Let's have a writing contest!
The usual rules apply:
1. Write a story using 100 words or fewer.
2. Use these words in the story:
scat
bop
diddy
cool
snap
3. You must use the whole word, but that whole word can be part of a larger word. The letters for the
prompt must appear in consecutive order. They cannot be backwards.
Thus: snap/snapdragon is ok but snap/pansy is not.
4. Post the entry in the comment column of THIS blog post.
5. One entry per person. If you need a mulligan (a do-over) erase your entry and post again. It helps to work out your entry first, then post.
6. International entries are allowed, but prizes may vary for international addresses.
7. Titles count as part of the word count (you don't need a title)
8. Under no circumstances should you tweet anything about your particular entry to me. Example: "Hope you like my entry about Felix Buttonweezer!" This is grounds for disqualification.
9. It's ok to tweet about the contest generally.
Example: "I just entered the flash fiction contest on Janet's blog and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt"
10. Please do not post anything but contest entries. (Not for example "I love Felix Buttonweezer's entry!")
11. You agree that your contest entry can remain posted on the blog for the life of the blog. In other words, you can't later ask me to delete the entry and any comments about the entry at a later date.
12. The stories must be self-contained. That is: do not include links or footnotes to explain any part of the story. Those extras will not be considered part of the story.
Contest opens: 1/16/16 at 10am (EST)
Contest closes: 1/17/16 at 10am EST
Is the contest still open?
If you'd like to see the entries that have won previous contests, there's
an .xls spread sheet here in my Dropbox account: http://tinyurl.com/gm73669
(Thanks to Colin Smith for organizing and maintaining this!)
Questions? Tweet to me @Janet_Reid
Ready? SET?
Sorry, too late. Contest has closed.
86 comments:
The computer screen glow highlights his implacable craving for adoration. Fans, followers. Snapchat; Peach.cool. Insatiable hunger for ceaseless reassurance from strangers.
“Yes!” he shouts, punching the air. Followed by @iamdiddy!
Sudden screams pound the drywall. Guilt morphs into anger. “Shut that kid up!”
Weary, I rise, my once scathing looks supplanted by dejection. I trudge into the next room, exhausted. My need for a fix just as great, I arrange the boppy pillow, best positioning for much-needed release. After, I continue trudging; out. Away.
Finally, band-aid like, he peels himself from the screen.
Screams; his. This time, our baby doesn’t wake.
He met Myra at his dissertation. Her drawn to his brilliance, he to her smile. She was there – through late nights in the lab, later nights in the hospital. Singing “Do Wah Diddy” at their wedding, crying at both miscarriages.
Was...
His mind was as prone to coruscation as his blood to coagulation. And now, without Myra to fuel his heart’s beating, his thrombophilia would win. Yet he smiled.
Settling for his nap in the coolibah’s shade, the last of his voice sang “Do Wah Diddy”. Ready to be with her once more, his eyes and arteries closed in unison.
"Lord Astly, thank you for joining me." Mona raised her goblet of cool red wine.
"It is my pleasure, Lady Mona, though I hadn't thought to witness at mollusc at the table," he seethed as he glared at his plate.
"These are the emperor's prawns, a gift for our service to his splendid dynasty."
Astly wiped his hands on his napkin. "As it is, no such creature is suitable for my tastes."
Lady Mona raised her glass to toast. "Kill him."
Behind the panel, her guard appeared and, with the butt of his sword, bopped Lord Astley across his temple.
It started like a cool breeze, an almost welcomed perspective change. There was no hey diddy- diddy snap crackle bop moment when it turned downhill.
In just weeks he felt like an old cat lady threading her way through a cat scat minefield. Third person present remained a foreign language with the snares of a million dialects.
By the end of the month he felt like he was on the run. It was like he had been chased up a blind canyon with one left in the chamber and a horse that pulled up lame. The mental block became oppressive.
“Tell me—you didn’t just use…scat.”
“Y’ever heard of Scatman Crothers? You know…” Snoop Dog snapped his fingers. “Ski Ba Bop Ba Dop Bop?”
Cool as ice, P. Diddy surveyed the board. Snoop’s triple word score just cost him $600K. “False defenses can lose you double your cash, sucka’.”
Snoop unsnapped his 9mm. “What’ya talking about, Puff?”
You quoted John Scatman. He ain’t a brother—fool!”
Snoop rolled dice and moved his toy Beemer to Community Chest and read, “Go to jail. Don’t pass go. Don’t collect $200,000. Damn!”
“You said you wanted to play Hood’s High-stakes Scrabblopoly,” said P.
“Evelyn admitted she did dye her hair.”
“That doesn’t exactly fall into the news category.”
“Oh snap. Isn’t that what the kids say?”
“Possibly, but I prefer that you refrain.”
“You need to lighten up. Do you think that’s what Evelyn’s husband told her? About her hair?”
“I won’t answer that.”
“Well, what did you learn?”
“More than I wanted to know about Lois’s surgical procedure.”
“Her boob operation? That’s not news either.”
“No.”
“We need something different, something cool and exciting to happen.”
“A death, perhaps.”
“Ooh, a murder! That would be perfect.”
“I’m glad agree. Have another brownie.”
You weren't supposed to go the way you did, dying like that.
"Just taking a few minutes' nap," you said.
And then we would walk to the gazebo,
Perhaps sit for a while,
Hold hands,
Remember the kids in the yard,
bathing suits, sprinklers,
dancing through scattered water,
laughing like summer would never end.
But it always does.
Time passes. Cooler winds blow.
Colors fade.
Nothing stays forever.
Then you would sit in your chair,
Take the pills,
And I would watch you go.
Now I take the empty bottle,
Knowing you loved me enough
To know I couldn't watch.
We played hide-and-seek, but War found us. Now soldiers in worn fatigues dig through us with cool efficiency, cracking jokes so we don’t crack them open. No room for weakness here. We are scattered bits – snapped table leg here, snapped child leg there. Twister toppled onto an ancient Bop-It, and the toy’s diddy became our dirge, droning with increasing lethargy until the batteries quit.
