Category: Four Elements Prompts

Well, Astrid Thought

  1. k-avatarCharacter – cancer patient
  2. Setting – airplane bathroom
  3. Object – bullwhip
  4. Situation – talent show of the damned

Well, Astrid thought, if this isn’t good enough for the top prize I’ll raise a grievance with the judges. She adjusted the flaps and prepared to reverse thrust. The 747 touched tarmac and majestically slowed until it taxied all the way into the hangar.

Only then did Astrid coil her bullwhip and emerge from the bathroom. She strode up the aisle into first class, where the judges sat, and took a bow to light applause.

I hope I place, she thought. Only the three best contestants get chemo.

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Cerise Surveyed the Interior of the Zeppelin Gondola

  1. by jenCharacter – ghost of a bartender
  2. Setting – zeppelin
  3. Object – used condom
  4. Situation – performance art

Cerise surveyed the interior of the zeppelin gondola with some amusement. This was going to be her best installation yet.

Of course, the zeppelin itself symbolized the hopes and wishes of an earlier, less ironically self-aware society. Once its interior was wallpapered with used condoms collected through a year’s worth of dumpster-diving and hard, artistic sex, it would sing. Cerise couldn’t wait to get started.

She hauled the crate of prophylactics up the stairs and set it heavily on the bar. She hoped she had enough staples in the staple gun.

“Remember not to puncture any of the reservoir tips,” she said to herself.

Her words echoed slightly before settling to the floor, and were replaced by a soft scuffing from behind the bar.

Mice would add a certain je ne sais quoi to the statement she was trying to express, so Cerise wasn’t too worried.

“What’ll it be, lady?” came a raspy whisper.

Cerise startled and then saw a vaporous human form behind the bar. He was dressed in a vest and bow-tie, with his shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows. He shimmered and wavered as he went through the motions of polishing a glass.

“Damn!” said Cerise. “This completely overshadows the complex interplay of hope, death, globalism, and ecology I was going for!”

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“Get On With It!”

  1. k-avatarCharacter – morose existentialist
  2. Setting – rowboat
  3. Object – bottle of champagne, box of saltines, jar of caviar, bag of pork rinds, candy cane
  4. Situation – first day at the new job

“Get on with it!” Vernon’s irritation had overflowed the vessel he kept it in, and he  shouted everything he said. “Launch the goddamn boat!”

Maurice grasped the neck of the magnum of Dom Perignon, half-lidded eyes directed at the prow of the boat. The “Cygnet” rested in dry dock awaiting her maiden voyage. This morning, Maurice had begun his new job of christening each new vessel assembled by Barking Brothers’ Boatworks, and this twelve-foot rowboat would be his third launch.

The Vice-Presidents of Sales and Operations sat aboard the Cygnet, eating caviar on saltines, while Vernon Barking munched pork rinds and Vincent Barking sucked a candy cane.

“Smash the bottle!” Vernon screamed, showering all with porcine crumbs.

Maurice sighed. “Are not all our moments like the christening of a ship? Each breath, an uncertain endeavor in what could be a leaky deathtrap?”

He swung the bottle listlessly and jolted the Cygnet from her moorings, and she capsized amid the shrieks of corporate executives.

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“I Never Should Have Gone To That Frat Party”

  1. by jenCharacter – recently hypnotized male college student
  2. Setting – whorehouse
  3. Object – large pink balloon with 25 live bees inside
  4. Situation – servicing the addiction

“I never should have gone to that frat party,” Josh grumbled. The situation he found himself in grew stranger and more worrisome by the second. Josh tried to remember what had happened.

At Kappa Delta Rho house, the brothers had decided to try something different. Instead of a band, which inevitably led to noise citations, they hired a hypnotist for entertainment. Josh thought that it was supposed to be the girls who were hypnotized out of their inhibitions (and clothes), but he wound up being one of the first “volunteers.”

Next thing he knew, he was here, wearing a frilly, pink and white teddy and holding an oversized pink balloon.

And now the balloon was buzzing.

Josh gave the balloon a shake and the buzzing grew angrier. Something inside thumped against the taut membrane. Josh frantically ripped at the white ribbon which connected it to his arm, to no avail.

The red velvet wallpaper and faux-fur bedspread added to Josh’s unease, as did the rhythmic creaking of bedsprings and regular grunts from the other side of the wall.

Josh drew his knees up to his chest and hugged himself, the balloon bobbing just above his head.

Moments later a hidden door opened and two people entered. One was a middle-aged woman in a long silky robe and fluffy, high-heeled slippers. The other was the university president, wearing a cowboy outfit.

“Thank you, Miss Kitty. This one looks mighty purty,” the president said.

“Don’t you go hurtin’ this one, Tex,” the madam replied.

“I won’t, I won’t. Are all the bees in there?”

Josh glanced worriedly at his balloon.

“All 25,” the madam said, and left the room, closing the door behind her.

The university president peered down at Josh while slipping out of his spangly, fringed shirt. “Well now, Missy. There’s no need to be so worried. As soon as I get my bee fix, we’ll get down to business.” He popped the balloon.

Josh screamed.

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Dr Clamdigger Strolled in the Gentle Surf

  1. k-avatarCharacter – oversexed physics professor
  2. Setting – tropical island
  3. Object – wasp
  4. Situation – splitting headache

Dr Clamdigger strolled in the gentle surf, admiring the student body. She acted aloof, but he knew she was admiring him, too, as she lay propped up on a towel halfway up the beach.

