Dark Little Stories

Big Gulp

2011-07-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

I've never forgotten you. I promise...

One hundred and three. Degrees. Hot is an understatement. Texas summers.
Some people like the heat. I do not. I prefer the cold. Bundled up. Layered.
In the summer, I feel... exposed. Vulnerable. Naked. Sweating. Stinking. Horrible. Like a pig walking down the street.
People smile as they pass one another. Smiling pigs. Meat sizzling in the sun. Bacon in a frying pan.
I'm a vegetarian. A lot of butchers are.

We've evolved past the point of eating meat, but people still do it. For taste.
I'm irritable. You know the heat makes you irritable? It's true. Most people know it, even if they don't know it. Most crimes are committed in the summer, on the night of a full moon, against family.
Facts sometimes reveal a lot more than we'd like them to.

A bum. A fucking bum is asking me for money? Can you believe that?! A fucking! A fucking BUM!

I love the little stores in this town. I always know where to go to get what I need. I like knowing that. It makes me feel like the whole town is my home. It's not, but it's nice to feel that way.
I guess it's kind of a second home. Except I don't really have a first home any more. I move too much. But I always come here at least for a few weeks. I. I actually don't know why.

You know what it is? It's the humidity. It's not the heat. It's that the shade doesn't do any good. Isn't that funny?! How can shade not do any good?!

There's a girl here. She reminds me of you. Her eyes. Something. If only she would smile. But she never smiles at me. She smiles at other people, sure! Other jackasses with chiseled chins and fucking polo shirts. Dime-a-dozen cheap fucks! But she never smiles at me. I hate her. HATE.
She gets off work around 11, when the coffee store closes. Shitty chain coffee. Fucking horrible coffee! Then she gets into her beat up red Jeep Cherokee. Fucking college car if I ever saw one. But she doesn't go to college. She goes straight home to her shitty little apartment with her cat and her television.
She could really make something out of herself, you know? But she doesn't. She just wastes her life. Her LIFE! She's wasting the most precious. Her LIFE, you know?! Just staring at that television every night. And during the day. Daytime television. The worst. The WORST kind of television. Fake judges. Fake talk shows where people have fake problems. Stupid reruns of silly pointless comedies from the seventies. Gilligan's Island. That kind of shit. Beverly Hillbillies. “Concrete pond.”

I'm sorry. I don't mean that you would have turned out like that. I can see how you would take that the wrong way. No, I'm sorry. You're much better than. You would have been much better than that. I'm sure of it.

I miss you.

I wonder how long she's lived here. No family. No boyfriend. Barely a job. BARELY. If you can call it that. I don't even see how she eats. Frozen microwave dinners! Can you believe it?! Like that's enough for someone to live on. Like that doesn't rot you from the inside out. But even then, how does she afford all of this? Even with the tiny apartment and the bad food, she can't be making enough to live by herself. I know she isn't. I read her pay stubs to be sure, and I'll be damned if I wasn't right. She's not making ends meet by about three hundred a month. Where does that come from?
She isn't fucking her landlord.
So where's it coming from?

Like you have all the answers. I bet that's what you'd say. If you were here right now.
I made banana bread this morning. I know how much you.

You know, sometimes, I wonder what you'd say. I mean, what you'd really say if you were here right now. Would you say what I think you would, or would it be different? Would you be different from how I picture you? I don't like to think about it, really.

You know the key to a good cut? Let the knife do the work. Don't force it. It's a trick I learned early on. By practicing. Just go back and forth with the knife and let the blade do its job. Saw it gently. Don't try to cut down with force. That's the easiest way to fuck it up. Just be gentle. Back and forth. Keep your knife sharp. When you get to the bone, use a saw. Don't fuck up your knife by slamming it on the bone like a hammer. Use a saw. Just as gently. Back and forth.

I like to think that I make the prettiest cuts of meat. The ones that are really red, you know? Beautiful to look at. Vibrant. Even though I don't eat them, I'm sure they taste better that way. You can just tell, you know?

It's because when you press down, you squeeze out all the blood. All the colour. The very thing that makes a cut look beautiful. You're ruining it when you do that.

Are you a vegetarian? Would you be, I mean?

This girl.
Karen.
I'm sorry. I should have said her name earlier when I introduced you to her. Karen isn't a vegetarian, but you know what? I think it's because she doesn't know she has options. She doesn't take the time to do her research. Her homework. Beans and rice are cheap. And they're good for you. But you have to eat both or it isn't a complete protein. The rice contains necessary amino acids. Building blocks that make proteins. That's why they're always paired together. Even if people don't know, their bodies know. Their bodies are smarter than they are.

Karen's a fucking idiot. A waste of a human being. She doesn't smile at the right people.

I'm getting tired of seeing waste. People all around me. Just walking pieces of garbage. Like a Big Gulp cup that's been flattened by a tire. It just sits there. Broken. Not a cup anymore. It can't hold anything or do anything but take up space. Pollute. It can fucking run its mouth though. Still. Lying there. Not doing anything. But every time you see it, it says the same fucking thing over and over again. “Big Gulp!”
Like you didn't fucking get it the first time.
And you just want to fucking. You just want to smash its face in. Until it can't say anything. Put it into a landfill with all the other garbage that walks down the street.

Where did all the intelligence go? There's more creativity than ever, but there's no intelligence behind it. There's no sense of purpose. It's just spew and spew and spew. And who cares? Spew doesn't change the world. Intelligence. Now that. That's something. We need more of it. We need to promote it.

I think psychiatrists do a lot of the. A lot of the fucking up. In that department. They don't promote intelligence. They promote garbage. But it's not their fault, you know? They're just trying to get people to not kill themselves. That's what we've been reduced to. People hate everything so much. They're surrounded by garbage. They ARE garbage. And they know it. They know they should just kill themselves. Make room for intelligence, which they don't have. So they go to a psychiatrist. And the psychiatrist convinces them that even though they're garbage, it's ok. Everything is ok. And they don't have to be intelligent. They don't have to be more than garbage. They just have to not kill themselves and that's enough.
THAT'S enough?!
That's our status quo?!
Just get by from day to day. Don't aspire beyond your means. Don't reach for the stars because you know, deep down, that you won't get them. You'll get in the way of someone who's really smart. Who's really intelligent.

But you know what happens? This garbage. This Big Gulp ends up working day in and day out at a company they don't give two shits about. And because time is the great equalizer, they get promoted. For doing nothing. For not quitting! For not dying! For not killing themselves!
They get promoted. And their brain doesn't know what to do with it. Suddenly people are telling them that they aren't garbage. And because. Not in spite of, BECAUSE, deep down they know they're a fucking Big Gulp, they have to believe this new information. They have to compensate for that feeling. They've always wanted to be important and now they are! They're somebody! They have money and they make decisions!

But you know what? They're still a fuck-up. They're still worthless. And their decisions.
Here's how their decisions work.
Someone intelligent has an idea. A great idea. Something revolutionary. And they bring it to this Big Gulp. And the Big Gulp knows how great it is! That's the thing! They fucking KNOW. And they shoot it down. Because it's terrifying. It's a reminder of the truth. And not only that, but they have to put on a big show about what a terrible idea it is. They berate the intelligence. They come up with BAD reasons. Really bad, you know? And people around know how bad the reasons are! They also know how GOOD the idea is! Because they're garbage too. They're terrified too!
And. The intelligence dies. It happens every day.

And you get these people. These smiling pigs. These Big Gulps. Walking down the street and smiling at each other. They'd fucking doff their fucking hats at each other, but no one does that with baseball caps.

And Karen sits in her apartment and watches television. Because she was shot down. Someone told her her intelligence was stupid. Was wrong. And she has nothing now.

I want her to fight. I hate her because she won't. I hate that she's given up like some kind of coward. Like the guy in the war that just lays his rifle down and gets riddled with bullets because he's had it.
She's already dead, so it really won't matter when I.

Jesus, it's fucking hot outside. Waiting in the heat. For the perfect moment. It's hard to be patient in heat like this, but I will be. I have to be.

I miss you. So much. Do you know that? You wouldn't give up. You wouldn't lie down. You'd fight. Like me. You'd try to fix things. You'd get rid of the garbage.
Wouldn't you?

Vomit

2010-02-15T11:44:00.000-08:00

Nothing comes out. Vomit. Relief. Nothing comes out. Dry heave. Nothing comes out. Vomit. Relief. Taste. Michelle walks shakily to the sink. Hunched. Rinse. Water. Less taste. Doorknock.
“I'm fine. I just need a minute.”
Mouthwipe. Handtowel. Michelle checks her hair in the mirror. Disheveled. Stressed. Strained. Teased. Made fun of. She picks up her purse. Back into the party.

NOISE. TALKING. STRANGERS. FRIENDS. DRINKS. SMOKE.
Michelle isn't drunk. Why did she throw up? Michelle isn't sick.
Rachel approaches. Rachel's wearing a stupid necklace. Her boyfriend Brett is probably off making out with someone else. They don't care about each other. They're sick. They should vomit every time they kiss.

Rachel is suspicious.
“Have you seen Brett?”

Michelle will never.
“No.”

Michelle will never again.
“Help me find him.”

COMMAND. GUILT. SUBSERVIENCE.
“Ok.”

Michelle and Rachel begin their adventure!!
This is something to do! They were both bored, but now they have PURPOSE. They have DIRECTION. They are playing a game. The rules are simple.
Rules are simple.
When people break simple rules, things get complicated. Thou shalt not sleep with thine best friend's boyfriend because that's, like, totally messed up.
Michelle is going to vomit RIGHT NOW. Wait.
Michelle's vomit decides to wait instead. But Michelle might vomit. She should be ready to vomit. In case her vomit decides to vomit. Leave. Expel itself. Expatriate itself from her. Head north for the winter. Head south for the winter. Excuse itself in a timely manner.
It's getting late. It's probably getting late. What time is it? Is it getting late?
Michelle checks her phone.

