- Richard
- Lizzie
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Duane
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
RICHARD
Goal!
I can see that you’re intrigued by it… Go ahead, take a look.
That’s grandpa’s tin helmet, the one he wore in the trenches in World War One. He was there during the Christmas truce and played football with the Hun. I still have the letter he wrote home saying how wonderful it was.
Then of course, when it was all over, they retreated back to the trenches, and the war began again.
He called it his ‘Lucky helmet’, reckoned it would protect him from anything.
It didn’t.
Check out the bullet hole… Brains blown out by the German referee!
LIZZIE
When will it stop raining?
When will they be able to stop wearing those silly helmets that didn’t let them breathe properly?
The people at the monastery couldn’t care less, and he admired them for that.
They disregarded the compulsory quarantine, saying they had to help the ones in need.
They made offerings to some obscure entity and they didn’t care about the rain.
That’s why they walked around wrapped in this odd material they had come up with themselves, and only at night.
When will it stop raining, he thought. He wanted to go and become one of them.
SERENDIPIDY
It’s enough to drive you mad, isn’t it?
“When will it stop raining?” your thoughts scream, tormented by the patter on the tin sheet beneath which you crouch.
I’m afraid it’s going to be some time yet, for this is only the start. Let’s work it out, shall we?
One drop per second, works out at around a pint, every thirty minutes; that’s ten pints in five hours, multiplied by four…
And when I’ve bled the rest of your family dry, I’ll be dragging you from beneath your protective cover, and stringing you up to join them.
Drip, drip, drip!
TOM
In the last century
My grandmother never threw away a single cooking tool, thus my mother
inherited all these. They were store in a cabinet under the sink where I
would play as a small child. I became particularly attached to a tin
Colander and tin funnel. It was the mid 50s and Tom Terrific was my go-to
cartoon, along with Warner Bros’ Looney Tunes. I would walk around the
apartment wearing my “Thinking Cap” funnel rakishly tilted. The colander
became my Marvin the Martian helmet. I’d hiss This makes me very angry,
very angry indeed. Then clobbering my brother with a Tonka Dozer
DUANE
The rain runs off my helmet like a waterfall. Through the downpour I sit and watch the medics, running down the trench.
“Splash splash” from their boots.
Slogging back with the dead and wounded.
“Splash splash.”
Another thump from a mortar round. Between blasts, the screaming of the unlucky bastards hit with the last salvo. Medics run by.
“Splash splash.”
Rations are here. Beans again. Some dry matches. Still out of coffee.
“Splash splash.”
Someone says he heard it’s going to end soon. Everyone laughs. New guy. He’ll change his tune.
“Splash splash.”
God dammit, when will it stop raining?
NORVAL JOE
Billbert’s mind ran about the thought of hanky-panky with Linoliamanda. She was pretty in a confused and myopic kind of way. And there was that odd thrilling sensation that ran from his heart to his stomach when she had kissed him.
He was roused from his thoughts when his father took him by the arm, and said, “Come on, Son. We need to go back inside.”
Linoliamanda and her cat had rejoined her father who was fuming and raising his fist in the air, shouting, “And the next thing you know we’ll all be wearing tin hats or protective helmets.”
PLANET Z
The war was over, and it was time to sign the peace treaty.
When The Prince and his Tin Helmets arrived for the ceremony, the Presidential Guard asked if the group had been vaccinated.
“No,” said The Prince’s assistant.
“Well, then you need to go into quarantine,” said the Chief Guard.
“Put The Prince in quarantine? Never!”
The Tin Helmets and the guards had a brief scuffle, and the fuming Prince was escorted back to his plane.
As the jet headed back over the border, bombers and fighters crossed over and killed more people than any disease in recent memory.