At paranoia's poison door.
636194
I was walking home one evening when I saw a kid sitting by a tree and crying.
I stopped and knelt by the kid.
“Why are you crying?” I asked him.
“My cat is caught up the tree,” he whined.
I started to climb the tree, but he yelled for me to come back down.
So I did.
“What is it, kid?” I asked.
He handed me a pair of very sharp tin snips.
“What are these for?” I said.
“To cut the cat loose from the bailing wire I used to tie him to the tree branch,” he said.
636187
We were heading back to the office when we blew a temporal stabilizer and had to drop back into the time stream for repairs.
“It’ll take at least an hour,” said Murphy.
It’s been six.
While we’re waiting for the system to reboot, we broke out the emergency rations and had ourselves a Christmas Dinner right there on the prairie.
“I guess this is the first Christmas dinner,” said Jones.
“Yeah,” I said. “A million years before Christ was born.”
We toasted to our health with Tang, finished the meal, and bundled up the trash before checking on Murphy’s progress.
636179
As I sit by the fire, reading Sartre in my Kierkegaard Underoos, I ponder the meaning of life.
Then, I realize. Life exists, whether it has meaning or not. It is an end to itself, regardless if I am consciously observing it.
Anything else would be a lie, and we all know that the first person we lie to is ourselves.
Utterly absurd, this all is. There is no meaning to life except whatever meaning we impose upon it.
I, for one, shall believe I am a egg and cheese sandwich. I am part of a nutritious and complete breakfast.
636178
What is it?
I guess the best way to say something is just to say it.
The longer you think about it, the more likely you’ll try to come up with ways of saying something else, and then you eventually don’t say what you need to say at all.
And that’s not right.
The longer you take to tell someone something, you might forget some of it. Or you might feel rushed and it comes out wrong.
There’s no taking those things back. Especially things that need to get said.
What did I need to tell you?
Oh, never mind.
636185
If you ever find yourself in a wild west bar, the last thing you want to ask the piano player for is Madonna’s “Borderline.”
Sure, her baby is pushing her love over the borderline, but there’s no need to start a fight over it.
People have gotten killed for less.
No, it’s better to stick to the newer stuff, like Vogue or… or…
Okay, all she’s doing now is lame Karaoke-style covers of classics while dancing in her underwear.
No, that shouldn’t be a cue to dance in your underwear in the wild west bar singing Madonna tunes.
As if!
636183
I played my drum for him.
I played my best for him.
Did he like it? Did he smile?
No. He cried! He cried like a shrieking pig!
Why the hell was I playing a drum for a kid in a barn, surrounded by goats and camels and rats?
You don’t play drums for babies… you shake rattles. You pluck strings. Or play a flute.
You make goo goo noises in their faces until they clap and laugh and smile.
Stupid baby.
Probably won’t survive the night, anyway.
Hey, nobody’s watching the gold that old fart brought.
It’s mine! Sweet!
636180
Ever have one of those weekends when everything goes totally wrong?
I download some music, click on the Play button, but I couldn’t hear any sound.
I turned the speakers on and off, but still, no sound.
Dammit.
Then I messed with the device settings in the computer, but I still couldn’t hear anything.
I spent the whole weekend changing out the speaker cable, then getting new speakers, and…
Wait a minute.
Are my headphones still plugged in?
Those mute the signal to the speakers, don’t they?
I’m sure my neighbors wanted to mute me for the next ten minutes.
636180
The doctor told me it was either lose weight or lose my life.
So forget the potato chips, folks – I’m on a diet.
It’s all vegetable snacks for me: carrots, celery, snow peas, and lots of cucumber slices.
Sure, it’s not easy to carry these things around with me everywhere, but there’s lots of those snack pouches at the grocery store these days.
Still, whenever I see a bag of potato chips, I feel the urge to buy it and tear it open and eat it.
My bodyguard then steps in to smash the bag into greasy potato dust.
Saved.
636199
Mother told me to look both ways before crossing the street.
To the left, I saw an elephant. It looked sad and lonely.
To the right, I saw a jolly minstrel being attacked by kids with rocks. He looked frustrated at the abuse.
So I tell the minstrel to go cheer up the elephant.
He does, and the elephant begins to dance happily to the merry tune.
All these wonderful opportunities to make others happy, why should I ever cross the street?
Then I hear a sickening splat.
The elephant has crushed the minstrel.
Is the light green yet?
RUN!
636178
The kitchen was positively, absolutely filthy.
Dishes piled up to the ceiling. Rats chewing on open boxes of instant pasta in the corner.
And the stove, well, I won’t tell you about the stove.
It was so repulsive, not even the rats would go near there. Cockroaches didn’t dare explore the greasy mountains caked in the corners of what used to be burners.
“So, what do you think?” asked the landlord.
“Well, the kitchen needs some serious work,” said the agent. “But about those rats…”
“Yes?” asked the landlord.
“Can I keep them as pets?” he said. “They’re so cuuuuuute!”