This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
The Excuse for Not Writing (Number 7)
By Plot Roach
Here is my excuse for not writing today:
I had a creative writing prompt picked out and ready to go. The story was really going to be something awesome, outlandish and just a little bit heartwarming.
And the I was kidnapped by a balloon stomping, cleat wearing lumberjack.
I can explain, really.
You see, I went with a friend to the opening of the Super Cheap Mega Gift Mall here in town and things got a little out of hand. But let me start from the beginning…
My friend, Lisa, loves to enter contests. She enters as many she can, even when it costs her more to play the game than the prize is worth. So it came as no surprise that she won tickets to the opening of the mall.
We got there early, to enter yet another contest: the ever-coveted door prize. This one was a chance to win a vacation for two to any one of three vacation prizes. The winner would get first choice, then the second prize winner would get the second pick and the last winner would get whatever vacation was leftover.
So we got our hands stamped, waited in line and filled out information cards with our telephone numbers and emails. I just knew that it would come back to haunt me later on in the form of a telemarketer calling me at seven am on a Sunday morning (while I’m trying to catch up on sleep) to ask me if I want to buy a timeshare for a condominium in the middle of a place I’ve never heard of.
So Lisa waited with baited breath as they announced the three contestants and I stood off to the side, not really caring either way. I never win anything. Ever. I’ve tried to live like Lisa, and I’ve gotten burned every time. So I just took it for granted that I wouldn’t win.
Then they called my name. I had won, but had an instant sinking feeling in my gut. Nothing good would come of this, I was sure of it. I tried to give my place to Lisa, but was told that it was non-transferable and if I didn’t play, I would not get a thing from them. So, grudgingly, I played.
They lined us up with mall staff “partners”, dressed in crazy outfits. I got the biggest, hairiest guy they had, dressed as -you guessed it- a lumberjack. But as an added accessory to his outfit, they gave him a pink tutu.
The rules of the game were that I had to ride on his back as he stomped balloons with the cleats on his boots. I was to direct him where to go, seeing as he would be blindfolded all the while. And the more balloons of a specific color, the more points we got, and so on and so forth.
The other contestants ended up riding a man dressed as an ostrich and another man dressed as a clown. How they picked these outfits, I’ll never know. But my guess was that the crazier the costume, to more of a crowd that they would draw.
In any case, they signaled the start of the race, and all of the riders were shouting orders -or trying to, over the noise of the crowd. Finally I got some sense and started “steering” the lumberjack in the direction that I wanted him to go. We ended up winning, but by the end of the ride, my “mount” was cranky from having his hair pulled in all directions like reins.
I was given a choice of vacations from Hawaii paradise, to mountain climbing or a trip to Disneyworld. Chilling out on a Hawaiian beach sounded great and I’ve always wanted to go to Disneyworld, but Lisa kept pushing for the mountain climbing thing. So I gave it to her, figuring that she could take whomever she wanted and leave me at home curled up with a good book and no frostbite or broken bones.
I signed the papers, chose the destination and handed the tickets to Lisa who cried with happiness. The problem was, no one told my partner, the lumberjack, that I wasn’t the one going.
He showed up on my front porch the day of the trip, all outfitted for snow and a steep climb, pounding on my door. At seven am on a Sunday morning. It was okay, though, I had already been woken up by the telemarketer asking me if I wanted to buy into a timeshare in butt-crack-Oklahoma.
I tried to explain to him that it was my friend, Lisa, who would be going with him. And then he told me that the people who were running the contest would be filming the vacation and that I was the only one that could go there with him. If I didn’t go mountain climbing, he couldn’t either. And he loved mountain climbing! So with little warning, he threw me over his shoulder, tossed me like a sack of potatoes into the back of his truck and away we went to the airport where camera crew and tickets were awaiting us for our “dream vacation”.
About ten feet up the mountain I would have given anything to wake up from this nightmare of a “dream”. But instead the idiot lumberjack (now minus the tutu) keep tugging at the line that attaches us to one another, telling me to hurry up, that I’m holding him back. And to top it all off, I wasted all my time in this little fiasco. So now I can’t write on my creative writing prompt.
Sigh.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Denmark Come Home!
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Denmark Come Home!
By Plot Roach
“So what do you do?” The man next to me asked.
“I’m a writer of sorts.” I answered.
“Of sorts? What kind of genre is that?”
“The one that isn’t widely read, I’m afraid. At least, not so much in the U. S.”
“Now this I have to hear.” he said, leaning closer. “Please start from the beginning.”
“Well…” I said, winding myself up for a good story. “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they have a special hug…”
“Yeah, yeah. Fast forward a bit, if you would, to your ‘writing’.”
“Well, as a kid I would always make up stories. I guess all kids do when they play, but they kind of lose the love of it when they grow up, I guess.”
“But you didn’t?” he asked.
“I didn’t have many friends growing up, we moved around a lot.” I said, ducking my head in embarrassment. I was always embarrassed about my past, not that I was responsible for the multiple moves, that was my parents’ doing. But I always feel like a freak when I explain that I had thirteen different homes in seven years as a child. “Books were easier to keep track of than friends. So I ended up reading a lot.”
“Thus your love of words.” he said.
I nodded. “So I made up stories about each of the places where I lived. When I got to college, I realized that I was rather good at it.”
“So you went into a writing program?” he asked.
“No, my parents wouldn’t allow that, so I went into the teaching program.”
“So you’re a teacher?”
“No. It’s turns out that I hated it with a passion. It made me so miserable that I never continued with the program.”
“So you’re a paid writer? Using your talents to their fullest?”
“Not quite.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“I’m homeless.” I said, looking down and trying not to blush. “I do it when I have the time, which I currently have plenty of. And when I have the resources. I write what I can longhand and then type it up on the public computers at the local library, posting it on my blog when I can get access to the internet.”
“Wow.”
“Sorry if I make you feel weird. Most people just make polite conversation with me when they find out that I’m a ‘bum’, then they find an excuse to leave. You can if you want to. I won’t mind.”
“No, it wasn’t the homeless thing that bothered me. It’s just that you don’t look it -homeless, I mean. I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but you are very clean and you’re not carrying…”
“A ton of stuff?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s because I’ve learned how to take quick baths in public restrooms and sneak into the showers at the gym down the street. And as for my stuff, there’s a few safe places to hide your bags, if you know where to find them. This doesn’t bother you?”
“Not in the least. In fact, I find it rather interesting. So what do you write?”
“Anything that pops into my head. But mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. The kind of stuff that you’d find on the “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits“. Weird kind of stuff.”
“Do you have a specific audience in mind?”
“Yeah,” I said “anyone who will read it. I have a following on my blog, but I’m afraid I lost a few folks along the way.”
“Did they get offended by something that you wrote? That happens from time to time.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I said. “There were a few days that the site I use for my blog was down. And then there were ten days in a row where I couldn’t post anything.”
“What happened?”
“The library’s computers got a major virus running through them and had to be shut down and worked on by a specialist to get them up and running again. By the time I could post my stories again, I lost a lot of my audience.”
“Kind of fickle if they abandoned you after ten days.”
“Not really.” I said. “I had been posting daily before this happened. I lost a lot of my U.S. following and all of Denmark. And I really miss Denmark.”
“You miss Denmark?”
“There were others, too. But Denmark sticks in my head the most. I kind of feel like a kid in an old fashioned movie, like “Lassie” or something. I want to look out into the horizon and yell: ‘Denmark come home!’ Like it’s a lost dog or something.”
“You really love your writing.”
“It’s all I know, really. Though there have been some people over the years who have tried to get me to quit.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe because they gave up on their dreams, they wanted me to as well. There are some people who can’t stand to see people around them happy at what they like to do and want to ruin it for them. Or maybe I’m not really good after all… but people keep visiting the site, so I must be doing something right. And I have this theory.”
“I’m all ears.” he said, smiling.
“Sometimes I feel like giving up on my writing, but I know it would be a mistake. The ideas in my head and the words from my heart are there for a reason. And to turn away from them would be to snub my nose at God/ the Universe/ the Muse/ etc. or whatever/whoever it was who brought me here to do the things my heart tells me to do. And I don’t want to waste that. I’m not the best writer on earth, but I’m not the worst.”
“And?” he asked.
“I know that there’s someone out there who makes really ugly art, just as there is someone out there who loves to collect it. So there has to be a reason for doing what I do. Even if it’s only for people in Malaysia to read it and scratch their heads. But enough of my pity party, what’s your story?”
“I was waiting for the bus, much like you are, and thinking about the small publishing company that I and a friend are starting up. I was wondering where we were going to find some talent. And I think I just found our first writer.”
“Really?”
“Only if you’re interested.” he said.
“Can we advertise my books in Denmark?”
Denmark Come Home!
By Plot Roach
“So what do you do?” The man next to me asked.
“I’m a writer of sorts.” I answered.
“Of sorts? What kind of genre is that?”
“The one that isn’t widely read, I’m afraid. At least, not so much in the U. S.”
“Now this I have to hear.” he said, leaning closer. “Please start from the beginning.”
“Well…” I said, winding myself up for a good story. “When a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, they have a special hug…”
“Yeah, yeah. Fast forward a bit, if you would, to your ‘writing’.”
“Well, as a kid I would always make up stories. I guess all kids do when they play, but they kind of lose the love of it when they grow up, I guess.”
“But you didn’t?” he asked.
“I didn’t have many friends growing up, we moved around a lot.” I said, ducking my head in embarrassment. I was always embarrassed about my past, not that I was responsible for the multiple moves, that was my parents’ doing. But I always feel like a freak when I explain that I had thirteen different homes in seven years as a child. “Books were easier to keep track of than friends. So I ended up reading a lot.”
“Thus your love of words.” he said.
I nodded. “So I made up stories about each of the places where I lived. When I got to college, I realized that I was rather good at it.”
“So you went into a writing program?” he asked.
“No, my parents wouldn’t allow that, so I went into the teaching program.”
“So you’re a teacher?”
“No. It’s turns out that I hated it with a passion. It made me so miserable that I never continued with the program.”
“So you’re a paid writer? Using your talents to their fullest?”
“Not quite.”
“Now you’ve lost me.”
“I’m homeless.” I said, looking down and trying not to blush. “I do it when I have the time, which I currently have plenty of. And when I have the resources. I write what I can longhand and then type it up on the public computers at the local library, posting it on my blog when I can get access to the internet.”
“Wow.”
“Sorry if I make you feel weird. Most people just make polite conversation with me when they find out that I’m a ‘bum’, then they find an excuse to leave. You can if you want to. I won’t mind.”
“No, it wasn’t the homeless thing that bothered me. It’s just that you don’t look it -homeless, I mean. I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but you are very clean and you’re not carrying…”
“A ton of stuff?” I asked. He nodded. “It’s because I’ve learned how to take quick baths in public restrooms and sneak into the showers at the gym down the street. And as for my stuff, there’s a few safe places to hide your bags, if you know where to find them. This doesn’t bother you?”
“Not in the least. In fact, I find it rather interesting. So what do you write?”
“Anything that pops into my head. But mostly science fiction, fantasy and horror. The kind of stuff that you’d find on the “Twilight Zone” or “Outer Limits“. Weird kind of stuff.”
“Do you have a specific audience in mind?”
“Yeah,” I said “anyone who will read it. I have a following on my blog, but I’m afraid I lost a few folks along the way.”
“Did they get offended by something that you wrote? That happens from time to time.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I said. “There were a few days that the site I use for my blog was down. And then there were ten days in a row where I couldn’t post anything.”
“What happened?”
“The library’s computers got a major virus running through them and had to be shut down and worked on by a specialist to get them up and running again. By the time I could post my stories again, I lost a lot of my audience.”
“Kind of fickle if they abandoned you after ten days.”
“Not really.” I said. “I had been posting daily before this happened. I lost a lot of my U.S. following and all of Denmark. And I really miss Denmark.”
“You miss Denmark?”
“There were others, too. But Denmark sticks in my head the most. I kind of feel like a kid in an old fashioned movie, like “Lassie” or something. I want to look out into the horizon and yell: ‘Denmark come home!’ Like it’s a lost dog or something.”
“You really love your writing.”
“It’s all I know, really. Though there have been some people over the years who have tried to get me to quit.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe because they gave up on their dreams, they wanted me to as well. There are some people who can’t stand to see people around them happy at what they like to do and want to ruin it for them. Or maybe I’m not really good after all… but people keep visiting the site, so I must be doing something right. And I have this theory.”
“I’m all ears.” he said, smiling.
“Sometimes I feel like giving up on my writing, but I know it would be a mistake. The ideas in my head and the words from my heart are there for a reason. And to turn away from them would be to snub my nose at God/ the Universe/ the Muse/ etc. or whatever/whoever it was who brought me here to do the things my heart tells me to do. And I don’t want to waste that. I’m not the best writer on earth, but I’m not the worst.”
“And?” he asked.
“I know that there’s someone out there who makes really ugly art, just as there is someone out there who loves to collect it. So there has to be a reason for doing what I do. Even if it’s only for people in Malaysia to read it and scratch their heads. But enough of my pity party, what’s your story?”
“I was waiting for the bus, much like you are, and thinking about the small publishing company that I and a friend are starting up. I was wondering where we were going to find some talent. And I think I just found our first writer.”
“Really?”
“Only if you’re interested.” he said.
“Can we advertise my books in Denmark?”
Friday, July 22, 2011
The Woman In The Red Gauze Dress
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
The Woman In The Red Gauze Dress
By Plot Roach
The woman in the red gauze dress faced away from the camera and out into the ocean as the waves came crashing in at her feet. "That's good, Hilda. Now walk into it, let the waves lap at your feet." called the photographer. Though he had been told to bring back the dress in pristine condition, he doubted that a little ocean spray at the hemline would cause much trouble. The designer was, after all, paying him to create one of kind photographs to be used in advertising his new line.
He liked the red dress, but not the model who was in it. She was a tall, thin creature, androgynous and alien looking at best. She seemed to have no personality. Maybe it went with the body type, the photographer asked himself. Maybe if you were that thin, the brain had no place to thrive, if all the fat cells were forced up into the head.
For the three hour drive it took to get to the coast, he had tried to engage her in conversation. Stopping when she refused to answer his questions with little more than monosyllabic responses or a slight movement of her head. He had never before worked with such a disagreeable subject, even when he was forced to photograph wild animals and children for a local zoo.
When he asked how she preferred to pose for other photographers, she merely shrugged and turned away from him to face the raging sea. So he used her indifference to his advantage, snapping shots of her as she looked out into the wrath of the water. As dark and as foreboding as the ocean had become, her dress was as bright and as passionate. The red frock was pulled taught against her as the wind pushed past them. He could see every outline of her form, and though it should move him in some way -even physically, he felt nothing. The pounding waves were more loving than this alabaster whore before him.
Her white face, devoid of makeup by request of the designer, stood out like the barren moon against the red dress. It was utterly bizarre, the passive model, the red dress and the dark waves of the ocean. He felt himself be pulled in deeper to his subject than he wished.
Just take the pictures and be done with it, he told himself. The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can get her out of your life and out of your head forever.
He snapped more pictures, moving around her as she gazed out into the sea. She never moved unless he asked her to, but her eyes shifted along the horizon. What can she be looking for? he asked himself, turning to see what had caught the eye of the ice queen (a name he now secretly called her). He scanned the horizon, but saw nothing amongst the cloudy sky and the churning waves. "Just what are you looking at?" he asked. The only response was the sound of the breaking waves. When he turned his attention back to his subject, she was already thigh deep into the water.
"Hey, get back here!" he called. "If you ruin that dress, they'll fire us both." But she either did not hear or else did not care as she continued to fight the waves as they pushed her back onto the unforgiving shore. "The dress!" the photographer called. "You'll ruin it."
But she continued to battle the ocean, even after being knocked down and nearly dragged to shore from the force of the last wave. She tore the dress from her, and threw it upon the shore where it stood out like fresh blood on the slick rocks. He watched her go, a white form knifing through the dark waves, no longer held back by the flimsy fabric of the red dress. He snapped picture after picture until he could no longer see her, knowing at once that he would never forget this moment if he lived a thousand more years.
The Woman In The Red Gauze Dress
By Plot Roach
The woman in the red gauze dress faced away from the camera and out into the ocean as the waves came crashing in at her feet. "That's good, Hilda. Now walk into it, let the waves lap at your feet." called the photographer. Though he had been told to bring back the dress in pristine condition, he doubted that a little ocean spray at the hemline would cause much trouble. The designer was, after all, paying him to create one of kind photographs to be used in advertising his new line.
He liked the red dress, but not the model who was in it. She was a tall, thin creature, androgynous and alien looking at best. She seemed to have no personality. Maybe it went with the body type, the photographer asked himself. Maybe if you were that thin, the brain had no place to thrive, if all the fat cells were forced up into the head.
For the three hour drive it took to get to the coast, he had tried to engage her in conversation. Stopping when she refused to answer his questions with little more than monosyllabic responses or a slight movement of her head. He had never before worked with such a disagreeable subject, even when he was forced to photograph wild animals and children for a local zoo.
When he asked how she preferred to pose for other photographers, she merely shrugged and turned away from him to face the raging sea. So he used her indifference to his advantage, snapping shots of her as she looked out into the wrath of the water. As dark and as foreboding as the ocean had become, her dress was as bright and as passionate. The red frock was pulled taught against her as the wind pushed past them. He could see every outline of her form, and though it should move him in some way -even physically, he felt nothing. The pounding waves were more loving than this alabaster whore before him.
Her white face, devoid of makeup by request of the designer, stood out like the barren moon against the red dress. It was utterly bizarre, the passive model, the red dress and the dark waves of the ocean. He felt himself be pulled in deeper to his subject than he wished.
