Tag: tragedy

Shadows and Snacks

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Before I go out into the streets of Old Rustville, I fill the pocket of my robe with shadow, gathered from an alley.
Shadow is a most powerful reagent, useful for spells of concealment and death.
Another pocket, filled with pistachios. It is always good to have a snack handy.
Always the right hand with the pistachios and the left with the shadows.
One does not want to bite into raw shadow, nor does one want to cast the forbidden spells using nuts within the city limits.
Yes, this was once called Silver City. Before my careless, snack-powered Armageddon Spell.

The Pie

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She asks me what my favorite scent is.
Pie. Pumpkin pie.
The best pumpkin pie I have ever smelled was a gift.
A woman who had scorned me had left it on her windowsill to cool in the gentle evening breeze as she slept with her new lover.
I took the pie and tossed in a Molotov cocktail.
The fire caught quickly, too fast for them to escape.
They burned to death while I watched, finishing every last bit of the pie.
Here I am, hiding in Mexico, waiting for the heat to die down.
Got any pie? Or matches?

Goldberg

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In all my centuries as a creature of the night, there is one thing of which I am certain.
I hate Bach.
I hate Mozart and Beethoven, too.
Oh, how my ears ache to hear Goldberg just once more.
You have never heard of Goldberg. I know this.
I heard him, long ago.
One symphony to his credit. After its first performance, I was so inspired that I drank him dry.
Dead. Gone.
The city watch caught and nearly killed me.
I escaped, but returned to the burnt-out husk of a concert hall.
Not a single note remained. Gone forever.

Halves

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It was a beautiful marriage, and they made beautiful music together.
While it lasted.
It didn’t last.
Arthur ended up with the player piano. Leslie got all the scrolls.
Arthur would sit at the piano, tap a key now and then, and listen to the note.
He searched for the scrolls on eBay, but never found any for that model of piano.
Leslie would open up the scrolls and hold them up to the light, the intricate patterns of holes making her wonder what style that song was played with, what nuances.
Apart and alone, they made horrible silence together.

The Night Of A Thousand Stars

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“Make a wish, Daddy.”
A tiny finger points to the night sky, silver streaks crisscrossing over each other.
“Those aren’t shooting stars,” I said.
No, they were satellites.
And it was my fault.
After the Russians hit one of ours, we agreed to hand over orbits and frequencies to each other.
I wrote the database.
Everything worked beautifully in the tests.
But the moment the tracker went online, every satellite with propulsion went into controlled deorbit. The rest shut down or exploded.
My daughter pinched me. “Make a wish.”
So, I did.
I wish I had checked my code again.

Invulnerable

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Lord Bragdor’s armor stands in the Hall Of Heroes, as shiny as the day he was speared through the face in a jousting tournament.
“It was enchanted with an invulnerability spell,” said the Hall’s custodian, The Blue Wizard. “But, his visor was loose and his opponent very lucky.”
“Wouldn’t the lance have been knocked aside by the spell?” asked his apprentice Morstrawl.
“If the invulnerability had been meant for Lord Bragdor, yes,” said Blue. “But due to my misreading the spellbook, it was the armor that was invulnerable.”
The apprentice nodded, realizing why he had never had to polish it.

Thud

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Ricky had been shouting about sparkly unicorns and butterflies before his eyes crossed and he dropped like a stone.
For the next thirty years, we’d visit him in the hospital.
The nurses always cleaned him up nicely before visits.
We’d hold his hand, tell him that we missed him, and then ask him what he meant by unicorns and butterflies.
He never did wake up.
One day, we came to visit, and he wasn’t there.
Someone else was there.
So we started visiting them.
To tell you the truth, we liked them better than Ricky.
Ricky was such an asshole.

Volcano

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The tribal chief was perplexed by the crop failures and dwindling animal stocks.
“The only thing we have that’s worth anything is the volcano,” he said.
“Hey, let’s try sacrificing things in it,” I suggested.
Everybody agreed.
We started to sacrifice virgins in the volcano, but it turned out that the moment a virgin was selected, she’d bang the chief’s son.
So, we changed to animal sacrifices. Those, the chief’s son would steal from the offering pen to make a feast for all his girlfriends.
In the end, we sacrificed the chief’s son.
Kicking and screamed all the way down.

Was A Rabbit

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A cop fireman-carried the lifeless body into the morgue.
The cause of his death is listed as “Basketball.”
Every so often, the coroner gets bored with Heart Disease and Cancer, so she cuts loose a little with the weirder cases.
“Old man died while playing ball with some kids,” said the cop.
“We all gotta go sometime,” said the coroner.
“I guess so,” said the cop. “Do you have the money?”
“I need another week,” said the coroner.
The cop shot the coroner twice in the head, put the gun in the old man’s hand, and walked out the door.

His Number Came Up

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He was not a number, but his number did finally come up.
The old actor died last night.
His greatest performance was over forty years ago. He had full control over the production, and he put everything into it.
I’m watching it now, episode after episode of The Prisoner, and despite so many things changing since then socially and technologically, the themes of paranoia, distrust, and the human spirit of individuality still shine through.
There’s a remake of the series in the works, but I won’t watch it.
There’s no improving on perfection, I say, and I hit Play again.