Category: Stichomancy Prompts

“Time’s A-Wasting, General”

  • by Kentpartially filled with wine
  • does not mean I can’t recognize a sad French clown when I see one
  • running towards us with a test-tube in his hand
  • “Who says I have intentions?”
  • over and done with before happy hour

Tune in next time part 374      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“Time’s a-wasting, General,” my wife said. “Eat up. I want to have this over and done with before happy hour.”

I looked at the grapes, knowing it had been she who arranged them to spell that message. “Think of your station, Fleur. This is a public place. Perhaps not an ideal venue for me to comply with your intentions.”

“Who says I have intentions?”

“I do,” I replied wearily. I gestured to the plate in front of me. “And the grapes back me up on it.” I sighed. “And with the way my luck has been lately, we’ll no sooner get started than some zealot will come running towards us with a test-tube in his hand, trying to intercept my delivery.”

“You are no doubt correct,” Fleur surprised me by saying. “It will be him, the spy I pointed out to you. I haven’t been to Paris in many years, and of course he’s wiped away his face paint, but all of that does not mean I can’t recognize a sad French clown when I see one.”

The last clown I’d seen up close had been Titania, who was neither sad nor French, at least not when she left.

“Eat the grapes, husband. You’ll like them. Being grown in the Inimical vineyards, they are already partially filled with wine.”

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“About Those Mountain Garrisons”

  • by jenWhenever I eat grapes near her
  • the pantsless hug thing
  • ring of dried blood
  • decorated with blue, pink, yellow, and green frosting
  • wiggled my fingers at him

Tune in next time part 373      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“About those mountain garrisons,” I said, ready to embrace my new military responsibilities.

“They are in the Paradoxica region, on the three-way border between Contraria, Harmonia, and Melodia,” Fleur said. “Far, far away from here. Sit down, General. It’s time for the fruit course.”

As a general I had to obey the Warlord’s daughter, and as her husband doubly so. I sat in the empty chair between Fleur and Isolde, and moments later a parade of waiters carried out trays and trays laden with grapes of every size and color. Fleur’s blue eyes grew hooded. My wife has a very particular fetish. Whenever I eat grapes near her, she has the uncontrollable need to do the pantsless hug thing. You know — sex.

After my very recent assignations with Olga and the Crystal Clown, I wasn’t sure I was up for what she undoubtedly had in mind. Perhaps I could decline the grapes. Their mere proximity was probably not enough to get her fired up.

Isolde scooped up a handful of plump maroon Inimical grapes and began to feed them to Harry. He was not a neat eater, and their juice soon made it look like he had a ring of dried blood around his froggy mouth. I shuddered and chanced a look at my wife.

Fleur had arranged a platter of grapes in front of me. The luscious fruits were decorated with blue, pink, yellow, and green frosting, in the Inimical fashion, and arranged to spell out the words “Eat Me, General.”

“I’m quite exhausted Fleur,” I murmured to her. “And you’ve so recently given birth.”

“You see that man over there in the sequined bodysuit?” she replied in a low, breathy voice, pointing across the restaurant at a slim, silver-haired man who was indeed dressed for the circus. “He’s a spy.”

“A spy?” He certainly wasn’t dressed to blend in.

“I know it to be true because I wiggled my fingers at him in a way that most people would take to be a wave, but which was really the Acrobat’s Code, and his eyebrow twitched, so obviously he’s a spy.”

“Or he had a tic.”

“He’s a spy,” she said forcefully. “We must provide a distraction. Now eat your grapes. That’s an order.”

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The Alleged Beverage Harry Handed to Me

  • by Kentexcept for their own wives
  • and it caused… issues
  • First of all, go fuck yourself
  • mementos of that intimacy
  • I had stuff to do.

Tune in next time part 372      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The alleged beverage Harry handed to me had a strange, vaguely medicinal aroma. The froth made a snakelike hiss. The glass seemed to be growing colder in my hand.

“Tell me about this drink, Harry.”

“The world-renowned Inimical Gin and Tonic,” he proclaimed promptly, like he’d hoped I would ask. “The bartenders share the exact recipe with no one except for their own wives, who had to be let in on it by decree because the bartenders otherwise had to keep secrets from them and it caused… issues.”

“But the approximate recipe would be gin and tonic?” I pressed.

“First of all, go fuck yourself, sir. And second of all, that’s inimical gin and inimical tonic, in mysterious yet precise proportions. Each night, the bottles are stored together in a particular geometry according to ancient tradition, a secret stacking method that brings them nearer to one another. The richness of the flavors and the crispness of the effervescence are mementos of that intimacy.”

“Sounds very strong,” I said. Harry smiled thinly. “And I’d hate to start issuing commands with my judgment impaired.” I set the glass on the table. Harry seethed at me, but I couldn’t worry about that right now. I was a general, and I had stuff to do.

