"Rite of Birth"

When a citizen reaches their 16th year of age, they are to be inducted into the armed forces of the glorious Koro's People's Republic. This is the way of things, for a citizen's worth is measured in service to his country after all.

"Kill the disobedient!"

The words echoed through the facility as the chanting of the people grew with every righteous execution. I watched in a state of reverence, to witness such a glorious event is a rite of passage, to shed the down of childhood and raise a feathered adult into the world.

The sound of a pulse carbine firing its salvo into the head of a dissident rang precisely, the ordered march of civilised society crushing the savage and decadent beneath its talons.

Some of the dissidents would beg, some would cry, hoping that a glorious citizen of the KPR would find his heart softened at their pleas for mercy.

The wailing and pleading of the (pigs) doesn't unnerve the butcher.

Yet some remain silent, choosing to atone for their crimes with some measure of dignity. Such crimes as they surely have committed cannot be forgiven, however, and thus their punishment is death. They could not even atone for their crimes in a labour camp, producing goods so that they may amend the damage their greed has caused. Thus, they are to be killed, their bodies burned in a mass grave and forgotten.

"Next!" Come the voice over the loudspeaker, ordering the next prisoner to be brought forward and myself to take up arms. I stepped forth, grabbing the energy rifle from the last cadet with a practiced movement that kept the weapon pointed in a safe direction at all times.

"Prepare yourself, cadet, the enemy lies before you." The instructor motioned for me to take aim, and I did so with gusto.

I stared into the eyes of the traitor; within them was not the cold fires of resistance, not the watery pits of despair, nor even a glassy look of shock.

No.

Within those eyes was a look of silent sadness, and it shook me. They didn't look mad, but rather disappointed. The man lifted his neck out of its folds, craning to reach my eye level.

"My ancestors would be proud of what I did. Can you say the same, young man?" That was all he asked before he slunk back down to the previous position.

I fired.

/////

That was 7 years ago. I now sit in my office, contemplating the worst decision of my life.

"It's a simple offer, Officer, you already know which option you are going to pick in the end.

Do I?

Inside, I still feel like that kid walking up to the blooding mat, preparing to become a man, but not quite there yet.

I grit my beak and shake the hand of the rebel in my office, trying to ignore the cold anxiety creeping into my mind.

"There are many hard choices in life, Mr. Gearn, but I assure you, you've made one today that your ancestors would be proud of.

I could only hope he was right.

/////

-a lonely story

Wc/ 523

Ook

CW: Do Not Read

.

Celia McCabe hadn’t said much so far. The group project was on Group Dynamics, and it was, so far, a wealth of ironic education. Three guys and Celia, here at Belmor High, Go Tigers, Class of ‘85 Rules. Yawn.

“I had some ideas,” she piped up. “My dad’s a sociologist and he actually…”

“There was this documentary on TV, about these monkeys.” Jake sat down, twenty minutes late, and started yammering. “They put white paint on one, and then let them go back to their group or whatever. And when he got back some of the other monkeys would beat on him, screeching and shit. ‘Cause he looked different now, right?

“Only they were stupid, the science guys, because this lady who knew all about the monkeys and lived there for years and shit? She came in and put like, dark paint on one of the monkeys, like same color as he already was, and sent him back, and he still got beat on just as much.

“So it was the smell, actually. The smell of the fucking paint, that was why. The other monkeys thought the painted ones were like, poison or some shit.

“But it was funny, because like, all these science guys were ready to publish this big research paper about group behavior or whatever, and then she came in and showed they were all wrong and shit, and they got all mad and talked like all these big words. They puffed up and looked mad and serious and talked about anecdotal and unsubstantiated or whatever. Just because she was new, just like the monkeys.”

Celia looked at him for a long time. “It wasn’t because she was new, though.”

“Yeah, she was new. She’d been doing monkey research stuff forever, yeah, but like, not with the real scientists. So it was funny, because it was like when the monkeys thought one of them was new because of the white paint, they beat on it, and here these dumb science guys were doing the same thing.”