LOUD NOISES. TALKING. LAUGHING. DRINKING.
Michelle forgets what time her phone just told her.

Michelle checks her phone.
Late.
She hasn't had her period yet.
Late.
The Hello Kitty phone charm jangles with the few coloured beads still attached. The rest have fallen off. She remembers that there were a few more beads the weekend before last. She remembers seeing her phone on the bedside table and thinking about the charms. It must have been horrible sex for her to have been distracted enough to remember a detail like that. It wasn't great. She doesn't remember most of it. She remembers that it wasn't that great. Bad sex. Shouldn't have happened. Vomit-worthy.
Rachel pulls Michelle into the kitchen. The kitchen is quiet.

Rachel is stupid.
“Where is he?”

Michelle is stupid.
“I don't know.”

Rachel is naïve.
“Can I tell you something? I think he's cheating on me.”

Michelle is a bad friend.
“What makes you think that?”

Rachel's instincts are not stupid.
“He's always busy now. And the weekend before last, when I was out of town, he told me he wasn't going to any parties, but Jennifer said she saw him at Dylan's party. Weren't you there?”

Michelle is a liar.
“Yeah. I didn't see him there.”

Girls go upstairs. Girls go into Bedroom 1. Girls find two boys who are supposed to be straight engaging in gay activities together. Girls gasp. Girls exit Bedroom 1. Girls talk quickly about possibly gay boys. Girls judge boys and declare mutual intentions. This private of love between two people will become as public as possible. Girls laugh. Girls enter Bedroom 2. Bedroom 2 is a child's room. No one feels comfortable engaging in adult activities in a child's room. Bedroom 2 is occupied by two people who do not notice the sea of brightly coloured toys they’re swimming in. Each one is independently racing to his/her finish line. Girls exit Bedroom 2. Girls laugh, part 2. Girls enter Bedroom 3. Bedroom 3 contains: one boyfriend, one Slutty Bitch. Girls experience different emotions. Boyfriend notices Girls. Slutty Bitch does not recognize Girls. Slutty Bitch continues being a Slutty Bitch all over Boyfriend. Girls exit Bedroom 3. Girl 1 cries. Girl 2 feels nothing but the fulfillment of pessimistic expectations.

Michelle goes into the bathroom. Vomit.
Michelle wonders if morning sickness can happen at night.

Run

2010-01-20T23:11:00.000-08:00

Fuck fuck fuck. You're out of breath. Choking. Where are you?
You look around while you catch your breath. Revive. You're in the highschoolparkinglot. Fuck. This place is too open. You need to find cover. You need to hide. You need to find a weapon. You're in dire need. Fuck fuck fuck.
You run straight ahead. Where are you going? Where are you going to go? What's the plan? Fuck.
Your legs hurt. Your legs are suffocating. Your legs aren't getting enough oxygen. Fuck.
The HIGHWAY. Maybe there will be someone on the HIGHWAY who can help you. Maybe you can look extra weak and innocent and when they pull over, you can slit their throat and take their car as your own. Bestplan. You run.
You pause and lean on the side of a building for a moment. It's a house. You're leaning on someone's home. Used to be someone's home. You're leaning on a building. Your lungs are screaming. They aren't being treated fairly. They are making demands. If you don't stop mistreating them, they will go on strike. Your eyes quickly scan around you. Broken glass. Bottles aren't any good as weapons. Neither is a jagged piece of glass. Even with a rag to wrap around for a safe handle, it could still break apart, cut your hand, expose your blood.
Panic!
Your hand flies up to check the wetrag over your mouth. It's barely damp. You need to rewet it. You HAVE to rewet it. Maybe you can stop running for a second and rewet the wetrag.
You hear something a few houses away. Homes away. Buildings away. You hear something. Fuck fuck fuck.
You run.
You could have at least taken a tiny glassbit to kill a trusting driver. You could have. You should have. Dammit. Fuck. Fuck it.
You're crying. You've been crying. You aren't crying any longer.
You're scared. You're angry. Stupid fucking- you run through this neighbourhood. Collection of buildings. Graveyard.
Something screams. Someone screams. Which is it? Toward? Away? What are you going to do?
Fuck.
Away.
You fuck off.
Off and away.
You run.
A BAT!!! A FUCKING BASEBALL BAT!
A FUCKINGBASEBALLBATINTHEMIDDLEOFTHEFUCKINGSTREET!!!
You run to the bat. You smile. You cry. You hug your good fortune. You stop smiling.
You are surrounded. You are in a trap. You are caught. You are fucked.

Audrey's Memory

2009-08-11T09:11:00.000-07:00

Audrey was stuck.
She had been floating happily across the lake for about a week, watching the fishes as they nibbled at her.
Now her foot was caught on someone's dock. At least she thought it was her foot. That seemed to be the anchor point that was hinging her to the wooden post. Probably snagged on a ragged nail.
The fishes still came to visit her, but the wind that had pushed her around the lake had ceased for now.
When she was drifting, there was always the possibility that she might hit a boat!
What anticipation that had been!
So exciting...
But now?
Her best chance was for a fish to nibble enough of her foot off to set her adrift once again.
Actually her BEST chance would be for some kid to find her and turn her over!
Then he'd run away scared. Maybe even crying.
Then the wind would pick back up and she could drift across the lake face-up for a change!
Oh, the joy...
It would be so lovely to see the stars again; although she would most likely miss watching her fish.
For every positive, there's a negative.
But even if no curious boy showed up, Audrey knew it was just a matter of time before the fish ate enough of her to sink her.
This knowledge was always at the back of her mind, chewing away on her positivity... but most of the time, she was able to focus on being optimistic.
And who knew if the bottom of the lake would be boring?
It would be dark, for sure, but there would be catfish!
And she could always count beer cans as they sank around her. Lost fishing lures.
Maybe if she was really lucky, a curious boy would even snag Audrey when he was trolling.
He would reel her out of the water thinking he was snagged on weeds and see Audrey's pale face surface from the depths.
Sigh.
That would be lovely.
And while waiting, she could always reflect on her life.
Think about the big things she never spared the time to think about before.
Was God real?
What about free will? Destiny?
How big was the universe really?
Why did people insist on time? It was so oppressive. Restrictive.

...How long had she been stuck here on this dock?
At least a few days. Probably not a whole week. Maybe a whole week. It was getting harder for her to keep track of time now...
No appointments to keep or schedules to make.
Never late anywhere.
Peaceful.
Wait.
Wait wait wait...

She was being pulled out of the water.
Audrey buzzed with excitement.
What if it was that curious boy?!
Or a whole group of curious teenagers!
No.
The shoes didn’t look like teenager shoes. They were shiny black shoes underneath black pants.
Police shoes.
Oh no.
Audrey was shoved into a large black bag. She watched the zipper close over her head.
Then she was thrown somewhere roughly. Some part of her cracked.
Why couldn’t they have just left her alone and in peace to contemplate?
What would happen now?!
Audrey felt panic for the first time in... how long?

She was placed on her back. Was the ride over?
The bag was unzipped.
Audrey was in a morgue. She was sure of it. Metal all around and beige on the ceiling. Some kind of foamy ceiling? Her vision was a bit cloudier now that she was out of the water...
Men with glasses looked at her for a bit, then she was pushed inside a large metal cabinet.
She sat staring in the dark.
Suddenly she saw a fish!
Rising up out of the darkness to investigate her like they did.
No. False alarm.
She was just used to floating on the lake. There was no fish here. Also she was on her back still. That was difficult to remember. Orientation.

Audrey was rolled out of the big metal cabinet. A few police officers looked at her. One closed her eyes. Something made a zipping noise. She was pushed back inside the big metal cabinet.
She couldn’t see anything at all now, even if there was something to see. They took that away from her. She could still hear, though, which was nice.
Every once in a while, she heard a few men outside. Minutes passed. Hours? Hours, probably. Surely not days. Maybe days.
She was rolled out again from the big metal cabinet. There was a zipping noise.
“This her?”
“Yes. That's her.”

That voice...
A man's voice.
So familiar. But different. Someone she knew had a voice like that, but it was different now. Changed.
How long ago had she known that person...?
Audrey thought about the voice for a long time.
So familiar. Something different.

She was jostled and hoisted and thrown somewhere.
Something else broke.
People weren't being very careful with her.
Not that she cared.
She was traveling somewhere now. Bumps here and there. A back road.
Audrey imagined she was drifting along a river. Every bump was a dip or a twist in the rapids.
Rainbow Trout swam with her.
Salmon swam against her.
She saw the sky overhead.
Birds flying from tree to tree. Some of them looked at her as she passed them by.
She felt the sun on her face.
What a beautiful day...

The bag was unzipped over her head.
It pulled out a few of her hairs on its way down.
Someone opened her eyes.
Her vision was so blurry now. She could hardly see the person's outline.
The someone inspected her closely, and then leaned back.
He sighed.
It was a he.
The man opened what sounded like a tackle box.
He leaned towards her with something tiny and pointed in his hand.
A tiny paintbrush.
She saw his face a bit more clearly.
It was solemn. He was being very gentle with her.
The man moved her face all around, turning it and gently squeezing here and there.
The man set his tiny brush down on a tiny side table and hooked something up into Audrey’s arm.
He lifted her arm, bent it at the elbow gingerly, set it down.
He lifted her leg, bent it at the knee gingerly, set it down.
He was very professional in his inspection. Routine.
Then he got up, switched off the lights and left Audrey in the dark.
Audrey felt something happening inside her body; something strange and unsettling.
Her blood was being forced to move again, somehow. It was being... replaced?
The light came back on a few... minutes later?
Hours...?
Days...?
Hmm.
The man unhooked whatever it was in her arm.
He bent her arm, then set it down.
It moved much more easily than before.
Strange.
The man removed her dress. She saw him throw it away.
Then he got out a new... horrible one.
Flowers all over it. Billowy. Not the dress Audrey would wear at all.
She hated it.
Someone had liked dresses like this, though.
The man with the voice. From the morgue.
So familiar...

