Bathroom Monologue: In the Middle of Half-Life

Wendy had some weird thoughts first thing in the morning. What did grilled cheese taste like to dogs with their limited brain wiring? Wasn’t there a more efficient way to dispense scotch tape?

Tuesday morning she awoke with a most untuesdaylike query: if the earth really had been made a few thousand years ago by an omnipotent creator that had snapped everything into place, only making it look older, how would she know? There was carbon dating, but carbon dating could be forged as easily as fossil record by such a Figure, and it would make sense if He was setting everything up that He’d synchronize all the atomic times. En medias res was a popular device in human fiction, so why not divine?

She chewed her lower lip and batted around whether this Figure would stop time eventually, the same way He’d started it. Would she notice?

Wendy looked out her window. The sun shrugged at her. Then it was time for breakfast.

Bathroom Monologue: Kronological, OR, Another of those oral puns

Hours later, Kronos tracked the titan war party down. He followed the curious path of destroyed zoos, all the cage doors ripped off and animals freed. Elephants and zebras were slaughtered, left roasted and partially eaten, while tigers and hyenas were scattered in terror.

He found them lounging at the remains of the last state zoo, skinning lions to make victory pelts. They offered him a zebra steak before seeing the anger in his eyes.

“You fools!” he exclaimed, slapping the shortest titan in the back of the head. “I said attack Zeus! Zeus!”

Eniglet on Audio

I've been toying with my microphone to record some Bathroom Monologues today. I uploaded an MP3 of "Eniglet" to sendspace. If you'd like to listen to it, and maybe throw a Bathroom Monologue on your iPod, you can grab it here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/oto8xg

Feedback on hosts, audio quality or what I sound like as a narrator are welcome. If this is popular I might turn MP3 editions of Bathroom Monologues into a weekly feature.

Bathroom Monologue: An Open Letter to String, from my Sister’s Cat

Dear String,

Fuck you. One day I will catch you, and I will bite the crap out of you. I will claw until there is nothing left, then I’ll get a little bored, and then I’ll bite you again. You think you’re so high and mighty, with your magical ability to fly. Well I can’t fly, but I’m a carnivore. Did you see what I did to that bird? Yeah. That’s an eighth of what’s coming your way the day you let your guard down. I will unravel you until the dog can swallow you, and then I’m going to see to it that you’re digested. She eats my turds. You’ll be a delicacy.

Sometimes I wonder why I hate you so much. It seems like we’ve never gotten along. Then you twirl over my head and it all comes back to me.

I never knew my mother. All I remember is a cardboard box and people picking my cuter siblings. When I see you swinging near me, I suddenly know that you stole my family. I don’t have any evidence, but I’m a sub-primate mammal. That means I don’t need evidence. I know what you did, and I’m going to kill you. Keep dancing over my head, you cocky son of a bitch. You won’t always escape me, and one day I’m going to introduce you to the business end of a dog.

Sincerely,
The Cat

Bathroom Monologue: Three-Pronged Inference

“If triangles made a god, he would have three sides.” –Sometimes attributed to Charles de Montesquieu

“In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” –Common Prayer

“Oh my God. Humans are triangles.” –John with his head buried in his hands, until he realizes his hands are making a triangle

Bathroom Monologue: Casper the Friendly Director

[The booth exists not in a bar today, but on the surface of Pluto. GARY sits alone on his side of the booth, wearing an astronaut’s suit. SPIDER, in a spandex superhero costume, and DARKLOSS SOULRIPPER VON ALUCARDIA, in a smoking jacket, sit on the opposite side of the booth. The exposure does not seem to bother the superhero, the vampire or the planet.]

Gary: It’s a dark cartoon. Casper the Dead Child.
Pluto: It’s Casper the Friendly Ghost!
Gary: He’s the ghost of a child. How do you think that happened? It’s bleak.
Darkloss: It’d make Hitchcock cry.
Spider: I always thought Casper looked like Hitchcock. Pot-belly, round-faced, and something about the eyes.
Pluto: Maybe he is the ghost of Alfred Hitchcock, who secretly died as a boy.
Darkloss: That’s why he was so emotionless in all those movie trailers and intros. He was actually a husk.
Pluto: A borderline zombie.
Spider: It’s an attitude that makes handling diva actresses a lot easier.
Gary: Plus, look at all the movies he did with Jimmy Stewart. Don’t exactly need an ace director to get that to work.
Pluto: Then it’s settled. Casper is the ghost of the true Alfred Hitchcock.
Gary: That sounds surprisingly less bleak than any of the components that brought us to that conclusion would have made me think.
Spider: I wonder who the little witch he hangs around with is…

Bathroom Monologue: Eniglet

One begins as a small confusion in the womb of a hog. The double helix forms a question mark, and a deity is involved, as they usually are in miraculous conceptions. It’s said that the droppings of an eniglet can be read to accurately determine the will of the Fates.

Or horoscopes. Something like that.

You can’t fault the owner of an eniglet for trying to profit on its feces when you consider how expensive it is to maintain one. They won’t eat garbage or standard chow. Just what they’ll want on a given day is unpredictable; maybe a brick wall, maybe some 1982 text books, or maybe the shell casings for your shotgun (but not the gun nor the explosive contents of the shells – and they will crap them out if they don’t want them). An eniglet can eat through anything, so there’s no sense in penning them unless you’re sure you can keep them content. The only thing eniglets really like to do is chew, and the only thing they will eat with any regularity are the bones of detectives. Why is a mystery.

Felix and Creed Redux

I've submitted a lot of fiction lately, and one of the pieces that took the most polishing went to the Editors Unleashed Flash 40 Contest. Long time readers will recognize "The Nearest Thing" as what was originally, less publishably called "The While Walking from Borders to Home Depot Monologue." It follows Felix and Creed, two boys from the same town who barely ever met, even after they ran away from home in the same direction. Editors Unleashed took submissions on its forums, so if you register you can see the new version of Felix and Creed's story here: http://editorunleashed.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1318

Bathroom Monologue: Items Not Found In Videogames

-Morning After Pill – 500 Gold – “For Unwanted Status Effects”

-Chinese Finger Trap – 1 Gold – “Challenge any boss monster to escape it to skip boss fight.”

-Red Bull – 50 Gold – “Regain nominal amount of health, but in half an hour your HP will crash.”

-First Aid Manual – 1 Gold – “A medical explanation of how to treat wounds, infections and other dangerous physical states, OR, How picking up a first aid kit does not save you from a bullet to the skull.”

-360 Degree View – Free – “All your enemies have lined up in front of you, leaving you the right, left and behind if you feel like running away.”

-Get Out of Jail Free Card – 1000 Gold – “Because the means the plot was going to use to explain how you escape were just too ridiculous.”

-Quaker Guide to Mediation and Conflict Resolution – Free – “All Those People Don’t Have to Die, Do They?”