Category: Stichomancy Prompts

There Is A Trick

  • by Kentbetween the second and third toes
  • coated with motor oil
  • “That’s Charlie.”
  • sprang upon me with a jeweled dagger
  • please take my hand

Tune in next time part 202                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

There is a trick to climbing up a metal pole. There are probably many tricks, but the one they taught me at the Academy consisted of a special way to grasp it between the second and third toes, which hurt like hell and meant, usually, carrying your shoes and socks in your mouth. This time that trick was no help anyway, because this pole was coated with motor oil.

I could still hear the pillow talk of Jim and the one-legged woman, but could no longer discern their actual words. However, a new voice from the darkness overhead came through clearly.

“Someone opened the lower panel,” the voice said.

“That’s Charlie.”

“You ain’t even looked. And it ain’t Charlie, I promise you.”

“Who else could it be?”

“Come look, and then you tell me.”

“Hey,” I called softly, “can you help me?” I had no reason to trust them, whoever they were, but they already knew about me so I really had no choice.

“Charlie!” the second voice cried.

“Sure,” I said. “Pull me up?”

“I told you,” the voice went on. “You think I’d forget the face of a man who thrice sprang upon me with a jeweled dagger? You think so? Well, I tell you, I would not.”

“Maybe we ain’t talking about the same Charlie.”

“Could be we’re not. Very likely, in fact.”

A rope reached down from the blackness, swaying and waving as if sniffing around for me. When it came within reach I started to climb. There were few people upon whom I had ever sprung with a jeweled dagger, and most of them only once. I had used numerous aliases over the years, too many to keep them all straight, but I didn’t recall ever telling anybody my name was Charlie. The puzzle pieces didn’t all fit, but I had a feeling I was going to recognize the owner of at least one of these voices.

I hauled myself up the rope in darkness until one of those voices said, “Here, please take my hand.”

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If I Went Back the Way I’d Come

  • by jensitting there, all puckered up
  • there was this guy there
  • surreptitiously unbutton the top of your shirt
  • It was implied.
  • “Truly.”

Tune in next time part 201                           Click Here for Earlier Installments

If I went back the way I’d come I’d end up in the rocket surgery with Jim, the Professor’s girlfriend, and the remains of poor Absinthia. I hated the thought of seeing her sitting there, all puckered up and bloody, so I began to search for another exit. There were no other visible doors, but perhaps there was a hidden passageway. I ran my hands along the walls, feeling for seams, and eavesdropping on Jim’s conversation.

“But who was that guy?” asked a feminine voice, probably the Professor’s one-legged girlfriend.

“What guy?” drawled Jim.

“When I got here with the ransom note, there was this guy there with your sisters!” the woman said. “I saw him!”

“I didn’t see a guy,” Jim lied. Whatever his reasons for lying, he was doing me a favor. I kept up my search. Maybe he was in on the Professor’s kidnapping.

“Don’t you surreptitiously unbutton the top of your shirt at me, Jim,” the woman said. “I’m not going to be distracted by your muscles and all of your sexy chest hair. You can’t seduce your way out of this one.”

“Who says I’m trying to seduce you?” Jim purred.

“It was implied. By the striptease. And by the way you’ve got your hands on my hips now.” She sounded distracted.

“I’d never use sex as a distraction,” Jim said. “Truly.”

I heard kissing noises.

Just then my fingers found a hidden button near the top of the wall, which, when pressed, caused a panel to slide open, revealing a fire pole. The problem was I was standing at the base of it. I peered up into the darkness above, trying to gauge how high it was and whether I had the strength to climb it.

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Special Bonus Double Installment!

Our chain story has been wobbling drunkenly along for close to two years now, lurching from one exotic location to another, and expanding our unnamed protagonist’s bizarre circle of friends and family. Just like we did with part 100, we’re celebrating part 200 by writing it together!

The list of prompt phrases is twice as long as usual, and has, for the first time ever, been drawn exclusively from our own published novels. We think this ups the challenge significantly because we both have the novels pretty much memorized and it will be difficult to put these phrases in an unfamiliar context.

