Author: R.

• Lisa
• Richard
• Lizzie
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is car crash… which I forgot to tack on to here. Did any of y’all notice? Did any of y’all write me about it?

LISA

A Missing Man.

It’s agreed – no one is uncomfortable. No one is really that distressed. Apart from some of us missing family, or pets, or partners the benefits of being here far outweigh the cons. It’s an odd thing.

Anything we want he brings us. I’d asked for pen and paper so am at last able to write this down. We agree it’s the not knowing why we’re here that worries us.

Strangely we haven’t seen him for a few days. We have enough snacks and drinks down here so we relax a bit more talking about him, knowing that he’s not listening.

RICHARD

WLTM

‘Good looking, thirty something blonde with GSOH would like to meet sane, solvent man, as a friend with benefits.’

The ad stood out amongst all the others. Unlike them, she didn’t come across as desperate, and I liked how it was short, snappy and to the point. She seemed confident. Just the kind of woman I liked, and the complete opposite of my ex-wife.

Messages were exchanged and a meeting was arranged.

The night of our date, I’ll admit I was nervous. Flowers… Chocolates? Check. Then the doorbell rang.

“Hi honey” HE said! “Ready to have a good time?”

LIZZIE

Love is such an illusive word. It’s not a word, she promptly said, it’s a feeling. And there I sat, wondering what she meant. She had never loved anyone and here she was, full of herself, pontificating about love. I just sat there, chain-smoking, which she hated. She pretty much hated everything about me. I’m not sure why she married me. In the end, love is such an illusive word, isn’t it? It just means that sometimes you do things for love. She wouldn’t have to suffer with my wrong-doings. That hammer was indeed sturdy, as promised at the store.

SERENDIPIDY

Fringe benefits, that’s what I call them. The sort of things that some would pay a lot of money for: Privacy, solitude and the contentment that I’m rarely going to be bothered by cold callers and strangers at the door.

And all I have to do to enjoy these benefits is to continue perpetuating the stories that circulate about ‘the mad woman in the corner house’.

My reputation goes before me, and people avoid me like the plague, which suits me absolutely perfectly.

It’s a great lifestyle and I have no complaints, which is more than my neighbours can say!

TOM

Progressive Rock

In 1970 my mother was the manager of the record dept at our local department store. So she got a 20% discount very cool. I bought Tull’s Benefit, think it was like $3.75. It was a bridging album pointing to what was to come. A little stretch into the creative process. If you hadn’t had Benefit it would have been unlikely Aqualung, Thick as a Brick, or A Passion Play would have seen the light of day. Paul Stump, in his History of Progressive Rock, said that Benefit ” offered the listener new bearings in his or her music search.

Carl

In 1921 the Czech playwright Karel Čapek coin the term robot from a Czech word for forced labor. His play R.U.R. Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots) focus on the evils of corporate greed. The robots in RUR are more Blaid runner than Terminator. Organic structures from the dark landscape of eugenics. The Play was a worldwide success. In the American production Spencer Tracy and Pat O’Brien played robots. One critic described Čapek’s robots as epitomizing “the traumatic transformation of modern society by the First World War and the Fordist assembly line. O brave new world, That has such people in’t.

NORVAL JOE

The 911 operator continued, “I don’t know how it benefits you delinquents to waste first responders’ time and taxpayers’ money. You’re not wasting ours.” She hung up.
Billbert flew back to the meadow and low over the grass.
The shooter faced away, talking to the Black Knights.
Billbert crept over to the old woman. “Buhmilda?” He touched her side and she fell over, her glassy eyes staring blankly.
He went to Sabrina. She moaned. Blood oozed from the wound in her leg.
Billbert looked up to see Linoliumanda running to him.
The Black Knights were too busy talking to notice.

PLANET Z

The Benefits Department handles all the insurance and other stuff for the company.
They also offer referrals to legal services, relocation experts, and even one of those New Age Feng Shui weirdos.
So, I figured, why not?
This short bald man in a robe arrived in my office, walking around, and he lit incense and tapped a small gong.
Then some guys came to move all the furniture around until it was in harmony with the energy lines of the universe.
My productivity went up. My blood pressure went down.
Everything was great.
Until I tripped over the end table.