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“You Need a Hat”

  • by jenwith a turned-up nose, and rather turned-in legs
  • got to the edge of a very big wood
  • Oh God, Paul. Elevators!
  • a circular muddy mark
  • We can have the ceremony at once

Tune in next time part 371      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“You need a hat,” Fleur said. “Contrarian generals always have hats.” She deftly folded her white linen napkin into an origami hat that rather resembled a paper boat. “Perfect!” She held it aloft. “We can have the ceremony at once.”

“But a white hat,” said Harry. “Surely not.”

“Quiet, Harry,” Fleur said. “You’re just upset because my husband will outrank you.”

Harry pouted froggily under Isolde’s doting gaze.

Fleur directed me to kneel, plopped the napkin hat on my head, and used coffee grounds to make a circular muddy mark on my lapel. “This insignia shows your rank, General. Congratulations.”

I bowed my head to kiss her hand, careful not to let my hat slip off. I felt rather ridiculous in my new getup, like a country bumpkin arriving in the big city for the first time. The type of rube who would be amazed by the most mundane things. “Oh God, Paul. Elevators! Like in the movies!” That sort of thing.

“Ooo Harry!” Isolde cooed. “You should buy your commanding officer a drink!”

With a prodigious scowl, Harry stood from the table and marched across the restaurant until he got to the edge of a very big wooden bar that was on the opposite side of the fountain from where we were seated. He returned shortly with a turned-up nose, and rather turned-in legs that accentuated his toad-like qualities. With a curt salute he handed me a tall glass full of a frothy green substance. It didn’t smell like anything I’d ever encountered before. Could I trust that he wasn’t trying to poison me?

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I Told Fleur Everything

  • by Kentbecause nobody is willing to deal with it
  • I stole the shopping bag
  • you also have to get naked
  • a feature sorely missing in regular marriage
  • , so that’s ominous

Tune in next time part 370      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I told Fleur everything I knew about the situation, vis-a-vis my semen, and in the telling it was a tale that felt like a mere list of other women I’d had sex with recently. If any of this bothered my wife, she didn’t let it show.

“The ones who seem to almost know what they’re doing are Tessa’s sisters,” I concluded. “Titania, aka the Crystal Clown, in particular seemed very confident.”

“Ugh,” Fleur said, “this kind of conspiracy just spirals out of control because nobody is willing to deal with it. You don’t need to worry, Hubby dear. Your spunk won’t tip the balance of world power. It’s all a big misunderstanding.” She chewed her nail, staring into space. “This all began fifty years ago, when Rinaldo XI stole the shopping bag where Rinaldo X was keeping the ceremonial cufflinks. Who could have predicted that it would lead to you, and your baby batter.”

Isolde said, “The soothsayers should have known. But to survive as a soothsayer you need to know which visions to keep to yourself. And, you also have to get naked out in the snow all the time, so a hardy constitution helps, too. Come to think of it, are any of the soothsayers still surviving?”

No one seemed to know.

“So, you’re telling me there’s nothing to worry about with the mimes and the clowns and who knows who else all fighting over my… output?”

She took too long to answer. So, there was something to it. “The fact that they believe they can weaponize it is potentially destabilizing.”

“Weaponize it?”

“So they think. But it’s just a myth, something borne of rumor and innuendo that’s taken on a life of its own. I mean, your sperm count must be through the roof, it would seem, but otherwise it’s just normal stuff.”

The waiter returned with clothes for me. A red uniform much like the one he wore, only fancier. The jacket had gold epaulets.

“Perfect!” Fleur said. “I was about to make you a general, so now you’ll look the part.”

The ability to confer rank onto her spouse was one of the nicer aspects of our royal marriage, and a feature sorely missing in regular marriage.

“All of the mountain garrisons are now under your command,” she went on. “Well, as soon as you change your clothes. Come now, don’t be shy.”

Harry scowled around a mouthful of cheese while I stripped off the soggy morning suit. But Isolde barely glanced at me, so his jealousy seemed misplaced. The dry clothes felt nice, even if they did make me look more like a bellhop than a military commander.

“Incidentally,” Fleur mumbled, “no one has heard from anyone at the mountain garrisons for several months, so that’s ominous. Don’t worry over that, though. Just don’t let the vying factions form an alliance against Contraria.”

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The Blue Panda Swayed

  • by jenmud of an Alabama bayou
  • protective layers of bubble wrap
  • undergarments, sneakers
  • on the right thumb
  • discard his signature footwear

Tune in next time part 369      Click Here for Earlier Installments

The blue panda swayed from side to side, crooning “Hush Little Baby” in a southern accent thicker than the mud of an Alabama bayou. My twins, strapped to his chest, cooed and burbled. I had no idea my brother Jim had such a way with infants.

