Ridcully Calvert's Stories

John makes his entrance

2008-09-17T18:12:02Z

Mrs Aiden was becoming concerned. She had the delegation from GlobTrak waiting in Mr Johnson’s office, as they were at a very delicate stage of the merger negotiations.

She glanced at the delegation through the full width glass wall that separated her annexe from the boss’s office. They were getting restless.

On the other side of the open plan office, she noticed that the lift was coming up to the top floor. She hoped that this would be Mr Johnson, and not another cubicle slave 10 minutes late for work.

The door pinged open. Out rushed an apparition straight from her most disturbing, if titillating dreams. A naked man streaked out of the lift, shouting at the top of his voice. “HOOTAMAHEETATA JONAH TO THE RESCOOHITAT ”

He was covered from head to foot in green and brown smears, his face was contorted in a truly frightening manner, and he was sporting a huge throbbing erection.

Could it be? Surely not. It was Mr Johnson! As the delegation recognized him with a gasp, she started mentally reviewing her CV.

Dad takes a trip

2008-09-10T16:58:41Z

John Sr. first realises that something is wrong when he stops at the child crossing and a herd of Zebras gallops past. “That’s strange,” he thinks. “the rearmost zebra had maroon stripes instead of the normal black ones.”

As he drives through a psychedelic fairlyland of strobing lights, strange cavorting creatures and increasingly disturbing sideshows, he slowly realises that maybe his problem is a bit more serious than maroon stripes on a zebra.

Deep in the grips of an alternate reality, John Sr. slowly parks his car in the belly of the whale, and sails up the tongue towards his office. As he ascends, the fiery tongues of flame furnacing over him make him hot, and he gradually strips off all of his clothing, until he is riding the whale tongue in nothing more than his birthday suit.

Back at home, a quiet pair of youngsters has surfaced from a semi-comatose sleep. As they sit down to a bowl of Froot Loops, Fred says “Dude! The stuff isn’t here! I must have put it in this porridge box, and now its gone!”

The generation gap

2008-09-09T21:13:09Z

John and Fred come stumbling into the house. Outside, a garbage truck rumbles past as the salmon tinge of Thursday morning touches the horizon.

“Dude, we have to get to my room” says John, “my dad is going to get up any time now to go for his run.” Fred giggles drunkenly. “Where can I put the stash?”

“Just put it inside the Froot Loops box, my mom won’t look in there,” John replies. Fred fumbles clumsily inside the cupboard. “OK, hid it, lets go grab some sleep”

The two of them walk haltingly to John’s room, rock-paper-scissors for who has to climb into the top bunk, and collapse into the dreamless zen that is the end of every truly enjoyable party.

Ripped from sleep by the blaring klaxon that is his alarm clock at five in the morning, John Sr. stumbles from his bed, fumbles on his running clothes and starts his daily battle with his love handles.

Freshly showered after his run, he sits at the breakfast table and enjoys his porridge. Looking at the time, he leaves for work in a rush, swearing sotto voce.

Chat-room predator [Diabolically Villainous Challenge]

2008-07-19T18:16:10Z

He stares, Zen-like, at the scrolling lines of text in his chat client. Monitoring the flux and ebb of humour, sadness, tragedy and boredom. Waiting. Waiting for that special someone, with the qualities that he needs. The qualities that exist to feed his own dark compulsion.

At last, the wait is over! Sweet6teen11 from Oklahoma is asking her friends why Clive dumped her. She is obviously in pain, and he knows just how to exploit it. E-sidling up to her, pretending to be someone that cares, he connives and convinces her to start a blossoming online relationship.

They swap you-tubes and flickr’s, twitr constantly and eventually, after many hours of delicate and sometimes nervous negotiations, they are finally at that stage of their relationship where they can become more intimate.

She says that she is home alone, and that she loves him. Role-playing, she is Britney spears and he is Eminem. She compliments him, he compliments her, and then: “I put on my robe and wizard hat.” The poor girl is scarred for life.

Like a rat in a cage

2008-07-14T19:53:56Z

Hawk came to in a dim enclosure. His situational awareness went into high gear, and he realised that he was in a Farraday cage.

