Bathroom Monologue: Fawcett Vs. Jackson, OR, I'm probably going to Hell now

The difference between the dead is subtle. Michael Jackson shuttled young boys to his mansion so he could touch them. Farrah Fawcett sold her picture to young boys so they could touch themselves. The difference was customer service.

Scheduled Post Problem

I apologize for stories going up late on here. For over a week now Blogspot has had some glitches. I have several weeks of stories scheduled to go up at 9:00 AM. Blogspot simply isn't posting them. Google claims it's fixed. They are wrong. It's happening on dozens of other blogs, too, though their Help forum is so obtuse that everyone can't gather to tally how many blogs are affected.

Bathroom Monologue: Constant Change

[GARY and SAMID sit on one side of the booth, both wearing bright pink tuxedos. ARYANA sits opposite to them in a powder blue chainmail business suit. Her tie is made of folded steel. GRUFF STOVER sits beside her, leaning against the window, wearing tactical camouflage that disguises his body as part of the setting. Only GRUFF’s head is visible.]

Gary: If you don’t experiment, nothing changes.

Samid: I disagree. If you don’t experiment, you have less information with which to change things. Experimentation helps you shape change.

Gary: I think the dinosaurs didn’t experiment on giant rocks, and meteors still changed them out of existence.

Gruff: I don’t think funding rock research would have shaped that annihilation much.

Aryana: The meteor theory is bunk. Disease killed them off.

Samid: If we don’t experiment, we’ll never find which of those two theories are more valid.

Gruff: So people won’t be able to change their opinions.

Gary: Oh, people have always been able to change their opinions without information. That’s what daytime talk shows are for.

Bathroom Monologue: Words in Tribute to In Tribute to Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker

If there is a piece of art that has influenced the Bathroom Monologues, I lament that it is not a short-short. It is not microfiction, flash fiction or shotgun fiction. It’s not prose or poetry – it’s not in print at all. The seminal piece of art in the Bathroom Canon is a sculpture.

It is Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker.

If I were a good writer I would lie about the origins of my affections. They would come from values instilled by parents, a deep spiritual connection made upon visiting it at a museum, or from some overwhelming burble of art history.

Instead, the origins of my affections come from Dobey Gillis. It was a black and white sitcom on Nick At Nite about an unusually introspective student. Dobey often opened the show by breaking the fourth wall and talking about issues that weighed on his mind, usually in front of a replica of The Thinker. Dobey, diminutive and not terribly bright, mimicked its position as though in religious ritual. Ever afterwards it was a monolith to thought that could inspire and be emulated by mere mortals like my ten-year-old self. I got the religion of Rodin from Dobey Gillis.

I got A.D.D. from genes, which meant whenever I assumed this position, or began the deep thoughts I associated with the statue, it didn’t last long. So these thoughts would be brief, just long enough to provide a little mental satisfaction. A little contemplation on why Skeletor didn’t save up several of his apocalyptic plans and hatch them at once, since He-Man could barely overcome any one of them given nothing else to do. A little contemplation on whether the bearded giant God my grandparents believed in really was in the flower outside the window since they said He was in all things. And a little contemplation on why Nick At Nite started so late.

The prototype for short-short fiction, don’t you think?

It’s funny because The Thinker wasn’t originally an independent statue. It was meant to be at the top and center of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, a tribute to Dante Allighieri’s Divine Comedy. The Thinker himself was originally to be The Poet, a reference to Dante himself. A version of him can be seen in that massive sculpture, perched just above the break in the double doors, surrounded by naked ladies and looking at the demons emerging from the frame. Think about that. Our culture really has taken a pickaxe to chastity, hasn’t it?

