Isaac sat beneath an apple tree and watched a mob of farmers charge up the hill, pitchforks waving, heading to the dragon’s cave.
He closed his eyes and waited for the roar to come.
RRRRROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRR!
A pack of screaming singed farmers carrying scorched pitchforks ran down the hill, half-heartedly pursued by a massive scaly green lizard with wings.
Until it stopped, walked up to Isaac, and grumbled “What’s up with those clowns?”
Isaac shrugged. “I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of men.”
The dragon sighed, grumbled and walked away, his tail jostling the tree.
Tag: magic
The Well Of Apology
Every April, the thieves in the town jail are chained together and dragged to The Well Of Apology.
One by one, the thieves are handed a knife, and they are forced to slash their palms and drip blood into the well.
Then, they are unchained, and released.
Any thief who is caught red-handed is beheaded at the well, their head falling into its depths.
Some say that when you cut your palms over the well, the dead whisper up to their friends.
Maybe it’s just the wind, the rattle of the chain.
Have you noticed, the mayor always wears gloves?
Liquid courage
The old gunslinger pulled out a flask, took a swig, and then offered it to me.
“Shot of liquid courage?” he coughed.
“No thanks, I don’t drink,” I said.
“It’s not whiskey,” said the gunslinger. “It’s liquid courage. Made by a wizard who lives out in the hills.”
I took the flask, held it to my nose, and…
It didn’t smell like alcohol.
It smelled like… well, it’s hard to describe…
It smelled like courage.
Chest-puffed out, none of the stink of fear kind.
I didn’t drink any, though.
I mean, his lips had been on the flask.
Bleeeeeeeeeeech! Disgusting!
Backwards and in Heels
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels.
Absolutely everything. Just like that Benjamin Button fellow, she aged backwards.
At first, she needed makeup and pain pills to match her dance partner’s youth and speed, but over time, her body loosened up, and her wrinkles faded.
Oh, how radiant they were, Ginger’s bright face, shining like a starlet’s, gazing into Fred’s eyes.
Younger… younger… then, the audiences got suspicious, so the makeup boys came back in to turn forward the clock.
They looked back and laughed, Fred wheezing heavily, and Ginger as giddy as a schoolgirl.
The Third Thumb
I once heard of a psychic claiming they had a “third eye.”
Well, then I’ve got a “third thumb.”
You see, I’m a movie critic. The Celluloid Spy.
And I’m afraid of the dark.
Yeah, I hire mailroom interns to stand in for me at movie screenings.
My trademark trenchcoat, fedora, and fake beard make sense now, right?
So, when you wonder if the critic saw the same movie you did, you’re right: I didn’t.
But here’s the thing. I’ve been perfectly accurate in my plot synopses and ratings.
Stupid kid, getting hit by that truck.
Never saw that coming.
Third Eye
I once asked a mystic why they called it a “third eye.”
They said they had tried to use “center eye” and “middle eye” but people got them confused with Cyclops.
“What if a Cyclops is psychic?” I responded. “Do they have a second eye? And what about people born without eyes?”
We got horribly bogged down in semantics, and I think it was when I asked if a blind psychic had a fifth sense that he took a punch at me.
I ducked his punch, threw a right hook, and knocked him out cold.
“Didn’t see that one coming.”
A Hard Lesson To Learn
The teacher held a globe near a bright light.
“Let’s say the light is the sun,” she said. “As we turn the globe, we see how the sunlight falls on different parts of the world, making night and day.”
She went on to demonstrate the earth’s axis, seasons, the earth’s orbit…
But Joshua had heard enough.
“This proves that there is no God, no Heaven, no angels,” he whispered to the angel standing next to his desk. “So go away.”
“Who do you think set all this up?” asked the angel.
Joshua sighed, and changed his milk to chocolate milk.
Voodotodo List
I have a lot of chores to do every day.
There was an app for To Do lists on my phone, but I’d have to stop playing Angry Birds long enough to check it.
So, I picked up a corkboard and pinned my to do list up there.
When I finish a task, I stick in a pin.
I call it my Voodoo To Do List.
I just have to be careful about putting names on it.
Like when I wrote “Get birthday present for Stan” and stuck a pin in it.
Poor Stan.
Hold on. Gotta add “Stan’s Funeral.”
Mother’s Day
We watch the suntigers weave among the clouds, chasing each other.
Every so often, they fight, and a glinting tooth falls from the sky.
Picking through the underbrush, we collect them in baskets and return to the archmage’s hut.
He looks over our harvest, tosses away the fractured ones, and spots a good solid crystal.
“Perfect,” he says.
He places it over the eyes of our mother’s corpse, chants something, and then holds the crystal up to the light.
Mother’s battered face appears on the opposite wall.
“Parker the Butcher,” it says.
The killer is arrested, and justice is done.
Dark Arts
Unlike the psychics that the police would hire to find missing people, Morgaine Darkstone made people’s heads explode and fire to rain down from the sky.
So, the police hired anti-psychics, psi-resistant specialists who weren’t affected by Morgaine’s dark arts.
Once they had her trapped in the old abandoned Church Of Pain, department sniper-warlocks took her out with a meteor storm.
Her soul bled into the altar, so if you’re looking for the best unholy water, you’ve come to the right place
Ever seen what happens to a wedding where the champagne flutes have been washed with this stuff?
Priceless.