Tagged: tune in next time

Lyudmila Kept the Blade’s Keen Edge

  • by Kent… just in case a perfect opportunity should ever arise
  • Planet of the Help Desks
  • as the beasts in a menagerie
  • For years.
  • worried-looking men were sprawled

Tune in next time part 61                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Lyudmila kept the blade’s keen edge pressed firmly under my windpipe, ensuring my cooperation. She towed me to a pickup truck and stopped. Evidently we were waiting for Tessa to conclude her business with the garbagemen, which only took another few seconds. The two men in gray-green jumpsuits lumbered into view, followed by Tessa’s katana and then Tessa herself, who ordered them to lie on the sidewalk. In moments, the worried-looking men were sprawled amid the discarded gum of hundreds of anonymous pedestrians. Gum that had been burnished by the soles of countless other pedestrians, gum-chewer and non, walking to and fro in quaint Ipswich. For years.

As Tessa turned our way, Lyudmila released me. Her sword had left only a small nick just below my larynx, enough to leave a thin residue of blood on my fingers when I rubbed it. The women said nothing, and for a few moments I thought perhaps I’d misunderstood the whole ambush, that maybe it was a rescue after all. But then I detected the narrowing of my vision, the numbness of my limbs, and realized that Lyudmila’s blade had been envenomed.

“Get his legs,” Tessa said. They hoisted my body, stiff as a board, up and over the side of the truck. I thudded painfully into the bed and could only listen as they climbed in and got it started. What I overheard told me that Lyudmila had been assigned to learn how to bypass this type of alarm system… just in case a perfect opportunity should ever arise to employ such a truck in a kidnapping, presumably. Finally, the drug dragged me down utterly.

I spent an unknowable time in a haze of pharmacologically augmented dreams, a journey whose in-flight movie would have been Planet of the Help Desks. In my fugue, I struggled to debug printer glitches for clients as diverse and hostile as the beasts in a menagerie. When finally I opened my eyes and dispelled the phantasms, at first I could see only blue. What I mistook for the open sky was a heavy tarp. Throwing it off, I sat up in the bed of the pickup and looked around at the cavernous warehouse. Or was it a warehouse-like cavern?

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

I Became More and More Sure That I Was Inhabiting a Warehouse

  • by jenwait to find out why her husband is hobbling toward her in insane panic
  • far-reaching international manhunt
  • I thought his bouncing was accidental
  • in the very near future
  • — one fat, one skinny

Tune in next time part 62                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

I became more and more sure that I was inhabiting a warehouse as the drug cleared my system and my faculties returned to normal.

I seemed to be alone in the large open area. Why had Lyudmila and Tessa left me unguarded? And whose warehouse was this?

After arranging the tarp to look like I was still beneath it, I dropped to the cement floor, rolled underneath the pickup, and curled up in the shadow of its oversized tires. And just in time! The door at the far end of the room opened and two figures entered — one fat, one skinny. I recognized them immediately as Heinrich and Aphrodite Hunter, which meant I was in deep shit. Or would be in the very near future. Those two hated each other almost as much as they hated everyone else. For them to team up meant something huge was going down, and I was in the middle of it.

Aphrodite laughed at something her rotund husband said, and then went back out through the door. Heinrich approached the pickup truck, whistling, his belly bouncing. For a moment I thought his bouncing was accidental, merely a result of his loping gait, but then I realized that he was purposefully jostling his stomach up and down. What could he possibly be doing?

In a moment I had my answer. He pulled his enormous Hawaiian shirt up and over his head. Instead of the expanse of flesh I expected, I saw instead a small woman, curled into a ball and clinging to a harness around Heinrich’s normal-sized torso.

He wasn’t fat after all! All this time he had merely been smuggling a contortionist under his clothes. With a sigh she unfolded herself and stood beside Heinrich, fluffing her hair.

My spine chilled as I realized it was Svetlana, John’s other sister, and subject of a far-reaching international manhunt. No wonder she’d proven impossible to find! For just how many years had Heinrich been smuggling the nefarious criminal around inside his clothes? And to what end?

