Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #00772 - B041: Veni Vidi Vetinari

A magic demonstration goes wrong, and Lord Vetinari finds himself in modern conservative backwoods Texas.

The smoke cleared and Lord Havelock Vetinari raised an eyebrow. He was now seated on the stump of a tree and facing a very surprised and sunburned family who were evidently cooking something on a portable grille.

They were a mixture of scrawny and over-fed. And the most overfed were the adult males. Their bellies lapped over their pants. The females were underfed. Or rather, the young ones were. The eldest of them had a body made by bearing children young, and then bearing them often. At least two of the older females were in the transition betwixt rail-thin weed and earth-mother.

All this, Vetinari saw before one of them reached for his weapon.

It looked almost exactly like the Gonne, but this was significantly more advanced. Reason dictated that he take charge.

“Good day to you and blessings on your household…”

*

President Gunther was permanently red-faced and bamboozled. Everyone knew he was the puppet of the angular gentleman all in black, murmuring behind his left shoulder.

The Media called him The Thin Man and never acquired his name because President Gunther always called him ‘Slim’, and so did his multitudinous family that managed to occupy almost all of the bedrooms in the white house.

But, they all agreed, America had never done better. All with simple changes to the laws of the land that guaranteed freedom for all its citizens. In two short weeks in office, President Gunther and his svelte puppeteer had eliminated crime of all kinds, illegal immigrants, poverty, and the welfare debate.

He also championed the rights of the downtrodden and worked on a rather strict system to eliminate racism across the country.

All by doing almost the exact opposite of what the Conservatives used to champion.

When told of the mythical welfare queens, the Thin Man said simply, “Show them to me.”

When told of the drug cartels, the Thin Man went on a brief sabbatical and returned with names and addresses for the FBI and the CIA. Including, embarrassingly, the cartels run by the FBI and the CIA.

All in all, the people in power were rather glad when he vanished without a trace.

[Muse food remaining: 18. Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]

Challenge #00771 - B040: Great for Business

I never just derail a train of thought. I make wrecks that catch the cars on fire.

Kalle had ‘disruptive influence’ on her permanent record. She had no idea what to expect when Central Administration sent her to a training camp. Her vague concepts were nothing like the experience before her.

“You are a disrupter,” said the uniformed Administrator Plexx on the stage. “You can use this to the advantage of many. Corporations around the globe will

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Challenge #00770 - B039: Ancient Writings

Bring it the fuck on = Eam non valent, in (Eng->Lat)

[AN: My google translate disagrees and provides “adducet eam ad irrumabo” I trust any latin nerds in my audience will settle the debate]

Of all the things that could have possibly sated Shayde’s wanderlust, exploring he less popular areas of the station seemed the safest and least bother. What Rael hadn’t known at the time was Shayde’s capacity for finding adventures.

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Challenge #00769 - B038: Ballistic Rock

“We will, we will, Rock you!” As sung by the United Trebouchet Operators Choir. You figure out the circumstance. Have fun.

The trebuchets, massive siege weapons of wood and rope, fired silently. It was their payloads, landing against the stunt castle walls, that were part of the performance.

Two solid rocks, and a missile made of gravel and dried clay. They landed with a WHUMP-WHUMP, TSSSSHH. A relentless beat that required the scurrying co-ordination of hundreds.

“Buddy you’

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Challenge #00768 - B037: Pure Badness

You venerate purity for its own sake, a most pointless exercise. Pure Iron is brittle, corrodes and shatters easily. Pure copper or tin do not have the strength of bronze. Alloys are Stronger

There was a civilisation on Tsarkis. If one could call it that. In the Galactic Alliance’s opinion, it barely passed the bar.

For a start, there was a very rigid caste system. Enforced by the military caste and massive walls that divided district from district. Few, if

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The Coming Devestation

The last time the Great Wyrm attacked, the Kingdom of Nalun’g was rent asunder. Now, after almost a century of repair and reconstruction, the land sickens, holy symbols warp and tarnish, and the young and artists are plagued be nightmares that, horribly enough, may be prophecies.
The signs are there. The Beast is Coming…

(#00767 - B036)

Of course Nalun'g searched for a hero. Knights, barbarians, thieves and assassins all tried their hands at eliminating the Wyrm.

