Tag: mystery

The Windup Cupcake

636203

She knew I was coming, so she baked me a cake.
She’s baking me a windup cupcake, my favorite kind of cupcake.
Watchmaker and confectionist, lover and friend.
It’s in the oven, baking.
Can you smell it?
It’s good.
If you listen closely, you can hear the ticking of the gears, counting down the time.
It’s its own timer, it’s own oven timer.
When it goes off, it’s ready.
And then, light the candle, and make a wish.
Know what my wish is?
That I just lick the frosting, and I don’t break my teeth on this lovely windup cupcake.

Crawling

636180

Once, when I was having a weird day at work, I spent the whole day crawling.
I was crawling along the hall, meeting with people, making copies, and getting some filing done.
A lot of people asked if I was looking for something or if I needed help.
“No,” I said. “I just feel really weird today.”
Of course, I wasn’t just crawling on the floor. I mean, there’s lot of nice walls and ceilings to crawl on where I work.
As long as I don’t crawl on Janet from Accounting again, I don’t think it’s violating any policies, right?

Wrapping Paper

636186

When you’re done unwrapping your gifts, what do you do with the wrapping paper?
It’s going to end up as landfill, you know. Even if the paper was recycled, it’s going to end up in a landfill now.
All sorts of bright inks, shiny paper… it’s going to last a long time in those landfills.
I know someone who wraps their gifts in biodegradable newspaper. Another puts the gifts behind a closed door that gets opened to “unwrap” them.
But you giving me a blindfold and making me put it on, well, does this mean…
Wait?
Is that a gun?

Dunstan The Unstable Existentialist

636179

As I sit by the fire, reading Sartre in my Kierkegaard Underoos, I ponder the meaning of life.
Then, I realize. Life exists, whether it has meaning or not. It is an end to itself, regardless if I am consciously observing it.
Anything else would be a lie, and we all know that the first person we lie to is ourselves.
Utterly absurd, this all is. There is no meaning to life except whatever meaning we impose upon it.
I, for one, shall believe I am a egg and cheese sandwich. I am part of a nutritious and complete breakfast.

Say It

636178

What is it?
I guess the best way to say something is just to say it.
The longer you think about it, the more likely you’ll try to come up with ways of saying something else, and then you eventually don’t say what you need to say at all.
And that’s not right.
The longer you take to tell someone something, you might forget some of it. Or you might feel rushed and it comes out wrong.
There’s no taking those things back. Especially things that need to get said.
What did I need to tell you?
Oh, never mind.

Hawaiian Shirt Day

636190

Joey never played along with Hawaiian Shirt Friday at work.
Everybody else was as colorful as the rainbow, but Joey kept wearing the same button-down suits he wore every other day.
“Joey, it’s Hawaiian Shirt Friday today,” said his boss. “Come on, join in the fun.”
“This shirt is Hawaiian,” said Joey. “I got it off a dead Hawaiian at a nightclub.”
Nobody bothered Joey about Hawaiian Shirt Day after that.
But, oddly enough, coworkers started clubbing with him a lot more often.
He knows all the cool places. And, let’s face it, he’s good at sizing up fashion, too.

Screaming

636181

We landed on the planet’s other moon and felt a strange vibration on our helmets.
“Do you hear screaming?” asks the captain.
We sit and listen.
It sounds like every child on the moon is screaming at the top of his lungs.
Except – the moon’s uninhabited.
“Ghosts?” I ask.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” said the captain.
And he’s right.
Sure enough, the entire moon is a series of windy canyons. The wind rushing through the valleys sounds like screams.
Still, we had to soundproof our helmets before conducting the survey.
And nobody wants to come back here, either.

Sleepy Time

636183

It’s sleepy time, but I don’t want to go to sleep.
I want to think about strange things all night long and write them down.
Really strange things.
Like, did you know that you can’t hide behind Swiss cheese?
People looking for you can see right through it because Swiss cheese has holes.
And people can see through holes. Right through them.
You can hide behind Cheddar cheese just fine, but not Swiss cheese.
Cheddar cheese doesn’t have holes. But Swiss cheese does.
If you put holes in Cheddar cheese, does it become Swiss cheese?
Maybe.
I’ll sleep on it.

The Trucks

636182

Around the clock, the trucks keep coming across the border.
The ones heading North are full of dirt and rocks.
The ones heading South are also full of dirt and rocks, but it’s different dirt and rocks.
We’re not sure why Canada and Mexico are sending all this stuff back and forth, but as long as their trucks keep paying the toll and buying our gas, we really don’t care.
They could haul more back and forth if they used freight trains, but some treaty requires that they use trucks.
So they are.
But why do it at all?
Strange.

Broken Notes

636184

Walter’s saxophone was tired of screaming out the same, broken notes every night.
Practice makes perfect, but in Walter’s case, it just made more noise.
And it made Walter’s saxophone utterly miserable.
One day, Walter tried to take the saxophone out of its case, but it had been locked.
He looked all over the place for the key, but he couldn’t find it.
He accused his neighbors of stealing the key, but none of them had taken it.
Walter didn’t want to break the lock, because it might damage the saxophone.
Never mind that the damage had already been done.