Just take the pictures and be done with it, he told himself. The sooner you get this over with, the sooner you can get her out of your life and out of your head forever.
He snapped more pictures, moving around her as she gazed out into the sea. She never moved unless he asked her to, but her eyes shifted along the horizon. What can she be looking for? he asked himself, turning to see what had caught the eye of the ice queen (a name he now secretly called her). He scanned the horizon, but saw nothing amongst the cloudy sky and the churning waves. "Just what are you looking at?" he asked. The only response was the sound of the breaking waves. When he turned his attention back to his subject, she was already thigh deep into the water.
"Hey, get back here!" he called. "If you ruin that dress, they'll fire us both." But she either did not hear or else did not care as she continued to fight the waves as they pushed her back onto the unforgiving shore. "The dress!" the photographer called. "You'll ruin it."
But she continued to battle the ocean, even after being knocked down and nearly dragged to shore from the force of the last wave. She tore the dress from her, and threw it upon the shore where it stood out like fresh blood on the slick rocks. He watched her go, a white form knifing through the dark waves, no longer held back by the flimsy fabric of the red dress. He snapped picture after picture until he could no longer see her, knowing at once that he would never forget this moment if he lived a thousand more years.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
The Excuse for Not Writing (Number 6)
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
The Excuse for Not Writing (Number 6)
By Plot Roach
Here is my excuse for not writing today:
I had a creative writing prompt picked out and ready to go. The story was really going to be something awesome, outlandish and just a little bit heartwarming.
And the I got mummified in spider silk.
I can explain, really.
You see, I have this friend (Mary) who is a neat freak when she’s stressed, but is a slob when she is not. And as it turns out, today was one of her ‘stress’ days. And this comes on the tail end of one of her spending sprees (she’s a shopaholic too, poor dear). Now this might not seem like much, but her idea of cleaning is to throw everything that she isn’t nailed down out into the nearest dumpster. If I’m there when it happens, then I get the first pick of clothing, books, DVDs, electronics and food. I’m not picky, if it’s free, it’s mine. And if I can’t use it, I’ve got plenty of humble neighbors around me. Heck, in this economy, I can use all the help I can get. Or at least all the help that Mary can send my way.
She when I knew that she had just dropped a paycheck worth of clothing out of her front door, I was there in a flash. After years of being friends, we had developed almost the same figure. She has bigger boobs by far, but I have the better butt. So I had plans for those designer jeans, short skirts and slacks.
I got to her apartment before she could do much damage, brining a handful of chocolate bars, a six pack of diet Coke (under the theory that if you drink diet sodas, you can eat more candy), and a roll full of garbage bags. I had made sure to empty out the back of the car before coming over since I knew that this would be a massive purge. She had just been dumped by her boyfriend for the fourth (yes fourth) time. I don’t know why she keeps going back to the idiot, except that maybe she’s got this death wish for her self esteem…
In any case, she was already throwing out handfuls of stuff onto her front lawn, with some jogger and her dog just standing there, on the sidewalk, watching her like she’s the latest contestant on American Idol.
“Get outta here, you idiot.” I said as I stalked past them. I hate it when people just stop and stare at you when you are in the middle of falling apart. Makes me feel like I can’t have a breakdown in public anymore. So I got inside Mary’s apartment and she’s too busy yelling at something in her closet to notice me walk in. I cleared my throat with a little cough and she jumped for the ceiling.
“You could have told me that you were here!” She screamed.
“That’s why I cleared my throat.” I said.
“Well, now that you’re here. You can get this thing in the back of the closet for me.” she said, before turning away and making a beeline for the kitchen.
“Don’t throw the stuff out in the yard.” I called out. “Just put it in bags and set it in the living room. I’ll get it from there!”
“I know you will.” she said back, her head already deep in the refrigerator.
I started to rummage through the back of the closet, one hand o the thing she was talking about, the other pawing through fallen bathrobes, bags of suits still covered in plastic from the drycleaner, and various bits I can’t quite identify in the half dark of the room. “What the hell is this thing, anyway?” I ask.
“It’s something Steve brought over. He said it was important to him and that he wanted to hide it here from his family, but I want it gone.”
“Won’t he miss it?” I ask.
“I don’t really care, I want it out of my apartment.”
“And what do you mean ‘he hid it from his family’?” I asked, still trying to lug the thing out of the closet.
“He’s married with a baby.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, he didn’t bother to tell me because he thought that it would ‘upset our relationship.’”
“Married? And with a kid? When in the hell did this happen?” I asked.
“Something in the last year, when we were broken up. He rebounded with a showgirl from Las Vegas and they conceived on the first night.”
I sighed, and backed away from the thing in the closet to get a handle on the situation, both the bundle I was trying to extricate from my friend’s apartment and the mental bombshell she just dropped on me. She had been trying to get pregnant with Steve’s kid off and on for the last six years of their hot and cold relationship, thinking that it would finally cement their bond. But she had been told last year that she was barren. That was part of the reason why he dumped her the last time. The rest of the reason was that he was a selfish jerk.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mary.”
“I’m not. I hope he’s happy with the whore and her brat. All I want now is for him and his things to be out of my life forever. -including the thing in the closet.”
“I’m working on it.” I said, throwing myself back into my task at hand. I managed to nudge it closer to the door way, almost throwing my back out I the process. I worked an old belt around it, closing it with the buckle and using it as a carry strap. I felt something inside it shift as I got it out into the light. It was a big bundle wrapped in a type of raw silk that I had never seen before.
“You should get together with his other ex-girlfriend and have an ‘I hate Steve’ party.”
“I haven’t heard from her since before Steve moved in.” Mary called out. From the heavy ‘thunk-thunk-thunk’ sounds, I knew that she was now working on the contents of the pantry.
I pulled the silk bundle outside, laying it down on some empty plastic bags as I prepared to cut it open to view its contents. “So what’s inside of it?” Mary asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know yet.” I said. “But I would like to find out.” I pulled the pocketknife out of my purse and began sawing through the fabric. I had been hoping to save some of it for a crafting project at a later date, but it kept coming away in chunks and strings, sticking to my clothes an flesh like it was made of adhesive. After ten minutes of this, we could finally see Steve’s treasure. And immediately wished we hadn’t.
We found Steve’s ex, along with several other unfortunate souls. All of the looked as if they had been thrown into a food dehydrator, paper like flash on yellowed bones. Mary threw up while I wiped off the stick strings from my hands enough to dial 9-1-1.
Moments later the cops came, bagged the evidence and questioned us both. They brought in an entomologist who said that the sticky stuff was spider silk, some hybrid of a wolf spider and a black widow with something he had never seen before. Both corpses had been entirely drained of their blood, and the DNA that had been left behind was a cross between a spider and a human.
If you ask me, Mary was lucky to get out of her relationship with Steven when she had. I’m afraid to think of what the Las Vegas showgirl and her offspring are going through right now…
I spent the rest of the afternoon filling up my car and holding Mary’s hand. I got some good food, a bunch of new clothes and an image of desiccated bodies that I will never get out of my head for as long as I live. And to top it all off, I wasted all my time in this little fiasco. So now I can’t write on my creative writing prompt.
Sigh.
The Excuse for Not Writing (Number 6)
By Plot Roach
Here is my excuse for not writing today:
I had a creative writing prompt picked out and ready to go. The story was really going to be something awesome, outlandish and just a little bit heartwarming.
And the I got mummified in spider silk.
I can explain, really.
You see, I have this friend (Mary) who is a neat freak when she’s stressed, but is a slob when she is not. And as it turns out, today was one of her ‘stress’ days. And this comes on the tail end of one of her spending sprees (she’s a shopaholic too, poor dear). Now this might not seem like much, but her idea of cleaning is to throw everything that she isn’t nailed down out into the nearest dumpster. If I’m there when it happens, then I get the first pick of clothing, books, DVDs, electronics and food. I’m not picky, if it’s free, it’s mine. And if I can’t use it, I’ve got plenty of humble neighbors around me. Heck, in this economy, I can use all the help I can get. Or at least all the help that Mary can send my way.
She when I knew that she had just dropped a paycheck worth of clothing out of her front door, I was there in a flash. After years of being friends, we had developed almost the same figure. She has bigger boobs by far, but I have the better butt. So I had plans for those designer jeans, short skirts and slacks.
I got to her apartment before she could do much damage, brining a handful of chocolate bars, a six pack of diet Coke (under the theory that if you drink diet sodas, you can eat more candy), and a roll full of garbage bags. I had made sure to empty out the back of the car before coming over since I knew that this would be a massive purge. She had just been dumped by her boyfriend for the fourth (yes fourth) time. I don’t know why she keeps going back to the idiot, except that maybe she’s got this death wish for her self esteem…
In any case, she was already throwing out handfuls of stuff onto her front lawn, with some jogger and her dog just standing there, on the sidewalk, watching her like she’s the latest contestant on American Idol.
“Get outta here, you idiot.” I said as I stalked past them. I hate it when people just stop and stare at you when you are in the middle of falling apart. Makes me feel like I can’t have a breakdown in public anymore. So I got inside Mary’s apartment and she’s too busy yelling at something in her closet to notice me walk in. I cleared my throat with a little cough and she jumped for the ceiling.
“You could have told me that you were here!” She screamed.
“That’s why I cleared my throat.” I said.
“Well, now that you’re here. You can get this thing in the back of the closet for me.” she said, before turning away and making a beeline for the kitchen.
“Don’t throw the stuff out in the yard.” I called out. “Just put it in bags and set it in the living room. I’ll get it from there!”
“I know you will.” she said back, her head already deep in the refrigerator.
I started to rummage through the back of the closet, one hand o the thing she was talking about, the other pawing through fallen bathrobes, bags of suits still covered in plastic from the drycleaner, and various bits I can’t quite identify in the half dark of the room. “What the hell is this thing, anyway?” I ask.
“It’s something Steve brought over. He said it was important to him and that he wanted to hide it here from his family, but I want it gone.”
“Won’t he miss it?” I ask.
“I don’t really care, I want it out of my apartment.”
“And what do you mean ‘he hid it from his family’?” I asked, still trying to lug the thing out of the closet.
“He’s married with a baby.”
“What?!”
“Yeah, he didn’t bother to tell me because he thought that it would ‘upset our relationship.’”
“Married? And with a kid? When in the hell did this happen?” I asked.
“Something in the last year, when we were broken up. He rebounded with a showgirl from Las Vegas and they conceived on the first night.”
I sighed, and backed away from the thing in the closet to get a handle on the situation, both the bundle I was trying to extricate from my friend’s apartment and the mental bombshell she just dropped on me. She had been trying to get pregnant with Steve’s kid off and on for the last six years of their hot and cold relationship, thinking that it would finally cement their bond. But she had been told last year that she was barren. That was part of the reason why he dumped her the last time. The rest of the reason was that he was a selfish jerk.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Mary.”
“I’m not. I hope he’s happy with the whore and her brat. All I want now is for him and his things to be out of my life forever. -including the thing in the closet.”
“I’m working on it.” I said, throwing myself back into my task at hand. I managed to nudge it closer to the door way, almost throwing my back out I the process. I worked an old belt around it, closing it with the buckle and using it as a carry strap. I felt something inside it shift as I got it out into the light. It was a big bundle wrapped in a type of raw silk that I had never seen before.
“You should get together with his other ex-girlfriend and have an ‘I hate Steve’ party.”
“I haven’t heard from her since before Steve moved in.” Mary called out. From the heavy ‘thunk-thunk-thunk’ sounds, I knew that she was now working on the contents of the pantry.
I pulled the silk bundle outside, laying it down on some empty plastic bags as I prepared to cut it open to view its contents. “So what’s inside of it?” Mary asked from the doorway.
“I don’t know yet.” I said. “But I would like to find out.” I pulled the pocketknife out of my purse and began sawing through the fabric. I had been hoping to save some of it for a crafting project at a later date, but it kept coming away in chunks and strings, sticking to my clothes an flesh like it was made of adhesive. After ten minutes of this, we could finally see Steve’s treasure. And immediately wished we hadn’t.
We found Steve’s ex, along with several other unfortunate souls. All of the looked as if they had been thrown into a food dehydrator, paper like flash on yellowed bones. Mary threw up while I wiped off the stick strings from my hands enough to dial 9-1-1.
Moments later the cops came, bagged the evidence and questioned us both. They brought in an entomologist who said that the sticky stuff was spider silk, some hybrid of a wolf spider and a black widow with something he had never seen before. Both corpses had been entirely drained of their blood, and the DNA that had been left behind was a cross between a spider and a human.
If you ask me, Mary was lucky to get out of her relationship with Steven when she had. I’m afraid to think of what the Las Vegas showgirl and her offspring are going through right now…
I spent the rest of the afternoon filling up my car and holding Mary’s hand. I got some good food, a bunch of new clothes and an image of desiccated bodies that I will never get out of my head for as long as I live. And to top it all off, I wasted all my time in this little fiasco. So now I can’t write on my creative writing prompt.
Sigh.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Two Idiots Film a Movie
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Two Idiots Film a Movie
By Plot Roach
“Hey, Veronica. We need your help.”
“What’s up guys?”
“We need help writing and filming a movie.”
“You don’t ask for much, do you Jason.”
“No, really. We need big time help here or else we will have to pay back, like, ten thousand dollars.”
“Is that you Fred? I can‘t tell on speakerphone.”
“Yep. We thought it would be easier this way, to talk to us both at once rather than having him try and explain it to me later.”
(squelch of noise)
“And you are recording this as well?”
“Yeah, we’re pretty messed up right now and we want to be able to remember this in order to write it in the morning.”
“So, you’re stoned-”
“Drunk.”
“’Drunk’ and you’ve spent someone’s money and you need to have a movie all put together by -when exactly?”
“In a week.”
“Oh, well… you’ve got plenty of time then. Can you pay the money back?”
“It was a grant from the government. I’m thinking ‘not’. They gave us the money as independent filmmakers six months ago, now they want to see some results or else they’ll fine us for not using the money for what it was for.”
“So you knew about this for six months and you’re only doing something about it now?”
“No. We got the money six months ago and only found out today that they wanted to see what we were making.”
“Do you have anything left of the money?”
“About fifteen hundred.”
“Nice… So how do you plan to pull this off?”
“Well…We asked for your help. That was the first thing on our list.”
“Do you even have a camera?”
“Uh, no.”
“Do you have actors? A writer?”
“We have you… You’ll help us, right?”
“Yes. But you need to shut up and do exactly as I say.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Veronica.”
“You have next to no money, so look into renting a video camera. If you can’t find one, then buy one from a local electronics store, use it for the week and take it back. They’ll keep ten percent of the money you'll spend for a ’restocking’ charge, but that’s cheaper than buying a whole new one. And for goodness sakes, be gentle with it. You’ll need it in good condition if you’re going to take it back.”
“Got it.”
“As for sets, film it out in the desert or in some abandoned place. That way you don’t have to build something yourself or else pay someone to do it. Do you have any idea where you are going to get the actors?”
“No. That’s why we called you.”
“Okay, put a notice up at your college saying that you’re looking for talent to star in an independent film. List the genre of the film-”
“The what?”
“Genre. It means the type of film. Like ’horror’ or ’romance’-”
“Ooo, can we do horror? I bet we can get some chick to go topless in it.”
“That’s up to you.”
“Horror it is then.”
“Okay, now that the film’s genre has been decided. You need a writer to write the screenplay. Then post the characters you’ll need on the notice for a call for actors.”
“What if we don’t have a writer?”
“Than write it yourself.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t we do enough just getting the cash?”
“You mean the cash you spent?”
“Yeah.”
“Never mind. Okay, I have a great idea. Listen up, I’m only saying this once-”
“That’s why we’re taping it.”
“Great… Get the camera and start taping immediately. All the stuff you’re doing from talking to me to interviewing a writer to having actors read the lines. The story won’t be about a horror movie, it will be about filming a horror movie.”
“Can we still get some chick to show her tits?”
“Yes.”
“Great, we’re on board. But what do we call it?”
“How about ’Two Idiots Film a Movie’?”
“That’ll work. But I’d rather call it ’The Movie Where You See Chicks’ Tits.”
(Sound of a dial tone.)
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Customer Service
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Customer Service
By Plot Roach
Charlotte faced the ‘blue screen of death’ once again, groaning in frustration as the computer lost her science paper to the cyber void. I’m going to kill this thing soon, she told herself as she rebooted the computer and pulled up the word processing program once again. At least I still have my notes to go by, she told herself. But it’s still a pain.
This time, she saved the application as often as she finished a paragraph, and still the computer died once she had finished. Though this time, she had less to rewrite.
That afternoon, after turning in her term paper in science class, she resolved to go to the local electronics store. She stalked up and down the aisle of computers, both tabletop and laptop, judging the best for her needs and budget. Employees of the store whizzed past her without answered her request for help, busy with other customers. She went to the main desk, rang the bell and waited. After ten minutes she was certain that this was a little game being played on her. After all, she thought, what self respecting businessman would turn down money from someone willing to spend it in his store?
Having no help appear at the main desk, Charlotte went back to the computer section and pulled the call slip of the computer she thought best for her. She went to the main desk again and set the slip next to the register. She rang the bell, waited and then took things into her own hands.
She reached over the desk, and grabbed the microphone, flipping the switch on its side so that it could be heard over the whole store. “There is a customer waiting to be helped at the front desk.” she said. She waited, hoping that the manager would come barreling out of whatever corner of the store he was hiding it to apologize to her and to help her with her purchase. But once again, she was met with silence.
