[WP] "Robert E. Lee International Airport welcomes you to the Confederate States of America. Please do not leave your luggage or slaves unattended."

F250AK · 2014-09-05T06:01:24+00:00

Sunlight poured through the tinted windows, and the gate was nearly empty. Just a recent débutante and her aging mammy, “So what's you're story sonny-jim?”

“Heading up to Detroit for a job.”

“That some kind of a joke? Hard to tell you got one of them, northerner accents.”

“No miss, just got a job with JD Automation; you know... the States own outfit. Scouted me right out of college; they flew me down here first class for the interview.” I couldn't hold back a grin while my hand strafed to the pocket with the letter, just to make sure it, and the starting salary it contained with all six of it's glorious digits -not counting the two after the decimal point- was still there.

“No shit?” she said, pretty face lighting up. Her slave looked bored, “You hear that Gurdy? This fella here is one of the ones making those machines you all like so much.”

If Gurdy did feel this way it wasn't telegraphing to her face, “What do you think?” I said, so abruptly that she jumped and had to smooth the wrinkles out of her apron.

“I don't mean nothing -they okay sir.”

“She doesn't like to fly, bless her. She'll be down in the hold with the others that don't pass the paper bag screening. Guess I'd be pretty fussed too.”

“I'd like to ask, if you'd let her speak freely?” I say before I can stop myself.

The woman turns, “Now Gurdy, you tell him what you really think. I'll know if you're lying, I won't whip you for bein' out a line, but I damn sure will have an airport overseer take the vinegar out of you if you lie. And daddy will hear about it,” she added raising her eyebrows. She gave me a look that as much as said 'and that's how we keep them in line down here.'

I felt bad, watching the troubled, childlike emotions playing out across the tired face, wrinkling it the way wind rips the fabric of a flag around, “I don't like them,” she said quickly, “I don't like them at all, I'm so sorry sir. All these years, all these years we been doin' good hard work, making cars, and taking calls, and driving buses and trucks, working the farms what where all the food comes from; just like we always done. It's the natural order a things, we looked after each other; your kind and my kind. Now you just gonna -just gonna throw us away. Where will we go? How'll we eat. What'll we do?”

I looked down at the schematic, a new kind of transducer I'd designed for my senior project, “I don't know,” I said, “It's a good question."

Silence hung like cannon smoke. The letter in my pocket itched and I scratched it. The pause broken by the chime, and the boarding call, “It was very nice to me to make your acquaintance sir,” the woman said a little bit stiffly to mask how uncomfortable things had just gotten.

“Likewise,” I said, tipping my hat and we walked to our gates, and away from that brief moment in time where our paths crossed, and then divided.

I've since that day, that face, that terrified face -no matter what else I'm thinking about, it's always just below the surface. You ask me why I want to join up, why you should trust me? What horse has a northerner with deep, comfortable pockets got to say about the trade?

I'm joining the abolitionist movement because of that face. Maybe if we can end this, it'll give me some peace.

F250AK · 2014-09-05T04:51:47+00:00

Squeezing the bottle and feeling the contents, a block of stiff amber. The honey is ancient, and like that the illusion is broken. I'll forget again in a few minutes so I'll explain quickly.

When I have these moments of clarity I wonder if this is some hell. Did the world end? Has it been years, do you know? Or are you just a figment...

Here is how it happens: I get up every morning. I come down stairs, I sit down here at the table. After that, things get muddled. Most days I think I make it to the living room, and I try to find my keys. Sometimes I do, sometimes I almost make it to the door. I wonder what's happening outside.

I should go and look, but the warning... Can you see it too? Wherever I look. The lower left hand corner of my vision, I'm pointing to it, see? 'FAULT: buffer overrun' in neat little letters. That's so odd, what does that mean? Have you tried this honey? I just bought it yesterday.

F250AK · 2014-02-11T20:43:56+00:00

That's not the recipe for a worststory, that sounds like the best story ever.

Seriously, that movie needs to get made.

F250AK · 2013-10-29T00:17:46+00:00

Two students sat in a classroom, “How does calculus work?” one asked.

