The daily life returns to trudge on, and art is part of what keeps us sane. Art, and finding it in strange places, whether it be the patterns of wear on a brick wall hidden by crumbled concrete or the path of bark as nature makes its methods of decay known.
And when in doubt, create art yourself. Onto the prompts!
| Poke | Stick | Poked |
| Becky Jones | She stepped inside the house and breathed a deep sigh of relief. | Fiona Grey |
| AC Young | Warriors vs Assassins | nother Mike |
| Padre | “So you’re home at last. About dang time.” | Becky Jones |
| Leigh Kimmel | It had to be sent back anyway | AC Young |
| nother Mike | Who thought trying to stab jellyfish with a sword was a good idea, anyway? | Leigh Kimmel |
| Fiona Grey | The castle guards watched not the people, but the friendly, fluffy dog running freely through the courtyard. | Padre |
Need an extra challenge? Forget to send a prompt in for a trade? Shy, but interested? That’s what spares are for, and plenty of ’em.
| Spare | Got to the bedroom and you started laughing |
| Spare | Just imagine, a gym locker full of broken pencils |
| Spare | What kind of treasure did the veterinarian find in the cow? |
| Spare | Why did the police sergeant have a jar full of plastic ants on his desk? |
| Spare | Here she comes, just a walking down the street… |
| Spare | The images displayed on the floor until broken by a pair of neat oxfords that stood there, silent and waiting, until she raised her eyes. |
That’s it for this week – don’t forget to come back and share your creations in the comments.
Header image by Fiona Grey
More Odds Than Ends 
This week Leigh Kimmel poked me with a stick: It had to be sent back anyway
—
The 1st Mechanised Experimental Brigade had received a delivery of a new battle-robot. It fell to Corporal Horace to test it for suitability.
He was strapped in, and his helpers shut it up. Horace turned on the controller-mecha interface, and waited for the start-up process to complete.
The first test was the mecha assault course. The first time round, Horace achieved only an average time. The second circuit went much faster. That test had been passed with flying colours.
Next was the weaponry test. The machine gun turned out to be accurate to over a mile. The anti-mecha missile launcher struck the target every time out as far as Horace could see through the mecha’s own camera system.
By the end of the day, Horace was happy to sign it off, and authorise the issuing of the new machine to front-line units. But it was too late to fill in the paperwork; that would have to wait until tomorrow.
The next morning, a message came from the Brigadier’s office. The updates to the Geneva Conventions had finally been agreed. All equipment currently being tested had to be checked for compliance.
As Corporal Horace compared the specs of the new battle-robot against the new restrictions he realised that he would need to do more careful checking of the real thing.
His fears were realised. The machine gun was designed to fire bullets that were just a mm too wide. It wasn’t legal under the new regulations.
The new, excellent, battle-robot would have to be sent back to the manufacturer to be redesigned with a machine gun of a lesser calibre.
Horace filled in the paperwork, and forwarded it to the Brigadier for countersigning. He sent it electronically with a sigh.
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AC Young poked me with
Warriors vs Assassins
[ouch, that stick’s got thorns! Hum,,,]
When Kelly finished training, he was surprised to be called into an office with an officer wearing a plain black uniform. Who looked at him as he stepped into the office, and nodded.
“Please close the door, then sit down.”
Kelly frowned, but he carefully closed the door. He could hear the lock click shut, and a faint hum began. Then he turned and sat down in the chair in front of the desk.
The officer looked down at a folder on the desk, then looked at Kelly again and smiled.
“Relax. I suspect you are wondering what this is all about. First, let me reassure you, you have finished basic and advanced training, with very good scores. In fact, that’s why we are meeting, I’m here to offer you a choice about what you do next.”
Kelly bit his lip. He thought his next steps were pretty obvious. Privates didn’t get to make choices, officers told them what they would be doing next.
The officer chuckled.
“Yes, this is a choice. One that you should think about carefully. See, I like to think of it as warriors versus assassins. The normal route from here on makes you a warrior. You’ll stand up with other warriors, and carry out orders. But for a very few special ones, we will make you an assassin. You’ll be doing things behind foreign lines that we never talk about.”
Kelly gulped. There were barroom rumors about something like this. Black ops, way off the books. But…
“Speak freely, private. I’m here to answer your questions, for now.”
“Yes, sir. Well… is this really part of the military? I mean, the US armed forces?”
The officer nodded.
“Good question. The answer is yes, the assassins branches were set up during World War 2, when several of our operatives actually took the war to Berlin and other places far behind the lines. If you join us, you’ll get to learn more about our history, but it is a real part of the US military, even though we are never publicly recognized.”
Kelly stroked his chin.
“So this is undercover work?”
The officer laughed.
“Undercover, top secret, and invisible.”
Kelly bit his lip. But… he had been joking with his friends the other day that someone needed to kill a couple of foreign prime ministers to settle the international politics. And here was the answer…
Kelly stood up, and braced to attention.
“All right, sir. I think I can make my choice now. I would be proud to join the assassins.”
The officer chuckled,
“Sit down. We don’t bother with that as much as some of the branches do. And we’re happy to have you join us. Now, I’m going to have to walk you through a series of questions, and get you to sign several papers. You do understand that you can never tell anyone about this, right?”
Kelly just nodded. Then he settled down in the chair again.
[huh, not quite, but almost… I mean, if the military had black ops groups that carried out assassinations and such, how would they get their members?]
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[…] so it’s weird. I dunno. Angus just popped into my head. Anyway, my MOTE challenge this week came from Padre: “So you’re home at last. About dang time.” My prompt went to Fiona […]
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Hey, now, let’s not be hasty. Angus seems like a right neighborly bloke, don’t you know? As for his travel plans, well… we all get there somehow, right? Now, we just need to know what happens next!
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I hope we see Angus again!
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[…] ***This week’s prompt came from Becky Jones, and I did not do it justice. Mine went to Padre, where a fluffy dog caught the guards’ attention. Check it and more out at MOTE! […]
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And now mine is up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1528194.html. It’s fun to revisit an old scene from a new POV — but when I start writing the actual novella they belong in, I’m going to have to make sure they sync properly.
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