I’ve had it, she thought, deciding that the civilized approach was wasted in a place such as this. She went back to the computer section, pushed a chair from behind the main desk over to the security camera, stood upon it, removed her wallet and waved it in front of the camera while yelling: “Wooo -Hooo! I have money that I would like to spend here. Will any one come and take it from me?”
This should at least get a response out of security, she thought. And yet, still no one came. So she picked up the chair and used it to bash the computers on display. “Take that, you no good bastards! This will teach you to ignore someone who needs help!”
Plastic, metal and glass rained down from her rampage. The noise was horrific, the damage extensive, yet the employees did not stop in their rush back and forth across the store. She threw the chair at one man while she tripped an older woman, sending her to the floor.
“That’s what you get for ignoring me!” she bellowed. She turned from the fallen woman and stalked to the front of the store. She was so angry at the situation, that she only thought about the ramifications of her rampage only when she was close to the store’s exit.
Oh God, she thought, what if they call the police on me? She thought. I better get the hell out of here quick. She began to walk a little faster, hoping that the cameras did not get a detailed view of her face and that no one recognize her enough to tell the cops who she was.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” said an authoritative voice from behind her. She stopped and ducked her head down. And I was almost out of the store, too. She thought.
“Yes?” she asked, fearing her answer.
“That was magnificent.”
“Excuse me?”
“What you did just now, that was a work of genius.”
“But I just killed a bunch of computers. Do you know how much that will cost?”
“But do you know how much your actions will make us?”
“Are you going to sue me?”
“No! Why would we do that?”
Charlotte turned to him, gesturing to the broken mess and made a face. “Uh, what do you think?” she asked.
“We were in the middle of filming a commercial for the store when you walked in.” said the man. “I’m the owner, and I didn’t like where the commercial was headed anyhow, and then you walked in and I wanted to see what you would do.” he said smiling.
“So you ignored me on purpose?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m sorry about that, but I wanted a real person’s take on how frustrating it can be to try and make a purchase when there is no customer service. And you sure gave it to us.”
“I’m sorry about that…”
“Don’t be.” he said. “It’s just a few computers. And I’d like to give you a new one in return for using your ‘acting’ skills in our new commercial.”
“Are your customer service employees better at handling computer difficulties better than your salespeople?”
“Huh?”
“No one is going to ignore me forever and a day if I call the hotline with a problem are they?”
The owner of the store laughed long and hard, unable to answer her question from the lack of breath. Maybe I should just pay someone to have my crappy computer fixed, she thought. I’ve had more than enough trouble for one day as it is.
Customer Service
By Plot Roach
Charlotte faced the ‘blue screen of death’ once again, groaning in frustration as the computer lost her science paper to the cyber void. I’m going to kill this thing soon, she told herself as she rebooted the computer and pulled up the word processing program once again. At least I still have my notes to go by, she told herself. But it’s still a pain.
This time, she saved the application as often as she finished a paragraph, and still the computer died once she had finished. Though this time, she had less to rewrite.
That afternoon, after turning in her term paper in science class, she resolved to go to the local electronics store. She stalked up and down the aisle of computers, both tabletop and laptop, judging the best for her needs and budget. Employees of the store whizzed past her without answered her request for help, busy with other customers. She went to the main desk, rang the bell and waited. After ten minutes she was certain that this was a little game being played on her. After all, she thought, what self respecting businessman would turn down money from someone willing to spend it in his store?
Having no help appear at the main desk, Charlotte went back to the computer section and pulled the call slip of the computer she thought best for her. She went to the main desk again and set the slip next to the register. She rang the bell, waited and then took things into her own hands.
She reached over the desk, and grabbed the microphone, flipping the switch on its side so that it could be heard over the whole store. “There is a customer waiting to be helped at the front desk.” she said. She waited, hoping that the manager would come barreling out of whatever corner of the store he was hiding it to apologize to her and to help her with her purchase. But once again, she was met with silence.
I’ve had it, she thought, deciding that the civilized approach was wasted in a place such as this. She went back to the computer section, pushed a chair from behind the main desk over to the security camera, stood upon it, removed her wallet and waved it in front of the camera while yelling: “Wooo -Hooo! I have money that I would like to spend here. Will any one come and take it from me?”
This should at least get a response out of security, she thought. And yet, still no one came. So she picked up the chair and used it to bash the computers on display. “Take that, you no good bastards! This will teach you to ignore someone who needs help!”
Plastic, metal and glass rained down from her rampage. The noise was horrific, the damage extensive, yet the employees did not stop in their rush back and forth across the store. She threw the chair at one man while she tripped an older woman, sending her to the floor.
“That’s what you get for ignoring me!” she bellowed. She turned from the fallen woman and stalked to the front of the store. She was so angry at the situation, that she only thought about the ramifications of her rampage only when she was close to the store’s exit.
Oh God, she thought, what if they call the police on me? She thought. I better get the hell out of here quick. She began to walk a little faster, hoping that the cameras did not get a detailed view of her face and that no one recognize her enough to tell the cops who she was.
“Excuse me, ma’am?” said an authoritative voice from behind her. She stopped and ducked her head down. And I was almost out of the store, too. She thought.
“Yes?” she asked, fearing her answer.
“That was magnificent.”
“Excuse me?”
“What you did just now, that was a work of genius.”
“But I just killed a bunch of computers. Do you know how much that will cost?”
“But do you know how much your actions will make us?”
“Are you going to sue me?”
“No! Why would we do that?”
Charlotte turned to him, gesturing to the broken mess and made a face. “Uh, what do you think?” she asked.
“We were in the middle of filming a commercial for the store when you walked in.” said the man. “I’m the owner, and I didn’t like where the commercial was headed anyhow, and then you walked in and I wanted to see what you would do.” he said smiling.
“So you ignored me on purpose?” Charlotte asked.
“I’m sorry about that, but I wanted a real person’s take on how frustrating it can be to try and make a purchase when there is no customer service. And you sure gave it to us.”
“I’m sorry about that…”
“Don’t be.” he said. “It’s just a few computers. And I’d like to give you a new one in return for using your ‘acting’ skills in our new commercial.”
“Are your customer service employees better at handling computer difficulties better than your salespeople?”
“Huh?”
“No one is going to ignore me forever and a day if I call the hotline with a problem are they?”
The owner of the store laughed long and hard, unable to answer her question from the lack of breath. Maybe I should just pay someone to have my crappy computer fixed, she thought. I’ve had more than enough trouble for one day as it is.
Monday, July 18, 2011
You Can't Beat a Dead Horse
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
You Can't Beat a Dead Horse
By Plot Roach
It was just another one of those hair brained schemes that Steve and his friends concocted to make money fast and leave the rest of the world to pay the bill. In the past he has posed as a foreign national in need of U. S. assistance to collect on a money debt, sending out tons of emails to anyone stupid enough to send him their bank account information so that he could drain it. A few months ago, he ran a pet babysitting service, kidnapped people's animals, posted 'found' signs, and had a friend return them for the reward money. But this last one took the prize- quite literally.
It seems he came into possession of racehorse. He trucked it to the smaller local races first, then started showing up at the bigger events for the statewide winners to compete. His horse could not be beat, it was just too fast and had too much stamina. Then came one of the national races. Steve was cashing in big time with his stallion. Until, that is, it was found out that his horse was dead.
Yep, he somehow managed to made a dead horse run. I teased him by asking how often he beat it, but he never got the joke. He found a method of reanimating the corpse, and reinforced the body with metal plates and poles to keep the thing in one piece. The brain he replaced with a computer, no kidding.
When the officials found out that he was racing a zombie horse, they tried to ban him from the Bluebird National race. But Steve, being the cunning scum ball that he is, thrives on loopholes. He found one in the handbook stating that horses with a handicap were still allowed, even if fitted with prosthetic pieces. No trainer would even think of racing a wounded animal, but this horse wasn't wounded -it was dead. It was still technically a horse, though it was little more than flesh on a metal framework. And both the Humane Society and PETA had to swallow their threats of lawsuits, since the creature was already deceased and could no longer suffer. If anyone was upset at Steve's creation, it was probably "viande de cheval" connoisseurs who thought that his beast was a waste of a good steak.
So the officials had a meeting for half a day before the race could commence. They tested his animal for things that could get Steve's entry banned from the race, but no steroids were found.
The race went on as planned, and there was no surprise when Steve's horse won the race. After all, it was about the same as a robot wearing a meat coat. The other horses had to struggle with things like breathing and muscle strain.
But at the finish line, Steve's horse didn't stop. He just kept running around the track. His rider jumped off twenty minutes after the conclusion of the race. The authorities tried shooting it, knocking its legs out from under it and even setting up a wall for it to crash into. But nothing could stop it. Whatever they tried, the horse just powered through like it was nothing, the creature was just too well built -except for the brain. Something must have short circuited, for the creature would not obey any of the commands given by its rider. It continued to run the track in a never ending race against its shadow.
They closed the track for the rest of the races that day, and for the rest of the year as well. It seems that no one can get the horse to stop racing. The officials said that they will wait until it runs itself into the ground (pardon the pun). If it trips and cannot get back up, they have a plan to be rid of it for good. Some say that the will throw a net over it and transport it to the ocean by helicopter, let it race itself to the crushing depths of the sea. Some say that they have a car crusher on hold, waiting for it.
In the meantime Steve has gotten more than a fair amount of hate mail over his creation -but quite bit of money too. The U. S. government has asked Steve to share his technique of creating the undead horse. They have hopes to do the same for soldiers, taking 'John and Jane Does' from the morgue to serve in the military now that recruitment is at an all time low. Though they'll have the 'brains' made by someone else, I hope.
So it turns out that the old saying was true: you can't beat a dead horse. At least not on this racetrack.
You Can't Beat a Dead Horse
By Plot Roach
It was just another one of those hair brained schemes that Steve and his friends concocted to make money fast and leave the rest of the world to pay the bill. In the past he has posed as a foreign national in need of U. S. assistance to collect on a money debt, sending out tons of emails to anyone stupid enough to send him their bank account information so that he could drain it. A few months ago, he ran a pet babysitting service, kidnapped people's animals, posted 'found' signs, and had a friend return them for the reward money. But this last one took the prize- quite literally.
It seems he came into possession of racehorse. He trucked it to the smaller local races first, then started showing up at the bigger events for the statewide winners to compete. His horse could not be beat, it was just too fast and had too much stamina. Then came one of the national races. Steve was cashing in big time with his stallion. Until, that is, it was found out that his horse was dead.
Yep, he somehow managed to made a dead horse run. I teased him by asking how often he beat it, but he never got the joke. He found a method of reanimating the corpse, and reinforced the body with metal plates and poles to keep the thing in one piece. The brain he replaced with a computer, no kidding.
When the officials found out that he was racing a zombie horse, they tried to ban him from the Bluebird National race. But Steve, being the cunning scum ball that he is, thrives on loopholes. He found one in the handbook stating that horses with a handicap were still allowed, even if fitted with prosthetic pieces. No trainer would even think of racing a wounded animal, but this horse wasn't wounded -it was dead. It was still technically a horse, though it was little more than flesh on a metal framework. And both the Humane Society and PETA had to swallow their threats of lawsuits, since the creature was already deceased and could no longer suffer. If anyone was upset at Steve's creation, it was probably "viande de cheval" connoisseurs who thought that his beast was a waste of a good steak.
So the officials had a meeting for half a day before the race could commence. They tested his animal for things that could get Steve's entry banned from the race, but no steroids were found.
The race went on as planned, and there was no surprise when Steve's horse won the race. After all, it was about the same as a robot wearing a meat coat. The other horses had to struggle with things like breathing and muscle strain.
But at the finish line, Steve's horse didn't stop. He just kept running around the track. His rider jumped off twenty minutes after the conclusion of the race. The authorities tried shooting it, knocking its legs out from under it and even setting up a wall for it to crash into. But nothing could stop it. Whatever they tried, the horse just powered through like it was nothing, the creature was just too well built -except for the brain. Something must have short circuited, for the creature would not obey any of the commands given by its rider. It continued to run the track in a never ending race against its shadow.
They closed the track for the rest of the races that day, and for the rest of the year as well. It seems that no one can get the horse to stop racing. The officials said that they will wait until it runs itself into the ground (pardon the pun). If it trips and cannot get back up, they have a plan to be rid of it for good. Some say that the will throw a net over it and transport it to the ocean by helicopter, let it race itself to the crushing depths of the sea. Some say that they have a car crusher on hold, waiting for it.
In the meantime Steve has gotten more than a fair amount of hate mail over his creation -but quite bit of money too. The U. S. government has asked Steve to share his technique of creating the undead horse. They have hopes to do the same for soldiers, taking 'John and Jane Does' from the morgue to serve in the military now that recruitment is at an all time low. Though they'll have the 'brains' made by someone else, I hope.
So it turns out that the old saying was true: you can't beat a dead horse. At least not on this racetrack.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
A Run of Luck
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
A Run of Luck
By Plot Roach
After a run of bad luck, Samantha was finally on top. In the last month she had lost her job, her apartment and even her pet dog. The car broke down three times, and she had a meltdown almost every other day. It seemed like she was either headed for an insane asylum or the streets at this run of luck. But this morning everything had changed. She had bought a lotto ticket by chance, scratching off the silver material to reveal a five hundred dollar win which the store attendant cashed for her immediately. The first stop was for a coffee and a bagel at her favorite cafe, while she was waiting in line, she struck up a conversation with the man behind her in line. They talked for a while and she gave him her phone number. They made a date for the following Friday and she had a hunch that he would actually show up instead of the steady stream of male losers who made promises and 'lost' her telephone number.
When she got to the front of the line, they declared her the millionth customer and she was given a membership card that promised free drinks for life. She smiled and disbelieved her run of wonderful luck. Her drink tasted better than it ever had before, the sun shone brightly upon her. And even morning traffic seemed to clear up around her and allow her to be early for work, instead of being late.
Once at her desk, the head manager of the office made mention of what a hard worker she was, and promised her a raise after next week's employee evaluations. At lunch, a coworker picked up the tab, and the waitress offered her a free piece of pie. back at the office, word had gotten out about her imminent promotion and everyone congratulated her, even those she knew gossiped negatively about her for years.
This day just can't get any better, she thought. The rest of the day was a breeze, and she finished all of her assigned work long before quitting time, allowing her to get a head start on the next day's caseload.
She went to the parking lot, her keys in hand when the stranger approached her. Oh no, she thought. He's here to steal my car. But he walked towards her with a slow but purposeful stride. If he was going to attack me, shouldn't he have rushed me before now? she thought, keys still in hand, as well as her canister of pepper spray.
She waited and he seemed to take forever to cross the parking lot. "What do you want?" she called out when he was ten feet away. "I have no cash and if you rape me, you'll get a disease!"
"First," he said. "I don't want to get sprayed in the face with pepper spray. Second, I didn't come for your car. And third, I know that you don't have any diseases."
"How do you know that I don't?"
"Because I know everything about you, Samantha Greer."
"How do you know me?"
"I'm your guardian angel, and I'm here to help you."
"Yeah, like I never heard that one before."
"No, really. I've watched over you since you were born. I was there when Rosalie, your mother, gave birth to you -she had to have a cesarean, and wasn't too pleased with it. I watched you grow and helped you through the hard times. I was there with you when Nana Bella died and you ran away from the funeral. I was there when you smoked your first joint behind the cafeteria in the eighth grade. I was there for your first breath in life, and I will be there for your final breath before death."
"Why are you here now?"
"It's time."
"My death?"
"You still have another thirty minutes, but it will happen tonight."
"How?"
"An aneurism. I arranged that. I'm sorry you've been having a bad run of luck lately, but I wanted to save up some good luck to spend on your final day, to make it the best that I could. Including a painless death."
"Now what?"
"I thought we would wait here. Your body will be found moments after it happens. You always had a fear of animals feeding on you after death, so I kept that in mind."
"What am I supposed to do now?"
"I arranged for enough time to watch your last sunset. Would you like some company?"
"Yes. Don't leave me now. I've felt like I've been alone all my life."
"I was always there, even though I couldn't talk to you until now."
"Because I'm about to die?"
"Yep. Any other contact, and you would have believed that you were going insane."
"And I'm not now?"
"Unfortunately, not."
So they stood by her car, watching her last sunset and as the stars wheeled out from their secret places and danced upon the sky, he held her hand. It was as painless as he promised, and she no longer felt alone.
A Run of Luck
By Plot Roach
After a run of bad luck, Samantha was finally on top. In the last month she had lost her job, her apartment and even her pet dog. The car broke down three times, and she had a meltdown almost every other day. It seemed like she was either headed for an insane asylum or the streets at this run of luck. But this morning everything had changed. She had bought a lotto ticket by chance, scratching off the silver material to reveal a five hundred dollar win which the store attendant cashed for her immediately. The first stop was for a coffee and a bagel at her favorite cafe, while she was waiting in line, she struck up a conversation with the man behind her in line. They talked for a while and she gave him her phone number. They made a date for the following Friday and she had a hunch that he would actually show up instead of the steady stream of male losers who made promises and 'lost' her telephone number.
When she got to the front of the line, they declared her the millionth customer and she was given a membership card that promised free drinks for life. She smiled and disbelieved her run of wonderful luck. Her drink tasted better than it ever had before, the sun shone brightly upon her. And even morning traffic seemed to clear up around her and allow her to be early for work, instead of being late.
Once at her desk, the head manager of the office made mention of what a hard worker she was, and promised her a raise after next week's employee evaluations. At lunch, a coworker picked up the tab, and the waitress offered her a free piece of pie. back at the office, word had gotten out about her imminent promotion and everyone congratulated her, even those she knew gossiped negatively about her for years.
This day just can't get any better, she thought. The rest of the day was a breeze, and she finished all of her assigned work long before quitting time, allowing her to get a head start on the next day's caseload.
