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Write a story inspired by the phrase “It’s hardly brain surgery.”

Posted in Funny on Apr 14, 2023

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✍️ 33 stories

Pruning Synapses

Submitted to Contest #194

I’ve never sat in a place so devoid of color. The waiting room walls are wax white, the linoleum floor unblemished. My tongue tingles with the lemon-scented cleaning product that lingers in the air. A semicircle of unoccupied leather back chairs face a reception desk fronting the room. The desk is an imposing block of gloss, the fluorescent lights from the ceiling reflecting in its sheen surface.The space is mouse quiet, aside from the incessant patter of fingers on a keyboard. A deadpan receptionist sits behind the desk like a cold libraria...

34 likes 26 comments 26
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Kindness, It's Hardly Brain Surgery

Submitted to Contest #194

Bullying is a bold word printed on awareness posters strewn across high school corridors. This is the word they teach you about, they warn you about how to prevent it, how to recognize it, and how to handle it. As a teacher, an adult now with my own kids, I see those posters frequently from time to time. However, often these bullies are described to children as their fellow schoolmates, mean strangers they might happen to stumble upon, or the typical school bully. No one talks or prints posters that include the words: Mother and Bully. Growi...

30 likes 9 comments 9
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The Talk

Submitted to Contest #194

I stared at the unopened gifts. Well, the two unopened gifts, one of which lay in the middle of the room, one corner of the still wrapped box crumpled. It had just missed my head and only because I threw myself to one side. My wife is amazingly accurate when pissed. The other gift, the only one she opened, lay at the exact point she dropped it.Then she ran upstairs. Sobbing. Me, I sat in the room where I had the gifts, our living room, and struggled to understand what happened. Things certainly didn't go as I thought. I got up and grabb...

25 likes 28 comments 28
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Well, It's Hardly

Submitted to Contest #194

The cattails that sprouted in the ankle-deep waters of the marsh were some of the hardiest plants that Mucilla knew. So, when she watched tendrils of rot creep along their stalks to the wilting spikes, she let out a happy laugh. Joy beamed from her warty face. The kind that only necrotic creep could bring. Cave living had grown stale, and it was such a blessing that her sisters finally agreed to release a blight on the land. This wasn’t just a passing scourge. It was wicked enough to bring heroes calling. She co...

20 likes 7 comments 7
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They were 'roommates'

Submitted to Contest #194

They were ‘roommates’ “So there’s this girl that’s wanting to rent the suite in the basement but she has a very specific condition.” My wife, Meghan, spoke from our bedroom. I was busy mindlessly brushing my teeth, rather focused on the stubbly hair growing on my chin instead of her. I just shaved it days ago yet here the annoyance was again.  We’d been trying to rent our renovated basement suite for a while now but to no avail. Meghan was mostly in charge of handling all the applicants, I just put in my two-cents. But all we’ve had c...

18 likes 4 comments 4
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Lost in Celebration

Submitted to Contest #194

𝐍𝐎𝐖Frank stands there, flustered and unsure of what to do next. The once joyous atmosphere has turned hostile, and he is the source of it all. The angry glares of those around him seem to pierce through his very being, and he is fully aware of the reason behind their aggression. But, rather than expressing contrition for his misdeed, he clings to his irritation.The cries of the young children echo in his ears, and he knows that he has caused them unnecessary pain. Nurain, the birthday girl, is shielded from the ugly scene that has unfolded. ...

18 likes 5 comments 5
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A Pen, the Pen

Submitted to Contest #194

I'm writing about a pen. What a facile and dull piece of writing you are about to read, yet, caught in the trap of April sunlight and the emptiness of a classroom, I can't focus on anything else. The whiteness of a board, grey walls lacking home intimacy, and the filled papers that nurture the mind but not the spirit are too obscene to reflect on. To add myself as a storyteller to the general picture, I could describe my fingers that upheld the thousands of paltry pens in moments of their downfalls when words they had created turned into his...

