“And for my next sleight of hand,” said the prestidigitator, “I will turn this potato into a magician!”
The magician bends, knife in hand, and carves the spud into the shape of a number one.
He opens his palms to present his work of art and says:
“Presto! Digit tater!”
This horrible groaner is presented to you especially by Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
I’m compelled to do things just to piss you off. Like leave the toilet seat up after I’ve told you a thousand times to put it down, or chop off your balls because I caught you cheating on me. And I would. If it wasn’t for all my own affairs.
It’s Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
“Hey Hank! What do you think of my letter?”
Dear Felicity,
Your duplicity is unprecedented. Your name implies delights unimaginable and yet you refuse to go down on me. What gives?
“Errr, Stan? Her name’s Felicity. Not Fellatio.”
“Oh. OHHH!”
Dear Felicity,
Please accept deepest apologies for my recent behaviour…
It’s Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
You preen and promenade your way ’round town, your ego ejaculating from you like a sprinkler on a rainy day; useless and no one wants it. You smile as I watch you overtly. Yet surreptitiously I study you, striving to catch you with my magnifying glass in the sizzling sunlight.
It’s Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
I need to move to a warmer climate. Here, the polar bears sit on me and the penguins poop on me and I’m just miserable, you know? It’s not easy being frozen inside an iceberg. Maybe if I bob out of the water and stare at a passing cruise ship…
It’s Just Jot It January! Click here and join in any time!
Mr. Strange was the normalest person he himself knew. He shaved every morning and put on his suit and went to work as an accountant in a perfectly normal firm downtown. He drove a Lexus and he lived in a three bedroom bungalow by himself with his dog and his cat and his three fish. The bodies buried in the basement didn’t count as other people. They were corpses.
***
Miss Harper enjoyed the company of Mr. Strange very much. She was a secretary at the firm in which he worked. She lived downtown a few blocks from the company in an apartment on the fifth floor. She didn’t drive, but she had admired Mr. Strange’s Lexus and even said so once. She was hoping he would invite her out to dinner.
***
Mr. Tarvell was Mr. Strange’s boss. He always thought there was something odd about Mr. Strange, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. He knew his secretary, Miss Harper, had a “thing” for Mr. Strange and he wanted to say something but he didn’t quite know how.
***
Mr. Strange’s dog wouldn’t stop trying to get into the basement. He thought about giving the dog to Miss Harper, the secretary at work. She seemed lonely. Perhaps he would invite her over.
***
Miss Harper’s first visit to Mr. Strange’s house was an event that surpassed every event that she had ever had in her life. On the outside, Mr. Strange was a kind man. Gentle, it seemed. In fact he was the normalest man she had ever had the pleasure of working with. However, they had barely started into dessert when he swooped everything off the table, the table cloth included, and crawled over to her and kissed her passionately. They never made it to the bedroom. He made love to her under the dining room table, her head banging on one of the chair legs each time he thrust into her. She took a taxi home. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
***
Mr. Tarvell noticed a strange smell on Miss Harper’s clothes the next day. It seemed, somehow, that she had gotten moldy. Like she had spent the night in the refrigerator, cuddled up to a basket of rotting strawberries. He didn’t want to say anything lest it seem rude.
***
Mr. Strange was the normalest person he himself knew. That he would soon require a bigger basement meant that he would also probably need a new job. A better paying job. A job in a town where no one knew him. Leaving his present house to the dog seemed the wisest choice he had made in quite some time.
This post is part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday. It’s only late if you insist on changing the clocks at 2am… http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3115/
“Dig,” she thought as she shoved the spade into the ground again.
“Dig, dig, dig, dug. Doug. It’s Doug I should be digging for. To hell with this root.”
But the root had been the bane of her existence since she moved into the house. Because it was more than a root. It was a stump. The stump of a tree that had been cut down maybe a century ago. God knew what was below it – maybe there was a cemetery down there, like in Poltergeist.
Chunk, went the spade. Chunk, chunk ching!! She hit something. Getting down onto her hands and knees she dug with her fingers until she uncovered something silver. Something shiny. A treasure! Could it be that all this work had made her rich?
With renewed determination she stood and wielded the shovel once again. The silver box was small – it didn’t take much to dig around it. But it was deep, like a tiny coffin that had been buried lengthways. By the time she reached the bottom of it, Doug had come home.
“Hey asshole,” she called to him. “Can you come and help me with this?”
“Go fuck yourself,” he muttered as he marched from the car to the house. He slammed the door behind him.
“Just a little wider,” she mumbled to herself. “And he’ll fit right in.”
