10 Words

The shoelace was so tangled it had to be cut.

Dirty Laundry

TOTAL ACCESS -- ALL ARTICLES OF CLOTHING WORN BY ALL PEOPLE INVOLVED IN ALL GOVERNMENTS OF ALL NATIONS OF ALL TIME -- NOT PREWASHED -- PHOTOGRAPHY IS PROHIBITED

About forty houses were torn down to build it. Plebeians, obviously, with no desire to gaze at the insurmountable heap of dirty laundry.

"I tell you," said one to another, "Things most certainly was not this way back in the day. Used to be a man was respected, but now they be tearing down our hard earned houses for this shit. Nonsense, I tell you, ain't no reason in it. Why, how many washers d'ya suppose you'd need to wash all them clothes?"

The answer, which none of the plebeians calculated, was 26,809 washers, and it would take 7 days, 5 hours and 53 minutes to wash all of the dirty laundry of every government everywhere, but no one was building washers and no one was building dryers. Meanwhile the clothes sat in a jumble, hidden away in their completely accessible, impossible to navigate disorganization.

The Greatest Ship to Ever Sail

The captain walked in with a stride,
"I'll have a pint of yer finest ale",
And drank it in his blinded pride.

The first mate prattling at his side,
Was faithful always without fail,
In all the greatest, highest tides.

But in the winter health was denied
The first mate's face grew very pale
And blank, his sickness blinded pride.

And in the night the first mate died,
They threw him in a mighty gale
In all the greatest, highest tides.

Without the first mate by his side,
The captain's power went up in scale,
He took in all his blinded pride.

A storm broke out with winds untried
The greatest ship to ever sail,
In all the greatest, highest tides
He sank it in his blinded pride.

April 46th, 72nd year of the Tarantula -- engineer's report:

The GranDestroyer model #4D77890's programming is becoming problematic. For about three years, the planet's defense was impenetrable, but over time the model is gradually becoming more and more self-aware. The first malfunctions were not very incriminating, including the GranDestroyer not cleaning up after itself, but now we can't get it to stop playing Runescape. We've tried reasoning with it, but our translator programs indicate that it regards us all as idiots and will "have none of our shit".

The engineering team discussed reprogramming the GranDestroyer, but overhearing us, it threatened to kill itself and the planet along with it. We are forced to adhere to its wishes until we are able to find a better solution. The team is hard at work and we hope to find a solution soon. It is unlikely that this malfunction will result in the eradication of our species, but it is an important possibility to keep in mind. For this reason, we have sent out a thousand or so of our comrades to the farthest moon for the preservation of our species. The situation will likely not be grave, but it is our responsibility to take precautions.

Best, engineer 465.nnc

Another sestina born by a pseudo-random word generator

She was in a long, black gown,
reading through the menu
with her spindly hands. Outside there was rain,
the farmer quickly turning over mud with a spade
He had to get in before dark--can you believe it? A witch!
and he didn't want to be her next target.

"It's you! And right on target!"
said the banker who had called the police after spotting the gown.
"I know it's her, the witch,
and danger's on the menu.
I've got my torch, my pitchfork, my spade,
and if she goes after me you'd better believe it's gonna rain".

And indeed, it did rain.
Billie was inside playing darts, always hitting the target
"Was your card a spade?"
asked his brother, practicing magic in his elaborate gown.
"No," sighed Billie, crumpling and tossing an old menu,
"But speaking of magic, have you heard of the witch?"

"Ha! A witch!
Everyone's just upset about all this rain.
Worried about the crops drowning, losing options on Diana's cafe menu,
Worried that we're the target
of God's wrath, of some mage in a gown,
that we're a heap of dirt for the storm to spade."

And just then, she walked in with the farmer's spade,
The witch,
smiling, in her dark, iconic gown.
The wind let in the rain
Through the door, "It's time for target
practice", she said. "I'm hungry and you're on the menu."

"The menu?!"
shouted Billie, "how have you gotten the farmer's spade?"
"He was my target,
and I'm a witch,
What do you expect? That you'll be saved by the rain?"
And with that, she disappeared into her gown.

The gown turned to smoke and like the banker had said, danger was on the menu.
The deafening rain hid the sound of the attacking possessed spade,
She was a witch, and Billie and his brother were her target.

The Bechdel Test

"Hello," said woman 1 to woman 2.
And woman 2 to woman 1,
"Hello, hello, hello."

Fin

The smell of morning floated across the water, buoyed beneath the sky. It reminded her of old times. She could taste it--taste the silence in her mouth. The fish floated halfway between the buoy and the water, its fin wedged beneath the styrofoam. "What's it doing?" the girl had asked her father, and he said someone probably threw it back in after fishing. That was what; that was how. "She's gone now, the poor old girl," he said. "She won't wake up now". And that's how it was. She couldn't wake up. She won't.

Someone had thrown a styrofoam cup in the water. It floated across, buoyed by the salty water. Probably an old coffee cup. Beneath the cold, morning sky was a feeling that asked of what was gone. A feeling of silence, of cold, a feeling that reminded her of waking up at her father's in the poor times. A feeling wedged halfway between waking and doing, the smell of coffee, a salty taste in her mouth.