Bathroom Monologue: Devil Gone Missing

Pat shot out of his chair when Conner finally came home. The boy’s clothes were crusted in brown grime and he was breathing with heavy excitement.

“Where you been, boy? Gone for four days without a word!” Pat said, pulling him inside. Conner followed his old man’s lead to the kitchen with such a smile that Pat could barely bear it.

“You look devastated. Like you found Jesus.”

“Is he missing, too?” The boy sucked in air in little bursts, like reverse laughter. “I just spent days finding the devil. You’d have been so proud, Pat.”

He reversed-laughed some more and bent towards the sink. When the water ran over his hands the brown turned a little red and circled the drain. Pat’s eyes widened at the change of color.

“You did what, boy?”

Conner beamed at him from over his shoulder, scrubbing his hands with lava soap. “Finally cornered him at the dump. His tail stuck in an old box spring, and he’d dropped his pitchfork.”

“Boy?” Pat moved nearer to the door. “Boy, what did you do?”

Smoke began to rise from the sink.

#trickortweet

Sick of their brethren's mutilation, the pumpkins took up knives. This year, it would be the children that were carved.

Bathroom Monologue: Succubyebye

Listen to the new audio version or download the MP3 here.

The original recording didn't work out so well, so I did a new one at midnight before the crack of Halloween. Hope you all enjoy it!

Aisling panted and collapsed onto his chest. She was about to disappear when she realized that chest was still warm. She slid a palm up his bare sternum. His ribs rose and pressed into her fingers.

He was breathing.

She looked up in surprise and found him looking back at her.

“It’s a nice chest, isn’t it? I don’t even work out.”

She bolted up, but not away. The sheer impossibility of him still being alive kept her in place. The bedsprings creaked under her movement and the covers slid down her back.

“It’s a miracle,” she murmured.

The man folded his arms behind his head and smirked.

“I think it’s diet, really.”

She shook her head, stardust falling from her curls.

“How are you not dead?”

“Were you hoping I’d be?”

"You don’t understand. It's..." She’d never had to explain this before. For the first time in her life, she felt something like guilt. "I'm... I’m a succubus.”

He paused, then laughed at the ceiling.

“Well that explains some things!”

She leaned closer, trying to see what was special in this man. He was handsome, but that didn't rescue any of her other victims. And aside from his healthy looks, there didn't seem to be much to him.

“You’re not upset?”

“It’s not like you could have killed me." He gestured to himself as though the answer to all her questions was as obvious as his skin tone. "I’m immortal.”

“Immortal?”

“Yes. I have inside me blood of kings. Great coincidence, eh?”

“I thought the immortals were just legends.”

“I would have said the same thing about succubae until you fluttered through my window. By the way, I loved that trick.”

Now she leaned away, covering her chest with an arm.

“You didn’t think anything strange about a woman drifting through your window and having sex with you?”

“I figured most women want to do that and you were just the first to fulfill the fantasy.”

She left the bed, dragging the sheet off to wrap herself. She scowled at him from under a makeshift robe of his own linens. Another emotion occurred to her for the first time in her life now.

“Pig.”

“Pardon me if I offend the slut who wanted to drink my life away. Loosen up! You've finally found a steady guy.”

Though now naked, the immortal didn’t budge from the bed. Well, a bit of him budged, but Aisling wasn’t dealing with that bit anymore.

"Like you didn’t enjoy it!”

“I did. You’ve got decent stamina. Dynamite hips, too.” He gestured like she might hop back on the bed at any moment. “I assume you prefer to work nights?”

She gaped at him, then turned to the window and vanished. His sheet vanished with her.

He waited for her to return. When she didn't, he yelled out the window in case she could still hear.

“If I move, I’ll leave a forwarding address! The name’s Hatiel!”

He moved to lie back down, then thought of something.

“Hatiel with a ‘t!’”

"Familiarity Does" at Listen to the Voices and Imagination at Editors Unleashed

I have two pieces at two blogs today.

