The room had a chair and table bolted to the floor.
And the subject chained to the chair.
We’d play a tape of people screaming for a while.
I’d walk in with a bloody belt sander, and I’d ask them a question.
They wouldn’t talk. They never talked.
“Fine,” I’d say, and plugged in the belt sander.
Thumb the switch and revved it.
Sometimes skimming my arm hair.
I’d let them smell the burn.
“Okay, here we go.”
But the cord wouldn’t reach.
“I need an extension cord,” I’d say. “Need anything while I’m up.”
They talked. They always talked.
Frederick’s
Frederick’s of Hollywood sold naughty clothing.
Frederick’s of Chicago sold guns.
Frederick’s of New York sold electronics.
Frederick’s of Tokyo sold fish by the bucket.
Frederick’s of Berlin sold clocks.
Frederick’s of Marakesh sold slaves.
Frederick’s of Sydney sold souvenirs.
Frederick’s of Guam sold the best sandwiches. The sign on the front said so.
Frederick’s of San Salvador sold stage magician’s props.
Frederick’s of Bombay sold carpet by the yard.
Frederick’s of Seattle sold coffee.
Frederick’s of Rome sold bus passes.
Frederick’s of Waikiki Beach sold pineapples.
Frederick’s of London sold fancy hats.
And Frederick’s of Juneau sold space heaters.
Ashes To
Cameron always felt uncomfortable about who he was.
Or she was.
Cameron’s parents didn’t understand. Nobody did.
Today, some teens get the support they need. And options.
Surgery and hormone therapy instead of wishes and bitter tears
Back then, kids like Cameron didn’t.
Years of self-loathing and wishes that never came true.
Instead of taking the easy way out, Cameron became a mentor.
So many lives touched and changed.
Cameron died the other day.
Ashes in an urn.
We had them injected into hundreds of breast implants.
For teens to use during transition.
Still guiding the lost to find themselves.
The Mirror World
One night, after I had consumed too much coffee, I stayed up for a while and did some cleaning.
The vacuuming was kinda fun. So was cleaning out the bad food from the fridge and the shelves.
But I’ve never been good at cleaning mirrors.
That’s okay. My doppelganger in the Mirror World is just as bad at it as I am.
He uses the same brand of glass cleaner, and an identical rag.
Puts just as much effort into it as I do.
I guess we tried our best, right?
We high-fived each other and…
Where’s that vacuum again?
The runaway
She called herself a robot, but robots don’t run on windup keys.
That’s more of a toy or dolly thing.
Her serial number had been scratched out, but there’s always other in the chassis.
Runaway status.
“I worked in a hospital in the childrens ward,” she said. “I loved them so much.”
She told me about the games the children would play, the adventures they’d pretend to go on.
“But they never got better. So much pain, and they were so alone.”
If she could cry…
Before I wiped her memory, she kissed me on the cheek and thanked me.
The Lemons
When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
When life hands someone lemons and they wait until they’re rancid and putrid before they dump them in your lap, make lemonade.
And then, make them drink it.
Oh, and rub the rinds in their eyes, too.
If they keep their eyes closed, slash their fingertips with paper and rub the lemon on them.
Maybe with a little salt, too. Salt and lemons.
If the lemons are shrunken and hard, put them in a sock and beat them with the sock.
That should make it easier to rub their eyes with the lemons.
Weekly Challenge #716 – Crunch
- Richard
- Lizzie
- Tom
- Serendipidy
- Norval Joe
- Planet Z
RICHARD
Wealth
The crunch of car tyres on gravel is one of those understated signature symbols of the extremely wealthy.
It’s not brash or pretentious, but is nevertheless a sound that makes a profound statement about fiscal superiority.
And, if the car in question smells of tooled leather and is driven by a uniformed chauffeur in gloves and peaked cap, then we’re talking the upper echelons of wealth.
Which is not the case today.
Today, I’m driving, and the gravel is being forcibly scattered from beneath the wheels.
The owner won’t miss it – he’s too loaded to notice it’s been stolen!
LIZZIE
The frog. This frog! It’s a pet. It’s the pet, he said, stressing the word the.
No one believed him, of course. A frog for a pet? That didn’t seem plausible.