We beg the soldiers to be gentle, but they refuse to hear. No survivors. Move along. Crumbled walls become our headstones, decorated by the bones of what we once called home.
A splendid dying sun hovered on the horizon as the turboprop went down. Later, two men slipped unscathed from the wreck.
“Fuck,” Lester said.
“Not on the first date,” Jez replied.
They stared at the plane. Riggio was going to kill them.
“Riggio’s going to kill us,” Lester said.
“He won’t know,” Jez said.
“How the fuck is he not going to know?” Lester spat. “It’s a fucking Soloy Pathfinder loaded with blow.”
Jez laid his piece against Lester’s nape. He’d drained the coolant in Carson City. In the distance, a rumbling of trucks.
“We’re burying you in it.”
“You’re such a scat.”
“Stop saying that. It doesn’t mean what you think it does.”
“It’s short for scaredy cat.”
“It’s really not.”
“Then what’s it—?”
“Shh.”
“That’s her ringtone.”
“She listens to P Diddy? Never mind.”
“We are a-go. Hashtag boob operation.”
“Sometimes, I wonder why we’re friends.”
“Wait, shit, my phone makes a noise when I snap a photo. What if she hears it?”
“Run. Okay, ready?”
“Ow!”
“Shh!”
“You’re on my foot! Okay. Shhh.... Got it! ...Oh gross. Where’s the brain bleach?”
“What?”
“Not cool. This is not a drill!”
“Gimme that. ...Oh. Oh God. DAD?!”
I promised her a romantic fire. She found the paper trail in the tinderbox.
"Bo, pretend for a moment you married an intelligent woman."
"Sweetness, it's not what you—"
“Oh, make it snappy, diddykins, I don’t have time for you to coo lies at me."
I lied. She cried.
Then she cremated me in my own pizzeria, alongside our love notes and hotel receipts from nights we hadn't spent together.
The next day she scattered the ashes of our relationship over her garden bed, humming our song.
Our restaurant thrived without me. Reviewers said home-grown basil never tasted so good.
>begin transmission
>this is orion three
>emergency
>audio communications are out
>something snapped in the circuitry
>stuck with text transmissions
>at least voice recognition works
>mostly write
>some typos
>looking around now
>ship parts scattered in orbit
>something bopped us
>sams dead
>im hurt
>this is oscar
>anyone reading this send help
>bio samples missing
>coolant leaked from the containers
>no not coolant
>like drops of blue oil
>what were those samples
>wish I could ask sam
>corridors a mess
>this isnt right
>sam
>diddy go
>doesnt make sense
>what was that
>oh
>your not sam
>no
>no
>end transmission
"Did Dylan's cats make off with a cool million, loyalty lost like Little Bo Peep's sheep, while the rest of us napped?"
"Naw, boss, them boys just runnin' late."
"It's been three hours. Where are they?"
"Well, the job is down by the wharf."
"What's that got to do with it?"
"You know what they say--"
"The thing about herding cats?"
"No, the other thing."
"What?"
"Straight flush beats a full house, but for cats, a strait flush with fish beats a warehouse full of a million unopened 'frigerated tins of caviar."
"Christ. Hollywood's right, never work with animals."
“Today's dish is usually prepared with chicken.” Professor Meribo projected a recipe on screen. “Let's liven it up.”
That day changed my life. The day I learned my signature dish.
We'd steamed snap peas and rice, seasoned with salt and turmeric.
“Remember, your customers are looking for unique and satisfying,” Professor Meribo instructed. “Hmmmmm, did Dylan-- there you are!”
Dylan distributed the chicken substitute. I seasoned and steamed mine, arranged it around the rice creation.
A+
The dinner crowds now wait for hours in the cool night air.
I owe my master chef distinction to Scatological Cuisine 101.
Diddy, Tennessee’s best scat master, had beaten Chantz, a snap-bop scat kit from Brooklyn, three years running. Diddy was up his air of cool, unconcerned confidence a clear message to the competition. Stirring the crowd into roars of applause, Diddy’s scat, filled the stages speakers with his signature diddy-do-da-bop. It was over. How was he going to top that? They called his name and, stepping onto the stage, he looked out at the crowd. The mic in his hand, the beat in his ears, he scatted magic, and Tennessee had a new scat-master.
In the treatment room next to my wife’s two older men bickered. They sounded British; words like “bloody,” and “bollocks” were SCATtered throughout their patter.
Their weak voices rasped suggesting the poison wasn’t working. It was pointless and inane.
“Said that, DIDDY?”
“ ’e did!”
They paused whenever a nurse BOPped into their room.
“It’s a wee COOL in here, dear.”
It really wasn’t: the poison does that. She touched the thermostat anyway.
They resumed.
“You’re still reading those things?”
“You still play guitar?” the other SNAPped back.
I felt their smiles when they shouted, “ALWAYS!”
Then they said nothing.
P. Diddy was splayed on the floor like a dropped marionette. A trapezoidal void in the back of his skull mimicked the base of the bloody Grammy next to him.
“Same M.O. as the LL Cool J murder last week,” detective Latifah said.
“Both of ‘em bopped in the head,” her partner Kanye responded. “Any suspects?”
“I hear Nick Jonas got snubbed at the Grammys this year.”
Kanye snapped his fingers. “Of course. His song ‘Jealous’ was huge this summer. Kind of ironic title, considering.”
A cat wandered over and sniffed at the body. Latifah stomped her foot. “Scat.”
"It's cool, right?" the forty-something squealed to the pre-teen in the backseat steadfastly avoiding eye contact. "That filter sure makes your head snap back!" The angled strands of her hair bopped and swayed, as her weathered fingers tapped the steering wheel in the frenetic beat of some old diddy from the eighties. Youthful energy clogged by age trailed off; the fingers scattered wide and then went flat. They were almost there. Immature features pinched and snapped around a darkening expression. The girl glared into her phone. Soon, they would all know her terrible secret. Her mother had just joined Instagram!
"What are you doing?" she snapped.
Even in the diffuse lighting I could see her piercing, pale eyes. Always staring, glaring. Never happy.
