Tag: dystopia

Platform

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We were standing on the platform, waiting for the subway.
A lot of people were.
She fell on the tracks right before the train came.
“Oh my God!” someone shouted.
But God didn’t save her.
An off-duty cop came forward. He said he’d been bumped from behind, and he knocked her on to the tracks.
They never found the guy who bumped him from behind.
Because there wasn’t anyone to find.
The cop went on extended leave. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
He didn’t spend the money all at once.
“Don’t be conspicuous,” I said. “And we’ll get away with murder.”

The Deadly Girl

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When I was a kid, there was this girl. She liked to read Tarot cards for the other kids.
She couldn’t really read them, though. She just made things up.
Still, all her predictions came true.
When one kid caught the girl making things up, the girl told him he would die.
And he did. A dodgeball got him.
The teachers took her cards away, so she used dice. Although she called them bones.
Palmistry, phrenology, tealeaves – you name it. She thinned out her classmates quickly with her malicious, deadly predictions.
She works for the government now.
So, behave yourself.

Gateway

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As part of a top secret energy experiment, scientists tore a gateway into another dimension.
What came out wasn’t an unlimited, clean supply of energy but a horde of angry killer demons.
What we couldn’t kill, we were forced to contain in force-fields.
Some stupid lawyers from the ALCU demanded that these demons get their civil rights and day in court.
So, we put them in the containment cells with the demons.
Those that survived changed their minds about the demons.
One insisted on representing those terrorist assholes they’re keeping in Gitmo.
We put him back in with the demons.

Moon Prison

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The first permanent moon base turned out to be a maximum security prison.
Well, if you don’t want prisoners escaping and putting the public at risk, where better to put them than on the moon, right?
If they revolted, well, we could stop sending supplies up there. The oxygen systems were designed to only work for so long before replacement.
The man in charge of scheduling supply runs lost a daughter and a wife to one of those murderers up there.
So it comes as no surprise that the past three shipments of oxygen systems turned out to be duds.

The Fence

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Everybody decided to divide the planet into two halves.
We’d stay on the north half of the planet while they’d stay on the south half of the planet.
A gigantic fence was to be built around the equator, with the occasional gate here and there to allow folks to walk through and visit now and then.
Lots of people liked the idea, but even more thought it was completely nuts.
“What if people cut through the fence or dig under it?” they said, worried.
So, the plan was changed to a gigantic wall with razor wire.
That satisfied the doubters.

I Quit

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Yeah, my job sucks. It’s sucked for a very long time.
So, I put my two weeks notice in with the boss.
“You can’t quit,” said God.
“Why not?” I said.
“You’re Satan,” said God. “You’re The Devil.”
“Well, I quit,” I said.
“You can’t quit,” God said again. “You became The Devil when you quit being one of my angels.”
“I don’t want to be one of your angels,” I said. “And I don’t want to be The Devil any more, either.”
God isn’t sure what to do with me now. But I’ve got one Hell of a resume.

The Throne

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God’s away on a holiday again.
So, we angels take turns sitting in God’s Throne.
The problem is, the throne’s not designed for angels. The Heavenly Infirmary’s full of broken and bent wings.
Still, we sit in the throne. Michelangelo offers to paint us, but the line’s too long for paintings.
We’re also getting sloppy. The Guardian Division’s been dropping the ball, drinking on the job.
I heard one Guardian shoved a little old lady into the street that he was supposed to save from a bus.
He’s blaming it a bent wing.
Yeah, you’re right. Heaven’s going to Hell.

For My Girls

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Remember when bums used to hold up those WILL WORK FOR FOOD signs?
Bums never did want to work. Now, they just bless you and shit like that.
At least they’re honest now.
Back when they’d work for food, I took my daughter Jenny to get an abortion from one of them. Mman, did that bum work cheap.
Sure, Jenny lost her uterus, but at least she got scraped clean.
Her little sister Suzie, got knocked up but no roadside bum abortionists for her.
We’ll just head to a back alley in Mexico.
Nothing but the best for my girls.

Angels Blush

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At first, my picture was up in the Post Office. Then, they took it down.
“Racy,” they called it. “Too damn sexy.”
I have done things in the line at the Post Office that could make angels blush and The Devil bite his lip.
They got rid of the stamps you lick because of me. How I’d lick a stamp, postal carriers fainted by the dozens.
Calling my actions sinful and “moral cancer,” the Postmaster General declared war on me, and stamps became stickers that weekend.
Don’t ask me where I stick mine. You couldn’t handle the thought of it.

Aziz

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I watched as a kid named Aziz celebrated in the schoolyard, the teacher leading his classmates in praise for Aziz’s brother.
He’d blown himself up, killing twenty people. Four of them were from my unit.
I followed Aziz home. Two men gave him a package, and he put it in his schoolbag.
I stopped him, took the bag away, and looked in the package.
It was a bomb. He was going to deliver it to another of his brothers to go blow himself up.
Instead, Aziz exploded in his house, taking his whole family with him.
Accidents can be caused.