The mortician picked up his tiny paintbrush and started brushing it across her face.
It was a very soft kind of scraping.
Not unpleasant.
He painted her nails. Fixed her hair.
He was probably making her look very pretty.
Soon he was finished.
Soon...?
He closed her eyes again.
She was moved into a box.
A coffin!
She was going to have a funeral!
Of course!
She hadn't even thought about that...
Oh, who would show up!?
Who did she know again?
She couldn't remember.
She would remember when she saw them, though.
She would be able to hear that voice again.
That man's voice.

Audrey waited.

The coffin never opened.
How long had she waited?

She and her coffin were moved.
Someone mumbled something.
Audrey distinctly heard the word “God” a few times.

Audrey heard something falling onto her coffin.
Intermittent raining.
Dirt.
Oh.
So... that was it.
Now there would be nothing else.
Audrey's heart sank.
Was there still something to look forward to?
Could something still happen?
Maybe this was just a waiting period of some kind.
Maybe heaven had a long line of applicants.
Although... no one had approached her yet about filling out any forms or... whatever it was she needed to do.
She wished she had something to distract her. Nothing.
Just her thoughts.
Audrey tried thinking of new things like she always did.
And like always, the thoughts at the back of her mind tried to surface.
She wouldn't let them, but they were persistent.

Why was she here?
What had happened that day at the lake?
Nope.
How big was the universe?
If it was infinitely big, how was that possible?
What had happened?
If it was that big, that meant that nothing existed outside it. Or were there still limits? Like rings, or spheres. Matryoshka doll universes, one inside the other...
Whose voice was that at the morgue?
How was it different?
If there weren't stars all the way out, what was there? Just blackness?
That day at the lake was violent.
What about God?
What if God was just the collected, um, unconscious of everyone on Earth?
The voice was there that day. Familiar, but different.
How different?
Colder. Detached.
Audrey fought against the thoughts. The thoughts that made her sad.
He had been so sweet. Her own curious boy. She had never seen it coming...
If people were destined to do certain things, then why were they allowed to think whatever thoughts they thought? Or were those thoughts pre-determined as well?
He had killed her. Brutally. Unmercifully. No sign of the love she had come to know...
NO.
She fought against those thoughts. There were so many positive things to think about!

...But Audrey could only stop her thoughts for so long...
A few hours? Days? Years?
Then there was nothing left to do but remember....

Ronald's Night

2009-07-30T14:48:00.000-07:00

Ronald finished cleaning his instruments.
He toweled them off individually and ran them each flatly along his jeans to finish his ritual.
Then he carefully picked them all up in his hands like a bundle of metal sticks, and walked down the shag-carpeted steps back into his basement.
The single bulb still hummed with electricity.
He placed each of his tools back into their leather case and wrapped the strap tightly around it.
He placed the leather bundle back on its little shelf.
Ronald hadn’t missed any spots while he was cleaning.
It was a very small room.
Still, a ritual was a ritual.
Better safe than sorry. Words Ronald lived by.
He got out the blacklight and the ammonia spray bottle and searched every inch.
Hadn’t missed a spot.

He put the blacklight and spray bottle away on their shelf up above the leather case.
Then he killed the bulb and trudged back up the steps, closing the door behind him.
The news was on television now.
He flipped to another channel.
A movie was on; a movie he’d never seen all the way through, but had been meaning to watch.
Looked like he’d only missed a few minutes.
Ronald decided to watch it.

Bump-bump-bump!
Ronald jerked awake.
Someone was at the door.
Ronald got up out of his lounge chair and walked out of his living room.
He left the static-blaring television on, so he could see in the darkness.
Bump-bump-bump!
“I’m comin’! It’s late!”
He peered through the peephole to see how many police officers there were.
None.
No neighbours either.
Ronald figured they might be off to the sides of the door.
He quickly pulled his jackknife out of his back pocket, switched it open, and kept it clenched it in his hand behind his back.
With his free hand, he opened the door.
“Hello?! Who the hell’s banging on my damn door in the middle of the night?”
There was no one outside the door.
Ronald tentatively stepped out and peeked around the corners of his house, right and left.
He didn’t see anyone running in the distance or hiding nearby.
Ronald stood still for a moment and smelled the night air.
Nothing unfamiliar.
He turned and went back into his house.

Ronald lazily went towards the living room to turn off his TV and go to sleep.
Whump-whump-whump!
“Goddammit!”
He sprinted back to the door, knife at the ready, and flung it open.
The wind rustled the bushes gently.
A few leaves skittered on the sidewalk.
Ronald’s eyes narrowed.
He reached back into his house and turned off his porch light.
Then he shut the door and slinked off to his right, behind the large front bushes.
He waited patiently in the night with his knife open.
The wind blew again, drying his eyes.
Ronald didn’t blink.
He waited for at least 30 minutes, crouched and hidden behind his neatly-hedged bushes.
He waited another 30 minutes just to be sure the first 30 minutes was at least 30 minutes.
Nothing happened.
He listened so hard, he could hear the static on his television through the brick wall next to him.
He finally peered over the bushes and into the neighbourhood in front of him.
No lights on, except a few scattered porches.
Ronald narrowed his eyes again.
He decided to check completely around his house.
He crept slowly, knife drawn, behind the bushes that covered the corner of his house.
He made sure not to snap even the tiniest twig.
No one on the right side of his house so far.

He looked gently over his wooden fence, then pushed up on the metal latch slowly enough to keep it quiet.
He lifted the fence slightly as he opened it, so the hinges wouldn’t squeak.
Then he stopped for a moment and listened.
No sound.
He closed the fence gingerly and crouched down again.
He kept to the side of his house and moved forward.

The back door was ajar.
Ronald was absolutely sure he hadn’t left it open.
It was all part of his ritual.
He never missed a single step of his ritual.
He cursed silently and eased open the screen door an inch at a time.
It creaked gently, no matter how slowly he moved, but the way he was opening it would sound as natural as the wind.
Ronald entered the darkness of his home.

He smelled the air in his kitchen.
Nothing unfamiliar.
Ronald grimaced and began to chew on his lip.
It took ten full minutes for Ronald to close both back doors silently, one after the other.
He locked the deadbolt and listened for the intruder.
Silence.
Better safe than sorry.
Ronald went to the front door quietly.
It was still shut.
He locked the deadbolt and the chain silently.
All the little hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention.
He realized that the television had been turned off.

His eyes grew wider.
He wiped the sweat off his forehead, then off his upper lip.
He wiped both hands on his jeans.
Ronald needed something better than this knife.
He needed to go downstairs and get his tools.
He slowly walked to the basement door.
It was already open.
He slid through and closed it behind him.
Now he was immersed in darkness.
He held his sweaty knife in his right hand, and slowly splayed his left hand out in the darkness.
If he felt anyone, he planned to grab them close and stab them again and again.

The air was cool and musty.
He walked down a stair, and felt around in the darkness.
He walked down another stair and repeated.
With every step, he felt more sweat gather on his brow.
He lost track of how far down he had come.
Surely he didn’t have this many steps.
He stopped feeling for a moment and listened.
Silence.
Nothing but the sounds of his lungs emptying and his neurons singing.
Ronald knew someone was down here.
He could feel them.
This was HIS room; his special place.
Just by being here, this person was violating his sanctuary.
He walked down another step, feeling in the darkness.
And another step.

He put his foot down gently again, but the floor shoved it back; he had finally reached the bottom.
Ronald hunched down, in case the intruder was also feeling around in the darkness.
More than likely, he was waiting; listening for any movement at all.
Listening for Ronald breathing.
Ronald held his breath
He waited, crouched with his hand out, in the ink of the basement.
He couldn’t hear anyone breathing, but the feeling was stronger than ever now.
Ronald was almost positive of where the man was.
The slightest noise meant his death.

Ronald moved silently along the right wall of the tiny room, shielding his body to the wall in case he was suddenly struck.
He felt in the air with his left hand for anything solid.
He finally felt the back right edge of the room.
His tools were in the other back corner, just a few feet away.
The man was either in the middle of the room, by his special little chair, or along the opposite wall.
Instinct would tell him not to stay in the corners.

Ronald took a step closer to his tools.
He paused to listen.
Someone else was breathing very very carefully in the middle of the room.
Ronald grinned.
He’d be able to get his tools.
He moved with patience, but confidence toward his leather satchel.
He felt the other corner of the room.
He gently reached up and felt for the handle of his long-bladed steel knife.
He was able to slide it out of its leather case without even a creak.
The breathing in the middle of the room grew faster.
Ronald felt his own heart beating more quickly.
He squared himself with the middle of the tiny room he knew and loved, and crept a step towards his favourite child-sized chair.

He stepped again silently, both arms closer to his body, ready to strike.
He was right behind the tiny chair now, poised and ready to strike.
Ronald heard the quickened breathing of the person right in front of him, and he leaned closer.
Ronald slowly raised his arms up and out into the blackness on either side of him, like a bat stretching its wings.

