percival and his friends

by corinne delmonico

percival had lots of friends. he never wondered much if they really liked him, or why they liked him. although he sometimes thought about it a little bit, and had his suspicions. his friends liked him because he was a pleasant fellow. he never argued about anything. he was not bad looking. he knew how to act in public, and never embarrassed himself or anyone else. he dressed well, nothing flashy or ostentatious. he was not particularly witty, and did not have a great sense of humor, but he would laugh at other people’s jokes and witticisms without being obviously “”polite”. he was not very knowledgeable on any subject, which was one reason why he never got into arguments. he had no obsessions, no subject he bored people with. he had lots of money, and was always open to his friends’ suggestions as to how to spend it, on himself and on them. one day percival lost all his money. he did not how it happened, but he had never understood money. the only thing he had ever known about it was that he had a lot of it. sometimes he had read in the papers or seen stories online about “crashes” on wall street , but somehow they had never affected him. now, with no stories in the media about any “crashes” and without any warning, his financial advisor and the manager of his trust both told him he was bankrupt. “what about the money in my checking account?” he asked the financial advisor. the advisor put the tips of her fingers together. “hmm. i don’t know if anybody will bother to go after it, but to be on the safe side, maybe you better take the money out and hide it under your bed. even a safe deposit box would not be completely safe.” percival wondered if his friends would still like him, he was quickly reassured. “that’s all right, percival,” his best friend, nellie, told him. “we had a nice run off of you. now, we will show you how to get a run off of other people. like jeff and bobbi. and harold. harold has more money than god. we have to help him spend it.” “we will teach you to be a parasite,” his second best friend willie added. “it is not that difficult.” so percival began sponging on some of his friends, the way some of the other friends had sponged on him. he did not starve, or freeze to death. but after a while he got bored. his friends started to bore him, and he felt he was boring them. he decided to cut his ties with them, and get out into the real world, which he had always been a little curious about. he got a job behind the counter at mopey dick’s, a startup fast food company. he worked both afternoon and night shifts. he rented a lonely little room with an old fashioned hissing radiator, and bought a second hand 18 inch television, which he went home and watched when he was not working. he especially liked old star trek episodes. he began to watch all the episodes of all the different seasons.

true crime

by nick nelson

esther, dee dee, and joanie worked as clerks in mr dave johnson’s real estate office for many years. dave johnson also employed a number of salesmen, who were not expected to spend much time in the office, and who usually moved on to other jobs after one or two years. esther had worked there for a couple of years more than dee dee or joanie, and she was left in charge of the office when mr johnson was not there, but she was not really dee dee’s or joanie’s “boss”. the three of them got along well enough most of the time, when the weather was not particularly hot or cold. but in the extremes of winter and summer dee dee and joanie had terrible fights about the heat and air conditioning. dee dee would turn the heat up full blast in the winter and then joanie would wait a little while and get up and turn it down. and in the summer the reverse would happen and joanie would turn the air conditioning up as high as she could, and then dee dee would get up and turn it down. harsh words would be spoken, especially when mr johnson was not in the office, although they never actually struck each other, only repeatedly threatened to do so. every six months or so mr johnson would have a “staff meeting” with the three of them and the salesmen, and the subject of the heat and/or air conditioning would be brought up by dee dee or joanie and after listening for a few minutes, mr johnson would indicate that he didn’t want to hear it and he would move on to his next topic. esther was sometimes exasperated but more often amused by the conflicts between dee dee and joanie. esther was a true crime buff, and watched many true crime tv shows and read many true crime books. she thought that when she retired she might write a true crime book herself. she especially liked the true crime books of ann rule. ann rule had written many books, but was perhaps most famous for her book about ted bundy, whom she had chanced to know personally. it amused esther to think that either dee dee or joanie might actually kill the other, and then she, esther, could write a book about them. things went on in this way until dave johnson sold his business to a national real estate chain. it was not a surprise, as he had been planning to do so for years, as soon as he got what he considered a good offer. esther, dee dee, and joanie were out of jobs. mr johnson took them to lunch, at a local pub. he left early, after finishing his caesar salad, and assuring the proprietor that he would pick up their tab, no matter what it ran to. the three of them got quite drunk. esther confessed to dee dee and joanie her dream of writing a book about the two of them, after one of them killed the other. neither of them was amused. dee dee glared at esther. “who would get the money for the book?” esther was taken aback. “i would, if i wrote it.” “what about us?” joanie asked. “it would be about us. don’t we get some consideration?” “well, ha ha, one of you would be dead, and the other probably in prison.” “that doesn’t mean we couldn’t get money - or our kids could get money, ever think of that?” dee dee shot back. “yeah, you think you can just write about people and make money off them just like that?” joanie added. “well, i was just kidding,” esther responded, “besides, you are both alive and well and are not really going to kill each other anyway, are you?” “it’s the principle of the thing,” said dee dee. they continued to ask esther questions, as if the book were already written, and money, and tv and movie offers, pouring in on it, and esther tried to deflect the questions as humorously as she could. but the happy mood of the little party , such as it had been, was destroyed, and they broke up, without even telling each other they would keep in touch. joanie was a little younger than the other two, and got a job as a hostess at an applebee’s. dee dee and esther found employment as telemarketers.