Jen will go first, and as soon as she incorporates the first prompt phrase she’ll hand the keyboard over to Kent. He’ll work until the second snippet is incorporated and then hand it back. And so on. Hopefully we will not come to blows.

  • I know how to break
  • dominated coffeehouse debate
  • bordering on smarmy
  • jocularity and baggy shorts
  • “Enough fucking football metaphors
  • drinking way too much Mountain Dew
  • grinding more than rocking
  • rather large, rather ugly
  • intricate designs along her spine
  • slumped over with wheezing laughter

Tune in next time parts 199 & 200                      Click Here for Earlier Installments

I made it back to Dr Belladonna’s bedroom before I heard any sign of pursuit, and I got the door closed and locked just in time. Jem and Jem stood outside, debating loudly about the proper technique for picking the lock. I know how to break through most hypnotic trances, so I decided to take a chance and let the girls in. I’d be much better off if I could get them on my side and away from Jim.

The soft click when I unlocked the door was enough to shush my sisters. I stepped back, prepping my trance-breaking routine. Theirs could be any of three different forms of hypnosis, each with different weaknesses. The best way to rouse someone from a trance had dominated coffeehouse debate at the academy my junior year, so I had lots of ideas to try out. I just didn’t know how much time I’d have to try them.

“We know you’re up to something, big brother.” Jemma’s voice was unctuous, bordering on smarmy.

“And we know what it is,” added Jemima, brazen confidence in her voice.

“So come at me, sis,” I said playfully. The two common elements in all my anti-hypnosis tactics were jocularity and baggy shorts. Too late, I remembered what I was wearing.

I hurtled across the room like David Beckham, hoping to get to the closet before my sisters took me up on my offer. There had to be some baggy shorts in there somewhere, and if I could get them on quickly enough I could save the day like a goalkeeper stopping a game-winning ball.

“Enough fucking football metaphors!” I grumbled to myself. “I’m not even English!”

A pair of Dr Belladonna’s bloomers would have to suffice. I hauled them on over my pants just as Jem (or Jem) thrust the door open. “You look like you’ve been drinking way too much Mountain Dew!” I declared in what I have to say were surpassingly jocular tones. The girls were unaffected, which meant I’d guessed wrong about the nature of the trance.

They entered the room, moving with the uncanny choreography of twins, even though they were triplets. Their hips swayed in unison, grinding more than rocking, which gave me the vital clue: Jim was using some sort of mind-control drug on them. Something other than Mountain Dew.

Jemma stationed herself in front of me in a feline crouch while Jemima went over to the nightstand and hefted the rather large, rather ugly vase. She squinted at me, lining up her throw.

I timed my move just right. When Jemima hurled the vase, I leapt up and grabbed the chandelier. The hefty piece of porcelain flew right beneath my feet, strewing roses, and hit Jemma square in the chest. She toppled, swearing. The water from the vase quickly saturated her white t-shirt, displaying the intricate designs along her spine and ribcage, the tattoos she’d been given as a child to mark her as the youngest female in our family, and therefore the one promised to the Guild of Fire Eaters.

I pumped my legs to get the chandelier swinging. Jemima looked around for something else to throw at me, and Jemma sprang to her feet, dripping. I timed my next move a bit less perfectly, letting go of the chandelier too soon. Rather than clearing the bed, I landed on it and bounced, my momentum sending me sprawling against the wall to slide down head-first onto the floor. Jem and Jem slumped over with wheezing laughter. My less-than-perfect timing had been perfect after all.

Before they regained their composure, I seized the now-empty nightstand and used it to bash the knob off the door. Darting out, I pulled it shut behind me, trapping them in Absinthia’s boudoir.

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Jem and Jem Tittered

  • by Kentbecause we walk on them all the time
  • joined by the Professor’s girlfriend
  • “You are irresponsible!”
  • meet in the parking lot
  • the limited demands of the animals

Tune in next time part 198                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jem and Jem tittered at my awkwardness.