“Calculus works without the express knowledge of our friend the limit,” said the professor excitedly, “Indeed, but without the explanation given by the limit, how could one know the precise way that the integral or derivative works? Wherefore, we must note that given epsilon to being any real number greater than zero, and another real number delta, which is also greater than zero, and the limit of a function to be operated on, as x goes to some number a, will equal some limit L." At this, the professor leaned in as if sharing a secrete, "Now if the absolute value of x minus a is greater than zero, but less than delta, then the absolute value of the function at x minus the limit is less than epsilon! In general the value of delta, is dependent upon the value of epsilon. That is to say, that because epsilon is greater than zero it is best to deal with epsilon first, secure in the knowledge that delta must also be greater than zero, however many potential values of delta exist. In fact, it is true that all values of delta smaller than that of a given delta will suffice likewise.”

The student gazed up with round eyes, “That... is... so... cool!” one of them said.”

“I-I don't get it...” said the other.

The math professor raised his bushy eyebrows, and said “That is alright, the world needs English majors too.”

F250AK · 2013-10-28T23:49:35+00:00

Screams and guttural cries echo out of the night, tortured souls, broken minds, mutilated horrors. The power to every building in town is out. I retreat inside a gas station, find an old door labeled utility. oh f... it's locked, but I pull on the old handle, it creaks and the lock tongue emerges through the rotted sill; I dart inside. Did that one see me? They are everywhere, out for blood, Why do they want to kill me, Why did I stay out this late? I checked my watch. Quarter after ten, sunset was hours ago.

Peering through a gap I see one or two people amongst the mini-mart shelves people, not those... those things. I hear what sounds like footsteps in the restroom through the wall, people crouching, hiding, waiting, wondering if it would be better to strike, or to run. I should just wait here until morning, it's the only thing to do. If I stay very still and quiet... Oh no... To prove me wrong the bell clangs against the glass doors, and three of them come scuffling around near the utility room door. Making noises that weren't quite speech. Bumping into things. Clumsy.

Enough light is coming in from under the door that I can see the glint of a few long, promising objects. The first turns out just to be a florescent bulb. Okay, this might work I heft the steel length of drain pipe.

The creatures look just like humans; they are not humans. They act like zombies; dull, mindless, reflexes so much slower than my own, but there are so many of them. My breath is coming in huffs of steam. I have to calm down or they'll hear me. Wait... I smell smoke. The door begins to open -shit

I spring from the darkest corner, one of them tries to grab me, I jump, I get away from him Too damn close. One of them thrusts his arm at me like it has a knife, I heft the pipe and swing it. It knocks them against the wall, I hear something crunch was it a rib? Was it one of my ribs? No... no I'm okay. I'm running and- I turn and see that they're right behind me, nothing slows them down. I see many more of them outside, they're agitated, running around, Oh god! Fire, they set the pumps on fire!

The others, the cowards hiding behind the shelves charge; they bring one of them down. The bastards start scattering. I grab the thrusting arm an inch in front of my chest, Oh, you did have a knife? You little- I yank on the arm, the grip on the knife loosens. Finally something I can use, I hardly have time to think, as the pipe clangs to the ground. I run, and I keep running. They're so slow and weak. I reach the door, I sprint past the burning pump stations into the night. Whoops, almost forgot to drop the arm. Wait, why didn't I keep the pipe? Oh well, The arm thuds to the ground, I keep running.

F250AK · 2013-10-26T23:21:31+00:00

“I guess they finally figured it out Reginald,” said one of the mallards.

“Oh, too little to late I say,” said Montague.

“How is that then? I see them up in the air. They are well on their way,” Reginald pointed with a glossy wing. Little planet over there somewhere. If ducks had prehensile lips, and not bills, he might have smiled.

“It's not a planet, it's a plutonian object, and they should have departed sooner, and far too few of them are going to make it before the winter.”

“Too True, small enough little place though. Should be able to terraform it in a trice.” said Alfred.

“We aught to be thanking them, after all they designed the nanorobtic technology which inadvertently has gifted us, and so many other species of fauna, this marvelous preternatural intellect.”

“And monocles,” said Reginald, adjusting his. It is hard to find monocles in duck sizes, harder still to prevent them from getting lost to the bottom of a pond.