***
Two weeks later…
The house had been deathly quiet for so long that it seemed as though noise had given up on her. Doug had woken up while she was still filling in the hole, but she took care of that with the spade. The silver box was the final nail in his makeshift coffin – or lack thereof. It was the deciding factor. Not only did she have the means to cover up what she’d done thanks to her discovery, she wouldn’t have to share whatever was in the box with him. Or anyone else.
It took three days to pry the lid off the box and then another day to figure out what was in it. A pair of glowing orbs, like cat’s eyes lay in the bottom, which was five feet from the top. Tipping it hadn’t worked, nor had turning it upside down. Now the object sat on the table in front of her. It had climbed out on its own it seemed, after she went to bed.
The object – what could she call it? A cat-box? – refused to move from the table. It smelled like toast in the morning, a chicken sandwich at lunchtime, and a steak at dinner. But every time she made something to eat, her food would disappear. Into thin air. The only thing it didn’t touch was her coffee and her booze.
She couldn’t leave the house; she was slowly starving to death. Except.
Every day for the past seven days there had been a note on the table when she woke up in the morning. The note read: if you’re hungry, dig up Doug.
This creepy tale is brought to you by SoCS. Click here and join in! Anyone can do it! http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1915/
It wasn’t that Melissa didn’t like Teddy. It was the light in his eyes when he looked at her that she couldn’t abide. Half the time it made her feel as though she might be stuck with a man who followed her around like a pesky dog for the rest of her breathing days, and the other half of the time his glint-gaze gave her the creeps. She was afraid if she gave in and decided to sleep with him (finally) she might never wake up.
The one time she tried to end it it had been raining. She stood at the precipice of a puddle and he stood in it. She couldn’t help but wonder if his shoes were filled with water. How could she break up with a man with wet feet? Melissa may have been many things, but heartless wasn’t one of them.
So she decided to write him a poem. To let him down from a distance, where she wouldn’t know if he was standing in a puddle like a pathetic, gallant clown. Her first attempt was a limerick:
There once was a girl we won’t mention
Who was getting far too much attention
She was getting the creeps
When he said, ‘it’s for keeps’
But Melissa couldn’t come up with another word that rhymed with ‘attention,’ so she tried another:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I’m breaking up with you.
It seemed far too abrupt. And if she was going to be abrupt, why not just text him with the news? She tried:
Dear Teddy. I can’t see you any more. Your eyes are weird. Love, Melissa.
but she didn’t want to lead him on with the words ‘dear’ and ‘love.’
So in the end she simply approached him with a bucket of cold water, threw it at him and told him to figure it out for himself.
Melissa’s only regret is that she might have put his light out for good. Someone else should definitely have had the benefit of that light. Someone more deserving.
This post is part of SoCS: http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-515/
You come back. You always do. If I didn’t know better I’d say you were a moth and I am the flame, but no. An insect doesn’t draw all that satisfying ego-boosting boot-licking luxury from a candle. You don’t burn up. You suck.
I wish you could grow up. Take responsibility for the debts you have created. But you act as though the world is your playground. You swing upon the chains that society links together and not surprisingly, it bears your weight. We are a forgiving bunch, me and the other plebes.
But you and me, we’re more personal, aren’t we. How many days and nights and weeks and months and years have we spent in each other’s company. Giving and taking is our history. I’ve plucked from you your essence and you… you have leeched my heart, drop by bloody drop, replacing just enough to keep me alive.
The light in my heart flickers each time we talk. You squint and through my eyes you see the workings of my brain – you analyse and I can actually see your “aha!” moment when you find that thing, that crack in my armor, and you’re like a vacuum. Resistance is futile.
You will never let me go. Even if you die before me I will always wonder if there is more I could have done. More I could have given. One more drop of blood; one more spark of light.
You were my love and now, now you kill me slowly. You always come back.
My eye brushes gently ‘cross your death note; the taste of it sweet upon my lips. If I thought you weren’t kidding I would surely be afraid for you. But this is you, as you are. As you have always been. The kingdom of Dramaland resides within you – it echos softly as your blood drips on the floor in a tainted half-hearted effort to end it all.
I laugh, straining not to shed tears upon your page. When I look up you are smirking at me. And now it is I who wishes my end.
***
This post is unedited and written as part of Stream of Consciousness Saturday – a fun prompt that anyone can participate in! Find the rules here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/03/20/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-march-2115/
badge by Doobster @ Mindful Digressions
It is also part of Mr. Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction challenge. This week: 100 words only. Check it out! http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2015/03/20/flash-fiction-challenge-100-words-only/
Linda G. Hill 