Fiction – Page 17

Taking a Bath

You scuff up one iota of my shortbread icon brittlemaker and I swear to god I’ll puke all over the place with rage. That may seem a tad impassioned, but I’ve always been bad at hiding how I feel about futuristic kitchen appliances. Anyway, here’s the kicker on this thing: it makes all kinds of brittles! Myself, I enjoy the wellspring of nostalgic feelings that crop up with each new batch of shortbread icon brittle. Images of Lorna Doone and Shirley Temple flash across my personal confectionery concoction hatch when this baby gets whirring.

I really do get worked up about this marvel of modern technology, and perhaps I need to cool my jets a bit here. I mean, it cost me four grand to get the custom brittle module, so I’m entitled to a little rooftop-shouting, right? Pretty much any flavor combination imaginable can go into the preparation of your brittles. I found my favorite combo and stuck with it because I’m really not that creative. But I swear, you could have hours upon hours of entertainment just from thinking up unconventional themes. Once you’ve made your selection, the whisper-quiet mechanism takes care of all the rest. This thing is perfect for you and the family, your office, an open house, wedding, funeral, holiday party, National Phlebotomists Day… the list goes on.

Sorry, I’ll bet you think I’m coming off like a used car salesman. The god’s honest truth is I’ve been trying to unload it, but nobody’s biting. A mere $2,750 is all I’m asking for it. I mean, it’s a steal at that price! All the components are in pristine condition (I’ve only used it twice). Come on, you know you want to give it a whirl. I guarantee that if you’re not satisfied with your first five batches of custom brittle, I’ll refund all of your hard-earned dollars. Don’t you see I’m taking a bath here, people?! You’d be stupid NOT to take me up on this!

We Monkeys

Denominative integers willingly defy the overall forcefulness by which we enter life, that succulent foe of knowing all things on a benevolent basis–at least from our pseudointellectual standpoint here on earth. We monkeys, swept from trees to town squares in a seemingly-overnight fashion, gave nobody any time to appropriately enter our problematic pituitary case into the annals of the intergalactic community. Our brash attempt to circumvent the necessary bureaucratic process–filling out the appropriate paperwork, having it notarized, sending it to local legislators and mailing one of 13 official public access stations for broadcast–demonstrates the jury-rigging, bootstrapping mentality that may have endeared us to our own species, yet alienates everybody else. When you apply simple rules to us, we seem to be inclined toward throwing tantrums. You know as well as I that our current behavior won’t fly with the more-evolved entities out there. If conducted efficiently, the contact broadcast process would be complete within a business week. So now, the more time we waste without adhering to measured standards, the more likely we are to fall altogether as a global community. Our “home” planet will slough us off before too long, tired of the countless indignities suffered at the hands of fools.

Madder-Hatted

Sneaky Patrickia–that madder-hatted individual with the gallstones to match their acerbic wit–had no idea what kind of hoop-jumping routine would be required of them for this year’s science fair project. The looming deadline seemed to sneak right up–same as always–in the shower, that pang of guilt just a blink before rinsing the caustic excuse for a shampoo out of their hair. Only around science fair time does Sneaky Patrickia feel they’re getting the uniquely invigorating scalp treatment extolled by the well-crafted copy on the back of their trusty shampoo brand. No other prickly nervous sensation has consistently proven to facilitate scalp exfoliation in quite the same way.

Maybe this year old Sneaky P. would finally put in the time necessary to derive the evidence that could back up their hypothesis of shower-based cold sweats exponentially increasing the accuracy of the semi-outrageous claims found on the backs of popular scalp-purifying shampoo bottles.

Maybe. But more than likely, as borne out by the results of P’s 142 previous science fairs, it would end up being some diorama about a vertebral circulatory system (bovine, ovine, simian, you name it). Our ageless friend very much enjoys detailing mammalian blood flow concerns, at the expense of variety.

His Loss

She came on through, a skirted blanket with banquet stains galore and more than her fair share of Ogden memorabilia to her name.

It would pain her to see the overworld mantra being abused so unabashedly, “be your own friend” repeated ad infinitum by a guy who really doesn’t understand “that whole mantra thing,” (his words), aside from what he deems most obvious: short phrases that are fun to mutter over and over again. He’ll be the first to tell you that he’s more a fan of the exercise’s soothing qualities than anything else; doesn’t see how he could possibly transcend the mortal coil and commune with the force that led him to occupy that particular sentient meat vessel in the first place.

