is no way to know for certain when your time will come.

Or if, for that matter.

So all you can do, in the end, is hope…

Weekly Prompt Story: Bank

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26757

On the Process of Memory

By Christopher Munroe

Every moment of my life, everything that matters, every face and name, good time and bad, everything I do still need to know.

The moments that, as a whole, have made me “Me”, and all I’ve learned and lived and loved and done, each thing I’ve wanted, every failure and success, every thing I’ve tried to do…

…I keep them near me at all times, close to me, dear to me, easily at hand should the time come when I need them, at my fingertips.

They’re spray-painted across the very walls of this fine city.

For I… Am Memory Banksey!!!

At 3am...

I splash cold water onto my face, breathing deeply, and stare at myself in the mirror, taking three long breaths to get myself back under control.

I am alone in the house, I am not having a panic attack.

I’m not.

I do not have to worry, I’m just naturally panicked, I’m a little brittle and that’s okay. Lots of people are brittle some of the time, and with the year I’ve had it’s natural I’d have a weak moment now and again.

It’s okay to be a little brittle, so long as you don’t let it control you, so long as you don’t give in to panic. I splash more water and grip the sink with both hands, to steady my nerves.

I am in control of my nerves, you see, and brittle isn’t broken. I know there is no need to be afraid.

“I am alone in the house.” I tell myself in a whisper, staring at myself in the mirror, alone in the reflection I find.

“Yes,” comes a voice from behind me, “You are.”

Weekly Prompt Story: Brain

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26744

The Perfect Team

By Christopher Munroe

We’re the perfect team, if you think about it.

Me, the brains, you, the one doing what I say without question.

In fact, maybe you shouldn’t bother thinking about it.

Take my word for it.

We’re the perfect team.

And, once this day is over, thanks to you, I’ll be rich.

You’ll be either dead or imprisoned and, upon questioning, you’ll realize I never even gave you my name.

But that’s not important right now.

What’s important is that you trust me, and do what I say without question.

That’s the way this team works.

Got it?

Good.

Let’s roll…

The Week After

In celebration of Halloween, I filled my apartment with spiders.

As one does.

And the webs they spun, I must admit, proved very festive. Overall, I have no complaint as to the quality of cobweb they provided, A+, 10 out of 10, would cobweb again. My guests were duly impressed by my décor and everyone found the whole place downright spooktacular.

I cannot stress this enough, I have zero complaints about the way my place was decorated for Halloween by the infestation of actual spiders I inflicted upon my home.

It’s just that now…

It’s not Halloween anymore, you see, and the spiders are still here, and however much time I spend clearing away cobwebs there always seems to be more by the end of the day.

I’ve tried spraying, but it’s done nothing. I don’t know where they’re hiding, where they’re laying their eggs, but there seems to be more of them every day, skittering out of the way when the lights come on, cleverly avoiding my tread as I walk through the place, and at night…

…at night I feel them crawling, crawling 'cross my skin. Ten thousand tiny legs caressing my body as they swarm me, covering every inch of me, up over my torso and onto my face and into my mouth…

…oh God, into my mouth.

I wake up now, most nights, screaming and spitting out spiders, afraid I’ll never get a full night’s sleep again, afraid that this will soon drive me mad if I can’t find a way to get rid of them, afraid of where they might be laying their eggs. There are moments where I catch myself believing  that this place is their true home, not mine, and that it is I who am the interloper in their sanctuary. But this is madness, surely? It has been but a week since I allowed them in, they cannot have made the place their own so completely in so short a time?

In my mind I know this to be true. But in my heart? In my heart I do despair that this tale has only one ending, and that it is not an ending that I will survive.

Bearing this in mind, I cannot give your “Spider Infestation Service” the full five stars. I hope that you will understand.

4.5 stars out of 5

Weekly Prompt Story: X

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26687

On Problem Solving

By Chris Munroe

Good morning, class. Today’s assignment; Solve for X.

Because X demands solutions, and X won’t be trifled with when it comes to getting what he wants.

And, as you know, X, or “The Mysterious Dr. X” as he prefers to be called, does have your loved ones hostage, meaning that you will not want to fail him.

You will not want to fail him.

Oh no.

The Mysterious Dr. X is not a man to be trifled with, as those who have come upon him will be only too quick to tell you.

He will not be failed.

So: Solve.