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

Paul - whatever is useful will do, but I like the 5 sentence restriction... And - Fun was the initial idea, but restricted sentences can both be easier and can lead to progress. Practice makes perfect. Enjoyment was intended to precede progress, which develops naturally, and has been doing so for ages on this thread.

(What use would a game be without rules? - ask any passing philosopher - it wouldn't be a game at all).

Good luck to everyone,



Jabs

This was George's fifth sentence.
He was starting to lose faith in "British Justice".
He felt more wicked for every day that passed in his lonely little cell.
How could he find peace of mind?
Every short he wrote seemed to need six or more sentences.

[Thanks, Jabs. I'm having more fun here than I've ever had before. Through some strange quirk, I *need* rules even as I search for ways to subvert them. Sometimes I'm only pretending that I want to break them. ]

Dear Pauline,
I have very little time available to pen this brief letter, as Tomorrow we are off to the front.
Being alone with you y Yesterdafor a few blissful hours on our "Island of Dreams" was the happiest time of my short life.
Now me and my mates have got a job to do before we get to see our sweethearts again.
I know I am off to fight for King and Country, but all the time I will be fighting for you, and for our future together.
I love you forever, come what may.
Your loving boyfriend Bill.

Dear Pauline,
I have very little time available to pen this brief letter, as Tomorrow we are off to the front.
Being alone with you Yesterday for a few blissful hours on our "Island of Dreams" was the happiest time of my short life.
Now me and my mates have got a job to do before we get to see our sweethearts again.
I know I am off to fight for King and Country, but all the time I will be fighting for you, and for our future together.
I love you forever, come what may.
Your loving boyfriend Bill.

When she first moved in, Yvette bragged that keeping her virtual house clean was a snap: "Remove pets and people, turn off the computer program, sweep away the accumulated dust and dirt, then bring the program up, good as new."

That was the upside.

The downside was what she was going through now at 3:00 a.m. on a February morning. She lay on the cold hard floor under what had been her bed, while the water in the toilet bowl splashed on the floor and her son Elmo moaned on the trampoline that had cushioned his fall from his second-floor bedroom.

What had been a neighborhood of virtual houses was now an empty field -- probably due to a widespread power outage -- so she turned on the emergency generator, breathing a sigh of relief as the house reappeared around her.

~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre [a class assignment]~~

The duck was charming. He was witty. He regaled the Duchess with songs about harpooning whales in the Yukon, and hang-gliding over Penobscot Bay.

"Tres bien, M. Duck," she said, applauding fervently, "I must insist that you come sing at my dinner party tonight, and I shall accompany you on my accordian."

Then she went to Chef Letatcestmoi to order him not to serve duckling a l'orange that night.

~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre [a class assignment]~~


Fautdemieux Lescargot had opened the front door of the Duchess's house many times, but this was the first time he ever saw a duck on the steps -- a duck in a suit, no less!

"We have looked at the Duchess's credentials." the duck said, "and have determined that Montmartre is much too small to have a Duke."

"But, M. Duck, it doesn't have a Duke," Lescargot replied, "it has a Duchess, one who is by far the finest Duchess in all of France."

The duck was about to dispute this point as well when he spied the Duchess's accordian, and promptly began playing elegant music on it, music that charmed Lescargot and brought the Duchess herself to the door, tears in her eyes.

"That was my grandfather's accordian," the Duchess sobbed, "but you play it twice as well as he ever could...."

~~The Duck, the Accordian, and the Duchess of Montmartre [a class assignment]~~


The Duchess had never considered becoming a spy before, but the intelligence agents who appeared at her door regaled her with visions of the suave, good-looking hunks she would be dealing with. "You're sexy, you're sophisticated, you're a Duchess," they had argued, "so they would never imagine that you were also a duplicitous spy."

It turned out to be a grand adventure: dinner with gorgeous guys in the finest restaurants, travel (first class, no less!) to Monte Carlo, Capri, and other exotic locales, even hang-gliding over Angel Falls with a spy who resembled Clark Gable.

But her luck went south when she found that her next contact -- the one who was rumored to be a powerful seducer of women -- was a duck.

Reading the skepticism on her face, the duck said, "I may be a duck, but rest assured I know how to show a woman a good time...."

She waited to be seduced, and then realized with considerable horror that the duck's idea of a good time was to reach for an accordian and serenade her.....

