Author: Frank Hubeny

I enjoy walking, poetry and short prose as well as taking pictures with my phone.

Six Sentence Story: Poof, The Controversy

Not everyone at the University of Noital ate Apple Poof Delight although given the sales data you’d think everyone owned a stake in the company. Regardless of the sales data, there was an array of conspiracy theorists and trouble makers who didn’t mind telling you – contrary to official denials – that poof was being dispersed surreptitiously by the government into the environment.

As counter measures to these rebels, researchers at the Noital Institute of Psycho Sociology applied for and were awarded grants to document the disastrous consequences of not accepting officially approved reality.

To counter fears that might be raised by the dissidents running their mouths – and they took every opportunity to do so – experiments were conducted at the prestigious Noital Medical Facility that were designed to confirm, beyond the shadow of decent doubt, that clear genetic damage could be done to one’s mental faculties if one did NOT eat – daily – a full serving from the poof food group.

To keep the conspiracy theorists from detecting much of anything, engineers from the Noital School of Science, Engineering and Advanced Nescience did their part to improve mechanisms to hide the trails left when packets of poof were dispersed to pollute the air, water and soil making sure everyone – including those pesky dissidents – got a healthy dose of it.

I asked one normally outspoken rebel who irrationally refused to ever – willingly – put poof in his mouth the clear and reasonable question – Why not? – but all he did was give me a look as if he thought the insanity of humanity had reached a level not seen before in human history little realizing that the sanity level had never been very high to begin with.

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Denise offers the prompt word “stake” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Cosmic Photo Challenge: As The Sun Goes Down

Dale offers the prompt “as the sun goes down” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.

These were taken earlier this year.

From where I was they are sunsets, but for other folk they would have been a sunrise.

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Sunset behind a tall building and the Intracoastal Waterway in southern Florida
Sunset behind a tree
Sunset with clouds

Six Sentence Story: The Mousetrap Or The Cliff

Adam Qos, a graduate student at the University of Noital, was eating lunch in the cafeteria of his dorm when another graduate student sat down across from him with his tray full of Apple Poof Delight.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” Adam asked with a flat expression as if he had asked that same student the same thing many times in the past which indeed he had.

“But it’s so good, Qos,” the student said.

“You know it says right on the package that you could vanish if you eat it,” Adam pointed out.

“But it’s so very, very good,” the student explained to his own satisfaction which in postmodern ethics is as far as one can go, but that is far enough to fall off a cliff or tempt a mousetrap one time too many.

If this were the first time they had this conversation, Adam would have explained to him that if one wanted to live a long and happy life it is not smart to jump off a cliff, but such universal truths don’t sink in for some until the mousetrap snaps shut.

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Denise offers the prompt word “flat” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Cosmic Photo Challenge: Close Up

Dale offers the prompt “close up” for this week’s Cosmic Photo Challenge.

I think I was less than a foot or so away from the object when I took the photo with my phone.

These are not recent photos but likely within the last year or two.

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Up close on the bark of a tree growing in southern Florida
Up close on a bee and a sunflower
Up close on a fallen palm branch

Six Sentence Story: How Do You Know?

Word reached Emperor Dunklematerie that Evie, a budding graduate student, had vanished many professors, including his nemesis, Professor Weissalles – who routinely humiliated him – along with some of the more obnoxious students at the University of Noital – who weren’t any friendlier – after eating Apple Poof Delight.

Why are they eating the stuff if they know what’s going to happen to them? the emperor asked his chief advisor.

“Ah, your Highness, the vanishing doesn’t happen right away and no one knows for sure if it will ever happen, since if you decide – before it’s too late – to never eat the wicked delicacy again and persist in your righteous resolve for three whole weeks, you won’t vanish because you wouldn’t be foolish enough to ever try it again, but it is so, so very – VEEEERY – tasty.”

How do you know?

With a gesture of sympathy toward the ignorance of those around him, the chief advisor explained to the emperor how it was possible for him to know what he would never, ever – no, not in a million years ever – have even considered trying. After a logically impeccable and scientifically irrefutable explanation, the chief advisor vanished.

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Denise offers the prompt word “gesture” to be used in this week’s Six Sentence Stories.