This weekend's challenge will push your creative limits.
I dare you to write story using a 199-word exactly, not including the title. Use this in the opening: “You are not allowed to park here.”
We’ll showcase the top two challenge responses in our newsletter. And the best part, you, our readers, decide who wins. The two 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 two writing champions and their entries! Are you up to the challenge?
"You're not allowed to park here." I whispered in mock amazement at his brazen choice. It's broad daylight and the middle of the lot. People would see us.
His smile, it hinted to more devious plans. He knows I've never done anything outside of rambunctious kissing but this, this took me to the line I never dreamed of crossing.
"What if someone sees us?" I ask, my voice low like someone outside, walking to their cars from the busy supermarket could hear me.
"What if they do?" He answers and my stomach drops knowing I want to, but I should say no.
But I really want to.
He shifts his weight and leans over the small sedan center console. His hand finds my bare knee and slides up, slow and dangerously close to hem of my skirt. He requested I wear it and now I know why.
With every inch his fingertips climb, my face turned crimson and my lungs seize and fail. How does he make me feel so good when we are so bad and daring?
"Tell me yes." He pleads as he leans close.
"Yes. Touch me." I breathe, and his lips close around mine, hungrily.
"You are not allowed to park here," she whispered, holding cupped hands up to an empty vehicle.
Zinnias didn't last until Autumn those first seven years at the house that was only hers now. She brought home a puppy and planted a garden. Life would go on. Except for the zinnias, which the dog dug up as it grew. They dotted the driveway each year, cheery floral balls of tenderness outlasting something unruly.
"Why just my zinnias, you wild mutt?" she'd yell. Shasta's panting smile declared victory, she planted anew each spring. Maybe he'd outgrow digging, she reasoned, and tossed grounded colorful balls over the fence in anger.
Which, she figured, was probably why Shasta crossed the fence that day, seven years into love and loyalty, the fence guarding the tender dog from where the road ran unruly. Now, zinnias always grew round on their stems. She plucked each herself, for that wide place at the side of the road where she last held her wild, happy dog.
Whenever a car chose the sacred spot for parking (how could they know?) she whispered, "You are not allowed to park here," and laid bright balls of tenderness upon its hood.
I appreciated how kind the traffic warden was being. My driving license had only just been approved, and I embodied the stereotypical ‘nervous driver’ trope: hands ten-to-two, knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel, the bumps of the leather their own kind of Braille.
It’s just a shame I missed the massive NO PARKING sign, just spitting distance away.
“Apologies, officer,” I spluttered, and made to grab the handbrake.
“Nuh-uh, you don’t get away that easily. Out the car.”
Twin feelings of fear and bewilderment filled me. I got out, my stomach a trapeze artist. Our eyes met, hers a cool gray in a composed expression that hid the hint of a smirk.
Once I shut the door, she produced a set of handcuffs without warning and spun me around, pressing me against the vehicle, locking my wrists. She didn’t see, she wasn’t to know. But my face flushed at the contact, and I became hot under the collar. But it was only for a moment.
“I’m kidding. But you should have seen your face!”
I got back into the car, hiding my face in shame, and drove off without a word.
I blinked and gave the policeman at the other side of my car’s window a look of confusion. “Why not?”
This was a reasonable question, in my opinion. I always wait for delivery orders at this parking lot. I figured that the cop felt that I was loitering, though I didn’t know why he’d even bother given that the lot was not full at all.
Now that I thought about it, there were barely any cars parked here. Weird.
Weirder still was the response that I got from my interlocutor:
“This place is infested.”
“By what?”
“Demons.”
“Excuse me?” I could hardly believe what I heard.
But the cop nodded in all seriousness. “We’ve received reports of a demonic infestation in this mall. We just called in a priest to exorcise the whole place.”
My face was red hot with anger. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
And then everything went black.
When I regained consciousness, I found out that I was lying down on the ground. I looked up and saw the cop. With him was an elderly priest.
“You are not allowed to park here!” He’d said it at least nine times now and the traffic warden was close to the end of his tether. He pointed again at a 'NO PARKING' sign. He’d heard it all today: permit in the post, wife due any minute, it’s an emergency we’ve run out of wine... Sometimes people’s excuses were simply out of this world.
It was a resident’s permit slot. The restrictions only lasted an hour. In half an hour they could park there quite legally. He only had fifteen minutes left of his shift anyway: he was looking forward to getting home and taking his uniform off. The council had just introduced a new colour scheme- Green. Bright green buses, bins and all council uniforms. He was a short man; as you can imagine he looked and felt ridiculous in it. He folded his arms to try to out-stare the driver. Honestly, that sign couldn’t be more straightforward.