• Lisa (Audio coming later)
• Richard
• Serendipidy
• Tom
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is Benefits

LISA

A Chat

We talk seriously when we get back. I thought I’d smelled an open fire and I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I’d seen him watching behind the door. I wonder if I’m just enjoying recounting my adventure.

We all agree, we’re in an odd position. We’re prisoners, his prisoners but actually we’re all in an unlocked basement just because we don’t know what’ll happen if we leave.

I’m sure, at the start. He HAD locked the door. I want to talk about the other girls, the bodies that have been found, but I can’t.

A lot is left unsaid.

RICHARD

Seating plan

I always sit at the back of the plane.

Last row, aisle seat, no exceptions.

I think it’s the ideal position for surviving a crash.

Others disagree and tell me the seats next to the emergency exit are safer, better still, if they’re over the wing; but I disagree.

I prefer to have a solid bulkhead behind me, rather than bodies and debris flying through the air. And, let’s face it, if we’re going down, the tail is going to hit the ground last.

My employers disagree.

They think I should sit at the front… Like all the other pilots.

LIZZIE

The yacht was tired. The crew and the passengers were also tired. No radio signal.
The Captain looked at the First Officer. “Let’s rest here.”
Suddenly, something something “what’s your position?”.
“Captain, we need time to fix the hull.”
“We’ll stay here. Nice, tropical island. We’ll be fine.”
When the search party arrived, the locals snickered.
“Where are they? The yacht is right over there.”
The locals snickered some more.
No one was found.
However, there were some suspiciously fresh bones, hanging above the doors of the houses.
That’s when the search party decided to leave as quickly as possible!

TOM

By Grace Alone

When Timothy Cratchit graduated from Cambridge with honors in accounting, he was offered the position of junior partner by emeritus Chairman Scrooge. Along with his father CFO he became a strong supporter of the Abolitionist Movement in America. In 1878 he met Rev. John Parker and soon after set up an endowment in his adopted uncle’s name. There was a secret clause in the endowment as to the name of a future church. When Timothy died in 1890 he was buried in the graveyard of Ebenezer Baptist Church. On his marble stone is written the following: God bless us everyone.

Bleak Gadgets

John despite his creative output was a very convivial person. All the same his company produced Bleak Gadgets. Funeral parlors need products, John supplied them. The solar powered last words tombstone. The thermal lying In-wait body grid. Aurora Borealis Cremation Urns for Human Ashes Adult Female for Funeral, Burial or Home. Memorial Lantern Sympathy Gifts for Loss of Mom/Loved One Bereavement Gifts. Hydraulic Embalming Table High quality stainless steel, hydraulic foot pedals, locking wheels. The Viruserv VB Guardian electrostatic sprayer a workhorse that will help you disinfect your facility quickly, effectively, and with confidence The BioSeal Portable System fully contained

SERENDIPIDY

Put yourself in my position.

If I let you go, you’ll go straight to the cops, and I really can’t have that, can I?

So you may as well forget trying to persuade me otherwise, and focus instead on making things easier for yourself.

I may be callous and unfeeling, but I’m a reasonable person. Perhaps I can be persuaded to let you live?

And, if not, at least you can try to convince me that a quick, clean death is in everyone’s best interests.

If nothing else, you can say you gave it a shot.

Before I shoot you.

NORVAL JOE

From Billbert’s position above meadow he saw everything at once.
Sabrina lay with her leg off at an odd angle. Buhmilda knelt, bent over, clutching her stomach. The driver of the van swung his rifle upward and aimed at Billbert.
He flew toward town and punched 911 into his phone.
As soon as an operator answered, he shouted, “There’s an active shooter at Buhmilda’s meadow. Do you know where that is?”
“I do,” she replied.
Billbert said, “People have been shot. They need help. Send police and an ambulance.”
The operator scoffed. “Right. You’re probably just swatting the old lady.”

PLANET Z

There is nothing more dangerous than a dying animal.
What about two?
Lying in a pool of their blood.
Their teeth on each other’s throats.
Vultures circling overhead, scavengers surrounding the endless battle.
Waiting for their chance to pick apart the ragged corpses.
One after another, they creep forward and peck or sniff.
A growl sends them scuttering back.
None of them notice me set down my stool, unfold the easel, and begin to paint.
Brushstrokes of very fang, tooth, eye, and hair.
I finish, pack up my things, and walk away.
Who won? I don’t know.
Does it matter?