While Harry gathered up the cheese and shoved it into his toad-like mouth with a great deal of lip-smacking, Fleur snapped her fingers for the waiter. When he arrived at the table she said, “You will procure several protective layers of bubble wrap and use it to fashion carrying harnesses for these four babies.” She turned to me. “It was very foresighted of you to conceive these children. They will make splendid additions to my royal brood. Of course they are outside the line of succession, and must remain unnamed until after our twins get their names several months or years from now.”

“Of course,” I said. Having the quads raised in the Contrarian court meant they would be well-protected, which was an enormous relief to me.

Fleur finished feeding the second set of babies and handed them to a nearby busboy. She buttoned up her top and turned back to me. “Your morning suit is a disgrace.”

“It looks exactly like the one my husband wore at my wedding!” Isolde simpered, “Only dirtier and much, much damper.” Harry nearly choked on his cheese.

I thought of Isolde on her wedding night, when I’d acted as proxy husband. She’d danced for me wearing only undergarments, sneakers, and a ring on the right thumb, her left thumb as nude as the rest of her soon became.

Fleur snapped again and another waiter scurried over. “Get my husband something dry to wear,” she said. “And discard his signature footwear into the incinerator.” Once more she turned her attention to me. “Now what’s this you were bellowing about your ejaculate?”

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I Held the Two Quadruplets

  • by Kentnot going to have fingers covered in cheese juice
  • the human mind can imagine
  • dragged him beneath the water
  • hurrying to and fro in the corridors or gesticulating
  • take it easy baby

Tune in next time part 368      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I held the two quadruplets not being nursed, who complained at high decibels, which woke the twins strapped to the blue panda. They joined the caterwauling and made the din almost intolerable.

“Fleur,” I said, “we need to discuss a matter of national security.” She made a pinched face and shook her head. “There’s a plot of some kind,” I said louder, but she still couldn’t seem to hear me. “Various factions have, very suddenly, taken an interest in my ejaculate,” I shouted.

Harry bellowed, “I, for one, am not going to have fingers covered in cheese juice.” At that exact moment, Fleur passed the two quads she’d fed over to Isolde, and beckoned for me to hand her the others. Thus, the rotating restaurant had just fallen silent apart from his odd remark to Isolde. The human mind can imagine connections between any two random events, but something about the hostile gleam in Harry’s eye convinced me that his utterance had been somehow for my benefit.

A moment later, toad-like Harry hopped up from his seat and intercepted a waiter who was passing the large fountain in the center of the restaurant. Harry seized the startled server by his cummerbund and dragged him beneath the water.

Isolde shrieked, “Harry!”

I moved toward the fountain with the idea of rescuing the waiter, but Harry was already hauling him back up.

“Next time, don’t be so late with the cheese course!” Harry scolded his dripping victim. “I don’t care if it requires hurrying to and fro in the corridors or gesticulating to one another across the kitchen, you’ll do it!” Flecks of spittle adorned Harry’s drooping mustache.

“Harry,” Isolde cooed, “take it easy baby. We’re not in a hurry.”

“I like cheese,” Harry croaked. “I just really, really like cheese.”

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You Know How

  • by jenif you are mind-controlled
  • escaping from his own thoughts
  • that inescapable sappy love ballad
  • “You remind me of a boxer I used to know.”
  • We’re all adults here.

Tune in next time part 367      Click Here for Earlier Installments

You know how, if you are mind-controlled, your thoughts are fuzzy and you feel like a man who is overusing drink as a way of escaping from his own thoughts? That’s how I felt, watching the Crystal Clown and her comical steed Nigel disappear down the beach. My brain was in a fog, but I knew not whether it was hormonal in nature, or due to exhaustion, or if Titania had perhaps poisoned me with an infernal clown toxin. My brothers Jove and Jupiter were both married to clowns, but I had always avoided their ilk as bedmates. One hears so many tales of clown treachery, it seemed wisest to avoid joining any in a compromising position. And yet I had just spent the past hour joined in several of the most compromising of positions with the deadliest clown I’d ever heard of. I counted myself lucky to be alive.

My journey back to my senses was hastened by a quartet of crying infants, as my newborn sons awoke from their naps. I quickly donned my soggy morning suit, and scooped the children into my arms. I assumed they were hungry, but I had nothing to feed them. I settled for singing to them, hoping the lullaby would soothe them for a short while. But I couldn’t remember a single lullaby and had to resort to that inescapable sappy love ballad from Titanic. You know the one.

One of my sons, the chubby bruiser on the left, socked me in the nose with his tiny fist. I chuckled at his grit and said, “You remind me of a boxer I used to know.”

