Huh! Stupid alarm clock! Your dreams of sailing down a river of jam on a giant panda are interrupted - as usual - by the braying voice of "Mickey Mickson and his Funky Breakfast Shindig" on Radio 6. As you repeatedly try and fail to smack the top of your clock radio you glance at the red numbers below. It's 7:30. Since you don't have to be out of the house until 8:00, you decide to go back to sleep. With one final swipe you happen to land your fist on the snooze button, roll over and fall asleep again instantly.
You wake up again at noon.
Running for the bus, you pass a shop you'd never noticed before. The sign - which looks surprisingly weathered - reads "Fiona's Fruite Ande Vege" and a withered old lady sits inside knitting.
More than a little curious (not to mention pretty sure you've fired by now anyway) you go inside. The lady smiles sweetly and leaves you to browse her stock.
After finding no sweets, computer games or motorbikes in the shop you decide to leave... but your conscience gets the better of you and, rather than leaving empty handed, you buy the cheapest thing you can find. A tomato, for your lunch... or failing that, to throw at your boss when he gives you the bad news.
As you walk down the street you playfully throw the tomato from hand to hand, for the next half-mile or so at least. It's only when startled by a cat running out in front of you that you accidentally throw the tomato up into the air and fall backwards onto your rear, to the badly-hidden chuckles of the few people to whom you were visible.
The tomato, however, rather than slamming onto the ground and going "squesh" - that's "squesh" - instead drifts slowly towards the pavement and hovers, about a foot from the dirt, as if to make sure that you're alright. As you change from glancing to staring at the floating fruit it suddenly falls the final few inches onto the ground and lies there motionless. Not quite sure whether you just saw what you think you saw, you contemplate your next move.
You decide to take the tomato to Bran Krug, a doctor of floating salad items.
Enter The Bran
"Brian! Brian! Get out here!"
Bran Krug tugs at his door a few times, finally convincing it to let go of its grip on the the 17th layer of paint around its Victorian frame. "Trevor, welcome to my humble abode! It's been a while since I've seen you, my good friend... please, please, come in and take a load off," he implies by grunting and slamming the door in your face. Then again, you never were too good at reading other people.
"Brian, I've got something here you might find interesting," you shout through the letterbox. "It's a tomato, and it can float!"
Bran reappears, opening the door slightly more and grunting slightly less. "A floating tomato?" he repeats. "Why, I haven't seen one of those for years. Are we talking simple inanimate weightlessness or full-blown cognitive multi-directional manouverability?"
"Yep," you reply, sure that you understood the question. Bran doesn't seem to agree.
"Care to demonstrate?"
You see no harm in showing off your new party trick and take your hands out from behind your back, where you'd been hiding the tomato until this point. You hold it between your thumb and forefinger and make eye contact with Bran. He looks on with a mixture of trepidation and amazement. However, when you release the tomato, it neither smashes onto the gravel nor stops a matter of inches above it as before. Instead, with a barely audible swoosh, it nips in through Bran's open door and vanishes.
"We can't let it get away!" Bran calls, already pounding back inside after the tomato and leaving the door wide open. You wander in after him and find him barely 10 steps away, panting slightly and wondering which wing of his huge house to check first.
You decide to suggest splitting up to track it down.
The Splits
You suggest that Bran tries the east wing of his huge, intimidating house while you try the west wing. Vowing to either meet up in half an hour or avenge the other's death, you go your ways, keeping an eye out for floating tomatoes and an ear out for floating tomato noises.
It's not long before you stumble into Bran's library. In it your find countless books on the subject of floating tomatoes, all with one common theme - hauntings. "Ah-ha!" you say alound, "my tomato's haunted!"
"Well done," says the tomato, emerging from behind a shelf unit. "I figured you'd take a peek in here, so I waited for you."
You stand there, having a conversation with the tomato, for a full 10 minutes during which time you cover possession of inanimate objects by good and evil spirits, the connection between anti-gravity and the undead and why the hell people put tomatoes in salads when they clearly make better homes for ghosts. The last of these topics was not your suggestion.
"So you're not actually a tomato - you're a ghost in a tomato?" you realise. The entire tomato rotates forwards and backwards like a disembodied head nodding. "In that case, who are you? Or should that be who were you?"