No man, woman or child who isn’t told that was what Rodin meant has ever looked at that sculpture for the first time and thought, “He’s pondering the nature of Dante’s Hell.” Maybe he’s considering a lost love, maybe it’s legal reform, or maybe he’s just taking a dump and has some form of Hell on the mind – but the exact origin has lived independent in the art since it was made. And separate, it has inspired more wonder than Rodin’s complete Gates of Hell entirely. The one man statue has become personal art that begs individual thought. Hell, it’s become the icon.

But think about that again. The Thinker is just one tiny bit, a brief snatch of the grand design reflecting the Italian epic poem. It is the Bathroom Monologue of sculpture. A microcosm torn from the whole, and frayed in context, inspiring more than it is. It’s a shame I can’t chisel words as well as Rodin did his idea.

I’m so taken with the statue that for a good year I intended to photograph myself in such a pose on the toilet as the author portrait for these Bathroom Monologues. What a visual pun it would be. But any time I got the nerve to request a digital camera, a consortium of parts of my brain jumped and beat the crap out of me. You see, there are some puns that even I will not make, and most of those have to do with dragging someone else down. A lot of the time I don’t mind making an ass out of myself, but to do it to someone or something I revere? Doing so will cause me to go somewhere alone, put an elbow on a knee and reflect many of the worst emotions that people have projected onto The Thinker. The offense I might give, even to an unthinking hunk of rock a continent away, will put me before my own Gates of Hell.

Skilled biographers will analyze the use of puns and cheap metaphors in the above paragraph to psychoanalyze me. I request they do it in an original pose.

Twittertacular

joined twitter today. text limit is constrictive. won't do much fiction there but

But thankfully this isn't Twitter. I won't do much fiction in their 140-character universe, but it is a good hub for personal updates, news and links. I try to keep the Bathroom Monologues neat and feel uncomfortable advertising what blogs I read, where I get my news, what games I'm playing, my favorite writers and comedians, net resources and funny videos. Twitter is also a more efficient place to link any potential readers to my longer works, provided they get accepted. I have eight floating around at six different places right now. Here's hoping.

You can follow me at http://twitter.com/wiswell

Bathroom Monologue: Freewrite on blind quote, "loves labors lost"

When love goes into labor, you lose. Love is fun and sticky before then, but only sticky thereafter, and sticky alone is a love that one cannot abide. In labor, love will grab you by the hair and bite through the towel wrapped around your hand. Love will look and sound surprisingly like hate, especially if you make eye contact. Love is helped substantially by an epidural. Love's labor is a labor you must lose. Do not fight back. Abandon your feelings and any rational argument; being right in her time of labor will only make love lose it, and perhaps let loose with an I.V. drip stand.

Previously On as a Regular Serial?

You've probably noticed that today's monologue is a direct sequel to last Wednesday's. I think it's about time some of the Bathroom Monologues crossed over - so many brief scenes and character sketches that I bet most of you thought would never go anywhere. But I'm curious if any of you actually want to see more of this. Please leave comments on whether you'd like to see more, or if this should stay a shorter and more random house of prose.

Long time close readers of the Bathroom Monologues will be unsurprised to find Apollo is the villain.

Or is he?

Bathroom Monologue: Previously On #002

A girl went to a diner because she was hungry, not because gravity had disappeared.

And some gods formed a poker group.

And now...

Wendy waited for her pancakes. She spent the time playing with the slack in her tether. She hardly needed the whole chord and found she could bunch it up to practice shoelace knots. She’d need that skill someday.

Up in one corner of the diner was a TV, tuned to the news. There a female reporter in a plain suit was clearly trying not to freak out as she interviewed a man whose entire house was covered in cushions. Apparently he’d built expansions, too, so that he could get the mailbox. How the cushions and the expansions were linked, neither Wendy nor the reporter could figure. A belt fastened a pillow to his head, making it difficult to hear the questions, and so he kept returning to his declaration that he had seen something like this coming. He blamed it on an underwear company.

The man who entered was easily the most interesting one Wendy had seen today, passing even pillow-man from TV. He looked like he had been spray painted gold and was very proud of it, for he wore only a white thong and some leaves behind his ears. His blond hair looked downright shabby next to his flesh, so toned he could have passed for a giant Oscar statue.