Shortly I made my way back to the zeppelin docking spire. I hoped Fleur was still there in the restaurant at the top, and yet I hoped she wasn’t. It would be incredibly awkward, and perhaps even dangerous, to introduce her to these infant sons of mine. I could only hope that she would take pity on them and feed them, as I was incapable of doing.

The elevator ride to the top of the spire was long, and when I emerged into the rotating restaurant, the babies were once again fussing. Fleur and Isolde and their retinue were easy to spot, as they were the only customers in the place. From the looks of the dishes on the table, they’d barely made it to the 5th course, which left plenty of courses to go.

The first person to spot me was Harry, Isolde’s husband. As attractive as I found Isolde, it was a relief to no longer need to act as her proxy husband. My life was complicated enough at the moment. Harry nudged his wife, who nudged her sister. Fleur looked up from her plate of escargot caramels and spotted me, sandy, damp, and bedecked with infants that were not hers. Her eyebrows arched. With a flick of her wrist she signaled the maître d’ to escort me to her table. Harry bristled and wrapped his arm around Isolde, who sat open-mouthed.

All I could think to say was, “We’re all adults here.”

“Well obviously not,” Fleur said. “Those are babies you’re holding, you idiot, and they look hungry. Hand them to me two at a time, and I shall feed them.” She started to unbutton her top. “And while I do that you can feed me my escargot and explain to me just where these children came from. The last I saw, you were leaving in the elevator with an extremely rotund man.” Her eyes grew wide. “Are these the prophesied Seahorse Children?”

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Titania Seemed, For the Moment at Least

  • by Kent“Go, Nigel, go!”
  • kiss it with a sister’s kiss
  • whose reputation, I am sorry to say, was none of the best
  • the house smells like dodgeballs
  • include tortoises, elephants, fish, crickets, beetles, chickens and

Tune in next time part 366      Click Here for Earlier Installments

Titania seemed, for the moment at least, non-murderous and in the mood for chit-chat. Of course, if her mood shifted I would be a dead man. I decided to push my luck, just a little.

“Now that you’ve got it, can you tell me what it is? I’d love to understand what the fuss is all about.”

She wagged her finger at me. “That’s a trade secret. But, I guess there’s no harm in sharing a few interesting details. The special substance in your semen is not useful on its own, but must be combined with exotic biochemical agents sourced from other animals that include tortoises, elephants, fish, crickets, beetles, chickens and cobras. I can always tell when Tesla and Tallulah have been tinkering with the recipe, because the house smells like dodgeballs.”

Did she mean the house on Gratin Avenue? The one where Tessa grew up, on the forest-shrouded lot whose reputation, I am sorry to say, was none of the best?

Nah, it was probably some other house.

Titania rolled onto all fours, dropping me a wink over her shoulder as she crawled up the beach a few yards. She plunged her hand deep into the dry sand there and hauled out a black and white backpack. She stood up and put it on, still naked otherwise. “Well,” she said, “this has really been fun, but it’s time for me to get back to the place on Gratin Avenue to complete the formula!” She turned her head to kiss the shoulder strap. To kiss it with a sister’s kiss, which triggered the nanotech fabric of her backpack. It flowed over her skin to form a sort of leotard, and last of all a hard, faceted mask came up over the top of her head and settled over her face.

She took a small red sphere out of a hidden pocket, and stuck it on her nose. She gave it a pinch, releasing a shrill beep.

A strange creature galloped from behind a nearby dune. It took me a second to identify it as two people in a horse costume. The Crystal Clown leapt upon them, crying, “Go, Nigel, go!” and they sped off in a cloud of sand.

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“I Thought You Would Have Guessed By Now”

  • by jenstuffed with bears
  • a confusion of alternating nightmare and oblivion
  • some crazy hallucinations
  • but a pretext for murders, raids, and pillage
  • on her head

Tune in next time part 365      Click Here for Earlier Installments

“I thought you would have guessed by now,” my most recent paramour said with a lazy smile. “I’m Titania.”

My blood ran cold and my heart felt as if it were stuffed with bears scrambling to escape. Titania! The name brought a confusion of alternating nightmare and oblivion, like the worst acid trips of my youth. You yourself may have endured some crazy hallucinations, but I assure you they were nothing compared to what I was currently enduring.

Titania was the sister they never spoke of, the one who scandalized her family and the entire Academy by turning her back on her heritage and embracing the circus life. She’d given up her true name and was known now as the Crystal Clown, and all of her merry antics were but a pretext for murders, raids, and pillage. There was a substantial price on her head, and here she was, lolling naked beside me on the beach. Her proximity to my children filled me with terror.

The Crystal Clown’s smile grew less lazy. “Don’t get so worked up. I got what I came for.”

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