Knowing that he could not get a radio signal to the outside world, he immediately signalled his neural add-in to launch infiltrates from his boot reserves. Based on genetically engineered varieties of certain fungi, they could eat their way through solid steel in a matter of hours.

When he could control them.

He could not seem to focus that special part of his brain that interfaced with his neural add-in, it remained stubbornly beyond his grasp. With a start he realised what had happened to him. Where had these terrorists gained access to Zyblon23? It was supposed to be strictly controlled, available to the neural lab staff only!

He realised that he was now under the control of an entity far more prepared than even their most pessimistic worst-case scenarios. Reaching for the subcutaneous toggle of his kamikaze a-bomb, his fingers encountered a bandage where it had been cut out.

Ode to the common cold

2008-07-12T20:25:41Z

sneezing, sniffling, slimy, shiny
silvery slippery snot

hacking and spluttering,
coughing and muttering
bitching and bemoaning my lot

What did I do to deserve this?
Which deity’s arse did I not kiss?

I suppose that I will never know
As I lie shivering in my own sick glow
chicken soup, a sweet caress
I moan and groan and sniff and hiss

Batten down the hatches

2008-07-08T20:00:10Z

Johhny Razor was in a pensive mood. After all of the rush to execute their operation, the Edge Team was now in control of the campus.

Their bombs were planted, and the hostages were under control. All that remained now was to stay alert, and prepare for the inevitable confrontation.

Mack the Shiv had told them from the start that they were to achieve more than just another boring hostage drama. They had a purpose, and were not about to forget it.

Johnny had felt the faintest of twinges when he slit his sham girlfriend’s throat in that old dumpster, but their purpose had carried him through. He trusted Mack, and knew that they would prevail.

Mack’s voice squawked over their ultra hardened radio links. “Brothers, I have it on good authority that the Raveners have been deployed. Congratulations, we forced them into it!”

“Now everyone keep to their position, and know that in the end our plan will succeed. Believe in yourselves. We will cause a dark dawn that will blight civilisation for decades to come!”

Ode to the cathode ray tube

2008-07-05T14:09:29Z

Syrupy sweet vowels and consonants,
discordant crashes of hate,
tumble discordantly through the ether
Long lost to Sol
now they wander
out there

Cold capsules of culture
all of man’s accomplishments
all of his misdeeds
“Alas, poor yorick”
merges with “Jerry! Jerry!”
leaving a muddled picture indeed

What do they think
those 3 eared
methane breathing
giant insects
listening in on the din

Does it make sense to them?
Do they experience the tragedy of the holocaust?
Does the glory of Apollo 11 touch them?

Probably not
They can’t decode the signals

Damned if you do, and double damned if you don't

2008-07-04T22:16:58Z

Griggs sat down at his temporary station in the field HQ. Strategic thinking had always been his strong point, from his decorated military career through to running sting operations to trap drug dealers.

Then the country had started prioritising terrorist defence, and he had been reallocated to CTU . He had been hugely successful, resolving a number of terrorist threats bloodlessly, or nearly so. That was why he was here outside of this prestigious university, but he had never encountered anyone as ruthless and brilliant as this terror outfit.

Their use of a chemical lab shipment to get the explosives into the university had been a stroke of dark genius, and the fact that their unwitting accomplices had been found slaughtered like market pigs indicated that here he was dealing with a degree of ruthlessness that he had seldom witnessed, even among the Columbian drug Cartels.

He sighed and ordered Novua: “Get the chief on the line, we are going to have to call in the raveners.”

Experimental Ficlet No 11

2008-07-04T21:55:30Z

............The same as that time that I tried selling crack. That ended badly…….......

I would do anything for love, but... {sing song challenge}

2008-07-02T22:10:55Z

The once beautiful woman stands at the waiter station, darkly glaring over the crowded restaurant. Her complexion has become blotchy with her barely suppressed anger and despondency.

Trudging around morosely, she serves all of her customers with equal disdain. After the shift, she counts her meagre takings in the bar area, numbing her pain with a double gin straight up.