This situation made less and less sense every minute. Lyudmila would never knowingly be in league with Svetlana. They hated each other, and with good reason.

“What are we going to do about this one?” Heinrich asked, gesturing toward the truck bed where he assumed I still lay unconscious.

“We can’t kill him,” Svetlana said in her scratchy voice. “Yet.” She stretched her arms and then bent over into a backbend, every vertebra popping. “I still need him.”

I swallowed.

“But I no longer need you.” Svetlana turned her backbend into a backspring, and launched herself away from Heinrich. She pulled a blowgun from somewhere in her skimpy leotard and shot a dart into Heinrich’s leg. In a blur she disappeared up into the rafters.

The door opened again, admitting Aphrodite who could only stand there and wait to find out why her husband is hobbling toward her in insane panic.

 

bonus points for using them in reverse order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

While Heinrich and Aphrodite Were Preoccupied

  • by Kentcoughing and spewing and afraid to move
  • And the salt.
  • near constant tabloid surveillance
  • supposed to sever the jugular
  • made little use of his arms in speaking

Tune in next time part 63                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

While Heinrich and Aphrodite were preoccupied I made a break for it, scurrying from beneath the truck and into a narrow aisle of wooden crates. Creeping to the end of the aisle on my belly, I peered around the corner. I strained my ears for signs of pursuit, but all I could hear was Aphrodite hectoring Heinrich about letting himself take a blowdart from his contortionist floozy, and Heinrich whimpering in reply. Their spat was occurring at the main entrance, meaning if I wanted to get out I’d have to find another doorway. Finding the coast clear, I wormed through the intersection and into the next aisle.

Svetlana peered down from atop a stack of crates, malicious delight shining in her eyes. I tried to tell her using hand signs that we had to work together, but she calmly undid the catch holding the side panel of the crate on which she perched. It swung out dumping greenish water onto me, a stinking low-tide sludge infested with jellyfish pressing the air from my lungs as it mashed me into the cement floor. I lay there, coughing and spewing and afraid to move lest I get stung. I gagged from the rotten smell. And the salt.

Svetlana plopped lightly into the mess, standing over me with a raspy giggle. She wore the same scandalously skintight outfit that had been a signature of the side-show act with her sister all those years ago, before John decided he couldn’t stand to be near constant tabloid surveillance and estranged himself from his family, uttering sharp words that were supposed to sever the jugular that carried blood so much thicker than water. Although probably no thicker than the slimy muck now covering me.

A resounding boom from the far end of the building indicated the slamming of the door. “Get up,” Svetlana said. She marched away, pausing to glare when I didn’t follow. We soon came into sight of the main entryway, where Heinrich lay on the floor alone. As we drew near, he mouthed words that we couldn’t hear. Svetlana knelt close, trying to discern his message. His torpid stillness made it harder to make sense of the faint sounds. Even when he wasn’t paralyzed, Heinrich made little use of his arms in speaking.

Suddenly he made full use of them in seizing Svetlana by the throat. In full voice, he said, “You should have known better than to leave your darts laying around where I could wipe off the poison!” Aphrodite slid from the shadows beside the door, her pistol aimed at my midsection.

 

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Aphrodite Snarled At Me

  • by jenme, I want a hula hoop
  • I consider you a rascal
  • burn the air you breathe
  • live long enough to get into space
  • without a hug and kiss

Tune in next time part 64                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Aphrodite snarled at me, “I want a hula hoop‘s width between you and Svetlana.” She gestured with her gun. “No more, no less.”

She didn’t want me to help Svetlana, who was still being throttled by Heinrich, but if I moved too far away she wouldn’t be able to monitor both of us with her single eye.

“I consider you a rascal,” she continued, “not a great threat. I will deal with you once the contortionist bitch is no more.”

Svetlana writhed beneath her former lover/sherpa, her lips a blue grimace, her eyes wide and angry.

