My father died two years before I was born. And my mother died soon after.
So, how was I born?
My mother’s sister got everything in the house, the cars, and the embryos in the fertility center’s cryogenic vault.
At first, she wanted to get rid of the embryos. But she had a dream in which her sister told her to carry one to term.
And that’s how I was born an orphan.
I turned out alright, but I don’t recommend it.
Still, I’d like to see my brothers and sisters.
I’ll pay you fifty thousand for each one.
Deal?
Tag: tragedy
Tink
Tinkerbell flew around the dinner table of the Lost Boys, trailing her pixie dust and laughing.
But none of the boys raised their heads to laugh along. All just moaned and held their aching bellies.
Tinkerbell landed on the table and walked from boy to boy.
Red flushed faces.
Never-food vomiting.
Sunken eyes.
Bleeding sores.
Thinning hair.
Even her beloved Peter was looking haggard, unable to raise himself to crow.
One by one, the Lost Boys died of radiation sickness, not that Tinkerbell ever figured that out.
She flew away, trailing her sparkling deadly Radium trail… I mean pixie dust.
The Generals
General Clayton was a great soldier, and he earned many medals.
So many medals, in fact, he was unable to pin them all on to his chest.
That’s when he had himself cloned.
With all those additional chests, he could pin the medals on.
Of course, with all those additional General Claytons, they collectively earned even more medals.
More medals, more Generals.
It was an endless loop of generals and medals, until the Army ran out of medals to give to the generals.
Then, they all suddenly died of the same congenital heart defect.
Dammit. Now we need more cemeteries.
The Dead Writer
Mark’s parents made a shrine out of his room.
All of his writing awards and achievements were framed on the wall.
They put his favorite pen on the shelf. He stopped using it when his hands shook too much to write with it.
His last keyboard was next to it.
He switched to voice recognition, but he lost his power of speech soon after.
Next to his microphone was the NeuroCap which picked up his thoughts and translated them into his final two novels.
The last words of the novel were: I love you.
But they might not have been.
The Duke
We found bullets, knives, and poison in the old duke’s body. Each was the weapon of choice of one of his sons:
Heinrich, the eldest, was proficient with a gun.
Brutus was an expert with the blade.
And Claus, the youngest, preferred to work with toxins.
So it was a surprise to all when the judge ordered Hilda, the Duke’s daughter, to be executed.
“She shot, stabbed, and poisoned him to implicate her brothers,” said the judge. “Take her away.”
The sons laughed as they threw their sister from the tower to her death.
She landed on the corrupt judge.
Paper or Plaster
Every time I go grocery shopping, it’s the same damn question:
“Paper or plastic?”
Plastic’s good for putting the scooped-out clumps of kitty litter into.
But the kitties like to play in the paper bags.
In the end, I settled on paper. The baskets on my bike are large enough for one paper bag each.
The one time I got plastic, I couldn’t fit all the bags into the baskets.
With one bag dangling from my right hand, I fell and broke my left arm.
I use a plastic bag to keep the cast dry in the shower.
The Cruelest Puzzle
Vindal Mumford was a famous puzzlemaker, so it was no surprise that his will was in the form of an intricate puzzlebox with no apparent solution.
Experts examined the box for weeks, twisting and turning it and subjecting it to x-rays and other modern scanning technology.
But the box was still impenetrable and unsolvable.
Weeks… months… years went by, but no solution to the puzzle was ever found.
Not that Vindal left anything to be won by the solver of his final puzzle.
There’s not much money in creating problems without solutions, you know.
(Unless you’re a politician, of course.)
Daisy
Her name was Daisy, but she preferred roses.
Nobody asked her what flowers she liked, so everyone gave her daisies and she’d smile and thank them for the flowers.
When she’d get home, she’d give them to the old woman who lived on the third floor. Or if the old woman wasn’t there, Daisy just tossed them in the dumpster in the alley.
Then one day, a guy finally gave her roses and she was so thrilled, she had a stroke and collapsed.
Now she’s in the hospital completely unresponsive, a vase of daisies on the table by the bed.
Regicide
Prince Alfred was the only heir, and from the day he was born, he was never a well child.
The King wanted another son, because it was obvious that Alfred would never rule. So, he hired assassins to kidnap and kill the queen so he could marry again.
Alfred knew that his father had his mother killed, so he had to kill his father’s mistresses.
He poisoned the first four before his father had the cook replaced.
When Alfred stabbed the fifth mistress himself, The King smiled.
“I believe you’re well enough to rule,” he said.
Then Albert stabbed him.
The Rings
Tiffany wore a necklace with a key dangling from it.
Marie wore a necklace with a padlock.
As long as they couldn’t get married in Texas, they refused to wear the rings they’d bought for a full-blown wedding.
They were together for fifty years, and every day, Tiffany looked at those rings.
“Not yet,” said Marie.
So Tiffany put them away.
When Marie got sick, Tiffany begged her to exchange rings.
“No,” said Marie.
And she died the next day.
Tiffany tried to put the key in the lock.
It didn’t fit.
She put on the other necklace and wept.