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.