"Just praying." I adjusted her pillows. "The white leg looks better."
"Don't be ignorant. Use correct words. The condition is thrombophlebitis."
I had cared for Grandmere for years, like a faithful coolie, or collie perhaps, and still no respect. Mother used to laugh when I called Schenectady "skinnydiddy" when I was little. Grandmere would scream, "Don't be ignorant. Use correct words!"
"What are you praying?"
"A requiescat." I lifted a pillow.
"Don't be ignorant. Use--"
Scattered among the belongings from the downed airliner was an iPod, with headset, that would later be determined to belong to the head found in a field a mile away.
The devastating scene before Sergeant Miller seemed discordant with the video still playing on the iPod’s screen. As cool as Diddy may be, the song streaming on the device, MAKING IT HARD, caused Miller’s temperament to snap.
The Sargent never cared for Hip-Hop or Hip-Bop, or whatever the hell it was called, but the person who owned that iPod should still have the chance to enjoy it.
“Damned drones!”
There had always been a scatological aspect to Margo’s sexuality, veiled behind her cool, neat-freak obsessions. A passion for acts that were considered anti-aphrodisiacs by most of the women Robert had shared intimacy with.
A loud snap popped from the log fire, sending a cinder out onto the flagstone floor of the cabin.
In the end, that eroticized zone had been the seat of her undoing. A cancerous orb opening to metastasize and consume her emaciated frame.
Alone, Robert shifted in his recliner, channeled the old time religion. Did dying that way carry with it an aspect of divine retribution?
“That cat made a diddy in my garden again.”
“A diddy?”
“You know what I mean.”
“The cat shit in the yard?”
“I don’t like that word.” She sat next to him. “I’m going to bop its little head.”
“Don’t think Sheila would appreciate that.”
“Then I’ll bop her.”
“I’d pay money to see that. You attacking the neighbor.”
Her fingers drummed a disjointed tune.
“Can you cool it?”
She let the door bang behind her. The cat was on the porch. It twined between her ankles. “Scat,” she whispered, snapping her fingers. The cat purred and her tears fell.
To Alan,
You asked me once if I stopped counting after 30, but I never counted. I measured my life in snapshots of men.
With 32 came Frank, a cool-headed scatterbrain who lost the rent every Friday.
During 33, I watched Manfred do the diddy-diddy with the shuffler in 2b.
For 34, I found Ramone, whose fist-filled blitzkriegs bopped me to my senses.
By 35, I made them all see CHICAGO live; they only had themselves to blame.
At 36, the police tracked every step I took.
Now you’re the only man I think about. See you in 37.
—Mom
One of the crowd at the stage door, the teenybopper hummed a diddy under her breath, occasionally snapping her gum. Her cool gaze fixed on the stage door, she remained still in a sea of bouncing.
“I can’t wait to meet him,” bubbled one girl.
“If I don’t get his autograph, I’m going to die,” gushed another.
Smiling grimly, the teenybopper fiddled with the boning knife. It was meant for piscatorial uses, but today she meant to take home a trophy of her own.
She wanted something more permanent than an autograph. Their story would ride the waves of eternity.
The cool scaturient waters bopped along tumbling and sluicing over the mossy stones lining the lake’s shore. The Dandy did a quick ditty as he clicked his heels and snapped his fingers. The beaming lady, to his right, slid her eyes away in pleasure.
“What a diddy you are,” her smile stretched broadly. “I have no idea why I agreed to marry you.”
With another little jig, he stopped bowed low before her doffing his hat. “Why, that’s a simple answer. You want my love, and my family’s purse.”
Astounded, her face froze.
That’s when he knew it was true.
Glen played big on the day David was born.
Air heavy from the glistening skin of a packed house, Ella, scat, we were feeling good and wanting more.
Gene and Ricky, be-bop-baby, and then the day died with Buddy.
Life was cool with the seasonal four and bugs from Liverpool. Every little diddy played made us grow our hair, feel good and have it all.
We were razed on jazz, grew up on rock and roll and snap, am getting old on New Age.
Glen's gone and so's Ziggy. The day the music died, happens again and again.
Pour the Cheerios. A splash of milk. Watch as each one is delicately picked up, examined, and coolly fired across the kitchen.
She would go mad.
Nap time, in theory. The scramble to gather his bop-bop, and blankie, and of course Miss Cat, his one-eyed nightmare of a stuffed animal. His rising wail after only minutes of sleep.
Some day she would snap.
Five-thirty at last, and a key in the door. “You wouldn’t believe the day I've had. And how’s my diddy-dums? Have you been having fun with Mommy while Daddy’s been working hard?”
Today might be the day.
"I don't see why we can't eat those monster catfish in the coolant pond."
"They've been absorbing scattered radiation for thirty years. You want to risk that? Besides, how you going to catch them? Can't noodle something fifteen feet long."
"I saw a crawdiddy in the stream, is that okay?"
"Crawdaddy. Same thing. The boars are real bad, been rooting around where the decay and contamination is thickest. The deer are safer. The birds. Just bop 'em on the head and snap their necks."
"Why are we coming to live here?"
"It's the only place they won't look for us."
There was a glitch in the matrix that year, when Diddy Combs played the fairy godmother in Cinderella VI, Age of Extinction. Although “Bippety-Boppety-Bitch” was hella dope and even went Top 40, the film flopped.
Nobody thought Diddy’d take it so seriously. At the Oscars, he snapped. Grabbed the award right outta Kanye’s hands (best screenplay, Jurassic Force Avengers).
“So uncool, man!” Kanye yelled.
“Bippety THIS!” Diddy yelled. “I’ll show you talent!”
Who knew that wand really worked? Nobody, until the crowd scattered and the smoke cleared, and Diddy was gone. There stood the Goblin King and Severus Snape, smiling.
“Cool snaps, bruh.” The goateed whippet man nosed around photos scattered on the flea market table. “They really all murdered by the Mudge?”
“Each and every.” He stuffed sausage hands into his pockets. “You buying?”
“Funds are suboptimal at the mo. Grubbing at Diddy’s first.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Could maybe haggle one off you with the change.”
