Have you seen the spiderman.
No, not Spiderman. The spiderman. Lower case S.
He’s a homeless guy who hangs around Third Avenue.
Why is he called the spiderman?
Because he’s got spiders crawling all over him.
But don’t stare at him. Or take photos.
Because he’ll scoop up a wad of spiders and throw them at you.
It’s funny when you see him doing it to someone, throwing spiders at them.
Screaming and running all crazy, trying to swat the spiders away.
Until he catches you starting at him.
So, can you help me get these spiders off of me?
Month: January 2019
The fred
The Fred could fill a stadium.
Usually, he filled it with people, and they all cheered for him.
But one time, The Fred demanded that the stadium be filled with pudding.
Was there enough pudding? How much would it cost to make and transport to the stadium?
The Fred didn’t care. He demanded that this be done.
Charities condemned The Fred for his wastefulness. “What about the starving masses of the world?”
“Bring them to the stadium!” he said, “And bring plenty of spoons!”
And so, the stadium filled with people, waving their pudding-covered spoons as they cheered for him.
Pray for
After every terrorist attack, social media erupts with “Pray” hashtags and calls for peace.
So, when the police caught a bomber, they brought him to the interrogation center.
Locked in a cell, the man shouted Koranic verses.
Then, he shouted for a lawyer.
After that, he shouted for food and water.
Outside the door of his room, guards sat and prayed.
“Aren’t you going to do anything?” said guards from the next shift.
The guards invited them to join in prayer.
So, they did, and after a few days, the shouting and screaming stopped.
“Finally, some peace,” said a guard.
Hell on
People say she’s really Hell on Wheels, but she’s more like Hell on Furniture Casters, sliding around the dining room floor and scuffing up the hardwood.
If Hell has frozen over, you could say someone was Hell on Ice Skates, or maybe if it’s snowed there, you could try for Hell on Skis or Hell on a Sled.
A flooded Hell could be Hell on Waterskis. Or Hell on Pontoons.
Maybe a Hell on a Raft.
But one day, maybe Hell on a Hoverboard will be possible.
And it’s not like anyone would care if it catches on fire, right?
Weekly Challenge #666 – THE DEVIL
This is the Weekly Challenge, where I post a topic and then challenge you to come up with a 100 word story based on that topic.
- Lizzie
- Richard
- Serendipity
- Duane
- Jerry
- Tom
- Jon
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
LIZZIE
There’s the Devil, on that cake!
She looked around to see if anyone saw him too.
The cheeky Devil went from the cake to a pot of jam.
The Devil looked at her, motionless.
She couldn’t believe no one was freaking out.
The Devil took a few steps aside, enjoying the jam.
“Well, would you like some bread to go with that?” she exclaimed out loud.
Everyone looked at her and she pointed. They laughed and laughed. No bloody Devil.
But she could swear, she saw the Devil again, the next year, mocking her from afar.
RICHARD
Blurred vision
The devil is in the detail, or so they say; so I do whatever it takes to avoid running foul of that chap.
My life has been one long, paranoid round of glossing over details, although I can’t say it’s been a particularly pleasant experience.
I never check the small change, read the fine print or review agreements – you can imagine the problems that causes.
And – just in case – I wear spectacles of the wrong prescription, so I live in a blurry world, devoid of fine detail.
So even if I run into the devil, I won’t recognise him!
DUANE
Devil (Music by James Kibbie)
It isn’t easy being the Devil these days. I can’t keep up anymore. I was great at tempting people back in the day. Remember Eve? Now, when they say a person is evil, they call them Hitler or Stalin or Nicholas Cage. Hell, even social media is better at tempting people. I could never have gotten teenagers to eat Tide pods, or to back up just another step for that selfie.
I think it may be time to throw in the towel. I thought about getting out of Hades and moving to Florida, but Hell, have you seen Florida lately?
JERRY
I know you all have heard about the Devil.
You don’t even have to be a church going evangelistic to know who he is.
Bart Simson tells us “The Devil made me do it”.
The movies tell you all about him. Hellboy, Constantine, Little Nicky, and of course The Omen.
Lots of movies.
In fact I challenge you to turn on cable, all 250 channels of it, and not find a movie about the Devil on somewhere.
I wonder how much stock the Devil owns in the entertainment industry?
And, yes I found Little Nicky to be a funny movie.
SERENDIPIDY
They say that I’m the devil in disguise.
