Works of fiction
Dreamscape: H. Jon Benjamin Murdered Me
We were walking through a freshly snow covered European forest. The group of us, about fifteen or so, were chatting together and having a merry time as we trudged through trees and underbrush. I didn’t know anyone in the group except for one man, Mr. H. Jon Benjamin.
Eventually we came to a clearing in the forest and the group stopped. This seemed the perfect place for the reenactment of the worlds most notorious war criminals. A few of us played the part of the United Nations but most played the parts of war criminals throughout history. I was Stalin.
At first it seemed like a normal reenactment. The UN folk were pacing and giving speeches to the war criminals about why they deserved to die. But that all changed when H. Jon Benjamin pulled out a pistol and pointed it at the head of Mussolini.
“You’ve had enough time to contemplate your crimes,” said Mr. Benjamin, dressed in slick US military garb. Then he pulled the trigger and Mussolini was no more.
Things didn’t erupt like you might expect. For everyone but myself, this seemed to be what was supposed to happen. I was under the impression that we were merely playing the parts of the war criminals. I certainly wasn’t really Stalin!
H. Jon Benjamin stared down Hitler and fired.
He looked at Howard W. Campbell Jr. and without even the slightest wince, he put a bullet deep into his skull.
I dared not move but I was panicking. He must have sensed it because, from across the group, he smuggly looked over at me and I felt him touch my soul.
“I’m going to make this painful for you,” he said to Stalin, to me.
H. Jon Benjamin calmly walked behind me. I could feel the gun against my head even though it was feet away.
“Please. Please just do it quickly. Please just kill me,” I pleaded as I dropped to my knees in the snow.
It seemed like an eternity. I knelt there praying to a god that I never believed to exist. Begging this supposed supreme being to take mercy on me and allow Mr. H. Jon Benjamin to find it in himself to murder me as painlessly as possible.
Finally, as I clenched my eyes closed tight, I felt something against the back of my head. Was it the bullet?
I prayed it was the bullet.
Very slowly I felt a tickle and a spreading sensation through my brain. YES! It was the bullet I had begged so earnestly for.
Time slowed to a crawl, allowing me to experience the last pleasure I would ever have… my death.
As the bullet split my brain in twain, I thanked everyone and everything for the ultimate experience of my . Then I lay, face first, in the snow. I was dead. I felt the death for beats upon beats, until my heart stopped beating altogether. But I could still feel by body laying on the warm snow as the blood rushed from the inside of my body to the outside.
Then… I awoke.
The Heroes Unite!
A Child’s Best Friend
As Tim slept in his bed, a sinister figured looked on. Tim suddenly screamed and writhed in terror, squirming first out of, then deep into, his blanket. Then, as suddenly as it began, he laid still. As silent as a mouse in a trap.
Tim awoke to a wonderful Saturday morning. The sun was shining and the rain from the the previous days had all but evaporated into the heavens. He popped out of bed and traded his dinosaur pajamas for a green shirt and a pair of corduroy trousers. This was going to be a glorious day for playing outdoors. He had been cooped up inside for the past few days as storms ravaged the outside world.
After strapping on his shoes and assuring his mother he wouldn’t wander far, he picked up Arthur. Even though he was only a small, stuffed bear, Arthur was Tim’s best friend. They did everything together. Today would be no exception.
Bounding down the stoop and across the front yard, Tim and Arthur made their way to an old tree in the neighbors yard. The tree didn’t have many leaves, even though it was already late spring. It’s bark was gnarled and the few branches it had twisted every which way. Tim pulled away a fist-sized piece of bark from the base of the tree, revealing a sizable cavern filled with dollar bills and various coinage. He removed the two dollars and sixteen cents of lunch money he had saved from the previous week and shoved it deep into the recess of the old tree.
“I hope this is enough,” Tim whispered to Arthur. “I don’t want the dreams tonight. I never want the dreams.”
Tim starred at Arthur for a reaction. But Arthur just sat silently propped next to the hole in the tree.
