New York City vanished.
No explosions or fires, or strange lights in the sky.
It just vanished. Completely gone.
Scientists couldn’t explain it.
A lot of people freaked out. Lots of tweets and Facebook updates and crazy stuff.
Without New York telling everybody what to do, Los Angeles and Washington tried to step into that role.
Some followed, but others said “Fuck you, we’re tired of being told what to do.”
After a while, things settled down, and life returned to normal.
New York never came back.
They’re collecting for a monument, but I got better things to spend on.
Tag: dystopia
Contact High
In a few years, the drug companies will have mastered the art of medicating out of existence every condition that interferes with the competitive consumption our society and economy depends on.
Drug A treats Condition A, but causes Condition B.
Drug B treats Condition B, but causes Condition C.
And so on, in an endless circle of pills and ointments and drops and vapors, we will torment our chemistry into a constant state of not-quite-well-enough.
We will be so saturated with these drugs, our souls will sweat bizarre toxic compounds, and devils will get deliriously high with a single lick.
The Wobbly Wheel
The old homeless lady who’s always pushing a shopping cart around the neighborhood is stuck.
Her shopping cart has a broken wheel.
She can’t push it to the store it to move to another cart. And she can’t leave her stuff.
So, she’s stuck under the freeway, screaming.
I ponder bringing her a new cart to move her junk to.
But I remember when I helped her get the cart she has now.
She screamed and bit and scratched.
And she rammed the cart into my car a few times.
I won it in our divorce settlement, fair and square.
Policy
After his second heart attack, the insurance company threatened to drop Fred’s policy if he didn’t get a nurse.
Fred shopped around for new coverage, but nobody would offer him coverage without a nurse.
“Fine!” he said.
He blinked up the menu, grumbled “install nurse” and dragged the confirmation certificate to the policy renewal form.
The nurse chimed warning tones whenever he drank or smoked or ate too much.
Fred responded by hacking the program to disable the tones.
The nurse reported this to the insurance company, and the policy was terminated.
Fred’s resulting third heart attack finished him off.
Parland
West Parland and East Parland have been enemies for so long, there’s no remaining evidence of there having been a unified Parland ever existing.
Each claims to be the right and proper Parland, claiming sovereignty over the other, home of the National Church Of Parland, speakers of the Original Parland language, and keepers of the Parland style of cuisine.
Finally, in the dead of night, after so many years, the East Parland Army marched West… and the West Parland Army marched East.
They completely missed each other, and they conquered their enemies’ lands.
The citizens woke up confused and frightened.
Dan Mauer
The Revival Laws clearly state that it is illegal to revive a person against their will.
It is also illegal to revive a person multiple times.
So, the seven starving Dan Bauers locked up in my basement would score me several lifetimes in jail if anybody reported them.
Nobody will.
Instead, a select audience of his victims watches them with sick delight, screaming and yelling as the revived duplicates attack each other and suffer over and over again.
No man deserves such a fate… or fates.
Except this monster: Dan Bauer.
Maybe next time, we’ll place bets.
Watch… and win!
Fight Club
The basement was full of men, standing around a man who recited a list of rules.
Arthur was in the back of the crowd, and his ears were ringing a bit, so he misheard the rules.
“What was that second rule?” Arthur asked another guy.
“Same as the first,” the man grunted.
Arthur was going to ask what the first rule was, but the guy looked angry.
He decided to ask someone else.
“Don’t talk about Fight Club, he said.
Uh oh, thought Arthur, clutching his dice bag. D&D Club must be tomorrow.
Tyler Durden made him eat the dice.
Detroit
Everybody says that Detroit is dying, but nobody knows when to pull the plug.
Detroit isn’t any help. Detroit is in denial, insisting it’s fine, as the urban decay rots deeper and deeper.
None of its relatives are in any position to help out either. All those sister cities you see on WikiPedia don’t answer Detroit’s calls.
Neighbors? Forget about them.
Chicago is drowning in blood.
Washington is out of cash, so don’t count on a bailout.
Maybe the easiest decision will be what to do with the corpse, because the fire department left long ago.
Hand me a lighter.
Lucien Smith
A software glitch caused every birth certificate in the county to use the name Lucien Smith.
You’d think that people would balk.
Nope. The parents didn’t mind the error at all.
“It’s a good name,” said one couple. “Better than the one we picked out.”
“You’d think it would be confusing, having twin girls named Lucien,” said another couple. “But somehow, we manage.”
The first kindergarten class of Lucien Smiths was a challenge for school administrators, but they quickly got the hang of it.
It’s the public stoning of children not named Lucien Smith that you never get used to.
The Wish
I hear screaming.
It is coming from the well.
They say it is a wishing well.
I pushed the bad man into the well.
I made a wish:
I wish the bad man would stop hurting me.
I asked him for some coins to throw into the well.
He took them out of his pocket, laughed, and said…
No.
So, I pushed him into the well.
Him, and the coins in his pocket.
And I made my wish.
But he’s climbing back out.
Angry.
Maybe, if I hit him on the head with a shovel, my wish will come true.