Drabbles

Candy Land: The Great Lollipop Adventure

Image via Wikipedia

Welcome to another blog chain. We’re sparse this month because so many of us are doing National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo, NaNo when you’re too tired to say the whole damn thing.

I was preceded in the chain by CScottMorris and Aheila will follow me. The complete list of participants follows my post.

So this month’s topic is drabbles, not what they are, but examples of drabbles. For those who don’t know (and haven’t been reading my blog this past week or so), a drabble is story of exactly 100 words. Now our esteemed hostess Bettedra has given us the luxury of writing within the range of 95 to 105 words. While I’m usually a stickler for writing exactly 100, I used the extra allowance to tack on a moral to my story.

Like my previous drabbles, I’ve been using this site as my prompt generator. My prompt (#50) was:

“Write a story about a town that ran out of sugar supply”

I wish I could say it’s deep and political, but alas I cannot. Short and silly with a dark edge is more like it.

When the people of Candyland discovered they’d run out of sugar, everyone panicked.

“How will we make candy?”

A gloomy future loomed until an Elder suggested, “Let’s ask Cookieland to loan us some. We’ll gladly repay with interest.”

But Cookieland said, “No, we need all our sugar to make cookies.”

Cakeland, Cobblerland and Brownieland said the same.

“We’re doomed!” Candyland’s citizens whined until a small child stepped forward and said, “Why don’t we ask Dentistland?”

So they successfully pitched their proposal to the very wise but unethical dentists and thus the Evil Axis of Sweetness was born.

Moral: Keep your friends close, your enemies closer.

Image by washuugenius via Flickr

This one seemed a bit reminiscent of an earlier drabble I did, so I opted for an alternate meaning for one of the theme elements. I almost skipped this prompt in favor of a different one but decided to remain true to my plan and gut it out.

“What if you’re going to write a story about power with a policeman as the main character and an old pair of shoes as the key object? Set your story in the operating room.”

The OR lights winked out; equipment whined as it powered down.

“No power other than backup lighting? Strange.”

“Good thing we hadn’t started.”

The door swung open and a man burst in. He wore a rumpled trench coat and clenched an unlit cigar in his teeth.

“You can’t come in here!” A nurse bustled to intercept him but halted when he and a second man flashed police badges.

“Sorry to interrupt. Everyone please remove and hand your shoes to my associate. One of you is an imposter, a killer with a distinctive tread pattern about to cover his tracks, literally.

Whew, that one was work! Can you tell I was an old Columbo fan? I really need to write a cozy.

And purists, please don’t tell me the cop needed a search warrant to require them to remove their shoes. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. I don’t research 100 word ditties, so just suspend any disbelief you might have. Sorry.