Like a flash, he swung his arms forward and stabbed both hands into the darkness.
His arms passed quickly through thin air; cold air.
He broke out in goosebumps as he retracted his hands through the freezing pool of nothingness sitting in the children’s chair.
Ronald distinctly heard a whimper, not six inches in front of him.
The very pit of his stomach froze and the hairs on the back of his neck curled upward.
Ronald heard soft crying as a violent pain broke into his left shoulder.
Instinctually, he arched his back and reached behind him.
One of his own knives was stuck through his shoulder up to the handle.
He pulled it out and realized with horror that it was the jackknife he thought he was still holding.
He felt another pain pierce through his belly.
He doubled over and pulled out his long-bladed steel knife.
He slashed through the air with both knives, striking nothing.
The cold spread from his wounds throughout his body.
He fell to the floor, realizing that his hands were both empty.
As the cold completely enveloped him, he heard his leather kit being opened.
He drooled blood onto the stone floor.
“Please… please don’t…”
No words.
Only breathing.
Upstairs, the television turned back on, filling the house with the sound of static.

The End

Chuck's House

2009-07-10T12:44:00.001-07:00

THUD!
Chuck heard the newspaper slam against the front of the house.
“He isn’t even trying to hit the front door anymore,” Chuck muttered to his wife.
“I don’t see what difference it makes whether the paper lands at the door, or a few feet from the door, Charles, you can read it just the same.”
Chuck grumbled to himself, hoisted his 71-year-old body out of his chair, and lumbered over to the door.
“Charles O’Henry,” he stated clearly.
“Voice pattern confirmed. Front door opened,” the house stated equally clearly.
Chuck was struck briefly by how businesslike these verbal transactions were, as he pushed the door open.
His wife Helen had wanted this “upgraded” house computer. He had personally grown accustomed to the voice of their old house, a mature woman with a warm nature, and had been disappointed at the choices in voices for the new house.
At first, they had tried the new cheerful young boy who reminded Chuck a lot of the classic Leave It To Beaver show.
After a few months of overly cheerful pre-puberty however, they both decided the cold, default female voice was the best of the new options.
He walked onto the porch, closing the door behind him.
The newspaper had bounced off the front siding and landed atop the big plastic bushes his wife had wanted “to make the house stand out a little, dear.”
Chuck could see the grayish mark on the siding where the newspaper hit.
“It left a damn mark Helen!” Chuck hollered inside.
“What?”
Chuck muttered to himself and grabbed the paper brusquely.
He smudged at the mark violently with his thumb, but it did nothing, so he walked the two 71-year-old steps back to the door.
“Charles O’Henry,” he stated clearly.
“Voice pattern not recognized. Entry denied,” the house stated equally clearly.
Chuck stopped pushing on the door and cleared his throat.
“Charles O’Henry,” Chuck said, making sure to enunciate every letter.
“Voice pattern not recognized. Entry denied,” the house stated again.
“Now dammit, you just said you recognized me two minutes ago!”
“To permit access, please state your name clearly.”
“Charles O’Henry!”
“Voice pattern not recognized. Entry Denied. House under lockdown. Warning: further attempts may result in police action and housing defense activation. Have a nice day.”
“Let me into my damn house! Helen!” Chuck yelled.
“What’s wrong now Charles?”
“This damn house of yours locked me out!”
“What?”
“For God’s sakes Helen, come over to the door so you can hear me!”
Chuck very faintly heard Helen pull herself out of her chair and shuffle over to the other side of the door.
“Charles, why are you outside yelling?
“Helen, the front door locked me out. I’m locked out of my own house in my damn pajamas,” Charles spat.
“Why don’t you just say your name, dear?”
Chuck closed his eyes and sighed audibly.
“Helen, why don’t YOU say YOUR name.”
“Don’t be angry with me Charles, you’re the one who wanted this new house computer. I was happy with the old one.”
Chuck took a deep breath and turned away from the door, sighing to himself.
All around the neighbourhood now, the younger neighbours were all waking up and starting their day.
Chuck decided to sit on his uncomfortable foamwood porch swing and read the paper.
He could hear his wife chattering away through the door at him, about now she was probably blaming him again for the faulty alarm bed settings, even though he’d explained that it was a manufacturing defect at least a dozen times. He’d even clipped out the article with the company’s public apology and complete lack of desire (or “inability” as they put it) to make up for their faulty alarm beds.
Chuck noticed that one of his neighbours was lying on his own porch swing, a real comfortable wooden one, a few houses away across the street.
It looked as if he was sleeping in his suit for some reason.
Chuck was fortunate enough to see his flurry of waking with a start, looking at his watch, jumping into his car, and driving off.
Helen was yelling now.
“-do you mean not recognized?!” he heard her shout.
Chuck folded his paper neatly, stood up, and walked back over to the door.
“Helen, is it broken for you too?”
“Charles, it said it didn’t recognize me!” Helen grumped from inside.
“Voice pattern not recognized. House under lockdown. Authorities have been alerted. Have a nice day.”
Chuck was angry now.
“What on Earth do you mean? You’ve called the cops?!”
“Charles, why won’t it open?”
“Helen, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be standing on the porch in my skivvies!”
“Well, it certainly is an inconvenience Charles.”
“I’m sure the police will be able to help. Just go back to your puzzle and I’ll talk to them when they get here.”
Chuck went back to his swing and opened his newspaper. He heard Helen complaining quietly to herself inside.
A few minutes later, two squad cars showed up on the street.
The officers inside got out and both pointed their shotguns at him.
“We received reports of an unauthorized entry into this residence. Put your hands in the air and prepare for arrest.”
“It’s my own damn house! No one’s unauthorized here.”
“He’s resisting arrest! Activate!”
Chuck started to reply, when all of an instant, he was hit by an electric shell and fell to the ground, convulsing with pain and more volts than his body knew what to do with.
The two officers swarmed onto his porch, one of them handcuffing him, while the other kept his shotgun aimed at Chuck’s head.
Chuck was still convulsing as they moved away from him and towards the door.
Chuck’s ears barely discerned Helen at the door.
“Has my husband told you everything officers?”
Before they could answer, the door chimed in.
“Good morning officers. This is house 148-F. There have recently been numerous unauthorized attempts from two individuals. One individual outside the house and one individual inside the house.”
“Good God Johnson! The burglar has already gotten inside!” one of the officers yelled, even though they were standing right next to each other.
“Load that geezer into your squadcar Evans, I’ll deal with this perp myself!” the other officer yelled, even though they were still standing right next to each other.
Chuck’s ears began to normalize again and he heard Helen pleading.
“I’m not a burglar! Charles, tell them I’m your wife!”
Chuck heard the computer respond.
“Voice pattern not recognized. Entry Denied. House defense system activated. Have a nice day.”
“Good God Johnson! The burglar has turned the house against us!”
“Let’s get outta here Evans!
Chuck was roughly picked up, slung over one of the officer’s shoulders and rushed to a squadcar, where he was thrown in the back like a sack of laundry.
Chuck heard the house’s defenses firing plasma beams at the squadcar, where they were deflected by the car’s plating.
His tongue and lips were still too numb to speak when he heard the officer spit into his radio.
“This is officer Johnson, we need an immediate firebombing of house 148-F. repeat, immediate firebombing of house 148-F. over.”
Chuck’s tongue was still swollen, and his mouth wouldn’t open.
The radio blasted “Roger that. Immediate firebombing of house 148-F in progress. Over.”
“Roger. Over and out.”
They drove away and Chuck began to cry, hearing the sounds of explosions behind him.

Peter's Gift

2009-06-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

Peter was gifted. Peter didn’t know what his gift was, but his family was absolutely positive he had a gift. At the age of 8, his parents took him to a prestigious university, where they ran several genius-tests on him. The results came back and proved without a shadow of a doubt that Peter was special. He had a knack or talent or ability of some sort or other.

All the scientists read over the test results and nodded.

“Definitely gifted,” they all said.

That was good enough for his parents.

They rushed him home to celebrate without even asking what talent he had, exactly; which was good because the test results didn’t show it and none of the scientists could interpret the results anyway. The scientists had all been pretending for years and years that they were able to understand the results of their experiments to impress each other, but in reality none of them could, and only the lucky ones were able to read anything at all.

“I knew you had a gift, Peter. ‘Gifted.’ That’s what I said when I first held your little genius-head in my arms. ‘Gifted,’” His mother said, sighing happily.

“That’s my boy. Way to have a talent, son,” His father said, refusing to touch him.

They held parties and barbeques in his honour, inviting all of the neighbourhood neighbours, who were too polite to ask anyone outright what his gift was, but not too polite to whisper secretly to each other and say they didn’t think he was so great.

When he was 10, Peter tried to tell his father that he loved him, whereby his father interrupted him with a surprise parade through the town, and a celebratory month-long circus.

As he grew into his teenage years, Peter had become used to people telling him enthusiastically what his talent might be.

“Maybe you’re gifted at memorizing Peter! Have you ever tried memorizing? Do you remember things that other people don’t remember?” asked his Aunt Claire, chirpily.

“Maybe it’s music! What? You already tried that? Well which instrument Peter? There are dozens to choose from! We’ll go through every one of them if we have to!!!” offered his music teacher Mr. Bacumba, desperately.

“Maybe you’re like a love machine or somethin’ with the ladies. A little Don Juan De Sexo,” suggested his alcoholic uncle George, drinkingly.

Peter never let people’s suggestions bother him.

He always simply replied, “Maybe.”

As he grew into his twenties, his notoriety became bigger and fatter.

People had heard a lifetime of hype, and when they finally met him, they were overwhelmed.

