DISCLAIMER: There's some strong language in this post. But it's the internet, so I'm sure you'll get over it.
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Hello my loyal reader(s)! It's tie for another STORY CHALLENGE!
As a reminder, the story challenges I write come after I complete 10 "things" from my book 642 Things to Write About. I get suggestions from my friends/followers and take 5 of the best ones to turn into a story, which I generally come up with on the spot. It's a fun little exercise that forces me to adapt and provides some pretty creative writing prompts.
In any case, this round of suggestions did not disappoint. The five I've chosen are as follows (in no particular order):
- All the possible uses for a potato
- "Choo choo mother fucker" (I think I can say this three times before I'm required to rate this blog post R)
- A fancy Christmas party gone horribly, messily, wrong (red, which was another suggestion, also comes up a lot, but I blame the Christmas theme for that)
- Justice
- Rampant and unabated climate change
And I haven't decided if I'm actually going to use this yet, but if I do...
BONUS: An appearance by Nathan Fillion
Let's see what I come up with, shall we?
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Dave sighed as his boss collapsed to the floor in a flailing heap, rolls of fat jiggling from bouts of thunderous laughter. The man was the head of TerraCorps -- the most powerful energy conglomerate in the world -- and yet after two glasses of egg nog his face and, consequently, his mannerisms, were redder than a sunset over a brush fire.
Shameless, he thought. This man will make more money while we're at this party than I do in a year. You think he'd at least be able to hold his liquor.
Still, not a single person here was brave enough to call him out on it, and so secretary and engineer alike were forced to chuckle nervously while he laughed himself into a stupour.
After awhile, however, it definitely wore on him. The facade was exhausting, and each day it became more and more apparent that this job would be the death of him. It was a sobering thought, which was ironic when he thought about the amount of alcohol he had to consume to deal with his reality.
Speaking of which...
He threw his head back and downed the last of his drink. It wasn't as strong as he'd like, but it would be a few hours yet before the company was willing to break out the really good stuff. Some silly PR nonsense about building lasting relationships with your colleagues through social bonding. It's a shame he hated everyone here.
Looking around, he didn't even recognize most of those present. It was a big company, after all, and it was impossible to know everyone. Dave worked in the finance department, and so he would occasionally visit the other parts of HQ to collect information for payroll or audits, but he didn't actually interact with the other employees all that much. He could count on one hand the number of people he actually spoke with on a regular basis, and half of those he wished he didn't have to. Still, it seemed strange to him that there were people here who worked in the same building that he could have sworn he'd never seen before. The scope of TerraCorps was truly mind-boggling.
His brooding was interrupted by two things. The first the feeling of something being placed of the back of this head. It was cold, and as best as he could tell through his buzz, circular in shape. Like some kind of metal tube. The second (which gave him a pretty good idea of what the first entailed) was Linda's screaming.
Linda was the boss' secretary. Considering the kind of harassment she had to put up with on a daily basis, the woman was not easily rattled. As she looked toward Dave and dropped her drink to the carpet, the banshee's wail of a terrified exclamation she released was a pretty good indication that things were about to go horribly, messily wrong. This foreshadowing, to Dave's dismay, was soon proven to be incredibly accurate.
"EVERYONE GET DOWN ON THE GROUND! TONIGHT, TERRACORPS WILL PAY FOR ITS TRANSGRESSIONS AGAINST MOTHER EARTH!"
Taking the queue, dozens of people dispersed through the crowd drew weapons of all kinds, putting on masks taken from duffel bags or secret stashes throughout the office. What had moments before been a scene of mirth and merriment quickly turned into something out of a nightmare. In Dave's mind, it was Die Hard meets The Dark Knight, and considering how many times he watched those movies he did not have high hopes for exiting the situation unscathed.
He wasted no time in dropping to the ground, hoping to minimise his chances of becoming an example to advance the plot. Luckily he wore a green shirt today instead of a red one; in these circumstances every little bit helped.
"Gerald Mendleson." The masked man who had been behind him stepped over Dave's prone form to approach the boss, still trying to stifle childish giggles as his inebriated mind came to terms with the situation. It turned out that the metal tube had been a shotgun.
How the hell did he even get that in here? The security in this building sucks.
"A simple businessman who spent his life building the world's most powerful energy provider. You claim to provide security, that TerraCorps keeps our cities running and our way of life intact. But your shady dealings and poor standards are driving our planet to an early grave! Do you have any idea what will happen if one of your precious nuclear plants has a meltdown? Hundreds of years of radiation soaking into the land, making it uninhabitable for man or beast!" The gun's barrel sank until it was pointed squarely at the boss' head. "TerraCorps is a sickness poisoning our planet. You are a coal-fuelled train spewing a cloud of death to envelop us all. The tracks are running out, Gerald. We're approaching the point of no return, and I'm here to put an an end to it before there's no turning back."
"Choo choo, motherfucker."
"Wha--" The masked gunman turned in surprise, but his exclamation was cut short as something shot forward and exploded on his mask, dropping him to a sorry heap on the floor. The projectile's shattered bits fell to the carpet right in front of poor Dave, who, as he looked at them, was filled with any number of nonsensical thoughts.
They were chunks of potato.
I'm DEFINITELY not drunk enough for this.
He craned his neck backward to see where the shot had come from, and his confusion only grew. There, standing beside a discarded Santa outfit, was a mysterious man wearing a brown and yellow costume that Dave couldn't begin to describe. The stranger was holding some kind of pneumatic cannon strapped to a massive cannister on his back, and the fluffy red sack accompanying his initial disguise was filled to the brim with spuds.
"I'm Captain Potato," exclaimed the man, raising his cannon as he struck a pose. "I've come to bury these evildoers once and for all!"
This is amazing!!! I thoroughly enjoyed it :) !
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