"I was a puppy," says the tomato. "A cute, lovable puppy."
"And why did you choose to haunt a tomato?" you ask.
"Follow me," the tomato instructs, "and I'll show you..." and with that it vanishes through a side door before you have a chance to reply.
You decide to stay and read up on the subject some more.
Arrrgh!!!!
Suddenly the tomato yells
"you did not follow me!!!!!"
You decide to Say "im sorry".
Ok
Im sorry i got mad.You say.
"oh its ok says the tomato."
"NOW FOLLOW ME!!!!!!"
You decide to Follow the tomato.
The Cherry Dimension
You follow the haunted tomato through a portal that the tomato created. You are sucked into a time warp tunnel and you are getting dizzy from the warping. You finally land in a street somewhere in Italy.
The scene you are looking at looks like some sort of massacre. You see squashed tomato all over the road, the buildings, all over the place. "Devastating isn't it", muttered the tomato. "What happened here?",you ask. "Have you heard of the famous tomato throwing festival held in this town?", queried the haunted fruit. "I..I think so", you reply. "Yesterday, I was here. Yesterday, I was alive, a man named Franco, I was. I came here to take part in the tomato festival where the people throw tonnes and tonnes of tomatoes." "Go on", you say eagerly. "I was throwing my lot of tomatoes when out of nowhere, SPLAAAAATTTT, a tomato hits me fair and square in my temple. I blacked out and next thing you know, I'm stuck inside this tomato, I am stuck haunting this darn tomato!", the tomato trembles as he finishes telling you about what happened.
"Will you help me find a way to occupy a human body again", the tomato pleads, hovering in front of your face.
You decide to help the tomato please write your own page.
La Natica Scura
"But didn't you say you were a cute little puppy dog before?", you ask.
"I lied."
"Oh."
You scratch your armpit lazily as you think it over. Clearly this was the work of some crazed Italian voodoo witchdoctor. Did you really want to get mixed up in such goings on? What could somebody like you realisticly hope to do for the poor thing. And wasn't there after all some kind of poetic justice in Franco's plight? You wouldn't catch YOU blattering tomatoes all over town like that...
But no, you couldn't just leave the lad trapped in there. That just wasn't the done thing. This was a time for brave and selfless sacrafice. For noble laying on the line of your mortal soul. You WERE going to pit yourself against the forces of darkness to save this man. No two ways about it.
"I'll do it!", you cry with your fist poised heroicly. "By gosh, I'll help de-possess you".
Franko hovers quietly for a moment. A ball of tumbleweed drifts by.
"...so I will", you continue. Less certainly now. "Hello?". You rap gently on the stalk to get his attention. "You in there, bud?"
The tomato whizzes up to your ear and whispers fearfully, "Ssssssh! Can't you hear, you imbecile? He's comming..."
"Who?"
"HIM!"
You strain your ears to the limit and can 'just' make out a dull thumping sound. Heavy and echoing. *thump* *Thump* *THUMP* growing closer by the second!
"Who?", you ask again.
"La Natica Scura!", hisses Franco. "The most evil and hideous magician in Italy. We must go!"
"But maybe he can help you!", you say. "If he's so powerful then perhaps he can..."
You notice the tomato seems to be blushing.
"What did you do?", you ask patiently.
"It wasn't my fault!", wails the little vegetable. "We were all chucking them about. How was I to know he was going to come walking round the corner at that moment?"
"You splatted him?"
*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* And suddenly there he is! What at first glance appeared to be a mountain now reveals itself to be in fact, a HUGE man. A man who had evidently been at the front of the queue when they were handing out muscles. About ten feet tall and dressed in black from head to foot. Cape billowing in the wind. Mad glowing red eyes shining out from atop his long black beard.
"FRANCO!", screams Natica. His voice booming angrily out across the land. "YOU DARE TO RETURN!"
You decide to try to discuss the situation like gentlemen.
The "negotiator"
You try to discuss the dispute
calmly and peacefully.......and sure
enough, in five minutes both of you are turned into
chickens. The twisted wizard fixes a dangerous smile on you."Glad
that new spell workes",he says."I like my chicken fresh!"
THE END
How about another random story?