A movement before him made him smile. Victory! There was a hum before it rose up off the ground. The visitors had decided to go home – they’d have to report back saying the planet was not habitable after all.
There are times when it’s propitious to be selectively illiterate, and this was one of those times. In any case, when I get out of the car, it becomes invisible, so unless someone else tries to park there, it will go unnoticed until I get back in.
Why else would time travel have been invented, if not for people like me to get a job retrieving precious objects from the past? I cannot, of course, divulge what I have brought to the present, from the future, because that would make the item disappear in the here and now, and start a chain reaction that would probably annihilate me.
Picking the lock was easy; the smell of damp made me gag. The garbage that had not been taken out for a month was crawling with ants and cockroaches.
I’d been sent on this mission by an old man on his deathbed.
I recognised the furniture and the layout of the cottage from the hundreds of photos I had studied. There it was, the plushie teddy bear that my employer had played with when he was a child.
I picked it up, put it in my backpack, and came back home.
“You are not allowed to park here,” the police officer booms as he raps his knuckles on the window of my car.
“Man, this is a parking lot,” I say through my yawn, “I live in my car, where else am I supposed to park?”
“I don’t care where you park, as long as it isn’t here,” the officer responds, with a slight look of disgust on his face.
“If you don’t care where I park, why can’t I park here?”
The officer frowns as he tried to think of a reason that didn’t center his discomfort with people living a different lifestyle than he deemed normal.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble. Just move your car. The store’s about to open up and you’re taking up a spot for customers.”
I pointedly glance around the empty lot before responding, “Sure, bud. No problem. Wouldn’t want all those customers to have trouble finding a space.”
I keep the smile plastered on my face as I drive off the lot. The smile fades as I say to myself, “On to the next,” and try not to worry about the next time I’ll hear, “You are not allowed to park here.”
A cut in hours? Sally Anne Masters at twenty eight years of age, had a mortgage to find on her small flat in Bayswater. It was relaxing in the small flat, after a tiring day computing to Greens Wholesalers in Central London. So, she applied for the job of meter maid.
Sally Anne enjoyed the exercise that came with the job. She also met interesting people. Today she was passing St Bartholomew's School, noticing the black cab parked across the gateway of the school . Toby McGivney was late again picking up his son Angus from school. ''Hey lady what are you doing? Its my livelihood that cab.'' '' You should have thought about that?'' Replied Sally Anne, placing the parking ticket on the windscreen. Toby glared at Sally Anne, she was not going to budge? In fact she had gone to move away, when Angus had dashed towards them. ''Wait lady I have a picture of my mom to show you. She is with the angels.'' Sally Anne taken in by the fair haired six-year- old, looked at the stick picture. Now six months on Sally Anne now lived with Toby and Angus. Toby had happily paid for his parking ticket.
“You are not allowed to park here!” the curmudgeonly man yelled! Before I could say anything my 10-year-old daughter jumped out of the car, running towards the man yelling, “isn’t this where the party is?” A loud noise ensued, pop, pop pop, then screaming, crying, then silence. My beautiful daughter, lying in a pool of blood!
***************************
“Now, you’re sure of the address?,” asking for the fifth time. Maddie, half exasperated, half excited, said ‘yes, mom, I’m sure, 69 Loverly Lane. I was so excited for her. Her first surprise party and finally a place where she fit in, with her girlfriends. “There it is, 69, right there, hurry mom,” she said. I saw the 69, it looked old and rusty. “Are you sure this is it?” Yep, 69 Loverly Lane. We didn’t see anyone else, no cars, no girls. Well, maybe everyone’s inside. I turned into the driveway, Maddie couldn’t contain herself, jumping out of the car, running to the door. That’s when the old man took my daughter, took my Maddie.
******************************
I went home, alone, seeing the wrinkled invitation on the table. It was upside down. My Maddie confused the numbers, it wasn’t 69 but 96.
“You are not allowed to park here.” A dwarf shook her hammer up at Vakandi.
Vakandi lifted a dark red scaled foot, the claws scratching the nicely brick paved plaza. The dwarf grumbled and pulled at her blonde beard. “Stop!”
“But this is a public gathering area.”
“Yes, for the citizens of Vakfored.”
“Am I not a citizen?”
“Well err...no, you are.” The woman lowered her head and hammer, breaking eye contact. “Shadow of our Sun, you’re welcomed anywhere. You just can’t land here.”
Extremely softly, Vakandi put his foot down, but the road crunched beneath his weight as much as a gingerbread house would crumble in his mouth. “I think see the problem.”
The woman nodded. “Then please, do what you normally do and fly above this area.”
