Tag: #sixsentencestories

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.

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.

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.

Six Sentence Story: What To Do About Noital

Emperor Dunklematerie reviewed the budget for the next year noting the line for the University of Noital. He asked his royal advisors, Why so much money for Noital?

“But, your Highness, they do so much good that doesn’t need to be done,” one advisor said.

Dunklematerie knew that all of his advisors were doctorates of something or other from that university. None of them would row against the current of support for their alma mater.

Regretting every penny, Emperor Dunklematerie groaned, Ach . . . go ahead and fund them.”

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

Proverbs 17:16 KJV – Wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart to it?

Six Sentence Story: Emperor Dunklematerie’s New Clothes

Emperor Dunklematerie walked down the street in his new clothes which were so finely made that he might have appeared – to the untrained eye – naked.

“I applaud our glorious Emperor who’s not only a brilliant scientist but a connoisseur of the arts,” one well-paid servant of the realm posted with a billion AI-generated likes.

Another showcased the ingenious tailors who fashioned the exquisite clothing out of the “density of the darkest gravity”.

And another remarked how pricelessly expensive those designer clothes were with holes in them everywhere – not just the knees – to cover the Emperor “in the cosmic void itself”.

Unfortunately, once a certain breed of children reach a certain age and before they reach a certain other age when they start thinking like they’re supposed to, there’s not much you can do with them. Thanks to them the whole world got to see AI-manipulated clips of Dunklematerie before their social media accounts where locked.

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

Proverbs 16:18 KJV – 18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

A fallen tree clothed in fungus

One of my poems, Words, has been published today in Whispers and Echoes. I am grateful to Sammi Cox for accepting it.

Six Sentence Story: Prodigal Son

Brian spent most of his life running away from blessings, but they overtook him anyway. His heart changed as he physically stopped, turned around and went home. Although the time he wasted overtaking useless stuff overwhelmed him, he was relieved that he no longer felt compelled to do any of that.

They say the narrow way is narrow and Brian was just beginning to realize how narrow, yet fulfilling, it was.

One day the devil challenged God, “Being omniscient and all, surely You still know, even though You might not want to remember, all those wicked things I got Brian to do, don’t You?”

The devil stared at God trying without success to penetrate the Light with the dense darkness of his trimmed vision hoping God would give him a philosophically precise answer this time that he could pick apart with satisfaction through eternity, but all God said was, “Nope.”

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

Hebrews 10:16-17 KJV – 16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; 17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

Six Sentence Story: Blue Sky, Green Grass

Jeffrey lay on a sofa in the student lounge of the University of Noital with his mind full of sleepy sky-is-blue-grass-is-green dreams. He knew he had an assignment, due that afternoon, to write a six sentence story using the word “minute”, but, as usual, he preferred dreaming about the assignment being done rather than getting up and doing it.

Eventually he got so tired of being tired that he chased his dreams away, sat upright on the sofa, opened his laptop and typed: “The sky is blue.” He added, because he needed more than one sentence: “The grass is green.” Hoping it might encourage some stray muse to have pity on him, he wrote the last sentence next: “The End.”

Then Jeffrey closed his laptop and lay back down on the sofa as his sleepy dreams returned to remind him like a nagging conscience annoyed with having been pushed away earlier, “Don’t forget to use that word minute in your story”.

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

Six Sentence Story: The Doctors Of Nescience

Philip decided to start a company that would produce deceptively engaging nonsense for video channels. He hired his colleagues from the University of Noital each a renowned Doctor of Nescience to build the content. Being congenitally unemployable they were surprised to find themselves suddenly working.

The company was so successful that after many years of faithfully rigging the books, Philip’s CFO reported that profits exceeded expectations for the tenth quarter in a row. However, when the CFO demanded a bigger cut of the faked profits Philip, who failed himself to get a degree in nescience, took the company to the next level by firing the entire board of directors.

That was when Philip realized that he had acquired enough expertise twisting stuff to pitch it all and trash the books himself.

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