Tag: tragedy

Garage Door

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Right after breakfast, when it’s time to go to school, Danny does this trick – he hits the garage door button and then watches the garage door go down and down and down…
When the time is just right, he runs for the garage door and rolls under it.
“Garage Door Limbo” he calls it.
One day, Danny’s principal calls his mom at work.
“Is Danny sick?” he asks.
His mom races back home, sees Danny trapped under the garage door.
Stone cold dead.
She weeps. If the garage door didn’t kill him, well, running him over finished him off.

Willy Lied

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Willy Wonka said that they’d come away unchanged and unharmed, but just a little wiser.
Willy lied.
The fat kid drowned in the fudge vats. They didn’t bother scooping him out. Choppy-chop!
The gum-chewer exploded into blueberry goo in the hallway. Fucking gross!
The greedy bitch was crisped in a furnace, followed by her father. Good riddance to them both.
The TV kid survived. But he was only four inches tall. That makes it hard to treat for radiation sickness.
By the time they buried little Mike Teevee in a shoebox, Charlie and his family were moving into the factory.

Confession

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Confession is good for the soul.
And for the community, too.
Every few nights, Max shows up with a bag of cash.
It scares me to think what he’s done to his wife and daughters this time.
Over the years, we’ve renovated the church with that money. Put in a community center. Added computers, tutors for homework.
Last night, soaked with blood, all torn up. Hands me a briefcase.
“Make it last,” he says. “You’ll never see me again.”
I don’t even listen. I just put it in the bank, and watch the news as they bring the bodies out.

Mark Brown

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Mark Brown. Spoiled rotten rich kid.
The worst bully in the entire school.
He pushed kids down the stairs.
Nobody ever stopped him.
One day, he tried to push me down the stairs.
But I saw him coming and ducked to the side.
Mark lost his balance and fell, tumbling down.
Crack… he broke his neck.
Laying there in the hospital bed, he tries to apologize to me.
“Say it like you mean it, Mark,” I say.
He’s crying, looking at the ventilator hose.
My hand, crimping it shut.
“Cry for me,” I say.
There’s a new bully in town.

Axe Murderer

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The judge banged his gavel and called the court to order.
“Fred Axemurderer, you are charged with two counts of first degree murder. How do you plead?”
A blood-soaked figure in torn overalls and a hockey mask stood up.
“Well, let’s see,” he said. “You have my axe over there. Next to it, videotapes of the murders. Beside that, my signed confession. What more do you want?”
All the while, Fred’s attorney was shouting “HE PLEADS NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANITY!”
You see, only a crazy man would give up the massive revenue potential of a sequel. Or two.

The Island

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The island isn’t on any maps.
Well, okay. It appears on one map: mine.
It’s off the trade routes. I only found it because of a freak storm that blew me ashore here.
It doesn’t even have a name.
Want to name it?
No rush. We won’t be here long, anyway.
Just long enough to bury the treasure and the prisoners.
That’s right – bury them.
Remember when I gave orders to take no prisoners?
This is why.
Just be sure to give ’em each a sip of whiskey before… you know.
I may be a pirate, but I’m no Savage.

New Beginnings

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After your funeral, I met with the representative from the hospital.
They had the malpractice settlement ready for me. All I had to do was sign my life away.
So I did, and swallowed the pill from the Hemlock Society.
It tastes like… strawberries.
I could have been selfish and taken the first offer they gave me: growing a clone of you.
Healthy. Happy. Together.
But there would still be me, always knowing, resentful of how their incompetence took you from me.
Why make you suffer that again?
We will both be born again, fresh and innocent.
Healthy. Happy. Together.

The Memo

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Everybody who reads the secret memo dies.
So, it’s been filed away…
deep in the archives…
locked in a filing cabinet…
which is locked in a closet…
which is in a locked room…
accessible only by locked stairs…
and the door to the stairs is locked, too.
But I have the keys on this keyring.
Let’s see…
To the door.
To the stairs.
To the door.
To the room.
To the closet.
To the cabinet.
Here. Take this keyring.
If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.
Read the memo.
Oh, and when you do, can I have your stapler?

Dancing Goddess

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When the Goddess begins to dance, people from all around will gather by the shore and watch her move in the tide with such grace and beauty.
They drop everything and sway in the evening mist.
Mothers let their babies slip from their grasp and fall into the surf.
Nobody notices the splashes. The Goddess laughs as each sacrifice is made.
Sometimes, after the dance, their bodies wash up on the shore, and there is much grief.
The Goddess has rejected the children.
But when the children wash out to sea, it is said they have become her royal consorts.

Yorick

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The old jester imagined that he would be telling jokes in court to laughing royalty, screwing maids in the barn, and dining on the best of what the castle’s kitchen had to offer.
Instead, he had a mouth full of mud and his back ached from the weight of the young prince.
“Horsey!’ shouted Hamlet.
Yorick groaned with each kick to his ribs.
At first, it was a delight. But with each passing week of being a plaything, Yorick grew weary.
Yorick never did get the laughter, maids, or feasts.
He died a broken man, a feast for the worms.