He passed Wendy’s table with his nose turned up, walking regally, as though he weren’t doing something wrong by being naked here, but that everyone in the diner was experiencing the privilege of seeing him. It was like he owned the world, and maybe he did, because he didn’t have any trouble staying on the ground today.

The door to the kitchen opened and the waitress with one eye stared at him a moment.

“Honey,” she said with a light blush. “We're a free-thinking diner so you can wear whatever you want, but the floor is a little grimy for bare feet. Might want some sandals."

He waved her off with a gilded hand, and she returned to the kitchen muttering something about how he could wait for a menu.

He stopped by the group of old men in battered clothes, placing his fingertips on their table. The crow on the old man’s shoulder hopped off, flapping to the windowsill. It eyed him. So did all the men.

Wendy struggled with her tether and crept a couple of booths closer to eavesdrop.

"I want his account," said the golden man in a voice that made her ears feel warm.

"You want all of our accounts, you glory-whore," said the man nearest to Wendy. He had long, white hair and a beard like Santa Claus. The rest of him was un-Santa-like. There was what looked like chain mail under his jacket and he wore a patch over one eye, though the scars of whatever had taken it were visible around its edges. Wendy wondered if he was related to the waitress.

The golden man curled his fingers into fists. Wendy didn’t know if he knew this, but when he got angry his butt clenched in an unflattering way.

"I've been working with the sun since the world began. Attractive forces were never properly claimed in the Greek pantheon as it was. There’s an opening and I can handle it."

The raven kawed in the golden man’s direction. Everyone in the booth looked at it intently. A man further down the booth, this one black and very thin, nodded as though agreeing with the bird.

"Raven’s got a point. This is why no one likes you, Apollo. Athena is out there trying to get him some therapy. Demeter and that nymph-boy son of hers are covertly rescuing people from floating into the ionosphere. You? You just want to serve yourself."

The man with the eye-patch added, "You're pretty much the god of serving yourself."

The black man straightened so he could look the golden one at eye level. “If anyone is going to take over his account, it’s me. I pretty much designed this universe.”

“So you say.” The golden man sniffed. “But Gaia, Jehovah and a Peruvian fisherman all make the same claims. Bottom line is Gravity gave up.”

"He has not given up on the world entirely. The planet is still clearly in a fixed orbit around the sun. This is a punishment against men."

"And women."

"Gravity's been punishing women ever since they lived to hit middle age."

The raven kawed and they all chuckled guiltily. Even the golden man laughed, then looked around like he was worried someone had seen him do it. Wendy ducked behind the booth.

“We’re being watched,” he said in his warm voice. Even scared of being caught, Wendy felt that cloying warmth. It ran from her ears to everywhere.

“Humans always watch our work,” said one of the men. Wendy thought it was Eye-patch. “It’s how the mythology gets going. Now settle in or bug out, Apollo. If you want to be the new God of Gravity, play him for it at the next poker meet.”

“Gravity doesn’t play cards with the universe.”

The raven kawed and all the voices of the booth laughed. All but the warm voice of the golden man. He turned and walked away. Wendy saw his scowl come around the edge of the booth.

“You’re lucky,” he said, eyeing her. Now his words weren’t merely warm. They were a fever. “If Odin wasn’t around, I’d turn you into a plant.”

“This isn’t that kind of diner,” came a female voice. The waitress came over with a tall stack of pancakes on one arm, the other hand clasping the counter near the cash register. The lack of gravity was still giving her trouble, but a lifetime of handling trays had given her a good sense of balance.

“Why don’t you leave the underage girl alone and get out of here before I call the cops?”

“I think they’re busy today,” he answered, but he was already leaving. When he exited the door Wendy looked out the window for him. He was nowhere.