A hesitant gale dislodged a big band chanteuse’s portrait and sailed it across the commons. Underneath, a picture of the whippet flapped in the wind.
They locked gazes.
“You?” gulped the whippet man.
Mudge nodded. “It’s time.”
DAVID’S EMULATOR
The time was done for Alan, he knew that.
How do you sing with no voice? He had tried to be cool, snapping his fingers. He had tried be-bop diddy-o, the tan physique, the kabuki paleness. But it fell on a scattering effect, like crayon over the masterwork painting. Not true art.
He had idolized an image rather than a man, and Alan was painfully human. Far too ordinary.
What compass, now that the stars had fallen? “Even He went mainstream, back in ‘83.” But that felt more like a job.
Alan sighed. “I could always do hip-hop.”
The old lady is making me mule again.
It’s scattered throughout my duffle: Stuffed in a pair of Bo-Peep fuzzy-socks, wrapped in a scarf, in with my ladies’ necessities.
Sweating like crazy under my turtleneck, I play it cool at Security.
For 9 hours I (don’t) think about prison.
Customs might give me hives this year: I see no smile, hear no hummed diddy. I grit my teeth, plaster on a grin, give an “I’m-so-happy-to-be-home,” and lie about what’s in the bags.
If Mom doesn’t kiss my feet for smuggling in five jars of Gram’s sugarsnap-pesto, I’m eating it all.
The latest sighting came from Oman, so Little Bo Peep booked a flight to Muscat. On landing, jet lag disoriented her. Did Dylan say he'd meet her at baggage claim, or outside the terminal? Had he even awakened from his nap?
She stepped outside into the cool breeze, and there he was! With his shepherd's crook and flashing grin, he herded her lost flock up to the curb.
“Oh!” she cried. “You found them! Let me see if they're all here...
“One...
“Two....
“Three.......
“zzzzzzzzz.....................”
Sit in front of the rented widescreen TV with my jumbo popcorn and the Diddy Riese cookies Aunt Lisa sent me from L.A. for my birthday. A wine cooler to wash them down. Hit 'play' on the remote to start my personal Harrison Ford movie marathon. First up: Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Alarm beeps. Popcorn scatters. Frantic, look at the clock. Baby's nap time!
Oh wait. Baby's at Grandma's this weekend.
Deep breath. Turn off all alarms on the phone. Start the movie again.
I don't care if Indiana doesn't do real archaeology. Real archaeology isn't nearly as exciting.
Be-bopping along, calling cadence at Fort Morgan.
"...singing do wah diddy-"
"Incoming!"
We scattered.
BOOM!
"McClendon, what the hell?" the lieutenant snapped.
"Don't know, sir."
"Not the answer I'm looking for."
I hauled butt up the rampart. Through the cool morning fog I spotted
"Yankee warships entering Mobile Bay."
The lead ship took aim.
I did the only thing I knew - fired my cannon.
"Did you say..?" the lieutenant stopped mid-stride.
The ships dissolved into the fog.
"Did you see..?" I asked.
No ships.
At our feet a brand new cannonball.
"Carry on."
"Aye, sir."
Their words exploded and scattered across the room: bulbous, bouncing bs bopped; diddy, dappy ds danced.
The air jived to the truth they sang.
I was fifteen and aching to be cool. Rouge and Dutch courage helped me get past the doormen but not much got past Dad.
The snap of rebellion faded from my fingers, and the raunch rolled from my hips as I felt Dad's silent grip on my shoulder.
He ushered me home to the frill of closed curtain, the shriek of pink wall - my only escape for the next few years, their sounds written in vinyl.
Years ago,
This used to be our place,
Back when we were the cool kids,
Mocking Diddy’s songs.
Nothing else mattered,
When our souls collided.
Like Fred and Ginger,
We danced in perfect stride.
But times change,
Lives scattered.
Sometimes,
Things get lost.
On our dance floor,
You twirl her around.
My hearts snaps in two,
But you don’t seem to care.
When I left,
You promised to wait.
But, now I know,
Words are only words.
Standing motionless,
People bop around me,
Ready to conquer the world,
Reminding me of a girl I once knew.
He wakes slowly. Sweating, “Christ, it’s 3 a.m.”
His mouth tastes like scat, his ears are ringing, and a rhino’s bopping to some Tchaikovsky diddy inside his fucking skull.
He feels someone beside him, and sees her.
Then he remembers, beer, way too many shooters, sex, a drunken argument, a slap, and he snapped…something.
She’s cool to the touch, and without a pulse.
The Pratesi, they’re completely ruined. He freezes, as she stirs and slowly rises from the bloody sheets.
“Morning, lover,” she coo’s, smiling as she realigns her neck. “Now, where were we?”
Then he notices her teeth.
Cool air washed over me as I slid into our booth at the local diner.
“What’s new?”
“BOP is what’s new.”
She gathered up a stack of forms scattered across the table.
“BOP as in bebop?”
“You don’t know diddy squat.”
“Isn’t it ‘diddly’?"
“Not when it’s the Federal Bureau of Prisons and I want to visit my baby.”
“How… how did that happen?”
“Undercover cops.”
“He didn’t have a clue?”
“Not when his mother’s best friend turned him in.”
“Stand up, hands on your head.”
“There are better ways to eliminate your competition.”
The cuffs snapped on my wrists.
The cool snap hit in late October. It was time.
I pulled on a hoodie and laced up my boots. Then I set off for the woods behind this shit-hole I call home.
Amidst the scattered yellows and reds of dead leaves, an unwavering peace set in. P. Diddy’s raw lyrics blasted in my ear buds, and a chestnut-colored squirrel bopped along a branch, in perfect time with the music it couldn’t hear. Or maybe it could. Hell if I knew anything about squirrels' auditory capacity. . .
I patted the cold metal nestled against my thigh. It was time.
A beautiful woman commands attention. And this one did. Dynamic even motionless, exposing herself to the UV rays alongside the five star's pool.
Pressed against the tanned smooth flesh between her breasts, the gold Chanel snap of her white bikini top taunted him.
