Short Shorts - write yours now

Rebuffed by the determined humans, the alien invaders counterattacked. Their flyover drones spread NoDef #2, rendering the Earthlings forever constipated. The aliens stood down, to wait.

Snarla was having none of it. Time was reversing, and the birth of her son, Bonko, was just weeks away. It was a prolonged, painful birth, and she wasn't going through that again. So she headed for the Fakahatchee Strand Swamp. He'd never find her there.

That's the stuff I want to see more of.

Casey final at bat, bottom of the ninth. Score: 28-5. Pitcher: red eyes, ears steaming. 3 and two. Ball a sizzling 200 MPH. He hits. He scores. 28-29 final. He wakes up screaming in triumph.

"Do you like French?"

"The food or the kissing?"

Dave allowed himself a smile. It was going to be a very interesting first date indeed.

Thank you.

A note to readers: You don't have to be a writer to think of something good. Hell, it doesn't have to be a masterpiece.

It didn't have to be a masterpiece. Hell, it didn't even have to be anything good. He snorted, and signed a check for a "colorful painting" he had never yet seen, but of the right size to fill the blank space over the mantelpiece. Little did he know what would come of this blind purchase...

It was getting worse. She was losing her words, couldn’t find them and get them out. It was only when she closed her eyes and saw them scrawled on a blackboard could she finish the sentence.

Elementary, my dear Watson. I saw your ear slightly wiggle and I knew instantly you had been in a sideshow before you became a doctor. Ergo, you killed my cat to keep it from performing your routines as you stalked me in the middle of the darkest night to steal the marmalade from the pantry. Consider yourself lucky I didn't like the cat.

Yes, yes.

Angela was late for work. But she was in a standoff, and neither she nor her opponent would budge. She sighed, pulled out her cell phone and told her boss that Route 2 was once again blocked by a flock of wild turkeys and it would be a while.

Then the kangaroos came. Papa kangaroo said, I can't eat this frickin porridge. Mama kangaroo said, me neither. Baby kangaroo said, there's a girl sleeping. And he sank his fangs into her neck. Papa kangaroo said, that's very rude, son, as he slipped the girl into mama kangaroo's pouch to finish her blood later. Baby kangaroo rubbed his fat tummy. I know, he said.

He tacked her body and an anvil inside the box. "I don't know what I will do without you, Mary, my dear," he said, rolling the box over the rollers and down the bank to the water. He stood waist deep in the river to guide the box as it slowly sank. The box went below the surface before he felt a tugging on his coat. "I tacked my coat along with the lid," he said aloud, as the box glided into the deepest water.

They attacked six—I think—years ago. Poisoned rays killed anything alive and ruined the ground, parts of the world we survivors just call 'over'. And now, finally, the verges between the parts that are over are starting to flower. Daisies. Fields as far as the eye can see. And seven billion dead are pushing them up.

He awoke to the sound of baby cries. A nudge in his ribs told him it was his turn. "OK, OK," he said as he sleepily got out of bed and shambled across the room to the crib. Suddenly he froze, and remembered he lived alone.

Ever since his mom took him to see ET, little Jimmy knew that someday he would have an ET friend of his own. He dreamt it, talked about it to anyone that would listen, and watched the sky at night. When at last he saw the light move in the darkness, to descend on the park up the street, he changed from his pajamas into jeans and tee shirt and ran straight to the site to hide behind a shrub and watch. The egg-shaped craft split down the center and opened wide like an over-ripe fruit. Jimmy ran forward when he saw something stir and start to emerge. As he approached a foul odor preceded the et from within the craft. At last the creature fell out on the grass, its skin crawling with worms, snakes and bugs. Its eyes dangling on stems focused on Jimmy and he gargled a greeting: "Hello, earthling. So what's up with you?" But Jimmy was gone, screaming and hoping the beast would not follow. His parents were never able to find out why he trashed the CD of ET.

No one should hear a planet scream. The watchers over the Earth had to block up their ears but still they heard it. The cries of agony. Then total silence. The watchers packed up to go. In perhaps a hundred thousand years to return.

Bruce dashed through the sleepy town, trying to find sanctuary before the sun came up. His horse had pulled up lame and there was no way he could continue to Washington on foot. The sack of gold was heavy, but it was balanced by a satchel under his other arm. And, inside, proof that the president of the bank had been embezzling railroad funds and speculating with the money that wasn't his.

As he pondered his next move, he saw a building that would do—a church. "Forgive me, Bubbe," he whispered to himself, and ducked in, hoping the priest could help an accountant on the run.

Little Orley could spike another kid's top so expertly that the other's top would go flying while his own could spin almost indefinitely, after. He went to a competition where he placed second out of over forty kids. He lost out to first when one kid used an illegal top that split his best top in two. With his second best top he spiked the toe of the kid's tennis shoe and broke his big toe. It's a jungle in the game of tops. Orley intended to come out on top in the end.