Tag: silly

The Cult

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Right in front of their eyes, vision fades to static.
Frightened and confused, we, the masses, heed the call.
Stripping off our clothes, we gather in the woods, swaying in the summer heat, naked… writhing.
One beast, many mouths… many fingers… many hearts beating.
The flesh circle opens briefly, and our leader mounts a tree stump, the cow skull over his head glowing in the moonlight.
We have no choice. We are compelled to listen.
He raises his staff and tells the tales of our childhood, like many generations before.
This is what happens when the neighborhood cable goes out.

Taps

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It took years of practice, but Softshoe Kelly learned to encode secret messages in his tapdancing.
He started simple, but his skills soon gave him the ability to transmit complex messages without anybody suspecting a thing.
When he was captured by the enemy, they paraded him in front of a global television audience.
Softshoe Kelly performed his act, and cryptology experts determined that he’d been treated miserably but had quite a lot of information on their weak points.
With this information, the enemy was defeated, but Kelly was mortally wounded in the assault.
At his funeral, the military played Taps.

Amazing Mice

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I was working on an animal behavior experiment, running mice through a maze, when I got a phone call.
So, I turned on the television and left the lab for a minute.
Okay, so it was five hours.
When I got back, I realized that I’d left the television tuned to a Christian gospel station.
I turned off the television, but it was too late.
Tiny voices, coming from the maze, started to sing:
“Amazing Mice, how squeak the sound,
That saved a hunk of cheese….
It once was lost but now is found,
Was hungry, but now, they eat.”

Two Robes

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If you did the same job since the beginning of time, you’d get bored, right?
That’s why The Grim Reaper and The Ferryman on The River Styx trade jobs once a year.
Ferryman reaps and the Reaper ferries souls.
So there I was, walking to work, and this figure in a black robe whacks me with a boat oar.
“Ouch!” I yell.
“Shit,” he growls. “Hold still.”
And he whacks me again.
Next thing I know, I’m standing on the shore of a river.
“Hello?” I yell.
Paddling a boat with a scythe has got to be a royal bitch.

Carnival of the Cats #173 – Dusty

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Once upon a time there was a magical castle.
The magical castle was full of dust. The dishes, the knights, their armor, the paintings and tapestries were dusty.
Even the king.
“Go out and fetch me a solution to all this dust!” yelled King Dusty.
So they searched for a solution, and they found a fluffy orange cat.
And the cat fuffed up his fluffy tail and he ran around, and his tail dusted everything, and even the king.
“Hooray!” yelled everybody.
And then they all sneezed because they were allergic to the fluffy orange cat, who left hair everywhere.

Goodnight

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When it was time for me to go to bed, my mother would read to me from the book “Goodnight Moon.”
Even though she read it every night, it was a thrill to hear every word.
When I learned to read, I read along.
One night, when I said “Goodnight Moon,” the moon replied: “Good night.”
“Did you hear that, Mom?” I asked.
“Hear what?” she said.
“The moon was talking to me,” I said. “It said… Goodnight.”
She closed the book, patted me on the head, and left me there in the dark.
Alone.
With the wicked, sinister moon.

The Ghosts

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I looked around me, and suddenly, it made sense.
“How is it that you can walk through walls while walking on the floor?” I asked one of the ghosts.
The ghost thought for a moment and shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Hah!” I shouted. “You don’t exist!”
“I guess you’re right,” said another ghost. They all nodded in agreement.
The next day, when the doctor asked me how I was doing, I told him that the ghosts didn’t exist.
“Oh, really?” he said.
“Absolutely,” I said. “And they agree with me. So, can I go home now?”
Apparently not.

Let The Chips Fall

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I try not to worry about things. I tend to let the chips fall where they may.
Every now and then, a chip lands on its edge and rolls around the floor a bit.
Sometimes, it rolls under the couch or into a floor vent.
The vacuum will pick up the ones under the couch, but the ones that fall into the vent, you’ve got to pry those up and pull the chips out.
That’s a real pain in the ass.
So, I got bigger chips… ones that were thicker than the slots in the vents.
Solved that problem, right?

Caps Lock

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I hate it when I accidentally hit the Caps Lock key and everything I type is all caps.
So, I took a butter knife and pried out that key.
I don’t make mistakes like that any more.
I also pried out the Pause key because I never use that one.
I never use Scroll Lock or the keys on the number pad either.
They’re gone, too.
Then I started prying out more keys. Symbols. Numbers. Letters.
Pretty soon, I was left with nothing remaining.
The screen asks me to hit any key to continue.
I’ll just sit here, happily waiting.

No Plan Survives Battle

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Jane, my editor, smiles as she reads my manuscript.
“No plan survives battle,” she says, as she’s said with all my other manuscripts.
The first was a mystery. She turned it into a best-selling cookbook.
My award-winning biography of Simon Bolivar started as a simple romance.
Then came the collection of Dutch poetry, the travel guide to the moon, a guide to Poker…
Everything I give her, she completely changes it… transforms it.
When I read it, it’s still familiar. Like my own writing is trapped within, screaming to be let out.
Bills scream to be paid, too, you know.