Tag: tragedy

Confessor

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We’re not sure how he did it, but all of the evidence points to this guy who walked in and confessed to the murder.
There’s one problem, though. The murder took place in the Fifteenth Century. A simple assassination in Rome. A bishop history barely remembers.
Fingerprints, DNA, and a painting from the time confirm it’s him.
Not just a long-distant ancestor. It’s actually him. He did it.
There’s no statute of limitations on murder and he’s confessed to the crime, so we’re going ahead with the trial.
Maybe he’ll tell us how he did it. And maybe he won’t.

Grow

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We only regrow accident victims. We don’t touch terminal diseases.
It’s hard to explain widespread cancer miraculously disappearing. But you can always say they’ve just come out of a coma after taking months to heal their “nonfatal” injuries.
Add a few scars, flash the memory – they’re back.
Now, sometimes the growth-accelerants fail to slow down when halted. We test for that, but sometimes an age spurt kinda kicks in.
As opposed to Peter Pans, who never grow old.
Ever wonder why some child stars die young from drugs or accidents?
Can’t have them living forever.
That’s what reruns are for.

The Witch Doctor

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I carried Bobby’s mangled corpse to the Witch Doctor, begging him to do something.
“Sure,” said the Witch Doctor. “Stand back.”
I stepped back and watched the Witch Doctor mix up various ingredients in a gigantic boiling pot.
He poured out the contents on the broken body and chanted some kind of magic spell.
An hour later, Bobby’s wounds were healed and broken bones were straightened.
Good as new. Almost.
“He’s not moving,” I said. “Is he alive?”
“Alive?” asked the Witch Doctor. “I’m sorry. I thought you were from the morticians’. You want this one alive? Man, you’re fucked.”

Sol de Loco

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Luis and Hector were waxing the Camaro when Apollo The Sun God showed up.
“I need a favor,” he said. “My chariot’s in the shop. Can you pull the sun across the sky today?”
Luis and Hector looked at the Sun God, looked at each other, and then high-fived.
“Nothing fancy, okay?” said Apollo.
“Sure thing, Mister,” said Luis. Hector nodded.
Sometime around Noon, the Camaro’s rear end burst into flames.
Apollo watched the Camaro, the Sun, and the two volunteers fall from the sky.
“I guess they didn’t use a second layer of wax,” said Apollo. “Just like Icarus.”

Eat You Up

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“You’re so cute, I could just eat you up,” said Ben to Vicki. “So I will.”
Then he beat her skull in with a hammer.
Not even a scream. One minute, she was staring up at him, and then next she was a bloody heap on the floor.
Ben made the rookie mistake of freezing her before cutting her up. Everybody knows that you should cut up your meat fresh and then freeze it.
Okay, maybe not everybody, but Ben should have done his homework before bashing in Vicki’s brains.
In the end, she was only good for soup stock.

One Blow

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The Angel Gabriel sat on the curb and wept at the destruction and misery he’d witnessed over the centuries.
“It’s all my fault,” he moaned. “If I hadn’t lost my trumpet, I’d have ended this a long time ago.”
He’d backtraced his steps many times, but they all led back to a pub where he’d drunkenly pawned his horn for a bottle of whiskey.
The curb he sat on was in front of the skyscraper built where the pub used to be.
Sighing, Gabriel pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
The skyscraper wobbled, and Reality began to fade.

Tony’s Final Ride

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They found Tony impaled on the unicorn’s horn on the Merry Go Round.
“I want to ride on the unicorn!” he had shouted not less than an hour ago. “Now! Now! Now!”
The past year had been hell on Tracy. Being a big sister to a little brat was sheer hell.
Tracy smirked at the thought, and stepped up on the platform to get a closer look at her stepbrother.
He drooled blood, but the little retard was still smiling.
She stuck a hand in Tony’s pocket, pulled out the rest of his ride tickets, and ran for the Midway.

Not Quite Panning Out

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Peter told Wendy to capture the second star to the right and fly straight on until morning.
Wendy wasn’t good at telling left from right. Instead of Neverland, the kids wound up shooting straight at a gas giant.
John screamed all the way down into the swirling, deadly maelstrom.
Wendy backtracked and tried again, but she miscounted and headed for the fourth star below.
Michael’s corpse can be found on an asteroid, his face frozen forever in horror.
Wendy flew back home and, when cornered, told a cock-and-bull story about kidnappers.
She’d gotten sick of John and Michael’s snoring, anyway.

Paperboy

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Teddy’s mother abanoned him.
She stuffed him into a newspaper vending machine instead of leaving him on a doorstep.
Every time someone bought a paper, they’d take a newspaper, but leave him in the machine.
Teddy grew up in that machine, learning to read from the headlines and living on free samples in Sunday editions.
“Hi, people!” Teddy said to people buying papers.
“Hi, Teddy!” people said back. “Bye, Teddy!”
Other machines showed up for alternative newspapers, circulars, weekly rags. What an eyesore!
The city passed a law making newspaper vending machines illegal.
Teddy’s machine vanished. And so did Teddy.

AIDS Microwave

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There’s two symptoms of AIDS folks that forget: fear and ignorance.
Early on there was plenty of both.
There were people dying young and leaving behind loved ones, pets, material possessions and crap.
People would ask at garage sales, picking through tennis racquets and microwaves. “Did he die of … that disease?”
When told yes, prices come down. Or nobody will touch them at all.
Take this microwave, for instance. Perfectly good. Top-of-the-line.
Once they know about its former owner, people think they’ll get AIDS from it.
It’s perfectly safe.
Well, okay – maybe an electric shock. It’s not well-grounded.