Rumors of her husband's lovers scattered across the globe left her ring finger bare, and her, unattended.
But, this girl was not a common bop. She required a man of a certain caliber, a degree of sophistication.
Offer the cool drink.
"Excuse me, Miss. May I..."
"No."
Retreat. As sure as yesterday, tomorrow will be the day.
Dozens of snapshots scattered about town are printed with, “Where Did Dyson Draper Go?”
The parents plead on live TV while the Sheriff details an investigation growing cooler daily.
Federal Bureau of Prisons, (BOP) confirms no release of pedophiles nearby.
A final news conference is held. The search? Suspended.
Dyson Draper is one nervous, but determined little boy.
While Mommy and Daddy discuss money from…his inshorance,(?) he tries to remember his new name, and where they live…Teewanna. (?)
What he refuses to forget is them forcing him into that box covered with dirt.
(They’ve begged)
Or, hearing Sheriff’s number.
The room’s abuzz, clotted with awkward groups. A 10 pound cheesecake from Costco. Old neighbors and friends whose names I’ve forgotten.
‘Your brother’s . . . napping,’ Mom says, like the words smell bad. Poor Jeb. ‘Optional’, Mom calls these functions, but we all know better. I’d love to avoid it just like Jeb, but she’ll make him sorry he did; dying is an acceptable excuse but being tired doesn’t cut it.
The things we do for families. And we all know this is Mom’s catharsis since Dad left.
I sigh, and drop my keys in the bowl.
The last dance is for Katy. Demure, tiny Katy, who acted older than her years.
Embraced by the rhythm, memories flooded his mind. The circus, with clowns in little cars. Jumbo peanuts and elephants. Their first kiss in the cool night air.
As the sensation intensified, his thoughts turned darker. Parents? Who cares if they believe our love is forbidden? Then too much Muscato and Tequila. Her screams. And that sound? Her neck, as it snapped.
For what he did, dying’s the fare. A waltz with the lighting. Strapped into the Chair.
The last dance is for Katy.
Little Bunny Foo-foo.
They thought he was so cute and sweet.
Weren’t they surprised?
Catchin’ ‘em was a snap, you know? Set the can on the stick. Put the cheese in. Scoop ‘em up, cool and easy. No big deal.
Bee-boppin’ those field mice on the head like nobody’s business. Two or three times while they begged for mercy.
Once more for good measure.
Toss their little broken bodies in the pile and hop along. What’s one more mouse? Don’t mean diddy-squat to Bunny.
At least he won’t ever step in their scat again.
My childhood was a symphony of sounds, a patchwork of colors, a plethora of scents. I keep that world hidden in the farthest corner of my mind, like a kitchen junk drawer, scattered with things I can’t get rid of. Some are useful. Some are not. But that Fender was in every memory I ever had of Jimmy.
“How diddy die?” the landlord asked.
“Who?” I snapped, taking the guitar from his hand.
“Your older brother. What made his heart quit bopping? Booze? Pills?”
“Jimmy’s not dead,” I replied, with a cool smile. “He’s just booked a bigger venue.”
I enter my classroom and all the trainee scatologists clatter to their feet and snap to attention.
All except one. Mr Cool. Mark Burgess. He sprawls, feet on the desk, hands behind his head. Bopping and humming that infernal Manfred Mann tune; Do Wah Friggin Diddy. God I hate that song.
“Burgess! Feet on the floor,” I say.
He ignores me.
“NOW!”
Still no movement from Mr Cool.
My silenced revolver spits.
Mr Cool’s feet are on the floor now. A stench of defecation chokes the room.
I smile. “Class, it appears we have some fresh samples to study.”
“Slugger”
The aging basset hound circled around under the scorched pine for his afternoon nap. Snap, crunch. He had that hangdog look bassets are famous for, droopy jowls and cool eyes that could melt your worst enemy. Slug, as he was first called, given his slovenly nature, pot belly, and four stubby legs—the opposite of scat, earned the title Slugger one day when he proved he could actually catch a Frisbee. Wiped out from his diddy bop and one day of fame, he spent the week collapsed on the front porch in an exhausted heap, but the name stuck.
“You have no right to bust in here,” Scumfroth said, licking topping off his fingers. “No crime in playing Scattergories and eating Bopis.”
Detective Starling raised his right hand and then his left. Only when agitated did dyslexia muddy the facts. Now he fumbled for which hand held his Glock’s grip.
“That’s lungs and heart,” Officer Finch said. “You ingesting the evidence? And is that Snapple?”
“Washing it down with Mango Madness. That’s no crime, either.”
With his gun located, Starling raised and shook it. “Oh yeah? You’re under arrest.”
“For what?”
“Gross mistreatment of pork topped with Cool Whip.”
There they were. Some held guns. Others carried knives and soon he would not be unscathed.
Prior to this his lips were in the stream enjoying a little diddy of a drink. Then he heard something awful, something suboptimal that crashed the calmness to the afternoon. Globules of water dribbled off his chin as he snapped his neck back, hearing something horrible inching closer. First, it was the repetitious sound of their steps carrying them, cracking branches. Soon, it became this harsh language. Their long nonsensical chains of abrasive screams that he couldn’t decipher.
Eventually, it went numb and black. His blood was littered across the knoll like engine coolant. Droplets of red battery acid.
After Anonymous outed me, it was tough. No more stops at Dunkin' for a Coolatta because everyone had a glib opinion about my job.
I did dye my hair, but it wasn't enough for a new secret identity. And even with a kryptonite scalpel, plastic surgery wouldn't work — I heal too quickly.
When things got so bad that Lois walked out, I snapped. Yes, my rage-induced global earthquake was catastrophic. But now everyone on the planet has it out for me.
It's said people get the heroes they deserve. Well, after today humanity won't have a hero at all.
In the bathroom light, the mirror reflected his bald head and sagging face.
His body showed a slight paunch around the middle, nothing like he had before.
The world celebrated his birthday last week. He smiled, not bad for an 81 year old who did dying for a profession.
Thirty-eight years ago, he took the turboprop and left the mansion.
