Tag: tragedy

Volunteered

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Let’s not bullshit.
My kid needs your heart. Soon. We’re not sure how long he can hold on.
We’re not sure how long you can hold on, either.
Doctor says that you signed your organ donor card and didn’t want to be kept on life support, but your family trumped your wishes.
I’ve offered them money. They won’t take it.
Do I need to kill them, or just one to set an example and make them sign the forms?
I wish we could have met under better circumstances.
But for my kid’s sake, I’m still glad I ran you over.

Revenge Nog

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Edwin clutched his chest, wheezing what might have been words.
Iris wasn’t listening. She was just watching him, waiting for him to die.
He saw her emptying his pill case into the toilet, and his eyes went from surprise to anger.
For a moment, Iris considered calling 911.
She rubbed her arm where he’d last burned her, and decided to wait just a little longer.
Edwin had just enough fight left in him to get up from the chair and lunge at her.
She stepped back.
Some plastic surgery for the scars.
Yeah, that would be her gift to herself.

Keepaway

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Arthur is home.
His two kids, Jenny and Jack, play Keep Away with the dog. The dog runs back and forth between them, panting heavily. Eventually, the dog clutches his furry little chest and drops dead from a heart attack.
The kids keep playing Keep Away, because they so rarely get to do it with a severed human head.
Arthur watches them through his front window. He takes it with him everywhere, just for these moments.
He wishes their mother could be here, but then, in a way, she is.
He wonders where the rest of her body is stashed.

Airport 2006

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We’re still not sure why, but the investigation concluded that the airport manager secretly replaced the supply of de-icing agent at Jefferson County Airport with Folger’s Crystals.
It didn’t take long to find out what would happen. Two executive jets froze up and crashed, and a third barely managed to get back on the ground.
The airport manager stuck a microphone in the pilot’s face. “Did you know that I substituted your de-icing agent with Folger’s Instant Crystals? Could you tell the difference?”
He’s in an insane asylum now, receiving plenty of medication.
And no instant coffee whatsoever, thank goodness.

Toadboy

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My mother did a lot of drugs in her wilder days.
She claimed she took a break for the seven months I was inside her, but I know she’s lying.
My genes are full of errors, minuscule errors in the spirals of DNA in my billions of cells.
Doctors say I should be dead by now. But I’m still kicking, and the nurses keep checking on me around-the-clock.
Every now and then, one sneaks a lick of my skin.
Their eyes roll back, and they shudder with pleasure.
That’s nice, but I wish they’d remember to switch the goddamned bedpan.

My Captain

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When it got dark, The Captain and I climbed out of the bunker for a smoke.
My pack was empty. The Captain had just one.
I watched as The Captain lit up.
“We’ll get more soon,” he said, taking a deep drag. “I’ll smoke half, you’ll smoke half, okay?”
The tip glowed red in the night.
Then, more red.
Laser dots.
He dropped before I could shout.
I sat still, watching The Captain’s body in the tiny glow of the cigarette tip.
No more shots. The snipers just saw him, not me.
I haven’t smoked since.
Now pass the needle.

Running On Empty

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I wake up, smelling… burnt meat?
Everything’s swimmy and wild.
Am I drugged?
There’s a swirling, kaleidoscope medic standing over me. He moves his lips, but I can’t understand what he’s saying.
He writes on a card, holds it up: “Do you hear that beeping sound?”
I try to shake my head, but it’s strapped down.
“No,” I say.
I can feel myself saying No, but I can’t hear it.
The medic writes more: “What do you remember?”
“I was checking the gas can. Then, I saw a bright flash, and then… this.”
The medic writes again: “With a lighter?”

Under The Big Guy’s Big Top

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The sharpshooter’s act ended without bloodshed, so the ringmaster waved out the gymnasts.
Seventeen agile Frenchmen pranced their way to the center ring, somersaulting and leaping with great skill.
Just as they finished their Parisian Pyramid, the trapeze artists screamed… the rigging was giving way.
The tent’s canvas ripped open quickly, revealing a horrific sight: the stars were careening wildly around the sky like drunken moths.
The astonished tumblers fell to the ground in a groaning pile, but the bearded old man in the audience began to laugh and applaud.
“Splendid!” God said. “Best night I’ve had in eons! Bravo.”

Eleven… um, I mean Twelve Step Program

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I was sitting on the toilet when I suddenly realized that I forgot to lift up the lid before taking a dump.
My mind’s been fuzzy since the accident. I may look okay, but I forget steps.
Like yesterday: I put my shoes on before my socks. That kind of thing.
It used to be worse. One time, I handed my fiance the hairdryer while she was still in the shower.
That’s why I’m here. Well, that and a verdict of “Not Guilty By Reason Of Mental Defect.”
Although, from the awful things she’d yell at me, I’m not sorry.

The Church Bells Of Jenin

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The soft-haired folksinger sat on his stool, strummed his guitar, and sang his sad tale of the church bells in Jenin.
Seven thousand miles away, the last of the churchbells was hauled down from its burnt-out tower.
The Christians had left months ago, driven out by their unneighborly neighbors.
Three masked men picked up the bell and smiled, hauling it to the foundry.
It was melted down into shell casings and bullets.
Weeks later, a paramedic pulled a bullet from a dead child’s chest.
He pulled another three from the child’s dead mother.
Murdered, by the church bells of Jenin.