h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been thinking of a story thread, along the lines of the Bad Poetry thread. To keep it fun and relatively easy, and to avoid pages and pages for people to struggle through, I suggest we have a SHORT SHORTS thread.

I'd like to see what we can do with a FIVE SENTENCE LIMIT. Other guidelines:

1. They should make sense
2. They don't have to be 'proper' sentences with a verb.
3. We can rethink and alter things later, esp. the no. of sentences, if five is too restrictive. But I want it snappy and short.
4. No long run-on sntences ...and...,...and..., please, even though James Joyce and Jack Kerouac used them extensively - so I'm not saying they're necessarily wrong, just not right for this game.
5. It's no more than a game. Bad shorts are quite acceptable.
6. No poetry please!

Here are three examples to start us off. The first one is made of two 'improper' sentences with no verbs.

2 ‘sentence’ short:
"God is dead” - Nietzsche. “Nietzsche is dead” – God.

3 sentence short:
Some days, nothing seemed to go right for Bernard. One Thursday for instance he found his shares had collapsed in the Credit Crunch and he’d lost all his money. So he hanged himself.

5 sentence short:
Willie, Billie and Millie went on a trip in a rowboat down the Thames. Willie rowed, as he was the only man, and the ladies didn’t want to spoil their summer outfits. Billie checked the weather on the radio. “It’ll snow in most parts of England today, especially in the Thames area” it said, although it was the middle of summer. “That’s good”, said Millie, “snow news is good news.”


Jabs

Well, yes, the first has two 'is' verbs, but they're part of quotations and not the actual sentence so don't count.

Jabs

Jogging along the promonade, Billy Walker's eye strays out to sea. Doing a 'double-take', Billy suddenly stops running. Walking to the sea wall, he looks closely at the huge whale floundering on the distant sandbank.

Thanks for being the brave one lil !


Jabs

He felt his brain dry and thought that a whisky and some grass will release words to write something. Some of his favourite authors wrote under the effects of some drugs, "they should work on me too" he thought. He started: "She had been digging and delving in her heart looking for a tender memory that might cheer her up in that lonely night"

I came out of the shop with Philip Marlowe. He'd been in the antiquarian bookshop where I worked, looking for a first edition of "The Big Sleep". I took a furtive, sideways glance at him from under my long, sensuous eyelashes. I knew, that he knew, that I wasn't what I pretended to be. His face was a blank mask, and I wondered just how many secrets were hidden behind that plastic visage.

'Who killed the rat?' she said. 'I did', he said, a hint of pride in his voice. 'That filthy, fat, smelly rat, trapped at the neck, then finished off with your own bare hands?' 'That's right', he said, pride turning to uncertainty. 'Well, you're not touching me tonight' she said, then, after a long pause, 'you can have a damned good bath and go and sleep on the balcony'.

good for her!

The sun had set & we were lost. Dry as tinder and pitch black, the fork lightening momentarily lit the sky. We were lost, disoriented, and the dense fallen bark under our feet, tripped, scratched and brought us to the ground.Suddenly there was a bright light, a flame,- a hope that we would find our way out. Soon we realized that the lightening had caught a gum tree, and we were doomed to burn.

Sales executives and their business lunches. With their sales teams spurting out their sales pitches. Reciting their new mantras along with their mission statements. Full of enthusiasm for buzz words and meanignless business jargon. They are at their happiest when attending inhouse seminars and at team building sessions.

He put on his blue and green swimming shorts. Climbed up the ladder. Dived into the pool. Spotted the shark. Oops.

I drove my parents, who are almost 90, to my brother's house yesterday, so they could investigate an assisted-living facility.
While they were looking the place over, I went shopping for a birthday gift for my brother's wife. When I got back to my brother's house, I found that my mother was upset. I had forgotten to take her walker out of my car so she could use it for the assisted-living place.... I feel very bad about this.

He carries a big bouquet of flowers. He goes to the station, seeking young women who have just arrived in the big city, women who will accept his help to find a hotel or a taxi, women who look lost. The flowers make him look harmless, as if he's waiting for his wife. He has no wife. He's waiting for a young woman who has just arrived in the big city, a young woman who looks lost.

Post 13 Infie - That's rather a good one

Agreed

But they're all remarkably good so far


Jabs

They looked at each other for a while,smiling, then came closer and they hold each other tight. He gave her the bouquet of flowers. She smiled at him and came closer again. They kissed and the smile in their faces last all day.

Two whiskies and a doobie later, he found his mind still dry. The story of the lonely woman didn´t take off. He remembered that someone had already written something that could inspired him. He began to read his copy of Miss Lonely Hearts.

I loved Mary. She loved me. How happy we were when we were together, a lover and his lass. We're married now, still very much in love. We haven't much money, but we have each other, and a love like ours is something that no amount of money can buy.

I sit on the bench watching the tracks as the misty rain trickles down my face. No trains have come by yet. The platform is deserted except for me. Then I remember that they closed down the whole line ten years ago.

I have taken garlic and cod liver oil. I even eaten salads added with fresh garlic. Had an apple a day or even two. Taken vitamin c, avocado oil and starflower oil. But I still got a stinking cold and my skin is dry as a bone.