She went to the parking lot, her keys in hand when the stranger approached her. Oh no, she thought. He's here to steal my car. But he walked towards her with a slow but purposeful stride. If he was going to attack me, shouldn't he have rushed me before now? she thought, keys still in hand, as well as her canister of pepper spray.
She waited and he seemed to take forever to cross the parking lot. "What do you want?" she called out when he was ten feet away. "I have no cash and if you rape me, you'll get a disease!"
"First," he said. "I don't want to get sprayed in the face with pepper spray. Second, I didn't come for your car. And third, I know that you don't have any diseases."
"How do you know that I don't?"
"Because I know everything about you, Samantha Greer."
"How do you know me?"
"I'm your guardian angel, and I'm here to help you."
"Yeah, like I never heard that one before."
"No, really. I've watched over you since you were born. I was there when Rosalie, your mother, gave birth to you -she had to have a cesarean, and wasn't too pleased with it. I watched you grow and helped you through the hard times. I was there with you when Nana Bella died and you ran away from the funeral. I was there when you smoked your first joint behind the cafeteria in the eighth grade. I was there for your first breath in life, and I will be there for your final breath before death."
"Why are you here now?"
"It's time."
"My death?"
"You still have another thirty minutes, but it will happen tonight."
"How?"
"An aneurism. I arranged that. I'm sorry you've been having a bad run of luck lately, but I wanted to save up some good luck to spend on your final day, to make it the best that I could. Including a painless death."
"Now what?"
"I thought we would wait here. Your body will be found moments after it happens. You always had a fear of animals feeding on you after death, so I kept that in mind."
"What am I supposed to do now?"
"I arranged for enough time to watch your last sunset. Would you like some company?"
"Yes. Don't leave me now. I've felt like I've been alone all my life."
"I was always there, even though I couldn't talk to you until now."
"Because I'm about to die?"
"Yep. Any other contact, and you would have believed that you were going insane."
"And I'm not now?"
"Unfortunately, not."
So they stood by her car, watching her last sunset and as the stars wheeled out from their secret places and danced upon the sky, he held her hand. It was as painless as he promised, and she no longer felt alone.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Illegal Alien
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Illegal Alien
By Plot Roach
The country was in turmoil with no clear way to fix it. Unemployment was at an all time high. People were not just losing their jobs, but their homes and their hopes as well. We were facing what was called the Next Great Depression when they came. Like angels out of the sky, our saviors flew down in silver colored ships. On the eve of what seemed like the total collapse of our way of life, they drifted down into every major city like bubbles blown by a child. Their leader visited Washington first, meeting with the president and other political leaders who had every intention of doing right by the public.
They looked like us and said that they could provide everything that we, as a species, needed as long as we played by their rules. Since we were on the verge of civilization’s collapse, we agreed.
The meetings lasted for four days, a media hush instituted that left all of the rest of us in the dark. On the fifth day, the leaders of both sides emerged. We could help them and in doing so could help our great nation, the president announced. Soon the leaders of other countries were rushing to our great nation, they wanted in on the act. They wanted their lands to prosper as well. Another visit with the aliens lead their ships to roost in even more cities placed far and wide upon the Earth.
“Everyone will do their fair share.” said the president. “And everyone will benefit from it.” But there were those who wondered what the aliens were up to, and why they needed our help so badly.
One of the ships landed in the center of the city where I lived. A call went out: everyone had to report for testing immediately. The aliens would not offer aid to us until they knew our limitations as well as our strengths. It seemed a silly and harmless thing. To sit in a booth and react to the stimulus given, while they recorded it. Some people refused, and in return were turned away when they asked for help. “Everyone will do their fair share.” became the war cry of the citizens who worked for the aliens when faced by those who did not.
I remember my mother turning away a neighbor asking for food, when she had been fired from her job for refusing to be tested. People were now asked if they had been tested by the aliens during job interviews. They claimed that it was not a deciding factor in getting hired, yet the only people who did not have jobs were those not looking for one and those who refused to be tested. I knew that our neighbor’s children were going hungry that night, even as we had more on our plates than we could finish.
When I became sixteen, and of legal age to get a job, I went to the testing facility. I filled out the paperwork given to me by the human interviewer and nodded to the alien when I was placed in the measurement pod. A few minutes later, I exited the building a little dizzy, but with work authorization card in my hand. I was told that I didn’t need to apply for a job, someone would get in touch with me and tell me where to show up.
A week later I was told to report to one of the ships that now called our small city home. I was given a uniform and ushered to the lower levels. I was lectured about my duties and where my loyalties should lay. And I was given the great and important task of ‘maid‘. I cleaned the ship of the garbage generated by the aliens, recycling whatever was possible and incinerating what was not. I was to put things in their proper order when my alien masters were out of their rooms, be it private quarters or public meeting hall.
When I was a child, before the aliens came, I had hopes of becoming an actress or a singer. These dreams were drowned in the antibacterial agents that I used to scour the floor of my master’s ship. There would be no other choice but ‘maid’ for me, even if I left the aliens’ employ. My skills had been tested in the measurement pod and no other skills were listed other than 'she likes to keep things orderly, good for clean up situations.’ No one would ever hire me as an actress. No one would ever hear me sing, unless they stood outside the bathroom when I was taking a shower.
As a race, we had everything we needed, but not everything we wanted. Evidently I was not the only one unhappy with my station in life. Some humans staged a rebellion, killing off some of the aliens while taking their technology -not that we knew enough of it to use it ourselves. The aliens, fearing further vengeance against them, decided to leave. And when they left, they took their technology with them. Gone were the days of plentiful jobs, pantries stocked with food, free healthcare and the promise of a long and fulfilling life.
Our aliens were one of the last to leave, but our little community was already feeling the brunt of the impact. People were fighting one another on the street, water was becoming scarce, and a neighbor down the hall from us in the apartment complex was shot and killed, all for stealing a can of beans from the local grocery store.
I didn’t know what to do, or what I would do, when our aliens left. My mother had left to another city, trying to find my older brother in all the chaos. I was alone in our tiny apartment, and knew that if someone tried to force his way in, I would be beaten -or worse- for our meager stores of food.
On the last day one of them approached me. I thought perhaps that it was the one who tested me, before I became a maid, but I could never be certain. They look all they same to me, though I’m sure they probably say the same about us humans. She offered to let me stay on the ship as it returned to their world, as long as I continued to work in my given position of ’maid’.
Because they looked human enough -or because I looked alien enough- I could pass among them, still doing my job as long as I did nothing to raise their suspicions. Though I would not be free to live the life that I had wanted since childhood, I would be well fed, and well cared for. And perhaps, once the riots had died down and the aliens tried to interact with the humans again, I could bring my mother and brother into my new home for a better life. I agreed, kept my head down and kept working hard. I asked no questions and was thankful of what I was given by my employers. What else can an illegal alien hope to do?
Illegal Alien
By Plot Roach
The country was in turmoil with no clear way to fix it. Unemployment was at an all time high. People were not just losing their jobs, but their homes and their hopes as well. We were facing what was called the Next Great Depression when they came. Like angels out of the sky, our saviors flew down in silver colored ships. On the eve of what seemed like the total collapse of our way of life, they drifted down into every major city like bubbles blown by a child. Their leader visited Washington first, meeting with the president and other political leaders who had every intention of doing right by the public.
They looked like us and said that they could provide everything that we, as a species, needed as long as we played by their rules. Since we were on the verge of civilization’s collapse, we agreed.
The meetings lasted for four days, a media hush instituted that left all of the rest of us in the dark. On the fifth day, the leaders of both sides emerged. We could help them and in doing so could help our great nation, the president announced. Soon the leaders of other countries were rushing to our great nation, they wanted in on the act. They wanted their lands to prosper as well. Another visit with the aliens lead their ships to roost in even more cities placed far and wide upon the Earth.
“Everyone will do their fair share.” said the president. “And everyone will benefit from it.” But there were those who wondered what the aliens were up to, and why they needed our help so badly.
One of the ships landed in the center of the city where I lived. A call went out: everyone had to report for testing immediately. The aliens would not offer aid to us until they knew our limitations as well as our strengths. It seemed a silly and harmless thing. To sit in a booth and react to the stimulus given, while they recorded it. Some people refused, and in return were turned away when they asked for help. “Everyone will do their fair share.” became the war cry of the citizens who worked for the aliens when faced by those who did not.
I remember my mother turning away a neighbor asking for food, when she had been fired from her job for refusing to be tested. People were now asked if they had been tested by the aliens during job interviews. They claimed that it was not a deciding factor in getting hired, yet the only people who did not have jobs were those not looking for one and those who refused to be tested. I knew that our neighbor’s children were going hungry that night, even as we had more on our plates than we could finish.
When I became sixteen, and of legal age to get a job, I went to the testing facility. I filled out the paperwork given to me by the human interviewer and nodded to the alien when I was placed in the measurement pod. A few minutes later, I exited the building a little dizzy, but with work authorization card in my hand. I was told that I didn’t need to apply for a job, someone would get in touch with me and tell me where to show up.
A week later I was told to report to one of the ships that now called our small city home. I was given a uniform and ushered to the lower levels. I was lectured about my duties and where my loyalties should lay. And I was given the great and important task of ‘maid‘. I cleaned the ship of the garbage generated by the aliens, recycling whatever was possible and incinerating what was not. I was to put things in their proper order when my alien masters were out of their rooms, be it private quarters or public meeting hall.
When I was a child, before the aliens came, I had hopes of becoming an actress or a singer. These dreams were drowned in the antibacterial agents that I used to scour the floor of my master’s ship. There would be no other choice but ‘maid’ for me, even if I left the aliens’ employ. My skills had been tested in the measurement pod and no other skills were listed other than 'she likes to keep things orderly, good for clean up situations.’ No one would ever hire me as an actress. No one would ever hear me sing, unless they stood outside the bathroom when I was taking a shower.
As a race, we had everything we needed, but not everything we wanted. Evidently I was not the only one unhappy with my station in life. Some humans staged a rebellion, killing off some of the aliens while taking their technology -not that we knew enough of it to use it ourselves. The aliens, fearing further vengeance against them, decided to leave. And when they left, they took their technology with them. Gone were the days of plentiful jobs, pantries stocked with food, free healthcare and the promise of a long and fulfilling life.
Our aliens were one of the last to leave, but our little community was already feeling the brunt of the impact. People were fighting one another on the street, water was becoming scarce, and a neighbor down the hall from us in the apartment complex was shot and killed, all for stealing a can of beans from the local grocery store.
I didn’t know what to do, or what I would do, when our aliens left. My mother had left to another city, trying to find my older brother in all the chaos. I was alone in our tiny apartment, and knew that if someone tried to force his way in, I would be beaten -or worse- for our meager stores of food.
On the last day one of them approached me. I thought perhaps that it was the one who tested me, before I became a maid, but I could never be certain. They look all they same to me, though I’m sure they probably say the same about us humans. She offered to let me stay on the ship as it returned to their world, as long as I continued to work in my given position of ’maid’.
Because they looked human enough -or because I looked alien enough- I could pass among them, still doing my job as long as I did nothing to raise their suspicions. Though I would not be free to live the life that I had wanted since childhood, I would be well fed, and well cared for. And perhaps, once the riots had died down and the aliens tried to interact with the humans again, I could bring my mother and brother into my new home for a better life. I agreed, kept my head down and kept working hard. I asked no questions and was thankful of what I was given by my employers. What else can an illegal alien hope to do?
Friday, July 15, 2011
Zombie Apocalypse, the Musical!
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Zombie Apocalypse, the Musical!
By Plot Roach
“Can you tell me what happened here, ma’am?” Officer Matthews asked, eyeing the carnage on the stage.
“The play got a little out of hand.” Meredith admitted, kicking a severed foot out of her way so that she could sit down on the only non- bloodied part of the wooden floor.
“I can see that. But what I want to know is HOW it got this way. Can you give me any details?”
“What did the others say when you interviewed them?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
“The director is in a huff because no one followed the script. And half the audience in in hysterics because the other half of the audience had allegedly been ‘consumed’.”
“I always wanted to perform at a dinner theater instead of some sloppy little community house.” Meredith sighed. Now it was Officer Matthews turn to raise an eyebrow.
“Okay, bad joke. I’ll admit it. But that’s all I will admit to. At least until I see my lawyer.”
“I’m not sure that you need one. I think you might need a priest or a mortician more.” he said, pointing to one of the restrained zombies currently stretching against its bonds to try and feast on the living walking around it.
“This won’t be held against me?” she asked.
“I don’t see how any sane person could believe it, much less a jury. No one is going to convict you of something that doesn’t exist. And yet does…”
“It started when a friend of mine, Sarah Finch, wanted to put on a musical as part of her theater arts major in college.”
“That would be the local college here in town?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please continue.” The officer said.
“Well, she was trying to brainstorm a good idea that would be accepted by the general public but at the same time was something intriguing and unique. People like musical, and zombies seem to be a popular genre, so we decided to put them together. We hired a friend as a writer and soon we had a script. All we needed were some actors, some special effects and a stage.”
“And what was your role in this?”
“Producer and procurer. I made sure we found the right people for the right things, made sure everyone got paid who needed to be and worked last minute miracles for everything in between before we pulled the curtains open on the first night.”
“And the zombies?” Officer Matthews asked. “Where did they come in? And who is responsible for them?”
“That would be Ezra White.”
“And you would be able to pick him out of a lineup?”
“Actually he’s right over there. Or what’s left of him is, anyway.”
“And his job here was what exactly?”
“He was supposed to find people to be the zombies and get them all ready with makeup and the prosthetics and stuff. We told him that we wanted it to be as realistic as possible. But I guess he took it a little too far.”
“So you have no idea what he did to cause this?”
“Actually I do, but I thought he was just kidding us at the time. He said that he found this ‘Lazarus’ spell in some offshoot holy book that was close to the Dead Sea Scrolls in age or something. He said it was like some missing part of the Bible, or something.”
“Did he say what he did to make them zombies?” the officer asked.
“He said that the bodies had to be dead for three days and then the spell would bring them back to life. But he only had part of the spell, not the whole thing, so he didn’t know if it would work. But if Jesus could do it way back when, he should be able to do it easily with today’s technology. Or something like that.” Meredith said, studying the grime under her nails with a look of distaste.
“Where did he get the bodies?” the officer asked. “Were they alive when he started his little -er- project?”
“I have no idea, really. But he did volunteer at the local soup kitchen. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed the numbers of the local homeless declining, but last night I made it all the way from the supermarket to my parked car, and no one asked me for spare change.” Meredith said with a pointed look.
“So the zombies did all of this damage?”
“Yes.”
“And all of this happened when?”
“Act two, about midway through.” she said. “Ezra billed himself as the ‘zombie wrangler’, and he had a cage full of these guys ready to go just off stage. When he heard his cue, he popped the door open on the cage, but instead of rushing the actors, they mobbed the audience. People thought it was part of the play, at first. But then the body count started rising and people ran for the door.” Meredith explained. “And by the way, more people were harmed being trampled by their fellow audience members, than were maimed by the zombies.”
“I’ll be sure to put that in my report, ma’am.” The officer said, quickly writing her words in his notebook.
“What else can you tell me?”
“Everyone who was part of the show, besides the walking dead that is, will be listed in the flyer for the musical.” She handed him a simple leaflet, two eight by ten pages folded in half and stapled down the middle to form four pages. Inside was indeed all the people involved in the show from the quirky producer he now questioned to the two women in charge of wardrobe. Across the front of the booklet was a black and white picture of the undead, as well as a splash of red across the picture to simulate blood to form the title: “Zombie Apocalypse, The Musical!”
Zombie Apocalypse, the Musical!
By Plot Roach
“Can you tell me what happened here, ma’am?” Officer Matthews asked, eyeing the carnage on the stage.
“The play got a little out of hand.” Meredith admitted, kicking a severed foot out of her way so that she could sit down on the only non- bloodied part of the wooden floor.
“I can see that. But what I want to know is HOW it got this way. Can you give me any details?”
“What did the others say when you interviewed them?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.
“The director is in a huff because no one followed the script. And half the audience in in hysterics because the other half of the audience had allegedly been ‘consumed’.”
“I always wanted to perform at a dinner theater instead of some sloppy little community house.” Meredith sighed. Now it was Officer Matthews turn to raise an eyebrow.
“Okay, bad joke. I’ll admit it. But that’s all I will admit to. At least until I see my lawyer.”
“I’m not sure that you need one. I think you might need a priest or a mortician more.” he said, pointing to one of the restrained zombies currently stretching against its bonds to try and feast on the living walking around it.
“This won’t be held against me?” she asked.
“I don’t see how any sane person could believe it, much less a jury. No one is going to convict you of something that doesn’t exist. And yet does…”
“It started when a friend of mine, Sarah Finch, wanted to put on a musical as part of her theater arts major in college.”
“That would be the local college here in town?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please continue.” The officer said.
“Well, she was trying to brainstorm a good idea that would be accepted by the general public but at the same time was something intriguing and unique. People like musical, and zombies seem to be a popular genre, so we decided to put them together. We hired a friend as a writer and soon we had a script. All we needed were some actors, some special effects and a stage.”
“And what was your role in this?”
“Producer and procurer. I made sure we found the right people for the right things, made sure everyone got paid who needed to be and worked last minute miracles for everything in between before we pulled the curtains open on the first night.”
“And the zombies?” Officer Matthews asked. “Where did they come in? And who is responsible for them?”
“That would be Ezra White.”
“And you would be able to pick him out of a lineup?”
“Actually he’s right over there. Or what’s left of him is, anyway.”
“And his job here was what exactly?”