Heinrich’s grip faltered and Svetlana drew a gasping breath. While Aphrodite was distracted by that I raised my hand and plucked a jellyfish from my hair. During my years developing the underwater excavation machine I had developed an immunity to jellyfish stings. I was counting on that not being the case for my captors. I flung the gelatinous creature at Aphrodite’s face, hoping to temporarily blind her, but my aim was off and it landed in her mouth just as she inhaled.

I knew from sad experience that man-o-war venom in your esophagus will burn the air you breathe, turning your lungs to fire, and making you doubt whether you will live long enough to get into spaces not built of agony. In other words, it was an effective distraction.

Aphrodite’s gun clattered to the floor and she soon followed it, gagging and coughing and clawing at her mouth. She drew Heinrich’s attention long enough for Svetlana to break free and somersault out of reach, gasping.

Should I take my chances and team up with Svetlana, or leave now, without a hug, and kiss my ass goodbye?

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Heinrich Began to Get Up

  • by Kentkeep hearing your name
  • “It’s an honour!”
  • Jeepers creepers!
  • all that glitters is gold
  • danced on the ceiling

Tune in next time part 65                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Heinrich began to get up off the floor, but in a flash Svetlana leapt on him, wrapping her legs around his neck. His face purpled instantly from the pressure. Meanwhile, Aphrodite still had a mouthful of toxic sea life keeping her from breathing.

I picked up the pistol from where Aphrodite had dropped it. My sense of fair play gave me conflicting impulses, dual ways of balancing the outcomes for these three villains. I could probably save both Heinrich and Aphrodite by subduing Svetlana, or I could wait another few minutes until the pirates expired and then polish off the contortionist.

I knew no one here deserved mercy or salvation, but I knew also that I’d be forever haunted by evil dreams, the kind where you keep hearing your name echoing from charnel vaults, if I took part in their deaths so callously.

Plucking the jellyfish from Aphrodite’s tongue, I aimed the gun at Svetlana’s head and said, “Off.” I had to cock the hammer to make my point, but she released Heinrich and took a step back. “Heinrich,” I said, “I’m sure you’re familiar with the classic jellyfish-sting antidote? She needs it quick, at the site of the injury.” He gulped, massaging his throat, and nodded. “Then she’ll probably need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,” I added with a smirk.

“It’s an honour!” he said chokingly, with an unexpectedly British inflection. Sliding up alongside his wife’s head, he began undoing his belt.

“Jeepers creepers!” Svetlana cried. I held the gun on her and made her watch the lifesaving treatment for a few minutes before chivvying her out the warehouse’s enormous front door. I swung it shut again, then ordered Svetlana to shift some nearby oil drums to block it. Meanwhile I located some discarded electrical wiring, which I used to bind her wrists when she was done with her assignment. Her face was ashen, her eyes unfocused. Some things cannot be unseen.

“Steady now,” I said. “Like they say, all that glitters is gold. What you just learned is, not all that’s gold glitters. And some of it smells pretty rank.” She looked on the verge of fainting.

I surveyed our surroundings. All the nearby buildings were indistinguishable from the one we’d just left. Hot sun blazed down on us. I directed Svetlana across the alleyway to the next massive building and pulled its door open.

Guiding her inside, I heard music. The interior mostly lay in darkness, except for a rectangular area at the far end. A bizarre orchard of glowing crystal illuminated that area, with a grand piano suspended upside down far above. I nudged Svetlana with the gun and we slowly moved toward what I realized were inverted chandeliers, mesmerized by the sumptuous shimmering gowns worn by a trio of ladies as they danced on the ceiling that had been created for them.

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Far Above the Heads of the Dancing Ladies

  • by jenhandcuffed to the table
  • you know that’s not allowed
  • I’m not a machine
  • now she was all sweet decorum
  • I wish I could sing like that

Tune in next time part 66                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Far above the heads of the dancing ladies, the pianist was strapped to his bench, playing what I now recognized as a Chopin etude. He sang along, his voice as striking as his red hair. I wish I could sing like that crazy upside down man, but my talents lie in other areas.