“Oh. My. GOD! He looks just like I thought he would! Karen, look at his face. Doesn’t it just SCREAM gifted?!”

“Look at the way he sits son. That’s how a genius sits.”

Peter didn’t mind the normal people.

He did however, mind the important people.

There were people who wanted to use his talent to make them powerful, or rich, or even rich AND powerful together at the same time.

Peter would be walking along, signing autographs and taking hand-written journals with hundreds of pages detailing suggestions of what his gift might be, when all of a sudden, he would be pulled into a van and driven away.

He would then be taken to meet with the president, who wanted him to invent a gamma bomb, or a rock star who wanted a new number one hit, or a writer who couldn’t think of a weird short story to post in his blog.

All of these amazingly powerful and influential people only wanted more power and influence, Peter saw. He would always say, “Let me think about it,” and they would let him go back to his life of almost.

Then, when Peter was in his early thirties, his father had a heart attack, right in front of him.

“Oh Jesus Pete, it’s the ticker! You think maybe your gift is to stop death? Don’t touch me.”

After saying this to Peter, his father instantly died.

Peter curled up into a ball on the rug near his father, and for a day and a half, he rocked back and forth, hugging himself.

Then the police showed up.

After asking him for autographs, they told him how sorry they were that stopping death wasn’t his gift.

Then they carried away his stiff father, and Peter went into his father’s basement and urinated on his father’s antique toy train collection.

The End

Ice-Cold Alice

2009-05-27T13:24:00.000-07:00

Alice was freezing.

Her fingers felt like cold bits of metal, unfeeling, and unwieldy.

Her legs had no feeling past her knees.

She was underground in a prison.

The cold Atlantic had seeped in and now constantly covered the ground, coming up just past her ankles.

She often wondered if it might freeze her in place, locking her feet in ice.

She could feel rats swim by her in the blackness.

First she felt their whiskers testing for obstacles, then their wet, matted hair, and finally she felt their little tails whipping her skin as they passed.

Even though she was starving, she would never lower herself to eating a rat.

God would provide for her in some form.

She heard other prisoners catch the rats sometimes in the darkness.

She would hear the splash of the water, and the incessant squeaking until the crack of their little neck.

She didn't blame others for doing what they needed.

Some of the prisoners were whole families, and parents were surely providing for their children.

When a family would arrive, at first, they would pray together.

She could hear their hushed voices, and the tiny hope held therein.

Out of the darkness, sometimes anger would erupt.

A man or a woman fighting against reality, refusing to submit to the darkness and the hand they had all been dealt.

Then the bright red anger would drown back into the cold black bleak nothingness.

She could hear the families comfort each other after such outbursts.

Eventually the families would simply weep quietly together.

She could almost hear them clutching each other so tightly.

In her mind, she could see their pale haggard faces, each one scrunched so hard, with tears streaming through the wrinkles.

It pained her to hear the children crying in the wet, shivering darkness.

But it was much worse when they ultimately stopped crying.

Then there was just the silence of fate accepted.

The silent sound of a child coming to terms with death at such a young age was deafening over the soft swish of the water.

But Alice had no tears left, only the suffocating chill of depression.

She was resigned to her fate, whatever God deemed it.

She knew not why God had marked them for death.

She had done nothing wrong.

She had devoted her life to teaching children.

She had committed no wrongs against her fellow men.

Why was it so hard for the elders of the town to see this for the lunacy it surely was?

She felt the devil's work in the town.

The devil had no place in her breast.

The devil resided, not in the children and families all around her, standing in the freezing water, but in the wicked girls.

They had succumbed to evil, and their influential pranks had turned to mass murder.

Surely when Alice was younger, she had danced secretly with her friends.

She had laughed and told stories around a fire.

Most people of the town knew that even though pleasure was indeed the devil's entry, he need not be allowed in.

But this public spectacle was different.

The elders were so intent to show their strict interpretations of chastity and piousness, that all common sense had been devoured.

Alice heard the large oak doors opening around the corner of the prison.

She saw the small amount of light offered from the moon.

She could barely make out the two men walking towards her with chains in hand.

She smelled garlic on one man's breath as he reached above her and unfastened her wrists, letting them drop ungracefully to her sides.

As she started to collapse, the other man caught her roughly and forced her to stand while they fastened her arms into new shackles.

They led her out slowly, as she had seen them do with so many others before.

She turned her head slightly to the right and saw nothing but shapes in the darkness, punctuated by the shining of eyes, large and small.

They dragged her up the stairs into the night.

For the first time in weeks, she felt her feet as they scraped across the rough stones and ground of the woods.

Then her head drifted into darkness again.

When she awoke a few minutes later, there was a rough rope loosely lying around her fragile neck.

There was a man talking to her, but she didn't hear him.

Instead, she heard the twisting of rope in the breeze.

She looked above and behind her to see that her rope was connected to a large tree.

The oak tree on top of the hill.

Her favourite tree, which overlooked the cemetery and the harbour.

She had spent many summers, reading and leaning against it, thinking on the beauty of life.

She saw that several others were still hanging from the tree, twisting with every slight gust of wind.

She heard their ropes creak and their bodies sway.

A hand grabbed her face and forced her to look at the man speaking to her.

Even in the dim light, she could see the spittle flying from his mouth.

She could see the anger on his face.

Was he angry at her, or angry at himself?

Was it her fault the whole town had gone mad?

Did he blame Alice?

Perhaps it made his job easier.

Convicting the innocent.

Strangling children with lengths of rope and watch their tiny eyes fill with tears.

He kept asking her a question, but she knew the answer didn't matter one way or the other.

He signaled to the man beside her, and he stepped back.

There was a whoosh of air, and Alice was choking from the weight of her wooden legs and metal hands.

She didn't struggle or fight.

Alice simply swayed and let herself drown to death in the lovely night air.

Alice knew she wasn't a witch.

No one in Salem was.

She slowly fell asleep again, knowing it was all just lunacy, and God would sort it out as soon as she woke up.

Duncan and Janice

2009-04-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

It was a sunny day in Los Angeles.

Duncan had just woken up from a long night’s sleep on the park bench where he now sat.

He sat up on the bench, perked his doll up on his leg, as he usually did, put his hands in the correct places, and cleared his throat.

“I say Janice; today looks to be most pleasant. Most pleasant indeed,” Duncan said in his best rich-man voice.

“Why yes, Duncan, I think you’re right. I had planned to go home and bathe, since I am absolutely filthy, but instead, I believe I’ll sit right here with you all and enjoy the breeze and the sun. And also your handsome face,” Janice said in her high-pitched squeaky voice.

Duncan smiled and looked around the park. More and more people were coming out. It was Saturday, a wonderful day for performers like him.

“Janice, are you sure you don’t want to take a bath? You are indeed quite filthy. Your police uniform is sticky! What made you so disgusting?”

“Why, you did, you scamp. You dirtied me up last night!” Janice almost shrieked.

A man who was jogging, slowed to watch the man and his dummy. Then instead of leaving money, he made a face, much to Duncan’s disappointment.

“Why Janice! You know that I would prefer you clean! Why don’t you at least go splash around in the fountain?”

Duncan coughed. His neck hurt this morning, probably from sleeping on the bench at a strange angle.

“You rogue! You can’t do what you did and just toss me away! You’re lucky you’re so horribly attractive,” Janice said, looking at Duncan with a twinkle in her dull eyes.

Over across the path, two men were sitting down, also enjoying the beautiful day on a bench. Duncan liked seeing how happy everyone was today. He was starting to feel a kinship with the entire world. The more happy people he saw, the happier he felt.

“Janice, if you don’t go wash up right now, I’m going to pretend that I don’t know you.” Duncan raised his eyebrow in verbal victory.

“That would be quite rude of you after making bench love last night under the beautiful stars,” Janice said in her squeaky seductive voice.

Duncan hadn’t expected Janice to say this, and he was genuinely surprised.

He shifted a little in his bench, and slapped Janice heartily on the back, accidentally causing her head to roll forward unnaturally.

One of the two men across the path whispered in the other man’s ear and they both gave Duncan and Janice a strange look.

He saw this, but tried to ignore it in order to keep his happy mood going.

“My goodness! What a-What a wonderful secret to share with everyone here!”

Duncan quickly fixed her head, although it seemed a little stiffer than usual this morning.

Duncan figured it was probably just from the morning dew.

The two men got up, and with one last glance at Duncan, they walked away.

Luckily another man, a richer man, stopped and stared at Janice curiously.

“Now it’s your turn. Give me a secret my little dumpling waffle!” Janice shrieked.

Duncan was caught off guard by his own words.

He hadn’t meant to make Janice say that.

“Why- why don’t we do our routine Janice?”

“Why don’t we make love on the park bench again today? It was so wonderful.”

Duncan started sweating.

A crowd was gathering, and he desperately needed money, but this wasn’t the routine at all.

“Janice, just look at all these people. I’m sure they would like to watch our show now.”

“You don’t want to kiss me and take off my little policewoman outfit again, pudding lumps?”

“Of course not Janice, now stop it!”

Two or three people in the crowd chuckled softly, but the others stared with furrowed brows.

“You were so strange, molasses muffin. You held me tightly and told me that you were sorry, but you couldn’t help yourself.”

A woman took her child by the hand and left the crowd. Duncan heard the child ask, “Mommy, why is the doll so big?”

He couldn’t deal with this. What was wrong with him? He took a deep breath and started the routine.

“I say there Janice, I was just down at the park the other day and I saw the most peculiar thing.”

“Duncan, is it because I’m dirty?”

“I’m sure you’re wondering what I saw Janice. Why I saw a man-“

“Duncan, you did this to me.”

