Sometimes I like to start a fire in the fireplace and stare at the shapes in the flames for hours.
After a while, the flames tell stories, and I find myself in a magical land of orange and yellow and red.
In that land lived a beautiful princess in her magnificent castle. And both were engulfed in flames.
So were her horses. And her car. And her friends.
That’s when the shrieking of the smoke alarm pulls me out of the story.
Before I can pull out the battery, my sister screams.
Yeah, I threw her Barbies on the fire.
Tag: mystery
Salt
My family makes the best pretzels in the world.
The secret is in how to add the salt. We have a patent on it.
However, a famous patent troll threatened to sue us because he had a general patent on how to salt pretzels.
“I have to preserve my rights,” he claimed. And he offered to license his patent to us.
So, we offered him a tour of our facility.
Five hours later, he was stuffed into a wooden barrel full of shit.
“That’ll preserve you well enough,” I told the barrel.
And we lost it deep in the warehouse.
Newjerseytology
If Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, does that mean there’s a Newjerseytology that studies ancient history in Jersey?
My cousin Vinnie from Red Bank keeps saying “Oh, that’s ancient history!” so I asked him if he had a degree in Newjerseytology.
“From the School Of Hard Knocks,” said Vinnie, and he lifted his shirt to show me a scar he got at a Giants game.
Okay, so exploring pyramids isn’t exactly the same as winning tickets at skeeball, but my Aunt Rita knows this guy who can get us tires on the cheap, so don’t knock it.
Imaginary
Do imaginary children worry their imaginary parents when they have real friends?
I tried to ask my imaginary friend Steve, but he kept insisting that he was real.
“Oh, come on, you’re not real,” I said. “My parents don’t let me have real friends because I bite them.”
Steve insisted that he was real. “They tell you I’m not because my parents don’t want you biting me.”
“Aha! I’m right! They do worry!”
Steve shook his head, and went back to playing with his Tinkertoys.
I reached for the Tinkertoys… but my tentacles passed through them.
I hate being imaginary.
Popular places
I know a place that’s so popular, nobody goes there anymore.
No. Really. Nobody goes there anymore.
People make reservations years in advance and put down a deposit. Then they forget about the reservation and forfeit the deposit.
Everybody does this, and nobody ends up eating there.
The owner’s gotten rich off of this scam.
Then, the heath inspector came by. There was no food or knives or anything in the kitchen.
No tables, chairs, silverware, or plates in the dining room either.
They failed inspection.
Why? Because of the bathrooms. Totally unused, but nobody had cleaned them in years.
The Valley Of The Brave
When it is time for a boy to become a man, the tribe gives him a knife and sends him into The Valley Of The Brave.
He has to break into a soda machine and pull out as many quarters as he can fill his pockets with.
Most boys try to use the knife to jimmy the lock on a machine, but locks these days are too good for that.
No, you gotta find the owner of the machine and put that knife on his throat. Get his keys. Open the lock.
Oh, and get me a Pepsi, too.
Cold.
Wishing
When you wish upon a star, you really shouldn’t be standing in the middle of a busy freeway.
Especially if you’re wishing for something like “First star I see tonight, get me the fuck off of this busy freeway right now!”
You’d be better off running as fast as you can to the side of the road. And not wearing black, because you’ll get hit no matter what.
No, that doesn’t mean you should quickly wish for reflective clothing, either.
In fact, forget about the wishes, and forget about the freeway.
How about we just play some Ping Pong, okay?
Dark Music
I wake up in the dark, wrapped in a thin blanket, and I cannot see anything.
I hear nothing but the sound of my breath, and my heartbeat.
I can feel the floor. The floor is cold tile.
I can feel my violin case next to me.
It feels strange… wet… slick…
Something is sliding around inside of it.
I hear a violin in the distance. My violin.
I wrap the blanket around me tighter.
The music is getting louder… closer…
A voice whispers in my ear. “Thank you for the violin.”
The music is getting softer.. further…
I scream.
Fly? No.
I don’t like to fly.
I used to not mind it at all, but now, I can’t stand it.
I tried hypnotherapy, virtual simulations, and all kinds of drugs and New Age crap.
None of it works. It only seems to make things worse.
So, I stopped flying.
And then I realized that I like where I live. It’s a really nice city, with a seaside resort a short train ride away.
Except that I now don’t like to ride that train.
Or in a bus.
Or car.
I’ll just sit here at home.
It’s quiet. And safe.
(I hope.)
Mr. Tile
I sat in the tub and counted the square tiles around me.
Then, I imagined they were pixels on a screen, and I filled them in to make various low-resolution images.
The easiest was a pair of eyes and a smile. I named him Mr. Tile.
“Hello, Mr. Tile,” I said. “I’m enjoying my bath very much.”
Mr. Tile said nothing.
So, I closed my eyes and took a nap.
When I woke up, Mr. Tile was gone.
So was the bathroom. And my house.
Did a tornado hit? Did the place burn down?
Sadly, I couldn’t ask Mr. Tile.