Bathroom Monologue: Mind Your Mines

Not everyone wanted to join the feud between the Sicilians and the Cubans, especially their immigrant kids who were born here and hadn't emigrated at all. They weren’t competing for jobs and didn’t comprehend their theological differences, but on account of their parents’ enthusiasm for the feud, required a discreet way, or at least a not-too-indiscreet way, to express that desire to do no harm. One look at Estelle Valdes in a halter-top and the Crisafi boys wanted to do a whole lot of no harm, and the plan was concocted, and invitations were palmed in the hallways, and dozens of kids covertly congregated at the abandoned mine. Come dusk dozens of teens descended a coal shaft in elbow gloves and flowing skirts, clothing they never got to wear above, designated for a ball below. Light became scarcer and scarcer as dances were traded and dancing talent was mocked, as hands rested on waists and couples swayed, and kissing became possible, though remained as intimidating a prospect as it was in the world above. It got so dark no one knew whom his partner was, and they stayed a whole half hour down in that pitch-blackness, everyone else dancing as Roberto taught Yelina how to play his guitar, and it was the most elegant thing no one ever saw.

Bathroom Monologue: An Argument Most Concise in Favor of Burning Books

“We’re all against burning books until one of them comes for our kids. Possessed by Satan, a restless Native American spirit, or simple poor syntax, the thing leaps off the shelf and starts beating your oldest daughter about the head and shoulders. Now an airport paperback you can take care of with your bare hands, but a hardcover requires the fear of fire to put it in line. You just don’t know what it’s like until you come home after a long day at the office to find the Encyclopedia Britannica terrorizing your family, your oldest daughter pinned to the ground by L, M, N, O, P and Q, crying because she doesn’t want to read about quail anymore. You can’t fight a flock of flying encyclopedias with tolerance, my friends. They are the scum of the earth and require the constant threat of the lighter to mind their manners.”

Theorobotics in the April/May Alien Skin

The Bathroom Monologue, "Theorobotics," is currently in the e-zine Alien Skin. This is a new version of the monologue about robotic believers. You can check it out here, or at this URL: http://www.alienskinmag.com/flashmic13.htm

Bathroom Monologue: I Can’t Waltz

They stepped to his left, then forward, then right, then back. It was the least comfortable square he ever made. One hand was on her shoulder and one hand went so low on her hip he hoped his mom wasn't watching. She made him so nervous that he only touched her with the tips of his fingers so she wouldn't feel the sweat on his palms. Maybe she didn't feel them, but she saw every time his eyes averted, and it made her smile this smile that… well, he was glad she couldn’t feel his palms. Heart going faster, forgetting how to breathe, he traced that square over and over again, even after the song ended.

Bathroom Monologue: Six-Sentence Non-Fiction about Reading Fiction

Had to stay off my ankle for a week, so I scooped up an armload of books from my To-Read box and set them on my desk. Samuel Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner was on top of the stack, but I capriciously decided to start the week with comedy and read Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency instead.

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, about which I knew nothing other than it was by an author I liked, turned out to be a comedy about how everything is connected and made so many references to Coleridge that a character actually picks up one of his books and reads it. I kept looking over the copy of Adams’s book, staring at the other a couple feet away, until the hour I finished and it was Coleridge’s turn.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner, about which I knew nothing other than it was by an author I should read, turned out to be the story of an immortal seaman waylaying a stranger on his way to a wedding. Halfway through Mom knocked on the door to drop of the mail and the latest Netflix movie: Rachel Getting Married.

Bathroom Monologue: Why the Mood?

She kept smoking, hair and shadow covering her face, not looking up from the bottom of the stairs.

"Oh Jesus, is it our anniversary?" He ran back to the apartment to find his wallet.

When he was out of sight, she smirked. It was fun to do this to him.

Bathroom Monologue: The Reason

Many wanted an explanation after the apocalypse. After all of the plagues, pestilences and wars, space shuttles killing teachers and precious souls lost to miscarriages, most humans wanted Him to answer.

The souls of all the fish, beasts and birds those humans had eaten across millennia followed after them, intent on meeting whoever was behind this mess – and much to the chagrin of vegetarians, the souls of a trillion carrots were amongst the cattle.

Anubis, Anansi, Apollo and all the other gods whose worship had dwindled across time came along, wanting to see the Supreme Being finally get it from Creation.

It seemed all matter was fuming, marching up to His door, ready to tear the meaning of life from His transcendent carcass.

