Prisoner 280 asked the headsman’s forgiveness for stepping on his foot, and she placed her head through the guillotine’s stock.
As the sentence was read aloud, she imagined her husband enduring this same insult nine months earlier.
Unlike the king, her head did not drop into the basket, but sailed over the crowd, spinning on to the cobblestoned street.
The town militia chased after it, but it soon rolled out of sight.
They tossed her body into an unmarked grave, which meant they never knew when it was dug back up.
The resurrectionist rubs his hands together, laughing with joy.
Category: My stories
Her Name Was Splack
Her name was Splack.
I don’t remember if that was her first or last name.
When you have a name like Splack, it doesn’t matter. You don’t remember it.
Even if she introduces herself as Jenny or Ismelda or writes it on her panties and raises her skirt to greet people, once you hear the Splack, that’s all you’ll ever know her by.
The weird thing was, she chose to go by that name.
So, I went down to Human Resources and looked up what her full name was.
Closing the file quickly, I decided Splack was fine with me.
Runaway Santa
When Christmas is over, we round up the Santas, herd them into trucks, and ship them back to the camps.
Radio tags help catch the strays.
We give each Santa a checkup, fix the damaged ones, and read through field reports that track which strains were effective where.
Beards by environment, bell-ringers versus department stores… we analyze everything.
This helps us plan our training and deployment strategy for the next holiday season.
And how to predict severe failures.
In the basement, the worst Santas are kept.
The molesters. The axe-murderers.
Oh no. The lock is broken?
Quick! Sound the alarm!
A gift for Valentine’s
When we were married, I swore I’d give you my heart forever.
For health, and sickness.
The doctor said that you needed a new heart, but a bad risk for transplant surgery.
You were way down the transplant list. No point in keeping the battery in the pager fresh.
I went to bed, telling myself that this would be the last sleep I’d ever sleep.
The next morning, I woke up with every intention to kill myself and let the doctors give you my heart.
But you were cold. Still. Not breathing.
You died in your sleep.
Oh, never mind.
Checking it twice
Santa’s making his list, checking it twice.
Too bad for John Bettencourt (now known as Paul Miller of Orlando, Florida) that he doesn’t check with the Witness Protection Program.
John wanted chocolate-covered truffles from his favorite online catalog store, but instead of using a new shopper ID, he used his old one.
Santa didn’t notice. But the crooked defense contractor that John blew the whistle on did.
A box arrived the next day.
“Mmmmmmmm… truffles!” John said.
He opened it, setting off the parcel bomb.
It wasn’t reindeer on the rootops, but bloody bits of John raining down on them.
Ground Hog
It be Groundhog Day.
We has a special on groundhog burgers today.
What do it taste like?
I dunno, I ain’t tried one yet.
Go ahead. Try one. It on special, so it don’t cost much.
And you get fries and Coke. Free refills.
(The Coke, not fries. That extra.)
What you say? “This groundhog fresh?”
Course it’s fresh. Just runned them over with my truck this mornin’.
Even got one big sucker with my fender that some dude in the park was holdin’ up.
Yeah, the news say there’s six more weeks of winter comin’, but not for him.
The Lost Ring
I’ve lost so much weight, my ring slipped off the other day.
I searched along the path I took, but couldn’t find it.
When I first got the ring, I felt its presence, but quickly got used to it.
Now that it’s gone, I constantly notice that it’s not there.
It’s an uncomfortable feeling, and I want to put it back on, but it’s gone.
So I will get a new one soon.
My wife was deathly ill last year.
Would I have had to remove the ring if she hadn’t have recovered?
I’d have kept it.
For remembrance.
(Right?)
Die In A Fire
Did I ever tell you about my friend Diana Fire?
Parents can be cruel, choosing names.
When she was a child, she liked to play with matches. Every year, she’d ask for a new Barbie Dream House, but by Valentine’s day, Barbie would be back in her shoebox, hair singed and skin scorched a bit more.
Through the years, she blazed a trial through homes, jobs – burning every bridge.
I got a call this morning. Had to identify her body.
Froze to death after getting locked in a walk-in cooler. Ruined the irony potential there.
So we’ll have her cremated.
Hit Somebody
Every February 29th, we celebrate St. Punch Somebody In The Face Day.
Everybody gets to throw one punch.
But there’s no limit on how many punches you’ll take.
It’s fun to look out the window, watching the neighbors run around, frightened and excited at the same time.
Me, I’m a masochist, because I walk down the street, smiling my shit-eating grin and daring people.
By the time I get back home, not a single punch.
Well, not this year.
In the past, I got my share. Messed me up good.
Now they turn away, disgusted at what they see.
Cowards.
Looms
Don’t believe the horror stories about textile mills.
Sometimes, they can be fun places.
Once a year, when we’ve made our production targets and have some material left over to play with, I like to go down into the floor and shuffle the punchcards like a Vegas dealer.
Then, I stack them back into the machine and start up the looms.
The patterns that emerge are stomach-wrenching eyesores, complete and total crimes against fashion and decency.
We get out the patterns, make them into slacks, and what we don’t sell to professional golfers we give as gifts to our grandfathers.