Bathroom Monologue: There’s no war like

The snowmen crushed the wolfmen. It was barely even a battle, really. Have you ever hit a dog in the nose with a snowball? Well then you know why the snowmen won. It helped that everything except their coal eyes and carrot noses were covered under their version of Medicare; nearly every war wound was corrected by a national healthcare system of precipitation. It was a battle born out of centuries of their ancestors being peed on, something they could stand no longer. And when the militant snowmen were through the wolfmen, they set their sights on their vilest oppressors: ploughs. When the county officers reached the parking lot they’d find every last truck in smoking ruins, each with a corncob pipe stuck in its tail pipe.

Bathroom Monologue: So little time

Shrinking is one power I’d never tell anyone I had. Invulnerability or Hulk strength would be made public immediately as I abused the crap out of them, but shrinking? I’d just live a normal life, occasionally crawling into Swedish volleyball lockerrooms and appreciating the view. Every few weekends I’d rent a boxset of DVD’s, buy a tootsie roll, and just live off of the damned thing until Monday morning. The savings I’d have on consumption would be amazing, and do you know how good my surround sound would be at six inches tall? And sometimes I’d randomly abuse it to hide when my manager came through the office or someone was looking for a ride. Maybe even to screw with the secretary at the dentist’s.

Bathroom Monologue: Return of the King Jr.

"I had a dream. Then I had a funeral. Now I have a 2x4 and I’m here to kick some ass. One day white children and little Negro children will play together, but their parents’ asses are mine!"

Bathroom Monologue: She Danced

She danced like no one I’ve ever seen. She made me a fan of ballet inside of one minute. You ever stick your hand out the window of a car and wave it up and down in tune to the breeze? Like it’s a wing in the breeze, or part of an invisible current? You ever done that when you’re tired and your defenses are down, and you find that feeling becomes more important than steering the car? No, you’d never admit it, but I do that. And watching that princess bound and dip like she didn’t have a backbone, it was like watching another person perform the feeling I get in my hand. She wasn’t lithe, but the way she moved would have made a girl made out of wires jealous. It was the only real elegance I’ve ever seen, and so sensitive to the way the music was going that I never would have believed she was improvising, and I never could have believed anything else. I knew right then on the edge of my chair that this was the woman I was going to marry.

It’s a lucky thing I fell in love with her at first sight, too, because Goddamn, she was a bitch. Snuck into the reception early intending to gush at her and discovered the princess chewing out the horn section for being a quarter-beat off. Tried to bring her a glass of bubbly and she blew past me, bumped the glass and spilled it all down the side of my jacket. Didn’t even look back.

Few minutes later I sidled up next to her and she handed me a glass of bubbly. I thought it was an apology. Ten minutes later she turned, looked surprised I was still there and set to chewing me out. Thought I was staff and intended me to take her stale drink to the kitchen, not sip it and listen to the conversation.

That I didn’t smack her across the hall is evidence of love at first sight, or at least extremely patient lust. She was the kind of woman you had to hate, because even with her lips curled and her words condescending, she was beautiful. Normal woman, even a pageant queen, looks like a vulgar animal when pissed off. I guess she’d been in a tiff so often that beauty had settled down and conformed over her angry features as well as the serene ones. The ones she had when she danced.

I tried to weasel into her conversations, but my ignorance of the fine arts served me poorly. I was verbally spanked on the history of dance, and then on the history of sculpture. My attempt to make amends with another flute of bubbly was met with a tirade on the glass not being chilled enough. Overheard her saying she didn’t want to talk to any more of the girls, so when I saw a couple approaching I warned them – but warned them in earshot and was rebuffed and poked in the chest until I was pressed up against the wall. Banging into the wall did something in my head, though, and I ripped off my jacket, still wet with her stale drink, and tossed it in her face.

Even then, I wasn’t really mad. I just wanted to see how mad she’d get at a legitimate provocation. The reaction? Adorably furious. Chewed me out so harsh her flunkies retreated, and the rest of the night when she got tiffed over something she'd seek me out and blame it on me, or at least send me a glare across the floor, like I was an investor in everything that got under her skin. No doubt in my mind that’s how I landed the first date.

Bathroom Monologue: You had to be somewhere

"Did you know that before you were born your mother stood out in the freezing temperatures for sixteen hours just to stand and watch the first black president get inaugurated on a widescreen television next to the Mall of America? She wept with joy, and the tears froze on her cheeks."

"Were you there too, daddy?"

"Hell no. I watched it at home, then got drunk and played X-Box."

Bathroom Monologue: St. Peter, with a Brooklyn Accent, Explaining Gender to Unborn Souls

“The first package is a little more robust than the second. It comes with multiple orgasms, at the price of bleeding from the uterus monthly for a while. There’s a chance of self-esteem issues, weird body shapes, and, uhm… lemme se… ah, pregnancy, which will destroy your figure and hurt like a bitch, but creates the miracle of life and in many places comes with a paid maternity leave. It’s a balance thing. The second package lets you piss standing up. Pick a door and you’ll be conceived shortly.”

"Here Lies John Wiswell" on Flashshot

"Here Lies John Wiswell," about the demise and deceptions of yours truly, is featured on Flashshot today. You can take a read here: http://www.gwthomas.org/flashshotindex.htm

Bathroom Monologue: A Good War

The Owls didn’t see many good parts of the war, but they were there. Pietro and Ilyana attended one of these brightspots, a hotly contested zone of rocky hills and dense trees that no cavalry could successfully charge through, in either direction. Hundreds were dispatched to units on both the Ogrish and the Rin sides. They had entire depots of archers, more than in any other conflict of the war. It was all they trained, and any aspiring archers went to that front because in a giant woods they weren’t in much demand and took work where available.

But when those aspiring archers reached the front they found an unorthodox battle playing out at each skirmish. The Rin would line up on their ledges, and the Ogres would peak from behind the thickest trees. They would unleash three volleys arrows in each other’s direction.

Not at each other, no. The Ogres pelted the bottomsides of the cliffs, and the Rin released not just over the heads of the Ogres, but over their trees entirely. Then they went to supper.

They were missing on purpose, en mass, at every skirmish. At some time two squads had apparently realized they were missing badly and decided to keep doing it, and the deathless game spread to the whole front. Many times one side would shoot the arrows that had been launched at them the previous skirmish.

This lasted for two tours of duty, until a third Owl, Erik, arrived and reported his side. The Rin sent a new field commander, a real fascist whose first commands were to charge.

It had been a good war until then.

Bathroom Monologues: Some Anthropological Notes

You can lie on a mattress in a store to test it. It turns out, though, that you cannot lie down on one for nine hours without expecting disturbance, and the manager will take offense if you respond to his demands for you to leave the premises with a request for scrambled eggs.