The waitress set the plate down before Wendy. A few pancakes drifted up, but the waitress skewered them on a fork and pushed them down. She handed Wendy a knife to go with the fork and asked, “You want maple or strawberry syrup, honey?”

On the TV, the man with the house of pillows was offering the reporter a throw cushion.

Bathroom Monologue: Unknowable Skill

Tristina and Willem knew how large the baby would grow from the size of his hands and feet, and the duration and difficulty of the labor. They knew what his voice would become from the pitch of his cries for the tit. Before he had developed will or reason, they read to him from the classics, and only fed him a butterscotch when he could name the author of a randomly selected passage. So they treated him to sweets, but fed him culture and dignity, and he grew quite large.

Thirty years hence he was the tallest man in the parliament, with the longest strides and the furthest echoing voice. No man could shy from his gaze in debate. They instinctively feared him in the most cordial settings, struck by the irrational intimidation of a man who would never unholster his pistol, but who had one nonetheless. It was pearl-handled, a gift from his parents.

He became Minister of Affairs, and his acceptance speech brought wives and children to tears. Even the partisan press applauded. When asked why he was such a great orator, he said he didn’t know. Old Tristina overheard the answer and rolled her eyes at Heaven, hoping somewhere Willem was rolling them down.

Bathroom Monologue: As Many As the Beast

“Right now you’re wondering why the beast is on my side. I mean, you’re wondering a lot: how I got into your bedroom, how long before the beast devours all of your watchmen, and certainly why both the prince and the beast are both alive. I’d wonder such things, with the sword were to my neck. But back when you tricked the beast into kidnapping my bride and I hunted it down for vengeance, we had a talk. It’s remarkably reasonable for a man-eater. When I’d stabbed it right about where I’ve stabbed you now, it opened a dialogue. We wondered if two folk as driven to the destruction of their antagonists as we couldn’t have better enterprises for our energies. If I could kill him and he could kill my entire hunting party, then what could we accomplish together? And it’s days like this when we’ve brought down your entire castle and managed to get inside your panic room that we really realize that potential. We’re much better at rescuing princesses together than competing over them. Now, if you would be so kind… where is my bride? Or should I poke the other kidney? I doubt you have as many to spare as my friend.”

Bathroom Monologue: All-Father’s Day

Just before sunrise God came down into the Foyer of Heaven, shaking something at St. Peter. Peter was the only one on duty at the time.

"He... He..." stammered the omniscient entity. Peter perked up, straightening his uniform.

"Lord?"

"It's a Father's Day card!"

God thrust the card at St. Peter. On it, two bears held fishing poles. One bear was bigger and wore a fishing hat.

"Look at it. A dad and a son bear!"

"That's... good, Lord."

When St. Peter did not show the appropriate enthusiasm, God repeated, "It's a Father's Day card!"

Peter tapped his record book, then his eyebrows perked.

"Father's Day! He finally wrote to you?"

"I thought he'd never get over that," said God, clutching the card to His omnipotent chest. "But he says he's close to forgiving Me. You know, about that earth business."

"Forgiveness was one of his big things, Lord."

"I know, but some matters you just can't believe until you see them."

He reviewed the picture on the card, then the message inside and laughed until all the clouds shook. Then he pushed it at Peter again.

"See? The father bear is teaching him how to fish rather than giving him one. It's a family in-joke. Get it?"

Peter smiled meekly enough to inherit the earth.

"Yes, Lord."

God left the hall, babbling something about it being the best Father's Day since Adam moved out. He was in such a good mood that Queen played over Heaven's loud speakers for the first time in decades. The first song was, of course, "It's a Miracle."

Bathroom Monologue: "Las Vegas: What's Your Excuse?" -Tourism ad trying to get you to visit Nevada

Dear Las Vegas,

John can't come in today. He doesn't want to lose several thousand dollars to statistically unfair games only to be consoled by a complimentary room and syphilis.

