The town guard dragged the mad puppeteer into the castle and threw him at the feet of the duke.
The captain of the guard whispered ‘Blasphemy” into the duke’s ear.
“Cut out the tongues of the puppets,” he responded.
“It’s the man who speaks, not the puppets,” said the captain.
“Let me see,” said the duke.
The puppeteer crawled closer, and looking up at the duke, he laughed.
“What is so funny?”
The puppeteer smiled and removed the puppets from his hands, revealing concealed daggers.
“You killed my wife and daughters,” he said, stabbing the daggers into the duke’s chest.
Tag: crime
Gastronomical Orchestra
Laying back after an exceptional meal, I listened to the squelches and squishes inside my belly.
The more unusual the meal, the more unusual the sounds.
So, I went on an epicurean adventure, seeking out incredible unusual foods to construct melodies, harmonies, choruses… I recorded them all and mixed them together into the most amazing gastronomic symphonies.
For live performances, I’d throw a banquet, and offer up dishes that would turn the audience into my orchestra.
As long as I received more curtain calls than citations from the health department for food poisoning or cases of gastritis, I was happy.
Backups
Parents are well-advised not to allow their children to connect to the network unlocked.
There are far too many worms and viruses out in the wild, and despite the claims in the commercials, firewalls don’t block and eliminate them all.
One minute, your son or daughter is sitting there, researching a school project. The next minute, they’re staring blankly and reciting a ransom note.
Fifty thousand dollars by midnight, and they’ll restore your child’s personality.
I agree with them: don’t call the police.
Just disconnect from the net and restore from backup.
(You do make backups of your kids, right?)
Down For The Count
Van Helsing was leaving Dracula’s castle when the police arrived.
“I tried to stop him!” he claimed. “But The Count was too strong for me! He got into a coffin and pounded a stake through his own chest!”
He took them down into the crypt and showed them the corpse.
A mallet was in Dracula’s hand, right where Van Helsing had placed it.
His left hand.
“Wasn’t he right-handed?” said one of the police.
Van Helsing pulled out his wallet and gave them each twenty gold crowns. “No, he was a lefty.”
The men all smiled and agreed.
Case closed.
If you are what you eat, then you aren’t what you shit
When I was young, I was always amazed at how some things I ate passed right through me.
Yellow bits of corn.
Green beans.
Bits of carrot and red bell pepper.
Disgusting, I know.
But every so often, when I wake up with blood on my lips, I keep lookout for the tell-tale glint of a gold ring.
I scoop it out with a toilet-brush and drop it into a glass of bleach.
I’ve found dozens of rings that way.
As for the finger bones, I flush those with the rest of the waste, and head for the bus station.
Amiri Baraka
Amiri Baraka is dead.
Good riddance, I say.
But that’s not enough.
I don’t just want to piss on his grave.
I want to dig up his coffin,
Pry open his mouth,
And piss into his throat.
And I don’t just want to dance on his grave.
I want to start a kickstarter campaign,
To hire the Rockettes
And dress them up like rabbis
Beautiful, long-legged rabbis
And they’ll dance a whole chorus line on his grave.
Amiri Baraka was buried in New Jersey.
Land of chemical plants and Superfund sites.
A fitting place: a toxic creature in poisoned earth.
Keep It Safe
Lisa needed for me to watch over something valuable for a few months.
So, I agreed, and she handed me a metal box safe. It was painted up really nice.
“Keep it safe,” she said, and she walked out the door.
A few weeks later, she called in a panic. “Is it safe? Is it still okay?”
I said “I don’t know” but we got disconnected.
I took it to the garage and opened it up with a drill-press.
Empty.
I called her back and said so.
“YOU CRACKED IT OPEN? YOU BROKE THAT ANTIQUE LOCK? IT WAS PRICELESS!”
Shit.
Swept Under the Prayer Rug
The bishop stuck Father O’Brien’s file in a drawer and locked it.
“Move him to Boston,” he said.
Two years later, the bishop pulled out O’Brien’s file and added the newest reports to it.
“Try New York,” he said. “Last chance.”
It wasn’t. A year later, O’Brien was sent to Los Angeles.
When the file was too thick to fit in the drawer, the bishop had O’Brien sent to South America on a teaching mission.
The locals took matters into their own hands, hanging the child molester.
“I should have sent him there in the first place,” said the bishop.
The Y
Unlike the Catholic Church, we here at the Y act quickly when we discover an employee behaving in a disgusting manner with a child or doing something inappropriate, like collecting child pornography.
It doesn’t happen very often, because we have a screening process and keep our staff under observation. Nobody is ever left alone with a child.
Plus, when one is caught, we don’t sweep them under the rug like the Church does.
We bury them under the baseball field.
By the way, the pitcher’s mound is getting a bit high. Better dig it up and quicklime the corpses again.
The Killer Pool
Every week, I have to fish a dead neighborhood kid out of the pool.
No, they don’t drown in it. The coroner’s made that perfectly clear after every autopsy.
No water in the lungs.
And the fact the children have had their throats cut.
The blood. I don’t know if that gets taken care of by the chemicals and the filter. And I don’t care… I drain the pool, scrub it down, and replace the water.
The water bill is killing me.
One more, and I’m just going to fill the thing in with dirt and raise a vegetable garden.