Tag: mystery

Weedhaven

Listen to the children.

Laughing.
Crying.
Screaming.
Another fine day at The Weedhaven Laughing Academy.
They are all in their pajamas.
They are all in their rooms.
They are all in their beds.
Laughing.
Crying.
Screaming.
Will we let them out?
Will we let them play?
Will we let them have fun today?
No, no matter how much they laugh.
Or cry.
Or scream.
Check the locks on the doors.
Check them twice.
And check them again.
Don’t worry about the bars on the windows.
There are no bars.
Or windows.
Just walls.
To contain the children.
Laughing.
Crying.
Screaming.

Cord

My wife shook me awake.
“There’s an extension cord running into the sewer,” she said.
So I got up, put on my robe and slippers, and went outside.
Sure enough, an orange extension cord led to the sewer.
I tugged on it
It didn’t budge.
The other end led down the street for a bit, and then went straight up… and up…
I swear, it went as far as I could see, right towards the sun.
I tugged down on it.
And it came loose.
We ran inside as miles of orange cord came falling down from the darkening sky.

Third Eye

I once asked a mystic why they called it a “third eye.”
They said they had tried to use “center eye” and “middle eye” but people got them confused with Cyclops.
“What if a Cyclops is psychic?” I responded. “Do they have a second eye? And what about people born without eyes?”
We got horribly bogged down in semantics, and I think it was when I asked if a blind psychic had a fifth sense that he took a punch at me.
I ducked his punch, threw a right hook, and knocked him out cold.
“Didn’t see that one coming.”

Conversion

Frank had told Tony and Vinny to beat the punk to within an inch of his life to teach him a lesson.
So when he heard that his goons had beaten the guy to death, he was pissed.
“What the hell did you two do that for?” he yelled.
“Sorry, boss,” said Tony. “Vinny’s trying to teach me this new Metric System they got in France, so we tried converting centermeters to inches and all that, and we kinda went too far.”
Frank hung them both in a meat locker set to minus forty degrees.
Same in Fairyheight and Celtsius.

Strawberries

Molly didn’t bother with a lawn around her house.
Instead, she had one big strawberry patch.
She raised strawberries year-round, making jams and preserves with them, or just filling up baskets, and giving those out as gifts to everyone.
Everyone thinks the scent in the evening is wonderful.
Except for one guy: Carl.
He was allergic to strawberries, and he threatened to sue.
One day, Carl vanished. Nobody ever saw him again.
But I suspect that Molly keeps him in some of those jars in her basement.
Good. Because he was an asshole.
And nobody liked him.
Thank you, Molly.

The Bottom Line

He started as a software programmer, making cool games that sold millions of copies.
Now, as the CEO of his own software company, he was all about the bottom line.
Which was bottoming out.
“MAKE ME THE NEXT KILLER APP!” he shouted at his programmers.
So, the programmers worked up code that linked a phone’s motion sensors, GPS, and traffic data.
Whenever the driver of a car was in heavy traffic and going very fast, the phone would make a horribly distracting noise that would cause the driver to crash.
They installed it on the CEO’s phone.
Without telling him.

Mother’s Day

We watch the suntigers weave among the clouds, chasing each other.
Every so often, they fight, and a glinting tooth falls from the sky.
Picking through the underbrush, we collect them in baskets and return to the archmage’s hut.
He looks over our harvest, tosses away the fractured ones, and spots a good solid crystal.
“Perfect,” he says.
He places it over the eyes of our mother’s corpse, chants something, and then holds the crystal up to the light.
Mother’s battered face appears on the opposite wall.
“Parker the Butcher,” it says.
The killer is arrested, and justice is done.

Change Bulbs

Instead of going out to lunch, I eat carrots and celery at my desk at work.
Then, when I get my lunch break, I go for an hourlong power walk through the tunnels under Downtown Houston.
During one of my walks, a crew of three men had spread a tarp on the floor and were changing lightbulbs.
But they were moving the ladder out of the way when people approached, not rotating it as one guy on it held the bulb.
Why they had the tarp on the floor, I never asked. I just walked back to work and pondered.

Pelicans

One day, all the pelicans vanished.
In their place, neatly-typed sheets of paper explained in perfect French how there was a serious design flaw with pelicans necessitating an immediate recall of all pelicans.
Those that could not be upgraded to meet basic safety standards would be replaced or compensated for at fair market value.
Unsigned. Undated.
The next day, pelicans reappeared.
Nobody could explain exactly what had happened.
Was it an elaborate prank by aliens?
Proof of the existence of God?
Why was the note in French?
But most importantly, why pelicans?
I still can’t tell what’s changed about them.

The Tree

I suppose we should go over a few things.
We’ve been fighting over that tree for too long. We need to settle this before it gets out of hand.
First, you said it’s on my side of the property line, so I have to take care of it.
But you took all the fruit from it.
Then, during the storm, I’m supposed to pay for that branch that fell on your house.
So, I cut it down. But you sued me?
That’s why I made a coffin from the wood.
Now sign this release, or I’ll bury you in it.