“We’re good at balancing on corpses,” Jemma said.

“That’s because we walk on them all the time,” added Jemima.

Jim sounded agitated. “We should have been joined by the Professor’s girlfriend by now. That woman is irresponsible.”

“You are irresponsible!” came a shrill shout. A one-legged woman stood on the far side of the room, waving a sheet of paper. “Because of you, the Professor’s been kidnapped!” She held the note still for a moment, and I could read it plainly because the pasted-on letters were so large.

“Bring us acorns and worms! Be ready to meet in the parking lot at dusk. No dogs!”

Jim, Jemma, and Jemima said, in breathy unison, “The squirrels have aligned with the birds.”

I took advantage of their stupor over the limited demands of the animals to leap from the operating table and squelch rapidly out of the room.

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Jim Was Always Coming Up with Outrageous Theories

  • by jenin that gentleman’s widely opened eyes
  • these dashing cardigans
  • Tonight: dinosaurs.
  • Her stomach made fish tank noises
  • appeared to have been eaten by foxes

Tune in next time part 197                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Jim was always coming up with outrageous theories about twins. I guess being the only twinless sibling in the family will do that to a guy. Not that he was a singleton. No, Jim was a triplet, but his co-trips were identical girls and he always felt left out. His experiments were often painful, and I had no interest in seeing what he had planned for today, or how the paper shredders would play into it.

I took a step backwards, away from the false graveyard of office equipment, and promptly bumped into someone standing right behind me. It was Jim, of course, and in that gentleman’s widely opened eyes I saw no hint of brotherly affection. To my surprise, he was flanked by our sisters Jemma and Jemima. It was unusual to see all three triplets together. They were all wearing these dashing cardigans in a blue and green color scheme that told me all I needed to know about where their loyalties currently lay. Normally the girls pledged fealty to the Academy’s chess team, the Anacondas. Tonight: Dinosaurs. If he had convinced them to support the chess hooligans of our greatest rivals, Jim had more sway over them than I had ever imagined possible. Perhaps his theories about twins weren’t as outrageous as I had always imagined.

Ignoring Jim and his widely opened eyes, I smiled at our sisters and reached out to shake their hands. With Jemma’s hand in my right, Jemima’s in my left, I executed the secret “twin handshake” we had all developed as children when we wanted to exclude Jim. I was hoping to break through whatever insidious hold he had over them, but to all outward appearances I was unsuccessful. And on top of that, they wouldn’t let go of my hands.

“Jem,” Jim drawled, “and Jem, bring him back out to the operating table.”

My sisters pulled me back into the rocket surgery. My crocs had no traction on the slick floor, especially when they dragged me through Absinthia’s blood. Her stomach made fish tank noises under our feet, all blurbley and squelchy. Her poor corpse appeared to have been eaten by foxes, not operated on by rockets.

I averted my eyes and tried to come up with a plan to escape my nefarious triplet siblings.

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My First Impulse Was to Flee

  • by jenninja assassin on the prowl in west LA
  • twine marks on only one wrist
  • they said he was not the type of person
  • scabs and scars
  • “What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies.

Tune in next time part 195                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

My first impulse was to flee the scene as quickly and quietly as a ninja assassin on the prowl in west LA, to get far away from the stench of burnt flesh, and all of the blood. But I had been on the run for so, so long, and I was exhausted. I felt like a man with twine marks on only one wrist, which is the Contrarian way of saying ‘burning the candle at both ends.’

I locked the door to the rocket surgery to make sure no one walked in on me while I slept, then I curled up on the operating table and took a nap. When people described my brother Jason, they said he was not the type of person who could sleep just anywhere, that he was very finicky about where he bedded down, but they would never say that about me. The slab of stainless steel was an island in a sea of Absinthia’s blood, and upon it I slept like a baby.

