The train in which Natalie happened to sit
Was the train that another train managed to hit
The noise was quite loud,
And in the tracks were a crowd
To which the conductor exclaimed, "holy shit!"

"Come on, Brad," she sighed. "Can't you be serious once in your life?"

"Maybe," he said. "We may not know for sure until I'm dead, though."

"This is really important," she told him. "We have to defuse this nuclear bomb before the silo doors open and Dr. Malevolence's computer virus launches it and starts World War III."

"You know, I'm not totally convinced," Brad argued. "How many viruses work perfectly when they're released? Writing viruses is hard, you know. Even evolution needs to try billions of times to get it right."

"You really want to risk the fate of the...

Norman was a doctor. He was a doctor because he was good at fixing things, and at some point in his life he determined that the most important things that needed fixing were human beings. So he became a doctor.

He looked rather doctor-ish, in his trenchcoat, his traveling case of medical supplies and his pattern baldness. He was friendly, having the bedside manner that everyone expected of a good doctor.

The day that the sun became sick, people all over the world panicked. Some rioted, looted, killed one another, for in a world that was nearing its end, one...

They gathered in the woods, but that was not enough to save them, as they were mistaken for trees, cut down and shipped to a lumber mill.

One of them was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be made into thick planks; most of the rest were sadly torn apart into sawdust and mulch. But that one continued to live, in great pain, as he was violently sawed and assembled into a large, polished grandfather clock.

They attached to him some cold, foreign bits of metal that moved jarringly. The ticking of the gears against his aching frame was unceasing; day...

"Where am I?" asked Jolene, as she took some hesitant steps toward the elevator. "Am I on the moon?"

"You are not on the moon," was the response. The voice seemed to come from all around her. "You are on a spacecraft. The Earth as you know it is uninhabitable."

"What? Why? What happened?"

"You will find out later," it said. "Take the elevator to the highest floor."

Jolene entered the small enclosure and pressed the button marked '35'. There was no 36.

"God will ask you a series of questions," the voice continued. "If the answers are incorrect, he...

.. 2080 ... 2090 ... 2100. 2100 NE Swenson Avenue, that was the address. Harold was certain of it. He could almost feel an unnatural attraction to the simple white door with blue finish that innocently faced the street, surrounded by colorful flower pots.

A hesitant step after another, his heart pounding, he approached it. His thoughts were hundreds of miles away, in his home country, where his family was held hostage. They were watching his every move, listening to his every breath. If he failed, his wife and children would die.

His hand rested on the doorknob. The windows...

He had been happier when he was unhappy.

It was difficult to fully explain; his days of being an asocial shut-in were, upon reflection, paradoxically better than his life now. The words had flowed then, from his mind to his keyboard to the story, he could see and imagine vividly what he did not have.

Now, with a college degree, a good job, a new car, a girlfriend and a house in the hills, he was a markedly happier, and thus unhappier, man. He couldn't finish anything he set his mind to. His efforts were as half a page of...

"I'm sorry," said the President of the National Leg Prosthetics Company. "But there's nothing I can do to help you."

"But you're the President," said David plaintively, looking up at the tall man from his wheelchair.

"Yes, but I've got a tee time in almost two hours," the man said dismissively. "I'm afraid you're on your own."

"Don't you understand?!" shouted David. "A life is at stake! One of your own employees!"

The President sighed. "Look, if it'll get you to leave ..." he sat down again.

"This is standard operating procedure for the NLPC," he explained. "We encourage all...

"Hoist the Jolly Roger, wouldn't you, old chap?"

"Righto, Cap'n," said Lieutenant Chapman. "I say, what shall we do with these old colors?"

"Tear them up, burn them, whatever."

"Cap'n, phone for you, sir," said a young deckhand.

"Ah, thank you, there's a good lad," the Captain took the phone with easy sangfroid. He listened to it for a moment before saying, "that's right, old chap, we're defecting."

"Lost my mind? Bloody well found it, sir. No pay and no shore leave? It's enough to make pirates of anyone, if I do say so meself!"

The ship began to drift...

Days like this embolden me
To comment on the quality
Of 6ms's frustrating UI.

The problems with the pagination
Require no imagination
To fix, and also I must wonder why

Some days I cannot find a prompt
(Or anything that rhymes with prompt)
And my reliance on the site is waning.

Don't get me wrong, I'm here to stay
Or else I'd surely go away
But sometimes it can be quite aggravating.