Best,
Mom

Bathroom Monologue: Bio I composed in the bathroom and feel I really shouldn't use

John studied Literature at Bennington College. Long before that he was thirteen and crippled, and the works of Mark Twain, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King and various others gave him the will to make it to the next day. Now that he is able to walk, he feels he owes Literature something. Bennington College now feels that is somewhere in the six-figure range.

He writes The Bathroom Monologues, a blog of micro-fiction, list fiction, character sketches, monologues and other brief prose at www.johnwiswell.blogspot.com, which is now at over 750 entries. He also writes short stories and novels in various genres, because a stroke victim and a guy who thinks the world is full of evil pod people are both really interesting. He has been published at Inside Pulse, Alien Skin Magazine, the Story Library, Flashshots, Microhorror.com, Powder Burn Flash, and by Acorn Press. He is always looking for new venues for fiction, online and off.

Bathroom Monologue: Brutally Honest

“Et tu, Brute?” Julius asked, turning to his old friend.

“Not well, really,” Brutus said, shrugging his shoulders. He hated doing this. “I’ve got a lot of issues with you.”

“Que?” asked the leader of the empire.

“Your refusal to abdicate consolidated power makes a mockery of our republic, many of your domestic decisions show incompetence, and your war lust both taxes the treasury and threatens to dissolve our empire.” He pulled his right hand from behind his back and showed Julius the knife. “Frankly, I’d come here to stab you. That’s how bad it’s got. And your hygiene…”

BM:“Do you people even know how to play this game?” –some jerk on Left 4 Dead, OR, What I came up with once I’d left the game and went to the bathroom

“Yes, I do. There’s a gun sticking out of my camera. I point it at things and fire until they stop moving. It’s very simple. It’s you who seem to think we’re playing another game, one where the object is to walk in front of me while I’m firing as often as possible. But I figure you can’t really think that’s the object, because if it was a high score logo would have popped up on your screen by now. Man, this is such a good burn. I’ve got to log back in, find him and use it.”

The Nearest Thing in Flash 40 Contest

This week voting began in the Editors Unleashed Flash 40 contest. Winners receive cash prizes and see their work published in an upcoming e-book. Anyone who registers with that forum can view and vote on all of the entries up until the 25th, and those who receive the highest public votes get better weighing in the judgment. I'd sincerely appreciate it if any readers could head over there and check out my "The Nearest Thing." It is a stringently revised version of "The While Walking from Borders to Home Depot Monologue," following Felix and Creed, two boys from the same town who barely ever met, even after they ran away from home in the same direction.

If you think it sucks, vote like it sucks. But I'd appreciate the eyes. You can see the story itself at this URL: http://editorunleashed.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1318

Bathroom Monologue: Previously On #001

Previously on the Bathroom Monologues...

A girl woke up with questions.

A waitress dressed as she pleased.

And gravity turned against us.

And now...



It took Wendy fifteen minutes to make it to the diner down the street. She held onto the neighbors’ bushes and made a slow go of it, watching as cars hit the mid-street speed bump and floated away, their drivers honking angrily. She waved with one hand, but held onto shrubs and mailboxes with the other.

Once inside the diner she happily drifted up to the ceiling, kicking off it with her slippered feet and landing on one of the tables. She scurried across it, navigating the edge until she could scoot her legs under the table. Then she was secure, though she kept at least one hand gripping the booth’s cushions at any given time.

The diner was almost empty, save a group in the far corner. There were tall men, all old and in beat-up clothes. One had a raven on his shoulder and seemed to be talking to it. Wendy wondered how much the raven understood. The tone of their conversation was grumpy, though all seemed relaxed, none apparently bothered by the lack of gravity in the town today.

After a moment, someone popped out from the kitchen. It was a stocky woman wearing an eye patch and a blue military uniform. She carried a menu under one arm and walked cheerily towards Wendy’s table. Wendy stared, asking before the woman had even circled the counter.