“He was supposed to find people to be the zombies and get them all ready with makeup and the prosthetics and stuff. We told him that we wanted it to be as realistic as possible. But I guess he took it a little too far.”
“So you have no idea what he did to cause this?”
“Actually I do, but I thought he was just kidding us at the time. He said that he found this ‘Lazarus’ spell in some offshoot holy book that was close to the Dead Sea Scrolls in age or something. He said it was like some missing part of the Bible, or something.”
“Did he say what he did to make them zombies?” the officer asked.
“He said that the bodies had to be dead for three days and then the spell would bring them back to life. But he only had part of the spell, not the whole thing, so he didn’t know if it would work. But if Jesus could do it way back when, he should be able to do it easily with today’s technology. Or something like that.” Meredith said, studying the grime under her nails with a look of distaste.
“Where did he get the bodies?” the officer asked. “Were they alive when he started his little -er- project?”
“I have no idea, really. But he did volunteer at the local soup kitchen. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed the numbers of the local homeless declining, but last night I made it all the way from the supermarket to my parked car, and no one asked me for spare change.” Meredith said with a pointed look.
“So the zombies did all of this damage?”
“Yes.”
“And all of this happened when?”
“Act two, about midway through.” she said. “Ezra billed himself as the ‘zombie wrangler’, and he had a cage full of these guys ready to go just off stage. When he heard his cue, he popped the door open on the cage, but instead of rushing the actors, they mobbed the audience. People thought it was part of the play, at first. But then the body count started rising and people ran for the door.” Meredith explained. “And by the way, more people were harmed being trampled by their fellow audience members, than were maimed by the zombies.”
“I’ll be sure to put that in my report, ma’am.” The officer said, quickly writing her words in his notebook.
“What else can you tell me?”
“Everyone who was part of the show, besides the walking dead that is, will be listed in the flyer for the musical.” She handed him a simple leaflet, two eight by ten pages folded in half and stapled down the middle to form four pages. Inside was indeed all the people involved in the show from the quirky producer he now questioned to the two women in charge of wardrobe. Across the front of the booklet was a black and white picture of the undead, as well as a splash of red across the picture to simulate blood to form the title: “Zombie Apocalypse, The Musical!”
Thursday, July 14, 2011
After Party Cleanup
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
After Party Cleanup
By Plot Roach
Frank snatched an empty beer can off of the seat of the couch, finding more of them under the cushions, behind the television and in the fish tank. There were slices of dried pizza everywhere and Frank did not want to even contemplate what the bedroom might look like, if the living room was any indication of the party Casey had thrown the night before.
Frank tripped over a box on his way to save his tropical fish from a bad hangover. “Warning! Cursed items!” was written in red across the main flap. When Frank tripped, he overturned the box, sending the contents sprawling across the trash laden floor. Among cigarette butts and crushed plastics cups were a couple of crystals, a copy of the Necronomicon and an odd looking stone. Last out of the box was a bill of sale from a company on Ebay. Frank laughed at the thought of Casey buying ‘cursed items’ off of an online auction. It was the only thing to lighten his mood.
He picked up the items and tossed them back into the box, telling himself that he would get even with Casey for trashing his apartment while he was away on a business trip. When Frank picked up the stone, he felt an odd chill run up his spine. He rolled it around in his hand, reluctant to let it go. The stone was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It looked like a rolled up silver colored armadillo, its joints flowing smoothly into one another like a puzzle created by God. It was the size of a softball but weighed heavier than a gallon of milk.
All these images flowed though Frank's mind as he felt a tap on one shoulder. "Excuse me." said a voice that reminded him of sandpaper on flesh. "But I believe that you have something of mine."
"Uh.." said Frank, he turned to face the owner of the voice while holding the ball to his chest like it was a small child in need of protection. "I found it on the floor."
"Yes", said the man, becoming more shadow than flesh by the moment. "I dropped it and it belongs to me."
"How do I know that it belonged to you?" he asked.
"Belongs." the man corrected. "It belongs to me."
"Not anymore." Frank said. "Finders keepers and all that..."
"You don't really believe in that, do you?"
"Then take it from me." Frank countered.
The man looked at him, two red pinpoints of light opening up where the man's eyes should have been. The shadow swirled in upon itself and all pretence dropped from the man like thing. When it drew itself up to full height, it was a head taller than Frank, and three times as thick. It was still man like and made of shadows, but in its shrouded darkness whispered things that could tear Frank’s soul to pieces, or at least make him have a very bad day.
"Return the ball to me, or face the consequences."
"What are you?" Frank asked. "Are you magical? A ghost, maybe a genie of some type, or?"
"It's the 'or'." it said. "And now I want my ball back."
"You can't make me, can you?"
"Don't tease me, mortal."
"What are you going to do about it?"
The eyes of the creature smoldered and smoke began to fill the room. Frank opened the door and turned on a fan. "Is that all you've got?"
"Please, give me back my ball." it pleaded, coming within an inch of Frank.
"Step back and chill a moment." Frank said. Immediately the shadowy form did as he asked, but seemingly under great strain. "Wait." Frank said. "Get back up again and go over to the corner." The spirit did as was bid and Frank laughed.
"You have to do as I tell you, don't you?" Frank asked. "Tell me the truth."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Master."
"What are you -and give me full details."
"I am the fourth Arch demon to the Lord of Darkness himself, Ruler of the Pit, Beloved of Darkness-"
"Enough." Frank commanded. "As long as I hold this you have to do as I say, don't you?"
"Yes, Master."
Frank smiled and gripped the ball tighter. He was going to have some fun with his new pet. And he knew just where to start. “Do you know a guy named ‘Casey?’”
After Party Cleanup
By Plot Roach
Frank snatched an empty beer can off of the seat of the couch, finding more of them under the cushions, behind the television and in the fish tank. There were slices of dried pizza everywhere and Frank did not want to even contemplate what the bedroom might look like, if the living room was any indication of the party Casey had thrown the night before.
Frank tripped over a box on his way to save his tropical fish from a bad hangover. “Warning! Cursed items!” was written in red across the main flap. When Frank tripped, he overturned the box, sending the contents sprawling across the trash laden floor. Among cigarette butts and crushed plastics cups were a couple of crystals, a copy of the Necronomicon and an odd looking stone. Last out of the box was a bill of sale from a company on Ebay. Frank laughed at the thought of Casey buying ‘cursed items’ off of an online auction. It was the only thing to lighten his mood.
He picked up the items and tossed them back into the box, telling himself that he would get even with Casey for trashing his apartment while he was away on a business trip. When Frank picked up the stone, he felt an odd chill run up his spine. He rolled it around in his hand, reluctant to let it go. The stone was unlike anything he had ever seen before. It looked like a rolled up silver colored armadillo, its joints flowing smoothly into one another like a puzzle created by God. It was the size of a softball but weighed heavier than a gallon of milk.
All these images flowed though Frank's mind as he felt a tap on one shoulder. "Excuse me." said a voice that reminded him of sandpaper on flesh. "But I believe that you have something of mine."
"Uh.." said Frank, he turned to face the owner of the voice while holding the ball to his chest like it was a small child in need of protection. "I found it on the floor."
"Yes", said the man, becoming more shadow than flesh by the moment. "I dropped it and it belongs to me."
"How do I know that it belonged to you?" he asked.
"Belongs." the man corrected. "It belongs to me."
"Not anymore." Frank said. "Finders keepers and all that..."
"You don't really believe in that, do you?"
"Then take it from me." Frank countered.
The man looked at him, two red pinpoints of light opening up where the man's eyes should have been. The shadow swirled in upon itself and all pretence dropped from the man like thing. When it drew itself up to full height, it was a head taller than Frank, and three times as thick. It was still man like and made of shadows, but in its shrouded darkness whispered things that could tear Frank’s soul to pieces, or at least make him have a very bad day.
"Return the ball to me, or face the consequences."
"What are you?" Frank asked. "Are you magical? A ghost, maybe a genie of some type, or?"
"It's the 'or'." it said. "And now I want my ball back."
"You can't make me, can you?"
"Don't tease me, mortal."
"What are you going to do about it?"
The eyes of the creature smoldered and smoke began to fill the room. Frank opened the door and turned on a fan. "Is that all you've got?"
"Please, give me back my ball." it pleaded, coming within an inch of Frank.
"Step back and chill a moment." Frank said. Immediately the shadowy form did as he asked, but seemingly under great strain. "Wait." Frank said. "Get back up again and go over to the corner." The spirit did as was bid and Frank laughed.
"You have to do as I tell you, don't you?" Frank asked. "Tell me the truth."
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Master."
"What are you -and give me full details."
"I am the fourth Arch demon to the Lord of Darkness himself, Ruler of the Pit, Beloved of Darkness-"
"Enough." Frank commanded. "As long as I hold this you have to do as I say, don't you?"
"Yes, Master."
Frank smiled and gripped the ball tighter. He was going to have some fun with his new pet. And he knew just where to start. “Do you know a guy named ‘Casey?’”
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Are You Into Practical Jokes?
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Are You Into Practical Jokes?
By Plot Roach
Me? Why am I standing here? No reason, but you should probably move. A little to the left, I’d say.
There’s absolutely nothing going on here, I promise.
Well…maybe a little something. Are you into practical jokes?
Good.
It’s a big one, if we can pull it off.
Who is it on? This guy that dumped my friend, like, a month ago.
I agree, she does need to get over it. I mean, who holds a grudge for a month, right?
She’s just mad at the way he dumped her.
How? By text message, but only after dragging her along on the biggest guilt trip imaginable. You see, she was going to dump him the month earlier. She was in this big “gotta do spring cleaning in my life” thing. She quit her job, decided to move to another city and was going to dump his butt and find someone else. But then he drops this bomb on her.
No, not a real bomb. An emotional one. He says he’s dying of this rare disease and he needs her close to ease his discomfort and be his emotional support through the end. But it’s all a lie. And he doesn’t tell her this until he’s shacking up with some other girl. She doesn’t find out about it until she shows up for one of his doctor’s visits.
No, he didn’t actually go to the doctor, because the disease was fake and all. Well, okay the disease wasn’t fake, but him having it was. I have to admit that he did his homework. Maybe too well…
Well, the disease was real and so was the doctor. Problem was, he picked one out of the phonebook and mentioned the guy by name. So when she went to surprise him, all she had to do was look him up in the phone book herself. She tries to surprise him there and gets a surprise herself: not only is he not there, but the doctor has never heard of him.
Oh, she was pissed! She tries to call him, but he’s not answering -too busy with the new girlfriend is my guess. When she does get a hold of him, it’s through a text. When she tells him what she found, he dumps her, right then and there. He tells her that she’s too needy and that he’s moving on since he’s ‘cured’.
Yeah, that was a really crappy thing to do. So she’s out for his blood, which I don’t blame her for. That’s why we’re here.
Me? I’m here to make sure that the thing we planted in his apartment goes off when he walks through the door with his new girl.
It’s a remote controlled paint bomb. My friend is across the way from his apartment in another building, but the remote won’t send the signal that far. That’s why I’m down here in the alley behind the building. When she gives me the signal, I’ll hit the button and we should see something pretty interesting.
The paint bomb is something similar to what banks use to mark bills that robbers take. They slip the ’dye pack’ in the bag and when the guy tries to open the bag it marks the money and explodes on him as well. We set them up all over his apartment, at least one for every wall and a few dozen on the ceiling.
Wait! That’s her now. She’s looking over at the building…She’s waving, that’s the signal.
Are you ready?
Good. Now stand back, this could get messy.
Oh crap! I didn’t think it would blow out the windows! Sorry some of it got on you.
Are those sirens?
Run!
Are You Into Practical Jokes?
By Plot Roach
Me? Why am I standing here? No reason, but you should probably move. A little to the left, I’d say.
There’s absolutely nothing going on here, I promise.
Well…maybe a little something. Are you into practical jokes?
Good.
It’s a big one, if we can pull it off.
Who is it on? This guy that dumped my friend, like, a month ago.
I agree, she does need to get over it. I mean, who holds a grudge for a month, right?
She’s just mad at the way he dumped her.
How? By text message, but only after dragging her along on the biggest guilt trip imaginable. You see, she was going to dump him the month earlier. She was in this big “gotta do spring cleaning in my life” thing. She quit her job, decided to move to another city and was going to dump his butt and find someone else. But then he drops this bomb on her.
No, not a real bomb. An emotional one. He says he’s dying of this rare disease and he needs her close to ease his discomfort and be his emotional support through the end. But it’s all a lie. And he doesn’t tell her this until he’s shacking up with some other girl. She doesn’t find out about it until she shows up for one of his doctor’s visits.
No, he didn’t actually go to the doctor, because the disease was fake and all. Well, okay the disease wasn’t fake, but him having it was. I have to admit that he did his homework. Maybe too well…
Well, the disease was real and so was the doctor. Problem was, he picked one out of the phonebook and mentioned the guy by name. So when she went to surprise him, all she had to do was look him up in the phone book herself. She tries to surprise him there and gets a surprise herself: not only is he not there, but the doctor has never heard of him.
Oh, she was pissed! She tries to call him, but he’s not answering -too busy with the new girlfriend is my guess. When she does get a hold of him, it’s through a text. When she tells him what she found, he dumps her, right then and there. He tells her that she’s too needy and that he’s moving on since he’s ‘cured’.
Yeah, that was a really crappy thing to do. So she’s out for his blood, which I don’t blame her for. That’s why we’re here.
Me? I’m here to make sure that the thing we planted in his apartment goes off when he walks through the door with his new girl.
It’s a remote controlled paint bomb. My friend is across the way from his apartment in another building, but the remote won’t send the signal that far. That’s why I’m down here in the alley behind the building. When she gives me the signal, I’ll hit the button and we should see something pretty interesting.
The paint bomb is something similar to what banks use to mark bills that robbers take. They slip the ’dye pack’ in the bag and when the guy tries to open the bag it marks the money and explodes on him as well. We set them up all over his apartment, at least one for every wall and a few dozen on the ceiling.
Wait! That’s her now. She’s looking over at the building…She’s waving, that’s the signal.
Are you ready?
Good. Now stand back, this could get messy.
Oh crap! I didn’t think it would blow out the windows! Sorry some of it got on you.
Are those sirens?
Run!
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Guard of the Gate
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Guard of the Gate
By Plot Roach
An hour before dawn was when the crying began. It was a small thin wail at first, soon followed by a throaty yowl. A woman peeked her nose out of her home, then emerged a moment later. “Do you hear that?” she asked the guard at the gate. “I think it’s a baby.”
“Doesn’t matter what it is.” the guard said. “It ain’t getting in here.”
“But it could be in trouble.” she argued.
“If it’s outside the gate, it’s supposed to stay there.” He said. But he, too, squinted through the gate in the direction of the sound. He had a little one at home. Sarah, only a year and a half old. And he hated to think of her out there in the wastelands beyond civilization’s gate. “Whatever it is, I hope it shuts up soon.”
The woman scowled at him, and moved closer to the gate. There were in actuality two gates, the one that held civilization in, a buffer zone of ten feet, and another gate that held the wastelands and what they contained back. “Don’t get too close.” the guard warned. But with a break of ten feet away from any real danger, it was just a show. She looked as far as the vantage of the gate would allow her. The crying continued.
“I have to go out and see.” she pleaded. “What if it’s someone from one of the other cities?”
“Then why wouldn’t they have called out before now?” the man argued.
“Maybe they can’t. maybe it’s only the child left.”
“Then we’re better off without it.” the man said.
“How can you say that? Knowing that you have a daughter you’d want others to watch over should something happen to you.”
But the man kept to his post above the door to the gate, looking off into the dawn of a new day and not saying a word. The woman climbed the ladder next to him, hoping she could see better than she had on the ground. But as the crying continued, there was still no sign of movement. “Do you have any binoculars?” she asked the guard.
“Nope. Only Smith carries them, and he won’t let them out of his hands for anything. It’s the last set in the city, I’m sure of it. And he knows this too. It would make guard duty a bit better, but do you think that matters to the likes of him?”
“Do you think he’d let me borrow them to look for the baby?”
“I don’t think he’d let you borrow them to look for a pile of gold.”
“Well there’s something alive out there and we need to help it.”
“Ain’t nothing out there but a trap.”
“And I’m telling you that there is something alive out there, I can hear it!” she yelled and stalked off back into her house. He watched her go, feeling guilty himself for not insisting that they go through the gates to check it out. But they would need the key from one of the three Guardians of the town. The gates were kept locked at all times for the safety of those inside.
His eyes returned to the harsh landscape, almost of their own accord. He had been so used to his duty as a guard that he watched the land beyond the gate even when he was in his own home and off duty. A few minutes later he heard a shuffling in the dirt below the watch post and heavy footsteps climb the rungs of the latter. It was about time for someone else to take up his post. “Hey, Ed, we got something crying out there-”
He was knocked from his post by a blow to the side of the head. He fell ten feet and had the wind knocked out of him. He watched the woman pull the gate key from her pocket and slip it into the lock. He tried to call out a warning, but the words would not leave his lips. He gasped for breath and reached out to her. She looked at him apologetically and fumbled through the first gate, dropping the key in her eagerness to get to the crying child. He crawled forward through the dirt and watched her pass from the first gate and through the second. She was in the badlands now, where THEY hunted. And he would have offered up a prayer for her safe return, if he had had the air in his lungs.
“I found it! I found the baby!” she called out. The crying ceased a moment before starting again with fury. “Oh my god! It’s one of them. It’s only maybe two months old, and its got their eyes. Why would they turn a baby? It couldn’t possibly hunt for them. And it’s too young to breed and make more…”
He heard the noise of the ambush and the woman cry out in surprise, and then in pain. All the while the baby kept crying until it was taken away and its noise dwindled with the distance.