They didn’t expect Him to meet them at the door, but He threw open the Gates of Reality, fearless and splendid, an irrepressible smile in the middle of His infinite beard, and declared, “I call it The Aristocrats!”

Six Sentence Week 2

The Six Sentence Stories keep coming. For this week, from today to Sunday, I'll be posting another six-sentence story each day. As you can see I'm trying to play with what can fit in that brevity: humor, theology, fantasy, ranting, non-fiction reflection, bigotry, love, and for some reason, two about dance. A poll should pop up shortly. Please vote for whichever you like the most, and leave a Comment if you think one is particularly good or bad.

Dammit, that's five again!

Bathroom Monologue: D.A.E.

Demons Against Exorcism is a grassroots organization that is either entirely composed of demons or has no demons at all, depending on how skeptical you are. The demons in question have 100% willing and agreeable hosts who do not want to see their companions evicted.

“It’s my body, my choice,” says Sarah Stockman, who will have been possessed for six years next month. Her parents were initially uncomfortable with her lifestyle, but grew to accept it after her demon ceased making her writhe in public. Following a popular tolerant trend, the Stockmans have nothing against writhing in private.

The demons provide no rent, being incorporeal and generally bad at finances. Unlike poltergeists, they are not very helpful at moving things around the house.

“A possession isn’t a business relationship,” says Paul Pensly, who has been passionately possessed for two years and doesn’t see the honeymoon enthusiasm fading. “It’s about companionship, knowing this infernal buddy of mine will be there when I’ve had a long day, lost a bar fight, or whenever I just need to talk. I never go to the movies alone now.”

Some people do note advantages to the possessions, however. Sarah Stockman landed a job in the Foreign Languages department of a community college thanks to her ability to speak in tongues. An anonymous Indian-American possessee in Ohio claims his demon once possessed Aristotle and now helps him breeze through textbooks. College Board is currently devising a counter-demon measure to prevent possession-based cheating on its SAT exams, a measure Demons Against Exorcism calls “the worst kind of bigotry.”

Rorschark Attack at Short Story Library

"Rorschark Attack" is the story of the day over at Short Story Library. You can check out their site at the URL: http://shortstory.us.com/

If you like it, let them know in Comments or e-mails!

Bathroom Monologue: Cashiers Have Their Ways

“Hey, did I leave my keys in here?”
“Someone did leave a set of keys at checkout, but how do I know they were yours?”
“I just left here. I was just here! Talking to you!”
“So you say. What kind of car do you drive?”
“Hybrid.”
“I’ve wanted a Hybrid…”
“Give me my keys!”
“Your ownership is still unestablished, sir. What items did you buy at my register, supposing you did buy any at all?”
“These Snickers. You know that.”
“I know that Snickers are delicious.”
“Are you… are you trying to extort my candy?”
“I could leave these keys here and look the other way, if something preoccupied me. Like caramel and peanuts, mixed in silky chocolate.”
“You… diabolical bastard.”
“We cashiers have our ways.”

Bathroom Monologue: How It Sounds

“There is no other country that is diverting 15% of tin and salts to aether research. There is no other industrialized country still bent on developing the Death Ray. And yet the chairman persists in pretending it is the conservatives that are out of touch. We cannot close the oceans with taxes upon our most prosperous citizens just because they are the wealthiest. They did not make the oceans vast, did not make them rise such that we need aether ships. It is not the corporate world that filled our skies with pirates necessitating advanced disintegrator canons in every floating city we set up. Indeed, it is the corporations that build the canons! And so what if they malfunction a mere one fifth of the time? That is still four-fifths of the floating population that lives, dry and unharassed by sky-hooligans!”

Bathroom Monologue: Dead Wrong

So while the notion that the dead ascend and become an army of guardian angels who watch over and shine upon the living is still popular, there are dissenting views. For instance there is the theory that the ascended dead continue to be the petty, bigoted assholes they were in life.

The living make very quick judgments on others.

“That slut is wearing way too tight a skirt.”

“You can tell he’s lying. Look at that suit.”

“That fat ass doesn’t even try to lose weight, even though he’s jogging.”

Natural disasters have occurred since time immemorial, as have erroneous and negative snap judgments. Under this theory, the two are linked, but given immortality and heavenly power, the dead can do more than just glare. The judgmental dead are passing judgments on we slutty, lying and fat living through earthquakes and avalanches. A volcano erupting is your great grandma’s way of telling you to change your top.

