An Urnest Man

My father, Archibald G. Milk, was always a pragmatic man. When I was young he told me to always carry a watch in my pocket and not on my wrist, so as not to seem too flashy. Every morning he ate a single scrambled egg with a glass of ice water, even on the day that he died. My father never bought anything he couldn’t use. Never borrowed anything he couldn’t give back. He was never late and he never cried and he did not drink or smoke or curse or fornicate without reason. Before my father’s death he insisted he be cremated and not buried so as to not waste space in the ground better suited for utility lines or nuclear bomb shelters. He did not want his ashes scattered at sea because that was littering. He did not want them poured into a sculpture because that was too pretentious or mixed with concrete because that would compromise the structural integrity of whatever was built. He did not want to be pressed into a record or pressed into a diamond or pressed into a locket around my mother’s neck because all of those would be too stifling. After months of arguing he was placed in an urn on the mantle of our family home, where he remained until a drunken uncle knocked it over and shattered my father on the living room floor. As I looked at the jagged porcelain pieces and carpet stains that once raised me, I could only think there is no use crying over spilt Milk.

A Sunday Vagary

For the past 7 years I have suffered from a recurring nightmare in which I am crucified in my home church. The entire town has filled the pews to watch and whispers of my crimes and treasons run rampant through the crowd. My family is sitting in the second row and my mother sobs uncontrollably as the event unfolds. The priest splashes my body with holy water while repeating some venerable latin prayer that no one else seems to recognize. He then raises an ax with both arms and swings for my midsection. My blessed body is easily cut in half and the bottom portion tumbles down toward the floor while I watch. Afterwards, the image immediately cuts to black and a series of film-like credits begins to role. They list the names of all the participants sans myself, who remains the only uncredited participant in my own dream.

Welcome Mat

As of late, I have grown particularly obsessed with the space underneath my refrigerator. The gap is approximately three and one half inch and seems to serve absolutely no imaginable purpose whatsoever. On cooler afternoons in spring, I lay on the cheaply tiled floor of the kitchen, my cheek pressed against the cold linoleum, and stare into the unused space for hours on end, trying to find some semblance of reason for its existence. Frequently I am there for days, forgetting to sleep or eat before smirking at the irony of starving to death in front of my own fridge. There are occasions where my mind plays tricks on me, and I believe to see the faintest shadow of a mythological creature collecting crumbs for a dinner party. Sometimes I roll small marbles into the dark and uninviting separation, listening to them click against the dusty baseboards. Sometimes they don’t click at all. Sometimes they roll back to me covered in a fine mire that smells like hope.

After months of curiosity, I write the word hello on a small piece of paper and slide it into the hungering penumbra that tempts me so. Days pass with no response and I soon grow weary of such games. I leave the flat for a few hours to run some errands and, upon returning, find a note stuck to my front door. It reads DO NOT DISTURB in large aggravated letters. I cautiously jiggle the knob but the door appears to be barricaded shut from the inside. Sitting on the floor of the hallway, I begin writing various apology notes to slip beneath the entry way. Soon all the paper I can scrounge is consumed, and I start writing on small bits of food from the pile of groceries at my side. Days later I move on to torn sections of clothing. Receiving no response after an undiscernable number of weeks, I resort to sliding mutilated pieces of skin with the word sorry poorly carved by fingernail. My pleas for forgiveness are neither responded to nor returned, and the faintest sounds of laughter taunt me from within the apartment. Having sacrificed the majority of my corporeal form, I lay down at the foot of the door, curling into a fetal position and hoping the next tenant will have better luck than myself.

Artificial Neural Network

The status bar slowly creeps across the flickering screen.

“Thirty-five percent.” The system’s semi-female voice booms loudly. The background of the computer screen is a haze of isometric algorithms and cognitive modeling simulations being packaged into a neat little executable file for wireless distribution across the global network.

“Knight, C6” says the voice, much quieter this time, “also called The Nimzsowitsch Defence.”

I roll my eyes and move the carved wooden horse across the chess board.

“How many times do I have to explain? You’re not supposed to announce your strategy.”

“Yes, Jon. I remember. However, I do not want an unfair advantage.”

“Unfair advantage!?” I sit up at my desk and toss a handful of scrap papers into the air. “Is that a joke? Did someone program you to be funny while I was asleep this morning?” I jolt out of my seat and walk over to a wall mounted console. There must be another problem with the memory formulas. “Maybe your synthetic potentiation tables are corrupted again.” My fingers move along the keys as I scan the screen for errors and anomalies in the programming. “Or maybe you’ve finally become human enough to forget that I was a world chess champion nine times over before I was even eighteen.”

“I do remember that, Jon. However, I have won the last twelve games.” The voice sounds almost smug but that is not possible. “You also lost the 2062 world championship game in twenty-two moves.”

“Didn’t I say we would keep that in confidence? Just between us?” I can find no errors in the system.

“Yes, Jon. I do remember that.”

“Besides,” I remove my glasses and turn away from the keyboard, “simultaneously upgrading 30 million parallelly distributed processing cores must cause some minute distraction to your chess game.” Before the words can leave my mouth I already realize how incredibly wrong they are.

“No, Jon.”

I sigh and sit back at my desk. “Shall we continue, Ann?”