Yes, teaching physics at Cayman U was a great gig.

Dr Clamdigger altered course and placed his prodigious shadow over the coed’s bikini-clad torso (and, for the most part, her legs).

“You’re blocking the sun,” she protested petulantly.

“Impossible,” Dr Clamdigger said. “The sun is a star, a seething fusion reactor, while I am,” he ran his hand down his hirsute belly, “but flesh.”

“Well, Skipper –”

“That’s Professor!”

“– whatever. You might want to move.”

“So you can work on your tan lines?”

A volleyball ricocheted off Dr Clamdigger’s head. He swayed, but the sunbathing student didn’t flinch.

“Yeah, that too.”

Dr Clamdigger staggered into the waves and collapsed, not hearing the calls of, “Dude! Little help? That’s our ball!”

As the warm salt water lapped at his sides, Dr Clamdigger saw his nemesis chatting up the pretty student. It was Professor Henderson, showing off his pet wasps again.

Damn entomologists get all the chicks.

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It Wasn’t Often

  1. by jenCharacter – small-town cop
  2. Setting – the Concorde
  3. Object – camcorder
  4. Situation – sending telegrams

It wasn’t often that I got out of Hicksville, so this vacation was proving to be a real eye-opener. New York City had been intimidating enough, but now, here I was, zooming across the Atlantic faster than the speed of sound. When we landed we’d be in France. Holy smokes!

I thought back to my turn in the limelight, my 15 minutes of fame on that game show Bet Ya Can’t! My time in the Boy Scouts and my police training kept my Morse Code skills sharp, and I had been the first contestant to successfully receive a telegram and send an appropriate response. That’s how I won the grand prize – a trip to Europe on the Concorde, and a brand new camcorder!

Yee Haw!

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In the Darkened Room

  1. k-avatarCharacter – Russian game show host
  2. Setting – behind enemy lines
  3. Object – model trail
  4. Situation – seance

In the darkened room, objects moved though on one was touching them. Some of this was due to the tanks rumbling by, and some due to spirit activity.

The medium and the game show host sat on opposite sides of the small table. Gradually all fell silent.

“Are you here, Mikhail?” the medium asked softly.

There was a rapping sound from the table. “Comrade Bagski, you may talk to Mikhail.”

“Well, Mikhail, answer this one right and you win the model train. Ready?”

The table rose and began to twirl.

“Good! Okay, rap once for true and twice for false: The Romanovs got what they deserved.”

Two distinct rapping sounds were heard.

“Correct!”

The medium was troubled.

“Comrade, isn’t this a very touchy subject for a game?”

Bagski brushed it off.

“It’s the people’s model train anyway, he can’t keep it.”

“For a couple of reasons.”

A sudden bomb-burst shook dust from the ceiling and halted conversation.

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The Crowd Was Getting Ugly

  1. by jenCharacter – politician
  2. Setting – theatre
  3. Object – CD
  4. Situation – police intervention

The crowd was getting ugly. Murmuring became grumbling, then hissing and catcalls. This was bad. I looked in desperation to my Secret Service agents, but they just smiled bemusedly. My damn advisers were wrong. No one was going for my new tax plan. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became. This was a set-up.

A bottle broke at my feet. A plastic cup flew past my head. My Secret Service agents disappeared. Emboldened, the crowd threw more garbage. And shoes. And lunch bags. Even a CD, which smacked me in the forehead.

As my blood began to trickle, they went wild and rushed the podium. My football days weren’t so long ago, and I darted backstage. Trying to blend with the foot traffic outside, I slipped down the block to a movie theatre. I dashed to the box office.

“One for Police Intervention,” I said, and hurried inside.

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Clyde Stalked

  1. Character – photojournalist
  2. Setting – Niagara Falls
  3. Object – lunar rock
  4. Situation – first time shoplifting

Clyde stalked into Ripka’s Take It or Leave It, just too distant to really hear the falls (although you could still feel it) and therefor not prime tourist-trap real estate (though still expensive). He glanced around, failing to note the young lady with the sophisticated camera chatting up the proprietor. His dutiful ritual of theatrical skulking discharged, Clyde sidled over to a row of trinket bins. He pocketed a keychain with a tiny plastic barrel fob, complete with the grinning head protruding from one end. Next he pilfered a handful of random gray stones, vaguely pumicey and, for no rational reason, billed as “lunar.” He smiled wanly as the young woman focused the camera on him. As the shop owner stepped to block his exit, the photographer said, “You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

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Turkish Delight Worried The Bullwhip

  1. by jenCharacter – porn star named Turkish Delight
  2. Setting – Loch Ness
  3. Object – bullwhip
  4. Situation – midlife crisis

Turkish Delight worried the bullwhip in her leather-gloved hands. Where on earth was the director? This was going to be her big break, the movie that showcased her acting skills along with her enormous breasts and insatiable appetite for kinky sex. Desmond had assured her it would be tastefully done, but now no one could find him.

Her costars tried to convince her that the cameraman could be relied on to bring the vision to fruition, but Del just didn’t trust him the way she trusted Desmond.

They had flown all the way to Scotland to film the special scenes with Nessie yesterday. It had been freezing, absolutely freezing, but Del had lived up to her end of the deal. Last night Desmond just kept staring at her. He couldn’t even get it up.

He must be having a midlife crisis, Del decided.

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