When I awoke, I spent a few minutes counting all my scabs and scars, cataloging the myriad ways I now differed from my twin. It wasn’t just our sleep habits that would enable people to tell us apart any longer.

Self-examination complete, I leapt from the table and onto Absinthia’s desk chair. My momentum and the chair’s excellent casters carried me away from the gore, and around a corner. Here was Absinthia’s apartment, replete with bed and shower. If only I’d explored last night I could have slept in comfort. At least I could still get clean.

After my ablutions, I rifled through Absinthia’s closet, hoping to find something a little more dignified than my calico pinafore. In addition to the doctor’s clothes, none of which would fit me, I found a cache of men’s clothing that fit me a little too well. It was as if they’d been tailored for me, which meant they’d probably been tailored for Jason. But the shoes were too small.

“What’s the matter?” screamed the ladies. That’s what I call my intuition, my gut feelings. ‘The ladies’ had never let me down. And right now they were trying to tell me something important. If the shoes were too small for me, they were too small for Jason. That meant, the ladies assured me, that these clothes had been tailored for my younger brother Jim.

I froze.

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Some Movement Had Returned

  • by Kentcalled “secret combinations” or “murmuring”
  • glimmered like quartz
  • the knuckle of my thumb
  • we are not eating enough vegetables
  • “There was, like, a big puddle.”

Tune in next time part 194                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Some movement had returned, but only enough to wiggle my fingers. Fortunately my escape plan didn’t rely on physical strength.

I could also purse my lips, which gave me the power to generate a special noise, a buzzing, whistling hum. We learned it at the Academy as a type of underwater echolocation. But a few of us discovered how it affected certain sea life, and from there we honed it as a skill for influencing the mind of just about any living thing, including our classmates and teachers. In this case, a former headmistress. Some called it the Aquaman effect, but usually it was called “secret combinations” or “murmuring” or “Hypnotoading.”

Beginning the sound, I soon spotted Absinthia peering out from her hiding place. Her eyes glimmered like quartz. I glanced at the fuse and saw that it was burned down past where all the separate fuses split off, and some of those were very short. I had to get her over here quickly. The first rocket fired, nicking the knuckle of my thumb.

I Hypnotoaded louder, and Absinthia stumbled up to the table. She licked her fingers and snuffed a fuse, then another. Meanwhile, my limbs were beginning to respond. It disgusted me how long I was affected by her paltry injection. It must be true what they say: we are not eating enough vegetables.

My right leg cooperated enough to shove me off the table. Landing on the tile floor hurt, but not as much as what happened to Absinthia. She’d only extinguished half of the fuses.

A hissing, whooshing fit of smoke and flame erupted over the operating table. Dr Absinthia Belladonna toppled and lay still.

I slowly climbed to my feet and looked down at her. It was a memorable image. When I write my memoirs, it will simply say, “There was, like, a big puddle.”

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I Put All Thought of the Wastewater Treatment Plant Out of My Mind

  • by jenglimpse of a red sweater
  • I have had little experience of women
  • capable of forgetting that he had ever been married
  • until the helicopter came
  • Whenever she wore pants

Tune in next time part 193                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I put all thought of the wastewater treatment plant out of my mind and delved back into the juicier part of my flashback. I recalled Tessa in her scarlet Academy uniform, and how after she rescued me from the frozen rugby pitch, and in the process saw me naked, I blushed at every glimpse of a red sweater.

You must remember that in this flashback I am a teenager and I have had little experience of women. I don’t like to think of myself as a man who is capable of forgetting that he had ever been married, but again this is a flashback, and the time period being flashed back to predates my marriage to Fleur. I just want to be clear about that. I wasn’t a virgin or anything, but I also wasn’t participating in orgies until the helicopter came in for a landing, as they say. That part came later, but I doubt we’ll get to that in this flashback.

Whenever she wore pants with her red sweater, Tessa got in trouble. Girls at the Academy were expected to wear either skirts or the occasional wetsuit, just as we boys were required to wear kilts when we weren’t training for underwater missions.

