Machine Fiction

You are a comedian like Jerry Clower. Write a humorous story about his cousin Herold and the Sycamore tree in the backyard of Sheriff Dintelehooper's farmhouse before the hogs got into the moonshine mash and ran away. 

HAW-HEE! Pull up a chair, folks, pull up a chair! You know, speakin' of things gettin' a little sideways, it reminds me of my cousin Herold. Now, Herold, bless his cotton socks, if brains were dynamite, he wouldn't have enough to blow his nose, you understand? But his heart! His heart's as big as a watermelon in July!

This was over at Sheriff Dintelehooper's place. Now, you gotta picture this: the Sheriff's farmhouse, it's got this sycamore tree in the backyard. This ain't no saplin', mind you. This sycamore tree looked like it had been there since the Good Lord said "Let there be dirt!" It was gnarled and twisted and had branches goin' every which-a-way, kinda like my Uncle Nebuchadnezzar's fishin' stories – they start in one place and end up Lord knows where!

And this particular incident, now mark my words, this was before them hogs of the Sheriff's discovered that secret stash of moonshine mash. Oh, ho, ho! That, my friends, is a tale that'll curl your hair and make you wanna check if your own pigs are walkin' a straight line! We ain't got time for that level of pandemonium right this second!

No, this was a calmer day. Well, calmer for most folks. See, Mrs. Dintelehooper – sweet woman, made a pecan pie that'd make a hummingbird sing soprano – she had this cat. A fluffy, white Persian thing she called "Princess Angelcakes." And this Princess Angelcakes had managed to get herself stuck up that colossal sycamore tree. She was way up there, lookin' down like a furry little queen on her leafy throne, meowin' pitifully.

Mrs. Dintelehooper was beside herself. "Oh, Sheriff! Oh, my poor Princess Angelcakes!"

Sheriff Dintelehooper, he just sighed. He knew where this was goin'. He looked at that tree, then he looked at Herold, who had just moseyed on over, drawn by the commotion like a moth to a porchlight.

Herold, bless him, he sees Mrs. Dintelehooper all upset, and he puffs out his chest. "Auntie D!" he proclaims, like he's about to lead a cavalry charge. "Fear not! Cousin Herold is on the scene! I'll have that feline down faster than a greased piglet at the county fair!"

Sheriff Dintelehooper just kinda rubbed his temples. "Now, Herold," he started, "maybe we should just get the ladder..."

"Ladder?" Herold scoffed, like the Sheriff had suggested usin' a toothpick to dig a well. "Sheriff, a man with my natural tree-climbin' abilities don't need no ladder! That there's for amateurs!"

So, Herold, he squares up to this sycamore. He spits on his hands. He hitches up his overalls. He takes a runnin' start... and bounces off the trunk like a rubber ball. HAAA!

He tries again. This time he manages to get a grip on one of them low-hangin' branches, a branch that looked about as sturdy as a politician's promise. He starts pullin' himself up, gruntin' and groanin', legs a-flailin'. He looked like a big ol' bullfrog tryin' to climb a greased flagpole in the rain!

He gets about ten feet up, clingin' to that trunk, leaves in his hair, one overall strap slippin' off his shoulder. Princess Angelcakes is lookin' down at him with an expression that I can only describe as pure, unadulterated feline contempt.

"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!" Herold coos, reachin' out a hand. "Come to Uncle Herold!"

Princess Angelcakes just lets out a little "mrrrow" that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.

Then, just as Herold stretches a little further, tryin' to snag the cat, a big ol' fox squirrel decides to run down the tree, right past Herold's face! Well, Princess Angelcakes, seein' that squirrel, forgets all about bein' a damsel in distress. She takes off after that squirrel, zippin' down that tree like she was shot out of a cannon, landin' soft as a whisper at Mrs. Dintelehooper's feet.

And Herold? Oh, Herold was still up there. He'd gotten himself wedged between two branches, kinda spread-eagled, lookin' like a scarecrow that had lost a fight with a whirlwind.

"Uh... Sheriff?" Herold called down, his voice a little shaky. "Little help?"

Sheriff Dintelehooper just folded his arms, looked up at Herold, then at the cat purrin' by his wife's ankles, and said, "Well, Herold. Looks like Princess Angelcakes decided to rescue herself. You just... hang tight. I'll go find that ladder you didn't need."