“Well, now you’re doing the same thing as them,” Celia said.

“What? What are you even talking about?”

“They didn’t reject her ideas because she was new, Jake. They did it because she was a woman.”

“Whatever! You didn’t even see the documentary. Me and Tommy watched it last night. Right, Tommy? The monkey documentary?”

“Yeah. That was weird.”

“Oh, gee, the one on PBS?” Celia exclaimed. “At nine o’clock? Hosted by Neville Rayburn?”

“Yeah, you had to see it to understand. It was about real science, not like, how to make dinner or something.”

“Social behavior dynamics in primates? That does sound complicated.”

“See? You just don’t understand it anyhow. It’s like, advanced group dynamics and stuff, there’s a lot of nuances in it. Not everything is about sexism, Celia. Those feminist girls you keep hanging out with after school, they got you like, hypnotized or some shit. You have to learn to think for yourself.”

“Oh, I see. What should I think for myself, Jake? I never tried before.”

“Just like, be yourself. Look, there’s some things guys are good at, and things girls are good at. That’s equal. You want equality, right? So just, do the stuff you’re equal at, and don’t worry about the guy stuff.”

“The guy stuff?”

“You know, like math, engineering, that stuff. There’s lots of stuff for girls to do, as long as you think for yourself. You’re just conforming to what those women’s libbers tell you.”

“Golly gee, Jake. Thanks for setting me straight.”

“No problem. Hey, are you going to the Festival Dance on Friday? You could go with me.”

“Jeepers, I don’t know. That sounds like a weally big decision for my widdle brain. Do you fink I should go wif you Jakey-poo?”

“Uh, why are you talking like that?”

“I don’t know! It’s just girl stuff I guess, teehee! But gosh, I can’t go to the dance with you!”

“Why not?”

“Because that mean old Gloria Steinem told me not to! Darn, darn, darn. I have to spend Friday burning my bra and singing protest songs while I flash my tits at the cops, Jake! So why don’t you go dancing, and afterward in your car, you can go fuck yourself!”

“What?”

Celia monkey-walked over to the shredder, and tossed in the papers her father had helped her write for the project the night before. “Ook ook ook ook!”

And with that, Celia gracefully took her leave.

---

748 words, something shredded (erased?)

Feedback welcome

[ineligible for voting]

---

After three weeks inside, the tinsel-bedecked Christmas tree was shedding needles all over the brown shag rug of the trailer. Its angel hung off to the side with a forlorn expression, as if she, too, was giving up on the holidays.

“This Christmas will be different, Jethro.” Cheryl, his mom, half-pleaded through her hairspray-hardened bangs and dangling cigarette. “You’ll see!”

The thirteen-year-old stared back at her, face glum.

“You’ll get exactly what you want. Your deadbeat dad got a big bonus this year at the car dealership.”

“Will he be here?”

“Well, no. But you’ll get a great present—won’t that be nice?”

---

Four days later, Jethro stumbled out of bed around noon in Spider-Man pajamas a size too small.

There was a big box under the tree with a shiny green plastic bow.

“Open it, sweetie! It’s yours!” His mom said all smiles. “I think I found the perfect gift for you this year. You’ll love it!”

Tearing at the train-themed wrapping paper, Jethro held out hope that this year would be different. Ever since the divorce, his mom had been in free fall. The presents themselves didn’t matter as much as feeling seen.

A package emerged with a grinning teddy bear face and maniacal eyes. He looked over at his mom, unfeigned astonishment on his face.

“Look, Hon. He talks with a cassette tape. Moves his mouth and everything. Isn’t it FUN?!”

Jethro stared, shellshocked. This was a toy for a little kid, he thought—not a teenager! His friends would give him so much shit for this. It was worse than last year’s GI Joe Cobra Commander special-edition box set.

“C’mon, sweetie, put the batteries in and let’s see what this thing can do!”

Jethro pried open the plastic panel on its back and put in the four sausage-sized D-cell batteries.

“Hi! My name is Anonymous Bear!” The monstrosity chirped, its mouth moving in a grotesque impersonation of human speech.