Vakandi stretched out his wings. The other workers nearby gasped and backed away as he prepared to take flight. The woman raised her hammer toward his face again. “I promise we will make this plaza stronger to withstand your size soon.”
He puffed out a bit of smoke and ascended into the air. “I look forward to dancing with you in the future.” With that, the mighty dragon flew off.
~Unfurling~
You are not allowed to park here.
You are not allowed to take up permanent residence,
to linger,
to loiter,
to languish.
You may not consider this a loading dock, nor a drop off point.
I granted you a momentary pause, a passing place, once,
and you stayed instead.
You set down insidious roots,
coiled with viscous intention from my head to my heart.
Winding through my core until doubled over with fear and grief
I could not stand in my own power.
I could only stand in my own way.
Like prying lichen from granite, painstaking, brutal, I have worked diligently to
uncoil the words, the wounds you brought.
To push back.
To question.
To no longer listen with rapt devotion.
It was easy to accept your lies,
a twisted desire to keep me safe, but
harmed and hurt instead.
I am unfurling.
My shoulders roll,
my wings spread wide,
the bindings broken.
I raise my head, strong, on shoulders straight.
I can see you now,
I can see what you are, my wounded child.
I embrace you,
I wrap you in a mothers love and care.
You are not allowed to park here, self doubt.
Not anymore.
The Dare
"You're not allowed to park here." I whispered in mock amazement at his brazen choice. It's broad daylight and the middle of the lot. People would see us.
His smile, it hinted to more devious plans. He knows I've never done anything outside of rambunctious kissing but this, this took me to the line I never dreamed of crossing.
"What if someone sees us?" I ask, my voice low like someone outside, walking to their cars from the busy supermarket could hear me.
"What if they do?" He answers and my stomach drops knowing I want to, but I should say no.
But I really want to.
He shifts his weight and leans over the small sedan center console. His hand finds my bare knee and slides up, slow and dangerously close to hem of my skirt. He requested I wear it and now I know why.
With every inch his fingertips climb, my face turned crimson and my lungs seize and fail. How does he make me feel so good when we are so bad and daring?
"Tell me yes." He pleads as he leans close.
"Yes. Touch me." I breathe, and his lips close around mine, hungrily.
Tender Victory
"You are not allowed to park here," she whispered, holding cupped hands up to an empty vehicle.
Zinnias didn't last until Autumn those first seven years at the house that was only hers now. She brought home a puppy and planted a garden. Life would go on. Except for the zinnias, which the dog dug up as it grew. They dotted the driveway each year, cheery floral balls of tenderness outlasting something unruly.
"Why just my zinnias, you wild mutt?" she'd yell. Shasta's panting smile declared victory, she planted anew each spring. Maybe he'd outgrow digging, she reasoned, and tossed grounded colorful balls over the fence in anger.
Which, she figured, was probably why Shasta crossed the fence that day, seven years into love and loyalty, the fence guarding the tender dog from where the road ran unruly. Now, zinnias always grew round on their stems. She plucked each herself, for that wide place at the side of the road where she last held her wild, happy dog.
Whenever a car chose the sacred spot for parking (how could they know?) she whispered, "You are not allowed to park here," and laid bright balls of tenderness upon its hood.
Title: Apologies, Officer
"You are not allowed to park here."
I appreciated how kind the traffic warden was being. My driving license had only just been approved, and I embodied the stereotypical ‘nervous driver’ trope: hands ten-to-two, knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel, the bumps of the leather their own kind of Braille.
It’s just a shame I missed the massive NO PARKING sign, just spitting distance away.
“Apologies, officer,” I spluttered, and made to grab the handbrake.
“Nuh-uh, you don’t get away that easily. Out the car.”
Twin feelings of fear and bewilderment filled me. I got out, my stomach a trapeze artist. Our eyes met, hers a cool gray in a composed expression that hid the hint of a smirk.
Once I shut the door, she produced a set of handcuffs without warning and spun me around, pressing me against the vehicle, locking my wrists. She didn’t see, she wasn’t to know. But my face flushed at the contact, and I became hot under the collar. But it was only for a moment.
“I’m kidding. But you should have seen your face!”
I got back into the car, hiding my face in shame, and drove off without a word.
Title: The Parking Lot
“You are not allowed to park here.”
I blinked and gave the policeman at the other side of my car’s window a look of confusion. “Why not?”
This was a reasonable question, in my opinion. I always wait for delivery orders at this parking lot. I figured that the cop felt that I was loitering, though I didn’t know why he’d even bother given that the lot was not full at all.
Now that I thought about it, there were barely any cars parked here. Weird.