Erin Cole is featuring a story of mine, "Familiarity Does," on her blog. It's about a man who does unspeakably dirty work, and how you can do it too. It's about as far from Succubyebye as you can get. You can read "Familiarity Does" here: http://erincolelive.blogspot.com/

Also today, Maria Schneider has an essay of mine on imagination at Editors Unleashed. It's about how I get enough ideas to write 365 shorts a year (plus what I've been submitting to magazines), and how you... can do it too. You know, that irony was totally unintentional. That's a little creepy. Regardless, you can read about imagination here: http://editorunleashed.com/2009/10/30/how-to-let-your-imagination-take-flight/

Bathroom Monologue: Culturally, it's Three Wishes to a Genie or Three Sneezes to a Wish

Grandpa taught him an Irish superstition. Two sneezes? Sure, somebody could be talking about you behind your back. But if you sneezed three times, then that was an opportunity. Whatever you were thinking when you sneezed three times would come true. Why, Grandpa had been thinking of a pretty girl when he sneezed three times in the middle of World War 2, and he met Grandma on his next shore leave. So the child tried to summon good thoughts whenever he felt a sneeze coming on. He had a mental narrative that took up about the length of three sneezes. It was a struggle to keep his mind on anything but the fact that he was sneezing, but he was devoted to this. If it were one or two? No loss. But if his wish ever took, man that would be cool. He’d know instantly, too. No waiting to meet a girl. Girls were gross. No, one of these sneezes he’d get lucky and know it immediately when he turned green and grew so big his clothes ripped.

Bathroom Monologue: Cadet Report – Alex [LAST NAME WITHHELD]

Alex would be the perfect field commander if he could stop eating people. He is charismatic, quick on his feet, and knows the strategy manual backwards and forwards. People naturally trust him thanks to his competency and the pheromones he exudes. I feel my judgment swayed by his ethereal charisma even now, and he’s been off-base for two hours.

But, if may be a racist for just a minute, the hard fact is that Alex cannot stop eating people thanks to his ghoulish lineage. He did not choose his grandparents and cannot fight the urge, but we have to factor into our judgments. The same things happen every time we place him on a team. The most lithe female cadet chats him up even if they have nothing in common. She cannot help herself and they fall into something they think is love and that looks like a bad porno. Post-coitis, he devours her, we lose another high-pedigree cadet, and he goes into therapy again. His ability to rebound from the trauma is admirable, but perhaps he is simply best suited to a civilian-side desk job where love interests are more expendable.

Bathroom Monologue: Price War

Sarah knew something was up when seven people walked into the store at once. You rarely got a party of adults that large, and never at 4:30 AM. Six of them wore slacks and button down shirts, like they’d just gotten off shift somewhere else. The seventh was a tall lady in an unassuming blue dress. All seven took carts and rolled them past the Pharmacy and into the Entertainment aisles.

Since the only customer was using Self-Checkout, Sarah ducked from her counter for a minute. She slid up the aisle and peered around the corner of nasal spray shelves.

At the edge of Entertainment, three of the seven were dismantling the new book display that gone up just two hours ago. It was huge, with more copies of a single book than they’d ever put on the floor before, meant to attract attention for a big new fiction release. It was some crazy Horror book or something. Apparently the display worked, as the group stacked every copy in their carts. They spent a minute going through the aisles, presumably hunting down any other copies. There was no sign of the rest of their friends.

Maybe they were huge fans. People had gotten eccentric about their books since Harry Potter.

She heard yelling from way in the rear. Rather than check on that, she followed an all-night Wal-Mart employee’s instinct and dashed back to her counter. She felt guilty, even though no one else was at the registers. Hers was the only one open tonight.

After a minute, Sarah dialed the manager’s office. It rang on and on. That was odd, because Fred didn’t do much more than watch the office TV when he was in charge at nights. He wasn’t the regular manager, just an assistant who enjoyed a little power.

