“A Behemoth Problem” • by Kimberly Ann Smiley

Brittany forced a smile at Behemoth. “Have you thought of any potential catchphrases?”

“I’m trying out a punchline.”

“A … punchline?”

“Yeah, I’ve been saying, ‘Behemoth smash!’ when I punch someone.”

“But—”

“And for my kickline, ‘It’s clobbering time!’” 

“Kickline?”

“I still need to think of a good deadline.”

Brittany sighed. “Captain Valor wants each hero to have a catchphrase. One original catchphrase.”

“But I want more lines!”

“How about we brainstorm catchphrases next meeting?”

Brand manager of a new superhero team had sounded like her dream job. Maybe her old boss would take her back if she groveled?

 

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Kimberly Ann Smiley was born and raised in California but now lives in Mississippi after an unexpected plot twist. She has several pieces of paper that claim she is a mechanical engineer and none that mention writing, but has decided not to let the practical decisions made in her youth define the rest of her life. Her stories have appeared both here on Stupefying Stories and in Daily Science Fiction and Sci-Fi Shorts.

Learn more at https://kasmiley.wordpress.com/

The Pete Wood Challenge is an informal ad hoc story-writing competition. Once a month Pete Wood spots writers the idea for a story, usually in the form of a phrase or a few key words, along with some restrictions on what can be submitted, usually in terms of length. Pete then collects the resulting entries, determines who has best met the challenge, and sends the winners over to Bruce Bethke, who arranges for them to be published on the Stupefying Stories web site.

You can find all the previous winners of the Pete Wood Challenge at this link.

This time the challenge was to write a flash fiction piece playing off key word: punchline.

More stories to come every day this week!