Vignettes by Luke, ‘Nother Mike and Mary Catelli
We recommend that if you have an original vignette, you post that as a new reply. If you are commenting on someone’s vignette, then post that as a reply to the vignette. Comments — this is writing practice, so comments should be aimed at helping someone be a better writer, not at crushing them. And since these are likely to be drafts, don’t jump up and down too hard on typos and grammar.
If you have questions, feel free to ask.
A Very Short Promo by Free Range Oyster
Marina Fontaine
The Product
The Product will change your life. It will give you joy and confidence, make you more aware of the world around you. You will find new friends. You might even fall in love.
Few people know its name. Fewer still dare say it. It is, after all, illegal. Users are jailed. Dealers meet an ugly death. Yet the temptation is irresistible.
Kevin is a dealer. And he is about to get caught.
On sale this weekend
According To Hoyt 
“What the HELL is that damned chirping? And where is coming from? It’s driving me mad!”
Bob grinned. The Pulsed UltraSonic Heterodyne seemed to be having just the predicted and desired effect on the overbearing jerk of a target. “Push me around, will you? Well, I PUSH back. Take that!”
Andrew Benton stared at the girl standing in mid-air attempting to push back the demon-like Power.
She’s out-matched
He twisted with pain as he triggered the Change.
In his troll-like Power form, he then pushed himself into the air to do battle with the Demon.
Forty-five words, but that’s just the start of the story. 😉
Tom and Janet looked out into the living room where the party was going on. Just a few friends and acquaintances over for drinks and snacks. It was all part of their cunning plan. Jim had been having a rough time with relationships. None of them seemed to work out. Karen was just free and was looking again. All that was needed now was to push them in each others direction.
*****
Over 50, but don’t feel like snipping and chopping.
“He came in swinging as hard as he could, intending to bull his way through anything she hit him with and just crush her. She SLAPPED him so hard his head whipped around and he fell down. He bounced up and she hit him on the other side, knocking him over that way.
So far she hadn’t even moved her feet or changed her stance. But now she moved. As he stood up, she stepped half a step back with her left foot, turned her heel back a little and settled her weight down into the ground. As he cocked his fist and stepped up to bash in her head, she placed both hands on his chest, turned her hips and pushed him. Her hands moved forward about an inch, bending his ribcage and then breaking five of his ribs plus both collar bones. He flew backward as if he had been hit by a bus, arms and legs trailing. He crashed into George’s chest, bounced off the adamantine armor there and fell to the ground at George’s feet. It was like bouncing off a mountain. Bobby Chang stared up at the snarling visage of the troll and lost consciousness.”
Half-step push, always a winner.
Sarai blinked the blood out of her eyes, trying to focus on Marcus as he stood at the top of the stairs, posing against the front doors. “You stupid vermin! How dare you petition? We are the Council, and you’re nothing more than gene-slaves for us to use!”
He kept ranting as she crept away. When she reached the courtyard, she heard her team lead: “All clear.”
She smiled, stretching the split lip. “I may be a dog, but I’m a tool using one.” And pushed the detonator.
She did not want to seem pushy, they might conclude she abused their hospitality, which could be dangerous, but then the brownie looked about, and gave her an enormous grin. Halley came forward, even managing to push aside that the grin was too large for a human face that size.
“Being pushed, by my own father, to an unknown place and dangers? Letting him push a total stranger there, for nothing more than helping me?”
Dr. Dombrey smiled, unnerving Edmund more than anything else he’d done.
“I don’t have to push you. You could always jump through on your own.”
“Arabella,” said Belsante, and her voice had an edge to it they had never heard before, even at her most regal, making many start. “Walk of your own will, or be pushed. Dragged, if we have to. We are going to find this pool, and you are coming with us.”
Nomination time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/18582736-june-2017
Also, nominating time:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/18582736-june-2017
Huh. Oh, well, you still can’t nominate twice, even though we have two BOM next month
It had taken a lifetime, several normal lifetimes, to set all his “dominoes” up just the way he needed them, but it was done now, completely done. He was ready to topple empires, crash reality itself, just by pressing the first tile. It only needed just one … tiny … little … push.
Hmmm … the word counter tool in Word wants to call each ellipsis as a word, making this cme in at 53, but an ellipsis is not a word, Word.
Oh, yes. Sometimes I have to count up dashes and subtract mentally.
Someone else uses Word for writing and keeping word count. I use it for basic grammar too; but NOT in autocorrect mode.
I am not a fan of auto-correct.
Auto correct is always going to be a restraint on acceptance of autonomous driving vehicles.
First thing to do is turn off ALL the autocorrect.
I also use it for grammar, but generally over-ride its challenges. The point, when writing fiction, is not to break grammatical rules inadvertently.
Dr P told me that a few years ago at Boskone.
Moooom! She’s looking at me.
Yes dear.
But Mom! He poked me!
Yes dear.
Mom, make her stop.
Stop dear.
Mom, make him stop!
Stop dear.
She’s still looking at me!
You’ve got you foot on my side!
Stop it both of you.
He poked me again!
