January 2011
47 posts
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Downtown Gas
All right, what the hell is going on in here? Why is everybody singing? Vinnie! Frank! Goddammit, stop that dancing and sweet, sweet harmonizing! Who the hell is this? Sure, sure, she’s attractive, but she looks like the kind of a gal who’d leave a guy when he’s down! Hey, you on the motorbikes, turn those lights off! Oh, Jesus, now the black kids are dancing! Wait! That...
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Goal-Oriented
Chad hadn’t worked out the specifics of how he would subjugate the office to his every whim based on his control of post-its and toner cartridges, but once he did, he felt that historians would characterize his rule as being marked by benevolent, yet whimsical carnage.
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Good Times
Doug stood at the refreshment table, which was decorated with Christmas lights and peppermint canes. He smeared something that Lacey had called “tapenade” onto a cracker and shoved it into his mouth. “Fucking stupid made up word. Just call it dip like everybody else, Lacey,” he thought. He turned and watched people yammer about the white elephant exchange and how much fun it was going to be....
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Goodness Cretaceous
Sheffield still needed to work out the logistics of working at UPS with tiny Tyrannosaurus Rex arms. He was looking forward to his transition, but he didn’t want to cause any problems for his co-workers. They were a nice bunch, who he would do his best not to eat.
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But it seems like everyone wants to keep going. We...
Absolutely magical.
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The Henchman, Pt. 4
Killing someone with kindness does work, but using a pistol or a machete lets you get on with your day a lot faster.
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Roots
“It’s the eyes that I never liked, Jackson.” “What’s that now, Sarge?” “The eyes. On a potato. Looking at you.” “Oh, right.” “And what nobody seems to be able to give me a straight answer on is how a goddamn potato clock works. It’s against the laws of God and man to get electricity from a tuber.” “Yes, sir. So, do you wanna put your gun away now?” “No, Jackson. No, I don’t believe I do.”
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Sodium Count
Reynolds was very sweaty, and the edges of his vision blurred and jittered like film in a broken projector. He was fighting the urge to climb on the desk and spank himself, but his secretary kept coming in and throwing spiders at him. The individual particles in his mahogany desk were singing Diana Ross songs, which wasn’t helping either. “I guess switching to Spicy Hot V-8 wasn’t a good...
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Guys, I still haven't seen anything this year...
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Winter Wonderland
The beer was staying nice and cold in the snow. Kruk didn’t have a carrot for the nose, but the kids would just have to deal with it. He loved them so goddamned much, but sometimes he didn’t know what to do with them. As he shoved the head into place and plopped the straw hat on top, he realized his pants were around his ankles, and that guy who ran the hardware store who lived across the...
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It’s Not a Tumor
Dr. Benioff knew that on a professional level, quoting Kindergarten Cop was a risky proposition. But if he ever found the patient who responded to this kind of humor, he promised himself that he would marry them immediately. He’d have to figure out the part about not having sex with his patients, but that’s what lawyers were for.
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Follicle
Intellectually, Myers knew that it was impossible for him to actually hear the hairs in his own ears growing, but sleep had become difficult, and he knew people at work were judging him. They made noises at him that he couldn’t hear over the sound of those hairs pushing their way up and out of their tiny homes. He’d tried to politely ask the hairs to keep it down, but they didn’t want to...
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Advice From A Cool, Smart Guy, Pt. 1
Rolling a body up in a carpet only works in the cartoons. If you’re going to walk out the front door of your building with a corpse, just do it and assume that most people will be too intimidated by you to do anything about it. It’s all about confidence.
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Patriot Act
As Dr. Lewis implanted the tiny microphone into Kozinski’s filling, he hummed the James Bond theme and thought about the videotape in his office. The FBI can get incredible porn. Really mind-blowing stuff.
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The Henchman, Pt. 3
He knew he wasn’t supposed to laugh when he was on the job, but when that welsher Blevins tried to break a beer bottle on the bar and instead smashed it into a leftover cheeseburger basket, sending ketchup into his own eyes, it was pretty hard to maintain a professional demeanor.
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Chiaroscuro
As Henri hung upside down over the pressure-sensitive floor in front of the Rembrandt, he found himself wondering, “What if I just stayed right here? Just hung here like this from now on? Would they make me a work of art? What genre would I be? Would children gather around me while a docent explained how my expression represented the post-modern malaise or a subtle comment on the Dresden...
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Making Friends
Tyler knew that Mother would tell him to stop scratching at that place, but as he wiped the blood and bits of skin away from the tiny face in the crook of his arm, and it opened its black eyes, he thought, “Now I’ll have someone to talk to.”
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Broken Bow
By his own estimation, Stuart had about sixty percent of the fingernail clippings, hair and urine he was going to need to perform the ritual. The holidays were going to be lonely as usual, but by March he should have enough. One thing was certain: he wasn’t going back to online dating.
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Jackpot
He’d been trying to explain that those clip-on debit cards that all the fat people used in the slot machines made them look like a symbiotic organism, pushing and pulling fluids and nutrients across that slender coil. He’d been excited about this breakthrough, but pit bosses don’t like that kind of abstract theorizing, so he woke up in a dumpster behind a Little Caesar’s. His breath made...
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Nemesis
An almost blinding clarity came upon Spencer just as that pigeon shat on his meatball sub. “Revenge shall be cold, but sweet,” he said out loud, and ate the rest of the poop-splattered sandwich in one bite. “Now I know you, enemy mine.” He took off his tie and headed back into the office building to tender his resignation. This task would take every bit of his focus. Dorothy and the kids...
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Caught Up in the Magic
In retrospect, we could have taken fewer drugs before the Cirque De Soleil show. But how were we supposed to know that the room service guy’s legs wouldn’t bend that far back? He looked flexible enough.
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Yellow Eyes
I went down to that sidewalk tiger store looking for answers. None were forthcoming.
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The Henchman, Pt. 2
His last piece of Nicorette had flown out of his mouth when he’d slammed Chester’s face into the jewelry counter. He didn’t see where it landed, but if he had found it, he would have put it back in his mouth. That stuff is expensive.
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01110011 01101111 01100110 01110100
If the robot could have felt something, it would have been filled with an overwhelming sense of “This is right. This is what I am meant to do.” But since robots can’t feel, it just tore Dr. Hanford’s throat out with its pincers that seem strangely tailor-made for that action, and lumbered toward the other researchers cowering in the corner. Humans are soft.
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Nuts and Berries
“I’m not mad,” thought the mother bear as she chased the man in orange camo away from her cub and toward a hidden cliff. “I’m disappointed.”
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The Ladybug
Goddammit, I wish I could bite someone.
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The Henchman, Pt. 1
Squeezing a man’s head in the crook of your arm and feeling him flail impotently brings short-lived satisfaction. But it’s nothing to base a life on.
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Details
As Randy slid the noose tight around his neck, he thought for the millionth time, “It should have been Courier. Who uses a sans-serif font for a a love letter? So stupid.”
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Moving Day
Phillips wasn’t completely sure that it was a tentacle he saw slithering back down the drain of the tub when he flipped on the bathroom light, but he also wasn’t taking any chances. He put the cat in the car and set up the standard bag of ice/pulley/grenade contraption in the kitchen. It was a shame. He was really starting to like Cleveland.
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Clarity
“Spanish tile is smug,” Fletcher said out loud as he tried to get the match to light. To an observer, it might have looked like he was crying, but it was just the kerosene fumes. He felt great.