Bathroom Monologue: Change

He said nobody changes. I shot him between the eyes. He looked surprised, but even if he thought I'd always been capable of murder, he suddenly couldn't talk anymore. That's change I can believe in.

Bathroom Monologue: Off

This story has been redacted. There was an offer to publish it. So here's hoping!

Bathroom Monologue: Total #eclipse of the Heart

Dear Steph,

I recently saw a commercial for your third movie and hope it isn't too late to recommend some changes. Now, I haven't read any of your books, but being a consumer I feel entitled to opinions. It looks like you've got brutish werewolves and emo vampires duking it out for your cipher white chick. So far so good. But while the boys battle, you should have a mummy roll up in a Rolls Royce. Sex him up however you want, but I think bandages imply sensitivity and girls love feelings, so there's that. He sweet talks your cipher like no other, because the slaves pulled his brain out through his nose, but they left his heart intact. While she's looking at a werewolf licking his own butt, the mummy's talking about a penthouse on top of a pyramid. While she's looking at a Seltzer-brand sparkling vampire, the mummy's reciting hieroglyphic poetry to mad jackal back beats. Naturally she runs off with him because pharaohs are rich and women are vapid, but you can tease it out for drama.

Sincerely,
Imhotep

PS: All mummies are loaded. Call me.

Bathroom Monologue: In a Few Short Months

One legal clause you have to be wary of is "in a few short months." This sounds like it takes very little time, or at least, a reasonable amount of time. It does not. Months come in three varieties: 31-day months, 30-day months, and the once-yearly 28-day month of February. 31-day months like July and December are clearly the long months, leaving 30-day ones like June and September as shorter, but not shortest. 30-day months are not short in comparison to February. Thus when someone promises something in "a few short months," they are referring to multiple Februaries. Anything that takes that long is actually going to take years, and the speaker is disregarding all the long-ish and outright long months that will pass alongside the few short ones. And because "a few" is vague, the contracted party can take two, three, or even five Februaries to pay you back. You're left waiting through January after January just to see if this is the short month he had in mind, all because you didn't make him be more precise in his wording.

"Exposure by Community" at Mad Utopia

Thanks to everyone who read and voted for "Exposure by Community." You made my little essay the first prize winner in the What #fridayflash Means To Me contest. In celebration it was republished today over at Jon Strother's Mad Utopia. You can read it by clicking on this text. Pop over there to join in the festivities or to tell me I'm too hard on editors.

And thank you all again. The turnout was very flattering and I'm glad to have touched on so many people's feelings about Twitter communities.

Bathroom Monologue: Uranium Plot

"This will cause international friction, but hear me out. Our neighbor states do not like us. They think us too brutal, even though half of them rose to power climbing a pile of bodies. What we will do is make our stockpile of 5% enriched uranium public knowledge. We will not say that it is mostly scrap and garbage that is unsafe for proper use in a bomb. Instead we will float rumors that we are seeking to enrich it to 90%, which the entire rich world associates with nuclear bomb manufacturing. We will build no such enrichment centers, but let them think we are. Their satellite photos will convince them of anything. Their assumptions will scare the neighbor states back into their petty holes. When the rich world comes to beg and browbeat us into not building the horrible weapons that they already have? We will resist for a year or two, showing our historic strength. Eventually they will offer assistance in building nuclear reactors and giving refined but non-weapons grade 20% enriched uranium rods. What they will build and give us will be magnitudes more expensive than the radioactive piss we will begrudgingly hand over. In five years, our country will have modern energy systems. A few rumors that we enrich weapons grade uranium, preposterous with what the U.N. or U.S. will actually offer, will go right to their hearts of our neighbors. They cannot help but believe the worst about us. Meanwhile, as a new friend of the rich world, we will have its military sympathies in case anything should break out. By the time our oil supply expires, we will be energy independent on nuclear power, and with no need for bombs.”

Bathroom Monologue: Macroscope

Carl looked again. Now there were two purple blobs on his slide. Blobs he’d expected, but these looking up through what looked like a telescope.

“Macroscope?” Carl muttered. One blob waved a flange and more blobs wobbled to the macroscope. They pointed up.

Were they looking at him?

He couldn’t tell the teacher. It’d be embarrassing if this was a prank.

Carl pulled the slide out, shook it, and returned it under the mircoscope.

He adjusted the dial until he saw a swarm of purple blobs. Several swarms. They worked around little silos with bullets sticking out of them.

“Missiles? Wait, I didn’t mean to piss you guys off!”

The girls at his table gave him ugly looks.

Carl sighed and peered in again. A silo fired. Its missile left Carl’s field of view. A second later, the entire table shook.

“What is wrong with you?” screeched one of the girls.

“It’s not me!” he protested.

The table jolted again. The teacher started coming over and Carl put up his hands. Then the world went black.

The microbes were too late. Several orders of magnitude above the giant mammal, God scraped His slide.

“Nothing interesting today….”