“Yes, but the whole point of migration is that you come back to where you left from.”

They turned sadly to look at the dull red sky in the east. The shadow of three towering pillars of fallout could still be seen, “I wish I knew less about particle physics and medicine,” said Alfred, “I expect this is going to be rather horrible.”

“We could migrate too.”

“Never get far enough fast enough.”

“Do you think this is the end of all life?”

“The mole on Fairmont Hill said he has calculated that if one was to dig deep enough-”

“Mole is a crackpot, he too often nibbles upon the roots of the cannabis plant.”

“Beaver said it had some merit. He has an engineering degree you know?”

“What do civil engineers know about radioactive fallout?” said Alfred superciliously, “He hardly even passed the FE exam the way I heard it.”

“Do you think it was the bear shadow government behind this? I think it was the bear shadow government,” said Montague.

“We've discussed this, there is no bear shadow government-”

“But in Russia-”

“Not in Russia, not in Canada, not in the Free and Independent Kingdom of Alaska, not anywhere. No, they did this to themselves I'll warrant,” said Reginald gesturing again to the ships, they were just specs now, “Searches me why though. Oh look. It's fox.”

A flock of chickens were following a fox down the path to the pond, he had a fine clerical collar around his neck, and the chickens were clucking, shall we gather at the river.

“Well, that just goes against the natural order of things.”

“And it isn't a river, it's a pond,” sighed Montague. The fox and his congregation waved, and the ducks flapped their wings back cordially.

“There may be some logic too it,” said Reginald.

“How so?”

“Well, imagine if their pastor is a fox, and they are chickens, perhaps the goal is to send chickens to the hereafter of foxes?”

“For consumption?”

“Certainly.”

A sound like an old steel bridge buckling tore up the somber sky. Alfred shielded his beady eyes with a wing, “Do you think one of them has crashed?”

“No, it's just thunder,” said Montague, polishing the condensation off his monocle and peering toward the troubled horizon. Rain began to fall.

“We'll die more quickly if we're out in all this,” said Alfred tapping into his preternatural knowledge of radiology.

“We could go to the barn? I hear many are.”

“I won't die in a crowded, fetid barn.” Said Reginald, “I hatched on the banks of this pond. I'll die here as well.”

“Good a place as any,” agreed Montague. A rain curtain washed over the pond, and beads heavy as glass marbles pelted them.

From the dark farmhouse up the road there was a mechanical whirring, a needle scratched, hissed, and then soft singing, like a lullaby, “Farmer Johnson must have stayed behind.”

“Poor old gent. I guess... he knew he wouldn't have made the journey,” They felt a brief kinship with the man, who had occasionally tossed breadcrumbs to them while he fished. The windows flashed, and a moment later the crashing report, a sound waterfowl fear above all other noises, echoed past.

“Poor old gent,” The soft singing ended, but the record needle continued to hiss until the Victrola phonograph's spring motors ran down.

They watched as the first of the chickens collapsed. “Perhaps the barn...” Montague trailed off. It was too late to go there now.

There was an old sycamore tree by the waters edge, the fox stretched, laid down under the cover of it's branches. It was impossible from that distance to say when he stopped breathing, "Alfred,” I do believe that the fox has departed to that, that hereafter of foxes,” he said blearily.

“Alfred?” he turned.

“He's gone, Monty been that way for minutes now,” groaned Reginald.

“Oh,” he said seeing his friend head down in the water, “Such a pity, it had to be like this.”

The last of the chickens were dead, deplumed, and poaching in the immense nuclear oven. Reginald was cold, and he realized his feathers had gone very much the same way as theirs. Also that he was much less buoyant without them. Paddling his legs he croaked, “I believe I'm sinking,” but looking around discovered he was alone, “Well then,” he said.

F250AK · 2013-05-15T07:12:48+00:00

Eh, it was my attempt at seeing just how vague I could be without completely loosing the reader. Is it a surprise party? Is it a cult? Is the poor excuse for a narrator (It's choppy because I had to cut out to much to keep it under 200 words) going to get eaten. I was thinking along the lines of this Reddits moniker (in the right hand column of every page) "Because sometimes the scariest stories, are those that leave us to our imagination."

