666 very short stories: May 2007

can't even do nothing properly

One day dad went into McDonald's for a burger but it was quite busy and he had to wait in line. Also, the teenage staff weren't very efficient: one was flirting with a boy from her school, another was talking on her mobile, and another was just plain slow and useless full stop. Dad got more and more impatient. He had a terrible hangover and all he wanted was a nice greasy burger to throw to the pain in his gut.

Finally, he got to the head of the queue and grumpily placed his order but was told it wasn't ready and could he wait two minutes. That got him steaming mad. Even worse, when the burger came, they forgot to put the fries in the bag so when Dad got to the car and looked in the bag---no fries. That really got him totally enraged so he stormed back in the restaurant, demanded to see the manager, shouted and screamed and made a terrible fuss.

The manager, a youngster in his early twenties, was very polite and tried to calm Dad down, even gave him the money back. But the rage was on Dad big time, there was no reasoning with him, and with little drops of spittle flying through the air, he shouted at the manager, "useless bunch of wankers, can't even serve customers properly, can't even pack a bag up properly! Can't even do up an order properly! Can't even do nothing properly!"

And with that he threw the paper bag containing the offending burger at the manager, except that with the red veil of rage upon him, Dad was shaking so much the bag slipped out of his hands and feel to the floor. Then Dad turned around and stormed out of the restaurant and never went back.

In the car he realised that in fact he hadn't ordered or even paid for the fries. So it was all his fault, and he felt bad about that but didn't do anything about it. The girl who had served him was fired a couple days later, not just for the one incident but for a whole lot of things of which the disaster with Dad was just the last straw from management's point of view.

Being fired from McDonald's was the start of a whole series of unfortunate developments for her, which ultimately culminated in her becoming an unemployed, unemployable whore, addicted to crystal meth (ice), getting bashed up nightly and fucked up daily. She blamed Dad for all her woes, and became more and more bitter and more and more irrational about the afternoon she was fired from her job at McDonald's for not being able to pack up a bag properly. Over the course of a number of years living rough on the street, dwelling over what might have been, she formulated a plan for revenge--throw hydrochloric acid into Dad's face. One of her backstreet johns had told her of an horrific case in which two standover men threw hydrochloric acid into a man's face, who then lived his last two weeks in agony before death mercifully came to him.

I don't know how she tracked Dad down, or where she got the acid from, but one sunny Sunday afternoon she and one of her homeless ice-buddies walked into the front yard where Dad was sitting on his outside chair getting some rays on his wrinkled old face. She walked up to Dad, who did not recognise her with all the scabs and scars, the black rings under her eyes, the premature aging, and all the rest of the ice-induced damage.

She was shaking badly, sweating heavily. She was excited and frightened at the same time to be on the verge of getting her revenge on the man who had ruined her life. Then she tried to carry out her plan, which was to throw acid into Dad's face, but the bottle slipped out of her hand and fell to the ground nowhere even near Dad.

He stood up, looked her in the eye, and shouted, "Fuckin' loser! Can't even acid a face properly!" And then he called the police on his mobile.

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phallus-centric

Between ”yes" and “no” are many potencies where “probably” and “possibly” combine. Between active knowing and passive knowing and transitive knowing and intransitive knowing and subject knowing and object knowing and known knowing and knowing knowing. No-one knew. Know one nose. The knower knew the knowee knows. Nowhere, nowise, noway, know how, know why, know no no no…

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eat but not excrete

Once there was a very advanced species of lifeform. Their civilisation was so glitteringly sophisticated and required so much energy to keep it going that they had to construct special devices around entire galaxies to capture every last smidgin, joule, erg, electron-volt of energy emitted from all the suns within all those galaxies.

After a while they realised that even those huge amounts of energy stolen from entire galaxies were not going to be enough to keep their civilization going, longer term.

So their scientists got together and came up with a solution. They convened a media event and made the following statement: "We have identified a vast, untapped source of energy. It lies within us. We have discovered how to make our digestive systems 100% efficient at extracting energy from the foodstuffs we intake to sustain bodily existence. It's a relatively simple operation, although not entirely painless, and quite cost-effective under the circumstances. To put it bluntly: everyone is going to have his, her or its asshole sewn up because in future we will not need to shit. There will be no personal waste. In future we will use every last atom, quark, gluon of whatever we take into our bodies."

And thus it was. Over a period of time, every member of their civilisation had his, her or its asshole sewn up and a waste-reprocessing organ-graft performed enabling the total utilisation of every molecule ingested via any and all orifices.