He had not survived rebirth unscathed, though. His mind almost snapped as it craved the cool drugs.
He’d given up everything to survive.
His voice rang out while he fed the horses. “Blue, Blue, Blue Suede Shoes--”
"Scat boo diddly—bee bop diddy—snap foo silly—cool, yeah"
"Please don't."
Brandon turned the system on. "I thought you liked my singing, Eve."
"I do. I just hate these drills."
A switch glowed in the dim of the control room.
"System still works." Brandon reached out to turn it off.
"Remember that leak we fixed last week?"
His hand paused. "Yeah."
"We didn't."
Brandon paled. "Well I'm sure—"
"Everyone's infected."
His eyes slid to the switch.
"Do you mind singing some more?" I asked.
Brandon started singing shakily, and I flipped the self-destruct.
"Won't be long now."
Scattered on the sad musty-brown floor lay the brittle crumbs. Surprising Don early at his apartment had been a mistake. There they were in bed, him and the straw-haired hussy from the diner, their bodies tangled in his favourite Kama Sutra position. Another broken heart is more than she could bear; did dying really seem such a welcome relief? Yes.
After the spicy treats had cooled, hands shaking, heart thumping, she’d taken tiny bites, barely tasting the poisonous ingredient. Eyes closed, counting sheep like Bo Peep, she drifted away. Finished. Done. Ginger snaps had always been her favourite.
“Scattered! We shall feel the effect of El Nino to the five corners! SCATTERED!”
The little diddy began to play in the background. I was snapping my fingers without thinking. I always tried to stay cool.
My mother bopped me on the back of the head. Her eyes narrowed to dark red slits. “Luc! You may be the Prince of Darkness but I brought you into this world and I’ll take you out. Focus and get ready! ”
“Slaughtered bodies scattered across the Earth!”
On the third call, I’m obliged to ascend.
I appeared but, I was flaming mad.
The bad thing about playing with zombies is that you snap man, you snap.
“Bopeep, bopeep, pick a boom!”
That’s when an arm falls or an eye for that matter. And you snap, man, you snap. You throw hissy fits when the parents are watching “Wasn’t me. Chill-oh!” and that ain’t cool, man, that ain’t cool!
And those kids, I can tell yea, they end up in a pile of scat in two minutes flat. And I thought I was having fun. What a diddy!
“This is where our ashes get scattered,” Anderson whispered, looking at the large unstable meth lab in front of them.
“Snap out of it,” Duncan said. “Keep cool.”
Duncan put down the briefcase on the rickety table in front of their elusive target, Big Sam.
“$250K,” Duncan said.
“Diddy say $250K, Pa?” the grunt next to Big Sam said. “Well ain’t that a thing.”
Big Sam looked it over and smiled. “Pleasure doing business boys,” he said leaving the room heading to his turboprop plane.
“The pleasure is ours,” Anderson said as the team outside turned on the tracking device.
I dangled from the suspended ladder without a stitch of clothing, naughty parts bopping for the distant crowd.
So much for remaining under cover.
Could her husband see the bra holding the ladder in place? Would it stay?
His pudgy shadow cooled the lit apartment and he stared at me with frozen eyes. “So. You did dyke out on me.”
Growling, I stepped up the ladder, ignoring the stupid grins from the men below.
His grin was the worst. He snapped the bra, and I fell toward the scattering crowd.
She pushed him after me.
“I love you.”
“Who killed Tony?” Cap’n growled.
Lucky remained cool. “Why don’t ye ask them Battle Creek boys?”
“I hear Pop’s fruity,” Rabbit said.
“He’s got Alzheimer’s, dammit!” Cap’n crunched his fist, scattering debris across the desk. “Crackle’s crippled by arthritis. Snap just wants to bake. But Tony, he was GRRREAT.”
Rabbit glanced at the report. “A teenybopper found him with a heart-shaped marshmallow shoved down his throat.”
“Sordid dysphagia!” Cap’n glowered at Lucky. “It’ll be magically delicious to see you walk the plank.”
“Me charms will protect me. Besides, it’s Rabbit you want.”
Rabbit grabbed Cap’n’s sword. “Who’s silly now?”
The great tiger leapt roaring out of the sun and set its paws upon the Earth, digging deep furrows. Oceans crashed in. Deserts sprang to life. Elsewhere, eradication. Those of us able to snap out of our bewilderment took the skies in backyard saucers, following a trail of scat cooling rapidly in the void. The tiger tried to shake us, bebopping around Mars, humming a diddy as he bounced from moon to moon (a tune that sounded like a monstrous Mingus on a galactic scale). Our saucers were running out of fuel. We just couldn't move like that cat could.
Ruben’s cat wants to kill me. Whether I’m climbing ladders, dusting ceilings, or afternoon jazzercising, there he is, weaving between my ankles, tripping me.
“Cool it,” I snap. “Or ELSE.”
He imitates a feline hurdle as I bebop around the room to Ella’s melodious scat. I black my eye on the mantel.
I’m making dinner when Ruben gets home from work.
“Babe?”” he says, as always ignoring my bid for a kiss, “where’s Diddy? He wasn’t in the window when I drove up.”
“Oh, he’s around,” I say, ladling some stew for him. “Now try my new recipe. It’s purrfect.”
Holly's heart raced as she cleaned last night's cat fur from the counter. It wouldn't matter, Jon had seen it.
The day had started perfectly. He had crooned a diddy as she brewed coffee, taken her hand and danced an impromptu be bop in the kitchen.
Now she waited for him to snap at her, call her names she now believed were true. Then the crack of his hand. She would hold her cool palm against the sting as he apologized.
He had just wanted her birthday to be perfect. He had planned for weeks. Holly didn't make plans anymore.
The Professor froze but Burt kept walking, straight into the telltale scat warning them of what was ahead.
“Not cool!” his nephew wailed.
Exasperated, the Professor bopped the scruffy boy upside the head, wondering how his sister would feel if her son didn’t return from this dangerous excursion.
Snap! The thunderous sound of an oak breaking in half echoed through the woods.