“-I saw a man who had a misshapen head, like a potato.”

“You made me like this.”

“He was- he was having trouble walking with his large deformed head, weaving this way and that to-“

The crowd was shifting uncomfortably. No one was laughing now. Duncan had to put an end to this before anything got any worse. He tightened his grip on the back of Janice’s neck and forced her to stop looking at him and focus on the crowd. Something in her neck cracked.

“He was weaving towards a hotdog vendor.”

“I was just trying to do my job and you hurt me.”

“And the hotdog vendor looked at his lumpy potato head and said-“

“I’m calling the police,” a man in the crowd said, leaving.

A child asked his father why the doll was covered in paint, but his father didn’t hear him.

“…some kind of prank?” Duncan heard one teenager tell another. The whole crowd was beginning to buzz now. “…looks so lifelike...” Duncan was breathing quickly and heavily. “…wrong with her neck…”

“JANICE! DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HOTDOG VENDOR SAID?”

Everyone was quiet.

“Sir, I think something’s wrong with your brain.”

With that, Duncan collapsed into his hands, and began to cry. Janice slid off his lap and fell off the bench and onto the ground with a sickening thud, her neck twisting all the way around. The crowd started screaming.

Thomas the Fat Stupid Idiot

2009-03-30T19:33:00.000-07:00

Thomas was a fat stupid idiot. He liked stupid music. He was content to eat food that had no more flavour than the thin paper wrapping it came in.

He drove a broken down red rusting car.

He used an old obnoxious cell phone.

He was generally hated by most judgmental strangers.

Even his mother found his company difficult to tolerate for any moderate period of time. Luckily his father was dead, so he didn’t have to worry about spending time with Thomas.

Thomas had several ex-girlfriends, and ex-friends in general.

People always thought there was some mystery to be discovered within his tiny stupid brain.

There was not.

His girlfriends always thought they could make him more interesting, or at the very least (towards the end of the horribly dying relationship) they thought they could discover how he balanced out.

Surely there’s some area where he excels, they thought bitterly.

But there wasn’t. He was an anomaly. He had no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

And he was aware of this.

Every morning, he looked into his dull stupid eyes in the mirror and wondered why people spent any time with him at all, much the way a cow wonders why it’s raining, when it wasn’t raining just a second ago.

And like a cow, Thomas would heave himself around his house, doing whatever he felt like.

He could skip work and no one would say anything, being happy to have him gone.

He was a very good waiter at his tacky overpriced cookie cutter restaurant, mostly because all the other waiters did his job so they wouldn’t have to talk to him or look at him.

The managers encouraged this.

“Alright everyone,” the managers would say,”Stacy, Erik, Blevins, Kreltch, you each get one of Thomas’s tables tonight.”

“Why don’t we just fire Thomas?” a new girl would say.

Thomas would yawn and scratch himself, which no one would see except the new girl.

“You wanna fire him? You go right ahead, NEW GIRL!” the chieftain-manager would say.

And sometimes the unsuspecting new girl would fire Thomas. And sometimes they would end up dating because the new girl didn’t know any better.

Even when he was fired, people would offer him jobs seemingly out of nowhere.

People were drawn to him. Like that movie about a treasure.

Mystery, suspense, intrigue.

None of those feelings ever paid off with Thomas in the medium-run.

He didn’t even try to hide it like some fat stupid idiots you might know. He just blatantly oozed disappointment on everyone he encountered, like a cow with a liquefying skin condition.

But most girls just thought he needed attention. They thought he was self-deprecating, but in actuality he might be a musician or a writer or a painter or a person who might be obsessively good with money and wealthy.

And they would sleep with him. They would endure hours of horrific pink movements, like an ocean made of flesh that was lazily trying to drown them. And he would ultimately shudder violently and finish, his skin rippling quickly enough to hurl his rotting sweat hither and thither.

A woman never forgot sleeping with Thomas.

And they never forgot the feeling of loss.

The feeling of investing so much time, so much energy, so much of themselves into him.

The feeling of having him never reveal anything worthwhile; not the least sparkle of moderate intelligence, or consciousness, or creativity.

He ultimately wound up the head of a major automobile company and retired very wealthy, spending the rest of his days eating.

Robert's Chest

2008-08-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to breathe. Not from digging until my muscles scream. Not from the dirt that fills the air after it escapes from the end of the shovel. No. My chest is tight. Having a gun pointed at you will do that apparently. No one told me. I’ve never seen a movie where someone points a gun at another person and they grab their chest and start gasping, but that’s what happened to me, and I consider myself a pretty manly guy.
That all changes with a gun in your face though.
I’ve never seen anything so scary as the abyss in the barrel of that gun.
The tiny blackness that seems to go on forever inside the gun.
Like how I’d imagine a black hole would look, sucking all the light and life into it, completely void of anything natural or comforting.
Kind of like if Mary Poppins was evil and her endless bag was a pandora’s box with all the pestilence and sorrow that’s ever existed.

Well, it’s not THAT bad.
Or I guess I should say, I’m over it.
i’m not just huffing and puffing, I mean, I was scared at first.
Damn scared.
But after about an hour with the gun trained on my back, the only thing that’s left is my tight chest.
I don’t think that’s going to go away.
I wish I had a heart condition.
That way I could just shovel a bit faster and then I’d keel over and make the bastards do the work they’re supposed to do.
Instead, I’m here like a chump, like a damn idiot, because when it all comes down to it, even if you can buy a few more hours to live, to think, it’s worth it.
Even if you know you should go out with dignity, and not do the bitch work of your will-be murderers.
Jeez. The least a murderer can do is take the time to dispose of a body. Put a little effort into it.
Kids these days.
Just want everything done.
I bet he would even find a way to have the gun shoot itself, so he wouldn’t have to curl his finger even that half inch.
He's standing there in his cheap gray suit, like a business-ghost against the black behind him. The effect is more surreal because of the headlights of the oldsmobile behind him. the tree next to him is like his faithful servant. some kind of evil ent, lacking branches and devoid of a soul. He didn't even press his suit.
“Lazy son of a bitch.”
“what did you call me?”
“you heard me,” I say. It’s the first tough thing I’ve said, and it’s easy now that I’m all worked up in my head. Besides, he won’t kill me yet. I’ve barely dug up to my knees, this ground is so fucking rocky and hard.
He chuckles a bit.

I wish I could put this shovel through his face. It’s sharp enough, a bit duller from hitting these rocks, but still sharp enough.
I can picture it so vividly, swinging around gracefully on the balls of my feet, simultaneously grabbing the shovel like a spear. In one fluid motion, launching it forward through space, perfectly level, head-level to be exact.
Watching his eyes grow the way I felt mine grow when he first pulled out his gun.
Seeing him raise his gun just a little too slowly and firing it into the ground in front of him as the shovel splits his nose in two, making an upside down smile in the middle of his face.
I can even hear him spluttering because it wouldn’t kill him. I don’t have enough force for that. I would have to step out of this grave and finish him with my bare hands.
I wish I could do all of that.
I wish I had at least a fighting chance.
But things never play out that way in real life.
I would throw it too hard, or throw it crookedly and he would just get angry and shoot me in the foot or arm.
Then he’d make me keep digging, and the pain would be excruciating.
No, better to keep digging as slowly as possible without raising suspicion and keep thinking.

I wish my brain would work!
I wish I could think of a million different scenarios, and then pick the one most likely to work.
Instead all I can think about is that one heroic scenario, my brother when we were kids, and that fucking doors song “this is the end, my only friend, the end.”
How annoying.
Over and over.
I wish I’d treated my brother better.
Who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up here. Maybe being nicer to him would have been my first step on the path to being a better person.
I can’t decide if I should come up with a plan or accept my fate.
I mean, a bullet is a pretty quick way to go if it’s placed correctly, and if I don’t piss this guy off by trying to escape that’s probably just what he’ll give me.
He doesn’t seem the sadistic type.
He’s not enjoying this any more than I am.
And neither is the driver.
He’s just sitting in the Oldsmobile, making sure the battery doesn’t die by turning the car on every once in a while.

How long has it been?
An hour? Two?
It’s so hard to think straight.
This is where those math questions come in handy.
If Robert digs at an average of 6 inches ever 45 minutes, how long will it have been when he’s dug 2 feet and 3 inches of his own grave?
Maybe if I use the shovel just right, it can act like a tiny shield and block the bullets he fires.
But that would be so hard for me, and so easy for him to shoot somewhere else.
I’m not a ninja.
I can’t do that whole deflect-bullets-with-a-sword thing.
Maybe I can.
Maybe I have enough adrenaline pumping in me to give me superhuman reflexes.
Maybe I can will myself out of having a beer gut and atrophied muscles from working as an accountant for 13 years.
Huh.
13 years.
I laugh a bit to myself.
There’s a reason superstitions exist sometimes I suppose.
I wish I had some salt to throw over my shoulder.
Well, maybe not salt, but more like a beaker of acid.
That would be great.
Why don’t I carry anything on me for protection?
Even mace would get me out of this now.

Hmmm..
That gives me an idea.
I’ve actually been flinging this dirt long enough to have gotten a feel for it.
Maybe I can fling a big shovelful up into his face.
The grave is past my knees now, which means I could run away from the car and it would have to swerve around it and the tree to get me.
That would buy me enough time to make it into the trees in front of me, where I could at least have a chance.
Wow.
I think I can actually do this.
Let’s see.
I can feel how the dirt moves from my shovel and makes a trajectory right to the place in the pile I want it to go.
My chest has a different tightness now.
My heart’s beating faster.
I glance as casually as I can over my shoulder at the guy with the gun.
He yawns. I can tell I’m ready because I don’t yawn in response.
I dig a little on the sides just to expand the grave a bit.
Buy me another half second or so with the car.