Then they all set to eating and drinking with a vengeance. And the more they took in, the more waste they processed and reprocessed and reprocessed, and the bigger and stronger and prouder they became. Why didn't we do this a trillion years ago, they asked themselves. How great is this. How cool.

Eventually of course there was no more food or drink to be had. Panic set in. Until they realised that their new metabolisms were more than capable of processing anything and everything, food or otherwise. So they ate and ate and ate. They ate their personal being spaces (houses). They ate their personal concealment wrappers (clothes). They ate their personal mobility devices (cars). They even ate up the roads themselves.

And the more they ate, the bigger and stronger and prouder they became, and the more they needed to eat to get even bigger and even stronger and even prouder still.

Eventually of course they ate all the matter in all the galaxies in all the universes in all the realities everywhere. Panic set in. Until a new realisation dawned. With glinting eyes the proudest and biggest and strongest turned on the others and ate them all up. Until there was only one left, an entity by the name of Kardashev.

Panic set in. Until a brilliant idea entered the mind of the sole survivor. With a glint in zer eye the last one started chewing on zer own extremities until ze had eaten zerself all up---thereby turning zerself inside out, and creating a topological impossibility so bizarre that something was created out of nothing.

And that was the event which we now understand to have been the Big Bang. Good night.

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in the Dark House

In the Dark House, a presence looms on the periphery of your vision. In the Dark House, faint faerie music chimes mystically as you turn a corner in the corridor that wasn't there before you met the man who wasn't there before upon the stairs that were not there before. And then a door. It's there, just as in your dreams! It's there! Small, as if for pets. A faint glimmer emanates from behind it. Now you would find out, would take the journey, open the gate, step through the veil. There are very few of them, Strange Doorways. In fact, only three have been identified within the known universe, but scientific theory predicts that nineteen Strange Doorways are necessary and sufficient to uphold the fabric of reality, or the pillars of creation, if you prefer. And don't forget, it's turtles all the way down.

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malicious damage

At 03:45 hours plain-clothed Officers from the Asset Protection Taskforce patrolling Run 5990 observed two male juveniles applying graffiti to the vestibule interior of Carriage 858. Officers detained the offenders and de-trained at South Dowling Station requesting police attendance. Police attended and cautioned the offenders about Malicious Damage. Police cautioned the older juvenile about Draw/Write/Affix Character on Crown Property.

The younger juvenile alleged he was a runaway and he was not going home with his parents. His parents arrived a short time later. The juvenile was released into the custody of his parents.

Police advised that both offenders due to their age would not be issued with an infringement but would be issued an official caution due to their age.

Whilst so doing, the younger juvenile ran from the scene and egressed through an unlocked security gate onto the track. The driver of the late-running 8:15 applied the emergency brake but regrettably was unable to come to a halt sufficiently quickly. The fatality was recorded in the Incident Ledger according to the approved procedure. The parents of the younger juvenile were assisted by Officers and Police.

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potty training for veggies

Mrs Codswallop took her broccoli for a walk most days, including holy days. At the Park she got talking to Jimbette McPhee, who told her that only the day before her carrots had weed all over the entrance hall carpet. Which had been most unfortunate.

"Oh I know, I know," replied Mrs Codswallop, sensing an opportunity to score a point against lah-di-dah Jimbette, "but this little one here," pointing to the broccoli panting on the end of a fluoro-pink leash, "I'm so proud of her. Every morning, without fail, does her little doings in the corner of the kitchen by the fridge."

"I'm making minestrone tonight," replied Jimbette, by way of nothing in particular.

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the end of homo the sap

Once upon a fulsome time, when dark desires eloped with virgin pixies, and antelopes no longer pronked or sprinked upon the veldt... When no more cantaloupes in fruity embrace with swarthy greengrocers did entwine... When all the zombies in the world laid end to end---an undead chain twenty six thousand miles in length---did girt the Earth, and werewolves with gingivitis growled and grimaced in a thousand dentists' chairs across the land...

A time of sorrow, when all was lost or drawn and braggarts and liars and con-persons were the order of the day... A sorry time, I say, a sad and sordid time, when durance oppressive pressed and weighed upon the minds and souls of most such that those on whom the pressure was the least enslaved their fellow-jerkwads, thus kindly hastening the end... In those times, in those ways, at that cost, a specious species egregiously declined; the will of the sapient ones was sapped, and personkind into the all was gathered, once and for all. Thank Christ.

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cosmic rapture