Svetlana stared at the tableau, transfixed. I heard her sigh and reminded myself that even if now she was all sweet decorum she was a very dangerous woman. I led her into the darkened recesses of the warehouse, away from the stage and its peculiar performers.

I didn’t know exactly, or even roughly, where we were, and Svetlana refused to tell me. I frisked her, hoping to find a phone, but all I found under her leotard was her blowgun and a tube of chapstick. My hands lingered on her narrow hips.

“If you keep that up, you’re going to make me horny,” Svetlana purred. “I’m not a machine.” She leaned in for a kiss, her arms still bound behind her back.

“You know that’s not allowed,” I said. “You’re my captive.”

“That never stopped you before,” she pouted. “Last time I was handcuffed to the table.”

“That was recreational. Today it’s business.”

 

bonus points for using them in reverse order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

My Conversation with Svetlana was Interrupted

  • by Kenta “macho male rock figure”
  • with the utmost coolness
  • that delectable pastime
  • turn doorknobs without fainting?
  • began unlacing his moccasins

Tune in next time part 67                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

My conversation with Svetlana was interrupted by a sudden shift in the music, and a titanic increase in its volume. Chopin was replaced by a thunderous chord progression. The flying piano was still upside down, but now the red haired performer stood on it, himself still inverted as well, with his electric guitar’s strap slung cleverly between his legs. He cut quite a “macho male rock figure” up there, belting out crunchy music with the utmost coolness. Svetlana gaped, all carnal thoughts of me clearly washed from her mind, but the sexy swiveling of her hips indicated she was still daydreaming about that delectable pastime.

The female dancers’ fancy costumes had been shucked, revealing neon-toned unitards more suited to the modern interpretive style of their new dance, a swooning rubbery motion that made me wonder, could they turn doorknobs without fainting?

“Let’s keep moving,” I said, again using the pistol to encourage Svetlana to walk. We found another door in a distant corner of the warehouse and exited into an alleyway. One other person was out there, dressed all in buckskins and feathers.

“Who are you?” Svetlana asked. The stranger silently began unlacing his moccasins.

 

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Once He Was Barefoot

  • by jenand then await instructions
  • crowned by telephone wires
  • “Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.”
  • doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples
  • and tell them to be punctual

Tune in next time part 68                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Once he was barefoot, the enigmatic stranger fished a sheet of paper out of his right moccasin and handed it to me. It was damp with foot-sweat. From the left he fished another note, which he tucked between Svetlana’s lips, making her wrinkle her nose.

“Go to these coordinates once you’ve decoded them, and then await instructions,” the man said as he slipped his feet back into their buckskin sheaths. While he was doubled over I noticed that his head was crowned by telephone wires and the feathers I spotted earlier were actually live birds tethered there.

“I’d rather go home than to your mysterious coordinates, dude,” I said.

“Sure you gonna go home, Johnny! I know you are.” His tone was mocking.

Why did he think I was John? Was it because I was in the company of Svetlana? She was trying to spit the notepaper out of her mouth, presumably to tell this man I was not her brother, but the paper stuck to her lips and tongue, and everything she said was muffled into indistinguishability.

“Things are heating up,” the man said, straightening, and ignoring Svetlana’s sputterings. “Our doctors weren’t able to analyze the semen samples because they were all contaminated with monkey semen.” He smiled briefly. “The samples were contaminated, not the doctors. Anyway, we need to collect fresh samples from everyone, so go to those coordinates, call your team, and tell them to be punctual. We can’t afford another screw-up.” He shook my hand, gave Svetlana a nod, and sprinted down the alley to a waiting limousine.

Svetlana finally spat her paper gag onto the ground and yelled, “This isn’t John!” at the receding black car.

I scooped up her soggy note and stuck it in my pocket along with my own.

“Now, what’s all this about semen?” I asked.