“How can you walk on the floor?”

The one-eyed woman chuckled, one hand gripping the edge of Wendy’s booth.

“Restaurant floors get pretty sticky from spills and people not wiping their shoes. I haven’t mopped in a while.” She deposited a menu in the girl’s lap, instructing, “Don’t let go of that. Lot of menu-related injuries today. I knew we should have put rounded corners on them.”

Wendy braced her knees under the table, gripping the menu to her chest. She looked over the woman’s uniform again.

“Are you a marine?”

“No, honey,” the woman smiled. When she smiled her eye patch got stuck over her cheek and rode up, like a giant eyebrow. “I’m your waitress.”

“Waitresses don’t dress like that.”

“They let me dress up however I please, and I wanted to be an astronaut today given current events.”

“But you’re wearing marine clothes.”

“A navel officer, actually. I don’t have any astronaut suits and this was the closest I could get.”

Wendy frowned, then shuffled through the menu.

“Can I have pancakes?”

“You sure can, but it may take a while. Fred hasn’t got the reflexes down yet and they keep floating away when he flips them.”

“He should use a second spatula to keep them in check.”

Wendy flattened her hands and mimed one spatula hovering over the skillet, slapping down any imaginary pancakes the other hand flipped up. Her waitress laughed.

“Capital idea, honey. I’ll tell it to him with your order. For now, here, take this.”

The waitress reached under the booth and produced a pink nylon tether. One end was fixed to a table leg, and she tied the other to Wendy’s right ankle.

“Compliments of the chef, so you don’t drift away while you wait.”

“That’s a good idea,” Wendy said, running her fingers over the nylon.

“They’ll probably be mandatory by law in a week,” the waitress said. “If the weather doesn’t clear up.”

“Is this weather?” Wendy tilted her head out the window. It was mildly overcast out. Could that nullify gravity?

“What else could it be?” the waitress asked back, heading to the kitchen. Her shoes squelched on the sticky floor, and Wendy thought she heard her making Darth Vader breathing noises.

Bathroom Monologue: Penultimate, Ultimate, See Older Posts

The first end came when God was browsing creation and hit the back button too many times. Suddenly the perfect world was deleted. He fretted and hit undo, to no avail. The recycling was similarly unhelpful – it was stuffed with too much crap downloaded and deleted on whim for even the omniscient to be able to find a single good file in it. He went back to older drafts and found no good saves. Most of them were made up of notes and things He ought to try in later writing. He sighed and tugged on His infinite beard in frustration; He’d never be able to get the world that right again. Nothing ever topped the good draft that got away. So He opened all the documents He hadn’t lost and began copying and pasting, hoping none of the life forms that popped up on this planet would notice the gaps.

Bathroom Monologue: Broadcasting From Unconfirmed

"Listeners, all we know about the situation is that we know nothing. We can only report that the dead may or may not be rising. We’d like to tell you more, but that would require us to make something up. That would be lying, and listeners, we do not lie. We are here to inform. Unfortunately all we can inform you of is that we know nothing. We are the Socrates of radio and this is the Agnosticast. We cannot confirm that a satellite from Venus crashed near a cemetery and started this. We cannot confirm that a strain of viral rage extracted from monkeys broke out and started this. All we can confirm is that our very dead stationary manager just came in and tried to bite me. Is still trying to bite me. God dammit, Karl, will you please him in the other room? Listeners, I’ve just been informed that Karl does not have the key to the other room. I cannot say where it is because – Jesus, get him off of me!"

Bathroom Monologue: “What’s your sign?” –Guys throughout the ages who thought you were pretty but didn’t have anything to say

-“Stop.”

-“Smoke signals. Do you mind if I set you on fire while we talk?”

-“Cancer. It’s terminal.”

-“The sea anemone, made up of four stars visible from your planet and nine that aren’t. They map the way to my homeworld. Do you have any spare rocket fuel?”