“What will they think of next? The eighties are a miraculous time to be alive!” Cheryl’s eyes gleamed with joy. “Say something back!”

“Hi, Anonymous Bear, I’m Jethro,” the teen said in a monotone, his lack of delight all too evident.

Cheryl’s face fell as the bear asked Jethro, “Can you and I be friends?”

“Sure,” Jethro said, trying to sound a little happier for his mom’s sake.

“Do you like it? All the kids want one this year the guy at the shop said.” She eyed him hopefully. “How cool is that?”

Of course he did. Guy was trying to make a sale. How could his mom not see that? And he wasn’t a kid anymore, for crying out loud. And then he looked at Cheryl’s face, which was beginning to fall in slow motion. He couldn’t do this to her. Not on Christmas. Not after the year she’d had with the divorce… Jethro forced a big grin. “He’s great, Mom!” He turned to the bear and ruffled its fake fur head. “Yes, Anonymous Bear, you and I can be friends.”

---

WC: 504

---

Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated

White Bird

Click

“John Hart, 23 year old male. Intake evaluation March 25th.”

“Doc, what is up with the recorder?”

“John, I use it to compare with my notes. I assure you none of this will be shared.”

“Okay.”

“So John, you’ve been having dreams of when you were younger?”

“That’s right. I think they are memories, just you know, through the lens of a child. My parents separated before I was born. Mark showed back up when I was three-ish.”

“Mark was your father?”

“Biologically, yes. Mark showed up and started taking me away on weekends. I remember hating it, took me away from all my favorite toys and Rascal, my dog. I think he just wanted to hurt Mom and parade me in front of his woman- I want to say Tammy? Anyways, I think that was her name.”

“Memories are a funny thing at three John. Most people think they have memories of when they were very young. However, they are often constructs based on stories they heard or photos.”

“No, I remember every time I went to Mark’s. It was the first time an adult — hurt me, not in that way mind you! They hit me for anything and everything. It shocked me that adults could be so cruel.”

“Is this what you're dreaming of? Being hurt?”

“No, I’ve been dreaming of the last day I ever saw Mark and Tammy. They are asleep in the bedroom, like they were most of the time, after telling me they’ll whoop me good if I am too noisy. I’m hungry and want to cook myself some mac and cheese.

“I turn on the stove— You know, like all unsupervised three-years-olds should do— and I watch the blue flames spudder to life. Before I get a pot to boil water in, I get distracted hearing the theme song to some Saturday cartoon, I don't remember which one. I go back into the living room, and I watch it.

“It goes to commercial break and my tummy rumbles. I remember I still need to cook my mac and cheese. That is when the white bird starts chirping.”

“White bird?”

“Yes, a white bird sitting near the outlet, along the floor. It's so loud. I remember what my Mom said about the one at our home. ‘See this bird? Whenever it chirps it means there is danger and to get everyone out of the house.’

“So, I go to leave knowing that if I wake Mark and Tammy I’ll get hit. I also decide to take the bird as they might hurt it for being too loud. So, I pluck it from the wall and it gives one final happy chirp before going quiet. I carry it outside with me.

“I sit outside for a long time and then a stranger asked me if I was alone. I tell them, no, Mark is in the house. I show them the white bird and tell them it was chirping so I took it outside with me to be safe.

They go inside and rush back out. Next thing I know there are all sorts of flashing lights and firefighters. I'm loving all the attention and even wear a helmet. Mom comes and holds me tight. She is crying. Then, I wake up.”

“You are aware that white bird was a-“

“Carbon Monoxide detector? Yes, I’m aware.”

“You know it wasn’t your fault right?”

“I’m aware and that doesn’t bother me.”

“So John, what is bothering you?”

“I’m worried that if I had known what the white bird was— What would happen— I’d have done it all over again.

“Does that make me a bad person?”

WC: 613

Initiative

Tom and Harry traded looks over their desk dividers as they watched as Jimmy (who had just come on-shift after his week off) was escorted to his desk, picked up and shoved a few items there into the backpack he had not had the chance to set down, and was escorted from the room. As Tom pointed to his headset, held up five fingers and nodded, Harry set himself on DnD and headed for the door.