Bathroom Monologue: Beta Testing for Go Outside

His last web video was the supposed gameplay footage for a PC-exclusive called “Go Outside.” It averaged 1.2 stars on youtube and the Comments section was overrun with complaints for his lame gag. From the start it was obvious he had just brought a webcam outdoors and filmed himself walking around, sometimes admiring his hand in front of the lens and complimenting the “graphics.” Those viewers who finished the video were horrified, however, when after finishing the tutorial for “jumping” and “tying your shoelaces,” the host walked his camera out into the middle of the road and demonstrated the “combat gameplay,” by refusing to step out of the way of oncoming traffic. He charged at a Hummer, which threw on its breaks but still struck him. A small spray of blood could be seen flying past the lens. The view of the camera flew up and collapsed to the concrete, where it lay still for ten seconds. Then the cameraman, presumably the same one who had been struck, picked up the camera and announced the demo for Go Outside was over.

That’s the worst April Fool’s joke the Highlander ever played.

Bathroom Monologue: Contextualization: A Picaresque

The main theme of my new picaresque is context, or my theory that readers must know as much about the author, his intents, his culture and world as possible to be able to have event a decent understanding of his work. I went through eleven drafts, though the first ten were destroyed so that people don’t find and try to study them later. Their interpretations could be disastrous. They were mere print drafts, you see. The eleventh draft is a perfect edition, released exclusively to internet-capable e-readers that enable every word in the book to be hyperlinked to an article explaining it. The footnotes of the ninth edition were exhaustive, with only one word of the work per page and the rest of the space devoted to explanation of how this one word altered the sound of how the sentence should be pronounced, how its course was forever altered, and the possible medieval allusions of its etymology, but they were still too limited. No, my genius could only be comprehended with thorough usage of certain websites, diagrams, paintings and youtube videos. That is why the eleventh edition indirectly connects to roughly 23% of the content linked to on Google. By following every link you can properly begin to understand what I intended by such classic word choices as “Cervantic,” “Dionysus” and “the.” My publisher expects it to replace Strunk and White as the seminal text on composition and literary theory by next February.

Bathroom Monologue: Decontextualization: A Novel

The main theme of my new novel is decontextualization, the theory that readers don’t need any context of the author, history or culture of a work of art to understand a good book. I’m not going to tell you the title because giving you the thought that there is a title is context, and God knows how much accidental suggestive context the title (if there is one) might give you. The book isn’t restrained by the normal conventions like “characters,” or having them “have relationships,” or following “a plot” and “doing things” – unless that’s what you read into it, because that’s all there is. In fact, I don’t want to give the suggestion that the book is a book at all. That is why all first-edition copies have been released as stainless steel spheres with no apparent mechanism to open them. After all, the traditional notion of opening a book from the right side is culturally biased. Similarly, I will not give the normal context of “pages,” having replaced them with aluminum ribbons upon which various words have been printed. There aren’t sentences, per se, but something more free form such that you can make of them what you will (and only at the request of my publisher have I elected to indent them). The language of these sentences is foreign to anything with which humans have come into contact, for if there is any overbearing context in literature it is a language readers have encountered before. You won’t need to know my politics, American history or the English language to get everything there is in this book. All you’ll need is an open mind and a pair of pliers.

Bathroom Monologue: A Clue

And in Human Rights news, the ACLU had a snafu this morning. It appears a fundamentalist anti-gay group was protesting the funerals of gay soldiers at Arlington National Cemetary, and the ACLU dispatched a standard lawyer to defend their right to free expression. However they also dispatched a lawyer to shut the protest down for religious expression on government property. The lawyers could barely converse over the chants of, “Thank God for 9/11,” and the somewhat suggestive 21-gun salute that was fired over their heads. Neither party has claimed responsibility, but both lawyers were released from the hospital this afternoon with abdominal contusions from “moderate to severe stomach punches.”

Bathroom Monologue: Some Song About Ninjas

There’s a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every job he takes
Another leap he makes
Odds are he won’t live to see Naruto
Secret… ASIAN Man
Secret… ASIAN Man
They’ve given you nunchucks
And taken away your glaive

(I've since been warned that someone else beat me to this parody. If you're out there, I just have to ask - what's wrong with you?)

