- Richard
- Lisa
- Lizzie
- Serendipidy
- Tom
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
RICHARD
— Snooze —
What’s that beeping?
Mostly still asleep, brain barely functioning, it slowly dawns on you: The alarm is going off.
Clumsily, you fumble for the hateful thing at the side of the bed, hitting the snooze button, before crashing back into the pillows for the next ten minutes.
It’s not like this in the movies.
No -one ever hits snooze in films.
They either hurl the offending article across the room, or wake pleasantly refreshed; no yawning, hair and makeup pristine, sheets artfully draped across them, hiding anything remotely offensive.
The alarm sounds again.
I hit snooze.
Ten more minutes, please.
LISA
What’s that Beeping?
It hasn’t been a first date like in the movies. He’d come round to mine but my smoke alarm needed new batteries and was beeping. He went to get some and didn’t come back… not meant to be. I necked the wine and spent the evening scrolling facebook. Then I saw, in a local community group, a picture of a car wrapped around a signpost. One person seriously injured & taken to the General. It was him! I went straight to the hospital, pretended to be family and here I am listening to the beeping of his life support machine.
LIZZIE
That way. No, this way. And they continued to argue even though the signpost was right there. A policeman approached and asked where they were going. They stuttered. The policeman frowned. Bicycles, they said. The policeman pointed to the rent sign and waved them away. But… What if…, one of them started. The policeman rolled his eyes and jokingly asked where they hid the body. How did he know?! No more asking for directions. There was only one possible way. The End. Funny how an open-ended story can be as annoying as people who don’t know where they are going.
SERENDIPIDY
You passed the signpost a good half hour ago, the one that said three miles to go.
Surely, it can’t be much further?
You peer into the darkness… It’s the middle of nowhere, you’ve no signal and the satnav is blank.
Perhaps you took a wrong turning somewhere along the way?
Suddenly, the car engine stutters and dies. You roll slowly to a halt.
The silence presses in.
You’re alone.
Guess you should just sit tight until the morning and make the best of it.
Except it’s never quite that simple in the movies.
Are you afraid?
You should be!
TOM
It was a good Gig
Gary was a Federal Information Designer. His job was boring, but his hidden quest was bright and shine-y. He wanted highway signs to be bright and shine-y. His office was piled high with Sample Signposts. Lots of vermilion and forms straight out of the Memphis movement. For a dyed in the wool bureaucrat, he sure had a deep exult for glitter, I mean rainbow glitter. It of a tip there. The sample signpost that got him promoted had 47’s face in the middle. And it was gold plates. With orange lettering. It was impossible to understand, just like the man.
NORVAL JOE
“What’s that beeping?” Mandi asked as they climbed the ashlar steps to the open front door.
“It’s the panic alarm. Wait here,” Billbert said, levitated, and soundlessly entered the house.
Like a scene in the movies, a man in a mask held a gun on Billbert’s parents.
His mother made eye contact and quickly looked away. Fortified by her superpower of efficiency, Billbert knew what to do when she nodded.
He shot forward as both his parents dropped to the floor. Billbert grabbed the intruder, lifted him, and slammed him into the wall.
The gun flew from the thug’s hand.
NORVAL JOE
After weed had been decriminalized in the city, Bradley sold at the late night Pink Floyd show at the Science Center planetarium.
“We’re here to make sure everybody plays nice,” said the cops.
Bradley thanked them for their service, offered up free samples.
Bradley went back to selling, checking IDs and taking photos to cover his ass if someone was buying for a kid again.
Bradley was a businessman, not a crook.
“Come back when you’re 21,” he’d say.
Parents appreciated that. And then bought from him.
He even got an entrepreneur of the year award from the Rotary Club.