He found Jimmy just outside the lobby doors, pacing back and forth and occasionally hitting the smooth granite walls (doing more damage to his hands than he could ever hope to do to the wall).

“Jimmy, what happened?”

“I’m out. They let me go. Fuck me...”

“Why?”

“I fucked up, man,” Jimmy replied, his hand shaking slightly. “You got a smoke?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Sorry, left ‘em up at my desk. I can go get--”

Jimmy shook his head. “No bother.”

“So what happened?”

“I followed orders. And I was just starting to feel comfortable here. You know this is my first ‘real’ job? Not slinging orders or stocking shelves, but a ‘real’ job.”

“Didn’t realize, Jimmy. So...?”

“I fixed a problem on the database server last week.”

“Jimmy, you okay?” Tom said as he walked up.

“No, he’s not. They canned him. He was just starting to tell me why,” Harry replied. “But you don’t have access to the database server. What exactly did you do?”

“Richard gave me access,” Jimmy said meekly.

“What?” Harry and Tom asked in unison.

“Thought you didn’t know anything about databases.” Tom added.

“I do now,” Jimmy said with a grimace.

“I know you said you don’t do database tickets because you don’t have experience with them. So... how?” Harry scratched his head, confused.

“Clark and I were on shift that night, but Clark had to leave--was feeling sick, or had an emergency, I can’t remember which. So after he left I was here by myself when the monitoring system started reporting errors on the database server. I tried to troubleshoot it, but nothing made sense so about 04:00 I called Richard.”

“And he gave you access?” Tom asked.

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean, ‘Not exactly’?”

“When he answered the phone I thought I heard multiple giggles in the background. I started to tell him the problem and what I’d tried, but he just says, ‘Did I make a mistake in hiring you?’ I replied, ‘No...’ ‘Then show some initiative and just FIX IT!’ he yelled and hung up.”

“So what then?” Harry said.

Jimmy leaned back against the wall and slid to the ground. “I went to his desk. All his passwords are on Post-Its on his monitor, so wrote them down and went back to my desk. Between them and Lycos I found someone talking about the same problem, with a discussion of how to fix it.”

Tom looked puzzled. “How did that cause the outage?”

“Outage...?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah,” Harry said, “the database server was down for almost a day. They had to restore it from backups, so there were a couple of hours of data lost. I don’t think either of us got off the phone long enough to take a piss until last hour or so of the shift.”

“Damn. I’m sorry, guys.”

“So you were reading a thread about the problem?” Jimmy asked.

“As I was reading through I’d try what they discussed, and if it didn’t clear keep going. It seemed to clear after I did the ‘DROP DATABASE mysql;’ someone suggested, but another poster said I needed to restart the server to ensure it took effect. It seemed like it hung while it was going down, so I did what I do at home and pushed the power button. While I was waiting on the server to come up Paul and Silas came in for hand-over so I told them to make sure it restarted, packed up and left. I didn’t know anything about an outage until now.”

“Sorry, man,” Harry said, “but hey, you’re the first person fired from here who weren’t being met by cops as they were escorted from the building.”

---

(Word count: 698. Please let me know what you like/dislike about the post. Thank you in advance for your time and attention. Other works can also be found linked in r/atcroft_wordcraft.)

Care Curio

“Curiosity killed the cat.”

Faith stopped along the central walkway leading to their schoolhouse, her thumbs hooking under her backpack's straps, her eyes flashing wide, her fancy crestfallen by this shocking revelation. “Wait, what?” she asked.

Lucy glanced alongside her path and seemed to only just realize Faith was no longer there. She leisurely turned back, continuing to slurp through the straw of her raised cup until she found her missing friend. She pushed her square-framed glasses up with her knuckle. “What?”

Despite running late, this was too big for Faith to forget. “You said a cat died. What cat?”

Lucy shrugged and then turned to climb the steps.