Even if she had made it back with the child, it would have been destroyed to save the others of the town. If she had not been bitten, the woman would have had to been isolated in quarantine until it was proven that she carried no sign of the disease which turned humans into the monsters that hunted the wastelands.
He grasped the key in his hand, pulling it up from the dust. He wondered which of the three Guardians she had stolen it from and what she had done to get it. And all for nothing, he thought. From the corner of his eye he saw movement. It was one of THEM. Quick as a rabbit it raced across the dirt and slammed against the inner gate. It paused a moment, snarling its frustration. Its pale skin almost transparent in the morning light. Its solid black eyes squinting against the breaking dawn.
Unable to speak, the man held up the key to the gate, just out of reach of the monster. He then clenched his fist around it before extending his middle finger at the creature. It hissed and then disappeared into the landscape, as they had a way of doing. The man sat in the dirt and listened to the warning bell sound. The woman’s theft had at last been detected, but too late to save her. More than likely she was already dead and being eaten by her hunters. If, by chance, they had kept her alive, they would either turn her into one of them or breed her to make a soldier that could pass for human to infiltrate the town. He had seen these things happen in the last ten years he had been a guard of the gate. Yet never once had he had an attack upon him from someone within the town itself.
“A trap” he whispered. He remembered a time, before the gated towns, before the monsters and their madness, when wild dogs roamed the wilderness outside his home. In the hot days of summer, when the drought chased prey to more hospitable lands, the dogs would hunt their more domesticated kin. A pup would be left just outside the paved roads of the city, its cries luring out a mother dog just following her instincts. And when she was within reach the rest of the pack would ambush her and drag her carcass off back home to the rest of the wild ones.
He sighed and turned away from his post. Soon he would have to notify the Guardians of what had happened. They would notify her family. Her husband would take it the hardest, though the toddler would barely remember her in a week or two. But he wondered who would nurse her baby, now that THEY had run off with his mother.
Guard of the Gate
By Plot Roach
An hour before dawn was when the crying began. It was a small thin wail at first, soon followed by a throaty yowl. A woman peeked her nose out of her home, then emerged a moment later. “Do you hear that?” she asked the guard at the gate. “I think it’s a baby.”
“Doesn’t matter what it is.” the guard said. “It ain’t getting in here.”
“But it could be in trouble.” she argued.
“If it’s outside the gate, it’s supposed to stay there.” He said. But he, too, squinted through the gate in the direction of the sound. He had a little one at home. Sarah, only a year and a half old. And he hated to think of her out there in the wastelands beyond civilization’s gate. “Whatever it is, I hope it shuts up soon.”
The woman scowled at him, and moved closer to the gate. There were in actuality two gates, the one that held civilization in, a buffer zone of ten feet, and another gate that held the wastelands and what they contained back. “Don’t get too close.” the guard warned. But with a break of ten feet away from any real danger, it was just a show. She looked as far as the vantage of the gate would allow her. The crying continued.
“I have to go out and see.” she pleaded. “What if it’s someone from one of the other cities?”
“Then why wouldn’t they have called out before now?” the man argued.
“Maybe they can’t. maybe it’s only the child left.”
“Then we’re better off without it.” the man said.
“How can you say that? Knowing that you have a daughter you’d want others to watch over should something happen to you.”
But the man kept to his post above the door to the gate, looking off into the dawn of a new day and not saying a word. The woman climbed the ladder next to him, hoping she could see better than she had on the ground. But as the crying continued, there was still no sign of movement. “Do you have any binoculars?” she asked the guard.
“Nope. Only Smith carries them, and he won’t let them out of his hands for anything. It’s the last set in the city, I’m sure of it. And he knows this too. It would make guard duty a bit better, but do you think that matters to the likes of him?”
“Do you think he’d let me borrow them to look for the baby?”
“I don’t think he’d let you borrow them to look for a pile of gold.”
“Well there’s something alive out there and we need to help it.”
“Ain’t nothing out there but a trap.”
“And I’m telling you that there is something alive out there, I can hear it!” she yelled and stalked off back into her house. He watched her go, feeling guilty himself for not insisting that they go through the gates to check it out. But they would need the key from one of the three Guardians of the town. The gates were kept locked at all times for the safety of those inside.
His eyes returned to the harsh landscape, almost of their own accord. He had been so used to his duty as a guard that he watched the land beyond the gate even when he was in his own home and off duty. A few minutes later he heard a shuffling in the dirt below the watch post and heavy footsteps climb the rungs of the latter. It was about time for someone else to take up his post. “Hey, Ed, we got something crying out there-”
He was knocked from his post by a blow to the side of the head. He fell ten feet and had the wind knocked out of him. He watched the woman pull the gate key from her pocket and slip it into the lock. He tried to call out a warning, but the words would not leave his lips. He gasped for breath and reached out to her. She looked at him apologetically and fumbled through the first gate, dropping the key in her eagerness to get to the crying child. He crawled forward through the dirt and watched her pass from the first gate and through the second. She was in the badlands now, where THEY hunted. And he would have offered up a prayer for her safe return, if he had had the air in his lungs.
“I found it! I found the baby!” she called out. The crying ceased a moment before starting again with fury. “Oh my god! It’s one of them. It’s only maybe two months old, and its got their eyes. Why would they turn a baby? It couldn’t possibly hunt for them. And it’s too young to breed and make more…”
He heard the noise of the ambush and the woman cry out in surprise, and then in pain. All the while the baby kept crying until it was taken away and its noise dwindled with the distance.
Even if she had made it back with the child, it would have been destroyed to save the others of the town. If she had not been bitten, the woman would have had to been isolated in quarantine until it was proven that she carried no sign of the disease which turned humans into the monsters that hunted the wastelands.
He grasped the key in his hand, pulling it up from the dust. He wondered which of the three Guardians she had stolen it from and what she had done to get it. And all for nothing, he thought. From the corner of his eye he saw movement. It was one of THEM. Quick as a rabbit it raced across the dirt and slammed against the inner gate. It paused a moment, snarling its frustration. Its pale skin almost transparent in the morning light. Its solid black eyes squinting against the breaking dawn.
Unable to speak, the man held up the key to the gate, just out of reach of the monster. He then clenched his fist around it before extending his middle finger at the creature. It hissed and then disappeared into the landscape, as they had a way of doing. The man sat in the dirt and listened to the warning bell sound. The woman’s theft had at last been detected, but too late to save her. More than likely she was already dead and being eaten by her hunters. If, by chance, they had kept her alive, they would either turn her into one of them or breed her to make a soldier that could pass for human to infiltrate the town. He had seen these things happen in the last ten years he had been a guard of the gate. Yet never once had he had an attack upon him from someone within the town itself.
“A trap” he whispered. He remembered a time, before the gated towns, before the monsters and their madness, when wild dogs roamed the wilderness outside his home. In the hot days of summer, when the drought chased prey to more hospitable lands, the dogs would hunt their more domesticated kin. A pup would be left just outside the paved roads of the city, its cries luring out a mother dog just following her instincts. And when she was within reach the rest of the pack would ambush her and drag her carcass off back home to the rest of the wild ones.
He sighed and turned away from his post. Soon he would have to notify the Guardians of what had happened. They would notify her family. Her husband would take it the hardest, though the toddler would barely remember her in a week or two. But he wondered who would nurse her baby, now that THEY had run off with his mother.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Peace and Quiet
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
Peace and Quiet
By Plot Roach
“I’ll only be gone a couple of hours.” Jason said, as he kissed his wife goodbye. “I just need to get this article written so that I can email it to my boss tonight. Otherwise, I won’t get paid.”
“I know, Honey. Just do your best and I’ll be here with the kids.” she said, her eyes glazed over from lack of sleep. He kissed her quickly on the cheek and made a dash for the car, in case she should change her mind. He waved goodbye, but she did not see, having already closed the door behind her.
Once in traffic, he began to feel the weight of parenthood drop off of his shoulders. It was an almost giddy sensation, tinged slightly with guilt over escaping screaming children and an irate spouse. He looked into the rearview mirror and sighed at his own reflection. He looked like a human raccoon, with dark circles under both eyes from lack of sleep. A few stains on one shoulder betrayed the spit up he received from one of the twins, Casey, when he walked her through their minute apartment in order to calm her cries before she could wake her brother, Connor.
“Gotta get this done.” he said to himself. “If I put this article off one more time, the boss is going to have my head on a silver platter and a pink slip in my fist.” He dodged through traffic at the fastest speed he dared without gambling for a speeding ticket. Within twenty minutes he was at the 'Writing Room', a studio where writers could get a little peace and quiet with a cup of coffee as they worked on their projects.
He pulled into the parking lot, almost forgetting to lock the car in his eagerness to get into the building. He lugged the laptop case behind him, feeling the weight of it and vowing that he would find a way to get more sleep and be more productive, even with the new twins.
Again, the poison of guilt rode to the surface of his thoughts, as pictures of the twins, asleep and cute, flashed in his brain. Then came the mental image of his wife, thin and beautiful, as she was before the pregnancy and birth of their offspring, not the bloated and exhausted creature she had become in the last few months. He slipped his identification card through the reader and the door rewarded him with an audible click. He rushed past reception, barely speaking: “The usual, Vicky.”
He took up his usual spot, the last office on the left of the hallway. He was close to the bathroom and the emergency exit, and far enough away from Johnson, a man who insisted on using an old fashioned typewriter, though the keys could be heard clacking through the walls of anyone unfortunate to be seated next to his office. Why can’t the old man join the new century, he thought. Laptop keys are much more quiet. He unpacked his laptop and plugged the power cord into the wall. Next to come out of the case were the gel wrist pad and the optical mouse. A few other odd bits and pieces exited the bag, including a number two pencil that had been chewed until most of the yellow paint had fallen off. This Jason put behind one ear. It was his good luck charm. Anytime he became frustrated with a piece he was writing on, he would slip the pencil in his mouth and chew on it a bit, relieving some of the tension, though at times it added yellow bits of paint in the crevices of his teeth.
A light tap was followed by his studio door opening, Vicky held out the coffee mug. “One cream and three sugars.” she said, smiling as he nodded his thanks. His hands were already flying on the keys, the article being summoned by his sheer force of will. He was well within his ‘zone’ when the music that was piped through the offices as ‘white noise’ switched from a naturescape with accompanying piano to a new piece he had never heard before.
It stared off with the noise of cars, engines revving, gears changing and even a honking horn or two. Then came the sounds of people talking. And last there were the babies. The unmistakable cries of newborns that haunted his nights and ruled his waking hours. Babies crying! Anything but babies crying! And they are worse than my own children, he thought. And summoned once again to his mind came the crying faces of his children and the screaming face of his beloved wife. He had left them less than an hour earlier, but here they were in his little sanctuary. Gone was the writing mojo that he had summoned like some godlike muse to help him finish his article and beat the last deadline. The last line he typed stood out like a skeletal limb of a tree against a hellish winter storm. It hung there in cyberspace, flaccid and fruitless.
He took several deep breaths, trying to summon the courage and tranquility to start again. But it was pointless, all he could focus upon was the family that he had left behind. “Vicky!” he called, perhaps a bit too shrill.
“Yes, Mr. Hannover?”
“What is THIS that is playing over the speakers?”
“Oh, that. It’s called ‘Sounds of the City‘. Some of our other residents said that they couldn’t concentrate with the tranquil things that we play here, so we decided to play something that they were used to. You know, sounds that remind them of home.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s locked into the system and the computer to change it is at an offsite location.”
“So when will it stop on its own?”
“Not for another six hours, I’m afraid.”
Jason began to pack up his laptop, throwing the other items haphazardly into the case after it. “What’s wrong?” Vicky asked.
“I’m going home.” he said, almost snapping his lucky pencil between his hands. “Where I can get some peace and quiet.”
Peace and Quiet
By Plot Roach
“I’ll only be gone a couple of hours.” Jason said, as he kissed his wife goodbye. “I just need to get this article written so that I can email it to my boss tonight. Otherwise, I won’t get paid.”
“I know, Honey. Just do your best and I’ll be here with the kids.” she said, her eyes glazed over from lack of sleep. He kissed her quickly on the cheek and made a dash for the car, in case she should change her mind. He waved goodbye, but she did not see, having already closed the door behind her.
Once in traffic, he began to feel the weight of parenthood drop off of his shoulders. It was an almost giddy sensation, tinged slightly with guilt over escaping screaming children and an irate spouse. He looked into the rearview mirror and sighed at his own reflection. He looked like a human raccoon, with dark circles under both eyes from lack of sleep. A few stains on one shoulder betrayed the spit up he received from one of the twins, Casey, when he walked her through their minute apartment in order to calm her cries before she could wake her brother, Connor.
“Gotta get this done.” he said to himself. “If I put this article off one more time, the boss is going to have my head on a silver platter and a pink slip in my fist.” He dodged through traffic at the fastest speed he dared without gambling for a speeding ticket. Within twenty minutes he was at the 'Writing Room', a studio where writers could get a little peace and quiet with a cup of coffee as they worked on their projects.
He pulled into the parking lot, almost forgetting to lock the car in his eagerness to get into the building. He lugged the laptop case behind him, feeling the weight of it and vowing that he would find a way to get more sleep and be more productive, even with the new twins.
Again, the poison of guilt rode to the surface of his thoughts, as pictures of the twins, asleep and cute, flashed in his brain. Then came the mental image of his wife, thin and beautiful, as she was before the pregnancy and birth of their offspring, not the bloated and exhausted creature she had become in the last few months. He slipped his identification card through the reader and the door rewarded him with an audible click. He rushed past reception, barely speaking: “The usual, Vicky.”
He took up his usual spot, the last office on the left of the hallway. He was close to the bathroom and the emergency exit, and far enough away from Johnson, a man who insisted on using an old fashioned typewriter, though the keys could be heard clacking through the walls of anyone unfortunate to be seated next to his office. Why can’t the old man join the new century, he thought. Laptop keys are much more quiet. He unpacked his laptop and plugged the power cord into the wall. Next to come out of the case were the gel wrist pad and the optical mouse. A few other odd bits and pieces exited the bag, including a number two pencil that had been chewed until most of the yellow paint had fallen off. This Jason put behind one ear. It was his good luck charm. Anytime he became frustrated with a piece he was writing on, he would slip the pencil in his mouth and chew on it a bit, relieving some of the tension, though at times it added yellow bits of paint in the crevices of his teeth.
A light tap was followed by his studio door opening, Vicky held out the coffee mug. “One cream and three sugars.” she said, smiling as he nodded his thanks. His hands were already flying on the keys, the article being summoned by his sheer force of will. He was well within his ‘zone’ when the music that was piped through the offices as ‘white noise’ switched from a naturescape with accompanying piano to a new piece he had never heard before.
It stared off with the noise of cars, engines revving, gears changing and even a honking horn or two. Then came the sounds of people talking. And last there were the babies. The unmistakable cries of newborns that haunted his nights and ruled his waking hours. Babies crying! Anything but babies crying! And they are worse than my own children, he thought. And summoned once again to his mind came the crying faces of his children and the screaming face of his beloved wife. He had left them less than an hour earlier, but here they were in his little sanctuary. Gone was the writing mojo that he had summoned like some godlike muse to help him finish his article and beat the last deadline. The last line he typed stood out like a skeletal limb of a tree against a hellish winter storm. It hung there in cyberspace, flaccid and fruitless.
He took several deep breaths, trying to summon the courage and tranquility to start again. But it was pointless, all he could focus upon was the family that he had left behind. “Vicky!” he called, perhaps a bit too shrill.
“Yes, Mr. Hannover?”
“What is THIS that is playing over the speakers?”
“Oh, that. It’s called ‘Sounds of the City‘. Some of our other residents said that they couldn’t concentrate with the tranquil things that we play here, so we decided to play something that they were used to. You know, sounds that remind them of home.”
“Can you turn it off?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s locked into the system and the computer to change it is at an offsite location.”
“So when will it stop on its own?”
“Not for another six hours, I’m afraid.”
Jason began to pack up his laptop, throwing the other items haphazardly into the case after it. “What’s wrong?” Vicky asked.
“I’m going home.” he said, almost snapping his lucky pencil between his hands. “Where I can get some peace and quiet.”
Sunday, July 10, 2011
The Burgundy Bag
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright ã 2011 Plot Roach.
The Burgundy Bag
By Plot Roach
The bag sat at the corner of the blanket. It was nothing special that Jessica could think of, but it somehow stuck out from the rest of the others. Deep burgundy in color with black edging and black metal zippers. The material was a thin canvas weave, and the arms straps had barely any padding. But it was how the bag was decorated that gave it the most personality. It was covered in handwriting done in black Sharpie marker. Most of it she could not understand, but a few of the lines appeared to be sections of a poem. She knew that she liked what it said, but she could not remember the words a few seconds after she took her eyes off of the bag. If she stared hard enough at the writing, the bag appeared to move, almost as if it was breathing. That’s silly, she told herself. It can’t be alive. But she hesitated to reach for the bag, afraid that it might bite her.
“See something you like?” the man asked. He had his things for sale spread out on an old Army blanket. There were others vendors like him doing the same, their goods laid out on blankets or sheets to keep them off of the grass and to establish their selling area.
“What about that backpack?” she asked.
The man squinted down at the bag. “It’s not for sale.” he said and snatched the bag off of the blanket. “I don’t know how it got there, but it belongs to me.”
“I know it belongs to you, that’s why I asked how much it was.”
“It’s still not for sale.”
“Okay, fine.” Jessica said and moved to the next blanket. She knew how this worked. He wanted more money for the bag and would tell her it was not for sale so that when he finally relented, she would pay what he asked and not haggle over the price. A few steps into the next vendor’s territory, and he called out to her.
