It’s Halloween again.
There are only two houses on our street: ours and the Smiths.
When Halloween rolls around, the Smiths knock on our door for candy, and then we knock on their door.
No one else comes into our street to trick-or-treat. It’s just us.
We don’t even get out real candy. It’s play candy from some kind of preschool playset that we pass back and forth.
The kids don’t mind. They don’t like candy. Or much of anything, because they’re dead.
We dig them up to drag them around.
At least their pretty costumes will always fit them
Tag: dystopia
Certificates
I’m the county clerk.
I handle all the certificates.
Births
Weddings
Deaths
Every one of them has to go on official certificate paper, lined up just right.
It’s a pain in the ass.
You can’t just print these out in a color laser printer. That’s not good enough for people getting married or having kids.
The dead don’t give a shit, but their relatives care… only right up until the will’s been read, though.
I got bored one day and left a death certificate for John Coward on the copier.
Ran a thousand of them off and proved Shakespeare right.
Custody
Usually, a couple going through a divorce will fight bitterly over custody of the kids, and Fred and Mary were no different.
“I don’t want them!” yelled Mary. “You take them!”
“Hell no!” shouted Fred back. “I said abort them both times, but you insisted on keeping them!”
They kept this up for days. The lawyers tried to help, but the unhappy couple just got louder.
Then, the fighting abruptly stopped. Fred and Mary nodded at each other, and both walked out of the conference room.
And never returned.
The lawyers ended up raising the kids.
God help us all.
The Shooter
They said peace and love, and they offered me a flower.
I looked to Billy, who was standing behind the peacenik.
We do this a lot: I confront a stranger, Billy scouts behind them, and reports if they’re safe.
I can read lips.
“He’s holding a gun behind his back,” he said.
So, I shot the guy.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” shouted Billy. “I said he was holding nothing behind his back!”
“I thought you said ‘gun,'” I said. “Oops. Sorry.”
We dragged the stranger to the dumpster and threw him in.
I kept the flower.
“You need glasses,” said Billy.
Contractor
The general watched the wall of his headquarters shake apart and collapse.
The contractor smiled and said “This will give us an opportunity to learn from our mistakes and rebuild better.”
He was the first to die.
A year later, investigators found the contractor criminally negligent, and they imposed a heavy fine on his company.
Which was already bankrupt and out of business.
The fine would have barely paid the cost of the investigation and prosecution. Or the burial and death benefits of the soldiers who died during the attack.
At least nobody survived. Medical costs would have been astronomical.
Drinks
Some folks call it pop.
Other folks call it soda.
And there’s people in the South who call it coke, even if it’s Pepsi or some other brand.
Around here, we call it The Forbidden Elixir, although even saying that will get you hauled before Mayor’s Council for questioning.
Yes. Forbidden.
It wasn’t enough to warn people of the risks of tooth decay and obesity. Not that we miss it much, what, with the fountains of vodka and bourbon at every street corner.
Still, it would be nice to have mixers. Besides orange juice, limes and bitters.
Oh well. Cheers.
Candy Ass
We used to call Candace Winters “Candy Ass” back in grade school.
It wasn’t because she was any kind of weakling. She was huge and strong. The ultimate girl jock.
No, she got the name because every time she’d win anything, she sit on the loser’s face and shout “KISS MY ASS LIKE IT’S CANDY!”
The school didn’t stop her bullying because she filled the trophy case by the principal’s office.
Then, one day, the PA system announced:
“Candace Williams to the principal’s office.”
Everyone gasped.
It was just the school paper wanting to photograph her standing by her trophies.
The Vultures
A crazed gunman shot up a school in a small suburb, killing and wounding dozens.
The media swarmed, descending on the town like locusts. They refrained from trying to interview the families of the victims, but they harassed everybody else, and it came to a head at the city council meeting.
“We’ve suffered enough,” said the city manager. And he threw a punch at a cameraman at the meeting.
Pretty soon, an angry mob had formed, chasing the media vultures back to their hotel.
“We’ll say it was a gas leak,” said the Fire Chief, and he lit a match.
The Church
I know a guy who’s in a church that protests military funerals.
They say that our soldiers die because of gays, abortions, and other things their church says that God and Jesus don’t like.
However, this guy is really lazy, so instead of actually going to Arlington Cemetery, he looks it up on his computer.
Then, he searches the map for the gravesite, loads the picture, and protests.
Right from his own living room.
He’s been trying to convince the other members of the church that this can save a lot of time and gas money.
I hope he succeeds.
Outlaws
After every handgun massacre, there are calls to outlaw guns. And there are the counter-responses that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.
The debate rages for a while, people get outraged over other things, and nothing gets accomplished.
So, I decided to break the cycle by outlawing signs that say I AM AN OUTLAW.
And sure enough, once those signs were outlawed, only outlaws had those signs.
Which made them really easy to to identify.
We rounded them up and killed them.
Sure, there were a few jokers and free-speech wackos with the signs.
Fuck those idiots.