-“Cancer. I have crabs.”

-“Taconic Parkway 7. Then it’s just two miles, and I’ve got a waterbed.”

-“.” This one was in sign language.

-“Cancer. That’s why I’m bald and emaciated. Am I really the most attractive woman in here or do you have a horrid fetish?”

-“The dollar sign. Before you sit down you may want to speak to my pimp. It’s almost 12:00 and rates change at midnight.”

Bathroom Monologue: The Boy Who Didn’t Cry Wolf

The boy grew up keenly interested in wolves. Just one wolf could ruin the herd, killing many and spooking the females out of breeding. Sheep were the life of the tribe, so to him, wolves must have been the death. He asked many questions about them.

“How big are their mouths?”

“How much of a sheep can one eat in a night?”

“How fast can they run?”

“How big does a pack get?”

“Is this a sign that they’re stalking?”

To him this was necessary information. To the town fathers it was a nuisance, and soon the only answer he got was to ask later. That answer came increasingly with an adult turning away from him mid-sentence, and later, not bothering to turn and look at him at all.

The shepherd boy was left him feeling that he should fend for himself. Bags grew under his eyes from long nights thinking, and those bags felt full whenever wanted to ask a question.

He didn’t want to bother anyone, not with questions of wolves or requests for help. Once he sprained his ankle and limped through work for two days until one of the tribe fathers asked what was wrong, and then called him stupid for not reporting it. He was called stupid many times that night.

“What made you stupid?”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“How can we trust you with an attitude like that?”

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

“Got any smart questions now?”

He had no questions that week. They were so loud to him, even when quiet.

Still, he stood watch with his staff. Because he was so loyal he often served more hours in the field than the adults. Because he was so loyal the adults sometimes sent him out alone. Because he was too quiet to complain, they sent him out alone more often. It let them start drinking earlier.

Wolves came one night. It was a bigger pack than any of the town fathers had described. He fought valiantly, trying to stand between the sheep and the wolves, but there were too many. No matter the direction he faced, another set of teeth could come snapping from another.

No one had taught him to fight effectively. Hitting one with the blunt staff didn’t drive it away for long. He used fire, but they always got another sheep that strayed for fear of it. He needed to sound the bell, to call for the help of the adults, but something made his hand heavy.

The town fathers came the next day. A few sheep were left, but none of the boy.

Bathroom Monologue: The Gay/Straight Alliance - Where you just make out with everyone!

“How does this Gay/Straight Alliance work?”

“We look out for each other’s rights.”

“But as a straight guy, I have all my rights. I don’t need you to look out for them.”

“That’s not the point…”

“Tell you what. I’ll look out for your civil unions if you look out for mowing my lawn.”

He was driven out of the meeting minutes later by bisexual politicians wielding foam bats.

Bathroom Monologue: Web 2.0 is the Millionth English Word?, OR, The Preposterisk

Preposterisk (n): An upside down asterisk traditionally used by readers and copy editors to mark a word, phrase or passage they consider ridiculous. It is differentiated from the asterisk in that it correlates to no explanation or elaboration later on the page, merely denoting how stunned the reader was that something so stupid could make it into print. Widely used by Freshman English teachers and people who read the lyrics of Hip Hop. While not in common use yet, the preposterisk will be found in any dictionary, encyclopedia and/or web-based wiki dumb enough to let John Wiswell register as an editor that admits the phrase "Web 2.0."

Bathroom Monologue: Maroon of the Blue Hair

Some folk asked why a girl with only one eye and that figure was so into dressing up. You’d think she would want to take attention off of herself.

Not Uz Maroon, though.

She’d dress up as a cartoon character, and not just for those annual conventions up in the city. Uz dressed up like Betty Boop to go to work. She’d roll into the diner dolled up like Marilyn Monroe, and if you seemed like a tipper, she’d do an impression for you. One time, dolled up as a president’s wife of whom no one had heard, she explained it wasn’t denial of what she was, but embracing everything that was already in her. It wasn’t imitation of external forces, but letting out things that were inside. Something she’d picked up from an interview with Marlon Brando, an actor of whom no one had heard. She explained it from behind the cash register, which she treated as a podium in the White House pressroom.