Oh well, his loss.

Hi-Fi

Less-than-adventurous timebending intricacies (transcending our 3D simian roots) twiddle thumbs like the activity could possibly go out of style, were it not for these beings’ innate knowledge that thumb twiddling is the #1 commonality between all of the highest orders of primates (at least throughout all natural phases of thumb functionality as they occur along their respective evolutionary arcs).

All of this just goes to show that you shouldn’t leave an enthusiastic philosopher with nothing but the clothes on their back and a few days to kill. Without the assistance of distracting stimuli, they will inevitably be enveloped in an endless cycle of boredom and batty hypotheses, recklessly abandoning the true reason why they’ve been put here: figuring out how to better configure a universal remote for Todd’s new hi-fi setup. It’s been a real bitch and a half.

Marching St. Evers’s Day

“And on this, the bicentennial of Marching St. Evers’s Day, we shall all gratefully lose our footwear as we plod through our town’s humble main drag in accordance with the man whose name graces the gates at the original northern and southern boundaries of what we now know as Everston, ‘The Friendliest Town in the World!’ according to Volume 47, Issue 3 of Weekly People Quarterly.

“To get a sense of this hallowed day’s magnitude, if natural mud has not populated the grounds prior to the event, we shall have some ready-made for the occasion, so as to harken back to the infamous time that old St. Evers himself trekked from the north to the south end of town in desperate need of a pub open in the wee small hours of that particular horrid winter morn. In the midst of all the squelching, his boots slipped clean off and sunk into the good country clay, but he was not deterred, nay! He continued along his harrowing haunt, on a mission to wet his whistle before dawn cracked and the drones began their scurrying for another day, reminding him once again of our puny species’ fleeting existence.

“So as the story goes, Old St. Evers (known simply as Tony Evers back then) happened upon a house at the very southernmost point of town, which–at the time–was yet comprised of simple farmhouses sparsely scattered few and far between. He was just one more setback away from packing it in for the night, about to abandon hope for a watering hole that could quench his very soul. He beseeched the landlord to spot him with a wee drink, letting him in on the gory details of his arduous trudge, expecting a sympathetic ear. The landlord would have none of it, promptly kicking the inebriated Mr. Evers back into the road, “ya lousy old souse!” Our hero tripped and fell backwards into the damnable mud, made worse and worse as the morning haymakers began their bustling to and fro, whipping up a froth that slowly but surely engulfed the poor man.

“All these years later, St. Evers’s remains have never been recovered (though that doesn’t stop enthusiasts from continuing to try). Some folks claim the tale is a complete hoax, and the townsfolk were just coming up with new kinds of drinking holidays to pass the brutal Winters. Regardless of whether or not this unfortunate soul lived and died in our beloved little town, we all still take the time once a year to celebrate his story.”

“Gee Dad, that’s a cool story and all, but why do we have to camp out here so early?”

“Son, there aren’t many times in life when you can be a witness to the history that shaped your town and very way of life. Trust me, one day you’ll be telling your kids about how you got a front row seat with your dad, how you learned not to abandon your fellow man when he asks for a wee nip of the house brandy.”

“I have to pee.”

“Just soil your britches, son. I’m not giving up this spot on account of your wee bladder.”

Damn

Charming, as they would usually say. No, not “they” as in those gum-toed nutjobs who always go around making their piddly business the front page news for the neighborhood. I’m referring to the more discerning whackadoodles. You know the ones, the jobbers who really grind your corkscrews. They just get your goat so profoundly that it becomes insanely difficult to express your displeasure with standard colloquialisms.

Stormy in-beveraged descrutinizers wallow merrily, filthier than the average pear, sleazier than a locomotive (though we never quite figured out just how sleazy a locomotive could be until we took a cross-country trip by rail–what a lovely jaunt that was, a trek for the ages; we ate cheese and discussed crouton dissection techniques).

Blorn out and hungstraddled, a ginger poof of plume-riveted magic lit its last-ever candle with no background fanfare whatsoever. Nobody gave it a second thought, save the ghost of the mouse that got crushed in the grate while it was only trying to scurry on along, minding its own business. But the rodent business ain’t as lucrative as it used to be, friend. I should know, I read it in a book at some point. I’m a regular Reading Rainbow enthusiast. Ain’t you heard? Damn.