Fictional Understandings 5
Co-ordinated by Mandroid3000
Last installment

Welcome back to the most rewarding and heart-warming section of Karate Party. Just to recap the purpose of this high-minded series:

Fictional Understandings are a revealing and enlightening series of short stories from a diversity of contributors. Voices new and young, professional and retired, sane and not so much. All have a right to be heard. And we provide the forum. Our mission is to enable understanding through the presentation of differing perspectives in a safe, non-judgmental space.

For this installment our brave wordsmiths are:

Maria Tyler – a highly polished public speaker
Brand Callahalahan – a man with no opinions

Our brave contributors each had 500 words to tell us a tale about:

The sounding of a fog horn that led to cuddles

Let’s see what they came up with, shall we?

Maria Tyler – a highly polished public speaker

The Shy Little Fog Horn

This story covers three acts and is a parable. At the end of the story we will feel uplifted and have learned important lessons about confidence and life. Lessons not just applicable to foghorns.

Act 1
The seas were foggy. Billy, a young little foghorn, listened to his father Guido make his warning bellows. “One day this will all be yours, Billy,” Guido told him.
“But Daddy, I’m shy. I don’t like people hearing my weedy little bellow.” Billy said in a weedy little voice.
“Hahaha. Foolish foghorn. For you are young and will learn. There is a great red narwhal as big as fifty hearses that roams these waters. Only the sound of a big, strong fog horn will scare him away.”
“Cripes!” said Billy, shivering.

Act 2
An unforseen crisis occurs. The shipping line goes bankrupt. The now-unemployed crew embark on the most furious bout of drinking Billy and Guido have ever seen. They soon take their anger out on the ship and its chattels.

The captain smashes Guido up, imagining him to be a particularly fine piece of pottery his loving but maligned wife bought home one day. As Guido dies he says to Billy, “I pass the torch to you now…”
“But I’m not ready. I’M NOT READY.” Billy screams.

The boat is now listing badly. So much damage has been done they are in great danger. The crew sober up and realise that they need to get home through the fog, and the red narwhal is on the prowl. Who will save them?

Act 3
They can only survive with a powerful foghorn. Billy realises that this is his time. He honks his horn for Guido. He scares away the narwhal. The ship gets out of the dangerous waters and is heading back to port.

But there is to be no happy ending. Once out of danger the men celebrate by drinking and taking their wicked turn with Billy, signalling to their crewmates to make him bellow at just the right moment. Then, the shipping line sells the whole boat for scrap. Billy gets hugged by the scrap metal compactor.

THE END

What I hope you take away from this story is that you should have confidence because you can probably do what your parents made such a huge deal about without much trouble. Also, if you are outgoing you will generate romantic interest but no matter how good a public speaker or how many Confidence Training Certificates you have, men and the market economy will destroy your heart and take their advantages with your body.

Thank you.

Brand Callahalahan – a man with no opinions

Could Mean Anything 

Well, a man and a woman (perhaps lovers, co-workers, I don’t know) are walking along the docks (possibly a jetty, don’t know which is more atmospheric). They hear a fog horn out to sea.
“That’s a fog horn,” the woman says.
“Could be” says the man, “could be an air horn. I’m no expert. We should ask an expert. Don’t you think?”
“But it’s not even foggy, isn’t that weird?”
“I suppose.”
“We should investigate. We better swim out there.”

They jump in and swim in the direction of the sound. The man is unsure whether this is a good idea. Probably they put on swim trunks and swam for a while because they find an island, or maybe an atoll.

On the atoll is an old man using the fog horn. “Thanks for coming to my island, I am the old man. I call people here with this horn then eat them. It is the price of being curious.”
“I don’t think so!” said the man and beat the old man to death and threw him in the water. “Hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t have done that,” he thought straight away.

But the woman was ecstatic. She gave him a hug and called him her hero. But the man was unsure how to feel about killing the old man, and he didn’t really know who the woman was. They had a similar nose so they could be related. He didn’t know. The island was nice enough but they swum back a bit later and someone had stolen their wallet (wait, did they put on swim trunks?). Whatever, their wallets weren’t stolen, that’s a bummer.

Are endings where it was a dream okay? Because probably this story wouldn’t happen so I better say it wasn’t real. Or is that dumb? I’m just going to end this. Why the hell did I agree to do this? I don’t know.

FINI

Wrap Up

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