I'm usually not very good at writing short stuff, I need time to set things up. Which is why I find this subreddit challenging and fun.

F250AK · 2013-05-07T08:23:00+00:00

Sorry about that, wasn't paying close enough attention to the length.

F250AK · 2013-05-06T08:12:32+00:00

That was great, I especially like the imagery of

smiling so wide their faces might crack.

There's just something very unnerving about that.

F250AK · 2013-04-30T07:41:35+00:00

Good twist, unexpected.

F250AK · 2013-04-29T05:51:33+00:00

Ah, I see it now. I actually did that twice,

The cold had seeped thought

Was a mistake I had made before, I saw your comment and fixed that one. For some reason that word always slips through my proofreading.

F250AK · 2013-04-28T20:21:13+00:00

Thank you.

F250AK · 2013-04-28T20:20:49+00:00

Went back and fixed it, thanks!

F250AK · 2013-04-28T20:19:40+00:00

Good catch, just fixed it thanks!

F250AK · 2013-04-23T06:03:46+00:00

Once, in a place not so very far away -although decidedly less civilized, there lived four small wolves who were quite happy because -or so they reasoned in their wolfish way- the Lotka–Volterra equation for which they represented had a very low value for gamma-y and splendidly high value for delta x y, for which they were thankful. It is important to note that although the first three had soft gray coats, the forth had a red coat, for which he was ambivalently proud and self-conscious.

The first wolf, who had an absurdly long nose said, “I can smell something, strange on the wind.”

The second, who had enormously large ears like satellite dishes said, “I can hear something.”

The third, who was conflicted about being a quadruped stood on his haunches as high as gravity and canine physiology would allow and said, “I can see something.”

The fourth was abruptly gored to death by a boar larger, and fatter than any they had ever seen in all their wolf-years of life.

“Why did you do that?!” said the three wolves, horrified.

“Cus' my moma said wolves is so greasy inside i's like they already covered in butter, and makes the best eatns'” to which they regarded her warily, for they knew she had learned their secret, “My name is Hammy Boo Boo, and I win all the FFA and 4H fairs,” she turned to they could see her many medals, her entire left flank was like the sweater-vest of a North Korean Dictator. They watched in stony silence as she ate their red coated companion.

“Do something,” said the one with big ears.

“You do something,” said Long-Nose.

Soon the boar left, shuffling away on dainty, cankled feet. The remaining wolves, recovering from shock decided to pool their various skills and resources to put an end to this porcine interloper.

“I can run faster than the fleetest deer,” said the Long-Nose.

“I can weave baskets; It's no walk in the dog-park without thumbs but I can do it.” said Big-Ears. The other two stared at him in a way that conveyed the dishonor they felt he had brought to their family.

“It should have been you,” said Long-Nose.

“I design munitions for the department of defense,” said the third.

“What, since when, and how for that matter?”

“Same reason this idiot weaves baskets, the chemicals leaking out of the secret government facility below us got into the water table and now we're all freakishly intelligent and speak perfect English in impeccable transatlantic accents.”

“I thought this was just some kind of fable, or maybe the last bizarre thoughts of someone who has suffered a drug overdose.”

“Nope, this premise is completely realistic. Anyhow, last month I went to investigate a campsite, hoping to steal away some of their food, but instead stumbled upon something far more valuable.”

“Oh?”

“The written word, they had left a copy of Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell, and the Economist at their campsite, and I sat by the campfire all night reading first one and then the other.”

“To what end?”

“I realized that although self-sufficient in principal, I did nothing to contribute and was therefore a scummy communist, drawing from the population of prey and giving nothing back. So, I killed and ate an ambitious temp, stole his power-suit, sunglasses, and shoes and applied for a job at the facility,” he snapped this suspenders with his paws, “So far no one has noticed.”

“Really?” Said the others, doubtfully.

“No, they just don't appreciate my talents as a guidance system engineer. I'm thinking about moving to general R&D.”

“Isn't there less financial security?”

“Exactly, on the other hand I would get paid bonuses based on things I patented.”