“Yo, diddy, did you see that?” Not realizing the tree breaking had been the creature’s last warning, the boy rushed forward before the professor could decide if he wanted to stop him.
"I don't answer to the customers," snapped the man with the Elvis swag. "Scat, diddy-o. It's been cool, but it's time for you to be-bop on out of here."
"It's daddy-o," I corrected. "If you're going to run a 50's diner, get the lingo right."
He dropped my plate in the sink and turned back to me.
"She's my wife," I said.
The look in his eyes betrayed his guilt. I reached into my coat for his tip. It was nickel-plated and held ten rounds.
"Wait," he said, "I'm sorry."
I squeezed off the remaining five.
"Yeah," I said. "So was she."
Her eyes are half-closed, slitted like a cat. "The first?"
"Paper."
"That poem. You called me a diddy."
"Kitty's hard to rhyme."
"Pretty? Witty? Never mind. What was the second?"
"Cotton dress."
"Swing dancing. You didn't know a shoo-bop from a cha-cha."
"Enthusiastic, though." He snaps his fingers, she laughs.
"Third… leather handbag?"
He nods. "Won a poker game."
"Like cool hand Luke. Fourth?"
"Linens."
"The fifth, when we found out it was terminal, was wood. Convenient."
He looks away.
"Jim, do you have it?"
Thoughts scatter like dandelion seeds.
"Jim?"
"Yeah."
The sixth, iron, rings in with a gunshot.
After a year, they'd given up hope. The search went from methodical to scattershot to cold case. Then one day Crazy Jake snapped his rod while fishing in Lake Bobbitt.
It made the national news.
At the funeral my parents cried like nothing I'd ever seen. Not counting my father's tears of remorse after yet another of his unspeakable acts.
I know.
I was there.
I'd gotten her passed-out drunk. Before the body had cooled, I put her in my favorite sweatshirt. And I'd dyed her hair to match mine.
Once they buried that hitchhiker girl, I was finally free.
Oh! My mind had become a hell, a dumpster fire, a reeking smoking scat-scented blight. How I had harmed myself, the path of wreckage trailing through their lives, too -- now I could see it, in every memory, the teeth of regret forever snapping. If only, if only, years of if only. . .
And then oh! Bop-diddy-snap! Therapist, antidepressants, flames out! I could draw a line in those ashes, not yet even cooled. Leave my old self, that hurt and feral thing; arise blameless and strong. Reborn. Reforged.
A new me! Oh, I could just dance!
The honor guard snapped to attention, a cool breeze slid across my tear stained face. I ached for her body, her touch.
I was playing “The Big Bopper's Wedding” , a stupid diddy she loved and played at our wedding, poking fun at me. She loved kitsch and campy. We had a black velvet painting of Elvis in our living room.
I thumbed my phone, “Kung Fu Fighting” started playing while I scattered her ashes. I could see her fighting imaginary ninjas, fighting for the American Way. She always had to be the hero, now she would be the hero forever.
Victor Fries lays happily with his love, Nora. The excitement of the vile necrophilia act has his mind scattered.
His moral compass is betraying him; snapping this cool, delicate peace from hideous sexual appetites.
"Father was a pervert. I guess I learned it from him. He knew though. Knew how much I hated him, his deviance, his use of diddy and bop to describe parts of anatomy. I should have killed him, instead of letting the cancer get him. But you, Nora, you saved me. But why can't you come back to me?"
He cries in the moonlight waiting for the bat.
BoPeep danced through the high grass. Her off-key shrilling echoed from the hills. “Diddy diddy bo-bop!” she screamed.
The sheep stayed hidden in the trees. “Does she hear how terrible she is?” a ram snapped.
The ewe next to him shook her head. “She thinks she’s cool. She calls it scatting. Smells like scat, that’s for sure.”
Heads down, the herd trudged homeward. “Someday,” The ram promised, “I’ll butt her off the cliff and we can all go live with that boy, Blue. He plays a mean horn.”
Screw Scattergories. Scrabble was Else’s game.
Ida laid down her tiles: “diddy.”
“That ain’t a word.” But it was. Definition: female nipple. Double letter score.
Else scowled, passing her famous bean dip (specially made) Ida’s way.
Four months. The length of Ida’s winning streak. Damn old bat had to be cheating. Last week she had bopped the board, sending tiles flying right as Else was on the cusp of victory. Never again.
Playing it coolly, Else snapped her fingers. “Arsenic.” Triple word score and the game. Else smiled watching Ida turn pale. At least she wouldn’t die undefeated.
I scattered his ashes last week in the shade of the citrus trees. The oranges in his orchard glowed like cool moons. The branches he tended every day stood silent. I can almost see him working among the leaves, smiling, slicing, a radio playing the endless funk he loved so well.
I hope that was the last thing he heard; the every day sounds, the truck radio playing diddy-bop-diddy-bop. So loud he didn’t hear the branch snap. I hope the last thing he knew was the caress of a tree and the song of his living.
"Seriously Aurora, I snapped like a green bean! Cindy's crew had sewn me up a cute LBD, you know, "bippity boppity boo!" and I did dye my hair a darker inky black, but no, all seven of those little fuckers ditched me again. Said something about work, then rat-scattered off singing about ho's. Assholes."
Opening the woodstove, Snow nearly dropped her cell.
"Damn. So once these pies cool- the old hag next door keeps giving me shit-tons of apples- I'm gone. Did you hear little Red's Granny's looking for a new roomie...?"
“Please, James!” I sobbed. “Not Dy!”
“Scat, or Gingersnap gets it,” he said. Dy just sat there, cool as a cucumber.
They dropped me off at the city limit, so I hailed a cab. Oppa, I thought. Ironic, really. Dy was always the one trying to get Oppa to change. Now that his miserliness had come back to bite him, it was Dy, splendid Dy, who’d suffer for it.
We got the ransom out quickly. But she never came back.
A week later a letter came in the mail. It was signed, “Mr. and Mrs. James Luther.”
Sean combs his hair, prepping for the pilots’ Christmas dance. Long day flying his turboprop.
Walks into the party, raises his Glock, fires.
