The Brave Little Pilot, A Saturday Centus

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I’m back again to participate in week 14 of the Saturday Centus, a fun and challenging writing meme hosted by that inimitable creative dynamo, Jenny Matlock, at her blog, Jenny Matlock, off on my tangent…

Yes, I know I said it was the Saturday Centus, and not the Monday Centus, but give the man a break here, okay?  I’ve been up to my eyeballs in writing a lengthy treatise for my economics class, so my mind has been occupied with formulas and charts and crap I’m undoubtedly going to forget the moment I finish the course.  I am sorry that I am a little late getting started, but the main thing is that I still got it in.

(Insert snide, wholly expected, sexually derisive comment here.)

Perhaps I should convince my professor to adopt a Centusian approach with written assignments.  Think of the time we could save by chopping our 15 to 20 page papers into easily read and absorbed 100 word essays!  Hmm…yeah, now those would be some real prompts to groan about.

I suppose I could take a mentally minimalist view of economics like that loony political pundit, Glenn Beck, on his Faux News show.  Instead of a lengthy discourse on the advantages of a free market economic system, I could just describe Beck’s anti-Semitic, conspiratorial views on how all our economic problems can be traced to a secret elite society of Jewish bankers and power brokers manipulating the economy for their own evil purposes.

Yeah, Professor Schwartzman would just love that!

This college stuff is tough.  That’s why it’s better to do when you are young and still have most of your brain cells left.  Oh well, I suppose I could always go to bartending school if this doesn’t work out.  My mom always told me I had the perfect face for radio, so maybe I could give that a try.  We’ll see I suppose.

Anyway, getting back to this meme, here is the dealio with Saturday Centus.  You are given a prompt of indeterminate length which you are then compelled to use unaltered in a creative story that you write using a maximum of 100 words, not including the prompt. 

Failure to adhere to the 100 word rule conflicts with the paradigm that is “Centus,” which could lead to a breach in the time-space continuum opening up a portal to the nine circles of Hell.  This may also coincide with massive shifts in the earth’s mantle, causing apocalyptic world destruction. 

And you know what that means.

Yes.

No more Justin Bieber concerts.

(Be afraid…be very afraid.)

When you are done with your story, link it back to Jenny’s Saturday Centus meme post.  Then join the rest of the Centusians hanging out at Jenny’s, knocking back vodka with prune juice and chatting about the weather and how, according to Faux News, the current administration’s gross negligence is causing all these natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.

Oh, and be sure to stop by and visit all of this week’s writers and leave them a comment!  We writers love to get feedback from our readers.  It’s like our heroin, except without the dark, sunken eyes, emaciated appearance or uncontrollable itching. So be a pal and give us a fix, man.

This week’s prompt is:

"Objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear…”

And here is my take on the prompt.  I have entitled it:

The Brave Little Pilot

“Daddy, are you sure I can do this?  I’m only seven years old.”

“That’s the perfect age for piloting a space ship, Jessie.

Now let’s go over the rules again.

Keep your helmet on and your hands inside the space ship at all times

and do whatever the technicians here on Earth tell you to do.

Oh, and remember that objects in the rear view mirror are closer than they appear, so watch out for meteors.

You got all of that?”

“Yes daddy.  Don’t worry, I’m not afraid.”

With that, she climbed aboard the MRI scanner.

Tears formed as I reflected on her difficult journey ahead.

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