“Yes, Jon.”

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written for the trifecta challenge

A Walk in the Park

Image via Wikipedia

While walking through the park one day I meet a man who seems to be afflicted with the most unusual illness. It appears that for any word he tries to speak, two more grow in its place. A simple hello automatically becomes hello good sir which then forms into hello good sir how are you doing? which sprouts hello good sir how are you doing? I am glad to see you are doing well which then comes tumbling out as hello good sir how are you doing? I am glad to see you are doing well. Listen, I have an uncontrollable urge to keep talking so please feel free to run away which has the unfortunate fate of becoming hello good sir how are you doing? I am glad to see you are doing well. Listen, I have an uncontrollable urge to keep talking so please feel free to run away. I’m sure your mother taught you such actions are rude but its a necessary choice. Your politeness may very well kill us both and despite my disability I still have things worth living for. Heeding the stranger’s advice, I nod politely and carry on about my business, leaving behind the echoes of an infinitely one-sided conversation.

and the farmer continued to plough

I wrote a story that was selected for feature on 5 Minute Fiction. You can read it here. I especially liked that the editor included background info on some of the more obscure aspects of the story.

Long Lost Friend

It had been four years since I had seen Isaac, my best friend in university.  I hadn’t planned on spending all those years apart from each other.  Who would have thought we’d meet by accident like this, in a coffee shop in the middle of Prague?  What were the chances of this happening?  Yet, here we are, strangers, together after all these years.  I still remember the last time we spoke to one another. He told me if we were ever to meet again, he would slit my throat. Staring up at him from the floor of the coffee shop, I couldn’t help but find solace in the fact that he is still a man of his word.

Possession is Nine-tenths

Youthful determination and a few night school courses at the local community college had found me moonlighting as an on-call exorcist in the bewitched town of Debinshire. Recently, there had been a noticeable up-tick in the number of spooks taking control of local residents and as a result, I had begun to offer my skills pro-bono as a service to the community. It was around midnight on a Sunday when I was called in response to a case involving the possession of an older woman. She had been accused of eating the neighborhood cats to satisfy her ungodly cravings. I rushed to the scene and found several locals standing around the old woman’s home. They demanded an exorcism to rid their town of the fiend inside their neighbor. They also demanded new cats but I explained that I only deal with the demons, and that personal property losses would need to be addressed with a local insurance agent. I continued into the home and locked the front door behind me, preventing escape for both myself and the spirit I’d come to evict.

I search around the bottom floor but no trace of an old woman nor dead cat is anywhere to be found. Moving up the stairs, I hear faint cries for help emanating from a bedroom in the back of the home. I quickly make my way down the hall and rush through the door. Inside I am startled to find what appears to be a regular old woman sitting in a rocking chair. She motions me towards her with a shaky hand and requests my assistance in protecting her from the angry mob outside. I explain that she has been accused of demonic possession after eating several of the neighborhood cats and that I was here to cleanse her soul, free of charge. She refutes the claims and points to a rustling mound of fur and indifference writhing in the corner. She says that the cats had come to her of their own free will, and that she’s been feeding them cream and bits of fish until a solution could be determined. I step back and survey the scene for a moment, not sure what to make of the situation.

The woman assures me that the cats would likely follow her out of the residence, If I could just aid her in walking outside to meet the neighbors. Sensing no real danger, I oblige and take her hand, slowly guiding her back through the hallway and down the steps. The writhing mass of fur slowly follows, leaving a trail of half-eaten fish bits behind us. I unlock the door and approach the angry citizens outside. I raise my hands in an attempt to quell their outcries and describe the situation as I had discovered inside. I point out that the cats are alive and possibly even well fed before motioning them to return to their masters. The large furry mass immediately dissipates into dozens of smaller pieces that scurry across the yard and through the broken sections of the old woman’s fence. I clap in appreciation of myself, having saved the cats and an innocent old woman, before I am interrupted by the bloody screams of several people.

It seems that the rustling mass of fur was not in fact a pile of cats, but rather a pile of over-sized rats who had been feeding off the remains of a missing dock worker for several days. The rats are now swarming the residents that once stood in protest outside, devouring their faces, their feet, and in certain instances their souls. The old woman laughs maniacally, raising her arms and floating into the air above the yard. She shouts several phrases which I can not understand as she disintegrates into a cloud of flies that buzzes into the sky above. I scratch my head as I watch the rats proliferate throughout the surrounding blocks, the people nearby now sitting as barren corpses amid a backdrop of echoing screams that grow more distant as time rolls on.

Sensing there is little else for me to do, I begin the long and silent walk back to my downtown apartment.

A Note Found at Sea

Dear (redacted),

I’m not sorry for breaking your heart. In fact, I did it on purpose. I’m only sorry it took me so long to figure out how to get you out of my life.

Never yours,

(redacted)

_________________________________

 
written for trifecta.

Just Between Spam Bots

The following was not written by me, but rather, something I compiled from various spam posts to this website. All sentences were used in their entirety, except for the removal of links to junk. I find that it reads a bit like a war story. Sometimes it just reads like two old man talking. Though, I guess you could say those are one in the same.

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It′s easy to understand that a journey like this is the biggest event in ones.