Bullying - WQ127

This week's Iron Writer Weekend Quickie brought back some memories.
Bullying...it happened. It still happens. Maybe someone in your social circle, someone at work, one of your neighbours or family, whatever. It's not big, it's not clever, it's a cliche.
Here's my take this week, along with a few others, read them if you wish here....
http://theironwriter.com/the-iron-writer-challenge-weekend-quickie-127/#comment-228511

...or read mine right below :-)
PLUS the Sci-fi Christmas short story (3000 words) is complete! A quick read through and done :-)

Weekend Quickie 127 - (image of bully pushing kid’s head on desk, best friends, gratitude)


"I...I...didn't bring any money," squirmed Kevin, sitting at his desk as Carl, the school bully, and his sidekick Dave loomed over him.
"Well, that's gratitude for ya! I make you my best friend and you can't be bothered to pay for my school lunch when I'm in dire need? Now is that right, I ask you? To leave a friend, a best friend, out in the lurch like that? Eh?"
"I...I..." Kevin looked around the class, hoping someone would come and help, but the others sat, ignoring their little situation.
"I think not! I'm gonna have to give you a reminder of where you an me stand! See that mark scratched in your desk, the one I put there yesterday and you got detention for? That mark means you and me are best buddies! Get it? See?"
"I..." He tried to move but Carl forced him down, to the amusement of Dave.
"I don't think you're looking at it close enough! See it now? Eh? Eh?"
Carl pushed Kevin's face onto his desk, not once, not twice, but three times. As a crack appeared in his glasses he saw on the board that it was only Tuesday.

Ideas, ideas, ideas

Still working on the Sci-fi Charity anthology story. Ideas keep popping up, so it'll soon be ready.
I also spotted a great place to submit stories, so I'd better get moving on other little projects, too.
But, there is, of course, my older work to check out...

And, of course, "Baby Shoes"!!! 100 authors, 100 stories!

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Shoes-100-Stories-Authors-ebook/dp/B0110ZA0RG

Sci-fi Christmas story for Charity...

If you didn't know, there's 'Alice on the Outside-In' for FREE over here...(trying to get 100 downloads)...https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/563002 

And yes, I'm trying to write a Sci-fi short story for a Christmas anthology (for charity).
Here's the beginning. What d'ya think?

“Ho ho ho!”

The vibrations moved through the ship as the Drive kicked in, sending the plastic dancing Santa I’d stuck to the side of the Communication panel into a frenzy. I sat, strapped in my seat, waiting for the stabilizers to take over. Time ticked on, my eyeballs were coming lose.

“Sands! Where are those stabilizers?” I screamed over to the co-pilot. Thiesmanne, our pilot, was down in the bay, secured in the loading cabin, watching the consignment. Myself and the others were here in Ulysses’ command centre, being shaken to death.  

“Keep your hair on! They’ll be on in a second!” Sands flashed across the propulsion settings, flicking switches, pushing flashing lights.

“That’s all I’ll have left if this keeps on much…!” retorted Brink, the Science officer, being cut short by the quietness and smoothness of the stabilisers working. “That’s better.” He went to undo his belt but Sands held up her palm.

“Not until this light goes out.” There was a ‘bing’ as the offending icon disappeared. “Okay, you’re fine now.”

Sighs of relief filled the centre as we unbuckled and checked to see if we were all in one piece. A-okay. The dancing Santa slowed to a halt, his little bell giving one last ring, leaving nothing more to disturb the peace of the crew, now engrossed in their work panels. As Communications officer, I had nothing to do until we reached our destination Ayos IV the next day. The Comm from the loading bay started to flash, so I opened a channel.

“Thiesmanne, are you okay?”

“Of course, Dayne. The consignment is secure. I’m coming back up now.”

“Copy that.” I turned in my seat to find Sands literally hovering over me dressed only in her standard jumpsuit, making her weightless. “Sands! Warn people when you do that!”

“So? Thiesmanne?”

I sat there, waiting, saying nothing. She finally tutted and begrudgingly put her boots back on, setting her firmly back on the deck.

“That better?”

“He’s coming back up. Everything’s A-okay.”

“Good. Tell him to bring up some ration packs, I’m dying for a snack.” She gave her control panel a glance and went over to the Restroom at the back of the centre. Like myself, she was only needed later. Thankfully. Out of the whole crew, of which there were twelve, she was the hardest to get along with. Most of the others were quiet, nice, hard-working professionals in their own specialised fields, but her? A complete contrast to Thiesmanne her superior.

By the time he’d appeared back in the command centre, she was fast asleep and many of the others had settled back for a few winks.

“Well, Dayne, looks like we’ll be home for Christmas,” said Thiesmanne, taking his seat. He looked over the display panel and nodded. I slapped the dancing Santa.

“Ho ho ho!”

“Yes. You know, after all these centuries of growth, exploration, first contact, you’d have thought Christmas would be a thing of the past.”

