Creation Myth

There was this turtle floating around in the void. It was the only thing. It was happy, it liked the quiet. And then one day this bird appeared. Let’s party, said the bird. Let’s fuck shit up. The turtle ignored him, which drove the bird crazy. He couldn’t understand why the turtle wasn’t into partying with him. Bird started making stuff, to get Turtle’s attention. Lakes. Mountains. Clouds. Trees. The turtle wasn’t impressed. The bird said, What the fuck? It created humans next. This the turtle noticed, as one smashed his shell with a stone. Whoops, said the bird.

This Dead Dog

This dead dog surprised everyone by winning the primary. People liked it because it seemed relatable, and for its transparency. It was just a dead dog, nothing more, nothing less. People said, It’s the kind of dead dog that I might find and feel bad for. It’s not too gross, either, which means it has nothing to prove. The incumbent tried to make things about issues. He said, This dead dog knows nothing about foreign policy, has no military experience, and is covered with maggots. But it didn’t matter. Unlike the incumbent, the dead dog hadn’t yet broken anyone’s heart.

Escaping The Wizard

I nabbed a scroll from the wizards’ desk as we fled his workshop ahead of the flames. Outside we heard the wizard scream as he burned. Sara cried, but my years of slavery had hardened my heart. I opened the scroll, hoping it was a treasure map. Sarah asked what it said. It wasn’t a map, it was a letter negotiating her release and return to her family. She looked so fragile and beautiful, streaked with soot in the light of the blazing tower. Like an angel, dependant entirely on me. Nothing, I said. Let’s find shelter for the night.

HORROR

Topher had an encyclopedic knowledge of horror movies. He knew the directors and the studios and the actors, the make-up artists, the special effects gurus, and most of all the tropes. He’d list them with little provocation: Don’t go in there alone! Don’t have premarital sex! Don’t doubt the existence of the killer or the monster! Everyone told to stay in the car is going to get out of the car. Anyone black is doomed. But none of it helped him one bit. He was still woefully unprepared when the spot on his lung was diagnosed as terminal cancer.

ERRAND

In the morning she came downstairs and found him. He was dead. The television was still on, the tape he had been watching had automatically rewound and ejected itself. She kissed his brow and put her hand in his, and sat for a while. Then she stood and took the tape from the VCR and walked out to the car. It was early, but the video store would open soon. She would find something classy. Foreign, maybe. Switch the tapes, then start making the necessary calls. There was no reason for anyone to know that Raymond Carver had died watching Porky’s.

Obit

Mark Hodges got what was coming to him Monday morning following an entirely inevitable heart attack. He is survived by a son, Micah, who lives with his mother in Tucson and is probably better off that way, and a daughter, Ellen, who seems destined to wait tables forever. As a young man Mark had a fondness for other people’s bicycles and a penchant for hurtful nicknames, as an adult his vote cancelled out mine repeatedly, I’m sure. Services for the departed will be held in the dumpster behind the Hardees on Route 17 if there is any justice in the world.

Ghost Story

Harry was in the coma for eleven months, and when he woke he could see ghosts. They were everywhere, and more, they were constantly fucking. Floating through the air, in pairs, in groups, totally debauched—every imaginable kink was represented, and there were no boundaries. Why would there be? They were already dead, they deserved to have some fun. Harry was horrified. The most difficult part was explaining that we all saw them, too, and that we had learned to look the other way. For us, it was no big deal. We’d had eleven months to get used to it.

WHY I BROKE OFF THE ENGAGEMENT

Mara and I were kayaking when we were surrounded by a school of dolphins. They flashed their fins and yelled, Let’s see some titties! And, Hey baby, you ever suck a blowhole? Mara stared at me like she wanted me to do something, like I should dive in and teach them a lesson. I said, Just ignore them. She got mad and said I wasn’t a real man, that her ex would never have taken shit like that off anyone, let alone a fish. She didn’t know dolphins were mammals. Suddenly I realized we were together for the wrong reasons.

Tolerance

Everything but America vanished. The world was just America and the endless ocean. We had to do something with the foreigners who were visiting when their homes disappeared, so we built camps for them to stay in. Then some liberals started complaining. You can’t put people in camps, they said. America is awful, the other countries are better off without us, they said. So we put the liberals in camps, too. They complained, they didn’t like being in the same camps as the foreigners. Why is it that the people that preach tolerance the most are often the most intolerant?

Tiger Woods

Tiger gathered scientists from around the world and pitched his big idea—a drug that kept you from being attracted to anyone but your spouse. Maybe as an injection that you’d need once a year, which would mean recurring income. Or his and her pills, pink and blue. Cute. He wanted to devote his remaining fortune to the development. The scientists knew it couldn’t be done, and debated telling him the truth. In the end, they took his money. Maybe it was unethical, but the man had lost so much, he seemed to need a reason to keep going.

Career Change

I worked for a firm in Temecula that was overrun by wild horses. Something about the place drew them in. At first it was nice. At lunch I would sit at my desk and feed them carrots. But then one morning I found one stuck half-in, half-out of the elevator. It kicked or bit anyone who got too close. The door kept banging its flank, making it panic. The building manager’s plan was to wait for it to die, then haul out the corpse. He asked for volunteers. I love finance, but that was not what I signed up for.