“That’s deep enough.”
“What?!”
“Turn around”
I try to stall, I’m so close. I just need the element of surprise. Maybe I can convince him…
“dogs will still be able to find me this shallow,” I say, taking one last huge shovelful of dirt, and turning slowly towards him.
I can feel the tightness in my chest readying me, helping me now instead of hindering me.
He’s squared off with me now, gun aimed at my chest.
I’m holding the shovelful of dirt just below the rim of my own grave, waiting for my opportunity. My palms itch on the splintery wooden handle.
“nobody is going to find you. Do you have any idea how many bodies we have buried around here?” he asks.
I pretend to look around and see if I can pretend to count them, watching to see if he looks away from me, even for a second.
He doesn’t.
Instead, when I turn my head back to him, he fires.
And I thought the tightness I had before was bad.
There’s a big difference between having difficulty breathing, and not having your lungs work at all.
I must look like a fish, gasping this way.
I notice that I’m staring at his shoes now.
What happened to the shovel?
I don’t think it’s in my hands anymore.
But I need it.
I need to act.
Now’s my chance.
If only I could breathe and look higher than three inches off the ground.
I think my head is resting on the ground on his side of the grave.
Blackness.
Brightness again.
Now, like a tidal wave, air rushes into my one good lung.
I hear the whooshing of a 747 taking off, and realize that it’s me inhaling sharply.
I clutch at the ground and push myself to stand up and face my attacker.
I over shoot it and push myself backwards watching the lights float higher above me as the rim shoots skyward and I land on my back in my grave.
I hear the 747 whoosh again, and a car door open.
“Jesus Mickey, finish him already.”
The 747 whooshes again.
“He called me a lazy son of a bitch,” Mickey says.
“You are a lazy son of a bitch.”
The 747 lurches forward on the runway again, loudly.
“just grab the shovel and let’s get finish this.”
“I’m not burying a man alive Mickey, you do it, or finish him and I’ll help you.”
The 747 whooshes again, and this time takes off.
I wish I’d treated my brother better.
The 747's engines’ scream turns into a long dull roar that slowly quiets into a white noise in the background.

Meredith the Warrior-Queen

2007-06-28T22:40:00.001-07:00

Meredith was late. Everywhere she went she was always behind. She always was rushing from one place to another and today she was running especially behind.
She was supposed to be attending the party of all parties. She looked at her watch. Ten pm.
She was going to do much networking!
Her friend Laramie Kreltch, whom everyone just called "Kreltch," was holding it for some of the upper-level players in Hollywood.
Meredith wanted to be an actress, and she knew she'd make it. She was talented. Kreltch said so, and she told Meredith that she knew a thing or two about success.
Kreltch had told Meredith that everyone who was worth knowing would be at her party.
But Meredith was late!
As she ran through the streets of Hollywood, not being able to afford a cab, she had thoughts about what everyone would think when she walked in to the party that was already underway.
Some people thought being "fashionably late" was a good thing, but Meredith had been raised to always be on time to show that you cared about meeting the other person.
At least she looked lovely. She was wearing the only lovely dress that she had. It was black, just long enough to be elegant and it tapered just right to her figure. She loved her lovely dress so!
Dammit!
She looked down at her shoes. Her left heel was broken off.
She started cursing. It wasn't a nice habit, her mother had told her, but it seemed as if everyone in Hollywood swore.
She was cursing at her broken heel so loudly, a man she passed looked at her and muttered about not having any change.
She didn't want his change and she let him know it very cursingly.
Well, she would just have to lean on one leg all night so people wouldn't notice.
Now she was running, with every other step pushing her higher because of the remaining heel on her right shoe.
She felt like crying. She couldn't even afford to eat. If this party didn't help her to get her break she had no idea what she would do. She was so stressed! Maybe she should have taken that stupid man's change.
Meredith the warrior-queen, Meredith the warrior-queen, Meredith the warrior-queen.
She repeated her own private title to herself over and over again.
She would overcome this. She was meant to be a star. She could feel it deep down in her bone-guts.
As she ran, she pictured armour over her dress. and big spiky boots instead of her half-broken pair of shoes. She had a wonderful imagination and she had a wonderful memory. She could remember every event that had happened to her on every important night of her life.
Sometimes to cope with a bad day, she would just relive another day in her life. Thanks to her imagination, whatever she couldn't remember, she made up. It also helped her stay in character for acting. She could clearly picture the imaginary scene around her, so that it was almost real.
Sometimes, her brain would even start reliving another day for her, without her even trying.
She thought it was a good way of dealing with stress, like the stress of being constantly late.
"Blast!" she said, "I'm running behind."
She was just a few blocks away now, and getting nearer.
For just an instant, she looked down and saw that her dress was tattered and faded, worn well beyond it's years.
Then she closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to calm herself.
When she opened her eyes, her dress was new again, and shoes were fine. She looked at her watch. Ten pm.
She smiled and started running. She couldn't wait to start trading phone numbers with the biggies in Hollywood.
Meredith the warrior-queen. Meredith the warrior-queen.

Georgie's Birthday

2007-05-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Yay!
It was Georgie’s birthday again!
He loved his birthdays. He always got exactly what he wanted. He had clowns and elephants last year, but this year, he wanted a space alien party.
He was going to play laser tag all around his parent’s enormous mansion. Maybe his daddy would even surprise him and show up to play!
Then mommy would stop being so sad and get off her smelly bed and come play, too.
It would be like when he was really little and mommy was just an artist. Daddy struggled, doing all sorts of things for money, but it didn’t matter because they were all happy and daddy would play horsey with him.
“Faster, Georgie,” he would say. “Giddyap!”
But that wasn’t important anymore because Georgie could have anything he wanted now. All Georgie had to do was ask mommy and tell her special assistant what she whispered back. Georgie didn’t like her special assistant, Ralph. Georgie had caught Ralph one time trying to steal mommy out of her bed. Georgie didn’t know what “passed away meant.” All he knew was that Ralph was taking away his mommy and he loved her and wanted her to stay.
He made his ugliest face at Ralph and then ran to put on his space suit.He couldn’t wait to play aliens with his friends, and maybe even his daddy!

Tumanny the Shark

2007-04-13T18:38:00.000-07:00

This is the last picture of me before i died.

My name was Samuel "Too-Many-Instruments" Pawlin. But my friends called me Tumanny.

This is my story.

I was a gambler. Not just an on the weekends with your dad's pals kind of gambler. A real shady dark room where everybody's got a gun kind of gambler. And i used to win. I mean big, really win.

I had to switch towns quite a few times because of it. No gang bosses like to lose too many times, you know what i mean?

So that was my racket. I'd go from town to town, playing the cards until the big guns showed up. They'd try to take me for all I was worth, real gangster-style.

But they didn't. Even with them cheating, It was like lady luck had it real bad for me, you know? And if you've ever seen a big dumb crime boss cheating at cards, you know it's like an elephant wearing a toupee, real obvious.

So these guys wouold think they were real smart just because they were the big booze bosses in their little towns. I'm surprised more cops weren't wise to them, but they were probably paid real good to keep their mouths shut.

One day it was raining. Real cat and dog style, you know? And i saw this puddle in the grimy street. It was real tiny, like a nickel. Then there was this bigger puddle across the way, the kind a gentleman has to put his coat down on for a hot dame to walk over.

It just hit me. Little puddles only have a little water, right? It was time for me to start hitting bigger towns.

I figured I'd need some sort of disguise or else I wouldn't be able to shark anybody. And just like that, I saw it. There was a perfectly good sax sittin in the alley, like providence or something. maybe the owner was just sittin inside enjoyin a smoke and near forgot about it. I didn't care. I took the trumpet, and looked it over. How hard could sax be? I'd seen a lot of guys playing it, and they didn't seem to have a brain in their head once you talked to them in person. Real boring-types.

So I went to my hotel and started wailing. Turned out to be quite a bit harder than i expected, but i was the diligent type. Straight A's in school and what-not.

I hid out for about a year, practicing on that big flute and asking around to see who had the most loot, who was really loaded. My questions turned me to Chicago. Al Capone's big city. It was nice. Real nice. If I had been any type of a family man, a place I would have like to settle down in. Yeah, me with a picket fence and a little wifey to cook up the turkey.

In that year I'd gotten pretty good playing the sax and I knew just who was loaded.

There was a group of guys, real legitimate-looking on the outside, who owned all the hotels in Chicago. But they were the seediest lowlifes I'd ever heard about. Dirtier than any of the grime in any of the burbs I'd dealt with.

So I kept my ear to the ground, indian-style, for any way to get in. I was hanging out back of one of the hotels, the Lady, when I heard a scuffle around the corner. I crept up behind the dumpster. It was this musician I'd seen playing inside from time to time. He was really good, nimble fingers, you know? he was like pleading for his life and the goon that was out there just wouldn't have any of it. He was hitting the guy with a rod or something. He was turning the guy inside out like a shirt at the cleaner's. The goon looked all around, probably felt me watching. I ducked down lower, until I couldn't see anymore.

I heard the guy begging. The goon said something real low and the musician started crying. then I heard a quick silence followed by the loudest shriek I'd ever heard a man make. It was like the goon had ripped him in half or something.

When i looked up to see, the door was just closing behind the goon, and the little guy was in the alley crumpled all up crying and holding his hands.

I went up to him. He had the most pained look I'd ever seen on a man's mug before.

"my hands, my hands, my hands...," he just kept repeating over and over. I looked. His hands were a mess. I'd never seen so many bones up close, pink with blood.