Finally he picked up, immediately ordering, “Hold on.”

“Fred?” she asked.

She heard muffled argument on the line. Fred sounded distressed.

“Fred? What’s going on?”

Before there was a reply, a fleet of shopping carts rounded the corner. It was the book group, two of the plain slacks brigade with the woman in the blue dress in the lead. She led a convoy down her aisle.

“Hey there,” the lady said, smiling wanly down at her. Her hair was mussed, like she’d been up all night. She extended the first book to Sarah. “Can you scan this one and just enter the number of copies? We have four-eighty.”

“You’re buying four-hundred and eighty copies?” Sarah asked in disbelief. She took the book, though hesitated to scan it. She had a feeling Fred was going to yell some weird orders over the phone in a minute, and that they would pertain to not scanning certain merchandise.

“That we are. Can you scan just the one and type in the number?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah looked down. It was hard to make eye contact when she was so confused. She looked at the cover. There was a big bubble on it. It looked boring. “Why do you want so many?”

The lady gave her a look, as though Sarah were the one being weird. Sarah felt herself shrink, which didn’t help as the woman was already three inches taller than her.

“I’m from The Reading Room over on Robin Street. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there.”

Sarah bit her tongue.

“I’ve passed it…”

“My mom started it forty years ago. It was the town’s first independent bookstore. Do you know how much we have to pay the publisher per copy of this book?”

The two guys with carts of books behind the lady both seemed to bristle in unified indignation, like this was Sarah’s fault.

“No.” She couldn’t say anything else.

“Over twenty dollars. More than double this.” The lady reached out to the copy Sarah held and tapped the 9.98 sticker on its upper right hand corner. “There is no way we can make a profit if we even went near ten bucks. We’d lose thousands of dollars just to make the sales. If you do this on more books, we’ll go out of business whether or not we match prices.”

Sarah tried to change the topic. “So you all came over from The Reading Room?”

“No. Ron’s from Borders.”

The lady gestured to the man behind her in line. He was an older man, wearing a sharp green tie.

“Borders?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I’m running a little joint venture with The Reading Room. We’re doing an inter-store release party at noon. Half my staff is here helping us stock up here. The other half’s across town at 24-hour Target doing the same thing.”

Sarah blinked. “You’re going to sell these? You can do that?”

“It’s better than wholesale price,” said Ron. “By a lot. We cancelled our orders with the publisher and just came here. We’re taking all of you’ve got. Readers can get it from the bookstore.”

“You know there are more in the back…” Sarah began, then stopped as pallets rolled around the corner of the checkout counters. Pallet mover after pallet mover appeared, wheeled by the remaining members of this book club. Each pallet mover was stacked with cardboard boxes. Some were opened, all sporting more copies of the ever-popular Horror book.

“Hey Jess! Ron!” the one on the front pallet called, waving. “These were all they had.”

“Sarah! Sarah!”

Sarah stiffened. That was Fred’s voice coming from hip level. She looked at her counter and realized she hadn’t hung up the station’s phone. The night manager was yelling for her attention.

She dropped the book and picked up the receiver. When the crew from Borders began forming a crowded line in her aisle, she held up a finger as though to say she’d help them with those three thousand copies in just a minute. Then she turned and spoke into the phone.

“Fred?”

“Do not sell them those books. This is bullshit.”

“Isn’t this illegal? Can’t security do something?”

“We’ve got one guy on staff and he says this isn’t in his contract. I don’t know. They don’t talk about this in manager training. But the branch officer is going to be pissed if we do this. I just know it. I’m not getting blamed for this. Do not sell those books, Sarah.”

“They really want them. What am I supposed to say?”

“Hey Ron!” somebody behind a pallet called. “Are they going to scan these soon? I want to take a shower before the release party.”

Fred ordered, “Tell them you’re closing your counter.”

