Get ready for this weekend's creativity challenge.
I dare you to write a story using 99 words exactly, not including the title. Use this ending: “We would need to burn that couch.”
We’ll showcase the top challenge responses in our newsletter. And the best part, you, our readers, decide who wins. The entries with the highest number of likes will be declared the winners. You’ll have until Sunday or Monday midnight to post your response. Once we lock the thread, we’ll reveal the writing champions and their entries! Are you up to the challenge?
Bob visited, and the majority of his weekend was spent on our couch. Remnants of our refrigerator and empty beer cans surrounded the floor. My husband told him several times there were fresh towels in the bathroom and that he could shower, but he declined. He had festered beneath blankets on our couch instead. We’d nicknamed him “Smelly Bob, same pants,” after a cartoon character my kids liked with a similar name. We nearly fainted when we walked by him. No amount of fabric spray would remove his stench after he left. We would need to burn that couch.
We met in Tijuana, his Uncle Ken had a plan: Bobby could choose, Uncle Ken had veto power, no pedos, no smokers, and no drug addicts. It was his first time with a boy, and Bobby was nervous. We roll-play, I’ll play Alexander, you’ll be my Hephaestion. Shyly I suggest a shower. Wet, our first time was bent over the tap. Dry, we try missionary on the rollout sofa. For a first timer, Bobby is an uninhibited, limber lover. His fantasies exceed my experience; we do things that leave me blushing. Morning, we would need to burn that couch.
Kevin Lim came to my apartment in Chinatown. His silver Honda glowed in the moonlight, its tires sporting star-shaped rims. The Architecture major, whom I met in my freshman dorm, had become a heartthrob in the Asian Greek system.
The next thing I knew, we were on the couch kissing. The taste of his saliva was sweet, so was the scent of his Calvin Klein cologne. All Kevin really cared about were his car and his Downtown suite, which made his rejection of me less personal. But to completely erase that night, we would need to burn that couch.
Legend says my Great-Great-Great Grandma O’Leary started the Chicago Fire when her cow kicked over a lantern. However, according to a letter written by my Great-Great Aunt Polly, her brother Sherman and his friend Willie spilled the stove black on the couch in the Parlor. Sherman begged her not to tell his mother and father and burned the couch and most of Chicago to the ground. Polly didn’t say anything while Shurman was alive, but as soon as he died, she had his idiotic idea carved as an epitaph on his tombstone. “We would need to burn that couch.”
It stood dull and shabby in need of attention. Sandy could not bare to part with it. So many happy memories the blue leather shone no more. Her children had grown up with it?
Jedda was at University. Clive bless at sixteen was still unsure which way to go? Maybe his exam results would answer that question doctor or firemen. Sandy smiled Rick her had said after twenty five years of marriage it was time to move on with life down size if needed? Oh, he had said before leaving for work,"We need to burn that old couch."
It had been for Sale, furniture and everything, for ages apparently. We booked a viewing not expecting to like it. The newly painted walls did make us wonder what that magnolia slick hid. But, it was super cheap because of what had happened.
We knew the story even though we were from out of town. Local gossip suggested she’d been watching ‘Orange is the new Black’ at the time.
We went for it – it’d be daft to pass up an opportunity like this. Dan suggested selling tours; I refused that, but knew we would need to burn that couch.
He’d come home after work, shower, and eat. Then they’d watch television, and have sex. He complained endlessly; she commiserated.
Life on Br’ey Arenth was tough. The conditions were as earth-like as did not matter, but something was missing.
There was a knock at the door; no one ever visited! He lifted the cushions and shoved Isolde-32 underneath them.
It was the Constabular. “Your clothes are tainted with Prerrhoe and Clofrumin. Please divest yourself of them and put them in this bag. The company will provide new clothes and soft furnishings. Also, we would need to burn that couch.”
“What the hell Myka!” Tyra’s fingers burn holes in the cover revealing Myka’s half naked body. She frowns, disgusted by the stomach waves lurching her upright. Catching her breath through burps she responds, “Shhhh damn. What is it?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? We gotta handle this!”
Myka first notices the vomit, next open bottles mingling with food. Finally she eyes their new vintage couch.
“What the fuck are we gonna do!” Tyra asks pacing and throwing soiled clothes at Myka. “I can’t go back!”
Sloppily dressed, another under her belt. “ Simple. We would need to burn that couch.”
No Luck
I put the kettle on, then the telly, and smoothed my lucky apron.
"Got it!" Robert exclaimed, bursting through the door. "This is the one!"
The ticket trembled as he walked toward his chair.
"Damn cat," he said as he plopped on the couch.
"NO- move the cat! Everything has to be just so!"
"We don't need luck, Woman, I feel it in the numbers."
The announcer began.
"Three."
"Three."
"Nineteen."
"Nineteen!"
"Twenty-two."
"Twenty- two!!"
"Forty-seven."