And that, folks, was all before them hogs got into the mash and decided to repaint the Sheriff's barn with their artistic interpretations of chaos! Lord, I tell ya! Just another Tuesday down South! WOOO! It was!

 

Write a humorous story about a cat, a barn, and a trip to Marlinton on a bicycle.

Bartholomew “Barty” Buttercup was, by all accounts, a cat of simple pleasures. His kingdom was a slightly dilapidated, but charmingly rustic, barn just outside of Hillsboro, West Virginia. His days consisted of important feline business: napping in sunbeams, meticulously grooming his luxurious ginger fur, and occasionally, with a great show of effort, chasing a dust bunny. Adventure, to Barty, was finding a particularly plump field mouse (a rare and celebrated event).

His human, a well-meaning but perpetually flustered amateur cyclist named Agnes Periwinkle, was a different creature entirely. Agnes dreamed of conquering the Greenbrier River Trail, and her current obsession was a day trip to Marlinton.

One crisp May morning, Agnes was prepping her bicycle, a gleaming contraption Barty viewed with deep suspicion. It had too many spindly bits and made alarming whirring noises. Agnes, in her usual whirlwind of activity, had left her pannier bags open on the barn floor while she wrestled with a stubborn tire pump.

Barty, meanwhile, was in pursuit of a particularly audacious sunbeam that had dared to settle inside one of said pannier bags. It was warm, slightly lumpy with Agnes’s packed lunch (a tuna sandwich, Barty noted with interest), and offered an excellent vantage point for observing the baffling pre-ride rituals of his human. Distracted by the enticing aroma of tuna and the delightful warmth, Barty curled up and, as cats are wont to do, promptly fell asleep.

Agnes, finally victorious over the tire pump, zipped up her panniers without a second glance, hoisted them onto her bike, and with a cheerful, “Wish me luck, Barty!” (to the empty barn, she presumed), pedaled off towards Marlinton.

The first jolt woke Barty. He blinked, confused. The world was a blur of green and brown, rushing past at an alarming speed. The familiar scent of hay and old wood was gone, replaced by the disconcerting smell of… outside. He poked his head out of the pannier.

The sight that greeted him was horrifying. The ground was moving. Fast. And there was Agnes, her Lycra-clad posterior mere inches from his nose, pedaling with a grim determination.

Barty, not a cat prone to public displays of panic (unless a vacuum cleaner was involved), did the only sensible thing: he meowed. Loudly.

Agnes, headphones blasting an inspiring playlist of 80s power ballads, heard nothing.

Barty tried again, a desperate, “MROOOOWWW!” that he felt, deep in his feline soul, should have been audible across state lines.

Agnes merely hummed along to "Eye of the Tiger," occasionally muttering, "Just a little further to the Droop Mountain tunnel."

The journey was a kaleidoscope of terror and mild indigestion for Barty. Bumps in the trail sent him airborne within the confines of the pannier. The wind whistled through his whiskers. He caught fleeting glimpses of startled squirrels and unimpressed cows. He even made eye contact with a grumpy-looking groundhog who seemed to be judging his life choices. The tuna sandwich, alas, was becoming increasingly squashed beneath him.

By the time they reached Marlinton, Barty was a disheveled, bewildered, and slightly nauseous ball of fur. Agnes, triumphant and blissfully unaware of her furry stowaway, parked her bike outside the Cackling Kettle Cafe, a popular spot for trail-weary travelers.

As Agnes unzipped the pannier to retrieve her (now thoroughly flattened) lunch, Barty seized his opportunity. He shot out of the bag like a ginger cannonball, a blur of fur and indignation.

“MROW!” he shrieked, a sound that clearly translated to, “Unhand me, two-wheeled tyrant, and direct me to the nearest patch of stationary sunshine!”

Agnes shrieked too, nearly dropping her helmet. “Barty! What in the… how did you…?”

The patrons of the Cackling Kettle were treated to the sight of a woman in bright cycling gear chasing a very agitated ginger cat around the outdoor seating area. Barty, fueled by adrenaline and the injustice of it all, dodged tables, weaved through legs, and briefly considered scaling the cafe’s awning.