Don’t push it.
Push it good
She smiled as she entered the room, knowing all eyes were on her. It didn’t really require much, did it? A little effort with her hair and her make-up, a carefully selected outfit, and the right undergarment to provide a little bit of a push in just the right places.
Dang dang blast dang! Somehow the first draft posted.
She smiled as she entered the room, knowing all eyes were on her. It didn’t really require much, did it? A carefully selected outfit, the right undergarment providing a little bit of push in just the right places. She knew none of those men would look her in the eyes.
Mortars crashed around his CP as the Trotskyites tried, again, to push their armor down University Avenue from the UC Berkeley campus towards the bay. Just about time, he thought. “Sarah, give me the battalion push.” She handed him the handset. “Hoagie Six this is Fremont Six Actual: They’re past Sacramento Street.Take them in the flank now!”
The Product…got a PUSH.
“You want me to write this? Are you out of your mind?”
“Technically, since a muse is an anthropomorphic representation of inspiration, I’m out of your mind.”
“Oh, look who’s been reading dictionaries again.”
“Beats reading what you write. It’s a double-entendre.”
“No joke. I can’t post this in a family forum. And we’re over fifty words.”
“Not my problem. Sheesh, you complain when I don’t help, and complain when I do.”
“Look: It’s funny, and makes good use of the word ‘push,’ but I can’t use it in a family forum. I don’t think Penthouse would touch this one.”
“Just because it involves a -”
“Hush.”
“I was just going to say -”
“I know what you’re going to say. And if you can’t come up with anything cleaner, I’m going to run through Easter calculations in my head.”
“You’re no fun at all,”
ROFLMAO….Glad to see I wasn’t the only one that had to squash their muse with this prompt. 😀
Sally sat in the playground swing. “Ok, I’ll play with you. Push me”.
“Why?” asked Reynold. “Don’t you know how to get yourself started?”. She looked over her shoulder and glared. “Push!” she demanded.
He stared back. He could almost hear his father saying “Never be rude to a girl.”
That paragraph transported me instantly back to Mabel Titus elementary in the mid-1970s!
“Are you nuts?” asked Frank. “Nobody hitches horses to the back of a wagon.”
“You’ll see.” said Michael. “The wheels in the front steer with this lever. And with produce in the wagon bed, the horses will naturally try to get to it. They will push us right along, lickity-split!”
The solitary streetlight across the park cast shadows in the playground sand like cat turds. Becca felt lower than a cat turd, after what Kyle did to her. Right there, under the slide.
Let me fly away forever.
She pumped the swing higher. If only she could get a push.
It is still raining. Everything has long since been drenched, and it is still coming. The air outside is chill and penetrating. Even at late morning the light is dim, the sky dull and gray, a good day to play at the computer. No new blog post; I am blue.
A week late on the prompt, but there you have it …
Obviously it was last week’s post. No need to be pushy.
My friend Jerry was in third grade the first time a kid tried to push drugs on him. Jerry said, “I’m going to tell on you. My Dad’s a cop.” After school a gang of older boys pushed him into a corner and took turns punching him in the stomach.
Outside, the young woman observed commotion on the muddy street: Half a dozen strong men, completely thwarted by a sullen ox that refused to pull its cart through the quagmire. Pushing, pulling, sweating, and swearing, nothing they did motivated the poor animal. Before long, all were equally filthy and tired.
Martin flicked his gaze quickly around the bar, keeping his blandly bored mask in place as he sipped his beer. “You realize this is a long shot,” he murmured into his wrist-mike.
“Martin, you’re the best telepath we have,” Naomi’s voice came back, flat enough it came out more as order than compliment. “You telling me you can’t spot someone under control?”
Martin gritted his teeth. “I’ll tell you what Edward told me, when he was teaching me about this stuff,” he muttered back. “Direct control takes so much effort that half the time it’s not worth it, and covert programming takes way more time than our Unsub’s had. So this is Domination’s like all kinds of pushing — it works best when you use just a little force on somebody already teetering in the right direction . . . .”
He trailed off, suddenly realizing that the girl who’d been sobbing at the bar was now following a weedy-looking young man to the washrooms. The glazed look on her face was alarming — but the hungry look on the man’s face was horrifying, and revealed everything even before Martin’s mind swept out and found the subtle distortions in the girl’s thoughts, the muffled daze of I can’t believe I’m doing this overlaid with a careful, alcohol-enhanced blur of This’ll show him/Why the hell not/I want this don’t I? He slapped down his pint and triggered his wrist-mike. “Unsub spotted! Moving in!”
“Dammit, Martin, wait!” Naomi’s voice blared back in his earpiece, but he had already leapt to his feet and started running.
(So obviously nowhere near 50 words, but hopefully the scene is fun enough for reading anyway!)
And posted before I quite got it drafted correctly. Dammit, my kingdom for an edit function. 😦
Let me guess. The “product” is Christianity. Dealers are priests, users are the faithful. When religion is criminalized only criminals will have religion.
I was thinking Lily the Pink’s Medicinal Compound, as commemorated by The Irish Rovers.