Len Mooring

“The Message.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #51

“Do you think they are dead, Jeff? They don’t look it, but I can’t detect any breathing.” “I don’t know, I guess we’ll have to wait until our ‘path’ guy turns up to find out. I understand this mob are into some sort of Eastern religion. Maybe they are in a trance. These yogi guys can apparently suspend their breathing to such a degree that you can’t detect it easily.” “Yeah, it’d be embarrassing to have them come awake when most of their organs are strewn around the autopsy table,” Jeff said with a laugh. Twenty-five men and women were sit...

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“Super Power Through Poetry.” by Len Mooring

Warning: Indelicate.I have never been able to fathom how some skinny horned rimmed spectacled excuse for manhood can dash off a few words about wandering by himself and thinking he might be a cloud, can get the fairer sex’s knickers tumbling down around their ankles with great abandon.Is it a safety issue? These spotty Herberts could not sport a viable spermatozoon invasion for the life of them. Whatever the reason, one would be remiss in overlooking this aberration in the female lexicon of acceptable foreplays. I decided to cut to the ...

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“The Proposal.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #50

“Well, old son, how do you propose I get rid of you? You’ve two choices at the moment, the ‘romantic’ guillotine with a computer-generated crowd of people knitting and salivating; which I’ll later put on ‘Big Pic’ for the ‘Reality Crowd.’ Or, plain old shot before a firing squad. No crowd watching, only the firing squad. If you wish, I’ll also ‘Big Pic’ it, but I don’t think you’ll get as many clicks as a beheading. I’m hoping you’ll go for the good ol guillotine. I’d find it much more satisfying in that I’m giving you good service. Naturall...

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“Mysterious Love.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #50

He gazed in a baffled way at a couple tenderly kissing and stroking each other and supposed that this is what is known as love. Even as a child, he had never felt an attraction for anyone to want to do this, not even to his mother. For his mother, he felt a need for protection at times, but not a fondling or a desire to cuddle. 'Possibly,' he thought, 'It was as well. If he was to contribute to the continual replenishment of the species, he suspected it would be a rather austere and calculated union. However, he could do it.' He knew he woul...

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“The Sword.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #49

The bitch couldn’t take a joke. She ran me through with a damn sword. Not a nice shiny stainless steel sword, but an old-fashioned rust pitted sod, no doubt harbouring bloody germs from the sixteenth century to boot. You can imagine the sort of shit I had to put up with at the local asylum they call a hospital. “Fallen on your sword, have yer pal? Did you get the dragon, or what? Did you rescue the damsel?” Bastards! The irony of the situation was that I was trying to help a damsel in distress, except it obviously wasn’t a damsel at all. It ...

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“A Room with Benefits.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #48

As I wrote, I became bewitched. As I hit the keys so everything changed around me as what should have been just my contemplations, became solid.  I had been conjuring up waves rolling onto a sandy beach and suddenly the said waves were crashing over me with full sound effects and I was soaked to the skin, but my computer and keyboard remained untouched.  I’m not a panicky type of person. I handled the situation in a relatively calm manner considering that current situation. I screamed and made myself scarce stopping at the bott...

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“Man or Wimp?” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #48

What makes one man a MAN, another a wimp? Choice, I guess.  Well, it was a choice with me, I decided upon a wimpy life if it meant fewer bruises and broken bones. Was I successful, not in the slightest?     I thought hanging about with girls would best achieve my aim and it did, and didn’t. The girls tolerated me, the boys beat me up. By the time I was fifteen years of age I was able to make my own plaster casts for the small breakages. Actually, it led me to my unconventional and unofficially recognised status as Do...

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“The Making of a SuperHero.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #48

I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I became a ‘Superhero’ with the stroke of a pen. Well, that’s what my wife and her relatives said. You see, my now wife is a stunt-woman and sometimes during our courting days - perhaps I should have said ‘Catching Days’ as many times she would throw me off of buildings and trust the air-bags would catch me - all in the name of later exciting teenagers and other people with nothing better to do, in movie houses. But I love her. She actually carried me down the aisle for fun. Truly, it was for fun...

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“A Dedicated Undertaking.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #48

“I would think twice before jumping off of here, Laddie. You’ll no doubt hit the ground and smash a few limbs, but may not kill yourself. Try the cliff over there, you’ll be guaranteed to do the job. What’s gone wrong, anyway?” I wasn’t immediately prepared to answer him, I wanted to get it over, but his words had a salutary upon me. Months, maybe years in hospital didn’t appeal to me one bit. “My life is over,” I replied. I didn’t want to be uncivil towards him, so I added that I had lost my wife and three children to a drunk driver. “I alw...

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“Retributive Fun.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #47

You told me many times about the Q and Errol Flynn. Jesus, anybody who’s been into old films knows this. If history is correct about him, did you also wear the letter Q on pyjamas long enough to have more than a passing glimpse of it? Did you also have running hot and cold women throughout your place all the time? Apparently, the Q was just a bit of associative nonsense for you about the Q establishment owned by a well-known Dominatrix, which was no doubt influenced by the above E.F. For your latest ruse, you gave yourself the name of...

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“Coming Out Of Her Shell.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #45

Five years ago he had broken her heart and had not been forgiven, certainly not by her. She thought he would be reluctant to break any other girl's heart now.She’d had him chained in a cellar for the last five years.   Kate's own heart had hardened and formed calluses over the break until she was immune to his former pleading. Now an unchanging depression had settled upon him. He didn’t try to reason or argue with her anymore.Unbeknownst to Richard, her captive, she praised him silently for her transformation. She had been a t...

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“An Absence of Love.” by Len Mooring

He felt as if his heart had been torn from him. His love was gone, apparently bewitched by a ragged unkempt apology of manhood to his eyes. What had she seen in him? Why would she leave the luxury of the life he had provided for her for the seeming poverty of a future existence if his judgement of the situation was correct?With a soft apology in her eyes, she had handed back to him the diamond-encrusted wrist-watch and the keys to the Ferrari. Then without a further word had turned and walked out of his life.Rachel, the love of David’s life ...

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“Rambling with a Poet.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #42

I met this poet, see. She was chewing the end of a pencil and seemed absorbed in the process. Maybe modern-day poets of the computerized variety, still keep pencils for the purposes of chewing. Well, you couldn’t get the same sort of satisfaction from chewing on a tablet, or whatever. Anyway, back to the poet in question. She was absorbed, as I said, and even though I was in her direct line of vision, she showed not one trace of recognition of this fact. Now, if she had been of the ordinary sort of bird that I usually rub shoulders with, th...

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“One Idiot to Another.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #40

   It was two years after the war, but I was still too young to join the army. The sometimes fighting its members got into didn’t appeal to me, no, it was the adventure. The adventure of going overseas and playing with things that definitely wouldn’t be allowed in my ordinary existence. I wanted to shoot big guns and drive tanks and ignore stop signs on roadways because I could. Who’d stop me? Yes, crazy. These are the things that go through a teenager’s head. However, I’m ahead of myself.   There is a saying. “...

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“Going Beyond the Stars.” by Len Mooring

Submitted to Contest #39

“Daddy, what are those lights in the sky?”“They’re called stars, Teddy.”“What are stars, daddy?”“Well, there is a big black curtain up there and behind it is a ginormous light. The curtain is very old and starting to get holes in it, so you can now see the light behind it shining through.”“Why did someone put the curtain up, daddy, wouldn’t it be nice to have light all of the time?”“If there was light all of the time, son, you would have difficulty getting to sleep at night.”This explanation satisfied the five-year-old Teddy, but it also spa...

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