Faith caught up and hooked her elbow. “Just hang on! Lucy, you can’t just drop a bomb on me like that and not say what happened! What cat? Where did this happen? And when? Could no one save it? Where was everyone?”

“I don’t know. The cat. That’s all I know.”

“You mean, that was his name? Or hers? Wait, if ‘The’ was a name, maybe it’s actually The the cat? Or just The, you know? And just who is this ‘Curiosity?’ Oh, wait! Maybe someone’s curiosity led to The’s death!” Her eyes widened, her fingertips bounding from her brow to emphasize each mind-blowing revelation.

Lucy narrowed her eyes. “You’re weird.”

“Me? It’s not my fault, I didn’t know. I just found out! Why isn’t anyone talking about this?”

Brrring! called first bell

They grabbed their pack straps and barreled through the entrance.

Later that week.

Faith browsed the net on a library computer. She skimmed random fashion articles, gawking at images rather than reading. Her eyes swelled on spying a shirt. It was pink and sparkled and there was glitter and it was awesome. Seriously. Its block-lettered logo read ‘Dazzle’ while appropriately filled with pink glitter. Who wouldn’t want that? she thought while mentally claiming it and scrolling to find its price.

“That’s curious,” someone said.

“Careful,” Faith said over her shoulder. “That’s deadly.” Her eyes never left her screen, the price soon coming into view.

“What?!” she bellowed, shoving her station, her and her chair sent careening away. “Are they crazy?”

Shh!

Faith looked about, finding a great many leveled glares before she hunkered. Sorry, she mouthed.

Westley, a weedy boy from her history class, peered around at her screen, then met her gaze. “What do you mean?”

“Huh?”

“You said something was deadly.”

Faith’s brow crinkled. “I did? When?”

“Just a minute ago. You told me something was deadly.”

Well, that was impossible, which meant that this was awkward. Westley was a willowy kid who looked like the slightest wind might whisk him away, which was reason enough to never even breathe in his direction. Plus, she hated history, which meant there was some associationary guilt at play here. So, she shrugged.

“Flibbertigibbet,” he said and turned back to his computer.

Rude. Faith scooched back to her keyboard and avoided looking in his direction. She shook her head. What a curious thing to say. Her brow crinkled anew. Wait, wasn’t there something I was going to do? ‘Curious.’ Why’s that bugging me?

Then, she had it! Lucy’s cat! Duh!

There had to be some news about this online, so her search began.

After final bell.

Faith spied Lucy departing along the central walkway and ran to catch up. She leaped and then landed right alongside her with a ha!

Lucy oriented on her but didn’t relinquish the lollipop in her gob, simply narrowing an accusatory glare and leveling it on Faith’s infallible glee.

“‘Care’ did it,” she declared triumphantly. “That’s what it started as, anyway. It was talking about 'worry.' But then evolved into ‘curiosity.’”

Lucy begrudgingly pulled the pop from her mouth. “What are you going on about?”

“The cat.”

“What cat?”

“The cat. The cat. What do you mean ‘what’ cat? This is your freaking cat, Lucy.”

“Don’t be a loon. You know I don’t have a cat.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you on the drugs? Is this a drug thing?”

Faith threw her hands. “Oh, just forget it.” She clenched her bag straps and walked ahead.

They departed the grounds in silence, but as they turned to pass down the block, Lucy pulled the pop from her mouth again. “How do you kill a cat with care?”

Faith stopped, blinking as Lucy continued down the block. Then, she spun on her heel and returned to the library.

---

Fun prompt, Kat!

Disobedience? Ah, a prompt after my own heart! What a rougish thing to write about. A thing right up my alley!

And then, Coming-of-Age? What is this, a “Greatest Hits’ addition? 🤣

Yep, you’ve convinced me; this prompt was specifically for me. And don’t tell me otherwise! Believing that everyone loves me is part of my own coming-of-age journey! 😋

Thanks for reading, fam! What did you think? Did anything tug at your curiosity? Was there something that could have been better? I admit, I omitted a lot of my usual visual descriptions so that you might imagine what you will. How did that work out for you?

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