Happy almost 2021, y’all! Not only have we made it through most of 2020, but we’re continuing creative efforts into a brand new year. Bring the new year on, and we’ll face it with our keyboards (or paintbrushes, pens, what have you) at the ready.
Want to join? Send an email to oddprompts@gmail.com.
| Cedar Sanderson | no one leaves the Brownies milk any more. What has become of the House Spirits? | nother Mike |
| Fiona Grey | “There are goblins in the garbage again.” | AC Young |
| AC Young | Perhaps asking the vet to give the pet unicorn a check-up was a bad idea. | Fiona Grey |
| nother Mike | The elf under the pine tree had glow-in-the-dark pink hair, fluorescent green and purple camo tights and vest, and gleaming silver boots. She looked at us, sneered, and said, “I am true punk. Want to make something of it?” | Leigh Kimmel |
| Leigh Kimmel | A plumbing fixture suddenly stops working. On inspection, it turns out the cutoff valve has been turned off, but everyone denies having done so. | Cedar Sanderson |
And here are your spares. Want to submit a spare? Same deal as above, just put “spare” in the subject line.
| Spare | What happens when the grypon’s torch goes out? And what happens when you’re the one to relight it? |
| Spare | His parachute opened, but then he made the critical mistake of wondering what else could go wrong while still airborne. |
| Spare | The camouflage was pink, frilly, and covered in glitter. |
| Spare | “Ooo, popsicle octopus on a stick!” she said happily. |
| Spare | On New Year’s Day an annoying neighbour puts a card through your letterbox saying ‘Welcome to another Odd Year! |
| Spare | Nestled in Pandora’s box was a small alien baby… |
| Spare | As the choir began their chorus, the lead baritone lifted his head, and his eyes closed, and he crashed to the stage… |
See you in the comments!
Header image by Pixel 2013, Pixabay.
More Odds Than Ends 
Fiona Grey prompted: “There are goblins in the garbage again.”
My first effort is as follows:
Today was going to be a lovely day. My wife and I had planned to do nothing much, just watch the kids play in the snow in the back garden. The neighbourhood had had an inch or two of snow when we went to bed last night, with more scheduled overnight according to the weather mages on the evening radio broadcast.
I’d got out of bed as normal just after dawn – I’m a light sleeper, the daylight through our bedroom window always wakes me up. As per normal my wife kept sleeping. I let her, just kissed her beautiful elven face before heading to the shower. I’m always amazed that the most wonderful lady elf in my year at elfiversity agreed to marry boring old me.
After the shower I got dressed and set about dismantling the burglar protection and warning spells before heading downstairs. Breakfast was next – yes I do the same thing every single morning, and normally it’s as boring as it sounds. I thought that today was going to be the same again.
Then I unlocked the front door and looked out onto our front lawn. I was expecting to see a pristine (very small) field of pure white snow. Instead the view was a mess. The snow was tracked with footprints, many footprints, probably by many different small two-legged creatures. Our dustbins were both on their sides, the contents spread all over the place.
There aren’t that many creatures that will rummage through an elven family’s rubbish, and I had my suspicions – various households in the vicinity had had problems with the local clan of goblins over the years. We’d had them go through our dustbins every night for three weeks a couple of years back.
The entire town wanted them gone, but that’s easier said than done. A goblin’s magic is much more effective underground. Once they’re in the sewers they’re almost impossible to track. Only the army’s best tracker mages can find their lairs, and they’re only used for the largest of infestations – everyone else has to manage the best that they can.
Still I needed proof. I stepped outside, and went through the discarded junk as systematically as I could. It didn’t take me long to find what I feared I’d find. To the untrained eye it looked like a golden powder, and it smelled slightly of rotten meat. It was powdered griffin claw that had been kept too long and had gone off.
It’s not uncommon for the stuff to go off. It’s a very powerful spice in elven cuisine, the taste in small quantities is delicious. But because it’s used so sparingly it tends to be stored for a long time, hence the occasional problem. Once it goes off it’s useless for elven cooking, but goblins adore the stuff, and the smell attracts them like bees to nectar. The only way to safely discard it is to burn it first – that gets rid of the smell, so no goblins.
I went back inside, hurried up the stairs, entered my bedroom and shook my wife awake. She’s often very cranky if she’s awoken too early, but this time I was willing to risk it.
“Felstimion! What time is this?” Yes, I’m Felstimion, my darling, wonderful, adorable wife (though at the time I was struggling a little to remember that she was adorable and all the rest of it) is called Demerimina.
“It’s just after seven in the forenoon.”
“How many times have I told you not to wake me before eight unless it’s an emergency?”
“Too many, my darling. Did you get rid of some powdered griffin claw yesterday?”
“Yes, I asked Felmerimon to put it in the rubbish for me.” Felmerimon is our eldest. Suddenly she sat bolt upright in bed, and put her hands over her face. “Oh no! I forgot to remind him to burn it first!”
“Yes, my darling,” I said softly. “There are goblins in the garbage again.”
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Welcome, AC! I love what you did with this post and hope you continue the story sometime. The characters really burst off the screen.
FYI, I goofed and we wound up with two different posts this week. With different prompt trades if you want an addition challenge or inspiration, but no worries if not. My fault, so I’ll drop a link in the other post to make sure people are tracking your story here. Apologies! I hope it doesn’t scare you off.
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My responses to both prompts are now up at my LiveJournal, https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/877772.html. I got a segment of the Big Messy Project out of the first one, and a flash fiction story out of the second. Actually a pretty productive week.
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