Tag: sick

Creative Juices

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We let the children play with their toys and draw with crayons for an hour.
Then, the valves open and knockout gas puts them to sleep.
Nap time.
When they wake up, they have no memory of our hooking up the spinal shunts and draining them of their creative juices.
Looking around the room, they pick up the crayons and stick them in their mouths or put them up their noses.
The toys are used to smash other toys or hit other kids.
Eventually, they learn to play and draw again.
And we are ready to harvest more creative juices.

Where do babies come from?

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Where do babies come from?
After the Cobalt War, they come from The Baby Factory.
Deep underground, shielded from the radiation and toxins in the air and soil, geneticists assemble the next generation.
Or, if we can’t remove enough of the contaminants, the last generation.
This time, the scientists are working on adding thick hides, culled from rhinoceros genes.
The babysitters have a high suicide rate, watching wave after wave of monsters come from the labs, dying from horrifying diseases and tissue rejections.
The ants crawl over their tiny, broken corpses.
“Looks like it’s your turn now,” I tell them.

The Music Man

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Don Music was a puppet on a children’s show who’d get so frustrated trying to compose a song, he’d bash his head against the piano keys and give up.
Sadly, some children got the crazy idea that the proper response to frustration is to bash your head repeatedly against it.
These kids would bash their heads against their desks, balefully moaning “I CAN’T DO IT!”
One was the son of a florist, and after school he’d help out in the shop.
No matter what he tried, he never could keep a cactus alive, so he-
On second thought, don’t ask.

Beating

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My stomach is growling.
But I just ate.
I just ate a dog. And the dog is growling.
It’s a small dog, so I could still be hungry.
And if my stomach is growling because I am still hungry, the dog might be growling back at my stomach.
I will beat it with a hammer until it stops growling.
(The dog, not my stomach)
(Although if I beat the dog, I beat my stomach, since it is inside my stomach.)
I should never have eaten the dog.
But I was hungry and my stomach was growling.
Like it is now.

The Smell of Gasoline

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There’s one thing worse than the smell of gasoline, and that’s the taste.
Murloney’s boys dragged me to this warehouse and tied me to this chair so they could splash me with high-octane cologne.
“You missed behind the ears,” I said, and they punched my lights out.
I woke up to a spotlight in my face.
Laughing, glasses clinking. Groans from dozens of other guys tied to chairs.
All on top of a gigantic cake in the middle of a party.
“Happy birthday, boss!” said a goon. “Sixty years young!”
Mulroney laughed. “I’ll take my time blowing out these candles.”

Green Tea

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The mystic prepares to read my tea leaves.
“Drink,” she says when the tea ready.
So, I do, and she turns the empty cup on the saucer.
As she lifts the cup, her eyes open wide.
“This is horrible!” she says. “You are going to die soon!”
“What? How? Why?”
She picks up the phone and calls for an ambulance.
“How am I supposed to die?” I ask, grabbing and shaking her.
She draws a gun and shoots me in the chest.
“That’s how,” she says, checking my wallet and taking out the money. “He attacked me!” she whined, practicing.

Lawnmower

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I don’t like mowing the lawn.
So, I bought a robotic lawnmower.
It’s eco-friendly, running on batteries charged by solar cells. And the motor is very quiet, almost a whisper.
This way, it can run during the day or at night.
It knows where to mow using a set of guide wires I’ve buried along the property line.
Just charge, set, and release inside the invisible fence.
The next morning: a beautifully-cut lawn.
And three dead hookers on the grass.
The first time I ran it, there was only one.
I’ll bury these three next to her.
Under the grass.

The Guest

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“You have a guest,” said the investigating priest.
Sally rocked back and forth on the vomit-covered bed, staring back at the priest with weary red-rimmed eyes.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” she said.
“We refer to occupying spirits as ‘guests’ now,” said the priest. “No need for rudeness while negotiating a mutually-agreeable solution to this dispute.”
“SHUT UP AND GET THIS FUCKING DEMON OUT OF ME!” shouted Sally.
“I need to consult my manager,” said the priest, and he pulled out a cell phone.
“WHAT??????”
The demon was shocked, too.
And easily dislodged.
“Works every time,” said the priest.

Molt

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Looking down at the stumps of my thighs, I knew it would be a rough morning.
I dragged myself into the kitchen and ate my way through the food inside.
The horrendous pain came next.
Biting down on a dishrag helps a little.
Close your eyes. Try not to scream.
When the burning sensation dulled to a warm ache, I flexed my new toes and stood up, wobbling slightly and steadying myself with a chair.
The old ones are rotting in the hallway.
I hope these feet are a size I’ve already got. Buying new shoes is such a hassle.

Mean Streak

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Sally Marie Simmons was known as “Sally Mean Streak” long before the day the prom queen’s hair fell out.
One vote was the difference, but that’s all it took for Mean Streak to lash out.
As Jessica Baker rain screaming through the halls, her hair leaving a trail behind her, Mean Streak was scanning the paper ballots.
She had insisted on voters having to write out the names instead of check a box.
Then, she fed in stacks of handwritten essays.
Handwriting samples for the computer to analyze.
A list of names appeared on the screen.
Sally grinned and laughed.