“Physicians may use [a] placebo for diagnosis or treatment only if the patient is informed of and agrees to its use.” –American Medical Association

This week the National Rifle Association put forth a stern warning that rifles may only be used to shoot deer all the bullets are removed from the gun and dumped on the ground in front of the deer. Further, the deer must sign a waiver consenting to be shot by the empty gun. Empirical tests are currently being run to chart the effectiveness of “placebullets.”

Bathroom Monologue: Dwarfs on Stilts

Society said the stilts counted as cheating, but dwarfs weren’t fooled. If lithe elfs could wear corsets that hiked their diminutive boobs up to their eternal chins, they could wear lifts. Even the humans wore shoes, and if the shoes had heels, who were they to question an eight-foot dwarf?

For weeks the giant wee folk wandered around stores and asked strangers of other species, “How’s the weather down there?”

“Don’t worry. Maybe you’ll hit a growth spurt at your midlife crisis!”

“Sure, this is nice, but you have your advantages. When you trip, you have less of a way to fall!”

“Need to me reach that for you?”

They said that last one a lot. Within the first week there was nothing left on the top shelf of anything in any store, even stores where dwarfs had no interest. One dwarfish nun was so taken with the idea of taking things off the top shelf that she cleared out the upper tier of an entire sex toy shop.

She did penance by only wearing high heels that weekend.

Bathroom Monologue: I said it, thought nothing of it, and six hours later, burst into laughter

"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Interrupting cat."
"Interrupting cat wh--"
"MOOO!"
"Cats don't m-"
"MOOOOOO!"

Bathroom Monologue: “Love is such an old-fashioned word.”-Samari Smith’s away message

“Decapitation is such an old-fashioned word. I prefer cranial rearrangement, or body re-decorating. You may have seen my work on Flip This Corpse. This isn’t the dark ages. We aren’t tethered to old ethics or aesthetics. People these days know if they’re hip then they can’t just let their body parts grow wherever nature tells them to. You need legs on your shoulders and a neck coming out of your navel if you want to be on the cutting edge. And to get that looking? You need my cutting edge.”

Bathroom Monologue: Refried Griefers

There’s this one videogame habit called “griefing,” where players go to online games, partner up with strangers, and then purposefully play poorly, or play annoying sound effects through their microphones over and over again, or in some other way generally try to annoy the other players. Griefers are sometimes called the parasites of entertainment, leaching off normal players, but if they are parasites, then the Refried Griefer is the immune system.

Refried Griefers track the ISP numbers and find the identities of griefers, then steal their personal information like bank account info and social security numbers, empty all their savings and max out their credit cards.

On what do they spend this stolen money? One Oklahoma Refried Griefer spent a regular griefer’s life savings on a giant array of speakers to blast annoying sound effects into his apartment building.

A south Florida refried griefing unit used one griefer’s credit cards to pay for a fleet of street limos that were dispatched when the griefer went out driving, specifically ordered to drive in back, in front and at the sides of her car, and to do so slowly and erratically. It had something to do with the way she’d griefed on World of Warcraft. Something about “mounts.” I guess you’d have to play to get it.

Bathroom Monologue: Strife with Sandwiches

So you’re walking by this restaurant that half your friends have said serves the best ham sandwich. Your life is feeling empty and pointless right now so you go in and order one, but the waitress says they don’t serve any. You tell her you’ve heard they serve great ones, and she just smiles and nods. You’re there for fifteen minutes before you get up and leave out of frustration. As you exit, though, you pass a couple leaving who are talking.

“What a great ham sandwich.”

“Yes it was. Thank you for sharing your other half with me. I’m definitely ordering it next time.”

What the Hell? You almost go over to look at their empty plates to see the remains of this sandwich, but you’re already at the door. It’d be embarrassing.

That night you hear someone else praise the restaurant’s ham sandwich, so you head back to the restaurant the next day. You get a different waitress. You order the sandwich, she nods and heads off.

Huh. I guess the other one was ornery.

This waitress returns with a bowl of tomato soup and doesn’t even listen to your protests as she heads off to wait on another table. Infuriating! Almost as infuriating as when you leave and pass an entire party of people talking about how great their ham sandwiches were.

For forces beyond your ability to explain you return the next day. You sit in the same area as that party had, thinking maybe the waitress in this area will provide the sandwich. Maybe she makes them herself and you can only get them from her.