the governess

by corinne delmonico

the twins could be a bit of a handful, but miss carson was still glad she had obtained the job as their governess, as she had been somewhat starving before she did. the twins, mindy and logan, were the heirs to the imperial throne. that is, they were both regarded as “heirs” and treated as such, although, when the time came, only one would ascend the throne. at the time miss carson began her employment, the empire was under the regency of the twins’ uncle, prince e——————. prince e—————— was not a favorite of the people, a fact which did not seem to concern him unduly. when the twins reached their twelfth birthday, the regency would be over, a coin would be flipped by the imperial chamberlain, lord y————, and one of the twins would be crowned and would ascend the throne, with the other would be exiled to a distant planet, or returned to the general populace. in the meantime they were under the care and supervision of miss carson. really, miss carson mused, they were not so much of a handful as that, and got along well enough with each other, and with her, most of the time. the most serious source of conflict involved the stories they liked to be told by miss carson. mindy liked stories with lots of surprises, especially at the end. logan liked to hear the same stories over and over, with happy endings. or maybe it was the other way around. both twins made it clear to miss carson that her own treatment, if and when they ascended the throne, would be largely determined by how well she pleased them in the meantime. miss carson, on the few occasions she encountered the regent or the lord chamberlain, had sought, with such subtlety as she was capable of, some reassurance as to her future situation, but neither of those experienced diplomatic individuals gave her any satisfaction. meanwhile miss carson was left with the twins. * if you were miss carson, which of these stories seems most likely to please, at least to some degree, both children: a) little red riding hood and the big bad wolf are driving down a country road at midnight when a violent storm overtakes them and they find shelter in an abandoned barn. in the barn they find a handsome prince, bound and gagged… b) cinderella is invited to balls by the king of a……….. , the king of b——————, and the king of c————, all on the same night. she can only attend one! she asks her two stepsisters for advice… c) robin hood and friar tuck and maid marian have successfully held up the casino at monte carlo and are escaping in a motorboat with the swag, with robin hood at the wheel. the gendarmes are right behind him in a high powered motorboat of their own. suddenly maid marian falls overheard… d) snow white wakes up in what looks like a motel room, but does not know how she got there. she hears a voice though the thin walls. it sounds like king arthur, whom she had been rather rude to at the lord lieutenant’s ball the year before… e) old mother hubbard carefully tends a flower in her back yard. she has been assured by a fairy that if she keeps the flower alive for seven years, she, mother hubbard, will be restored to eternal youth… f) other (specify)

