30 lines for my 30th year!

Today is my birthday!! Woooo! “Growing up” is lame and I refuse to do it, but birthdays are awesome. To celebrate turning the big three-oh, I decided to write 30 one-line stories. Because… challenge? Novelty? Masochism?? It was a lot harder than expected. But also fun. Some are silly and some are serious. Some have only a few words and some make abundant use of commas. I hereby present: Noel’s Thirty for Thirty~

1
The knight reluctantly agreed to slay the dragon for the princess’s hand in marriage, but upon seeing its ferocity, he turned back, deciding it wasn’t worth the risk when he preferred princes anyway.

2
“Not until you say you’re sorry,” the first scientist said to the second, his finger poised over the teleportation button as the T-Rex charged toward them.

3
Sarah found the tiny fairy wings snagged on the thorns of a rose, and though they were too small to carry her human-sized form, she liked to place them on her shoulders anyway, and dream of stranger skies.

4
It didn’t bother Glen when the real estate agent said the house was haunted, because he was lonesome and could use the company.

5
Danny didn’t like the monster hiding in his closet — not because it was scary, but because it kept trying on his shirts and stretching them out.

6
Margo could turn water other colors — shimmering hues of violet and emerald and gold — but she knew she could never show anyone, so she simply felt the colors in her mouth with every drink, hidden behind her lips with the rest of her secrets.

7
Charles felt his memories slipping from him, and he searched for them like searching a dark room, banging his shins into edges and corners, until one day he walked into that room of his mind and forgot what he’d gone in there for.

8
The jigsaw pieces, now perfectly fitted with their mates, cried out in heartbreak when the child smashed the puzzle back into a jumble.

9
With her vision hampered by the midnight dark, Laurel stepped cautiously over the shadowy mass of her dog on the way back from the bathroom, but upon crawling into bed, she felt the dog’s telltale fur against her side, and she knew one or the other was not her Fluffy.

10
One day the stars fell to earth in a sparkling rainstorm, settling upon the grass like dew, and from then on, no one feared the night.

11
I told him my secret, and he loved me more.

12
Ingrid tolerated her husband’s growing interest in puppets, but when she woke to find him threading a delicate string around her wrist, that was the last straw.

13
Zero tried to inform the other numbers that it resented being told it wasn’t a number like them, to which they callously replied, “You mean nothing to us.”

14
The young wizard was always mocked for not being able to grow a long, awesome, wizardy beard like the other wizards, but he had a plan for teaching them not to mess with Valerio the Hairless, ohh yes he did…

15
As Eric looked at her for the last time, Hazel suddenly understood why they call it a ribcage, for her heart was too wild, loved too ferociously, and needed to be locked up.

16
The painter created an artwork so beautiful, so happy, so inviting, that he decided to paint himself inside it and live there instead.

17
There once was a writer who tasked herself with writing 30 one-line stories, but she started running out of steam around #17, so she disappeared into the sea and became a fish instead, THE END.

18
There once was a writer who was just kidding, OF COURSE she’ll finish, sheesh.

19
Old Mother Hubbard lived in a cupboard because have you SEEN rent prices these days??

20
When the rubber duckies revolted, no one was too bothered by it because bath toys can’t get very far without legs.

21
When the maid found the dead body in room 305, she didn’t gasp, or scream, or run away; she only sighed and thought, “They couldn’t kill him a cleaner way?”

22
First Chloe was a sailor of seas, then a delver of caves, followed by a magician, a thief, and at last a great queen, before she closed the book and wondered what she’d be next.

23
In the pitch black cell, with their tongues stolen, the prisoners spoke finger-shapes into each other’s hands as they planned and planned, and after years of practicing silence so well, no guards heard a peep when they made their escape.

24
There once was a society that forbade touch, driving its desperate people to brothels where they slipped their hands behind curtains, reaching into the dark to hold other hands as lonely as theirs.

25
The ladybug longed for an adventure, but his wings were broken, so he caught the fluff of a dandelion seed and rode the breeze past all sorts of amazing sights — a pine cone, a crumpled soda can, a playground slide — which might seem like nothing to a human, but to a ladybug were marvelous.

26
He really thought it would be different this time.

27
When winter left, so did she.

28
It would be difficult, she knew, but it would be worth it.

29
One day the alphabet went rogue and decided to make up words for a better world, because if people had more words to describe it, perhaps they could live it.

30
When Noel was a young girl, she had so many daydreams they filled her head like fireflies in a jar, so full that she had to write stories just to give the fireflies other jars to glow in.

Voila! Even at the “grown-up” age of 30, I vow to always keep my fireflies. I hope you do too. ❤

~ Noel

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