But no waitress shows up. Other people come and sit in the area and don’t even look for a server. In fact, they almost look full the moment they sit down. When one of them belches you lose your temper and go into another area to grab someone who works there and yell that you know there’s a ham sandwich somewhere in that back room and you’re damned well going to eat it.

Logic only kicks in at this moment, and they call the cops. You’re hauled out. You head over to your normal restaurant to cool off and order the grilled cheese sandwich, your favorite. It comes and is delicious. It soothes you right away.

But just as you’re finishing you see someone screaming at the front door about how he knows they don’t serve grilled cheese sandwiches and he’ll fucking kill them if they don’t admit that there’s no such thing.

Anyway, that’s my experience with other people’s religion.

Bathroom Monologue: Rejected Proposal #6

So what we’ll do is re-title the many genres in print. With the recent decline in book sales comes many stupid ideas on how to sell books, but I think there’s a whole new generation of Alexander Pope fans just waiting to be fooled into thinking he’s like Jay Z – which is why “Poetry” will now be known as “Hip Hop.” It doesn’t stop there. We’ll do…

Horror – Scary
Humor - Funny
Biography – I Lived This!
Fantasy – Magic
Science Fiction – Magic 2.0
Speculative Fiction – Guessin’
Romance – Fuckin’
Culinary – Do Not Eat This
Classics – You’ll Impress Girls
Psychology – Brainstuffings
Science – We Checked
History – Boring But No Wait Come Back!

Bathroom Monologue: Rejected Proposal #5

So what we’ll do is make a videogame based on all those dystopias. It’ll be spin-off from Koei’s Dynasty Warriors franchise that pits several ancient Chinese kingdoms against each other in beat-em-up action. Our Dystopia Warriors is set in a terrible pan-future. Instead of Asian emperors, you’ve got Big Brother. Those freakish convoys from Beyond Thunderdome go head-to-head with a zombie apocalypse, with the winner taking on the Terminators. One level will require you to escape L.A., while another forces you to face the irradiated mutations of a nuclear disaster. All the infamous awful futures collide, not to taint the present, but to beat on each other – and they have all always been at war with Oceania. Coming this Fall – A Brave New Asskicking.

Bathroom Monologue: Rejected Proposal #4

So what we’ll do is print a small explanation along with the coin. You can’t have failed to notice that the U.S. Mint has set George Washington’s giant head looming over president elect Obama on the one side, which is a very odd idea on its own. President Washington owned Negro slaves. They worked for him in Virginia. I guess the vague idea was that he has a really idealized image as president, and so we’ll just associate him with other guys we like, like Obama. They could have just as easily put Thomas Edison’s head behind him – if anybody knew what he looked like. But we don’t, and we don’t have a Lincoln/Obama coin here. We have a Washington/Obama coin, on which we will print the bold-faced rationalization that President Washington emancipated his slaves in his will, and thus had he lived to this century he would have happily let Obama stop working on his plantation and let him be president just as soon as he died. I think that should take the potential offense out of it for everyone.

Rejected Proposal #3

So what we’ll do is knock down the external wall of the church. Not the whole wall, just the little bit beside the padre’s confessional. We’ll build in the same little wicker thing to obscure the face of repentant, but realistically we’ll want intercoms so that they can confess from the drive-through. Maybe we’ll install an automated system so they can tell the operator the nature and severity of his sins, so the padre can produce pertinent penitence in the most expeditious manner. I don’t know who the operator will be. Do you have a spare nun around?

Bathroom Monologue: Rejected Proposal #2

So what we’ll do is abduct babies straight from the nursery. Publishing is dwindling and some say we should go to all e-distribution, but do you really want to depend on a medium where piracy is the norm? We’ve got to create brand new technology. We’ve got to pre-load our books in the brains of children straight from the womb, then charge for the privilege. It’s what PC’s have been doing with software for years – Microsoft Office comes loaded, with charges going back to the home company. The moms won’t even know what happened, but their little chubby miracles will be pre-loaded with Melville and Proust. Their first words won’t be, “Dada,” but, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It’ll be tacked on to the bill as they exit the hospital. Nobody reads those.

Bathroom Monologue: Rejected Proposal #1

So what we’ll do is load a super-virus into the server that only appears on that one page. They can search Wikipedia for King George, Sesame Street or Absurdism, but not Wikipedia itself! It’s like biting your own teeth. Instead of a normal page what loads is a series of flashing messages like, “Why would you do this to me? Why, operator, why?” before their hard drives fry. It’ll be hilarious.