Your Significant Other Will Dump You If You Order The Veal And These Other Items

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, here with Part III, here with Part IV, and here with Part V. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: using the writing prompt book Write the Story, include the ten provided words (underlined in this text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in finding yourself on stage, in front of an audience of your parents and peers, wearing nothing but a speedo and a cape that inexplicably has the word “PHOTOGRAPHER” emblazoned across it.

A Lunch Date Gone Wrong

Is it hot in here, or is it just me? Things were going so well, the relationship seemed back on track. And then…the carnival came back to town.

She started showing up late for dates, or putting them off. Without explanation.

I admit it. I got jealous. I began to assume the worst: she was going to leave me for that cult. When we started dating again, I made a promise to myself. OK, two promises:

I would get all the facts instead of jumping to conclusions.

I would never again roller skate nude under the full moon.

Without using mosquito repellent. You can only draw blood from scratching bug bites too hard so many times before you swear that oath.

So here we are, our brunch date now a lunch date due to her inexplicable tardiness, having a ‘discussion’ over a mango salad about her career, her needs, her hopes and desires. And how they don’t include assuming the traditional housewife role, or monogamy, or, worst of all, punctuality.

My sweet tea couldn’t taste more bitter. I struggle to hold back, to refrain from pitting my rapid-fire questions against her inconsistent logic. She was never late before the carnival returned. She never came over to my place smelling like pipe tobacco and my ex-wife’s favorite perfume before the carnival came to town. We never talked about marriage in the days preceding the cultists’ return.

So why now?

But her apparent calm and detachment only served to fuel my fears that she had tired of me and was returning to her old ways. Leaving me alone, divorced with no path back to my ex, doomed to online dating and online / offline rejection.

So of course I exploded, all of my fears and insecurities a festering eruption that poisoned the conversation, the meal, the entire ambiance of the restaurant. And as she stormed off, her sweet tea just as bitter now as mine but dripping from my face and hair, I had to wonder if this had been her intention all along.

 

Hiding Behind the Hydrangea, A Few Words Popped Into My Head. These Are Not (All Of) Those Words.

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, here with Part III, and here with Part IV. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: using the writing prompt book Write the Story, include the ten provided words (underlined in this text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in a disappointed and judgemental “Tut-tut!” from your mother.

An Unexpected Union

The key to finding the nurse was her ex-boyfriend. Not me, but the former boyfriend who came after me. Yes, after the tug-of-war between my wife and my carnival companion ended with me still married, my medical indiscretion moved on. I admit I kept tabs on her, even before my wife threw in the towel, sued for divorce, and took me for pretty much everything, including my prized hydrangea. So I know my lost love had played the field after me, casually dating, at different times, two brothers who owned a now defunct potato farm, a dentist, and then, more seriously, him.

The political cartoonist.

The major influence in her life since me.

The most recent ex.

I’d been more than keeping tabs on her at this point. I’d been following her, watching her, trying to find a way to win her back. The day they met was a terrible blow to me. They’d bumped into each other in line at a common, everyday sandwich shop. They chatted as they waited, then ended up ordering the same sandwich: ham and cheese on rye, Russian. He invited her to sit at his table, and soon they were brushing hands and laughing. Instant connection. I watched her scribble her phone number on the back of her receipt and hand it to him.

“Call me,” she said as she walked past me. I was in disguise as a broken homeless man, so she didn’t recognize me.

I had to recite the alphabet backwards three times before I was calm enough to get up and follow him to his place of work. I spent the next six months tracking him, learning his patterns and his secrets, preparing.

They broke up the night I’d planned to dispose of him. Money had been spent, wheels were in motion, but I called it off anyway. I felt sorry for him. He’d prepared an intimate dinner for two in the gazebo in his backyard. An exquisite meal. And over the salad, he proposed. And crying, she said no and left. Hiding behind a thriving hydrangea (that looked suspiciously familiar), neither noticed me.

I lost her after that. Gone from her usual haunts and from her clinic job; she was nowhere to be found. But he, the current ex, was obsessed. Desperate to find her, he looked high and low. He let himself go, lost his job, his house, his reputation. But none of that mattered compared to his quest.

Frankly, I found it more than a little disturbing.

Given our goals intersected, I let him do the work and just followed. And tonight, after months of searching, he finally found her.

And has drawn a knife! No!

…

I stopped him. I saved my beloved. Passed off my presence as a coincidence leading to a fateful but unexpected reunion. No, union. For she has taken me back! I am loved again!

So successful was this turn of events that I have won her complete and total trust in addition to her undying love. And so tonight, before sharing her bed, I will be sworn in to the Brotherhood of the Carnival. To be with my true love and her true family forever.

 

Dammit, Jim, I’m a Doctor not a Writing Prompt follower!

If you don’t remember the origin of this series (or, more likely, you’ve just stumbled upon this posting in your quest for pictures of naive boy scouts and have no idea what I’m on about), you can catch up here with Part I, here with Part II, and here with Part III. Just don’t expect reading those entries to help any of this make sense and you’ll be fine. The rules are simple: include the ten provided words (underlined in the text) in a story using the given title. Failure to do so results in a slow, agonizing death (or equivalently, parenthood).

In my last “Write The Story” writing prompt post, I closed by promising the next entry would be out of this world. Given that a significant portion of the Earth’s orbit has been traversed since that post, the description is even more apt now.

Chasing the Enemy

Captain Kirk stared at the viewscreen, his escaped quarry but a blur far ahead of them.

“Scotty, I need more power!” Kirk shouted. The demon carnival cult nurse, possibly from the future, possibly from the past, but definitely not from this time, would not elude him again. The memory of the singing lute saleswoman, an innocent bystander phasered into ash in front of the Church of the Empty Void cathedral, hit him like a hammer. Kirk would not return to 55 Cancri B and the elder high priests without that nurse in his custody and ready to be turned over to the Church and its harsh justice.

Kirk remembered the solemn oath he’d made to the Church’s Popess, her ceremonial parakeet flitting back and forth across the cavernous audience room as he spoke: “I will not rest, your Holiness, I will not pause or deviate from my task, until I have captured that freakish time-travelling medic and placed her in your custody.”

Popess Hildegard Penelope Fiona Fabberblast III nodded. “We hear your oath, Federation Captain James T. Kirk, echoing majestically in this Empty Void, and we are pleased.” The parakeet, Father Commander Toby Hashtag McFizzBin IV, alighted on the Popess’ shoulder and pooped his approval. “Ah yeah,” he warbled.

The Popess smiled. “It is destiny, Federation Captain James T. Kirk. See the poop of approval the Empty Void has bestowed upon your words.” She gestured to the greenish brown blob slowly spreading across her ceremonial tank top, settling in among the older, fainter stains already present. “Go in Peace. Go in Justice.”

The Popess sat down on the Holy Folding Chair of Receiving and lifted both gilded loafers high. Kirk, following Church custom, knelt and kissed both heels to seal his commitment to the task. Then he rose, smiled rakishly, and said, “You’ve gotten something on your tank top. Do you need any help taking it off?”

Now, three days and four dead red shirts later, the diabolic nurse was within his grasp. Once he had her, he could return to 55 Cancri B, return to his Most Holy of lovers, and deliver sweet, downy justice.

“More power, Scotty! She’s getting away!”

The lights flickered, the engines rumbled, then all fell silent as the ship came to a stop. The devil nurse moved out of sensor range.

“Tha’s done it, Captain,” came Scotty’s response. “We’ve cracked a dilithium crystal!”

Kirk pounded the arm of his chair, hissing in frustration.