Lord Foster’s estate is gigantic.
It is so large, by the time the man who mows the grass is done, the grass has grown back.
The groundskeeper asked for an additional man.
Lord Foster said no. The staff was large enough as it is.
The groundskeeper asked for a faster lawnmower.
Lord Foster said no. That lawnmower was fine for the job.
The groundskeeper asked if the lawmower could run at night.
Lord Foster said no. The noise was annoying.
So, the groundskeeper asked Lord Foster to come outside.
He tied him up.
And ran him over with the lawnmower.
Tag: dystopia
Turn
I’m out in my workshop, tinkering with junk I’ve scavenged.
It took a while, but I think I have this old radio fixed.
I plug it in to the solar battery array, flip the switch, and the tubes begin to glow.
So beautiful.
I slowly turn the knob, and the empty frequencies swirl and crackle with the random almost-nonsense of static.
Something pops.
Wait. Was that a voice?
I turn the dial back.
Nothing.
I keep my eyes closed, listening… searching…
No voices. No music. No recorded messages.
I turn it off.
Am I the last man alive?
God forbid.
Get your own ghost!
What are you doing, wrapping your rage in a ghost?
If you’re going to be an asshole, do it on your own terms!
Don’t go dragging their good name through the mud as you bloody your fists on someone face.
It’s disgusting when you wrap yourself in the flag and act all patriotic for profit, but it’s utterly revolting how you exploit the memory of someone who trusted you.
How could you?
What’s even worse is that you didn’t even wait for them to die.
I wish you were dead, because I can’t wait to do the same to you.
You may now kiss the… WHAT?
I got married in Vegas eleven years ago.
It was a small ceremony. Friends and family.
And a preacher who was drunk out of his fucking mind.
He stumbled and slurred his way through the ceremony, and he couldn’t stop staring down the Maid Of Honor’s dress.
Then, at the end, he said “You may now kiss the bridge.”
“Don’t you mean bride?” I asked.
But by then, he was passed out, and I thought I smelled gas, so we all ran for it before a spark could blow us all to Kingdom Come.
What about the bridge?
Tasted… rusty.
The Werewolf
Bob points his gun at the werewolf, pulls the trigger… BANG!
The Werewolf goes down and lies still.
Bob waits for a bit, then says “Get up.”
The Werewolf gets up. “Those blanks are pretty loud.”
Bob hands the Werewolf a small red pouch. “Poke a hole in that and grab it to your side when I shoot you.”
“Just get me on the cart and the hell out of town before they do anything worse.”
The Werewolf and Bob went from town to town with their scam, became filthy stinking rich, and retired happily.
(But everybody else was dead.)
Building Blocks
I’m all about the educational toys.
Most kids get little wooden alphabet blocks.
Not my kid. That stuff’s for babies. They stick them in their mouths and drool.
No challenge at all. How’s that educational?
I’m giving my kid alphabet cinderblocks.
Yeah, they had cinderblocks for sale at the Home Depot.
I sprayed on primer and painted some letters on the things.
My kid’s gonna be the strongest in spelling… literally.
No dummies or wimps in this house.
“Hey! Johnnyboy! Quit your blubbering and spell me DOG? I said DOG. No no no lift with THE LEGS, not your BACK!”
Save My Baby!
A woman shouts “SAVE MY BABY!” and she points to a bakery.
I run into the bakery and see a drooling and gibbering chef wrapping a baby into a pie crust.
“Stop!” I growl, grabbing the baby from the chef. “That’s just wrong. And barbaric”
I pull out my smartphone and showed the chef how you’re supposed to cook a baby.
“You can’t just stick it in the oven,” I say. “Cut it up into sections.”
He smiled, got out his butcher’s knife, and I shut the door to the bakery.
How can the man work with all that screaming?
The Creature
Don’t get me wrong.
I hate the creature as much as anybody else.
If there’s a crowd shouting KILL THE CREATURE! you’ll find me at the head of it.
Far ahead of it.
Running from it.
Yes, I am the creature.
And I hate it. I hate it with a passion.
We draw lots at the city council meeting once a year.
Mine said “YOU ARE THE CREATURE!”
Damn.
I went from chanting KILL THE CREATURE to running as fast as I could, my neighbors in pursuit with torches, pitchforks, and digital cameras for posting the carnage to YouTube later.
Babel
Crawling out from the wreckage of Babel’s Tower, survivors call out for help.
Nobody understands anybody else. The Lord has shattered our language into many tongues incomprehensible to each other.
We grunt and point and shake each other in frustration.
One grabs a shovel and begins to dig.
“To bury the bodies?” I ask.
He doesn’t understand, just keeps digging.
We drag corpses into the hole, he shouts, and throws them back out.
Ah. Yes.
I see now.
I grab a shovel. Others grab theirs.
We join him and dig.
If we cannot reach Heaven, we shall certainly reach Hell!
Biography
I woke up this morning to discover I had an exact duplicate.
We quickly confirmed similar memory and appearance, but had no idea when or how the duplication took place.
Also, we both insist we are the original me, even though I know it’s me.
We reach for my wallet at the same time.
It’s a fair fight. We’ve evenly matched, reach and strength, and then everything goes black as my lights are punched out.
I’m sure I clocked him hard, too.
When I wake up, he’s gone.
My wallet’s still here.
And that’s how I got this black eye.