I tried to get him up, take him to see a doc or something, but he wouldn't budge.

I looked at the rod lying on the ground. It was a clarinet, or oboe, or flute or something. He saw me eyeing it and finally made some sense.

"Take it," he said. I didn't have to ask twice. I could see that his hands would never be able to play again.

"I'll get em back for you," I said.

I felt real bad for the guy. I figured he'd probably gotten in too deep of a debt, or maybe he'd knocked up one of the thug's girls or something.

So there I was with a sax and a clarinet. I learned to play them both. Yeah, that's right, at the same time. I'd hold them both up to my mouth like pan with the flutes, you know?

No one else could do it, and believe me, they tried. I must have had thirty copycats trying to get in my style, but they couldn't, and the big guys noticed.

They set me up for a date to play at the Lady. Yep, that very same hotel. Now, I was a little nervous, but I was playing all my cards right, and I knew I'd take them all for a little spin after my music set.

I just had to impress them with my music and be real friendly-like in person.

So the night of my performance, I was wearin my lucky vest and my flutes were polished up real nice. I showed up at the back door, all set. just ten minutes to show time. The big bouncer gave me a funny grin that I didn't really like, then let me inside. I went backstage and warmed up a sec. I just had five more minutes.

Then this little squeeky kid came up to me with another sax and clarinet.

"Here are your instruments, sir." Sheesh. I could barely make it out from all his hormones.

"I already got em kid," I said, holding up my pieces.

"The boss said you gotta play with these too. He wants to see if you can."

Great. I hadn't counted on this. two instruments was hard enough, but four? I didn't know what to do. I took them from the kid, and gave him a dirty look to send him scampering.

I had one minute to showtime. I couldn't screw up. I stepped forward and the curtain parted. It was like every dame had dressed to kill and dragged her guy to this show. All of Chicago must have been there.

But I was used to big lights and the stage now. I put all four instruments up to my mouth and started playing. I was surprised at how good I was. It was easier than I had expected.

Everyone was so shocked and amazed. I blew em away like a tommy gun!

I finished my set and everyone, all of Chicago there, stood up and applauded. I was on top of the world.

My mind quickly sharpened though. I knew I had bigger fish to fry.

The big scary-looking thug came up to me and said,"The bosses want to see you."

I put on my best dumb face and followed him down some steps into the cellar. I saw a big card table all laid out, and in the next minute, so was I. I was hit on the back of the head with something real hard and passed out.

I came to with my instruments all glued to my hands, and a gag in my mouth. Two clarinets in my left, a sax in the other, and the other sax glued to my chest. I was scared. Real scared.
I couldn't eevn see his face when he spoke from across the card table.

"We know why you're here. We know who you are. You aren't Tumanny, like the kids call you. You're Samuel Pawlins, the Shark."

The Shark. I kinda liked it.

I tried to mumble some excuse as I backed away from the shadowy figure.

"This picture will be an example for anyone who thinks they can take on the big bosses of Chicago."

Then a flash flashed, the picture almost blinding me. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway because right after the picture snap came the gunshot.

And that was it. The best, worst and last night of my life.

Galdur the Mighty

2007-04-13T18:35:00.000-07:00

Galdur was happy. well, as happy as a dwarf could be. He had a trusty axe that he had carried in many a battle. The dark elves knew of his glorious victories and trembled before his during skirmishes. Yes, he seemed to have everything a dwarf could want.

One day, Gladrimir, the dwarven ambassador, came to his wonderfully cozy dwarven home and said that he had important news. Galdur let him in. Gladrimir told him that he had done so well that the dwarves wanted him to be their dwarven king!

Galdur thanked him and sent him back outside. Galdur quickly packed all of his trophies and belongings and he and the ambassador headed out to the castle.

After a few weeks of settling in, Galdur recieved a message that the dark elves were planning an assault. Galdur went to fetch his trusty axe, but his first in command, Glorthririmir wouldn't let him. He said that it was too risky for their king, and that he must give them orders while staying within the safety of the castle walls. Galdur was hurt. Didn't they want him to fight alongside them?

He sent orders. They won the fight. He moped around. Galdur was happy no longer. He wanted to be covered in elven blood. He wanted the rush of adrenaline that only battle could bring. He wanted his life back. But the dwarves wanted him to remain king. He was the best king they had ever had! The dwarven empire was finally respectable.

And thus Galdur ruled for many years.

One night, he heard a strange rustling amongst his large bedsheets. He turned on the candle, and lo! A dark elf was waiting for him, sword drawn! Galdur reached under his bed for his trusty axe. The elf advanced, but Galdur could barely lift his axe. Years of inattention had left his muscles weak and unable to lift his weapon. The elf stopped. He grinned, and his thin lips stretched farther and farther, almost touching his ears. Galdur tried to run but the elf, strong and battle-ready, held him fast. He slowly stabbed Galdur over and over again until he lay lifeless on the cold castle floor.

The end.

New York Frankie!

2007-04-13T18:31:00.000-07:00

Frankie had arrived in the past a while ago. It was so dirty. Everywhere he went it smelled like garbage and urine.

Disgusting!

Even in the flower shops it smelled. The clerks in these shops always threw Frankie out. he knew it was because of the faces he would make. but he couldn't help it! Everything smelled.
But he had a mission, rotten smell or not, to deliver very important information to very specific individuals to alter the course of time. That's right, Frankie was a Time Cop Agent Enforcement Officer Alpha Class 7.

Every day he would track an individual, whose name was broadcast to him from the future. His communication device was cleverly disguised as a half-eaten dead rat. The "rat" contained the most expensive circuitry know to future-man. Frankie could see the difference between what the circuits looked like, and what normal rat-guts looked like, but everyone else would be fooled.
Every morning the "rat" "told" him the physical characteristics of the person meant to shape the future and what verbal information he was supposed to relay to them.

He would then weave a course through the crowded city of New York to tell them. Most of the time they recoiled from a total stranger running up so close to whisper in their ear, but he knew he got his message accross. He had to. The fate of the future world depended on him.

Most people just thought that he wanted spare change, but he didn't! Sometimes he would get so frustrated with people he would yell at them about being a time cop and having the future depending on him telling secrets to strangers that he heard from his half-dead technology rat. They would usually call the police, but what did it matter?

He knew that no one believed him anyway, and they were too primitive to prove anything.
They didn't know about him growing a beard to blend in with his surroundings. They didn't know that his shopping cart was really his time-machine, but that it was broken and he didn't possess the engineering skills to fix it.

He knew that the only way to get help from the future was to drink gin. More gin than his body would allow most of the time. The juniper berries that flavoured even the cheapest gin would act as a homing beacon in case they ever came looking for him. And he knew they would.

the end

Landry's Life

2007-04-13T18:27:00.000-07:00

Landry was a drunken girl. She loved to throw parties all the time. Her friends would always come. "Hey Landry," they would say. Then they would wander off to find their other friends and drink. Landry liked to watch her friends socialize. She would even allow her friends to "hook up" in her room. She never used it anyway, her friends would tell her.

She also liked having strangers in her house.. They were so exciting! Sometimes they threw up. Other times Landry would throw up. One time Landry got sick all over someone else's sick. One of her friends even gave her a nickname for doing this. He called her "Landry the Vomit."
Everyone laughed. Landry laughed because it didn't make sense, but her friends were all laughing with her, so she didn't care.

In the mornings she would usually wake up next to a stranger. They were so exciting! She thought about how she had probably enjoyed the night before, and wished again that she could remember it.

Then she would head off to class with her vodka in her deja blue water bottle. She was so sneaky. Her college professors never caught on. They were too old and stupid to notice her sleeping in class and besides, they had special arrangements with Landry.

She passed all of her classes. Not because she was smart, but because she knew what her professors needed. They were usually single, or their marriage was frustrating. Landry made them feel young again. So they helped her with her grades.

She knew that it didn't really even matter anyway. As soon as she graduated she was just going to go work for her mother, who had taken over for her deceased husband. Landry's father had died when she was a freshman in Orange County High School. Landry would be a fashion consultant, just like her mother wanted her to be. So she slept through her classes instead of being bored every day.

But Landry couldn't wait for graduation. She was going to throw such an awesome party!

The end

Nicki's Arm

2007-04-13T18:22:00.000-07:00

Nicki wasn't like most girls. She only had one long finger on her left "hand." She was just born that way. Doctors told her that her one long finger-arm was a miracle of science. But she hated her "tentacle," as the boys at school called it.

She knew she would never be the actress she so desperately wanted to be with her horrid arm, but she could draw. She was the best at drawing people having fun, doing all the things she wished she could do: playing softball, bowling, playing video games, holding babies.

She drew so lovingly that many people wished to purchase her fine art, but they decided not to once they saw her "tentacle." She kept painting anyway, without selling even one work of art, and because she was so stubborn in this way, she eventually died alone, penniless and starving, curling her one long finger, then uncurling it.

The End

Morton

2007-04-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

Morton was afraid. He knew that they were coming for him. Coming to take him away. He heard them at night sometimes, whispering to each other quietly. He'd pretend he couldn't hear them until they would chant his name in whispered unison.

"Morton, Morton, Morton." On and on in the night until he would scream out, "Just get on with it, I'm tired of waiting!"

Then they would be quiet. But he knew they were just drawing their plans to get him. His real friends would sometimes ask what he meant by "get him," or where "they would take him to."
He would yell at his friends for being so rude until he blacked out. But they were good friends. They would always put him to bed and fix him breakfast, or tell him when someone was lying to him. They were all so alike. Morton loved them, and they loved Morton.

That's why he was so angry when he found out that they were the ones plotting against him.

The End