Underwater missions! Of course! That held the key to getting me out of this terrible situation.

I quickly stopped my flashback and stared into the face of the fusillade of rockets aimed at my body. There were enough to make any Independence Day celebration envious, and now I knew just how to escape their surgical fury.

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A Faint Tingling

  • by Kent(slate-colored is a better term in frosty weather)
  • standing there shivering and looking shell-shocked
  • the splendor of his funeral clothes
  • tuna croissant
  • commencing a thorough search of the palace

Tune in next time part 192                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

A faint tingling told me my paralysis was wearing off by the time Dr Absinthia Belladonna finished aiming her dozens of razor-tipped projectiles. She aimed them at every part of me, including all my favorite parts. Then she lit the fuse and retreated behind a steel blast shield. I still couldn’t move.

The fuse hissed, emitting sparks and rank, sulfurous fumes. I tried to get up, or roll off the table, but although the tingle was stronger than ever my muscles were still powerless.

It felt like a flashback to my years at the academy. And then, it was a flashback.

Snowflakes settled onto my skin, staked out on the frozen rugby field. Dr Belladonna was teaching a lesson, teaching me not to talk back. Her grayish (slate-colored is a better term in frosty weather) eyes barely registered my presence as she dismissed the rest of the students and I was alone, naked in the snow. It took Tessa an hour to sneak out and release me, but as I was standing there shivering and looking shell-shocked she gave me her coat. We were two normal teenagers, for about nine seconds.

The next day, the headmaster turned up dead. Dr Belladonna took over running the academy, and her first official act was to give her predecessor’s eulogy. It was five minutes of observational humor based around the splendor of his funeral clothes, while she nibbled a tuna croissant.

Her second official act was to announce that the phys ed department was commencing a thorough search of the palace, which was our semi-ironic nickname for the wastewater treatment plant next door. It had never been brought online, making it an irresistibly attractive nuisance to us cadets.

We never learned what they had been searching for.

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Inside the Rocket Surgery

  • by jenskating together and holding hands
  • then dissolved in acid
  • “You obstinate fellow!”
  • strings of a balalaika being plucked
  • kept the last of my clothes on

Tune in next time part 191                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Inside the rocket surgery I heard two thumps and a rattle, followed by precise, clicking footsteps. I was pretty sure I knew whose footsteps those were, and it made my heart feel like it was skating together and holding hands with its sweetheart. The doorknob turned and those sweethearts in my chest fell through the ice and then dissolved in acid because the lake upon which they had been skating was not composed of water.

The door swung inward and there she was, Dr Belladonna, the former headmistress of the Academy.

“It’s you!” she cried, happier to see me than I had dared hope. “Unless it’s Jason.”

“It’s me either way.”

“You obstinate fellow!” She stood aside and ushered me into her operating theater. I had no choice but to enter.

The room was well-lit and swelteringly hot, and it smelled of hydrocarbons. Whatever music she was listening to sounded like the strings of a balalaika being plucked with an eggbeater.

“What are you doing in Harmonia, Dr Belladonna?”

“Oh please, we’re not at the Academy anymore. Call me Absinthia.”

“What are you doing in Harmonia, Absinthia?”

“It’s not rocket surgery!” She laughed. “Well, actually it is. I’ve developed a marvelous new technique that turns the whole field on its head. Instead of performing surgery on rockets, I have devised a way to use rockets to perform surgery!” She laughed again, with a triumphant gleam in her eye. “Perhaps I should say ‘developing.’ I’m always looking for new test subjects, and you suddenly appear at my door! I’d say that’s a sign!”

I edged back toward the door, but not quickly enough. Absinthia sprang at me and injected me with some sort of paralytic. I was helpless as she laid me out on the operating table and stripped off my crocs and snowpants. I suppose I should feel grateful that she kept the last of my clothes on, but the calico pinafore was easy for her to pull up to my neck, exposing my entire torso to this madwoman and her collection of surgical rockets.

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