“I’ve got other fine bags, young lady.”
“I’m sure that you do.” she answered. “But I was wondering about that one.”
“You don’t want this one.”
“Then why did I ask about it?”
He sighed and waved her off. She shrugged and visited the rest of the vendors, but nothing caught her eye quite like the burgundy backpack. It was all that she could think about, and her eyes kept darting back to his blanket, hoping that he would not sell it to anyone else.
She watched from afar, and while the man did a few sales that day, he was nowhere as busy as the other vendors. She thought that would make him want to part with the bag even more. A few times someone would ask the man a question and he would reach into his burgundy bag and produce an item. The customer would smile and nod, and money would change hands.
She tried to put the bag out of her mind, but could not. At the end of the day, when the vendors were collecting what was left of their goods. Jessica walked past the man, eyeing the bag. Maybe I’ll ask him one more time, she thought. Maybe he’ll change his mind. She hovered just within sight of him. He bundled up his blanket, and started to transfer his things to the beaten up old van he had parked on the corner of the lot. She followed at a distance, trying not to look conspicuous. He opened the squeaking doors of the van and started to pile his things in. When his attention was elsewhere, she snatched the burgundy backpack from the ground and walked away. She forced herself not to run, because she was sure that it would draw attention to herself.
She heard the man yell a moment later and call out for help. “Someone stole my bag!” He was telling another vendor what it looked like and Jessica moved a little quicker away, hiding in a nearby building until the commotion died down and she could move on in peace.
Why did I do that? She asked herself, looking down at the backpack in her hands. I could go to jail for this. All for some dumb bag that looks like a kid wrote all over it. I don’t even like burgundy. It would have been better if it was all black instead.
As her hands ceased shaking from the adrenaline of her theft, she noticed that the burgundy of the bag began to darken. Black, she thought, it’s becoming black. And five minutes later, the back was a solid black color. Though the writing was still there, just another shade darker than the background color of the bag.
What is this? She asked herself. Then she heard voices coming towards her. “Have you seen a burgundy bag with black writing on it?” a woman asked. “A man outside said that it was stolen from him and we’re trying to get it back.”
“Sorry,” Jessica said. “I haven’t seen one here.” And while she was not completely truthful, she was not completely lying either. The only bag currently to be seen in this building was now black. A few minutes later, the good Samaritan moved on and Jessica snuck out the back of the building and ran toward her car.
She paused long enough to search for her keys in her purse, only to discover that she had locked them in the car. Of all the rotten luck. If only I had a backup set in my bag, she thought. Then I wouldn’t have to call a locksmith.
As she moved away from the car, she heard a distinctive jingle from the inside of the backpack. On a hunch she reached inside and pulled out a set of keys. “No”, she said aloud, “it couldn’t be.” But when she examined the main key, it looked just like the door key to her car. She put it into the lock and a moment later was rewarded when the door to her car popped open.
She sat in the driver’s seat, her mind racing. “I want a thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills.” she said, reaching into the bag. But her hand only came into contact with the canvas of the bag. Maybe it can’t do money, she thought. Maybe it can only do things. I want an ice cold diet Coke, in a can. She felt the bag gain a little weight and put her hand once again into the bag, pulling out her request. She popped the top open on the soda and took a long swig. It tasted just like the real thing, but where had it come from? And why could the bag manifest a cold soda, but not a stack of cash? Obviously the bag had some limitations, and Jessica was going to have fun finding them out.
The Burgundy Bag
By Plot Roach
The bag sat at the corner of the blanket. It was nothing special that Jessica could think of, but it somehow stuck out from the rest of the others. Deep burgundy in color with black edging and black metal zippers. The material was a thin canvas weave, and the arms straps had barely any padding. But it was how the bag was decorated that gave it the most personality. It was covered in handwriting done in black Sharpie marker. Most of it she could not understand, but a few of the lines appeared to be sections of a poem. She knew that she liked what it said, but she could not remember the words a few seconds after she took her eyes off of the bag. If she stared hard enough at the writing, the bag appeared to move, almost as if it was breathing. That’s silly, she told herself. It can’t be alive. But she hesitated to reach for the bag, afraid that it might bite her.
“See something you like?” the man asked. He had his things for sale spread out on an old Army blanket. There were others vendors like him doing the same, their goods laid out on blankets or sheets to keep them off of the grass and to establish their selling area.
“What about that backpack?” she asked.
The man squinted down at the bag. “It’s not for sale.” he said and snatched the bag off of the blanket. “I don’t know how it got there, but it belongs to me.”
“I know it belongs to you, that’s why I asked how much it was.”
“It’s still not for sale.”
“Okay, fine.” Jessica said and moved to the next blanket. She knew how this worked. He wanted more money for the bag and would tell her it was not for sale so that when he finally relented, she would pay what he asked and not haggle over the price. A few steps into the next vendor’s territory, and he called out to her.
“I’ve got other fine bags, young lady.”
“I’m sure that you do.” she answered. “But I was wondering about that one.”
“You don’t want this one.”
“Then why did I ask about it?”
He sighed and waved her off. She shrugged and visited the rest of the vendors, but nothing caught her eye quite like the burgundy backpack. It was all that she could think about, and her eyes kept darting back to his blanket, hoping that he would not sell it to anyone else.
She watched from afar, and while the man did a few sales that day, he was nowhere as busy as the other vendors. She thought that would make him want to part with the bag even more. A few times someone would ask the man a question and he would reach into his burgundy bag and produce an item. The customer would smile and nod, and money would change hands.
She tried to put the bag out of her mind, but could not. At the end of the day, when the vendors were collecting what was left of their goods. Jessica walked past the man, eyeing the bag. Maybe I’ll ask him one more time, she thought. Maybe he’ll change his mind. She hovered just within sight of him. He bundled up his blanket, and started to transfer his things to the beaten up old van he had parked on the corner of the lot. She followed at a distance, trying not to look conspicuous. He opened the squeaking doors of the van and started to pile his things in. When his attention was elsewhere, she snatched the burgundy backpack from the ground and walked away. She forced herself not to run, because she was sure that it would draw attention to herself.
She heard the man yell a moment later and call out for help. “Someone stole my bag!” He was telling another vendor what it looked like and Jessica moved a little quicker away, hiding in a nearby building until the commotion died down and she could move on in peace.
Why did I do that? She asked herself, looking down at the backpack in her hands. I could go to jail for this. All for some dumb bag that looks like a kid wrote all over it. I don’t even like burgundy. It would have been better if it was all black instead.
As her hands ceased shaking from the adrenaline of her theft, she noticed that the burgundy of the bag began to darken. Black, she thought, it’s becoming black. And five minutes later, the back was a solid black color. Though the writing was still there, just another shade darker than the background color of the bag.
What is this? She asked herself. Then she heard voices coming towards her. “Have you seen a burgundy bag with black writing on it?” a woman asked. “A man outside said that it was stolen from him and we’re trying to get it back.”
“Sorry,” Jessica said. “I haven’t seen one here.” And while she was not completely truthful, she was not completely lying either. The only bag currently to be seen in this building was now black. A few minutes later, the good Samaritan moved on and Jessica snuck out the back of the building and ran toward her car.
She paused long enough to search for her keys in her purse, only to discover that she had locked them in the car. Of all the rotten luck. If only I had a backup set in my bag, she thought. Then I wouldn’t have to call a locksmith.
As she moved away from the car, she heard a distinctive jingle from the inside of the backpack. On a hunch she reached inside and pulled out a set of keys. “No”, she said aloud, “it couldn’t be.” But when she examined the main key, it looked just like the door key to her car. She put it into the lock and a moment later was rewarded when the door to her car popped open.
She sat in the driver’s seat, her mind racing. “I want a thousand dollars in twenty dollar bills.” she said, reaching into the bag. But her hand only came into contact with the canvas of the bag. Maybe it can’t do money, she thought. Maybe it can only do things. I want an ice cold diet Coke, in a can. She felt the bag gain a little weight and put her hand once again into the bag, pulling out her request. She popped the top open on the soda and took a long swig. It tasted just like the real thing, but where had it come from? And why could the bag manifest a cold soda, but not a stack of cash? Obviously the bag had some limitations, and Jessica was going to have fun finding them out.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Oralgasm
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.
Oralgasm
By Plot Roach
She stared at the bottom of the red and black lacquered wooden tray. It showed a volcano pumping its fury into the sky. The strokes of the artist spoke of peace and tranquility, where the subject matter did not. Tiffany moved onto the next exhibit, where the artist had sculpted lovers out of barbed wire.
“Ever feel like this is just so much crap, and the public pretends that it’s art?” she asked her companion.
“Now, now. You know that it’s real art.” Ben said, pointing to a white canvas hanging on a wall beside them. “You know these came from some very angst ridden college kids just dying to waste their parent’s well earned money on tuition.”
“And art supplies.” Tiffany said, eyeing a piece on a pedestal which was nothing more than smashed tubes of acrylic paint glued together into a mass. “We really have to stop torturing ourselves by coming to these things.”
“But then who would write the drabble about these art shows to go onto the back section of the local paper?”
They wandered amongst the other patrons of the museum, woefully out of place in slacks and dress shirts, while those around them wore suits and dresses that were worth more money then the two reporters could make in a month. Groups of the well to do congregated at some of the more odd looking pieces, lecturing one another in their knowledge of art and the hip trends of the moment.
“Am I missing something?” Tiffany asked, snapping another photograph of the paint tube sculpture.
“If you are, I’m missing it too.” Ben admitted. “It’s not so much that these people are talking to one another as vomiting their critiques without waiting for an audience.” And as they watched, a man walked past them, talking to himself about the barbed wire couple in the corner.
As they walked further through the building, they came across a sign reading: "This way to the 'Oralgasm.'" They passed several of the Well-to-do critics who rushed away into the opposite direction, hissing their displeasure at the exhibit. “This must be good if THEY don’t like it.” Ben said, pulling Tiffany along by her elbow. Along the way were smeared food stains. A foot print of syrup here, a section of a chocolate éclair embedded into a wall there. Ben rushed ahead to the main display while Tiffany trailed behind taking pictures of the culinary carnage.
“Is that cookie dough on the ceiling?” she asked Ben, her camera snapping away under the florescent lights.
“Don’t look down.” he said. But it was too late.
“Oh my God.”
There, in the center of a massive pile of mangled junk food, the Pillsbury Doughboy was frozen in a compromising position with an Aunt Jemima syrup bottle. A small brass plaque hung off the Doughboy’s member. Ben leaned forward and read it aloud:
“Oralgasm: The experience in which a taste is so pleasurably overwhelming that it must be uttered aloud so that everyone present may experience it in some sensual form.”
Oralgasm
By Plot Roach
She stared at the bottom of the red and black lacquered wooden tray. It showed a volcano pumping its fury into the sky. The strokes of the artist spoke of peace and tranquility, where the subject matter did not. Tiffany moved onto the next exhibit, where the artist had sculpted lovers out of barbed wire.
“Ever feel like this is just so much crap, and the public pretends that it’s art?” she asked her companion.
“Now, now. You know that it’s real art.” Ben said, pointing to a white canvas hanging on a wall beside them. “You know these came from some very angst ridden college kids just dying to waste their parent’s well earned money on tuition.”
“And art supplies.” Tiffany said, eyeing a piece on a pedestal which was nothing more than smashed tubes of acrylic paint glued together into a mass. “We really have to stop torturing ourselves by coming to these things.”
“But then who would write the drabble about these art shows to go onto the back section of the local paper?”
They wandered amongst the other patrons of the museum, woefully out of place in slacks and dress shirts, while those around them wore suits and dresses that were worth more money then the two reporters could make in a month. Groups of the well to do congregated at some of the more odd looking pieces, lecturing one another in their knowledge of art and the hip trends of the moment.
“Am I missing something?” Tiffany asked, snapping another photograph of the paint tube sculpture.
“If you are, I’m missing it too.” Ben admitted. “It’s not so much that these people are talking to one another as vomiting their critiques without waiting for an audience.” And as they watched, a man walked past them, talking to himself about the barbed wire couple in the corner.
As they walked further through the building, they came across a sign reading: "This way to the 'Oralgasm.'" They passed several of the Well-to-do critics who rushed away into the opposite direction, hissing their displeasure at the exhibit. “This must be good if THEY don’t like it.” Ben said, pulling Tiffany along by her elbow. Along the way were smeared food stains. A foot print of syrup here, a section of a chocolate éclair embedded into a wall there. Ben rushed ahead to the main display while Tiffany trailed behind taking pictures of the culinary carnage.
“Is that cookie dough on the ceiling?” she asked Ben, her camera snapping away under the florescent lights.
“Don’t look down.” he said. But it was too late.
“Oh my God.”
There, in the center of a massive pile of mangled junk food, the Pillsbury Doughboy was frozen in a compromising position with an Aunt Jemima syrup bottle. A small brass plaque hung off the Doughboy’s member. Ben leaned forward and read it aloud:
“Oralgasm: The experience in which a taste is so pleasurably overwhelming that it must be uttered aloud so that everyone present may experience it in some sensual form.”
Friday, July 8, 2011
Rocko’s Visitor
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.
Rocko’s Visitor
By Plot Roach
Finding a huge bear eating your dog's food is never a good thing…
Last night I put my malamute, Rocko, in the backyard. I chained him up as well because I hadn’t had the chance to fix the hole he dug up next to the fence. I woke at three in the morning with Rocko barking his head off and the chain rattling like a ghost with seizures. I stuck my head out of the window and saw Rocko backed up on the porch. Which is odd for him, because when there’s trouble, he’s always the first to be in the middle of it. I’ve had to break up more fights with this dog than I care to admit, most of the time with other dogs, a few times with raccoons and at least once with a porcupine. He got stuck from head to toe with quills from the last one, but still he refused to give up until he sent the prickly bastard running and damn near bald of its spikes.
So when Rocko is on the porch, backing away from the source of the disturbance, something is deadly wrong in his world. I threw on a jacket over my pajamas and headed for the back door, pausing long enough to grab the baseball bat out of the closet, just in case it was something bigger than an irate raccoon. As it turns out, I was right.
I saw the big brown form of something roughly larger than a man, stooping over my knocked over garbage cans. Most of the contents had been strewn across the yard, and I counted to ten before I let my breath out. If I started yelling now at the thing that made the mess I might get myself, and Rocko, into more trouble then I could easily get us out of. I knew that bears had come into this area before, but I hadn’t heard of any traveling down into my neighborhood within the last ten years. So it must have been a really hungry and brave bear to make it to my neck of the woods, what with every person on my block owning a dog or two. By this time, all the dogs were barking with full force, as if they could attack it with their breath if they couldn’t reach it with their teeth.
So with a hungry and brazen bear eating last week’s leftovers on my lawn, I slipped back inside the house, pulling the overzealous Rocko behind me. I called animal control and the police, just to be on the safe side. And proceeded to watch the animal through the sliding glass door of my living room.
It moved at a slow pace, lumbering through the yard from one pile to the next, pawing through the debris as if weighting the culinary compost with the palate of a food critic. A pinch of this, a mouthful of that, it experimented with the odd bits of food to find what it liked most before hunkering down and making a meal of it. He had even gobbled the kibble I keep in the bowl out front for Rocko when I chain him next to the tree. I heard sirens in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the police cars pull up. No one came out of the vehicles. They were probably waiting for animal control to assist them, I told myself. They watched the bear with some fascination. After about twenty minutes of sampling my garbage, the great beast began to move off to the bushes. If they don’t stop him now, he’ll be in someone else’s yard soon, I told myself as I waited anxiously to see what the police would do.
But then the bear stopped, pulled himself upright and began to water my bushes. And not with the sprinklers, if you know what I mean. I didn’t know that bears peed while standing up like a man. And that they had such good aim. Once finished, the bear scratched himself, belched loudly and began to walk away -still upright like a man.
One of the officers in the car rolled down a window and whistled to get the bear’s attention before throwing a candy bar at it. Maybe he was trying to keep it in the area so that they could keep an eye on it, maybe he just wanted to see the bear up close. But none of us expected what happened next.
The bear reached down to the ground, snagged the candy bar in one paw and turned to the vehicle. “You could have left the wrapper on to keep the dirt off of it.” it said. And then it brought the candy bar to its head. Only then did we see that the muzzle was not chewing, but frozen in place.
It was a man in a bear suit. Not one of those fuzzy fake fur suits you see school mascots wearing at sports events. But an actual bear hide turned into something he could wear.
“Eugene?” one of the officers asked from the front of the car. The bear-man nodded, still eating the candy bar. The police, now seeing that our intruder was human instead of the actual animal, exited the vehicle and placed the man under arrest. Rocko was still barking at him through the glass and I was glad when they carted him off in the back of their police cruiser.
A day later the whole story came out in the local newspaper. It seemed that ‘Eugene’ was a taxidermist two towns over and like to participate in Live Action Role Playing, otherwise known as “Larps”. A group of players had gotten together over the weekend for a meeting and Eugene had been running around in his bear suit being the enchanted prince of who-knows-where when the game ran a little long and they decided to quit for the night. Evidently the bear suit was a real… well, bear of a thing to get on and off, so he left it on. They began drinking, as most campers do in the woods, and Eugene kind of wandered off, still playing at being a bear.
As it turns out, Rocko may have saved his life by barking at him and alerting me. There are a lot of hunters in the area who would have loved to own a bear skin like that and would have shot Eugene in ‘self defense’ without knowing that it was really a human that they were taking aim at.
The whole thing wasn’t a total loss, however, as the Larping group asked Rocko and myself to join. It turns out that when Eugene was sampling my garbage he ran across the leftovers of my homemade lemon meringue pie and hasn’t stopped raving about it since. Though he also ate dog food from Rocko’s bowl, so I don’t really know how much of a compliment that is.
