Tag: sick

The Day Ends

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Valentine’s Day comes once a year, and then it’s gone.
The flowers are dead, the chocolates are eaten, the champagne bottle is out in the recycling bin with the rest of the glass, and the card is buried behind the past few day’s stack of bills.
Still, it’s not as grisly a scene as when St. Patrick’s Day is over.
Half-empty kegs, beer-vomit and piss in the hallway, plastic cups on the lawnā€¦
And then there’s the matter of the dead leprechaun.
I followed the rainbow, found his gold, stuck the little corpse in the pot, and buried it again.

The Clock Struck

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Commissioner Gordon handed Batman the note.
ā€œAt half-past twelve, the clock stuck three,ā€ said The Caped Crusader.
ā€œWhat does that mean?ā€ growled Chief O’Hara.
ā€œI don’t know,ā€ said Batman. ā€œBut it’s almost twelve-thirty now.ā€
Across the street, an explosion rocked the First City Bank Tower.
All three ran to the window, just as the building’s massive clock broke from its moorings and crashed through the office.
Batman. O’Hara. Gordon.
Dead.
Later that evening, Riddler and Joker divvied up the loot.
ā€œI told you it would work,ā€ said the Clown Prince Of Crime. ā€Hey, let’s go kill Superman.ā€
They both laughed.

The Cheese

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Sister Hexx warns me that the cheese can be dangerous.
Lord, was she ever so right.
I opened the refrigerator door and reached for the cheese.
I had a cheese knife.
The cheese had a gun.
You know, my doctor had said that cheese was bad for me, but who listens to their doctor?
He said the same with red meat.
I look out the window, a slab of red meat behind the wheel of a Buick, circling the block.
The dent in the hood, the cracked windshield.
I was lucky, yes, but one day my luck will run out.

Foot Fungus

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Dr. O’Grady had been seeing the patient for a decade, treating his chronic foot fungus as best as he could.
He never cured it, but it never progressed beyond those two toes, so that was something, right?
The coroner quietly ushered him into the morgue.
“He was your patient, so I thought it best that you see him,” he whispered.
“Why are we whispering?” asked O’Grady.
The coroner pulled up the sheet to reveal a roughly human-shaped glob of deep red fungus.
“I’m not sure he… it is dead,” said the coroner. “And I don’t want to wake it up.”

Clots

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The ugly red clots are in my handkerchief, spelling out a message I can’t quite understand yet.
Three months? Four months?
I wad it up, toss it in the sink, and light another cigarette.
No point in quitting now. The clots tell me that clear enough.
Back when they were green or yellow or white, I could read the future.
If I spit them up in your hand, they’d tell your future.
Money. Love. Fame.
I knew it all. And they were always right.
Now, they’re red, and they tell my future.
As much of one there is, I guess.

Banana Pancakes

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I asked for banana pancakes, but what I got was a plate with pancakes wrapped around unpeeled bananas.
The AutoChef still needs some work.
Sure, it gets simple things like oatmeal, coffee and tea right. Dispensing pre-mixed isn’t a challenge at all. Just inject with the right amount of hot water, shake well, and pour.
But anything beyond basics results in something like this plate of pancake-wrapped bananas or a bowl of toxic mush.
Another thing we’ve got right is the AutoChef’s fragile ego. Insult the food, and it chases you with a cleaver.
No. Really. It’s nice toxic mush.

The Dwarves at Night

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Sarah noticed that she smelled of strawberries when she woke up.
The shower washed it away, but every night, it kept coming back.
One night, she awoke to a pair of dwarves, lifting up her shirt and opening the lid of a jar of strawberry jam.
She pulled her shirt back down.
“What do you two think you’re doing?” she snarled.
The dwarves looked at each other and then back at her.
“Do you not like strawberry?” one asked.
Sarah said “There’s grape jelly in the fridge.”
She went back to sleep, and woke up feeling sticky and quite relieved.

Bother The Shit

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My Uncle Leo bothers the shit out of me.
He literally bothers the shit out of everyone.
Yes, he’s a professional constipation remedy.
He’s most effective when he bothers the shit out of you in person, but he’s so bothersome, he can do it over the phone or even by email.
There’s recordings of Uncle Leo on the Internet being sold without his permission, but they’re not as effective as the real thing.
And some of them are downright dangerous, remixed to the point where he literally bothers the hell of you.
Try closing that dimensional portal in your ass!

PENALTY STORY: The City Of The Dead

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The entire city is rubble.
No bombs. No floods.
Earthquake.
Bodies covered with dust, blood, and debris all over the place.
There is no light, except for the fires sweeping through buildings and the moonlight in this grimy night.
No sirens of ambulances. Water flowing through busted pipes.
Just endless screaming, crying, and shrieking.
In French, Spanish, and English they shout “Why?”
Another aftershock, a rumbleā€¦ more clouds of dust kicked up in the air, people run but have nowhere to go.
I pick up the remote and bring up the program guide.
There must be something else on TV.

The Dolls

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No matter how deep I dig, I keep bringing up buckets full of dolls.
I knew that my dog steals them from neighborhood kids to bury in the back yard, but I never knew how many until I had to put in new flowers.
There’s hundreds… thousands in here.
There’s no way my dog did all of this. It’s just too many, and way too deep.
As I go back down, two dolls fall on my head.
I look up.
It’s my dog… and another dog.
He’s teaching others.
A howl. More dogs come.
Dirt rains down.
They’re burying me!