#sixsentencestories – Page 5 – Poetry, Short Prose and Walking

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.

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.

Six Sentence Story: The Mousetrap of the Misguiding Muse

Bob told everyone he followed the Bible as closely as the next guy. However, when he read something he didn’t like, on those rare occasions when he read the Bible at all, the muse guiding his philosophical wanderings soothed his mind with a strand of myth, mystery and misinterpretation.

Nonetheless God enjoyed listening to Bob, because when the muse ran Bob’s mouth God couldn’t stop laughing (I mean He could stop but – you know – why would He want to). When Bob died, God looked forward to meeting him so He could ask him some trick questions just to hear how his muse might respond.

Unfortunately, right at the last moment, just outside the Pearly Gates and in spite of all the warning signs, the muse guiding Bob’s philosophical wanderings led him to that omnivorous, omni-awesome black hole, so logically logical that even Lucifer could get used to living there. Then, as Bob gazed down, deep, and ever deeper into the bottomless pit, the mousetrap snapped taking Bob with it into that dark abyss where some say not even light can escape if there were any light down there to try.

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

Six Sentence Story: Pop

“After all these years of searching I’ve found nothing – nada – zip – that would explain how there could be life of any sort in any universe,” Brian told his grandchildren, “which makes me wonder what lit the fuse that got us here.”

But didn’t it all just pop out of nothing?

By itself!?

Yeah, we heard it went pippity-pop like pop corn, grandpops.

What in the world do they teach you kids in school these days? Nothing like that could ever happen.

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

Six Sentence Story: Pretty Pink and Baby Blue

The devils planted Pamela wearing her pretty pink petunias next to Billy with his baby blue blossoms in a flower bed.

That’ll teach um, one of the devils said.

Teach um what? the other asked.

Teach um . . . hmmm, yeah, teach um what? . . . ah! teach um that now they can weep and moan and gnash their teeth at each other for all eternity. The dumbest thing they ever did was to find their way down here.

Just then another truckload of flowering wretches arrived.

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

Luke 13:28-30 KJV – 28 There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.
29 And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.
30 And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.