A kind waitress, armed with a saucer of milk and years of experience dealing with all manner of peculiar clientele, eventually managed to coax Barty into a temporary truce.

The return journey was… negotiated. After much debate, and the consumption of the offered milk (and a few pilfered scraps of bacon from a sympathetic onlooker), Barty was carefully installed in Agnes’s handlebar basket, which had been hastily lined with her windbreaker. He was not happy. He made his displeasure known through a series of low, guttural growls and the occasional, pointed glare.

Agnes, for her part, pedaled home with a newfound appreciation for pre-ride checklists and the surprising aerodynamics of a disgruntled cat. She also decided that, perhaps, her next trip to Marlinton would be via a more conventional, four-wheeled, and decidedly less whiskered, mode of transport.

Back in the familiar, stationary barn, Barty immediately retreated to his favorite sunbeam, vowing to never again trust an open bag or the allure of a rogue sunbeam. Adventure, he reaffirmed, was best found within sniffing distance of his own hay bale. And if Agnes ever approached him with that infernal bicycle again, he’d be hiding in the deepest, darkest corner of the barn, tuna sandwich or no tuna sandwich. Some things, Barty now knew, just weren't worth the ride.

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 rewrite

Percy was a cat of discerning tastes, and his primary taste was for the status quo. His domain, a sprawling, pleasantly musty barn just a stone's throw from the Greenbrier River, was the beginning, middle, and end of his world. Adventure, in Percy's opinion, was for dogs and particularly foolish squirrels. His human, Beatrice "Bea" Higgins, a woman whose age was as indeterminate as her collection of flamboyant scarves, had recently acquired a new passion: a gleaming, cherry-red bicycle with a basket large enough to accommodate a prize-winning zucchini, or, as fate would have it, a moderately-sized, deeply unimpressed feline.

Bea, bless her adventurous heart (currently set to "Conquer Marlinton via Two Wheels"), was meticulously preparing for her grand expedition. This Tuesday in mid-May, with the sun shining just so, was the day. She’d laid out her supplies on an old wooden crate: a thermos of lukewarm tea, a map that looked like it had navigated several gold rushes, and a Tupperware container radiating the irresistible aroma of tuna salad – Percy’s Achilles’ heel.

While Bea was inside, wrestling with what she called her "all-weather cycling chapeau" (which looked suspiciously like a deflated shower cap), Percy, drawn by the siren song of tuna, investigated the bicycle basket. It was surprisingly comfortable, lined with a soft, albeit slightly moth-eaten, cardigan Bea had discarded. The sun warmed the wicker, the scent of tuna was intoxicating, and before Percy could lodge a formal complaint with his internal committee on unnecessary movement, he was asleep.

Bea, emerging victorious with the chapeau askew, scooped up her supplies, including the cardigan-and-cat-filled basket, and with a cheerful, "Right then, Percy, wish me luck!" (directed at the barn in general), she mounted her iron steed.

The first jolt as the bicycle crunched over the gravel driveway was Percy’s rude awakening. He blinked. The familiar scent of hay and aged lumber was replaced by an alarming rush of… outside. He poked his head up, whiskers twitching. The world was a dizzying blur of green, punctuated by Bea’s brightly-scarfed head bobbing in front of him.

"Mrow?" he inquired, a sound that roughly translated to, "Have you completely taken leave of your senses, woman?"

Bea, humming a jaunty off-key tune, merely pedaled harder. "Lovely day for it, isn't it, river?" she called out to the passing Greenbrier. The river did not reply. Percy sympathized.

The journey to Marlinton was, for Percy, a masterclass in feline indignity. The wind flattened his ears and made his eyes water. Every bump in the trail sent him airborne, landing with a soft thump back into the basket, narrowly avoiding the sloshing thermos. Dogs barked from behind fences, their joyous yaps sounding like existential threats. He saw a deer that looked as startled as he felt. He even made eye contact with a groundhog who gave him a look that clearly said, "Dude, you're doing it wrong." The tuna, tragically, was now more of a tuna paste smeared on the side of the Tupperware.

By the time Bea triumphantly wheeled into Marlinton, Percy was a wreck. His fur stood on end, his dignity was in tatters, and he was fairly certain he'd swallowed a bug. Bea, oblivious, parked her bicycle outside "The Rambling Rose," a quaint tea shop, and beamed.