17 likes 12 comments 12
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A Gracious Indictment

Submitted to Contest #194

Author’s Note: I addressed the prompt metaphorically, I hope this aids in the interpretation of this piece. You may also refer to a video made by Quinn’s Ideas on YouTube talking about the book Echopraxia to further understand the concepts. Please understand that this piece is meant to explore philosophical concepts, and not to insult or target any group. The Creed stood tall and sound - but I couldn’t deny the Gorta that loomed outside it’s front door.The Creed was a cathedral that towered above everything else in the City – ...

17 likes 2 comments 2
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The Chocolate Caper

Submitted to Contest #194

It was supposed to be an easy mission. Get the goods, return to base. It should've been as simple as that. It was hardly brain surgery. Unfortunately, nine-year-olds aren't exactly super-elite agents. It was my ninth birthday party. I'd decided to have a sleepover, and my mom had allowed me to invite four people, so I'd chosen my two best friends and two of my cousins. We were quite the motley crew. First, there was Emma, my best friend. We'd known each other since kindergarten and did everything together. She had black curly hair th...

16 likes 3 comments 3
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THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

Submitted to Contest #194

THE LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNELI entered the room, greeting my factory supervisor, sales manager, office clerk come secretary, and my accountant, Callum Bridges. They returned the greeting as I sat at the end of the table.“Right off the bat I want to say that it’s time for us to bite the bullet and face the facts,” I said. “We can pretend that things will improve if we keep our heads in the clouds but, at the end of the day, we need to call a spade a spade and face the music. It’s hardly brain surgery. Our backs are against the wall. Pric...

16 likes 21 comments 21
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White Crocodile

Submitted to Contest #194

Mark Fitzgerald was the captain of a small icebreaker ship in the Canadian Arctic Ocean. He and six others of his members on the 65-footer, were headed back to Hudson Bay via the Hudson Strait. This trip in particular was shorter and was expected to be a fairly easy one, but Fitzgerald underestimated the thickness of the sea ice during this trip. Fitzgerald was not the type of man who worried easily. He had sailed over a hundred times throughout the arctic ocean in his life, through the empty, desolate, cold no-man's land. He had no friends ...

16 likes 17 comments 17
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Grey Matter

Submitted to Contest #194

The night was in grim mood and wanted the whole world to know about it. The quality of the darkness of this night was brooding and almost teenaged in nature, but the night wasn’t quite in that sort of mood and knew better than to go there. No one needed that in their lives. However, not content with the oppressive darkness, the night wrapped itself in a shroud of clouds and then it wrung them out fiercely. Still this did not suit the night, it wanted to express its grim mood some more, so it lit the night with a chaotic streak of lightenin...

14 likes 7 comments 7
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Unsettling Fusion: A Tale of Neurological Ambition

Submitted to Contest #194

Dr. Cornelius Klaproth had a knack for understatement and a penchant for brevity. His favorite phrase was, "It's hardly brain surgery." He used it so often that it became a joke among his colleagues at the Institute for Advanced Neurological Studies. Dr. Klaproth's career took off like a rocket after discovering a novel method for removing tumors with minimal collateral damage. It had garnered him the admiration of the medical community and the gratitude of countless patients. However, as the saying goes, success is a double-edged scalpel, a...

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It's Rocket Science.

Submitted to Contest #194

“It’s hardly brain surgery, Pablo.”“I KNOW that, dummy. It’s rocket science.” Oscar was always stating the obvious. But he was good to have around in this sort of situation. I’ll admit, I’m a bit of a mad scientist when it comes to my inventions and sometimes I need someone like Oscar around to help keep me grounded.Grounded. I suppose I should choose my words more carefully. The whole point of this experiment was to get OFF the ground. He’d be pretty defensive if I told him he was keeping me grounded. You see, Oscar and I are penguins....

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The Birds

Submitted to Contest #194

The kettle whistles. It all starts with glass and grinding, grating brakes. Shattering into nothing. Black. When my life first started it was a tumult of record players and rocking horses. I didn’t have any other option but to succumb to the environment. And everything was so alive. Now, I feel trapped. My only home is the shower where I place a cloth down and let the water build up until it’s nearly overflowing. Only at that point do I squirt the plastic receptacle filled with fake blood everywhere even though it's food colouring I ...

13 likes 1 comment 1
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