Support for Indie Authors discussion

Round Robin. What is that you ask? Well, it's something that goes by many names, but the gist of it is that we all come together to tell a story, make a complete mess of it, and have a good laugh.

How it works for those who don't know: I start off with either a sentence or a small paragraph. For example - He walked into he old house. Then someone comments with a sentence or paragraph continuing the story - and it stank of mothballs. And so on and so forth, adding to the story and making it grow. You can be as silly and over the top as you want, all I ask is that we keep it at least PG-13, so please no explicit sex or gore.

I'll start. Ahem...

It was a dark and stormy night.

But by morning, it was just a little soggy and unpleasant.

And I like dark and stormy nights. Plenty of places to hide.

And that was when it became oh so apparent that everything had changed overnight.

But I digress, it didn't matter as much as I sat inside next to the fire.

Which I had started in the pantry.

Luckily, there were marshmallows and graham crackers in the pantry. Despite the fact that my house was ablaze, at least I could make Smores.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's not even a cat, unless cats can wear suits and carry silencers.

I kicked down the door to the burning house and just like an economy package of skittles that was opened too quickly in the movie theatre, they scattered everywhere. I don't know what they were, but I did know that they were all of the colours of the rainbow (except blue). These horrible little things called

Flitterbugs, and flitterbugs are dangerous. They'll set the world on fire if you don't keep them contained.

Of course, you'd be hard pressed to find a container here on Earth that will hold a flitterbug. Lucky for me, my neighbors aren't local, if you catch my drift.

And if you don't, they're aliens!

But they were aliens from a "sleeper cell" waiting until an opportune moment to attack. And here, now, tonight, this is it.

Unlucky for them, the definition of opportune varied from place to place. Their attack was thwarted by an extremely lost pizza delivery-person.

Let's just say it's going to be a very long time before I order another meat lovers supreme.

And if I did, it won't be meat lovers but veggie.

We only thought the pizza delivery guy was lost. He was actually part of the "Men In Black's" stakeout of this very house, waiting to nab the perps from Andromeda 4 who were trying to set up an intergalactic crime syndicate, using Earth as its sector head quarters.

I owe my bovine saviors at least that much.

If not more, because their milk would play a key role in me surviving the night.

My bovine savior was truly legendary. They said there was a golden cow that gave milk that tasted of strawberries and licorice. Oh golden cow, your mythical milk hath saved me!

When you have a bovine savior as legendary as mine, you have to praise her twice. Bessie's milk is worth it.

I take a long swig of it as I stare at the ash and rising smoke, wondering why the pizza guy is still here. The aliens fled an hour ago. If he doesn't leave now, he may never find them. When I take another sip, realize why he hasn't left yet. He wants a swig of my bovine milk. He also needs my help.

Suddenly my stomach churned, reminding me that I was lactose intolerant.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, but didn't, as though I was supposed to already understand what was expected of me.

that was before I understood his silence was not due to the lack of words, but to the fact that his speech came in the form of picutures which my human ears could not comprehend

Which of course, I didn't. This frustrated pizza guy, but it frustrated me more. Especially when I opened the bread box , hoping to find something to settle my stomach, but only crumbs remained. I cursed. I wasn't just lactose intolerant.


I also lacked toast and tolerance.

After the intense pun the clouds themselves parted and down from the heavens she came. Artemis, goddess had come to me in physical form.
"Deer Lord!" I exclaimed.

And then I realized that it was all just an hallucination from the bad pizza I ate, aided in no small part by the strawberry-and-licorice milk.

But no! I realized it was what the pizza guy was trying to tell me about the aliens. I still didn't quite get it though. I could only hope he would stop being so bloody cryptic. The aliens would be wreaking havoc. Now I felt the need to stop whatever scheme they had. Perhaps this is what the pizza guy wanted all along with that whole Artemis business.