“Why?” the bleeding host begs.
Security guard, doppelganger for Scatman Crothers, intervenes. “Why you bringin’ a gun, my man?”
Sean holds out his invitation. “Says right here. Pistol only.”
Coolheaded Scatman nods. “Pistol. Pilots. Oh my dog, I’m seein’ the problem.”
Homicide investigator struts in, snaps, “What’s the story?”
Scatman turns to the investigator. “The story begins and ends with one man.” Acknowledges Sean. “Did the pilot kill our host? Or did the pistol? Or did dyslexia?”
KC’s last step, too close to the ledge, had him flying backwards from the highest Heaven Spot in the city. His index on the nozzle sprayed a chrome trail like smoke from a fighter plane.
At the tenth story his throw-up disappeared from sight. Big brother appeared. “Did d’ya think y’as cool?”
“Cut the crap,” he snapped. “Always telling lies, were ya.”
At the fifth floor the nozzle sputtered. Memories bebopped. Snapshots of his tags scattered through the city, istagram, flickr. KC everywhere. Urban legacy.
On the tarmac, KC was the man who fell to earth.
Hey, diddle, diddy,
The spoon looked so pretty,
The dish was entranced by her polish.
But his passion soon cooled,
With the fork the dish fooled,
And the spoon was left feeling quite smallish.
Hey, diddle, doodat,
The dog was a cool cat,
Whose musical taste was bebop.
He scatted so high
As he watched the cow fly,
Attempting the Fosbury Flop.
Hey, diddle, payback,
The cow found a drawback
Of being less athlete than cudder.
In a snap she hit earth
And enhanced the dog’s mirth
By impaling the dish on an udder.
Little Bo Peep and Jack-Be-Nimble: we clasped hands and danced in circles, our childhood summers a children's diddy. "Ring around the Rosie!"
Years of pockets full of posies: I thought our life was perfect.
But Bo Peep found her sheep in someone else's barn, and Jack was too quick to miss it.
"Forgive me!" She begged.
Flames snap in the cool air, the last of Bo Peep's lies scattering on the wind as the house burns.
"Ashes, ashes."
All is forgiven now.
I turn into the night, drop the smoldering match, crush it with my toe.
"We all fall down."
Scattered memories of Jake as a diddy little thing, frail and vulnerable, filter through my mind. Now he’s sat in front of me, a hulk with a meat fist threatening to bop me on the head, brotherly like, just like he used to when we were pals, before he married my sister. But there’s nothing brotherly between us anymore.
“She wouldn’t let up,” he pleads, “I just snapped. What man wouldn’t?”
The guards take him to the chamber. I watch as they administer the lethal dose, feel a draught of cool air brush my cheek. He is haunting me already.
Calling it “#EndofDaysBop” sounded, like, cool. Edgy. On trend, you know?
It was just a party. There were loads of Snapes. Jake came as Ziggy Stardust. Painted face and orange, spiky hair. Spectacular.
There’s cancer and famine and war and scattered peoples, but we were going to like live forever, so what was the harm in spiking the punch? Josh said it was just a splash, “Just a diddy bit of vodka.”
Of course not, Officer. He’d hardly have drunk it if he’d known it was contaminated.
Me? No, I didn’t drink the punch. I don’t like fizzy drinks.
To grieve, but how: a quintessential quandary.
We want yet more—your life, your lore.
Instead we gather, ashes to scatter
to search for meaning below the natter.
Erudite earth understands the significance.
The tide foments, to snatch our tears,
our warm laments as cool waves roar
to lap that distant, unknown shore.
[suurrgggge~crash ~ ~ ~ suurrgggge~crash]
Oh what tangled titillations entrance
in this sea where I dancedancedance.
Snappityscat bumpercat, the sea swirls around.
Diddybop, bippitybop, baboom, I am found.
I taptaptap in this skeletal sublime.
My loves, mourn no longer. Celebrate your time.
The cold snap killed my snap beans. I knew I was taking a risk planting so early but I needed to work the ground; I needed that hard labor like therapy. I can see Ed's cat out there now and it looks like he's playing with insects amongst the rotting plants, batting away at some katydid dyad. I run out and hiss at him, snap my fingers, climb over the fence and bop him even, but he won't stop worrying the ground. I see what he's uncovered and then I get it. One of us misses Ed.
“I can also identify animals by their scat,” he continues, nervously wiping his forehead.
“That sounds… useful,” I answer, willing my coffee to cool faster. My phone sounds off like an emergency vehicle, coming to my rescue.
Did Dyson show up?
Yes. Snappy dresser. I love a man in suspenders.
Give him a chance, Cam.
Bop-It is his self-proclaimed talent.
That’s fun! You could use fun.
He plays his left hand versus his right.
Maybe you should come home.
Probably.
No?
Girl’s gotta eat.
“So, about the scat,” I prompt, flagging the waitress to ask for a menu.
The book squashed Herb’s nose as the twister scattered its pages.
Herb blotted blood on his napkin.
“You did dye your hair?” Kiwi asked.
“You told me too.”
“I said black. It’s purple.”
“Color is good.”
“It’s a black and white world.”
“Boring.”
“Color is suboptimal for our destination.”
A coo like a dove escaped the dreaming girl’s lips
Kiwi glared at her.
“Why so angry, Kiwi?”
“Her story made me out as evil.”
“You are a winged monkey.“
“And what does the story say about albino munchkins?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Maybe in Kansas, you’ll get a mention.”
The sky used to be stuffed with dragons, bop-diddy-dooing above the clouds.
Where’d the dragons all go, man?
Where’d the dragons all go?
Cmon, friends, snap those juicy little fingers.
Did the dragons go down, belly-down?
No, no, not down--no, not down.
Just lightning, man. Keep snapping!
Did the dragons go up, sunny-side up?
No, no, not up--no, not up.
You too, Mr. Mayor, snap along! Only thunder; be cool, man.
Did the dragons get fat, scattyscat fat?
No, no, not fat—no, not fat.
Wave hello, everybody, bop-she-bop, stay cool.
Don’t you trust your Dragon Singer?
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