Slowly it built, piece by piece. The atoms of its essence compiling line after line, upwards and outwards, exploding into space and time. The building of matter was not easy, but in a sense it was simple. All of it part of a natural system, as light and effortless as the wind around it. Should an ant ever wonder at the workings of its colony, or more likely would it continue on with its pattern. As the structure came together slowly, so did other things. More complicated pieces, wonders ontop of wonders. The chains of DNA and ribonucleotides weaving synonymously...
Karrie had never worn white in her life. Not the day of her first communion, not even when she'd dressed as a ghost that one Halloween, but yet here she was...
What the hell had she been thinking getting involved with Ken? Really, Ken- like the doll. He wasn't her type at all. He loved tradition and tuxedos and classic rock, while she adored zombies and punk. And him, of course. What had she been thinking?
From the moment she met him, everything about him irritated her. His pigheadedness, his obnoxious sense of humor, his conservative dress. He could be...
Written by Monsterbat:
The mouse didn't know about the afterlife. It just started to move. After that evil cat had eaten him whole, it felt extremely liberating to climb back out of the jaws of death. It travelled to the nearest art supply store, and started to look around. It finally came to the big cheese: a large, yellow coloured notebook with holes made to give the illusion of a dairy product. Mr. Whiskers screamed with joy. He strained to open the notebook. He achieved his goal, but not without a price. The strain was too much. He began to...
The voyage was all fun and games until the iceberg came.
Nobody had invited the iceberg, and it seemed to show up out of nowhere. One moment, Rockwell was painting the dog on the banister, the next, the iceberg was full frame in the painting, like someone who hasn't noticed that you're taking a group photo and decides to walk right in front of the camera.
There was no use reasoning with it. It was obstinate, unmoving, rather dull to boot. At dinner that night, the usual good cheer in the ballroom had evaporated. Everyone was silent. The old colonel...
Peasants. Every last one of them, with their cheap hairspray and horrid distaste in bowties.
I stood at the edge of the sixty second annual GreatVac vacuum door-to-door salesmen conference in a state of disbelief. These people were my peers? My coworkers? My confidantes? Not a civilized, educated human being appeared to be in the room.
Barbarians. You would think that GreatVac, a company founded in 1904 on good American values would have a bit more poised and elegant populace.
And clearly the organizers of this event had very poor catering skills, as the punch was repugnant and the finger...
"Do you remember?"
"I remember"
"We were so..."
"Young"
"Stupid."
"We were kids."
"Would you still buy that excuse if one of yours said that to you?"
"Ha, I guess not."
"Because we were idiots."
"Clearly we haven't learned our lesson."
"Of course we have, there's some method to the madness these days."
"You call it method, I call it being surrounded."
"Go out with a bang though?"
"Always."
And with a nod, the two old friends picked up their paint ball guns.
"On three?"
"On three."
"One... two..."
Into the battle once more they ran, best friends who had...
The disco ball was turning. That was the first indication that something was wrong. That disco ball hadn't moved since 1982, when his brother put it up in his parent's attic to make room for his Tattoo You poster. The disco ball had hung for 30 years from a four-by-four, good solid wood. ("That wood ain't going anywhere, his dad once told him. That's old country wood, original American oak. Before all this," and let a wave of his hand tell the rest.)
He was up there in the attic when the disco ball turned, revealing it's multi-faced mirrored squares,...
He looked into the surface and his heart stopped a beat, two beats then three at what stared back. His chest caved inwards as a slow smile stretched and rippled across a paler face than his own. The eyes were grim and long and dead and they beat him into submission with a starving stare before he kicked his own ankle and fell to the ground, dirt scraping pits into the palms of his hands. He licked his lips and looked above about him. The roof of the hut looked like the inside of a boat falling from the sky...
Chazz was a murderer. He stopped himself this time. The voice said, "not this time." He turned and walked toward his car, got in, turned the ignition and gently depressed the accelerator. At the first light he crossed to lanes to make a left turn and cut off a brown sedan. He was lost in thought.
Chazz got out of the car after he parked in the driveway. Went up the stairs two at a time and took of his pants and shirt, leaving him in his boxers and white T-shirt. He went back down the stairs the same way,...
"Well shit, that didn't work," the conductor said.
He walked around the wreckage, pulling out passengers. Women, mostly. The men waved off his advances.
One gloriously attired woman emerged from a smoldering welt of torn metal as though she were departing at Poughkeepsie. Nary a scratch or displaced hat-feather.
"You are the most beautiful woman I have ever laid eyes on," the conductor thought. What he said was, "Ma'am."
The day was still high above them, children kicking rocks along the tracks. The conductor scratched under his hat and wondered, well what the hell now?
A man sitting in the...