Hobby Accomplished

Fuzznuts, I lost the last story due to the keyboard "POWER" button. It was about a bodybuilder but now I'm too mad to write it again.

Hobby Accomplished

He had been waiting weeks for his package to arrive. It was the last remaining item to complete his collection of model trains from the industrial age. He had been anxious about its price - way beyond his immediate means - but he knew it would be worth the expense just to put it in his glass display case along with the rest of his collection. Then he could rest easy, knowing that he had finished his search. When the package arrived, he savored every moment cutting open the tape, lifting the box open, and digging out the packaging material. It was intact, and he was relieved. He slowly lifted it out of the box and admired its construction. Every facet was meticulously detailed and there was no defect as far as he could tell. He opened his display case, carefully placed it on the remaining empty spot, and closed the case. A few days later, he invited his friend to visit him to view the collection. His friend at first humored his enthusiastic stories, but impatience caused him to started taking out a train set.

"What are you doing?" he cried. "You're going to ruin it!"
"Made... in... China..."
"What does that matter? Hey!"
His friend gave him a frustrated look. "What's the point of getting all of these if you're never going to play with them?" the ten year old declared.

A Spider's Random Morning

The spider spent only an hour on it, but after it was completed, the web was the largest that the doorway ever saw. It glistened and gleamed in the early morning sunlight, with a few drops of dew still hanging between a few threads. The spider set itself directly in the middle and waited for the spoils of the day. It waited for a long time before a few small flies had become stuck in its web. The spider was ready to feast upon its morning meal when suddenly the door opened. A little boy and girl were just about to step outside and into the web when they immediately noticed a magnificently large web spanning the entire doorway, with a beautifully coloured spider as large as their mouths, now open wide and screaming into the daylight. Their mother hastily swatted away the morning art, and the spider scurried away into the nearby flower bed.

Flying Spiders

Most spiders don't have wings.¹ But there are "flying" spiders.^1.5 For some reason, my mum was pointing out some spider next to the side door earlier, saying something like, "Oh, that spider's flying about."²

I was wondering what one would look like. I mean a spider with wings.



Yeah that's not what I expected.

¹In fact, as far as we know, all spiders don't have wings.
^1.5See: Ballooning Spider.
²In fact, it's not an exact translation. I don't know my chinese too well.

It Must be Hard

She drove her date in her precious new sports car to the fabulous seaside resort inn, where they had dined on the finest seafood entrées and top quality wines. While they were nibbling away at their desserts, he took out a small box and knelt down on one knee. The restaurant patrons all watched intently as her eyes widened at his actions. He opened the ring case; her face fell quickly. She angrily stood up, took the glass that held the dessert wine and threw the contents at his face. The entire restaurant was abuzz with astonishment, while the man still holding the box held a look of stunned amusement. She quickly gathered her purse and belongings, and stormed out of the restaurant all the while screaming insults at him. When the mess had died down, a waiter helped the man clean his face and asked if things were alright. He shrugged and laughed heartily. The waiter puzzledly asked what had happened. The man opened the box and showed the waiter. Inside was neither a ring nor jewelry, but a small picture of the woman amourously entwined in the arms of another man. After the patrons had all left, the waiter said to the busboy, "It must be hard to be so beautiful."

Strawberries

She had diligently tended her balcony strawberry plants for many weeks, waiting for the first berries to appear. Finally, in early July after the plant reluctantly flowered and started showing its fruit, she could see that there would not be many berries to speak of. Thus started the heavy fertilizing schedule, until the few berries grew into large uneven blobs. Then one morning, she intended to harvest the ripened fruit when to her horror she saw that all her plants had all been picked clean. She gloomily lamented her loss, but told herself that perhaps they had been put to better use by nature.

Strawberries, Part 2

A restless and lonely boy would often wander through the halls of his apartment complex, climbing the stairs and sliding down the banisters. Sometimes he would covertly climb around the neighbours' balconies, knowing fully well that he would be in deep trouble if he were caught. His guardian knew it was not an environment suited for such a boy, but leaving him with his parents was impossible at the moment. Early one morning, the boy stole out of his apartment and came across the balcony on the ground level teeming with strawberry plants. Temptation proved too strong, and his greedy hands plucked the strawberries one at a time until his face was stained red and his hands gripping the remains of the fruit. When he realized his grand folly, he ran back and his guardian found him at the doorstep brimming with tears. The boy could not verbalize his mistake, only admitting that he had pilfered them from an unknown source.

The next morning, she found a boy carrying a large basket of strawberries on her doorstep.

Urbanites

An ambitious young student spotted on the other side of the street a solitary old woman sitting at a bench in a busy area, while rushing down the street to attend his class. He also noticed a metal walker further in the distance, unoccupied and drifting even further away from the bench due to hurried bystanders. His immediate thought was that this walker could belong to the old woman, and due to unfortunate circumstances it had been pushed beyond her reach and now lay in the middle of the busy pedestrian traffic. His path was taking him in the opposite direction, and his mind wandered about the woman so much that he was now a whole city block away, but he hurriedly turned around and ran back to where the walker was located. It was in the hands of a waste disposal manager (garbageman) who was loading it into the truck, but the young man's shouts of attention had the walker back onto the street securely in his hands. He dashed through the crowds with the walker to the old woman still seated on the bench. She was asleep so he left the walker next to her, content in his actions, and hastily jogged away to school. When she woke up moments later, she noticed that her walker had been dented in several spots and cursed aloud young hooligans who thought pranking a tired old granny was amusing.

Bird in a Teacup

A chickadee in a tree during winter ate too many fermented berries from the tree, and fell into a teacup lying in a permanent setting on the patio table underneath the branches. The teacup, filled with snow and a layer of frozen water, was shaped just so that the chickadee was unable to fly out. The chickadee struggled to escape the teacup but was unable, due to its inebriate state, leading to many distressing bird calls. The calls attracted the local alley cat, who attempted to pounce on the chickadee; but just at the last moment, the chickadee tipped the cup and tumbled out of it, escaping to freedom. A prize-winning photographer snapped a shot of the scene and it became the picture of the year.