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Buckskin Man’s Cryptic Semen Comments

  • by Kentbalanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner
  • about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions
  • without any flattery at all
  • the eerie rustling of my robes
  • a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar

Tune in next time part 69                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Buckskin Man’s cryptic semen comments remained mysterious, because Svetlana declined to offer any explanations. Wanting to find out what happened to John drove my decision to show up at the coordinates anyway, assuming I could decode them from the soggy paper scraps in my pocket. Leading the treacherous contortionist by one elbow, I struck off in search of a temporary base of operations.

It was nearing dark when we reached a bar where I felt safe. It was a corrugated metal shack in the hinterlands with a row of motorcycles out front. But the bikes were more rust than chrome. Entering the shabby building, I sized up the occupants. A table with four men hunched over it, someone drinking alone at the bar in a long tan trench coat, and someone I took to be the bartender, a reedy mustachioed man who balanced himself dismally on one leg in a corner behind the bar.

One of the four men at the table erupted in noisy laughter, leaning back and showing me that he was about a bottle and a half ahead of any of his companions. I can say without any flattery at all that the elaborate pyramid they’d built from their empties was the most sophisticated example of such architecture I had ever seen.

I stationed us at the opposite end of the bar, away from the enigmatic person in the trench coat, and got to work on the coded messages while Svetlana tried to summon the bartender to get a drink. The skinny, nervous man glanced in her direction but otherwise did not respond.

“You’ll need to help yourself, if you’re thirsty,” said the trench-coated person. The voice was dry and droll, reminding me of the eerie rustling of my robes when I graduated from the Hopscotch Academy with a degree in advanced duplicity. I couldn’t determine its owner’s gender.

Svetlana took the advice and sprang nimbly over the bar despite her wrists being bound. She used her toes to mix herself a sidecar while the bartender trembled behind her. Back at her stool, she again employed her toes to raise the glass to her lips.

The code concealing the coordinates looked tricky, but knowing that the message was intended for John was a big clue that it would be simpler than it appeared. He always sucked at ciphers. I stuffed the solved cryptograms back into my pocket and told Svetlana to finish her drink.

The bartender moved at last. He lunged up against his side of the bar, still on one foot, and hissed at Svetlana, “You know he’s a little liar, a boy-liar, a sweet, white boy-liar!” Everyone in the place heard him, even the suddenly quiet group over at their table.

“We’re leaving,” I said.

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!

Svetlana Had

  • by jencontrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors
  • consider looking deeper
  • the reunions didn’t go well
  • kill everyone and live happily ever after
  • the saddest and most pitiful sounds

Tune in next time part 70                             Click Here for Earlier Installments

Svetlana had, in her storied past, contrived to commit various high crimes and misdemeanors, but none of her earlier schemes were as ill-conceived as her current actions. She leaned back on her stool, balancing expertly on her tailbone, and, using her nimble toes, threw her drink in the hissing bartender’s face, glass and all. It smacked him right between the eyes, sending a trickle of blood down his nose. I knew that her parents had looked into having her committed to a private home for the violently insane, and I thought maybe they should consider looking deeper.

The drunks at the table all leapt to their feet, their chairs clattering. Svetlana backflipped from her barstool to the center of their table, then spun in a quick circle, kicking them each in the face so that they wobbled and collapsed. Their asses smacked back into their chairs and the reunions didn’t go well. Several seats splintered.

“This place is crawling with spies!” Svetlana cried, staring at me with wide blue eyes. “We should kill everyone and live happily ever after in a cottage by the sea!”

I knew she didn’t really mean it. Happy endings weren’t her style. But for once we were on the same side.

The trench-coated individual leapt up and shrugged out of the coat, revealing himself to be a man. He came at me wielding a jagged hunting knife. I used a ninja maneuver I learned from Tessa to turn his momentum against him, and he lodged the blade in his own groin.

Svetlana and I ran out the door, leaving behind a bar full of men making the saddest and most pitiful sounds I’d ever heard.

It wasn’t long, though, until I heard sounds even sadder and more piteous.

bonus points for using them in order

about stichomancy writing prompts

try our stichomancy writing prompt generator!