Weirder still was the response that I got from my interlocutor:
“This place is infested.”
“By what?”
“Demons.”
“Excuse me?” I could hardly believe what I heard.
But the cop nodded in all seriousness. “We’ve received reports of a demonic infestation in this mall. We just called in a priest to exorcise the whole place.”
My face was red hot with anger. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”
And then everything went black.
When I regained consciousness, I found out that I was lying down on the ground. I looked up and saw the cop. With him was an elderly priest.
“What happened?” I asked.
The priest smiled. “The exorcism was a success.”
A Little Green Man
“You are not allowed to park here!” He’d said it at least nine times now and the traffic warden was close to the end of his tether. He pointed again at a 'NO PARKING' sign. He’d heard it all today: permit in the post, wife due any minute, it’s an emergency we’ve run out of wine... Sometimes people’s excuses were simply out of this world.
It was a resident’s permit slot. The restrictions only lasted an hour. In half an hour they could park there quite legally. He only had fifteen minutes left of his shift anyway: he was looking forward to getting home and taking his uniform off. The council had just introduced a new colour scheme- Green. Bright green buses, bins and all council uniforms. He was a short man; as you can imagine he looked and felt ridiculous in it. He folded his arms to try to out-stare the driver. Honestly, that sign couldn’t be more straightforward.
A movement before him made him smile. Victory! There was a hum before it rose up off the ground. The visitors had decided to go home – they’d have to report back saying the planet was not habitable after all.
AT POINT BLANK
“You’re not allowed to park here. Excuse me, sir! You are not allowed to park here. Do I have to tell you again?”
“Yo, Karen! Who says I can’t?”
“Did you just call me Karen?
“I did,” he said, putting the car in Park and looking up at the woman in front of him. He sat back.
“You’ll have to move your car.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You can’t park here,” she repeated. “I know the man who lives here.”
“No you don’t,” he laughed. “This is my house. Now get out of my way before I drive right over you.”
“Did you threaten me?” she said, rummaging through her purse.
“No. Why? Looking for your phone? Are you gonna phone 5-0?”
“Who?”
“The Po-lice?”
“They won’t do anything. They never do.”
“Then get out of my way. I’ve had a long day,” he said, putting the car into gear and inching his way forward. She slapped her hands down on the hood.
“You stay right there!” she screamed, rummaging through her purse again.
“Lady! I said MOVE! Don’t make me get out of my car.”
A smile crossed her face. She pulled the gun out and fired, point blank.
“You are not allowed to park here.”
There are times when it’s propitious to be selectively illiterate, and this was one of those times. In any case, when I get out of the car, it becomes invisible, so unless someone else tries to park there, it will go unnoticed until I get back in.
Why else would time travel have been invented, if not for people like me to get a job retrieving precious objects from the past? I cannot, of course, divulge what I have brought to the present, from the future, because that would make the item disappear in the here and now, and start a chain reaction that would probably annihilate me.
Picking the lock was easy; the smell of damp made me gag. The garbage that had not been taken out for a month was crawling with ants and cockroaches.
I’d been sent on this mission by an old man on his deathbed.
I recognised the furniture and the layout of the cottage from the hundreds of photos I had studied. There it was, the plushie teddy bear that my employer had played with when he was a child.
I picked it up, put it in my backpack, and came back home.
“You are not allowed to park here."
The synthetic words blast through my synapses like plasma through a stray moon.
I've just been squeezed out of a wormhole near the event horizon of M83 X-1.
Giselle said she'd meet me at this hot bar on some ancient drifting ship relic slowly slipping towards the disk, so I came as fast as I can.
But the sapiohaptics reaction to my shock at the coscops blast has put us into reverse.
And in this delicate dance of photons, gravity and momentum reverse isn't exactly backwards in space.
We're tumbling and the massive plasma jet searing away from the axis blinds me for a few moments.
I try to project course corrections into the haps code but I'm slow and confused.
Last thing I recall at that point is the slowing of time. My brain is now in a different time zone to my feet and the haps.
And we're deep into the blackness of M83 X-1. Damn! I know how this never ends, runs through my darkening consciousness.
My brain is kick-started by a startling spray of light that’s familiar:
“You are not allowed to park here."
Ah fuck! I yell.
~ TRUST ~
You are not allowed to park here
the voice within me yells,
To park here would mean an adventure,
a meander
To park here would mean a change.
You are not allowed to park here,
the voice within me screams
to park here would mean a stop in the norm
to park here would be a change.
You are not allowed to park here
the voice within me calls,
to park here would mean new colours, new sights
to park here would become a change.
You are not allowed to park here
the voice within me speaks
to park here would mean I’ve listened beyond
to park here would mean I’ve heard.
