The Shrine Of The Bloody Flower features a blood-soaked flower, taken from a girl who was shot during the uprising.
What the shrine doesn’t say is that the girl wasn’t shot by the soldiers.
She was shot by the rebels.
“Carry these flowers to that checkpoint,” they said. “Or we kill your parents.”
So, she did, but when she reached the checkpoint, she dropped the flowers and began screaming.
That’s when the shooting began.
How did they preserve the flower?
It was plastic. Because they needed it for the shrine they were planning.
Just needed the blood.
Sick, bloody bastards.
Tag: commentary
Alone with your thoughts…
Even though I spend a lot of time alone, I don’t feel lonely at all.
I like to be alone with my thoughts.
I think up my best ideas when there’s nobody interrupting me or trying to tell me everything they’re thinking.
I barely have room for all my own thoughts, let alone theirs.
So, I thank them for their thoughts, walk away, and spit them out in the toilet.
I check before flushing, just to make sure it’s their thoughts I spit out, and not mine.
I hope the toilet doesn’t back up again. I just cleaned the floor.
Friendly
Most customers are not unpleasant. They tell us what problem they’re having, we solve it, and they thank us.
Then there’s the ones who scream over and over, but don’t tell us anything helpful to investigate the issue.
They shout insults. They threaten legal action.
They scream every obscenity they know.
So, while on the phone, I looked at a screamer’s account and grabbed their address and credit card.
And emailed them to a Russian whose pornography and gambling site we’d recently suspended.
Mafia.
“Burn their house down,” I said. “And charge it to their card.”
They don’t scream anymore.
The Speed Of Think
I’m often complimented for the volume of my creative work and the speed with which I write it, but when it comes to writing, I’m actually rather thoughtless.
You see, if I write slowly, I give myself time to think.
Being a pessimist and my own worst critic, I’ll think I can’t write, so I stop writing.
But, when I write faster than I can think, I never have time to think I can’t write, so I write even more.
And the creativity comes from not having time to think of things I’ve thought of before, so it’s all new.
Swoosh
Long ago, an executive at the Coca-Cola Company came up with an plan to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony.
All around the world, Coke bottles were distributed with fill lines on them, and when people drank the Coke to that level, they blew across the top of the bottle and get it to resonate with a soothing pitch.
People were supposed to sing at that pitch, but long before anyone got in tune, the resonance from the bottles caused the earth’s core to wobble and explode.
The remaining debris field left a trail like the trademark swoosh.
President Spider
The doctor says I need to face my fear.
So, I think about my biggest fear.
Heights.
I don’t like heights.
I get scared in glass elevators and standing at railings.
I worry about falling over. I feel like I’m falling.
Then I realize… I’m even more afraid of spiders.
They totally creep me out, with their beady little eyes and hairy little legs.
And the fangs… so gross!
The doctor says “What about spiders in high places?”
What? Like the White House?
A spider becoming president? President Spider?
Scary, sure, but he’s served two terms and can’t run again.
Washed Up
There’s an old joke that nobody wants to see a tsunami hit Los Angeles because there’s enough washed-up actors there already.
Too late.
I come across another body on the beach, tangled in seaweed.
She looks familiar. Maybe an actress, starred in a commercial or two.
Toothpaste?
Shoes?
Orange juice?
Something like that.
I snap a few photos, record the location, and call for a pickup as I stick a beacon flag in the sand.
Damn. My last one.
I hate it when they’re kids. That’s just sad, sadder than adults.
Another siren. Wave coming.
I run for higher ground.
The American Dream
A priceless treasure is missing.
We’ve lost The American Dream.
Have you seen it?
Check your pockets.
What pants were you wearing last night?
Your jacket. Turn those pockets out too.
No. It’s not there.
Where did you see it last?
Everywhere. In the hearts and hopes of every American.
But it’s not there anymore.
Where did it go?
Stolen? No.
Really, who’d steal it?
Not me either.
Have you checked behind the sofa?
No. It’s not there.
It’s not anywhere.
We’d better find it soon.
Because everyone’s starting to wake up.
And the coffeemaker’s broken.
Check your pockets again.
Blame Game
I work for a troubleshooting firm.
Companies hire our company to work on their bugs and errors.
Oh, we don’t actually fix anything. We just change the way it breaks.
Instead of a computer program crashing and throwing out a meaningful error message that they’d need to investigate and pay developers to resolve, we make it look like it’s the user’s fault for the crash so they have to buy a new computer or update other expensive components.
Car companies.
Food makers.
Schools.
Governments.
Religions.
They’re all our clients now.
But don’t blame us… it’s not our fault.
It’s yours.
Turnabout
Lawmakers recently expanded the definition of rape to include acts upon women, men, and others.
When asked what they meant by others, the lawmakers didn’t answer.
So, they were hauled before a judge for the crime of rape.
“By using ambiguous terms such as ‘others’ I find you guilty of the crime of rape against the English Language,” said the judge. “You’re also guilty of rape of the legal system for burdening police and judges with ambiguous laws.”
And they were all hauled off to prison, where they were treated as they had treated the language and the legal system.