Bathroom Monologue: Magic Ring of Invisibility Vs. Scientific Injections of Invisibility

"Your retinas require light to bounce off of them so you can have perception of the light in the world around you. That's all your sense of sight is. Since science has rendered you invisible, it's made your eyes transparent, and thus accidentally blinded you. Meanwhile my magic ring of invisibility makes me unseeable while I can see just as good as ever because I didn't screw with physics at all. I just put on a magic ring. And that is why magic is better than science. Oh, I'm sorry. Did you take a swing at me? Missed by a mile, not that you could see, and I didn't even have to put on the ring!"

What is your favorite Serial Bathroom Monologue?

There's a new poll up today asking what your favorite serial Bathroom Monologues are. Sometimes I get a chain of short ideas, and then you get something like the Holegators in the Bathroom Twitter Experiment, or the five perspectives on Rufus Osbourne's story. I'm curious which ones people remember fondly, and if they'd like to see anything like those again. The candidates (with links if you haven't read them) are:

-Letters from Giant Monsters: Open letters from giant monsters including King Kong, Godzilla and Mothra, reflecting on their careers.

-Rufus Osbourne's Story: Different (and questionable) angles on the life of Rufus Osbourne, legendary demon slayer and war profiteer.

-Strange Company: In my humble opinion, the internet's best existential sitcomic strip. Featuring men in pink tuxedos, assassins, vampires, superheroes, warrior queens, planets, and absolutely no illustration.

-Rejected Proposals: Pitches for products and projects that would never be funded.

-"Perspectives:" News stories explaining radically different perspectives on life, like possessed people protesting against exorcism. Dedicated to Tim Meadows.

-55-Word Stories: Pretty self-explanatory.

-Six-Sentence Stories: Pretty self-explanatory, but I put the number in word form so it could feel different.

-Ad Wars: The titanic struggle of attack ads between New York and California, delivered upon imaginary billboards.

-Bathroom Twitter Experiment: A man's home is infested by tunneling alligators. As told by the home owner, through Twitter.

"A Moment for the Duck-Billed Platypus" on Not From Here, Are You?

Mike Solender is running a series of guest essays and micro-fiction on the theme of not fitting in or being an outsider over on his blog, http://notfromhereareyou.blogspot.com/

Today you can see my part, "A Moment for the Duck-Billed Platypus," a brief Bathroom Monologue that some may recognize from way back when these things started. You can read it here: http://notfromhereareyou.blogspot.com/2009/06/not-from-here-project-write-3-john.html

Bathroom Monologue: Scientific Injections of Invisibility Vs. Magic Ring of Invisibility

“You see, while your magic ring made you invisible and emboldened you, it was also corrupting your soul and addicting your body. Now you’re a wizened little worm man with bad teeth, jonesing for your ring. Meanwhile, while my invisibility treatments did blind me, it was a step towards scientific understanding of invisibility. A couple years later my sight was mostly restored and science brought us that much closer to safe, non-damning invisibility. Oh, did you take a swing at me? I couldn’t tell if it was at me or your reflection in the water. You talk to it a lot.”

Bathroom Monologue: Thanks for the new mirror in here

"I steal the breath away from sirens and make Medusa stare. When I step out to get the mail all TV goes offline ‘cause the satellites snap over to me. These jeans, I only wear on Sunday mornings - because if the ladies aren't in their purest frames of minds their eyes will set ablaze. I tell you that I part seas with a smile and command more wine than France not for vanity, but as a warning. My hotness is a firm orbit, and if you stray too close you will never escape. I’m like the sun, but the planets are more coy in how they revolve around me."

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.