Ah, but it’s a magical frog, it crunches.
Crunches, they asked, rolling their eyes and smirking in disdain.
Numbers.
More eye-rolling ensued.
Yes.
A paper was produced. Numbers were supplied. The frog was summoned.
To everyone’s amazement, the frog provided the results and they were correct.
Meanwhile, a pair of eyes was eagerly checking the comings and goings of the frog.
The numbery crunching turned into a crunchy chewing.
TOM
IT Comes With a Free Toy Inside
The advantage of growing up in a home of eight children is the lackness of scrutiny of breakfast food choses. Lordy in a household today a kid would never get away with three bowls of Cap’n Crunch. I’d like to believe my childhood diet cost be a Nobel and a Phd, but I’m not bitter. Well, as least that Master’s degree in advance non-Euclidean geometry died in a well of sugar coated delirium. The disadvantage of growing up in a home of eight children is the years it take to fixed what you though was such a good idea at the time.
SERENDIPIDY
Do you like it smooth, or with a crunch?
I realise that it’s probably a little late to ask you now, after you’ve started eating; but it’s probably the wrong question anyway.
Maybe I should have been asking “Are you deathly allergic to nuts?”, rather than simply making the assumption that you’d be fine with my peanut butter stuffed pastries.
And now, as you lie, choking and gasping for breath, I think that I have my answer to that particular question.
Not to worry… There’s plenty of pastries left.
And with you dead, all the more for me to enjoy!
NORVAL JOE
A car idled in front of Linoliumanda’s house. It was clearly not his mother’s Ford Fiesta with a crunched up front fender. The car that waited on the curb was a cherry red Ferrari convertible, and sitting in the passenger seat was the last person Billbert expected to see.
Marissa climbed out of the car and sauntered up to Billbert. “You refused to dance with me at the school. I saw you dance with that funny girl.”
“That funny girl is my friend, Linoliumanda,” Billbert said.
Marissa narrowed her eyes. “I also saw what you two did after the dance.”
PLANET Z
Dan bought a new car.
It has that lane-keep assist so when he strays over the lines, it shakes his steering wheel,
Of course, when there’s road construction, the crews don’t always scrub out the old lines when putting on the new ones.
So the lane-keep cameras misread the road, and his wheel shakes at the weirdest times.
When you add the collision radar, the adaptive cruise control, and auto-pilot, the car is constantly distracting and second-guessing Dan’s driving.
With all the beeping and shaking and swerving, it was only a matter of time before Dan ran into a tree.
Charlie Played
Charlie played the Birdland.
Everyone then played the Birdland, but Charlie, he played it best.
And he played, man did he played.
He had himself a wife, a girlfriend, and a lover.
Charlie played with Monk. Charlie played with Miles.
Billie and Basie, Quincy and Sammy. And the Duke.
Charlie played with Coltrane. Coltrane!
We’d sit there, drinks all around.
That was the night she shot him.
The wife? The girlfriend? The lover?
I dunno, but she done shot him.
She shot him dead, right there on the stage.
I picked up his horn and played.
Didn’t miss a beat.
Ernst Zundel
Infamous Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel died today.
Despite absolute proof that he lived, I deny that Ernst Zundel ever lived.
Show me photographs, show me documents, show me video.
I’ll still deny that he ever lived.
Dig up his body, dump him out on a table.
Nope. He never lived.
Should you find some form of irrefutable evidence, okay, I’ll concede that he lived.
But not to the extent that he lived.
Not seventy-eight years. A lot less. Maybe seven or eight.
Or even while still in his infancy, mirroring his moral infancy.
But, privately, I’ll deny he ever lived.
The real threat
Nobody likes a war more than a leader with low poll numbers.
Rattle a few sabres and launch a few air strikes, and the people cheer.
“He’s doing something, unlike that other guy,” they say to the pollster.
And the numbers go up… until they realize that the threat, real or implied, still exists.
So the numbers drop again.
That’s when the leaders call for war.
The numbers shoot up, way up.
So do the ratings. And the body counts.
Want to stop war?
Lie to the pollsters. Say everything’s great.
And declare war on the real threat: the pollsters.