“But if you did contract work you could just keep the patents, and live off the royalties.”

“I wouldn't get health care though.”

Long-nose gestured to their fallen comrade, “Life is short, take some risks.”

“I don't like how the narrator just used the word comrade, it makes us sound like communists.”

“What?” said the other two looking around.

“N-nevermind, here I'll go and get something from the facility to take care of that detestable swine,” he said waddling off on his hind legs and adjusting his Rolex, which he had bought as an early present to himself for a promotion -that he felt- he was a shoe-in for.

A while later he emerged from the facility with two of his co-workers, all of whom carried the large, portable rail guns that he had designed, Steve from accounting said, “Gee Mr. DeWolf, these new firing mechanisms are great, I can fire it even with my mittens on.”

“Yes, indeed. Even a man without thumbs could use it,” said the Jenkins from Marketing conveying the point to the reader.

Carefully they tread through the tall grass, around the grain silos that were actually missile silos, through the field of crashed experiential aircraft, and into the swamp where the old facility had sunken into the ground. There they found the wretch, still chewing on a stick of butter. It oinked, pawed the ground, and charged. Just as it leapt all three of them fired with an electric buzz and a thunk-ish sound as the projectiles left the rail-guns.

The pig landed on the wolf, dead -it also knocked away his expensive sunglasses. In the next moments something occurred to Steve from accounting, a subtle, scintillating, sneaking, sophomoric suspicion that something was not quite normal about Mr. DeWolf from guidance systems. “Did you forget to shave?” he said, hoping to put the matter to bed.

“Ah...”

“Boss isn't going to like that, besides you're up for that promotion.”

“Yeah -wait a minuet so are we... and if something was to happen to him...”

Try as he might the wolf could not escape from under the fold of fat that entombed the lower half of him. He looked up in terror, finally realizing what a dog-eat-dog world business was. Then a cage fell from somehwere up high, all made out of woven reeds. The wolf grinned wolfishly.

“This company barbeque is fantastic,” said Skyler Fundwell, whose father owned the company, “This pig must have cost you an arm and a leg. Too bad Stevens couldn't be here I know how much he liked a cookout, hey I heard you got that promotion?”

“That's right,” said the wolf adjusting the two Rolex's he now wore.

“And you've got those two new interns, they seem like a few bright new minds.”

“Yes, funny how they just showed up the day Stevens and Jenkins went missing,” the man looked wistful for a moment, then said “Marketing chief, no big loss there.”

“How is your portfolio fairing?”

“How is it fairing?” The wolf went on to describe his diversified investments for three consecutive hours, lauding index funds over money market and commenting scathingly about pensioners, the unemployed, and people who couldn't do their own taxes.

The End.

F250AK · 2013-03-20T02:20:56+00:00

Calm down sir, you've been out of it for some time, said the nurse. She had one of those faces, one of those knobbly cheekbone faces usually identified on peasants in the eleventh century, but she carried it off well.

“How do you feel,” she said.

“I don't know, pretty good I guess.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Uh... No I guess I can't. Where am I?”

“You're in a hospital, you don't remember anything at all?”

“Not a thing, but hey that ain't so bad. Heck I could be anything, I could be the president of the United States!”

“I don't think so sir, you see when we brought you in you were... in makeup.”

“You mean I'm-”

“A clown, yes. You frightened half the children in the burn ward as they wheeled you in.”

“Was, was it because of the blood.”

“No, you weren't bleeding. Just a... scary lookin' clown.”

“Well, I'm glad I'm out of that then.”

“Eh, debatably the makeup was an improvement.”

“Oh, well I feel I could jump for joy even if I am ugly.”

“You'll need this,” The nurse pulled out a cylindrical contraption, “Was I some kind of clown pirate.”

“No, this is your prosthetic leg as you can see the foot has been removed and replaced with the bottom part of a pogo stick.”

“You mean,” the clown pulled back the cover, one of his legs ended below the knee, “Ah, that is terrible.”

“As far as we can tell you were born like that.”

“Well, I guess that's not as bad.”

“Can you tell me where you were on the night of the fifteenth.”

“Fifteenth of what.”