The rest of the day was spent wandering the nearby fields and inciting war against various legions of insects. As the sky grew dark, they headed back home. Tim moved slowly. He was worried about the night ahead.
Dinner went without note as did the rest of the evening. But when it came time for bed, Tim’s chest was tight. He washed his face and brushed his teeth. Then, cumbersomely, clambered into bed.
Tim didn’t want to sleep. He had paid a sizable amount early in the day, but it didn’t always seem to be enough. As the hours wore on, Tim sunk into a deep, unrestful sleep.
Once it was certain Tim was asleep, Arthur moved closer. The stuffed bear loomed ominously over the boy. Then, like a whisper of smoke, Arthur traversed through Tim’s nose and into his soul.
“It’s never enough. Never.”
DEFEATED: The chronicles of a worthless piece of shit [pt.1]
“That’s napalm… I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
I was watching Apocalypse Now on the American Movie Classics channel. Not just the normal two hour and thirty-three minute version. No, it was most definitely the Redux. Also known as the version that Francis Ford decided to add twelve more hours to the already somewhat lulling film. Don’t get me wrong, I love the film, but it does seem like a somewhat moot attempt. He might as well have made a third Godfather film.
Whilst laying on my blue, pet-hair covered couch, with a pillow that may have very well been given as food to Jews in concentration camps, I came to the following conclusion. Big Duke, played by Robert Duvall, loooooooved the napalm and it was funny. But my thoughts soon turned to the villagers, the victims of the militant surfer’s glee. I guessed that their favorite smell was probably something other than napalm, especially in the morning.
It was this train of thought that got me thinking about what my favorite smell in the morning was and I deduced that it was most likely corndogs. Actually at any time of the day cordogs would probably be my favorite smell. Oh what glory thou be, corndogs. The majestic corn batter that makes you so soft and smooth to the touch and the fantastic flavor that smothers my taste buds with the utmost pleasure. This is the smell that I love so dearly in the morning. Continue reading “DEFEATED: The chronicles of a worthless piece of shit [pt.1]”
How A Man Made Himself Live Forever
There was a slight tremble in Maurice’s hand, but he pretended it didn’t exist. He imagined his muscles like loose ropes which moored a ship to the docks. He saw himself grabbing hold of the frayed, coarseness of them and pulling hard, stealing all the slack they had stolen as the ship drifted at the mercy of the tide, and he wrapped each one tighter and tighter around the steel protuberances of the wharf. His muscles mimicked this, the taught-ness and the tension. He knew that this utter focus was necessary, because this was something that could not be undone. There was no means to erase or undo each stroke of his blade. There was a finality in this, but it did not enter into his head. Only the unfettered commitment to his work which slowly etched itself in front of him as he went.
As each cut bore itself deeper into the surface, flakes and bits of paint fell to the floor like confetti and began to stick to his pants. But this too went unnoticed. Maurice was almost finished now. He was almost at the end of all this. He felt a sudden, unexpected sting on the flat part of his thumb and a small stream of blood began to drip across the groves in his palm and down his wrist, as if some disembodied force was guiding it without knowing it, like hands on an Ouija board.
As a single drop of his own blood struck the floor, mixing with the paint and flecks of cheap metal, Maurice finished his work. He had transfered which had only been a semblance of thoughts, a mixture of things never quite settled on long enough to be considered thoughts. They couldn’t have that name because they were only flickers of ideas, strapped together with the fleeting phantoms of past experiences. But now he had made them concrete. He folded up his tool, hiding the half-dull tool away for now. Maurice didn’t linger, though. The thing was done and before the blood that had spilled on the floor had made its way into the groves of the tiles, he was out the door and in his car and down the road.
He knew that his work would be there forever. And if he ever questioned his own existence, doubted for a moment that he was really a relevant player in this world, he would not need to doubt himself.
Because, forever etched into the third bathroom stall in the Gas and Go off of Interstate 73, read the words:
Metallica rules.