"We made it, my trusty steed!" she announced to the bicycle, before reaching into the basket for her lunch.

Instead of tuna, her fingers met fur.

"MRAAAOWL!" Percy erupted, launching himself out of the basket like a furry, four-legged cannonball. He shot under the nearest table, a quivering, ginger mass of outrage.

Bea shrieked, a sound that harmonized beautifully with Percy’s yowl. Patrons of The Rambling Rose, mid-scone and mid-sip, were treated to the spectacle of a woman in a lopsided hat peering under tables, cooing, "Percy? Percy-Poo? How on earth did you get here?"

The retrieval of Percy involved a bewildered waiter, a dropped teacup, and the strategic deployment of a sliver of ham from a kind elderly gentleman.

The return journey was a strained affair. Percy, now firmly ensconced in Bea’s lap, claws lightly extended as a constant reminder of his displeasure, radiated disapproval. Bea, in turn, pedaled with a grim determination, her jaunty humming replaced by nervous muttering about "thorough pre-ride checks" and "the astonishing stealth of the common barn cat."

Back in the blessed stillness of the barn, Percy leaped from Bea's grasp, shot her a look that could curdle milk, and dived into the deepest, darkest pile of hay he could find. He stayed there for a good hour, contemplating the sheer audacity of wheeled transport.

Bea, for her part, decided that perhaps her next trip to Marlinton would involve her slightly less adventurous, but infinitely more predictable, Subaru. As for Percy, he firmly redrew the boundaries of his kingdom. The barn was his. The world outside could keep its bicycles, its wind, and its terrifyingly fast-moving scenery. Some adventures, he now knew with profound certainty, were best left to the squirrels. And the tuna, he decided, was only truly safe when consumed inside the barn.

 Write a humorous story about a ship crossing the Atlantic with a thousand souls aboard. The ship is captured by hungry bit-coin pirates who bring their cell phones to work on the upper deck. But the ship is passing through a quiet zone where there is no cell signal. They spend the rest of their journey selling advantage programs to senior citizens.

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The S.S. Gigantica, a vessel so large it had its own postcode and a slightly bewildered flock of resident pigeons, was midway across the Atlantic. Aboard were a thousand souls, give or take a stowaway or two, all blissfully unaware that their voyage was about to take a sharp left turn into the absurd.

Enter the "Crypto Corsairs," a band of pirates so modern they considered actual cutlasses to be quaintly retro. Their leader, Captain "No-Signal" Blackheart (a name he’d ironically earn later), believed in plundering the old-fashioned way, but with a distinctly 21st-century twist: they'd relieve their victims of their bitcoin. Their primary weapons? A motley collection of high-end smartphones, each loaded with the latest crypto-draining apps.

With surprising agility for men whose primary form of exercise was scrolling, the Crypto Corsairs swarmed the Gigantica's upper deck. Passengers, initially assuming it was an over-enthusiastic cruise ship theme night, merely sipped their daiquiris and waited for the conga line to start.

"Avast ye, landlubbers and data-rich individuals!" bellowed Captain Blackheart, his voice slightly muffled by his designer bandana. "Prepare to be digitally divested! Hand over your private keys, or... or... we'll leave really scathing one-star reviews on your social media profiles!"

His crew, a fearsome bunch named things like "Blockchain Billy" and "Altcoin Annie," brandished their phones menacingly. The plan was simple: use the ship's Wi-Fi (which they'd naively assumed would be robust enough for a mass digital heist) to transfer all the passengers' cryptocurrency into their own heavily encrypted, hopefully untraceable, digital wallets.

One problem.

As Blockchain Billy attempted to access his favorite crypto exchange, a little dinosaur icon popped up on his screen. Altcoin Annie frantically waved her phone in the air, as if trying to catch a mythical signal butterfly. Even Captain Blackheart's usually smug expression began to twitch.

A nervous-looking deckhand, polishing a brass fitting nearby, cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Mr… Pirate, sir?" he stammered. "But… we've just entered the 'Atlantic Quiet Zone.' It's a mandatory digital detox area. No Wi-Fi, no satellite, no cell signal for the next five hundred nautical miles. Strict maritime regulations, you see. For… mindfulness."

