This post is the result of a writing game I am playing with my writing partner, Juliana Marquis (the link to Julie’s is right below the story). The rules are simple. All writers involved are given a main topic (i.e., grenade) and three other words (i.e., gay man, robot, strawberry pie) that are part of the story. The story’s length is a minimum of 1,000 words. Have fun reading this and remember, it’s just a writing game.

A Grenade, Gay Man, Robot, and Strawberry Pie

This image has been happily generated using AI

Hello. This is a story about a man who has found himself in a very difficult situation. It happened very quickly on a rather rainy day in March, and before he knew it, he was in a life altering situation. He had to think quickly.

That man was me. My name is Harold Lopchick, and I am a purchasing agent for a lingerie and bathing suit company. Our products are designed for very sensual older women and older men who are interested in wearing these beautiful designs; we do not ignore any marketplace that is interested in our luxury, high end, products.

The situation I found myself in on that rainy day was unusual because I’m not really an outdoorsman. In fact, I tend to cocoon myself in my office studying financial charts on cost and looking for less expensive ways to manufacture the fine materials we offer to our marketplace. As a gay man (and a proud one at that), I am never afraid to express myself in whatever professional means that I see fit. So, when I went for a walk on a very rainy day with temperatures in the mid-40s, I had no idea what was coming.

So, here’s what happened. I was depressed and stressed and needed to talk a long walk. I walked into a large forest behind our shop and kind of lost myself in deep thought. I found an interesting trail with heavy thickets and bushes on either side, and followed it for quite a while. As I turned the corner I came face to face with a robot. To say I was surprised is the understatement of the day.

The robot immediately saw me and stretched his metallic arm out to say stop. In all my excitement and surprise, I of course did what he asked me to do and stopped walking immediately. I felt my heart going faster and my blood pressure rising. Now, as a man in my late 40s, I’m in relatively decent shape. I’m just not accustomed to a fight or flight scenario. My breathing became heavier and fear started entering my imagination, because I have never been stopped by a robot in the middle of nowhere before. What does one do?

Since I was frozen with fear I did not move. The robot put his finger to what seemed like his lips and motioned me to be quiet. He then pointed to the ground where a wire was stretched across the path. The robot was not able to speak, but I understood his meaning, and I looked behind me. I noticed another wire I must have stepped over and thankfully missed. He then pointed to my right, where a device hung from a branch; it was connected to both wires on the path I was walking on. I immediately recognized the device as a grenade.

This of course placed me in a panic since I could not move forward nor could I move back. I was at the behest of a robot whom I never met before who could not speak. But just as I thought I could escape by stepping over the wire behind me, someone tapped me on the shoulder.

Since I couldn’t turn my body completely around without tripping the wire behind me, I turned my head and saw a beautiful woman scantily clothed in a white bathing suit (my company’s bathing suit line as a matter of fact), and I said hi. She was holding what looked like a pie, so I told her to please be careful. I asked, “Who are you?” She answered, “My job is to capture people to force them to taste our strawberry pies.”

It was then that things really got strange. I had to take another deep breath to understand in my own mind what I needed to do. So, I took inventory of my situation. I’m a gay man walking on a deserted path in the middle of nowhere just minding my own business. I had stepped over a wire without realizing it that was connected to a grenade and I was about to trip on a wire in front of me, but a robot came out of nowhere and told me to stop. As I’m urinating in my pants because I can’t control my bladder (I’m not exactly Rambo), I have someone tap me on my shoulder who is dressed in my company’s white bathing suit holding a strawberry pie. I am apparently the victim of a group of individuals who have found this to be the only way to force people to sample their strawberry pie. Is the grenade real, I wondered?

The lady in the white bathing suit behind me asked, “Excuse me, sir, would you like a taste of our strawberry pie?”

My eyes widened because I felt as if I was in a twilight zone episode, but I know I wasn’t. I was in my own weird mindfuck which made me wonder if I had been eating too much granola. But she approached me very close to the wire and handed me the pie. This seemed real. There were no utensils to make it civil and no plate for me to hold on to, so I held on to the entire pie and wasn’t sure what to do.

I looked at the robot for some reason thinking he or she (what are their pronouns I wondered) may give me advice. All he did was look at me with those gray metallic eyes and point to the strawberry pie. I turned my head once again to look for the woman in the white bathing suit (which I was incredibly proud of since I designed it a few years ago) but she was gone. I decided to eat the pie because I had no idea what else to do. I ask you (hopefully you can understand my situation and are not a smug or judgmental reader), what would you have done in my position? I don’t think you really know either, do you? So, I ate the pie because the robot kept pointing at it. I have never eaten an entire pie under duress before so that was all by itself an experience. It tasted delicious.

It was at that point, I heard a knock. The president of the company opened the door and told me he wanted to introduce me to the new Vice President of production. I was a bit embarrassed because I must have fallen asleep at my desk. This was not at all surprising since I worked non-stop. No wonder I’m always exhausted. He introduced a woman named Marylyn Robo. She looked so familiar. She stepped into my office wearing a beautiful dress and as she extended her hand, she placed a strawberry pie on my desk.

You can imagine my confusion as this transpired. My boss looked at me in a strange way and asked, “Hey Harold, are you OK?’ I answered, yes, I’m doing fine and Marylyn, welcome to the company.

They left my office and I decided to get up and go home. It had been a long day and I knew I had experienced something strange. I came out from behind my desk and looked down for a moment and saw a wire stretching across my office from one end to the other attached to a grenade. I have no idea what happened after that and so I really can’t tell you.

The moral to this story is don’t go walking on lonely paths when you’re stressed because robots and a beautiful woman in a bathing suit may be plotting your demise if you don’t eat her strawberry pie.

The end.

This post is the result of a writing game I am playing with my writing partner, Juliana Marquis (the link to Julie’s is right below the story). The rules are simple. All writers involved are given a main topic (i.e., grenade) and three other words (i.e., gay man, robot, strawberry pie) that are part of the story. The story’s length is a minimum of 1,000 words. Have fun reading this and remember, it’s just a writing game.

Juliana’s link for her story is right here.