I hope you’re all having a great week. It’s Thursday and so it’s time for a story challenge:
Can you tell a story in 24 words? You must use the following words somewhere in the story:
- MINIBAR
- SQUEAMISH
- ANAGRAM
The previous prompt was to tell a story in 46 words using the following words in it somewhere:
- DEADBEAT
- CAT
- FIESTA
- SEPTIC
- BATTERY
Here’s your great work:
It was no use, the Fiesta would not start. Dylan lifted the bonnet and a slim, pink tail slid silently away through the maze of engine components. The battery leads were chewed to shreds. He glared at the deadbeat cat, sunning itself on the septic tank.
Niki Daly:
Things came to a head when the witless fool tied my precious baby to the battery of his ancient Fiesta to give it some juice. That’s why my deadbeat ex-husband is now floating in the septic tank. And the cat and I? We’re living the dream!
my battery was dead
lactic acid
deadbeat ex wife
strife such was life
a cat meow now
felix
flew to a life of solo and so low too
lost and found
mom gone
and still around
Raul was fighting if he wanted to repair his septic tank or fix his car battery. His deadbeat dad never fixed anything except his cat! Whatever he did it was going to be a fiesta! But the septic tank would help his house smell much better!
The deadbeat witch had a black cat. It told her stuff.
“Your septic system’s overflowing,” it once said. But she lived in a high-rise.
“Fiesta time!” But she hated Mexican.
“The battery’s dead in your Tesla Broom.” Finally! Useful information!
Murray Clarke:
Oscar, the deadbeat cat, couldn’t start his Ford Fiesta. The battery was flat, and the weather freezing, but he just couldn’t be arsed to get off his butt and charge it. Instead, the lazy animal chucked it into the septic tank, and went back to sleep!
Our cat’s such a deadbeat! Mice overrun the house and he takes Fiesta all day.
“Takes ‘Siesta’; ‘Fiesta’ is a party…”
Yeah, he parties with the mice. Runs the toy batteries low and fills the septic tank with mouse…
“Too much information!”
And the dog is worse!
Life on the Road
Me and the cat
Battery flat
Caravan missing a wheel
Too fucking hot
Septic is shot
How do you reckon I feel?
Fiesta-like setting!
Siesta not getting
With deadbeat that’s camping next door
Thoughts through my head
Wishing me dead
Simply can’t take it no more
I broke up with my deadbeat boyfriend. Feeling septic, I also had a dead battery and upset cat. To recover, I joined Esther, and others, for a writing challenge fiesta. I did not have real septic shock, but breakup wounds healed as I read each story.
My cat! He must have thought I was some deadbeat or my brain had gone septic that I hadn’t noticed he’d taken Hemingway’s “Fiesta, the Sun Also Rises” from my bookshelf, chewed it up, spat it out then connected battery wires to my glass of water.
As I was driving home,the battery just died on my Fiesta. I had to walk back home deadbeat, despite the pain in my septic big toe. My cat was waiting patiently for her supper when I finally arrived home, totally unsympathetic to my painful and exhausted condition.
Deadbeat the cat was planning a fiesta. But unfortunately his paw was septic. He decided to use an infusion of mild battery acid to cure it. He had done this before and it had worked. He began rehearsing as his paw improved. The fiesta was great!
I was a deadbeat alley cat living in a battered fiesta and scrounging for scraps. A rat bit me and my wound turned septic. I was in a bad way when they found me, had to put me on battery life support. All good now though.
Not everyone knows what goes on in cat world, but Joe was a lazy deadbeat. To avoid his mate, he sneaked into a local fiesta and found it was freezing cold. Joe decided to flatten himself out on a car battery to get warm. Big mistake!
Their cat was such a deadbeat.
One wild fiesta too many, and he
clogged the septic tank. Filth
oozed from the lawn. Drunk on
catnip and vodka, he disbanded
his post as chief mouse catcher,
and went to eat car batteries in
the Kittatinny Mountain tunnel
Trotting down the dark ally, they avoided the Fishmonger’s Street Carnival. This group of ratty, deadbeat felines was lead by a large orange cat with a torn, septic ear. Battery Avenue was their home turf. Tonight would be a royal feast, morsels of leftover fiesta fish.
My deadbeat car battery turned septic when it stopped working, but the stray cat called all his friends to the driveway for a kitty fiesta. They spent the rest of the night dancing in the moonlight prowling and howling, jumping and scratching all around that car.
“Whaddya gawkin’ at? Yeah, maybe this cat fell off the wagon for one day. Sue me! Ain’t like the time I got arrested for assault and battery after swingin’ a mouse around by its tail at the fiesta. Dude was septic anyways. I ain’t no deadbeat!”
Here are a couple of shorter ones using all the word prompts:
My cat Snuffles, dead beat after mewing for hours, was released from a broken battery cage at the chicken farm. It lay on septic sludge and he contaminated my new Fiesta with his repugnant stench when I collected him.
I’m not saying my cat is a deadbeat but during the fiesta celebrations he was hiding in the septic tank with a flashlight with no battery.
Wilf Leahy:
I was changing the battery on my Ford Fiesta when I saw a cat in my engine bay. It looked deadbeat so I took it to the vet who said it had a septic leg but would be fine so I took it home.
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Esther Chilton 
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