“Sic Semper Tyrannis!”
John Wilkes Booth limps off the stage as chaos overtakes Ford’s Theater.
In the background…
Singing?
“STOP!” shouts Professor Rathbone, clicking a hand control.
Everyone freezes in place, frozen in time.
Rathbone twists a knob on the control, scrolling the scene backwards.
Women and men point and sit back down, Booth flies up to the Presidential box, scuffles with an Army major, and unshoots Lincoln.
Rathbone clicks again, walks to the stage, and spots the quietly singing Rick Astley.
He points the control, clicks, and the hologram vanishes.
The grad students chuckle as Rathbone resets the scene.
Category: My stories
To Don’t
A lot of people make TO DO lists to get their chores done.
I stuck mine to a corkboard, and I put colored pins in chores I need to get done, removing pins once they’ve gotten done.
However, some people make TO DON’T lists to list all the things they do to waste time, and then they try not to do those things.
I tried a TO DON’T list, but the first thing I put on it was my TO DON’T list.
A paradox wormhole opened up, swallowing everything in the room.
I scratched “Laundry” off my TO DO list.
Black Cats
Most black cats I’ve known get named Midnight or Blackie. Or Shadow.
We named ours Bruwyn and Myst.
Bruwyn is short for Bruce Wayne, because his ears are pointy and tall like Batman’s cowl.
Myst was called Michelle, but we don’t like Obama much in our house, so she got renamed Myst because she likes to hide and she’s easily missed.
Well, when I say we named our cats, I really mean my wife.
She got naming rights on both of these cats.
I call them Boo Boo and Baby.
Or “Get in here, you little shits!” when it’s dinnertime.
Neighborhood Watch
WHAM WHAM!
Stan nailed a NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH sign to the side of the house.
“You have it facing the wrong way, Stan,” I say.
“Shit,” says Stan, and he pries it off with the claw hammer. He sticks the bent nail into the pocket of his tool belt, pulls out another, and tries again.
WHAM WHAM!
“Now?”
“Upside-down.”
“Shit!”
He pried it loose again, got out another nail, and…
WHAM WHAM!
“Third time’s the charm, but it’s my house.”
Stan unfolded his cane and grabbed his dog’s harness.
“Of course it is. They don’t take blind people, stupid,” he said.
Fetch The Stick
The sign on the front door of Le Ho Kim says NO DOGS ALLOWED.
Under it: DELIVERIES IN BACK.
The band jokes about chow dogs being in the chow mein, puppies in the dumplings.
Benny’s been coming here since we were two years old, and he still can’t work chopsticks.
“Use a fork!” growls Damien. “I’m sick of watching you with those sticks.”
Benny’s the goddamned drummer, right? You’d think he could by now.
“Woof!” I say, holding up a dumpling, and everybody laughs.
“Fetch!” says Benny, tossing a chopstick.
I throw the dumpling after it, and everybody laughs harder.
Big Moe
Big Moe checks his watch, struggles to get up from the sidewalk, and says he needs to go to the gym.
Everybody laughs.
Big Moe’s wider than he is tall, and I swear he takes up an elevator all by himself.
“I gotta go get my little brother,” he says. “He goes down to the gym every day to work out.”
Ricky: “What does he do? Lift you over his head?”
Everybody laughs again.
Big Moe snorts, rumbles down the sidewalk.
Strange. Moe doesn’t look as big as he usually does.
Walking to the gym every day’s a start, right?
Reach
Imagination is like a magical place of ideas and stories.
Reach in, and pull something out… that’s creativity.
In between you and that place is the world, with all its problems and stresses and frustrations, clouding your vision and making it hard to pull anything from there, blocking you.
But every now and then, when you hear something strange, or something looks kinda weird, the world glimmers and gives way, letting imagination peek through.
Reach through quickly!
Grab on to it!
Pull it out!
Grab it!
Missed!
Keep trying. Keep at it.
Don’t stop looking.
Don’t give up the search.
More Circles
The world is a mess. And Hell is filling up quickly.
So, The Devil is adding circles to it to handle new sins.
For instance, there will be a circle for Spammers. They’ll be force-fed herbal supplements and smeared with noxious creams, giving them painfully massive erections and swollen breasts.
The rest of the damned will need to be moved to make use of the new space.
Diverting the river of fire.
Replanting the suicide wood.
Changing harpy flight paths.
And that’ll be a nightmare in logistics.
But then, it’s Hell. That’ll be a punishment for condemned change management consultants.
Barf
Cats throw up now and then.
As they get older, they throw up more often.
And they sometimes miss the litterbox.
But if they’re pooping, at least it means they’re keeping some food down, right?
Either way, I’m the one who gets to pick up the mess, scrub the carpet, and then spray a cloud of deodorizer.
Kittens should come with a warning label:
WARNING
One day, this kitten will become a cat.
And that cat will become an old cat.
And old cats make a lot of nasty, smelly messes.
But, in spite of that, you’ll still love it.
Tis Of Thee
“If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.”
They used to make an effort hiding the cameras in schools.
A toy on a shelf
One of the presidents on the wall
An air vent
“For safety” said the government, installing more cameras to the crumbling, mold-infested buildings named after heroes, famous writers, and the elected officials who budgeted for the schools, but not their maintenance or the teachers in them.
Alarm!
Fifth Grade!
Third period!
English!
Play it back:
“Govern… the government governs by the will of the governed.”
Flag them.
Flag the teacher.
Bring them in.