A silence fell over the deck, broken only by the gentle lapping of waves and the distant squawk of a pigeon that clearly hadn't read the memo. The Crypto Corsairs stared at their useless, expensive rectangles. Their entire criminal enterprise, so reliant on the invisible tendrils of the internet, had been utterly neutered by a patch of deliberately unconnected ocean.

Despair set in. What was a bitcoin pirate without bitcoin? Just a pirate. And frankly, without the digital angle, they felt a bit silly in their matching "To the Moon!" t-shirts.

Days turned into a week. The initial plan to hold the ship hostage until they exited the Quiet Zone fell apart when they realized their limited supply of artisanal energy bars wouldn't last. Plus, the ship's chef, a formidable woman named Brenda, refused to cater to "scurvy dogs who can't even figure out a basic hotspot."

Then, "Side-Hustle" Steve, the crew's surprisingly pragmatic accountant (every pirate crew needs one, apparently), had an epiphany. He'd been observing the ship's demographic, particularly the large contingent of senior citizens who seemed to have an endless appetite for shuffleboard and early bird specials.

"Captain," Steve announced, holding up a brochure he'd 'liberated' from the ship's activity director. "I've got it! We pivot!"

And pivot they did. The fearsome Crypto Corsairs, armed with nothing but their surprisingly silver tongues and a desperate need to make some kind of profit from this disastrous voyage, began their new venture. They became the Atlantic's most unlikely sales team.

Their product? "The Golden Years Advantage Program."

It was a marvel of vague promises and enticingly small print. For a nominal (and surprisingly analogue, cash-only) fee, seniors were promised "enhanced onboard experiences," "priority seating at bingo," and "exclusive access to the captain's secret cookie stash" (a blatant lie, but surprisingly effective).

Captain Blackheart, now "Barnacle" Barry, found he had a knack for charming the sensible-shoe-wearing crowd. "Madam," he'd croon to a woman named Agnes who was suspicious of anything invented after the radio, "this Advantage Program isn't just a purchase, it's an investment in… well, advantage! Think of the exclusive bragging rights!"

Blockchain Billy discovered a hidden talent for PowerPoint presentations, using the ship's offline lecture hall to showcase thrilling pie charts about the "exponential benefits" of slightly better deck chair placement. Altcoin Annie, with her surprisingly soothing voice, ran "mindfulness and digital security" workshops, ironically teaching the elderly how to avoid online scams – a skill she was, in a roundabout way, now profiting from.

By the time the S.S. Gigantica finally re-entered signal range, the Crypto Corsairs were exhausted, but flush. Not with bitcoin, but with crisp twenty-dollar bills and a surprising number of IOUs for homemade jam. They’d made more money selling dubious "Advantage Programs" than they ever had in their short-lived digital piracy careers.

As they discreetly disembarked at the next port, laden with their ill-gotten, yet strangely legitimate, gains, Captain Blackheart, a.k.a. Barnacle Barry, looked back at the Gigantica.

"You know, lads," he mused, adjusting his now slightly askew bandana, "maybe there's something to this analogue life after all. Less buffering, anyway."

And so, the legend of the bitcoin pirates who accidentally became the world's most successful maritime senior benefits consultants was born, a cautionary tale for tech-dependent criminals everywhere, and a testament to the enduring power of a captive audience and a well-pitched, vaguely worded "Advantage Program."

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The year was somewhere in the mid-1700s, a time when a Fitbit was just a particularly energetic squirrel and "going viral" meant you'd likely contracted something unpleasant. Along the yet-to-be-famous Greenbrier River, long before the neon flash of Lycra-clad kayakers would grace its waters for the Great Greenbrier River Race, a pioneer named Jacob Marlin had staked his claim. Jacob, a man whose beard alone could house a family of wrens, had built a cabin so robust it looked like it could arm-wrestle a bear and win. It stood proudly near a truly colossal hollow sycamore tree, the kind of tree that seemed to have swallowed a small cottage for breakfast. Unbeknownst to Jacob, this very spot would, a century or so down the line, find itself practically underneath a thundering railroad bridge, a notion that would have made his buckskin breeches quiver.