Sarah’s eyes bugged out and she turned away. “I can’t do that. I’ll look like an idiot. Come on down here and tell them to go away yourself.”

“I told them to fuck off when they came in the back. I can’t touch a customer, though. They’ll sue. You know they want to.”

“Can’t you, like… call the cops or something?”

“I was just on the line to them. They made fun of me and asked I should arrest their sergeant for buying too many garden hoses. I don’t think they’re coming.”

“Hey Ron!”

There was movement behind her. Sarah turned instinctively and saw all the shopping carts withdraw, like someone had put the night on rewind. At first, in a daydream-like state, she imagined they were going to return the books. Then she saw the guys with pallets wheeling around the bank of counters. They weren’t heading back to Entertainment. They were heading towards…

“Guys!” one of them pointed. “Self-Checkout’s open!”

Bathroom Monologue: Construction

This story has been taken down for submission to zines. Here's hoping you'll see it published somewhere soon!

Bathroom Monologue: Being the Same

“I hit my head this morning and started thinking: aren’t you both really saying the same things? Don’t you really believe pretty much the same stuff, but say it so differently that you can’t stand each other? One critic says art reflects life, and other says art creates itself, and couldn’t they really be having the same thoughts but articulating in idiotic fashion? And they articulate is so differently that they actually wind up doing different things even though they had the same intentions. And might some people realize this but are so embarrassed and insecure about the acts of their lives that they stick to the divisions? Maybe live by the divisions? Because if they admit for a minute in public that the conservative and the liberal want the same state of harmony, of not needing violence or relying on other countries, but are so messed up in a history of semantics that they can’t even hear each other being the same? It hurts, and not just where I hit my head. This isn’t what you want to be thinking when you’re on the frontline and handed a rifle to kill people who disagree.”

Bathroom Monologue: Think he can still get a reference?

"Oh, you're firing me for a new black guy who you can pay less. Yeah, I understand completely. I've always wanted to lose my paycheck and health benefits so you can start a new guy at bottom salary and claim a tax credit. It's a lifelong dream. I'm just wondering, you know, since there are already so many African Americans on staff, if you're going to hire Latinos. I mean, it’s affirmative action, right? If your staff is half black and half white, you're ignoring Hispanics.

“And Asians.

“And Native Americans.

“Not to mention immigrants. I mean legal ones, of course, because you'd never hire illegal immigrants no matter how little they'd work for, or how many rights they'd give up for the privilege of serving you, right?

“Right. They can't type well.

“Yet.

“Yet how many immigrants, and how many colors of immigrants are you going to hire? Because come to think of it, we only speak English in here. Your little monochrome rainbow isn't exactly cutting intellectual xenophobia. Where are the French? The Russians? The Taiwanese? Or do you not consider them a country? You do want to act affirmatively, don’t you?

“Do you have a quota for the countries and backgrounds you like? A quota of Taoists? A quota of Jews? No, that's poor taste. They have a bad history with quotas. But since I'm losing my job, I guess I don't like quotas either."

Bathroom Monologue: The Great Ghost’s True Identity

Listen to this story streaming or download the MP3 here.

You will receive four stipends, one every fiscal quarter, each for a sum of $50,000. Each will be deposited in a new and different foreign bank account. Their access information will be mailed to you on seemingly random days within the first three weeks of the corresponding fiscal quarter. There will be no return address.

In addition, you will have a substantial life insurance policy to benefit your family, and the best health insurance in the world, both of which will be paid for by a dummy corporation. Attempting to trace the corporation will be seen as termination of this contract.

In return for this, you will live in a particular tenement of Penny Quarter. It sees the highest occurrences of armed robbery, vehicle theft and murder in the city. It is not pleasant.

You may have a job if you like, but it must end every night by 5:00 PM, at which point you are to return home. You must be home every night from dusk until dawn, and the curtains must be drawn until the end of that period. No one is to have any contact with you in the evenings; you may not answer e-mail or phone calls. You may have no company.

