For The Want Of A Cabaret Voltaire T-Shirt

On a black t-shirt. It was a look. You had to be there.

For the want of a Cabaret Voltaire shirt, the look was lost...

He couldn't find the t-shirt he needed. The girl he'd met that afternoon in the student union loved Cabaret Voltaire. It was their connection. It was his "in." He said he'd wear it to that bar that doesn't check IDs very well. She said she looked forward to seeing it - and him. He couldn't find it. Who took it? He cursed his roommates and their ancestors, and successors and assigns. He settled for a WHFS sweatshirt. It was not up to the task, and he looked like he was only at the bar to kill some time before pumpkin picking. She was not impressed. All of her energy went elsewhere - anywhere else but to him.

For the want of a look, the evening was lost...

He tried to recover. He had memorized some Cabaret Voltaire lyrics. He tried discussing The Cure. He tried bringing Pop Will Eat Itself into the mix. He tried too hard. The evening was lost. She was lost.

For the want of an evening, the courtship was lost...

Had he been given the chance, he would have endeared himself to her instantly, and they would have uncovered acres and acres of common ground. Dates would follow. He would inspire and encourage her to change majors and follow her dreams, which she would do to spectacular effect. She would give him the little push he needed to do the same, as a singer-songwriter-poet. 

For the want of a courtship, the marriage was lost...

Had dates been allowed to follow the evening, they would have married and loved and procreated and changed the world for the better. Instead, she became an accountant. He went on to a career in temping and retail (which would be fine if that's what either of them liked, but it wasn't).

For the want of a marriage, the prodigy was lost...

Their second-born child would have been a strange little STEM sorceress, and her adoration of numbers and science and the beautiful, simple complexities of cause and effect would have led to scholarships and grants and Cambridge and a Nobel prize in physics. She'd endure endless, terribly personal and vile assaults from the right wing media with aplomb, and eventually - after a few decades - even they would quietly, grudgingly admit that her equations and mitigation strategies were instrumental in turning the tide against global climate change - and had ushered in an epoch of unparalleled peace and prosperity.

For the want of a prodigy, humanity was lost...

"You all know how this ends," he bellowed at his rommates' closed bedroom doors, "Where's my damn Cabaret Voltaire t-shirt? I need it!" 

If Your House Is Afire -or- I Loved "The Money Pit"

Mr. Goren nearly tore the door from its frame as he exploded into the office.  "Assistant Headmistress!  Assistant Headmistress!"

"Albert, how many times do I have to remind you," Mrs. Tyson sighed, "my title is Vice-Principal, and you should just go ahead and call me Anne, like everyone else does."

"Sorry, Ma'am - I mean, Anne.  Old habits from home, I suppose.  And I apologize for bursting in like this, but the school is on fire!"

"On fire?  Where?  Why isn't the alarm going off?"

"Not sure about the alarm, Ma'am, but I smelled smoke in my room, and when I went into the hall, several teachers told me they could see smoke coming from the old wing."

Anne Tyson sprang from her faux leather Vice-Principal's chair. "Pull the alarm manually, and evacuate the school!  Do it now!"

"Hold on a second, Anne," Mr. Walker said, striding into the office with his gut sucked in as far as it would go. "If we evacuate the kids in the middle of final exams, every test will be voided, and they'll have to start over - and that means a day will have to be added to the academic calendar."

Mrs. Tyson blinked at Walker impatiently.  "And?"

"And, and that will be expensive - and mess with everyone's summer holiday plans."

Miss Saguin, Mr. Williams, and Mrs. Nigh burst through the office door.  "The school's on fire!" they chorused.

"It's not on fire," Walker insisted. "Mr. Williams just wants to buy an extra day of exam prep for his slow kids. Besides, if there was a fire, it would have set off the alarm."

Ms. Maher entered the room. "I think the school's on fire," she declared calmly. "I saw smoke - a lot of it - coming from the old wing. We need to evacuate the children."

"The old wing," Mrs. O'Really scoffed as she joined the group, "that figures. I guarantee you - this fire was set by that wretched Jimmy Humanus. That kid's a damn pyromaniac."

"It's definitely a fire," confirmed Mr. Cooper, following O'Really into the office, "I saw the smoke, and I'm pretty sure I saw flames coming from the art rooms - but there's no way that the Humanus boy started it.  My money's on the crumbling ancient wiring in this old tinderbox."

"That's stupid," sneered Miss Saguin. "The afternoon sun heats those old wing rooms so dramatically in the spring.  I'll bet it was enough to ignite all that paint and turpentine, on its own.  Natural causes, all the way."

"No way - it was Jimmy Humanus, hands-down."

"It's not even a fire, guys.  I didn't see a bit of smoke," Mr. Walker said, rolling his eyes. "You guys need to stop babbling like it's the end of the world."

More teachers entered, and several called in on their room-to-room intercoms.  All of them reported smoke, or fire, or both.

Mrs. Tyson smacked her desk with both hands.  "Hush! If the school is on fire--"

"It's not," Mr. Walker sniffed.

"If it is - if there's a chance that there's even the smallest fire - then we get everyone out, period.  We can argue about whose fault it is, or how much it cost us, or whether there ever was a danger - after the kids are out.  Go! Now!"

That argument never happened. 

White Chapel, VA - Photo by Joseph Scott

This week, I combined two writing prompts. My friends at Studio30Plus wanted some BABBLE, while the Light & Shade Challenge gang wanted an EXTENDED METAPHOR.  The babbling was easy, but I'm not sure how this stacks up as an extended metaphor.  Hopefully, it works.  Thanks for reading!

Doctors Make The Worst Patients

"Professor, I think that the question is no longer 'Why is this happening?'  We - well, not the dead ones, who inhabited the coastal zones of 2014 - We think that the better question now is, 'What can we as a species do now, and going forward, to fix this?'"

The preceding 50 words were prompted by a writing challenge posed by a fellow blogger on CHAOTICALLY YOURS, HERE.  I never realized how little room there is in fifty words.