Tag: commentary

Home

459360

When you are far from home and all you see is a pile of stones, fill your heart with memories of home and arrange the stones like the night sky above it.
Now close your eyes, take a deep breath, and forget where you are.
Concentrate completely on home. The sounds of home. The smells of home.
The weight of the air of home on your bare skin.
Know that you are home. Believe that you are home.
Count three beats of your heart, breathe deeply, and open your eyes.
Welcome home, apprentice, for you always bring home with you.

Dull As Sandpaper

454815

“Let me go,” said the blindfolded reporter.
He struggled with the straps, but it was to no avail. There was no way he was getting up from the chair.
A giggle. A snicker.
“Who are you?” he whined into the darkness.
“Dull as sandpaper, are we?” said a voice.
The reporter instantly recognized the voice. It was someone he’d interviewed a few weeks ago, but he decided to “sex up” his story a bit for the readers.
“I was just trying to-”
“Do unto others,” said the voice. “As they’ve done to you.”
That’s when he heard the belt sander.

Hatestorm

563432

Howard Stern was the least of it. Foul-mouthed juvenile miscreants, amoral priests and vile partisan pundits, spreading filth and putrid rants throughout the ether around the clock and around the world.
You see, Marconi never finished his equations. The Principle of Saturation went unpublished, so the garbage and hatred building up in the invisible spaces between matter and antimatter went unrealized.
Until one day, after a particularly gross midget-sex roundtable on Opie and Anthony, the Saturation point was exceeded.
Clouds of rancor spilled across the skies. Marconi’s worst nightmares realized, a thousand years of darkness.
The fools blamed global warming.

The Mad Grooms Brigade

519233

Some states allowed gay marriage. Others blocked it.
Just like the Jayhawks of Bleeding Kansas two centuries ago, the Mad Grooms Brigade formed in Massachusetts to spread awareness though ideological skirmishes.
They conducted border raids into Rhode Island and Connecticut, throwing cooked brown rice at weddings and registering at various upscale department stores or specialty shops.
It was the seditious flower arrangements that had the greatest impact.
Once discovered, they’d flee back across the border, out of the reach of the closed-minded long arm of the law.
Plenty of time to regroup. Plenty of time to plan.
War is hell.

The Sleep

541049

Just like bears and other forest creatures, creative websites hibernate too, you know.
They fatten up on content, build up their code nice and thick before withdrawing into their backup storage to last out the harsh winter.
Their pulse slows to an almost imperceptible thud.
Some sites fail to hear the call to sleep, so they rustle about, foraging for data.
They stumble about, blind and hungry.
When they come across each other, they fight, leaving bloody trails in the snow to mark their battles.
Eventually, the sleeping sites awaken to see their battle-torn comrades.
Thus, virtual life goes on.

Name Your Price!

402466

It is the middle of the twenty-first century, and the naming rights for absolutely everything in America are up for sale. Up to an including America itself.
Want to name a river after your heavy-duty laundry detergent?
Name your price!
Want to name a county in the state formerly known as Idaho after your line of extended-wear colored contact lenses? Name your price!
Want to name that snowy mountainpeak something like your kid’s breakfast cereal? Name your price!
Want to name a hurricane after your closest competitor? Name your price, but you’d better have a good trademark specialist attorney ready.

Invitation

262502

Even though the Red Cross has opened up multiple massive shelters for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina, it is imperative that people are moved out to smaller accommodations.
Large, anonymous masses of people afford opportunities for criminal elements, or much worse kinds of predators.
Many people are opening their homes without any question or fear, but just as the dead float in the flooded streets, some still walk them.
Whether voodoo zombie or vampire, protections against inviting undead into your home should be in place. I’d suggest greeting your new roommate with plenty of garlic and exposed mirrors.
In daylight.

Worth Many More

312680

After eighteen years in the hands of the Arabs, Colonel Rabin was finally coming home.
His plane landed just as the buses full of cheering and jeering prisoners were sent off to the border. Their vicious chants echoed in the distance.
“Vermin,” muttered one of the honor guard.
Rabin’s wife waited as the plane rolled to a stop.
The cargo doors opened, and her husband’s casket was unloaded.
“Why is one dead man worth dozens of live terrorists?” asked the honor guard.
“He’s worth far more than that,” said his commander. “And that is to the shame of the enemy.”

Execution

279586

In Texas, executions take place at sundown.
The lawyers weren’t done, but Rufus Washington was. He’d been through three Last Meals already in Huntsville thanks to the Supreme Court, but he didn’t think he’d have a fourth.
Back in Austin, the governor was fed up with the press asking him if he’d grant clemency.
“If God wants this murderer to stay alive, let Him stop the turning of the Earth,” said the governor to the cameras.
Unlike the governor, God was not available for comment. The sun sank from the sky, painted the horizon crimson, and Rufus went to Hell.

COPS: Third Dimension

310933

It’s not easy cornering a timefugitive, so when you shout “We have you surrounded” you’d better block them in all directions as well as in the past and the future.
Also, pandimensional hyperbeings may not understand “Come out with your hands up.” Not only are you assuming they have hands, but in higher dimensions “up” is not always “un-down” and “out” may involve going further in and then wormholing back around.
Finally, “This is your last warning” is actually the first warning for retrotemporal outlaws. Those are the worst, since from their perspective they’ve only just gotten out of prison.