666 very short stories: August 2007

on the outside

Pacing the icy hallways and crystal corridors of the Fortress of Solitude, Superman pondered the meaning and purpose of life, and the fate of those who depended on him. Alone. Sad. Tired. He ventured forth seldom these days into so-called civilisation. Alienated and profoundly depressed, he no longer sought to wreak justice upon the wrongdoer. Apparently indifferent to the plight of the undefended innocent, seemingly unaware of the cataclysmic disasters besetting a helpless world as we speak, this so-called hero, superhero even, paced the icy hallways yadda yadda, pondering more weighty issues and concerns than mere threats to the continued existence of the species. Yes, more weighty issues, the weightiest of all being the absence of laundrettes in the polar regions (this was before global warming, when there were still such things as polar regions). And the result of those ponderings? The outputs of the steel trap mind of the man of steel? Simple really. Faced with the absence of laundrettes, there is only one reasonable course of action: wear one's underpants on the outside.

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nobody wants to hear that story

Once upon a wonderful time, when the world was new and the sky was blue and the lambs frolicked in the meadows and the bears shat in the woods but carefully cleaned up after themselves, and people loved each other and never was heard a troublesome word...

Nah! Nobody wants to hear that story...

"I'll tell you a story," the wrinkled old man said, the aged and nut-brown guru at the top of the world, "of good triumphing over evil, and the redemptive power of love. Of greed and lust, and stealth and deception. Of betrayal, osmidrosis, prosopagnosia, and autophagy, set in ancient Fryckenvorst...

Nah! Nobody wants to hear that story...

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the Office of the Lost & Found

In the Office of the Lost & Found the dust lies thick upon the windowsills, the chairs, the tables, and the desks of the clerks. Their bald heads shine and they blink owlishly behind their spectacles as they search the Records of Reduced Potential, inscribe with scratchy goose quill pens in the Ledger of Lost Opportunity, and update the Files of Futile Undertakings, in the Office of the Lost & Found. The dead wait forlornly for each soul's number to be called; each sitting or standing as far away from the next ghost as possible; each holding zer particular despair close, fearing contamination. Every so often, the Noticeboard of Neurotic Behaviours lights up, and one of the dead approaches the Counter of Curious Dilemmas,

to be continued...

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happy hungry campers

The Happy Campers encountered the Scum of the Earth at the Crossroads of Perplexing Coincidence. The Happiest Camper said to the Chief Scumbag, "Good day to you kind sir. What a happy day, is it not?"

The Chief Scumbag grimaced then replied, "Get fucked asshole!"

"Oh dear," said the Happiest Camper, "I do apologise if we have offended you and your friends in any way..."

The Chief Scumbag frowned then replied, "If? If? You offended your own mother the day you were born, Camper Boy!"

"My, my," said the Happiest Camper, "you seem to be a tad tetchy this glorious god-given morn. Why don't we all thank the Creator for the many blessings bestowed upon us. Now, let us prey!"

And with that the Happy Campers fell upon the Scum of the Earth like ravening wolves until every last drop of scum had been consumed.

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a certain doorway

There is a certain Doorway through which some have crossed over to other places, other dimensions, from which few if any ever return. Some say the Doorway is a Painting, a Magic Painting. Others say it is a device---a stargate, a portal, a magic casement---created by unknown and unknowable beings from the singularity at the very heart of the Cosmos.

Mathematicians believe it is a flaw in the geometry of spacetime. More sensible people perceive it as an actual door made of matter (such as wood, stone, plastic, metal or ivory or any substance for that matter in any known or unknown universe, including the strange substance of which the Philosopher’s Stone is made).

The Door, or Doorway if you prefer, makes itself known at the crucial turning or tipping points of a person’s life. The Doorway appears in dreams and visions. It materialises miraculously at moments of peace and stillness, especially when the multitude of clasping clutching things required to sustain the illusion of self retreat snarling with frustration into the lower circles of hell.

It also materialises miraculously at moments of great tumult and turmoil and misery in a person's life, offering an escape to those who are able to recognise the possibility.

But to see the Doorway is one thing. To walk through it is another. It takes a brave heart indeed to enter those domains that lie beyond.

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my bad

Once, when we were little, Jonnie and me were playing and Jonnie got hurt, and started crying.

I started larfing. Jonnie hated that, when you started larfing at him. Then mum came and blamed me for everything and said she was going to tell dad. And I got really upset and screamed at mum and pushed her, just a little push… Can't remember what happened next, but anyway, that's how I got my bad.

Since then my bad's got worse, a lot worse. Like the time I was waiting for a taxi and a girl tried to steal my taxi when it came, and how she screamed and cried when I… but that's for another time, when I know you a little better.

Anyway, that's how I got my bad, and that's how my bad got worse, and I'm scared cos my worst is still to come.

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the secrets of Pappiloma

Held within the human heart or mind, are dark secrets, darker secrets and the darkest secrets of all--those relating to shame and guilt. No more or less shameworthy than those held within the heart of Pappiloma, a Senior Scribe in the Royal Department of Information of the Royal Bureau of Administrivia of the Realm of the Right Royal Regime of King Roger the 14th, the reigning ruler of Rogerland---a not entirely mythical country somewhere between Vladivostok and Tierra del Fuego.

Pappiloma was not a happy scribe. Approaching his 666th birth[time-unit] he found himself in the throes of a crisis of meaning and purpose---a long dark night of the soul, if you will… (to be continued)

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the Plug-hole of Nothingness

"Uncanny how the processes of consciousness conspire and emerge unwittingly, unknowingly and unknowably behind the scenes in the Drama of Existence now showing at the Theatre of Self," said the Novice to the Teacher, an aged and witless mendicant of dubious extraction and inherence.

"If that is what you have derived from the Teachings," responded the Aged One, imperturbably eating a banana," then you have derived nothing. For as it is written, 'ex nihilo nihil fit', so shall it be..." And on that gnomic pronouncement, the life of the Novice began swirling anti-clockwise around and down the Plug-hole of Nothingness into the Drain of Death that empties into the Wasteponds of Failed Alliteration.

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the ninja

In the dead of the day the ninja crept like a wounded hyena toward its prey. No clouds crossed the sky; the ninja wondered why. He had always wondered where the clouds go to die: a practice that had cost him dear over the years. The times, for instance, when as a boy he had turned to his father and plaintively enquired, "Oh where do the clouds go to die, daddy-san?" only to receive a swift box about the earhole, and the stern rebuke, "What crap are you bleating about now, shit-fer-brains? Jus' eat your rice and shut the fuck up!"

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miscarriage of justice

The coppery smell of blood hung in the air within the narrow, blighted birth-chamber. "Not salvageable," was my father's judgment carelessly declared over the dying body of his newlywed wife--some thirty years his junior--on the occasion of my emergence into this world of pain.

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burning with desire

Last night, I took two dried chillies and crushed them between the fingers of my right hand, sprinkling the red fragments onto the rice upon my dinner plate. Later that night, I masturbated. Fuck! Talk about burning with desire!

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infinite regress

This particular story is about a particular person who doesn't exist until and unless a specific story is written about a specific person who doesn't exist until and unless a unique story is written about a unique person writing a certain story about a certain person who doesn't exist until and unless ze writes a one-off story about a one-off person who doesn't exist until and unless... Help! I'm a danger to myself and others.

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cosmic rapture