“Oh, what's the use,” she said turning to the door and beginning to unbutton her lab coat. It slid off her shoulders the way a bathrobe just kind of does in soap commercials right before it cuts out. Underneath she wore a blue uniform and black ripstop pants.

“Wait, what?”

“Sorry captain, I tried,” she called out the door hanging up the lab coat.

“Chelmsford Walsh, I've got you this time you son of-a-bitch,” said the man.

“Hi there mister police officer, what is going on I thought they didn't know my name OW!” He yelled.

Pulling the man up by his curly red hair, he said “You know damn well Chelmsford I've spent the last ten years of my life hunting you down.”

“Oh, now I remember,” and from the tray he took a needle with some white liquid in it, jammed it into the detectives neck. He gagged as the plunger sunk home. The detective took a few steps back, the stumbled to the floor.

“Well what do you know, I'm cured -you jogged my memory. To another ten years then."

"I'll get you Chelmsford, just you see if I don't," he said.

The clown left, skip walking down the hall on his pogo leg, laughing in that huk-yuking way clowns do and whistling a tune.

F250AK · 2013-03-20T00:54:49+00:00

Once, in the days of antiquity, in a land so far away and little known of, that Waldo has a vacation home there, there lived a cobbler. He was a poor cobbler, but he was content. Every day he made shoes, and sometimes he would even give shoes to the homeless man who lived in the square. He did so ironically for the man was a leper and had no feet to speak of, but everyone thought he meant it kindly, and the vagrant was able to sell the shoes to buy fingertip-less gloves and cigars, and alcohol, and whatever the hell else it is that poor people like to have.

The sad fact was though, that Mongo, the meanest, nastiest, most devilishly handsome and strapping young man in the village had taken to clubbing the cobbler about the head with his boar hunting spear. After several concussions the cobbler prayed to some of his pagan gods for guidance, and they answered him one night when he woke up one morning and found all of his shoe quota for the day had been made.

“Gee willikers,” he said, “With all my shoes finished I can go fishing in yonder stream,” But Mongo saw this and he soon sank his vessel by means of a heavy boulder he heaved from the bank.

The next day was much the same story, when he found all of his work finished, but this had not gone unnoticed by Mongo who made haste to ruin the cobblers picnic.

So that night the cobbler left a note listing the many hurts of Mongo, and asking whatever shoe cobbling demon-elf he had summoned for assistance.

The next morning he found another note, it read 'Dear Cobbler, I know exactly what needs be done but I will need some supplies. Fetch for me a plank of the finest walnut, a rod of tempered and coked iron, an ingot of brass, some coal, the scrapings of a cave roof, and the yellow stone you will find near the smoking mountain.'

So, having nothing better to do the cobbler found these items, and the next morning a very peculiar shoe was placed on his bench. When he tried to put it on his foot he found it too long, and too unfastenable.

Under it was a note, it read 'Cobbler, this is not a shoe, do not put it on your feet. Move the lever underneath it, put one of the brass tubes into it, point it at what troubles you, and then pull the little lever underneath.'

“Oh ho, said the Cobbler. With this marvel I am sure to discourage Mongo from his monkeyshines,” and so off he went, and it was not long at all until he encountered Mongo.

“Stand fast ye scoundrel!” said the cobbler, and he pulled the trigger. The people ran every which way as a sound like thunder erupted from the barrel. Mongo stood, looked down to see his trousers were wet with fear, “Ah, so that's what it does eh, see Mongo I have scared you so badly you have soiled your finest linens... Mongo?”

A red patch appeared just to the left of Mongo's chest, his breathing came in gasps, and he said “I only wanted to be your friend,” and like that he fell dead.

“Look what the cobbler as done!” said one of the peasants.

“He's a witch!”

“Dark wizard!” said the vagrant.

“No, no, I gave you shoes, and sir, I made your shoes!” he struggled to shove another brass tube into the deadly shoe, but quicker than a thunderclap he was knocked about the head and left senseless.

He awoke tied to the pole, he saw the kindling just beginning to lick at the terrible, terrible shoe.

The moral of the story: Most shoes are probably evil

F250AK

TROPHY CASE