In honor of St Patrick's Day the crew woke up, shook off their stupor and produced the most horrific set of limericks to insult the English language.
For a pretty poem, write a sonnet
Of fields, flowers and summer bonnets
A limerick you see
Is always meant to be
A work most crude and coarse and honest
This is my first book! I posted it up on Amazon here https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0896YGBKT
I have included the first chapter here, I might post the rest of the chapters later.
It was cold and clammy in the Tennessee mountains. A late fall morning, the time of year when the sun was a little more reluctant to pop up over the horizon with each new day.
Down in the valley in the pre-dawn gloom, lieutenant Jacob Clemens rolled over on his narrow cot, nearly tipping into the dirt. He woke and cast his eye about the tiny tent he called home. Not much to see, standard army issue moldy gray canvas dripping with dew. He often wondered if being in the army was a good idea, especially in the middle of the War for Southern Independence. He had been told many times a war can make a career, but it can also make a person dead. He was not so interested in being dead. To top it off, the war was not going well. Not that wars ever really go well other than in history books, with the killing and mud and bad food.
The black cab chugged its way down the narrow lane, hedgerows laced with early summer flowers standing tall on either side. Thomas occasional glimpsed an old manor house through the gaps in the hedge. He thought of the old days of gentry and peasants, days long gone. He chuckled to himself thinking in those days it would have been impossible for someone such as himself to attend Oxford. The university did not technically give full ride scholarships, but consortiums of alumni set up various funds to allow third world students and the underclasses like himself an opportunity to attend. He considered it all very Noblesse Oblige when he was in a cynical frame of mind.
It was time to retire. His bones were getting old and were yearning for a rest. James had worked his way up through the levels of Montville Maine Public Works Dept during his 50 year career. He could still recall vividly his first day of work. He joined up just out of high school. A job was a job, he thought and he figured he could always trade up for factory work or go to the tech school and learn diesel mechanics. His first day he was boss over an old dirty shovel, nothing more. He was sent out into the hot August sun to assist the pot hole repair team. His job was cleaning up the bits of asphalt left over from the paving machines so they wouldn't get stuck in people's tires and go flying up in the air.
“Maybe I should be a superhero next.” Truman stood by the fireplace facing the empty living room of the abandoned house. Not a single person was in the room to listen. Lots and lots of bacteria, but they didn’t care and wouldn’t pay attention anyway. He decided he needed someone or something to talk to. Reaching out a hand, he conjured a squirrel, sitting on the floor facing him.
“Aye, but what would your powers be?” it replied. “Besides, you already have a job, you are a Homeless Space God.”
Truman stared at the squirrel, “Mind how you say that, it’s not ‘Homeless pause Space-God’, it is correctly said ‘Homeless-Space pause God’. The distinction is important.”
This story started with a question. When a person has a psychic event, are they perceiving the future or creating it? The answer we agreed on is, “What’s the difference?” I believe the ultimate prank is to bend the future to your will despite anything and everybody.
The room was cold. Not freezing cold, not January morning cold, just uncomfortably chilly. It was the kind of room that exudes no warmth, like an airplane bathroom or teacher’s lounge. Gray unadorned walls slumped on three sides to the left, right and behind. Fluorescent lights in a yellowed ceiling glowed starkly, casting their light on a single gray metal door, the only entrance into the room. Jules faced this door. He sat in a metal chair bolted to the gray cement floor behind a table bolted down as well. He waited for the man to come in. There would be questions Jules could not answer, at least not without sounding like a smart-ass. He really didn’t want to come across as a smart-ass, though people said he did even when he wasn’t. He didn’t think this was the time to get all snarky, these guys in dark suits were not known for their sense of humor.