Rocko’s Visitor
By Plot Roach
Finding a huge bear eating your dog's food is never a good thing…
Last night I put my malamute, Rocko, in the backyard. I chained him up as well because I hadn’t had the chance to fix the hole he dug up next to the fence. I woke at three in the morning with Rocko barking his head off and the chain rattling like a ghost with seizures. I stuck my head out of the window and saw Rocko backed up on the porch. Which is odd for him, because when there’s trouble, he’s always the first to be in the middle of it. I’ve had to break up more fights with this dog than I care to admit, most of the time with other dogs, a few times with raccoons and at least once with a porcupine. He got stuck from head to toe with quills from the last one, but still he refused to give up until he sent the prickly bastard running and damn near bald of its spikes.
So when Rocko is on the porch, backing away from the source of the disturbance, something is deadly wrong in his world. I threw on a jacket over my pajamas and headed for the back door, pausing long enough to grab the baseball bat out of the closet, just in case it was something bigger than an irate raccoon. As it turns out, I was right.
I saw the big brown form of something roughly larger than a man, stooping over my knocked over garbage cans. Most of the contents had been strewn across the yard, and I counted to ten before I let my breath out. If I started yelling now at the thing that made the mess I might get myself, and Rocko, into more trouble then I could easily get us out of. I knew that bears had come into this area before, but I hadn’t heard of any traveling down into my neighborhood within the last ten years. So it must have been a really hungry and brave bear to make it to my neck of the woods, what with every person on my block owning a dog or two. By this time, all the dogs were barking with full force, as if they could attack it with their breath if they couldn’t reach it with their teeth.
So with a hungry and brazen bear eating last week’s leftovers on my lawn, I slipped back inside the house, pulling the overzealous Rocko behind me. I called animal control and the police, just to be on the safe side. And proceeded to watch the animal through the sliding glass door of my living room.
It moved at a slow pace, lumbering through the yard from one pile to the next, pawing through the debris as if weighting the culinary compost with the palate of a food critic. A pinch of this, a mouthful of that, it experimented with the odd bits of food to find what it liked most before hunkering down and making a meal of it. He had even gobbled the kibble I keep in the bowl out front for Rocko when I chain him next to the tree. I heard sirens in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the police cars pull up. No one came out of the vehicles. They were probably waiting for animal control to assist them, I told myself. They watched the bear with some fascination. After about twenty minutes of sampling my garbage, the great beast began to move off to the bushes. If they don’t stop him now, he’ll be in someone else’s yard soon, I told myself as I waited anxiously to see what the police would do.
But then the bear stopped, pulled himself upright and began to water my bushes. And not with the sprinklers, if you know what I mean. I didn’t know that bears peed while standing up like a man. And that they had such good aim. Once finished, the bear scratched himself, belched loudly and began to walk away -still upright like a man.
One of the officers in the car rolled down a window and whistled to get the bear’s attention before throwing a candy bar at it. Maybe he was trying to keep it in the area so that they could keep an eye on it, maybe he just wanted to see the bear up close. But none of us expected what happened next.
The bear reached down to the ground, snagged the candy bar in one paw and turned to the vehicle. “You could have left the wrapper on to keep the dirt off of it.” it said. And then it brought the candy bar to its head. Only then did we see that the muzzle was not chewing, but frozen in place.
It was a man in a bear suit. Not one of those fuzzy fake fur suits you see school mascots wearing at sports events. But an actual bear hide turned into something he could wear.
“Eugene?” one of the officers asked from the front of the car. The bear-man nodded, still eating the candy bar. The police, now seeing that our intruder was human instead of the actual animal, exited the vehicle and placed the man under arrest. Rocko was still barking at him through the glass and I was glad when they carted him off in the back of their police cruiser.
A day later the whole story came out in the local newspaper. It seemed that ‘Eugene’ was a taxidermist two towns over and like to participate in Live Action Role Playing, otherwise known as “Larps”. A group of players had gotten together over the weekend for a meeting and Eugene had been running around in his bear suit being the enchanted prince of who-knows-where when the game ran a little long and they decided to quit for the night. Evidently the bear suit was a real… well, bear of a thing to get on and off, so he left it on. They began drinking, as most campers do in the woods, and Eugene kind of wandered off, still playing at being a bear.
As it turns out, Rocko may have saved his life by barking at him and alerting me. There are a lot of hunters in the area who would have loved to own a bear skin like that and would have shot Eugene in ‘self defense’ without knowing that it was really a human that they were taking aim at.
The whole thing wasn’t a total loss, however, as the Larping group asked Rocko and myself to join. It turns out that when Eugene was sampling my garbage he ran across the leftovers of my homemade lemon meringue pie and hasn’t stopped raving about it since. Though he also ate dog food from Rocko’s bowl, so I don’t really know how much of a compliment that is.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
No Returns For Any Reason
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.
No Returns For Any Reason
By Plot Roach
I wondered how much damage I could do with a plastic spork, if given the appropriate target. I was at work at the time, in the middle of an eight hour shift working retail at my crappy mall job. It was the fourth of July weekend and somehow I had pissed off my supervisor enough that she put me on the holiday shift. We were in the middle of an hour of dead time, with little or nothing to do, as customers were off stuffing their faces at the food court. There was a free sample dinner at Colonial Joe’s Chicken Café and it seemed like every broke trashy idiot in the state was taking advantage of it. If the owner of the café did not go bankrupt from it, he would be facing angry letters from customers and employees alike for the greasy cardboard he tried to pawn off as food and the skeletal crew he employed to try and handle the mass of people and their ill tempers.
Soon it would be my mess to deal with. With greasy fingers and in a drunken rage, these “customers” would gather in my store demanding specialty discounts and freebie samples. And if I did not comply, I would be the bad guy.
I work retail. I am always the bad guy. I constantly tempt people into buying crap that they do not need. And what is worse: I suggest that they use credit to afford it, even if they don’t have the pocket change to take the bus home. And I can help them with that, too. Because I can give them cash back. And the store takes a cut, of course.
And when they get the crap home and decide it’s not as pretty, doesn’t make them happy or any of the other things that I promised, they try and bring it back. And then I am forced to plaster a smile on my face, apologize for their unhappiness and point to the sign that reads: NO RETURNS FOR ANY REASON. And the moment will end with the customer cursing me out, and then threatening to get me fired, or worse, follow me home and kill me.
I hate my job, but I hate the customers more. Most of them are only here ‘just looking’, sucking up the air conditioning and asking me where everything is made and if every little symbol painted or stitched into something has some deep spiritual meaning that can alter their lives in a way that drugs, religion or good sex cannot. They’re cheap, they’re loud and they walk around the mall treating all the workers like their own personal slaves. There’s one specific jerk who tries everything to return whatever he buys, the day after he buys it. It happens at least once a week, and sometimes as much as three times a week.
So when I saw him slink in, clutching that little white plastic bag with the store’s logo on it, I knew what he was going to do. He walked up to the front register, where I had been perched like a stone gargoyle for the past half hour trying to eat my lunch, smelling of alcohol with his hands coated in chicken grease. And the bastard had the balls to smile at me as he said: “There was a problem with me last purchase. I need to return it.”
“I’m sorry, sir. As you already know, here at the Knickknack Hut, we are unable to take returns. We suggest you take your complaint to corporate and in the future, review your purchase better before payment.” it’s the standard schlock I’m trained to say. If I deviate for it for even one syllable, I’ll be fired on the a spot.
“I thought that you would say that.” he said, and then pulled out a gun.
I don’t think of myself as jaded, but I think he was expecting more of a reaction from me than the yawn I gave him. It’s not that I wasn’t afraid. It was just that I had been working a full shift on top of taking a full load of classes at the local community college. No sleep + full time stress + idiot customers = please kill me. The math seemed sound enough. We have no security button, like the banks do, hidden under the front counter. And I would have to turn around to grab the phone, letting him have the chance to shoot me in the back. So I took the only shot I had: I pulled the spork from my mashed potato sample that one of the employees had brought over from Colonial Joe’s Chicken Café and stabbed him in the eye.
And let me tell you, he hit the floor like drunken teenage girl at prom. At first I thought that he was just stunned, then I saw the pool of blood spread out from beneath his head. Security later confirmed that he must have been dead before he hit the floor. I was so stressed at the time, that I drove the plastic spork with such force that it traveled through the eyeball and deep into his brain.
The police told me that it was the quick thinking on my part that probably saved countless lives if he had gone on a killing spree throughout the mall. The workers I would hate to see hurt, but the mall shoppers could do with a little thinning of the herd. The police were on the record that I did it in self defense, but I wasn’t so sure. If you’ve looked into the eyes of the mall worker who is selling things to you when you are being ’irate’, I mean REALLY look into them, thoughts of killing come as easily as the smile they have to plaster on their faces as they are forced to parrot the line: “Thank you, and have a nice day!”
No Returns For Any Reason
By Plot Roach
I wondered how much damage I could do with a plastic spork, if given the appropriate target. I was at work at the time, in the middle of an eight hour shift working retail at my crappy mall job. It was the fourth of July weekend and somehow I had pissed off my supervisor enough that she put me on the holiday shift. We were in the middle of an hour of dead time, with little or nothing to do, as customers were off stuffing their faces at the food court. There was a free sample dinner at Colonial Joe’s Chicken Café and it seemed like every broke trashy idiot in the state was taking advantage of it. If the owner of the café did not go bankrupt from it, he would be facing angry letters from customers and employees alike for the greasy cardboard he tried to pawn off as food and the skeletal crew he employed to try and handle the mass of people and their ill tempers.
Soon it would be my mess to deal with. With greasy fingers and in a drunken rage, these “customers” would gather in my store demanding specialty discounts and freebie samples. And if I did not comply, I would be the bad guy.
I work retail. I am always the bad guy. I constantly tempt people into buying crap that they do not need. And what is worse: I suggest that they use credit to afford it, even if they don’t have the pocket change to take the bus home. And I can help them with that, too. Because I can give them cash back. And the store takes a cut, of course.
And when they get the crap home and decide it’s not as pretty, doesn’t make them happy or any of the other things that I promised, they try and bring it back. And then I am forced to plaster a smile on my face, apologize for their unhappiness and point to the sign that reads: NO RETURNS FOR ANY REASON. And the moment will end with the customer cursing me out, and then threatening to get me fired, or worse, follow me home and kill me.
I hate my job, but I hate the customers more. Most of them are only here ‘just looking’, sucking up the air conditioning and asking me where everything is made and if every little symbol painted or stitched into something has some deep spiritual meaning that can alter their lives in a way that drugs, religion or good sex cannot. They’re cheap, they’re loud and they walk around the mall treating all the workers like their own personal slaves. There’s one specific jerk who tries everything to return whatever he buys, the day after he buys it. It happens at least once a week, and sometimes as much as three times a week.
So when I saw him slink in, clutching that little white plastic bag with the store’s logo on it, I knew what he was going to do. He walked up to the front register, where I had been perched like a stone gargoyle for the past half hour trying to eat my lunch, smelling of alcohol with his hands coated in chicken grease. And the bastard had the balls to smile at me as he said: “There was a problem with me last purchase. I need to return it.”
“I’m sorry, sir. As you already know, here at the Knickknack Hut, we are unable to take returns. We suggest you take your complaint to corporate and in the future, review your purchase better before payment.” it’s the standard schlock I’m trained to say. If I deviate for it for even one syllable, I’ll be fired on the a spot.
“I thought that you would say that.” he said, and then pulled out a gun.
I don’t think of myself as jaded, but I think he was expecting more of a reaction from me than the yawn I gave him. It’s not that I wasn’t afraid. It was just that I had been working a full shift on top of taking a full load of classes at the local community college. No sleep + full time stress + idiot customers = please kill me. The math seemed sound enough. We have no security button, like the banks do, hidden under the front counter. And I would have to turn around to grab the phone, letting him have the chance to shoot me in the back. So I took the only shot I had: I pulled the spork from my mashed potato sample that one of the employees had brought over from Colonial Joe’s Chicken Café and stabbed him in the eye.
And let me tell you, he hit the floor like drunken teenage girl at prom. At first I thought that he was just stunned, then I saw the pool of blood spread out from beneath his head. Security later confirmed that he must have been dead before he hit the floor. I was so stressed at the time, that I drove the plastic spork with such force that it traveled through the eyeball and deep into his brain.
The police told me that it was the quick thinking on my part that probably saved countless lives if he had gone on a killing spree throughout the mall. The workers I would hate to see hurt, but the mall shoppers could do with a little thinning of the herd. The police were on the record that I did it in self defense, but I wasn’t so sure. If you’ve looked into the eyes of the mall worker who is selling things to you when you are being ’irate’, I mean REALLY look into them, thoughts of killing come as easily as the smile they have to plaster on their faces as they are forced to parrot the line: “Thank you, and have a nice day!”
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
A Long Wait
This is a work of fiction. No real people, places or events were used. Copyright 2011 Plot Roach.
A Long Wait
By Plot Roach
It was the gunshot that woke her up. Unfortunately for her, the wound she received was also fatal. She had just enough time to wake out of the haziness of sleep to feel the pain before the blackness of death took her. Her spirit stood beside the bed, looking down at her body. The arm of it stretched out to the side table, having knocked the contents to the floor.
“What was I doing?” she asked her companion in the shadows.
“I think that you thought it was the alarm clock, so you went to hit the snooze button.” It said.
“Are you here for me?” she asked the presence.
“Yes and no.” it said. “I’m just ‘here’ like you.”
“Come into the light where I can see you better.” she pleaded. “I hate to be alone in death and I want to see my only companion.”
“It might bother you.” it said. “And it’s not the light that allows you to see or not see me, it’s my willingness to be seen.”
“Come to me anyway.”
“Alright, you asked for it.” It said and stepped closer. It was a sewer rat, about the size of a kitten and not nearly as cute.
“Oh” she said.
“I told you so.” the rat admitted.
“No, it’s just that… I thought you’d be…”
“Death? Your guardian angel? Maybe Jesus?” the rat asked.
“Well… kind of.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, well” she said. “You might as well be here. Someone needs to put the dead body to use. You might as well feed on it until the neighbors find me.” she said.
“That’s kind of you to offer and all. Not that I needed your permission. But it’s kind of a moot point.” It said, its whiskers twitching in what she assumed was either humor or frustration.
“Why is that?” she asked.
“I’m dead too.” the rat said.
“I thought that you were here because of me.”
“I am here because of you, but not in the way you think.” the rat explained.
“Huh?”
“Remember the poisoned rodent bait you put in that peanut butter and left out a few months ago?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh.”
“It’s different killing a rodent when you can talk with it, isn’t it?”
“Kind of.”
“Don’t feel so bad, I don’t hold a grudge or anything.”
“I’m glad, but… How come you’re still here and not in rat heaven or something?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe this is it. Maybe there is no Heaven or Hell. Maybe waiting around is only for rats and you’ll get to move on. Otherwise, it’s going to be one long wait.” the rat said.
“One long wait for what?” She asked.
“More company.”
“How so?”
“It seems that your neighbor botched his suicide and is being trundled off to the hospital as we speak. He’ll probably be in a coma for years…”
“How do you know that he tried to commit suicide?”
“It was the gunshot that killed you, remember?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” the rat said. “It’s going to be a long wait.”
A Long Wait
By Plot Roach
It was the gunshot that woke her up. Unfortunately for her, the wound she received was also fatal. She had just enough time to wake out of the haziness of sleep to feel the pain before the blackness of death took her. Her spirit stood beside the bed, looking down at her body. The arm of it stretched out to the side table, having knocked the contents to the floor.
“What was I doing?” she asked her companion in the shadows.
“I think that you thought it was the alarm clock, so you went to hit the snooze button.” It said.
“Are you here for me?” she asked the presence.
“Yes and no.” it said. “I’m just ‘here’ like you.”
“Come into the light where I can see you better.” she pleaded. “I hate to be alone in death and I want to see my only companion.”
“It might bother you.” it said. “And it’s not the light that allows you to see or not see me, it’s my willingness to be seen.”
“Come to me anyway.”
“Alright, you asked for it.” It said and stepped closer. It was a sewer rat, about the size of a kitten and not nearly as cute.
“Oh” she said.
“I told you so.” the rat admitted.
“No, it’s just that… I thought you’d be…”
“Death? Your guardian angel? Maybe Jesus?” the rat asked.
“Well… kind of.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, well” she said. “You might as well be here. Someone needs to put the dead body to use. You might as well feed on it until the neighbors find me.” she said.
“That’s kind of you to offer and all. Not that I needed your permission. But it’s kind of a moot point.” It said, its whiskers twitching in what she assumed was either humor or frustration.
“Why is that?” she asked.
“I’m dead too.” the rat said.
“I thought that you were here because of me.”
“I am here because of you, but not in the way you think.” the rat explained.
“Huh?”
“Remember the poisoned rodent bait you put in that peanut butter and left out a few months ago?”
“Yeah…”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh.”
“It’s different killing a rodent when you can talk with it, isn’t it?”
“Kind of.”
“Don’t feel so bad, I don’t hold a grudge or anything.”
“I’m glad, but… How come you’re still here and not in rat heaven or something?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe this is it. Maybe there is no Heaven or Hell. Maybe waiting around is only for rats and you’ll get to move on. Otherwise, it’s going to be one long wait.” the rat said.
“One long wait for what?” She asked.
“More company.”
“How so?”
“It seems that your neighbor botched his suicide and is being trundled off to the hospital as we speak. He’ll probably be in a coma for years…”
“How do you know that he tried to commit suicide?”
“It was the gunshot that killed you, remember?”
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” the rat said. “It’s going to be a long wait.”
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