You are not allowed to park here
the voice within me whispers
to park here would mean I’ve taken the step
to park here would mean I’ve arrived.
You are not allowed to park here
the voice within me laughed
Of cause you are
Of cause you are
Well-come
well-come
and park.
I AM ALLOWED to park here
The voice within me cried out
my rite
my longing
my truth.
I’m home.
I am allowed
to park here
oh yes
oh yes
YES I am!
I DON'T WANT ANY TROUBLE
“You are not allowed to park here,” the police officer booms as he raps his knuckles on the window of my car.
“Man, this is a parking lot,” I say through my yawn, “I live in my car, where else am I supposed to park?”
“I don’t care where you park, as long as it isn’t here,” the officer responds, with a slight look of disgust on his face.
“If you don’t care where I park, why can’t I park here?”
The officer frowns as he tried to think of a reason that didn’t center his discomfort with people living a different lifestyle than he deemed normal.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble. Just move your car. The store’s about to open up and you’re taking up a spot for customers.”
I pointedly glance around the empty lot before responding, “Sure, bud. No problem. Wouldn’t want all those customers to have trouble finding a space.”
I keep the smile plastered on my face as I drive off the lot. The smile fades as I say to myself, “On to the next,” and try not to worry about the next time I’ll hear, “You are not allowed to park here.”
METER MAIDS DAY.
A cut in hours? Sally Anne Masters at twenty eight years of age, had a mortgage to find on her small flat in Bayswater. It was relaxing in the small flat, after a tiring day computing to Greens Wholesalers in Central London. So, she applied for the job of meter maid.
Sally Anne enjoyed the exercise that came with the job. She also met interesting people. Today she was passing St Bartholomew's School, noticing the black cab parked across the gateway of the school . Toby McGivney was late again picking up his son Angus from school. ''Hey lady what are you doing? Its my livelihood that cab.'' '' You should have thought about that?'' Replied Sally Anne, placing the parking ticket on the windscreen. Toby glared at Sally Anne, she was not going to budge? In fact she had gone to move away, when Angus had dashed towards them. ''Wait lady I have a picture of my mom to show you. She is with the angels.'' Sally Anne taken in by the fair haired six-year- old, looked at the stick picture. Now six months on Sally Anne now lived with Toby and Angus. Toby had happily paid for his parking ticket.
Title: My Beautiful Daughter
“You are not allowed to park here!” the curmudgeonly man yelled! Before I could say anything my 10-year-old daughter jumped out of the car, running towards the man yelling, “isn’t this where the party is?” A loud noise ensued, pop, pop pop, then screaming, crying, then silence. My beautiful daughter, lying in a pool of blood!
***************************
“Now, you’re sure of the address?,” asking for the fifth time. Maddie, half exasperated, half excited, said ‘yes, mom, I’m sure, 69 Loverly Lane. I was so excited for her. Her first surprise party and finally a place where she fit in, with her girlfriends. “There it is, 69, right there, hurry mom,” she said. I saw the 69, it looked old and rusty. “Are you sure this is it?” Yep, 69 Loverly Lane. We didn’t see anyone else, no cars, no girls. Well, maybe everyone’s inside. I turned into the driveway, Maddie couldn’t contain herself, jumping out of the car, running to the door. That’s when the old man took my daughter, took my Maddie.
******************************
I went home, alone, seeing the wrinkled invitation on the table. It was upside down. My Maddie confused the numbers, it wasn’t 69 but 96.
STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS
“You are not allowed to park here.” A dwarf shook her hammer up at Vakandi.
Vakandi lifted a dark red scaled foot, the claws scratching the nicely brick paved plaza. The dwarf grumbled and pulled at her blonde beard. “Stop!”
“But this is a public gathering area.”
“Yes, for the citizens of Vakfored.”
“Am I not a citizen?”
“Well err...no, you are.” The woman lowered her head and hammer, breaking eye contact. “Shadow of our Sun, you’re welcomed anywhere. You just can’t land here.”
Extremely softly, Vakandi put his foot down, but the road crunched beneath his weight as much as a gingerbread house would crumble in his mouth. “I think see the problem.”
The woman nodded. “Then please, do what you normally do and fly above this area.”
Vakandi stretched out his wings. The other workers nearby gasped and backed away as he prepared to take flight. The woman raised her hammer toward his face again. “I promise we will make this plaza stronger to withstand your size soon.”
He puffed out a bit of smoke and ascended into the air. “I look forward to dancing with you in the future.” With that, the mighty dragon flew off.
https://substack.com/@withlovesage/note/c-20865980?r=tkkr7&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action