“It is. But tradition is tradition, Thiesmanne. The colony on Ayos IV are expecting a tree, and a tree is what they’ll get.”

He shook his head, noticing Sands snoring away in the Restroom.

“Some people, eh?”

“Oh, Sands? Tell me, how the hell did she get to be your co-pilot? She’s a disaster.”

“Oh, that’s easy. We were in the same squadron in the War. We made it through together.”

“Was she help or hindrance?”

“Both!”

We laughed. The War had been short but brutal. I’d been assigned on one of three Destroyer class ships brought into service, though after the initial skirmishes they were mostly redundant, our enemy the Krogans moving over to guerrilla tactics early on. Fighter squadrons like Thiesmanne, and apparently Sands, took the brunt of the action. Many good people lost their lives.

“I’ll tell you a story,” smiled Thiesmanne. “When we started the Academy, she and…” The lights went out and we were thrown from our seats. Sirens and screams filled the air. Emergency backup power turned on, leaving us mainly in the dark but essential systems switched back on. Sands was up and out before we made it back up on our feet.

“What the hell was that?” shouted Sands, running over to the Drive panel.

Apple's NEW Device Revolutionises Health!

Another fantastic little story! WQ126

Yes! Another completely pointless 200 word story!
I do them every week, they bring out the best in me :-)
http://theironwriter.com/the-iron-writer-challenge-weekend-quickie-126/#comment-227414

And here it is here...just in case you didn't feel like clicking over and seeing a few others. You should, but hey...

Weekend Quickie 126 (image of a stainless steel tank and ‘machinery’, a prototype invention, An unanticipated by-product, Incredulity)


"Impressive," nodded the CEO, watching as Davis, his Head of Research ran around pressing switches, pushing knobs and pulling levers on the machine.
"It's only a prototype at the moment but as you will see, sir, it'll bring us success like we've never had before!" Davis held his pose and with one last press, the invention went into action. "By adding all the hippest beats, the sounds of the most recent Top 10 hits, the best of fashion, the 'happenist' moves of the moment from the dance floor, we can, with this, create the greatest 'Boy Band' ever!"
"This, I'd like to believe," said the CEO, fiddling his thumbs.
After a great hiss, out popped an all-singing, all-dancing 4 piece Boy Band.
"Aren't they great?" screamed Davis.
"What the hell is that?" pointed the CEO. From behind the boys came a sight which brought terror. Bill Cosby.
"No, I...I don't understand. How can this...?"
"Looks like your machine created a little 'unanticipated by-product'." 
Davis fell to his knees in utter incredulity and stared at the egotistical, womanising hedonist puffing out jazz melodies from his whiskered cheeks.
"So close, yet so far," smiled the CEO, closing the door behind him.

What's wrong with movies nowadays?

I tell ya, the SCRIPTWRITERS!
Cracked.com, love 'em, they make fantastic points about movies nowadays...
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-stupid-characters-that-hollywood-now-puts-in-every-movie/

It basically comes down to creating 'action' movies and sequels and creating stuff which people will go and see again and again and again...here are the 6 main points...

1. No One Has Any Fear of Death
2. Movie Villains Can Instantly Pick Up The Skills Of The Heroes
3. Everyone Gets Magic Expositional Plot Visions
4. "Kickass" Female Characters that don't really do anything
5. Main Characters are now fated to be Heros
6. Characters are Aware that their movies are Ridiculous

I've watched these movies they're talking about. They're fine for the Popcorn people, but as stories they suck BIG TIME.
When will the Movie industry grow up and take some real stories and make them into movies....like mine :-)
In "How to Build a Castle in 7 Easy Steps", I can take all those 6 points (well, the 1st 5 because the 6th is for movies) and say I broke all of them.

1. Everyone has a fear of Death (other than the odd crazy)
2. The villians don't pick up the skills of the heroes
3. No one has any 'magic expositional plot visions'.
4. "Kickass" female characters DO kickass!
5. Main characters are basically trying to survive the book, one is hungry, the other is bouncing from one situation to another.

So there :-)

http://www.amazon.com/Build-Castle-Seven-Easy-Steps/dp/1940938430

Cecil the Lion or Mugabe the Dictator?

This Cecil story is bigger than just a dumbass American dentist paying $55,000 to hunt a lion.
Firstly, there are the Zimbabweans...they don't care much about lions, they don't even know who Cecil was...says 'conservativetribune.com'...and that lions kill and dismember "hundreds and thousands of babies" every year...yeah, right.
More like there's something wrong with the country, thanks to the Zimbabwean leader, Mugabe. It's an African country, come on, corruption is ripe. For his birthday, he had a $1million 'zoo food' celebration. WTF? In the early 2000s, he killed off more than 80% of the wildlife of the country with his new legislation to help the country...funny how the people are even poorer than they were before...
so, Zimbabwe...80% unemployment rate, insane monetary inflation and a hugely corrupt government.

It'll all blow over soon...Zimbabwe doesn't want this kind of publicity, Walter Palmer will need to extract teeth again...