On rare occasions you will be sent orders to make public appearances. You may be asked to make these appearances in the evenings, at which point you may disregard the above instructions. These orders will come exclusively from a cell phone hidden under the floorboards of the bedroom closet in your apartment. Do not mind it until it rings. You will hear it if it rings no matter where you are in the apartment.

You have been selected because you lost your parents to gang violence in early childhood, because of your time in the marines, and because of your physical resemblance to the Great Ghost. Even your jaw line is vaguely reminiscent of his. You are never to suggest you are him. If inquiries are made, deny them. With your personal history and your residence being within a thirty-mile radius of 85% of his anti-criminal appearances, you will become a prime suspect.

Eventually a dummy costume and some of his utilities may be hidden in your apartment. You will not necessarily be notified of the placement of these items. If you come across them, do not touch them. They are highly dangerous and the Great Ghost will collect them shortly.

His enemies will eventually track you down, intending to kill their predator. The Great Ghost is watchful and will not allow harm to come to you or your loved ones. You are first and foremost a tool to draw out the unsavory but persistent elements, so that they can be captured.

Please do not think of yourself a decoy allowing the Great Ghost to lead some luxurious existence, unmolested by his enemies. I suspect he doesn’t have an alter ego life at all, spending all his energy on vigilantism. I don’t know that for certain, though. I’ve never met him directly.

Bathroom Monologue: An Eye, a Finger

Pa shook his head, holding the ice pack around Billy's face.

"It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye."

Rob stamped his feet and scowled at them all, holding the rag around his hand.

"Why doesn't anybody care about me? Losing a finger sucks, too! Everybody likes Billy better."

Their mother sighed and drove faster.

Bathroom Monologue: Heart of the Waterfall

Hey there, waterfall. Today I want to plunge my hands into your heart. There, beneath the froth where the crystalline fall hits the blue pool and turns into billions of white bubbles. Up on the trail I just wanted to kneel at your bank, sore knees on this stone, and wash dirty hands in you. The water’s cold and fingers are clean now, but I’m not baptized. I feel dirty everywhere, and something about the sight of you stirs in me the feeling that everything I dislike about me would wash off like grit, if only I plunged my hands where you explode. I’ll wade out there in shoes, socks and pants, and climb the trail back up to the car uncomfortably wet in penance for the privilege, if you’ll let me. May I violate your heart? It will not be like you piercing mine. Yours will be restored in a second, and as soon as I leave you will look as though I was never here. The exhilaration would mean everything to me. It would mean absolution.

But swimming is illegal here, and I can’t break that law. There are people who spend time and money to keep you. They don’t have ultimate right, and none are here to see it and be offended, but it would still wrong them. I cannot harm your keepers, even if only in idea.

Still I want more than my wrists in this pool. You’re so cold you sting. My fingernails are numb and I want more. So blue, so wrongly blue are your depths that I think if I submerged, if I went deep enough, I would find you warm. The downpour would dash against my scalp and my clothes would stick to me like shreds of skin. Everything I can’t forgive myself for would wash down your streams. Every time I broke the speed limit, lied to a lover or wished worse on a man who deserved better would trickle away. My sins would be your soil, and would even you notice a few grains more in your mud?

I’d like to swim in you afterwards, feel you wash over me. But I can’t break the laws of those that keep you.

I also don’t have to tell anyone if I do.

Bathroom Monologue: Spread it on Asphalt Toast

The giants bided the afternoon behind a couple of fast food billboards. At 4:55, Shean could barely contain herself, but Cyclo kept her honest. You couldn’t collect this stuff too quickly. Like honey or wine, it had to age. 5:00. 5:05. 5:10, and even Cyclo wavered, salivating at the smell of all the exhaust wafting off the highway. When horns started honking, they broke out and charged the interstate with their bottles. They caught hundreds of cars that day, enough traffic jam to last them all winter.

