Blane Britt

“A Pre-Cursors for Charles” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #50

Think about what I’m about to do for your intellectual reading mind and that I believe I’m getting pretty good at it.  If you don’t laugh at least once I’ll hang glide without wearing a pair of dependable panties on or better yet smell, my ex-wife stinking sour dough feet as she walks around work 22 hour shifts trying to explain to  people why she farts in and out the bed up under the covers and doesn’t have audacity to warn me one or two of them farting bombs are possibly coming as she giggles or watching  Ru Paul Show with n...

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“The Firefighter” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #49

Ever since I was a small kid I wanted to be a fireman. I couldn’t wait each week to watch The Third Watch. Most of the kids in my neighborhood either wanted to get into the NBA. According to the National Association for Sport and Physical Education, none of them have a very high probability of being drafted. For young men, about three out of 10,000 male high school basketball players will be drafted into the NBA or about .03 percent. Then there were the I’m going to get into the NFL dreamers. According to calculations by the NFL Players Ass...

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“The Strangest Places” by Blane Britt

I was hired as a young Foreign Correspondent, Journalist and Reporter for CBS in the early 1970s. I wanted to become as famous as my American idol Ed Bradley, the consummate broadcast journalist who has earned 19 Emmy's and many other awards for his coverage of wars, politics and personalities. My first assignment was to cover The Guinea-Bissau War of Independence conflict that took place in Portuguese Guinea between 1963 and 1974. The fight was between Portugal and the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, an armed i...

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“Vise/Verses” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #49

I have been marry going on 19 years now. As a matter of fact our 19th wedding anniversary was less than three days away and I already got Madeline, her anniversary gift. I stopped counting after the hardest year of our marriage that being the 2nd year. Or maybe it was after we shared the birth of our first child of 11. That second year of marriage was in many ways very challenging because we were still learning one another’s likes and dislikes. People always asked the two of us how did we last so long. The  Average Length of Marriage I...

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“I Don’t Have No Understanding” by Blane Britt

When you think about violent cities anyone couldn’t imagine being born in. You might think of The Motor City, Detroit, Michigan. The city’s massive unemployment and poverty rates (9% and 37.9%, respectively) amount to a city with the highest violent crime rate in the country. You might even think about Memphis, Tennessee with a violent crime rate of 1,943 incidents per 100,000 people, Memphis, Tennessee ranks as the most dangerous city in America’s south. One could argue that violence is just as much a part of Memphis’s identity as blues mu...

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“What I Heard and Saw While Waiting on the Buses” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #49

Have you ever had one of those days when nothing seemed to go right? One day I’m waiting on the bus. Its running about 80 minutes behind schedule. I called the Metro Bus Office for a reason why and all I got was a recording telling me to press prompt 2 and then it hung up on me. I was sweating profusely or more like a pig or a criminal being interrogated by police detectives, the temperature a mere 103 degrees, when this young black guy happily walks into the bus shelter all the while smoking a larger than life fat blunt. This older black l...

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“Ray Charles” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #48

When I get to thinking about people who came up from the ranks I think about Ray Charles. Its funny because I never liked his music and the songs he sang. But the thought of him and his struggles with heroin addiction is as close to me as any other person that I don’t truly know. I got addicted to that drug at the age of 14 years of age. When I first hit that spike in my arm I can’t nor do I want to tell you what it truly felt like. But I will tell you about other famous people who know. I was a young nappy headed negro boy living on the st...

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“The Pannapictagraphists ” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #48

I thought that the title of this short story would grab your attention. People who are into collecting comic books are called “pannapictagraphists”. These people buy rare comic books for various reasons that include personal interest in popular comic book characters, completion of comic book collections and most especially for financial gain. I have a friend who has been collecting and selling comic books ever since we were in the 3rd grade. I can clearly recall us going to the cigar store with our weekly allowances to check out the latest ...

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“A Psychological Effect” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #48

This story I’m about to share with you may sound incredible. Like something straight out of the minds of Madeleine L’Engle, Haruki Murakami, Eileen Myles and Kazuhiro Okamoto. I wouldn’t blame you if you’re starting to get skeptical. I should have kept this epic tale under strict confidentiality. I was real incredulous too when I first heard Rosemary Clooney’s invisible beliefs. She spent months on trying to convince me that she could turn herself into becoming a superhero by becoming transparent like The Invisible Woman (Susan "Sue" Storm ...

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“Playa” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #47

I believe a lot of young men living in and out of the hood, truly believe they know what and who a “PLAYA” is. They have no concept of the mental and psychological effect it has concerning the “PLAYA” mind, out of body experience, spirit and soul. The urban dictionary defines a “PLAYA” as a group of people, usually guys, who "play" or “manipulate” others to ultimately get what they want, like sex or money, by using charm, game and an often, a lot of lies. Females cannot be a PLAYA.   A real “PLAYA” is often times highly intelligent wi...

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“The Forecast Not Looking Too Good For Me” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #47

I’m looking out the window to check on the weather. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to doing anything special out there. I’m wearing one of those gift wrapped ankle bracelets I was plea deal agreement given to by a Superior Court Judge in Los Angeles, California, not because I like to take things from people, places and Art Museums that don’t belong to me. Thinking about the forecast outside of my condo window “write” now. It was a day similar to this day, a dark forecast with thunderstorms on the horizon. That was the kind of day I ne...

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“Where's My Stimulus Check?” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #47

The economy is in a rut right now and many Americans are feeling the true effect of  the Corona virus. Shhh…we’re not allowed to talk about it among ourselves as average citizens, like it’s just going to cure and heal us on its own. We’ll just allow the media to control our minds, especially what we need or don’t need to know. You know, you know, you know without communication your relationship with your spouse, lover, children, grandparents, co-workers, “mailman”, accountant and in some cases your pet. I gather by now you know what I’m...

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“Socotra Island” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #47

After hours of searching the internet highway and a pint of 190 proof vodka I decided upon traveling to Socotra Island, Yemen. This appears to be an ideal location for me. It was separated from mainland in Africa more than six million years ago, that remote island looked like the set of a sci-fi film. Socotra’s incredible and unique biodiversity meant that there are plants and trees there not found anywhere else in the world, particularly bizarre are the ancient and twisted dragon’s blood tree and the bulbous bottle tree. I quickly called ...

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“Daylight Savings Time” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #47

This was going to be the most important engagement of my life. Sure I was purposely unfashionably late on the day I was to show up to be inducted into the armed forces. Had I been one day later I could have saved Muhamad Ali. You see I was scheduled to be on time at my U.S. Armed Forces induction in Houston, Texas on April 27, 1967. Ali induction ceremony took place on the 28th. Had I not fled to Canada like a lot of draft dodgers in that era. For those of you who can’t relate it has nothing to do with sports. (A draft dodger or draft resi...

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“While I Slept” by Blane Britt

Submitted to Contest #46

When that imaginary yellow light bulb appeared glowing above my dreaming head. Like Gyro Gearloose who often times assisted by his Little Helper (or just "Helper"), who is a small anthropomorphic robot with a light bulb for a head and literally shines as both a loyal companion and resourceful assistant to the eccentric and often absent-minded writer. So intentionally nondescript in nature was this character that it never was given a real name in any official capacity, that was until I decided to call him My Little Writing Hamburger Helper. I...

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