~~Another heart-rending tale of the Duck, the accordian, and the Duchess~~


Jacqueline de Montmartre's costume balls and dinner parties were the finest in all of Paris, so it came as quite a jolt when she curtailed them. "The stock market has crashed, as you know," she told reporters, "which means I've let all my servants go, sold my priceless paintings, and auctioned off most of the furnishings in my house."

Financial ruin led to despondency, which fed her craving for alcohol. She lay on the floor in the parlor now, her hair dishevelled, her head propped against the wall, filling a glass
from her last bottle of vodka.

"Exshept for the housh, I only have two thingsh left I can shell," she pondered, "the duck and the accordian," so it was a great relief for her when the duck showed her the golden egg it had just laid.

"Our investigation of the Prince is complete," the P.I. said. "He is quite normal, except for one quirk."

"How big a quirk?" the Queen demanded.

"Big enough. When he's under stress, he becomes a purple tanager."

"He'd be the world's only purple tanager. His enemies would spot him too easily."

"It's risky to be a tanager of *any* sort, as the kingdom is full of cats..."

"Will this make it harder for him to succeed his father as King?"

"As you may know, our Kings are chosen from among the most delusional men in the kingdom. Only a crazy person would want the job, given its demands."

After the P.I. left, the young Prince entered the room. "When I'm King, I will promote world peace, fight global warming, and create prosperity for all," he announced. The Queen heard this and realized he had a good shot at the throne....

[149 words]

The high flying executive business meeting led members waffling on the best ways to stimulate new business and increase profit margins by harnessing scalable action-items and synergising impactful deliverables that will enchance their global aims at making new partnerships with as many interested parties as possible as they revolutionise out-of-the-box action-items.

This led to asking will it increase the amount they can claim on the business expenditures account, so that they will be able to get free lunches and go to the cinema etc for free by taking as many clients with them, which also includes visits to the pub and shopping for clothes.

Given Mom's age and the extent of her injuries, the doctors doubted she could live alone any longer. As we opened the door to her hospital room, we realized that she had another problem as well: she'd become transparent since we'd last seen her.

"Grandma, it's getting harder to see you!" little Stephen blurted out before the rest of us could hush him up.

"I've kept this a secret all these years," Mom said sadly, "but my mother married a fictional character. The fictional part of me is fading away to nothing, so you can see through the real part. You'll fade like this in old age, too. The upside is that the fictional
part of me won't die."

Little Stephen turned bright red, for he realized that soon he wouldn't be able to get away with *anything* with all those invisible family members keeping an eye on him....

[149 words]

[Q.E.D.]

"Here's your revised version," the editor said, handing the author a one-page story.

"But I gave you an 800-page novel!" the author exclaimed, staring at it in disbelief."

"It was bloated. I cut out the adverbs and half the adjectives. Your subplots obscured the main story, so I tossed them -- elves taking over China; fighting Global Warming by pushing the Earth further from the Sun, etc. Rewrite them as separate stories if you want..."

"You even axed the dragon who designs greeting cards in Swahili?"

"No one in Swahili-speaking countries believes in dragons any more. We checked."

"What about the Doomed Lovers' Ball?"

"It's been done!"

"The secrets of life, written in frosting?"

"Oh, please!

"The elephant Milderspoff?

"Elephants are out lately."

"So all that's left is the tale of an author whose 800-page novel is edited down to one page..."

[post 1555 had only 150 words, not counting the title...]

, esp for 1552, Paul. The kick/click at the end was one of your best. The entry as a whole was primus inter pares, to use an old Roman camp saying.

Jabs

Paul, I love your brilliantly written and very entertaining short stories.

A board of director's very tedious and boring board meeeting.

At the start of the meeting, all members shuffle pieces of paper to make them look more professional before getting to the subject in hand, which was funding space exploration worth it.

As members argued their cases for and against, mainly against as there is no evidence yet of intelligent life who we could do business with, like us and what is the point as there is very little chance of we are meeting any like the Ferengi and then they probably don't have any type of currency.

Then they finished, with any other business of various company's social events which took most of their time and having G&T's after a few rounds of golf with various business clients.

1552, again, Paul,was a moving theme for Pentecost, with the Ascension covered too. So good to find one so spiritually aware in our time of great need.

Jabs