The pizza guy was frustrated with trying to communicate with me. He put his hand on my shoulder and gazed into my eyes. I tried to look away, but found that I could not. A moment later, I was gazing into my own eyes. I smelled of cheese and grease and realized I had a revolver tucked in my pants. I could feel a wad of cash in one sock and a bag of weed in the other. Best of all, my lactose intolerance had gone away.

I was now the pizza guy.

It was time for a change. I was tired of delivering pizzas, instead, I wanted to deliver ninja food.

Which I stole from the pantry. Because of the fire, it was already cooked.

Popular culture would have you believe that all ninjas eat is fruit. That is a lie. Ninjas love us some beef jerky washed down with the tears of our fallen enemies. And Doritoes. Dude. Try licking your beef jerky amd rolling it in Dorito dust.

Several hours, several bags of Doritos, and a ton of beef jerky later, I woke up next to a harried sasquatch and realized thr bad of weed in my sock was missing and I had no idea where I was or what my sasquatch partner's name was.

"Hi, I'm Ralph, and just so you know, you took way to many shrooms last night." The sasquatch told me, as he slowly lifted himself from the ground. "But none of that matters, we have to track down Psycho Bob who stole your weed, or else it will mean the end of the world!"

"Let me change into something more comfortable," she said, and when the grey cloud that formed around her evaporated, I saw her standing proudly on her four tree-like limbs and waving her four green-leafed arms slowly in the breeze wafting through the hole she'd just blown in the wall.

"Ralph?"
"Yes, you little cutie, it's me. Psycho Bob is in the parallel universe I have two of my other legs in."

The moment she spoke - whoever the hell she was and wherever the hell she came from - I knew that somehow I'd ingested some of those shrooms. It had me wondering if I'd invented that whole business with the aliens. I realized it must be true when something occurred to me. That pizza guy was always me.

And an urgent thought came to me: "This damned pantry is getting way too crowded."

"Time to clean out the pantry," I said, and I pulled out the vacuum. Vacuums are usually pretty good about clearing out crowded pantries, but all it scared off were the MIB cats, who then parked themselves on my Roomba, glaring at me. But at least I found my weed when I emptied the vacuum bag out.

So I set up the bong, prepared to take a toke from it, when a pack of cockroaches came by and stole it. They left me a beaten and battered pulp, and I could do nothing but watch as they left with my weed and smoking implement.

From the mists bounded the Golden Hind. She nibbled at my corpse affectionately and then with tenderness devoured my bloody remains in a single gulp.
I unzipped the Golden Hind and stepped out from it like a pair of too large trousers. I was revived (somehow) as a Pizza Ninja Assassin, leader of Artemis' troops for the upcoming war.

I then searched for a mirror so I could stare into it. I focused on my glossy, red eyes and said, "Wicked awesome trip, man. Damn."

Then it struck me like a thunderbolt from blue sky. I remember that face and look. From the future that was my past. Still, as hard as I tried, I wasn't able to remember anything before last year's Halloween party.

Frustrated, I misused my ninja skills by putting my fist through the mirror, a feat I soon regretted when my hand began to bleed.

.. a brown liquid? What was this?
It looked familiar, and out of curiosity more than anything else a took a quick lick.
Is this... chocolate?

Thank the powers that be that it was hot chocolate. I finished slurping up the drink, then looked around to find something to eat.

I noticed a goat climbing a nearby fence. Saliva gathered in my mouth, but waves of guilt assailed me as well. No. I have walked that path once. Never again!

For just an instant, a memory flashed through his mind of a time when he crash landed on this very planet and hooked up with a cute young vampire.

They'd had goat for dinner, but never again. It had tasted like month old cabbage. Don't ask him how he knows what month old cabbage tastes like. Let's just say that playing truth or dare with talking rats while high is a bad idea.

On the other hand, nothing could taste worse than month-old cabbage. With that in mind, he now knew that he could stomach anything, and the world was his smorgasbord.