Tag: tragedy

Belt Tightening

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Report To Corporate: We don’t like the new General Manager you sent us.
First off, he’s not Spacer. You lied about promoting from within.
Then he says he understands the gravity of the situation, despite this manufacturing facility being in orbit and near-zero gravity.
Next, he says we need to do a little belt-tightening, despite this manufacturing facility being a protected Clothing-Optional Zone.
So, I told the Nudists Union we’re going on strike.
That’s when he asked me if I cared to step outside.
Sure. Here’s the airlock, pal.
His body can be found trailing our facility by 45 seconds.

Dumb Bunny

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There we were, trying to eat a little breakfast before the daily crucifixions, when this big white rabbit shows up.
“Hey, kids!” he shouted.
Kids? We’re Roman centurions.
He then pokes his nose into each bowl, splashing gruel all over the table. “Where’s the cereal?” he asks.
“Halt, rabbit!” growled the unit commander.
But the rabbit wouldn’t stop, and his furry feet kicked the bowls all over our uniforms.
“Where’s the Trix?” he cried.
Later that afternoon, we nailed him up with the thieves and the loudmouth carpenter.
What a silly rabbit. Didn’t he know that Trix are for Yids?

Molly’s Bunnies

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Molly heard somewhere that if you play music for your plants, they’ll grow faster and larger.
So, Molly left the radio in the garden and played classical music on it.
After a few weeks, the blooms on the flowers were bigger and prettier.
However, so were the rabbits.
Molly tried to barricade the door, but she was no match for the massive bunnies as they heaved the battering ram through it.
This is where I’d like to tell you this odd tale had a happy ending.
So, I will.
(But truth be told, all we found was Molly’s bloody shoe.)

The Happy Couple

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In the future, couples wishing to marry will be able to create a pair of clones to test their relationship.
While the clones are married and live out their lives, the original couple is deep-frozen and stored in hibernation chambers.
Should the marriage fail, the clones are destroyed and the couple is thawed out so they can break up and go their separate ways.
But if the marriage holds, well, they live out their lives happily ever after.
Of course, the original couple ends up being destroyed.
Love can be weird sometimes, sure, but why ruin a good thing, right?

The Heroes

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Every town needs a Hero. It’s the law.
But somehow, those assholes at the ACLU got the courts to rule that the word “A” means “Only one Hero will be allowed in each town.”
Population wasn’t factored in when the law was passed, so even big cities like Metropolis and Gotham only get one hero.
Crime rates skyrocketed. The people cried out for help.
But Heroes face stiff fines and jail time if they don’t allow themselves to be relocated to Hero-less towns across the country.
Those who resisted by going vigilante were hunted down.
By the Heroes, of course.

Boys Will Be Boys

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Usually, the boys come back greasy and burnt from a robot hunt. But this time, they came back bloody.
At first, they said the robot banged them up good. But those cuts ain’t deep enough for that amount of blood.
The story we told the cops was that the robot that tore apart the Jenkins kid. My boys tried to stop it, but they were just too late.
It worked. Another close call for the Boudreaux Clan.
Boys will be boys, though – they want to go hunting again tonight.
I boot up another Snipeco 6000, sigh, and hit Run.

Walkabout

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When people build in virtual worlds, they tend to make assumptions about gravity and wind.
Not Arthur. “Fundamental laws like gravity need not apply,” he said.
His playing card office building and an upside-down pyramid stand out, but I notice the subtler things like a starscape that slowly shifts in impossible patterns.
Arthur’s avatar was out walking around his odd world, so I caught up with him and tried to ask him what it was all about.
No response. Just kept walking.
A day later, the paper said he’d shot himself.
They found him, head resting on the “Walk” key.

The Final Hours Of A Professional Slut

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Anne Nicole sat in her hotel suite and wept.
From the other room, her lawyer’s bastard baby shrieked.
The porn star wept harder.
She always got this way when she read the letters from her dead billionaire husband.
One after the other, his words tore at her heart and she yearned for him to be here with her again.
When she was finished with the last letter, the tears turned to rage.
“You found time to write this shit, but you couldn’t write a goddamned will?”
She poured out the pill bottle into her hand, swallowing them one by one.

On The Dotted Line

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The Sultan wrote The Director of NASA a large unsigned check.
“Take my beloved son into space,” he said.
He wrote a bigger unsigned check when his son failed the physical.
“Take him anyway,” he said.
When NASA reported that G-forces had stopped his son’s heart during launch, The Sultan called the NASA Administrator.
“Get my son back to me immediately so we may bury him promptly,” he said.
“It’s an eight-day mission,” said the Administrator.
“And your family is on an eight-day vacation here in my palace,” said the Sultan.
He wrote out three death warrants.
And signed them.

Pink Slip

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Betsy stared at the severance check and wept.
“Is this all I’m worth to you now?” she asked her boss.
“Come on Betsy,” said her boss. “You knew this was coming ever since they invented email.”
“But it was such a good gig,” said Betsy.
“Was… was a good gig,” the boss emphasized. “Nobody wants singing telegrams anymore.”
“I still get fan letters,” she said.
“But not new orders,” said her boss. “I’m sorry, but it’s either let you go or shut things down.”
He let Betsy keep her feather boa, the same one she’d been using for 60 years.