She confides in her fellow waitress, for perhaps the hundredth time: “You know, he spouted all of that nonsensical twaddle about love, and blinded me with a nice mansion and a ride on his Harley. But he just wouldn’t do it, he wouldn’t commit to me!”

She cries a bit, before going home to her motel room. Sleeping fitfully, she half wakes up in anticipation whenever she hears a Harley, just to jolt fully awake, realise that it’s over, and go back to her grey dreams.

Organising the procedure [Unexpected twist challenge]

2008-06-28T07:59:55Z

“Hello Mrs Jones, please take a seat,” the professional yet kindly looking man in the green smock said.

“I understand your concerns, but you have to think of the advantages. Think about how he slips out at night, comes back bitten and scratched and needs all that care. Really, don’t you think that it would be better for the poor creature if that wasn’t the case?”

“Well, I suppose that you are right, doctor.” her chill demeanour was thawing. “And wouldn’t you like to get rid of all those unwanted pregnancies?” he pressed his advantage.

“You know doctor, ” she said conspiratorially, “Mr Smythe down the street looked at me so crossly in the pharmacy yesterday, I am positive that he thinks Sylvester is responsible for theirs.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Jones” he closed the deal, “Here at NinjaVasectomy.com we guarantee discretion. And with our super stealth package deal, our operatives will operate completely under the radar. Your husband will wake up in Tijuana after a heavy boys’ weekend, and never be the wiser.”

Establishing a base

2008-06-15T15:54:47Z

After my abortive attempt to immolate poor luckless Mike, I hid in the kitchen waste pile at the back of the ship until we docked at site B. I waited until there was no activity on the pier, and then slunk over the single dock and into the lush tropical forest, trailing a miasma of rotten cabbage.

I looked for a hideout on the side of the huge volcano, which dominated the skyline of Kīlauea island. Curling up in a shallow cave for the night, I congratulated myself on finding a small cave with a great view over the island’s harbour.

There did not seem to be much happening, considering that they had just lost (as far as they knew) two prisoners. A few security guards with Alsations were making a half-hearted attempt at looking for me.

I noticed that when they approached the area where I had scurried across the docks, their dogs started pulling on their leashes and I could hear the whining up in my eagle’s nest.

It seemed that whatever was happening inside me could be detected by dogs. “Cool”, I said aloud

The long hunt [Supporting characters challenge]

2008-06-11T21:06:44Z

N’kwaxgu had had enough of this. He had been running down game over the golden sands of the Kalahari since he was a hundred moons of age, and would continue to do so until he became to weak. Then he would be left behind by the tribe, with an ostrich egg full of water and a poisoned knife for when the thirst got too bad.

Everything that he shot with his little poison arrows died within at most two days of him hitting it, but this beast was different. It was some kind of conjoined buck that dragged a strange square appendage behind it.

He had shot it from cover three days ago, and could still see his little dart sticking in its rear appendage. Day after day he followed, but the beast was tireless.

After the fifth day he realised what was going on. This was a challenge by the gods. He had to be tested in the cooking pot of the searing desert, have all of the weakness burnt out of him by a beast that could never be caught.

He gritted his teeth, tightened his stomach band and took up the challenge with gusto.

The goon gets on my nerves

2008-06-08T20:15:27Z

I made the goon walk down the stairs ahead of me. Every time that he slowed down, I would belt him solidly in the middle of the back, and have to endure another bout of snivelling.

We went to a storage cupboard that he assured me would not be used for the duration of the voyage to site B. Once there I sat him down, and started questioning him.

I started with the obvious “What is happening at Site B?”.

“I swear I don’t know” he blubbed. “I signed on through my spring break work exchange program. They told me that there would be booze, babes and surfing, dude. All I have seen thus far has been violence, insincerity and intolerable table manners! I want out man, p…please help me.”

He continued on in this vein for a long time, and with each sob my hopes of getting some up to date intel ebbed lower.

Getting frustrated, I decided to cut my losses, and experiment with that sublime feeling that I experienced when poor Jen was dissolved.