This challenge is produced by GirlieOnTheEdge with the following simple rules:
Write 6 Sentences. No more. No less.
Use the current week’s prompt word – CLUB
Click here to hear the author read his words:
The Body
A gesture from her head causes me to drag myself reluctantly from my chair and stumble nervously towards my wife, a sweet, gentle, patient lady, as she violently clatters together a collection of sharp metal utensils in the soapy water in the red basin in the kitchen sink.
‘We really need to do something’, she tells me, and by ‘we’ I know she means ‘you’ by which I mean ‘me’, if you know what I mean, ‘because not only is the situation not getting any better, it is in fact getting significantly worse.’
The situation to which she refers is the dead guy in the second upstairs bedroom, which we utilise in our wee Bed & Breakfast operation, and in which a few days ago the gentleman decided, for reasons unknown to us, to waken up dead.
Following our call to the local constabulary, their Sherlockian representative duly appeared, tut-tutted with shaking head, opined with professional gravity that the deceased was indeed deceased, confirmed he would arrange for an ambulance to uplift the stiff, contacted his office to say the incident was closed, then somewhat impetuously hastened off in ambitious purple-faced pursuit of a plooky but cheerful youth who was playfully enhancing the police car’s aesthetics with a golf club (which looked to me like a 3-iron, an excellent selection for the task in hand), only to inadvertently collide face first with a 16-wheel articulated lorry en route to the Stranraer-Larne ferry, sadly, from our point of view, prior to making the aforementioned arrangements.
When now I suggest to the appropriate authorities that, in the absence of any action from them, I might just carry the starting-to-smell cadaver outside and leave it for the bi-weekly refuse uplift, the forces of Law & Order respond that I should stop bothering them as our call has been dealt with (at the cost of a fine officer) to their complete (and in my view rather smug) satisfaction, and also that depositing corpses willy-nilly about the town’s well-kept boulevards is a serious offence, which would provoke them into sending me directly to jail (after a brief pause to kick seven sorts of sugar out of me), while the Health Services say ‘Just do what you like, we don’t care, he doesn’t exist, so he’s clearly not our responsibility.’
‘Oh well,’ says my good lady philosophically, ‘I suppose he can stay until his credit card expires and, on the plus side, I won’t have to launder his sheets ever again.’
Sound Bite Fiction 
An excellent read with sentences longer than a murderer gets.
LikeLike
Fantastically written! What a situation to be in. At least the wife had some ideas in the end.
LikeLike
A hole in one! Time to amble on to the pub to celebrate. And that Phil Burns illustration sets just the right hilarious note!
LikeLike
What makes me jealous – well not really jealous – about reading your six sentence stories is knowing – well not really knowing – that it is obvious – well not really obvious – that you write stories in your sleep in six minutes or less with no rewrites and then of course it is irritating – well not really irritating – that I have to reread your stories at least six times with The Oxford Guide to the English Language close at hand.
What makes me cranky – and I mean really cranky – is that it takes me six hours or more to write my stories with at least sixty-six rewrites.
LikeLike
What amazes me, dear Lady, is that you have such insight into my Modus Scribendi!
I do indeed write everything in my sleep, or at least in a daze, and I don’t rewrite because that would entail reading the wretched stuff.
But I don’t believe that one as sweet as you could ever be cranky – and I mean really cranky – because you always seem such a sweetie pie.
LikeLike
Oh, dear! It might be well to charge his card for a funeral and use the money thusly.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This made me laugh
LikeLike
Typical government departments, can’t get anything done. I actually thought when you started with the sharp metal utensils and the ‘red’ basin that there was murder afoot.
LikeLike
Good job,
LikeLike
Nice ending. They are still charging him to stay in the room.
LikeLike
An articulate gem from start to finish, with ‘the gentleman decided, for reasons unknown to us, to waken up dead’ a highlight, along with a new word for my lexicon (plooky). As an avid gardener, may I suggest a burial plot in the back garden, enhanced with a suitable tree, say an ironwood. 😉
LikeLiked by 1 person
Forget about the punctuation gods, ceayr – it appears you require no assistance from them. Loved the structure of sentences 3 and 4. Well done! A storyteller’s story.
LikeLike
Such an amazing idea you had. Convoluted, cheesy, cheeky, funny and observational. It would not surprise me in the least this happening, you can’t win whatever you do – unless you wait for his credit card to expire. Excellent. Loved it.
LikeLike
The words dance to your tune and make the improbable seem totally normal.
Not a detail goes to waste – of course the sharp metal utensils are in a RED basin!
And the second sentence is a sheer word delight.
It’s expertly crafted, clever and just a great story.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Marvelous! You battled the 6 sentence challenge and came out victorious! What a clever and amusing story. When time is on my side once again I’ll get back into ‘The 6 Club’. For now I’m simply enjoying reading this fabulous write! Well done!
LikeLike