Tag: tragedy

Where there’s smoke, there’s Walter

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The old saying goes “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
Around here, it goes “Where there’s smoke, there’s Walter.”
Walter smokes. Walter smokes a lot.
I can’t remember any time when I’ve seen Walter not smoking.
Once, I saw Walter asleep at a bar, and his hand reached into his mouth, pulled out his exhausted cigarette, stubbed it out in the ashtray, pulled another from his pack, lit it, and stuck it in his mouth.
Which is why I opened up the coffin and stuck a cigarette in his mouth.
How was I to know someone had dowsed him in gasoline?

The Dangerous Salad

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I ordered a Chef’s Salad, but the chef didn’t want to part with his salad. He does that sometimes, the crazy bastard.
So I ended up with a Dangerous Salad instead.
Nothing was dangerous about the ingredients themselves, mind you. From the iceberg lettuce to the herb-encrusted wheat bread croutons, you’d assume that it would be benign.
You’d assume wrongly. Because a salad’s ingredients might all be ordinary, it’s the arrangement of those ingredients that can have fatal consequences.
Well, that and the salad dressing. I mean, who ever heard of Arnsenic Vinaigrette?
I specifically ordered fat-free Arnsenic Vinaigrette, dammit.

Do You Have Wars?

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Communication between the dimensions via hyperradio has been severely limited despite centuries of development. Brief messages, rotated ninety degrees from reality like passing notes in school.
Which is what it was used for in the end – grade school penpal projects.
After years of “Do you have a dog?” and “I like flowers.” the notes stopped. The last message to arrive was:
“Do you have wars?”
And that was it. Nothing else. Just hyperstatic.
As dull as they were, we will sure miss the daily chatter with those Earthers.
I think I’ll get the class a pet to raise tomorrow.

The Martyrdom of Saint Timothy

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Everybody agreed that the pizza should have pepperoni and sausage.
Except for Timothy. He insisted on mushrooms.
“How about mushrooms on half?” he asked.
“There’s five of us,” said Joe. “You getting half your way? No way.”
“Why don’t you just get a small mushroom pizza on your own?” asked Susan.
“No,” said Timothy. “I want mushrooms on half.”
That was the last straw.
Susan and Joe pinned Timothy’s arms to the table while Irwin poured hot lead into Timothy’s mouth.
Word of Timothy’s martyrdom spread throughout campus. He eventually became the Patron Saint Of Mushrooms.
Still, what a dumbass.

My dad is a ninja

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It was Career Day at school, and every child in Miss Claire’s class brought their father in to show off.
Susie’s father was a fireman.
Abdul’s father was a lawyer.
Johnny’s father was a baseball player.
Bobby’s father was… absent?
“Where is your father, Bobby?” asked Miss Claire.
“He’s lurking in the shadows,” said Bobby.
“Why?”
“Because he’s a ninja.”
“He’s not a ninja.”
As fast as lightning, a fist plunged through Miss Claire’s chest, ripped out her heart, and showed it to her before she died.
“See?” said Bobby.
Oh, did I mention that Susie’s father was a fireman?

Fish Tale

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I design the costumes for a big movie studio’s theme park.
When a movie comes out, I turn the characters into live-action performers, walking around and posing for photos.
Pirates, cats, dogs, mice… I’ve made them all.
Ever since I heard a fish movie was in the works, I lost sleep.
How do you dress like a fish?
I finally came up with an idea: the performer’s head is in a fish-shaped mask. His body is a pedestal, holding up the fishbowl his head is in.
The guy put it on. It worked.
Until he filled the bowl with water.

Diamonds are not a girls’ best friend

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It was Tina’s first time.
The deal was simple: she’d swallow the bag of diamonds, fly to Rome, and then she’d crap them out.
It would have been the easiest ten thousand dollars she ever made. What could possibly go wrong?
When she landed, Customs waved her through.
They were waiting for her. Tossed her in a car and drove for a few hours until they got to the villa.
“Change of plans.”
They shot her, cut her open, pulled out the diamonds, and buried the rest.
They used to harvest and sell the organs. Too much of a hassle.

Tossers

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Spotters located asteroids.
Grabbers grabbed asteroids.
Shovers retrieved asteroids.
Chewers pulverized asteroids.
Sniffers analyzed asteroids.
And Gulpers ate them for sorting and processing.
Thanks to goofball rules held over from Terran Days, there were also Packers and Tossers. They packed the tailings back into dense balls of spacerock and launched them back into the belt.
Sometimes, tossers liked to have a little fun, whizzing a million-ton boulder inches from a control pod or a cruise ship.
Tosser 7-D used millimeters instead of inches. Another holdover from Terran Days, that stupid Metric System.
Bye bye, Titanic. We’re still counting the bodies.

Sammy was the Sole Survivor

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Five kilometers past Strayhorn Reef was where the map said the lost freighter exploded and sank.
Bits and pieces of the vessel littered the ocean floor, if 2-ton glowing chunks of iron and steel could be described as a bit or piece.
The only survivor of the wreck was a one-legged parrot. All it said was “Sammy!”
The investigators tried to coax more out of the parrot, using crackers and peanuts, but all it ever said was “Sammy!”
Divers went down, but never came up. Even when tagged, their signal would vanish.
And so did they.
“Sammy!” shrieked the parrot.

Liver

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Despite the best efforts of the best doctors in the world, Jenny needed a new liver. I’d give her mine, but it wasn’t enough of a match.
For a million dollars, Rico said he could get one that would be a perfect match.
I sold everything and gave the money to Rico.
It was barely enough.
Within hours, a medical cooler was being rushed to the hospital. In it was Jenny’s new liver.
The hospital paged the transplant team, and they all rushed in.
Except for the lead surgeon. He’d already arrived in the morgue hours ago.
Without a liver.