I wrote a drabble a day for the first two months of 2006. Here are the highlights:

Bill Punter in "The Harry Potter Rip-Off"

Bill Punter was miserable. Ever since his parents had died, he’d had to live with his crappy uncle and aunt. They were just the worst.

One day he discovered that he was a wizard, and that he got to attend a magical wizard school for wizards. But even there he was bullied by a guy named “Dragon Bad-guy,” from the school house that everyone knew was evil.

Bill Punter developed a plan, and one day, using knowledge he’d gained from the muggle world, Bill stabbed Todd to death. With a knife.

Well-Dressed Poultry

Imagine, for a second, that you’re a tailor and also an accountant. Also that the most important part of a sum of money is the “crux.”

As a tailor/accountant, your job is to look at your customer’s finances, and work out how they can pay for the suits you buy; particularly tuxedoes.

One day, you get a duck in. The duck wants to buy a tuxedo, and he also wants you to manage the important part of his finances.

Do you know what you’ve just done? You’ve just managed the crux of the duck’s tux bucks.

Words, Words, Words

There are only three things that are real. There’s birth, there’s death, and there’s words. Violence can be averted by words, wars can be started. Lives can be destroyed with nothing more than words, and countries can be rebuilt.

Music is nice, paintings are pretty, violence sometimes works, but nothing can create or destroy like words. When used correctly, they're the most effective form of seduction and persuasion.

Roger intently studied the dictionary. He knew that if he could simply work out the right order and combination, if he could control words, he could rule the world.

Cave

There was once a town which had shrunk until it was inside a cave. This cave had only one opening, and outside there were six parallel train-tracks, which were constantly in use.

There was no way of seeing outside the cave without the risk of death, and no-one outside the town knew it existed. The town lived on mushrooms and vitamin D deficiency, however some town-folk wanted more.

They attempted to leave the town, and were never by the remaining inhabitants again. Did they survive? Did they find a better life? The townspeople never found out.

Life: The Musical

“I have it!” cried Kimberly Kai, Tony award-winning musical writer. “I’ll write a musical about life itself!”

She sat down and began to compose. Kimberly wrote about her birth, her childhood, her teenage years, her young adult years, her first success, her Tony awards, her marriage, and everything of significance that had happened to her up until that point.

She then hit a brick wall; how should it finish?

Soon she had a brainwave: she penned the story of her suicide upon finishing writing the musical, and then immediately killed herself. The musical received mixed reviews.

Terrance the Viking Warrior's Website

One day Terrance the Terrible, famous Viking warrior, was going through his website’s referral logs when he found out that someone had found his site by googling “Terrance! I’m a spy, and I’m being held captive by bad guys. This is the only way I can contact you without anyone finding out, so it’s vitally important that you email me: spy@spynetwork.spy. Help me, Terrible Terrance, you’re my only hope! terrance viking warrior website terrible famous”

Terrance didn’t realise his website was read by spies; it really put a spring in his step that day!

Today, Class, We Die

“Okay class, let’s lift some weights!” cried Timmy Grifton, local gym-owner. He was proud of his gym, and he was proud of the class of weight-lifters he was teaching.

What he wasn’t proud of, however, was the fact that in roughly twenty minutes, he was going to kill all of them.

“Mr Thompson,” said Phillip, “I’m having trouble with this weight.” Timmy rushed over to help Phillip, despite the fact that in eighteen minutes, Phillip’s brains were going to be splattered all over the weights he was holding.

He wished there was another way.

Every day of September in 2007, I condensed a fairytale into 100 words. Here are the highlights:

Goldilocks

Once upon a time a golden-haired girl broke into a house to steal porridge.

The first two bowls she sampled were of unsatisfying temperatures, however the third was perfect.

She sat upon two chairs, but rejected them due to size. The third, correctly proportioned chair broke when she sat.

Finally, she tested three beds. While the first two were not up to her standards, the third was ideal and she quickly fell asleep.

The house-owners returned, and, being bears, ate her alive.

The moral: don't nap while breaking into houses, especially if they belong to anthropomorphic bears.

Cinderella

Once upon a time there was a man. He dies fairly early on in the story, so don’t get too attached.

After his wife died off-screen he got remarried, and after his death (warned you) his new bride and her daughters used his daughter as a servant.

They (quite reasonably), never suspected that her magical fairy godmother's gift of a glass slipper would result in her marrying a handsome prince. Why would you?

But their lack of preparation for impossible supernatural events was their undoing, and when a fairy did arrive Cindy lived happily ever after. Unlike them.

Little Red Riding Hood

Once upon a time a girl in red robes walked through the woods.

Rather than take the path that all knew was safe, she was all rebellious and took the “stupid” path.

This route brought her to a talking wolf (banned from the safe path) whom she informed of her destination.

When she got there, she was shocked to discover the wolf had devoured her grandmother. Fortunately, a deus ex lumberjack killed it.

Every non-wolf except her dead grandmother lived happily ever after, except in some versions where the grandmother inexplicably survives the whole ordeal.

The Princess and the Pea

Once upon a time, in a thinly veiled metaphor for virginity, a prince decided he could only marry a “real princess”.

A “real princess”, he decided, was one who could feel a pea through 100 mattresses.

That is a lot of mattresses.

So he sent an email to all the local kingdoms, and supposed “princesses” started arriving by the dozen.

None of them, however, were “real princesses” by his arbitrary and ridiculous standard.

Eventually, just as he was giving up hope, a “real" princess appeared. He presumably deflowered her, and they lived “happily ever after”.

Rumpelstiltskin

Once upon a time, a miller stupidly told the king that he had a magic daughter. Stupidly, the king believed him.

The daughter wasn’t magic, but with some dwarven help, managed to fool the king. Stupidly, the daughter promised the dwarf her firstborn child, then even more stupidly, refused to follow through after giving birth.

The dwarf agreed that if she guessed his name, he would leave. Stupidly, the dwarf spent most of his time singing his name loudly and publicly, so they quickly worked out what it was. Somehow, all these idiots managed to live happily ever after.