"FORTY-SEVEN."
"And the Bonus...is...six!"
Robert slumped over, ticket still clenched in his hand.
"Five."
We would need to burn that couch.
Smelly Bob, Same Pants
Bob visited, and the majority of his weekend was spent on our couch. Remnants of our refrigerator and empty beer cans surrounded the floor. My husband told him several times there were fresh towels in the bathroom and that he could shower, but he declined. He had festered beneath blankets on our couch instead. We’d nicknamed him “Smelly Bob, same pants,” after a cartoon character my kids liked with a similar name. We nearly fainted when we walked by him. No amount of fabric spray would remove his stench after he left. We would need to burn that couch.
Macedonia
We met in Tijuana, his Uncle Ken had a plan: Bobby could choose, Uncle Ken had veto power, no pedos, no smokers, and no drug addicts. It was his first time with a boy, and Bobby was nervous. We roll-play, I’ll play Alexander, you’ll be my Hephaestion. Shyly I suggest a shower. Wet, our first time was bent over the tap. Dry, we try missionary on the rollout sofa. For a first timer, Bobby is an uninhibited, limber lover. His fantasies exceed my experience; we do things that leave me blushing. Morning, we would need to burn that couch.
An Ethereal Epiphany
Kevin Lim came to my apartment in Chinatown. His silver Honda glowed in the moonlight, its tires sporting star-shaped rims. The Architecture major, whom I met in my freshman dorm, had become a heartthrob in the Asian Greek system.
The next thing I knew, we were on the couch kissing. The taste of his saliva was sweet, so was the scent of his Calvin Klein cologne. All Kevin really cared about were his car and his Downtown suite, which made his rejection of me less personal. But to completely erase that night, we would need to burn that couch.
No, it wasn’t the Cow
Legend says my Great-Great-Great Grandma O’Leary started the Chicago Fire when her cow kicked over a lantern. However, according to a letter written by my Great-Great Aunt Polly, her brother Sherman and his friend Willie spilled the stove black on the couch in the Parlor. Sherman begged her not to tell his mother and father and burned the couch and most of Chicago to the ground. Polly didn’t say anything while Shurman was alive, but as soon as he died, she had his idiotic idea carved as an epitaph on his tombstone. “We would need to burn that couch.”
Couch Blues.
It stood dull and shabby in need of attention. Sandy could not bare to part with it. So many happy memories the blue leather shone no more. Her children had grown up with it?
Jedda was at University. Clive bless at sixteen was still unsure which way to go? Maybe his exam results would answer that question doctor or firemen. Sandy smiled Rick her had said after twenty five years of marriage it was time to move on with life down size if needed? Oh, he had said before leaving for work,"We need to burn that old couch."
A Fresh Start
It had been for Sale, furniture and everything, for ages apparently. We booked a viewing not expecting to like it. The newly painted walls did make us wonder what that magnolia slick hid. But, it was super cheap because of what had happened.
We knew the story even though we were from out of town. Local gossip suggested she’d been watching ‘Orange is the new Black’ at the time.
We went for it – it’d be daft to pass up an opportunity like this. Dan suggested selling tours; I refused that, but knew we would need to burn that couch.
He’d come home after work, shower, and eat. Then they’d watch television, and have sex. He complained endlessly; she commiserated.
Life on Br’ey Arenth was tough. The conditions were as earth-like as did not matter, but something was missing.
There was a knock at the door; no one ever visited! He lifted the cushions and shoved Isolde-32 underneath them.
It was the Constabular. “Your clothes are tainted with Prerrhoe and Clofrumin. Please divest yourself of them and put them in this bag. The company will provide new clothes and soft furnishings. Also, we would need to burn that couch.”
Stains
“What the hell Myka!” Tyra’s fingers burn holes in the cover revealing Myka’s half naked body. She frowns, disgusted by the stomach waves lurching her upright. Catching her breath through burps she responds, “Shhhh damn. What is it?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? We gotta handle this!”
Myka first notices the vomit, next open bottles mingling with food. Finally she eyes their new vintage couch.
“What the fuck are we gonna do!” Tyra asks pacing and throwing soiled clothes at Myka. “I can’t go back!”
Sloppily dressed, another under her belt. “ Simple. We would need to burn that couch.”
Middle-Aged Millennial Drama
“We would need to burn that couch," he says, distracted.
"What?" I look from my boss in his polyester polo out to the showroom; couches sit in upholstery council. "Which?"
Clicks his pen, jabs it towards a red one towards the back. "It's tainted."
I hesitate. "What?"
"Just." Click-click. "Come this weekend, clock in. Burn it by the dumpsters, leave. Okay?"
Doesn't say "next to Cheeky's Tacos."
We know damn well which. Both know it's where his ex-wife works Always smiled when she'd passed by on her way to the backrooms. I don't hesitate.
"Okay."
"Right. Burned. To ashes."