van nuys and cupertino

by horace p sternwall

nobody knew where they came from. or cared where they went. their names were smith and jones. or maybe they were van nuys and cupertino. they met in a comedy club in terre haute indiana. it was fate. it was meant to be. it was kismet. where did you say you kids met? when his karma ran over my dogma. they looked at each other and said at the same time, we could do this. they were both traveling salesmen. van nuys sold paper plates. not paper cups, paper plates. i mean, what can you do with a paper plate? hey? a paper cup can be useful sometimes, you can slip a little wine or brandy into it when the occasion requires ,but what can you do with a paper plate? except put potato salad on it. potato salad. let’s talk about potato salad. who invented potato salad, anyway? nobody wants to take credit for inventing potato salad. how about that? or cold baked beans. what about cold baked beans? what did i tell you, you don’t talk about really disgusting things, things that turn people off. like cold baked beans. this is why we can’t have nice laughs. cupertino sold cigar cutters, cigarette lighters, nail clippers, and toenail clippers. you can just see it - somebody asks for a light and you hold up a cigar cutter in front of their nose - and they’ve got a nose like ( william mckinley/henny youngman/de gaulle/barbra streisand…) they teamed up, started playing open mikes wherever they went… all over the country, all over the world… new jersey, des moines, hong kong, baghdad, the moon, the ocean floor… everywhere they went they left a trail of death. forget bombs over the tokyo, hroshima, nagasaki, curtis lemay, the unabomber… these guys were the real bombers… accept no substitutes… they tried everything… they cut recipes out of the local papers… the coupons from publishers clearing house… van nuys noticed from the start that a lot of people got laughs just by saying the names of celebrities and pausing…. it worked for them. but not for our guys. the years went by… kennedy, nixon, frank sinatra and dean martin, oswald and jack ruby, jimmy carter, jackie o, johnny carson and rodney dangerfield, o j and marcia clark and kato kaelin, saddam hussein, axl rose, ted bundy, timothy leary and gordon liddy, whitney houston, britney spears, the olsen sisters, paris hilton, obama, mitt romney, taylor swift and katy perry, they all came and went … still no laughs. cupertino was for trying to just be filthier than anybody else… it worked for some people… a guy in international falls minnesota did a twenty-five minute routine about nuns giving cardinals enemas and they had to call ambulances from five states and canada the customers were rolling on the floors laughing their guts out… finally, in a motel outside flagstaff arizona (where else?) they had a fight and van nuys pulled out a gun and cut cupertino down like a dirty dog. van nuys, who by this time was sixty-seven years old, got seventy-five years to life. they had open mike in the pen. this is my chance, he thought, he had always heard that convicts were a great audience because they were so bored they would laugh and cheer for anything. he died deader than ever. finally he decided if i can’t make them laugh i will make them cry. he told them a story about his grandmother’s canary , about how he loved the canary but was always afraid to show it, and then the canary died and he went up to his room and cried by himself because boys weren’t supposed to cry… did that old offender in the second row smile, or rub his eye… or shake his head… or something…? it’s raining on my grave. i know you are out there. i can hear you decomposing. and the worms… i can hear you too… you… yes you… the little white one, with a couple of molecules of my gall bladder on your ugly face… come on up here…

perfection

by horace p sternwall

once upon a time there was a poet who wanted to write a perfect poem - the most perfect poem that had ever been written. he felt that to write his perfect poem he needed to have a perfect, perfectly white piece of paper. as he was an emperor as well as a poet, he had limitless wealth at his disposal to search the earth for the perfect piece of paper. his spies told him that perfect papers were to be found in a little shop in a town in a little kingdom hidden in the mountains. the poet-emperor knew that if he rode boldly into the little town in his character of emperor, he would be charged an exorbitant price, as the inhabitants of the little kingdom were notorious for their hard bargaining. disguising himself as a humble peasant he entered the town and approached the shop. but as he did, a group of the local king’s soldiers entered the shop, arrested the proprietor for printing seditious pamphlets, and burned the shop to the ground. disappointed in his ambition as a poet, the emperor decided to become a paramour. and to find the maiden with the most perfect face, and the most perfect pale cheeks in the world. he sent out a thousand spies and agents to search his empire and the surrounding kingdoms and find this maiden. a maid whom he was assured fit the description was discovered in a small village on the western border of the empire. the emperor found her seated on a rock beside a gently flowing river, gazing at a pale moon. approaching the maiden, he boldly declared himself, both as an ardent, faithful lover, and as an emperor possessed of all the wealth in the world. the maiden turned a sorrowful gaze on the paramour-emperor. i am sorry, sir, she said, but my heart belongs to another. disappointed again, the emperor decided to become a painter, and to paint the most perfect snowy landscape. in this attempt he disdained the use of agents or spies, but left the palace one night alone, with a knapsack on his back containing only a canvas and easel and some paint and brushes, a jug of wine and a loaf of hard bread. he traveled to the north of the kingdom, where a perfectly white, snowy landscape was most likely to be found. he was crossing a perfectly flat plain, in the shadow of a great mountain, when the snow began to fall. this is my opportunity, the painter-emperor thought, and he set up his easel and began to paint the ghostly scene. the work, once begun, went as smoothy as the snow itself was falling. when the snow began to fall too heavily, obscuring the landscape he was trying to copy, the emperor commanded it to stop. but it did not stop, and went on for days, burying the unfortunate emperor beneath it. he was succeeded as emperor by his brother, who spent the days of his long reign in a tavern in the shadow of the imperial palace, drinking wine with beggars, eunuchs, and old soldiers, and playing darts and dice.