One crisp Sunday morning, the sermon at the fledgling Methodist gathering having concluded (mostly centered on the evils of sloth and the proper way to churn butter for the Lord), Jacob Marlin and his close companion, Stephen Sewell, emerged, blinking in the Appalachian sun. As they stretched, two figures approached – stalwart Presbyterians, their faces set with the kind of solemnity usually reserved for contemplating the eternal or a poorly cooked possum.

"A fine sermon, brethren," one of the Presbyterians, a Mr. McTavish, began, his Scottish burr thick as morning mist. "Though, I must confess, I found the lack of discourse on the covenantal necessity of infant baptism rather… conspicuous."

Jacob, who considered theological debate a fine post-sermon digestive, puffed out his chest. "Conspicuous, you say? Why, Mr. McTavish, we Methodists believe a soul must choose its own dousing, when the Good Lord calls, not when it’s still figuring out which end of a spoon to gnaw on!"

Stephen Sewell, ever the loyal second, nodded vigorously. "Indeed! A babe has no more understanding of sacrament than a stump has of scripture!"

The argument, as theological arguments often do, heated faster than a blacksmith’s forge. Voices were raised, hands were waved, and the finer points of Calvin versus Wesley were thrashed about with gusto.

Just then, a lanky fellow named Jedediah, a Baptist by persuasion and a fisherman by trade, who had been peacefully attempting to lure a catfish from the Greenbrier’s depths, ambled over. He’d overheard the escalating doctrinal dispute while rebaiting his hook with a particularly juicy grub.

"Beggin' your pardon, gents," Jedediah drawled, wiping fish guts on his trousers, "but all this hubbub about sprinklin' babies? Seems to me like tryin' to teach a tadpole to yodel. What's the point? Let 'em grow, let 'em sin a little, then dunk 'em proper when they can appreciate the coolin' off!"

Jacob Marlin, who despite his Methodist leanings, possessed a pragmatic streak as wide as the river itself, slapped his knee. "By thunder, the fisherman speaks sense! A ridiculous notion, baptizing a babe that can’t even say ‘Amen’ without drooling!"

Stephen Sewell stopped mid-gesticulation. His jaw dropped. His face, already flushed from theological exertion, turned a shade of crimson usually reserved for autumn maples. For Sewell, siding with a Baptist – and on such a fundamental point – was tantamount to doctrinal treason. It was one thing to debate the Presbyterians; it was quite another to have your own Methodist compatriot publicly agree with a man whose primary interaction with water involved fish.

"Jacob!" Sewell sputtered, aghast. "You… you agree with him? About the sanctity of infant… ridiculousness?"

"Well, when you put it like that, Stephen," Jacob said, stroking his beard thoughtfully, "the man has a point. Seems a waste of perfectly good river water on an uncomprehending nipper."

That was the final straw. For Stephen Sewell, this was a betrayal of the highest order. He drew himself up to his full, indignant height.

"Fine!" he declared, his voice quivering with righteous fury. "If my own brethren are to be swayed by the simplistic riverside ramblings of… of… fish-handlers over sound doctrine, then I shall remove myself from this den of theological… flexibility!"

And with that, Stephen Sewell, a man of dramatic conviction, turned on his heel. He marched directly to the enormous, hollow sycamore tree they all knew so well. With a grunt and a heave, he began clearing out the accumulated leaves and squirrel detritus from its cavernous interior.

"If you won't have sound doctrine in your cabin, Jacob Marlin," Sewell hollered, his voice echoing from within the woody behemoth, "then I shall establish a bastion of true faith right here! And furthermore," he added, poking his head out, a cobweb clinging to his ear, "it'll be a Catholic church! Just to show you all!"

No one was quite sure where Stephen Sewell suddenly got his Catholic theological training, or indeed, any parishioners. But for the rest of his days in the Greenbrier valley, Stephen Sewell resided in the hollow tree. He’d even fashioned a crude cross from branches and hung it over the entrance. And there, directly across from where the old Ward House would eventually stand on what would become Route 39, "Our Lady of the Hollow Sycamore" (as he grandly, if unofficially, named it) offered a rather drafty, and decidedly singular, alternative to the local Methodist and Presbyterian offerings, all thanks to a heated debate about baptizing babies and a fisherman with a knack for cutting through the holy noise.