Prose – Page 3 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

Six Sentence Story: Adam and Evie, First Date

When Evie and her best friend Lilith started Poof, International it was Evie’s secret apple delight recipe, inherited from her great grandmother, combined with Lilith’s secret poof formula, inherited from some distant ancestor she no longer needed to remember, that put the company on a firm enough footing to attract investor interest.

Even though they were now both gazillionaires they remained graduate students at the University of Noital so they could find their Mr. Rights, or at least Evie was looking for Mr. Right, while Lilith would have been content with a boatload of Mr. Wrongs whom she could vanish when a fresh boat docked.

While wandering through the cafeteria they noticed Adam sitting across from some guy who looked like he didn’t know he was a guy, but then they realized to their horror that this was that very Adam, that notorious, deceitful, no-good, anti-poof terrorist, who was eating from a sack lunch containing a disgusting, greasy burger with wimpy fries. Evie grabbed a plate load of poof with the intent of making the terrorist eat it all in front of her while Lilith vanished the other guy since, whatever it was, it was getting in the way of Evie having a private moment with Adam.

When Evie returned after watching Adam abruptly leave the cafeteria Lilith asked, How did your first date go? – knowing full well how it went.

Evie was nearly in tears as she said, while Lilith cooed in sympathy walking her back to their waiting limousine, I gave him the poof and told him to eat it and he refused and so I told him we were finished – THROUGH – and he said that we were NEVER together – that this was the FIRST time we ever spoke a word to each other – which was ridiculous (and Lilith agreed) – and then he lectured me (and Lilith said, “How dare he!”) and then he had the nerve to just get up and leave (and Lilith said, “Men!”) as if I – I – were the one making a scene (and Lilith said, “Poor baby!”).

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Denise offers the prompt word “sack” for this week’s Six Sentence Stories.

Six Sentence Story: Who Are YOU, Really?

While Adam ate his burger and fries, John, a graduate student at the University of Noital, sat across from him eating a double portion of Apple Poof Delight.

John said, You know, Adam, I identify as a woman.

Adam had been at Noital long enough not to peg his fellow students (nor his professors) with a level of intelligence greater than they were willing to display. Before lifting another spoonful of poof to his mouth, John pursued the topic he initiated by asking, So, Adam, who are YOU, really?

Adam knew he ought to come out of the closet and tell John the truth about who he really was, but he wondered if now was the right time. Then concluding that now was as good a time as any, Adam said – just after that last puddle of poof reached John’s stomach and just before John vanished – I identify as a son of God.

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

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.

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.

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.

Double Minded Spiritual Warfare

If you feel like there’s an angel on one shoulder arguing with a devil on the other, that’s double mindedness.

The only reason the devil’s there is because he’s offering you something you want that you shouldn’t want. Command the devil to leave until he no longer wastes his time on you. You are then victorious.

The only reason the angel’s there is because God has not given up on you.

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Six Sentence Story: Poof, The Company

As Evie realized she was getting nowhere at the University of Noital she began mass producing and selling Apple Poof Delight. In no time her business venture was a phenomenal success.

She put a large patch on each package where a warning was written to all those eating the delicacy that, indeed, they could vanish if they ate it – all of which only increased sales. For the worry warts she offered the consolation that if they should stop eating the delicacy for three weeks straight they would no longer be subject to the vanishing which her statistics showed happened mainly to people who should have vanished long ago anyway.

Since people tend to believe what they read, they acknowledged, one and all and passed the info on, that they could always stop eating the stuff, even though they never did, and so it made sense to always continue eating it.

Although this was contended by those logically inclined to nitpick – especially after the third helping of Apple Poof – most everyone got the point that they could always continue since they could always stop, though no one could any longer find a good reason why anyone would ever want to stop, and Evie became a gazillionaire almost overnight.

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

The Praise Cure

In her book, Healing from Heaven¹, Lilian B. Yeomans spoke of many cures such as the barefoot cure, the grape cure or the mud cure and some of them even worked to some extent. However, she claimed that the only sure cure is the praise cure.

She also mentioned that some of these cures are very expensive and the praise cure is the most expensive of all, but the full cost of the praise cure was paid by Jesus.

How do you apply the praise cure? Start giving praise in words and song for what Jesus has done for you. And there is no reason to stop even after whatever ails you has disappeared.

One song of praise among many including many of the psalms

Be healed
in Jesus name.
The kingdom of God
has come near
to you.

This book is one of four by Yeomans collected in His Healing Power, Harrison House Publishers, 2003. The original book was published in 1935 by Gospel Publishing House. The 1973 edition can be viewed online from Internet Archive. The chapter, “The Praise Cure” starts on page 53 in that edition. ↩︎

Six Sentence Story: Apple Poof Delight

When his wife with a tone more of annoyance than concern reported that Professor Weissalles did not return home again last night, campus security questioned Evie, the teaching assistant at the University of Noital assigned to his Advanced Nescience class.

He pushed all my buttons, she said.

What happened to him?

Poof!

Knowing Evie held a BA with honors in nescience they didn’t expect to get much out of her until she began what would end up being a needlessly lengthy confession, but they only heard the first sentence before they, too, vanished.

OK, I’ll admit I gave him the apple, but it was his own fault that he ate it just like the two of you did.

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

Genesis 3:6 KJV – 6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

It looks like there’s a snail on the white half of the wall, center left.

Your Get Out Of Hell Free Card

When I think of C.S. Lewis the first thing that comes to mind is his novel, The Great Divorce. In that novel one of his characters, the Teacher, has the following to say which I formatted below as a poem:

There are only two kinds of people in the end:
those who say to God:
‘Thy will be done,’
and those to whom God says, in the end,
‘Thy will be done.’
All that are in Hell, choose it.
Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.¹

So, assuming you do not want to be in hell, how do you get out of whatever hell you might be in? By hell I mean addiction, sin, or even illness. The Holy Spirit provides the way.