the reward

by fred flynn

life had changed a great deal on earth since its invasion and conquest by the avar-scythians. one of the more noticeable changes, gregor mused, was that there were many more people in the streets, since the invaders had abolished the internet, television, radio, and telephone. the invaders (or invos, or as they were familiarly called by the earth’s inhabitants) had not bothered to confiscate the devices for these services, but the devices no longer worked. gregor, like many people, still carried his phone in his pocket. although it no longer functioned, it was still his most precious possession. the only information available to humans was that in the newspapers that the invos printed, and distributed free in kiosks in the streets, in schools and libraries, in the government buildings they had commandeered, and in cafes and coffee shops. where large numbers of people - those not employed in the invos’ work gangs - now congregated. many of them, like gregor, for many hours a day. gregor had not been drafted into a work gang for eight days, so he made the bed in his lonely room and wended his way through the crowds in the street to a coffee shop on the corner of main street. the coffee shop still had a sign on it saying “winchell’s donut’s” but like all such establishments, was now administered by the invos. gregor entered the shop. there was a pile of the free newspapers on a little table just inside the door and he picked one up. he took a blue ticket from his pocket, one he had been issued on one of his work days. the ticket entitled him to three hours at a seat in the cafe, refills of coffee up to four fifths of a liter, and either three donuts or a breakfast sandwich. gregor got his cup of coffee and the first of his three donuts and took a seat at a small table for two in front of a window. the other seat was empty, but would not remain so. gregor looked forward to reading the paper in peace for a while, until another patron filled the seat across from him, as the new patron would probably, though not absolutely surely, wish to talk. the headline on the paper was a familiar one - conspiracy uncovered. the papers were usually filled with news of conspiracies against the new government of the invos, and their successful infiltration and exposure. less often, there were accounts of actual battles between armed insurgents and the invo army or police, which always ended wth invo victory. but this morning gregor noticed something a little different, lower down on the front page of the paper. new reward program installed, the lead on the story read, and then proceeded: due to the proliferation of conspiracies and illegal political movements, new rewards are now being offered for any information about them. (see schedule on page 4). information need not pertain to specific acts or threats but only to suspicious behavior. caution: this program must not be abused. do not use this program to settle personal scores or gain personal advantage on your fellow citizens. the information offered must be verified or regarded as worthwhile or probable by the enforcing authority. the offering of unverified or worthless information will be regarded as a crime and treated as such. gregor considered this. sitting for long hours in the coffee shop, he had never heard any obvious plotting, but he had overheard or been directly addressed by a number of blowhards pontificating about the good old days before the invaders arrived, and grumbling generally about the new order. was that enough? gregor wondered. and would it be worth his while to try reporting anybody? he felt a stirring in his brain. he was tempted to think of reporting somebody, just to bring a little variety into his life. he turned to page 4 of the paper, to look at the schedule of rewards offered, and as he did a man sat down across from him. the man, a large round-faced fellow with staring, challenging eyes, looked familiar. gregor thought he had talked to him before. what was his name - eddie? eli? chan? chuckie? “we meet again”, the man said, as he put his coffee and a sausage and egg breakfast sandwich down on the table in front of him. “good morning,” gregor replied. “it’s a nice day, isn’t it?” “ha, ha! yes it is a wonderful day! a beautiful day! i see, my friend, that you are perusing the new list of rewards for turning in your fellow citizens! is it different from the old list?” “i was just looking at it because it is in the paper, “ gregor replied. “and i always read the whole paper, as i have nothing better to do. as to the list, i do not recall seeing an exact list before, although i knew that rewards were offered.” “of course, of course, a most diplomatic answer. perhaps you were in the diplomatic corps, before we were all happily liberated by the glorious invasion? ” “no,” gregor said. “i was not.” ‘my name is ali, by the way, in case you have forgotten.” that was right, gregor thought, ali, not eddie or eli. eli was jewish, ali was arab - or was it the other way around? and eddie was polish or irish. did such things matter any more? “my name is gregor,” was all he replied to ali. “of course. i, myself, never forget a name or a face.” and ali took a big bite of his sausage and egg sandwich. gregor did not like ali’s manner. he decided, as soon as his three hours were up and he was free of ali, to report him as a suspicious person at the nearest police station. why not? what did he have to lose? and he knew that ali would hurry to another police station, or perhaps follow him to the same one, and report him, gregor, as a suspicious person. and then they would just have to see what happened next. how he missed his old life, in his hut outside the village, with his cow and his goat and his pig, where he never had to wonder what would happen next. ali took another bite of his sandwich and it occurred to gregor that the sausage in ali’s sandwich might be his old pig matthew. matthew had been a good pig, the best gregor ever had. how strange life was!