Bathroom Monologue: While Shaving Monologue

I’ve always said one in the hand is worth two in the bush, because you can take the one in your hand and beat the two in the bush to death with it. Then you’ve got one in the hand and two in your bag. On your way home you stop by the wet nurse’s place, chat her up about the day’s work, and give her one from her bag. Make sure it’s the nicest one of the three. Then you’ll have one in the hand, one in the bag, and one that might get you into her shrubbery. You’ve been looking for an “in” there, haven’t you? Then you head on home and elbow Cain in the side, asking him how that vegetarianism is going for him as you cook your two in the pot. Two in the pot, while your idiot brother eats the bush. Maybe you invite him over for supper, since you have two in the pot anyway, and he’s been glaring at you lately. But there you go: you’ve got one in the hand, another hand on the wet nurse’s thigh, and Cain won’t commit fratricide this week. That’s why you should be a hunter, not a gatherer, my friends.

Bathroom Monologue: legit lol

A proposal to the civilized people of the world:

Proposed: that anyone who types "legit lol" should have a man dispatched to his or her (hereafter, “the offender”) house. A magnum will be placed to the forehead of the offender’s dearest loved one, be it wife, sister, mother, mother superior, or pet goldfish.

Further Proposed: The offender will then be given the option of watching that loved one blown to kingdom come, or tracking down ten people who type "lol" without actually laughing, and once the offender tracks these individuals down, break their thumbs and forefingers with a foam-covered bat (hereafter, “the defender”).

Finally Proposed: The implement used must be a defender, or otherwise the task will go too quickly. Proper pacing is essential to learning a lesson.

Mowing

I love mowing the lawn. What was a chore to a child and a necessity to an adult is a pleasure as an old man. If I have to strap ice packs to my knees and can’t so much as walk to the fridge for a beer afterwards, then fine. Alcohol’s a poison anyway. That rusty old bastard of a mower can never been too heavy, because this is a testament that you, God and M.S. can’t stop me. For one hour a week, for the rest of my life, I will prove it all.

Inspired by Yoko Kanno’s “Call Me” and a Childhood with Elizabeth Wright

Listen to it streaming or download it here.
Dear Elizabeth,

I was three, you were six, and you were my first older woman.

Remember when you packed two suitcases and threatened your mom that you were moving to my house? I had to help you carry them over, though it was your dad that carried them back that night.

Remember excavating for dinosaur bones in my sandbox, you manning the wheelbarrow since I was too small?

Remember sitting at the bottom of the stairs, tying my shoes when I couldn’t figure out how? You must have felt some love to put up with all that, and though it’s been a long time since I’ve been in love with you, you defined what I feel for others today.

Thank you,
John

The Time I Met Captain Lou Albano

Apparently Captain Lou Albano lived in the condos down the hill from us. One day we kids went out with Dad for a picnic. He went into D’Agastino’s, the local grocery store, and left me, my brother and sister in the back of his Blazer. I was the oldest, barely seven or eight. We lounged with the rear window propped out for fresh air.

We saw this giant man walking down the parking lot towards us. We had no idea where he had materialized from but were immediately scared. He was not only a stranger, but a fat one with a bushy hair and an even bushier beard. There were rubber bands in his hair and he flailed his arms wildly when he walked.

I shrank to the middle of the truck, but he found us. He looked in through the rear window, taking up almost the entire opening with his body. He asked, without a smile, “Do you kids like Super Mario Bros?”

Now, did we? Yes. We played the games all the time and it was one of the dozen cartoons that, whenever it was on, was our favorite TV show for that half hour. The snarky Link character was my little brother’s hero.

But to my child brain, his question wasn’t really if we liked it. It was a threat. If I liked it, he would kill me.

So I responded, “No, but my brother does!”

And pointed at my six-year-old brother.

This giant man looked at him. In that moment the man’s head looked bigger than my little brother's entire body. He was petrified.