The townspeople speak in hushed voices when I’m about; they lock their doors, and hide their children away, and whenever the worst occurs, it’s always at me that the finger of blame is pointed.
A death, disaster, injury or loss: It’s always my name on people’s lips as they seek to apportion blame.
You might think that I’d be bothered by what people think, but it’s no concern to me at all.
Because, in truth, they’re absolutely right!
They say that I’m the devil in disguise…
And they’ve seen right through it.
JON
In a Jam
By
Jon DeCles
I believe it was the Sheep who told Alice: “Jam every other day. Jam yesterday and jam tomorrow, but never jam today.”
Isn’t that the promise of both religion and politics?
Yesterday was wonderful, tomorrow will be better. Ignore the fact that today is shit. Whatever you do, don’t complain about how things are, or you won’t get any jam tomorrow and we may even take away your memory of the jam you had yesterday. Or did you actually have any jam yesterday?
Theater is clearly different. It is always jam today. As for tomorrow: yesterday may yet be shit.
TOM
Memo #666
The Devil is in the details. Take the use of the terms accurate and precision. Most folk use them interchangeably trying to describe a state of closeness, an approximate if you will. In one case the fineness of the operation is in question. In the other it’s a matter of performing the same task exactly. It could be a quite raw procedure. The other is concerned with producing an outcome within the limits of some measurable tolerance. Your job young demons is to do both. Here are your tools, your clients await your due diligence.
Yours In Eternal Darkness
The Satan
NORVAL JOE
Linliumanda stepped forward pointing her finger right up to the bully’s nose, and said, “You should leave Billbert alone, because,”
Billbert jumped in and cut her off. “Because, I might be a hemophiliac and if you hit me I might get a hematoma and bleed to death. You could be convicted of first degree manslaughter.”
Roderick stepped back and nodded his head slowly. He laughed while he said, “Yeah. I wouldn’t want that to happen.”
Billbert turned back to Linoliumanda who stood with her arms folded, scowling.
Black Lives Matter
They call themselves Black Lives Matter.
And demand that nobody say All Lives Matter.
They say that’s racist.
Even though only saying Black Lives Matter is the racist statement.
Because it focuses on a single race.
They say you should assume it really means Black Lives Matter Too.
Or Black Lives Also Matter.
But if that’s the case, why don’t they add those words?
Once again, they say that’s racist.
Just as they say it’s dangerous to put deadly force in the hands of police,
I think it’s dangerous to put deadly accusations in the hands of activists like these.
No hell below us
The Declaration of Independence states that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.
The problem with this arrangement is when you realize there’s no Creator, and your rights become moot.
Or, if you allow for the existence of a Creator, there’s no mechanism in place by which these rights are guaranteed.
So many claim agency on behalf of the Creator, but if the Creator can create people, the Creator can create a means of testing an agent’s legitimacy, right?
Further proof that there is no Hell below us, just the one we make for ourselves here.
The genie’s wishes
After Aladdin let the Genie free, the Genie waved goodbye and explored the world.
But he was a creature of habits, and instead of sleeping in a bed, he preferred to sleep in oil lamps.
Every now and then, someone would rub the oil lamp and wake up the Genie.
“What the shit, man?” the Genie would say. “I was trying to sleep.”
“So, where are my three wishes?” the person would ask.
Instead of offering three wishes, the Genie would beat the shit out of that person, or kick them to the moon, and then go back to sleep.
Launch
Marylin climbed into the rocket’s capsule, strapped herself in, and closed the hatch.
She looked over the console to check the readings.
Everything was perfect.
She started the automated launch and flight sequence.
As the system counted down to zero, she wondered if she was making the right choice.
Life on the orbital satellites was comfortable and simple, and people lived peacefully there.
Would she, a misfit with a red-tagged file, fit in there?
The countdown reached zero, and the rocket lifted from the pad.
Through the window, Marilyn watched as the launch center receded… and Earth slowly grew larger.
Honest woman
Bob said he’d make an honest woman out of Sally.
So, he and his CIA buddies grabbed her off the street, stuffed her in a white van, and drove her to an interrogation center.
Her answers were vague, and the high-speed camera caught microexpressions in her forehead that suggested she wasn’t telling the truth.
Polygraphs are stress-dectectors, not truth-detectors, but the interrogator used it to catch Sally off of her guard.
Another session on sodium pentathol confirmed the results.
“She’s no good for you, Bob,” said the interrogator.
Bob called off the wedding, and dumped Sally’s body in the bay.