Fionagreywrites

Week 24 of Odd Prompts

 

Welcome, welcome, to writers and readers alike! Thus begins week twenty-four of odd prompts, fun prompts, perplexing prompts, challenging prompts, writing prompts, and spare prompts alike. And, occasionally, persnickety prompts as well, but in the best of ways.

Participating is easy – send an idea to oddprompts@gmail.com each week, either to be part of the rotation or to add as a spare. No obligation, no genre expectations, no word count expectations.

Let the muse inside, and invite him or her to stay for a while.

Prompter Prompt Prompted
Kat Ross The head of security is informed that there will be an assassination attempt within 48 hours. The only others things his informant related before being killed is that the assassin is not human and that the weapon to be used would pass any security check. [“borrowed” from Whatdunits, edited by Mike Resnick] Leigh Kimmel
nother Mike The little alien pet lay in the middle of the clothes in the washing machine, which had all turned pink. Misha Burnett
Fiona Grey The real story behind the Easter Island moai Kat Ross
Misha Burnett Every squirrel in town now worships you as a god. How does this change your life? nother Mike
Leigh Kimmel Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—picked up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??
Cedar Sanderson
Cedar Sanderson The third day of a wilderness hike, when you find a bright yellow Stanley measuring tape balanced on top of a small boulder.
There have been no other signs of humans for days, and there are no signs now, other than this single object…		 Fiona Grey

Need a spare? We’ve got a wide selection this week, all of them intriguing.

spare A typical call for a police officer who deals with crimes involving robots.
spare In the back seat of the bus, there was a huddled pile of clothing. Then it moved…
spare The special delivery envelope had one jigsaw puzzle piece in it.
spare As he walked into the shopping mall, he noticed a car parked on the third floor of the parking garage had its lights on.
spare You work for a genetics company, creating custom gene-spliced pets for people. A customer has a request that you won’t do. What is it?
spare You are a mermaid who is interviewing for a job. How do you answer your potential employer when the question comes up of what accommodations you would need?
Spare While uncovering the grave of a viking king, they found jewelry, a sword, and an AK-47 that can be dated back to era

Header image by Fiona Grey, Ogunquit, Maine

 

16 comments

  4. Misha Burnett prompted me with

    Every squirrel in town now worships you as a god. How does this change your life?

    Sorry, didn’t get very far with this… here’s a start, though?

    As Henry walked down the sidewalk, he shook his head. Off to the side, one of the squirrels was bowing as he walked past. Darn it, he never should have tried that ancient incantation. But he couldn’t believe it, someone claiming that simply reciting that string of nonsense would turn you into a god. And of course, when he did it, nothing seemed to change at first.

    He thought back to that day. He had been so tired that night.

    Henry rubbed his eyes. Darn, these old manuscripts were a pain to translate. And they made no sense! Reciting this will make you a god? Oh, come on.

    He leaned back, and looked at the string of nonsense that the manuscript claimed would turn you into a god. Then he shrugged, and carefully read the string out loud. Admittedly, they weren’t completely sure about the phonemes from that time, but it was close.

    As he pronounced the final crunching sound, he could swear there was a thump somewhere in the distance. Probably something falling down in the archives? But there was a strange sense of completion to the thump. Nothing else happened, so he shrugged and stretched. Time to go home and get some sleep.

    So he’d gone home and slept. When he woke up, he laughed at his own sillyness. A god?

    Then he caught the squirrels piling nuts around his house. He just laughed at first, but they kept coming.

    And when they saw him, they chittered. They bowed low, or even flattened on the ground, and chittered away at him.

    That’s when he translated the rest of the passage, and realized it actually said the incantation would turn you into a god for squirrels. And indeed, it had. Which mostly didn’t change anything. Except for the offerings and the bowing and scraping. But squirrels… they just weren’t really a part of life, even out here in a small suburban town.

    Then he saw the crow stooping on the squirrel that was bowing to him. He grimaced, and jumped forward. The crow flew by, screaming its anger at his interruption of the hunt.

    The squirrel flattened, and then got up, and bowed again, and again.

    Henry’s jaw dropped. Hum. Maybe he was the squirrel god. He’d never thought about what that might mean for his life. Did he need to protect them now? Maybe make sure they had food in the winter? Wait a minute… What exactly does a god have to do, anyway?

    (to be continued?)

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