The man smiled and handed him a glossy black and white photograph. We recognized it immediately – it was Mario and Luigi, the actors who played the live action part of the cartoon show.

My brother said, “Thank you,” in an empty, confused sort of way.

The giant said some kind of affirmative, then walked away towards the grocery store, flailing his arms.

Both my brother and I sat in stunned silence, trying to figure out what that man’s connection was to this photograph of a fat plumber and his skinny brother.

It was my sister, a four-year-old who only put up with those cartoons to fit in with us, who realized it.

“That was Mario!”

That was the time I met Captain Lou Albano.

Bathroom Monologue: Evening Out, Evening In

Evening is called such because it is when the night gets even with the day. The day swelters, scouring the earth with light and heat. An honest shadow can barely make a living by midday. It’s towards dusk when full-bodied night stars rolling in and checking the accounts, making sure the sun settles up before it slinks off to wherever. It’ll be back, and it’ll cheat again. Only evening can keep it fair.

Bathroom Monologue: Night Kings

Werewolf threw his arm onto the table and yelled, “If you think you’re the toughest thing that goes bump in the night then prove it, pretty boy!”

“How about I arm wrestle you tomorrow night?” Vampire asked with a toothy smirk. The full moon would be gone then, and the whole bar knew it.

Werewolf tried to jump the table, but Boogeyman caught him around the waist and pulled him back.

“It’s not worth it, man!”

They kept squabbling, not realizing they’d all be helpless when the Martians landed the next morning.

Bathroom Monologue: Challenge to Write Six Sentences like an Author you Love – I’m not saying who this is

It's well known to those who know it that every six sentence story has seven sentences. How it got there, what it is about and if it made her point clear are matters entirely unknowable to the artist. Contemplating it is like contemplating God insofar as, as one micro-philosopher put it, "You can't do it." Not contemplating it is also ill-advised, though, as it leads to an excess of semi-colons. The Intergalactic Semantic Exchange recommends to those who cannot stop contemplating the seventh sentence that they write very brief six sentence stories in order to get to the seventh as soon as possible, declaring that even if the invisible sentence is unreadable, one ought to "just get to it already." To those who cannot stop not contemplating it, the Exchange recommends alcohol in excess.

Bathroom Monologue: Beats a Neon Sign

What punk it was that set the cross ablaze in their yard, none of them knew. There were guesses, with only so many people so low in Fleetwater, and fewer spotted fleeing neighborhood as the Cartwrights desperately tried to beat out the burning symbol of salvation. The old Cartwrights were studied Methodists, but the young were new to the game and didn’t quite grasp symbolism. The young Cartwrights went about with oil and wood, and that next morning every potential offender awoke to burning letters in his yard. A fiery ‘HE’ stood in Fords’ yard, and a minute later another ‘HE’ lit up in Kip Gotch’s. They all got at least one letter, and none of the Klan understood the message, but if you tried to read it, starting with the burning cross in the Cartwrights’ yard as a ‘t,’ you could read the message across the street: “tHE HEll Is WRoNG WITH YoU.”

Bathroom Monologue: The Feeling of Bobby James

He was looking on the floor of the Saab for his cigarettes when the front left of the car jerked up about a foot. It dropped back down with a crunch, like ice giving way. The car kept rolling forward and he felt the second decline, just an inch, as the wheel rolled off of what it'd caught. Even after the trial, that feeling was all he'd remember from when he killed Bobby James. It followed him longer than any scream could.

Seven Six-Sentences

It's Six Sentence Week: The Autumn Edition. It doesn't actually have anything to do with Fall. It's just the only one I'll running, and the last of 2009. This week we've got race crimes, sentences that can't be written or read, a bar brawl between vampires and werewolves, and a letter to my childhood sweetheart. A poll for your favorite should pop up around Wednesday. A new six-sentence story goes up every morning around 9:00 AM EST, and they'll keep coming until Saturday. This makes the first (and perhaps last) seven six-sentence story week.