four or five

by horace p sternwall

night fled behind the horizon. the birds flew out of the dawn. five riders rode across a flat, empty plain. they had left the battle behind them. they were the only survivors of a mighty army that had taken the field, full of confidence, and with flags flying, only twenty hours before. the emperor rode in front. his faithful adjutant, general f——————, rode slightly behind him and to his right. colonel h—————, who had commanded the 5th cavalry, rode behind him on the left. bub, the emperor’s valet and cook, rode behind colonel h—————. jones, a young cavalryman who had had his first taste of battle on the previous morning, brought up the rear. they rode on. no one spoke. the sun was not unpleasant. is there no town? the emperor finally asked. we took this route because there are no towns, general f————— replied. the parthians are less likely to follow us here. the emperor made no reply. they rode on. i see something, colonel h————— said. over there , on the left. probably just a campsite, if even that, he added as the others turned their heads. without a word, they all turned their horses and headed for the spot the colonel had pointed out. it was indeed a small campsite, a very small campsite. a small pot was suspended from three sticks over some stones and ashes. the only living creature visible was a very old woman, obviously a witch, who looked up without blinking at the riders as they approached. good morning, mother, general f————— greeted her. good morning yourself, the witch replied. what are you waiting for? colonel h————— addressed her. you see five weary and hungry soldiers, get us some dinner if you please. with what? the old woman asked, gesturing at the tiny unlit pot and the surrounding desert. come come, mother, none of your tricks, we know you are a witch and have magical powers. use them if you please or we will make it hot for you. if i had magical powers, sir, why would i be living in a patch of rock and scrub in the desert? ha ha, do you take us for fools? you witches have been spouting that same tired nonsense since beelzebub was a kitten, and jezebel a ball of string. and colonel h————— drew his sword and pointed it down at the old woman. very well, sir, since you will have it so, the old woman replied. she pointed her bony finger at the riders and they turned into small birds and flew away into the sky, except for the emperor, who turned into a scorpion and burrowed into the dirt. the horses were turned into rats and scurried away across the desert in different directions. the old woman sighed. again, she thought. how many times through the centuries had they come? always four or five riders, more usually four. one day there would be seven riders. and then everything - the sky, the desert, the world, the little empires with their armies and battles - would change. until then… the witch began to gather bits of brush to build a fire.