Trying to write a story for the Mighty Kat...

A story on demand, an interesting concept, like a free pizza that materializes out of the sky whenever you're hungry, but with plot instead of dough and probably twice as saucy. I work for hours in my hot ovens but I'm at a loss for crumbs even. And she wants a story not a crummy metaphor.

She wants a story with no people, and I only write stories about bizarre people named Moses Drecksnider or Ethan Pelletier the Very Silly Man or Jenkins Tomaso Burnbranch or El Santos the Mexican Vampire.

Here's a stab at a story with no people:

The wind was tired and still. The sun was asleep on the far side of the moon. The ocean was known for its dry sense of irony. And the newborn mountains had horrendous acne.. It was a world with no people but plenty of potential for conflict...

Unless you anthropomorphize the wind, and make it a person, how do you get a story? That takes more skill than a cupcake man possesses.

Or how bout this, about pickles (a reliable topic):

A squad of pickles thrust themselves forward from a jar. It was the Pickle Derby, the morning before the big race to be precise, and the kitchen was in the late preparation stages...

No that's no good. Still too humanish. Scores points for being about pickles, but pickle parodies tend to scare up protest from the cucumberphobes and I got enough hassles than to cater to patch-vegetable lobbyists from rural postal codes, no shit.

A verb acted. Very adverbially, almost adjectival until it became a noun. The prepositions had been there before, but conjunctions and the definite article. ! Interjected the full stop. Any questions?

Shockingly direct, but not enough sex. I think my dear grammarmother would like it.

Erp, I'm dry. As Yoda said when he worked in Starbucks and they ran out of fancy tea: Boo, or boo not - there is no chai. But I swear Kat I'm not just chaiing.