Bathroom Monologue: Really lame pun that only works if you pronounce “guards” in an aristocratic British accent

He pulled the princess to his side, guiding her from the wolf cages.

"The guards will protect you from the king's wolves. Spare it no worry."

She eyed the guards at either side of the cages. They looked as mangy as the mutts.

"Yes, but who will protect us from the guards?"

"Don't worry. It's a secular society."

Bathroom Monologue: No Militaries in the Gay

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In a radical reversal of roles, today the U.S. government banned the military from gays. War will no longer be allowed to be declared where there are any gay people, to avoid exposing soldiers to what one White House staffer called, “uncomfortable environments.”

The Prime Minister of Iran quickly explained that earlier speaking snafus were mistranslation and there are indeed homosexual people in his country. In fact, he added, “I may be gay, or may have a gay person near me at all times!”

In related news, the governments of North Korea, Sudan and Venezuela have begun importing people of alternative lifestyles in bulk. Massive tax credits, free upscale housing and ludicrously generous civil unions have been offered to lure these sexual expatriots, or "sexpatriots," as bloggers have begun to call them.

North Korea and China entered a bidding war this morning to attract the cast of the now-defunct Bravo television series “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” hoping to have them spruce up their capitols. Anonymous sources close to the bidding war say government heads hope to make their populations look more fabulous and thus render their countries even more immune from military action.

No officials would confirm these allegations.

“We’ve been planning this for a long time,” explained one North Korean insider. “Our tight borders have left us unfashionably stuffy. The glorious leader is a longtime fan of Queer Eye. This has absolutely nothing to do with avoiding being attacked by a major superpower.”

More as this story develops.

Bathroom Monologue: Easy as 2 + 2

Mathematics were shaken today with the discovery a new virtual particle. The "Duo" particles only exist in pairs, possessing one half-spin each and locked in orbit around each other. Unlike Quantum Theory's behavior of quarks, Duo Particles remain part of our physical world consistently until meeting another pair. When two Duo pairs collide, they undergo a plane shift that can cause one or both pairs to cease to exist. In some cases both pairs remain in existence and a third appears, making this a solid case of 2 + 2 = 6.

No Thanks, Biological Father, OR, Believe it or not, inspired more by Tokyo Godfathers than a decade of disappointment

That’s right. I’m giving her away at the wedding. Not you, Dad. Me. Her brother, who’s been a better father figure for years anyway. I saved her from the suicide attempt. I helped her on the term papers. I watched all those shitty movies with her while you got high with your new wife. I’ve protected her, listened to her, had dinner with her, bought dinner for her, and had her wish she could buy dinner for me. One day in the middle of a study session I showed up with malted milk balls just because I’d heard he was craving some. I watched the national spelling bee with her fiancé. I picked up her dog’s ashes from the vet. What have you done for her other than contribute the occasional panic attack during Sunday night phone calls? Oh, but I forgot. We enable her. She made up her psychological issues, because secretly she enjoyed crying, cutting and spending a thousand nights alone in her room. That’s fine. You get those irrational beliefs. I get God, and I get to walk her down the aisle. If you want to be close when your daughter says, “I do,” you’d better show up early and get good seats. I’ll see you from the altar.

Bathroom Monologue: Toilet Tissue Tears It

But when Andrew opened the bathroom door he heard an even stranger voice.

“Oh no!” squeaked something at about pelvis level. He instinctively shrank back, even though he had no idea what was talking or if it wanted to punch him in the gonads.

On the wall the toilet paper dispenser shook. The roll of toilet paper popped off and… well, rolled across the floor until it bumped into his foot.

“I’m not taking shit from you anymore!” it squeaked, then rotated and rolled between his legs. Andrew turned and watched it fall off the first step of the stairs, then bounce the rest of the way to the ground floor.

“What the Hell?” Andrew asked himself. He grabbed a box of tissues, and when it didn’t protest, entered the bathroom. This was weird, but he really had to go.