They were never seen

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The Travelogue Continues

After leaving Francoeur behind, Kurt and Todd find themselves in South Park, bizarre animation and all. How will they cope with being the 184th strangest thing to happen to the town?.

(#00766 - B035)

It had been another typical morning at the bus stop. The usual debate had come around to the subject of mothers.

“Mmf F mmmf mf Mmmmmmm'f mmf mf f mmmmf,” said Kenny.

“You take that back, you sonofabitch,” Cartman challenged.

“Get over it,

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Challenge #00765 - B034:

A human opens a Beauty Salon for Reptilian Customers, it occurs to me that its Male reptiles who often try to attract mates.

[AN: Thanks to Tumblr’s habit of dropping links when I copy/paste, I have a new “streamlined” and “easier” procedure in which I have the HTML of my tagline info in a separate file and, after I’m done doing the story, I swap to HTML and copy/paste that sucker in.

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Challenge #00764 - B033: Emergency Procedures

“When in trouble, when in doubt. Run in circles, scream and shout!” Have fun with this!

These were the most bizarre aliens she had ever seen. Their emergency klaxon was a twinkly little tune suitable for Play School or Sesame Street[1] replete with singing. The jolly lady’s voice instructed the entire crew on how to panic in the same tone of friendly warning that other PSA’s would tell children where and how to cross the

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Return to the Greater Dereg That Got It Right

Exactly what it says on the tin.

(#00763 - B032)

[AN: This would be directly related to Challenge #323 in One Leap Year of Instants, available for whatever you want at Smashwords]

How to run a world without taxes, Kell wrote. First: Eliminate the government. Elected officials only care for their results in the next election, leading to years of nothing done, followed by flurries of activity nearing the election season.

Public services are therefore run by non-profit organisations with client care

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Numedid Meets the Birds of Earth, Part 3

Numedid meet the Penguins, finding them to be practicing Marxists with the capacity to utterly conquer the known galaxy, but have held off because they “want to see how the whole human thing turns out first”.

(#00762 - B031)

[AN: Not gonna lie, my first thought was with the Penguins of the Madagascar movies… resisting said temptation with my entire might.]

Humans called them Emperor penguins. They had a much more complicated name for themselves that T'reka the Wanderer could never

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Challenge #00761 - B030: What a Waste

A numidid who is the living embodiment of handsome - his feathers are perfectly aligned and gleaming, talons sharp and shiny, vibrant crest, and zygomatic arches to make everyone swoon.
He’s also a scientist. (from Amity or not)
Commence shenanigans!

Lu’iz had no idea he was handsome. He carried on in all his beliefs and allowed everyone else to be mistaken in theirs. Such was the life of a scientist.

And yet, every day, he would hear some female on

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Challenge #00760 - B029: Hug-a-Bunch

“And here we have- please put the new ambassador down.”
“But (s)he’s so cute and cuddle able!”

Ha’ri still didn’t understand how she became an ambassador to her people. She was just one of the many, many asteroid-chasers trying to make enough money to pay for more than her ship and its fuel. Especially damages.

Then a ship belonging to the strange, balding apes had come out of nowhere and she made the mistake

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Wardrobe Malfunction

We return to the campaign of Kermit the Frog and Undead!Fred Rogers, who is now starting to look a bit…ripe. This leads up to a live debate where bits of Mr. Rogers visibly start falling off, ending in a total structural collapse during his concluding speech.
Even with one member a rapidly putrefying puddle of flesh, the Frog/Rogers ticket is still far in the lead.

(#00759 - B028)

[AN: I want to go on the record that I find

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So That's What They're Up To...

Scenes from an apartment building for divinities who lack major worshiper populations. Thor complains about Sobek using all of the building’s hot water, Huitzilopochtli and Apollo are catty he-bitches to each other, and even the other Gods of Death agree that Anubis is damn creepy; that sort of thing.

(#00758 - B027)

[AN: Apologies for the eurocentrism, but I did have to do very quick research on this and finding non-european obscure gods is an exercise in frustration]

Hestia ran the

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