Phil

            Little Timmy watched a group of flies flew around his room.  There wasn’t much to do, today. He had done everything he could think of, and was bored enough to find himself watching flies. He didn’t let this bother him, though. At 4 years old, he really didn’t think too much about what entertained him, as long as something did.  He let them fly around his head, land on his feet, fly over and investigate his toy box, and pretty much anything else the flies felt like doing. He didn’t chase them, swat at them, or tell them to go away. He was just fine with watching them.

            All of a sudden, as the flies swung close to him again, Timmy thought he heard a very small, quiet coughing fit, and moments after that, he actually saw one of the flies simply quit flying, and it fell from the group. What he thought he heard next made him curious if Momma had given him special milk today. From the flies’ direction, these sounds issued forth, and he had to concentrate very hard to hear them the whole time.

            “Oh God! Phil, Phil!!! You’re falling, Phil! YOU’RE FALLING, PHIL!!!”

            “What’s wrong with him? He was just fine a few seconds ago, I saw him flying with us. He was getting old, but not that old!”

            “Someone catch him! Dorace, you’re the fastest, get him!”

            Then, Timmy sat, mesmerized, as one of the flies flew faster than he had ever seen a fly fly. It raced down toward the falling fly (was it a fly when it was falling?), and caught who older kids probably would have assumed was Phil, if older kids had been present. Alas, only Timmy was in the room. He kept quiet, though, and kept watching.

            “Phil? What’s wrong? Why’d you fall?”

            “Wait, let’s set him down and take a look at him.”

            The flies all flew over to Timmy’s shoe and stood around the fallen fly.

            “Phil’s not answering guys. What do we do?”

            “He’s not moving, either.”

            “Wait, we can die?!  This happens to flies? I thought-“

            “Shut up, Fargo! Of course flies die, everything dies. No one said Phil died, anyway. He may just be sleeping.”

            “But he isn’t moving, and he isn’t talking. I heard him cough before he fell, didn’t y-“

            “Damn it, shut up, Fargo! If we wanted your opinion, one of us would say something like ‘Hey, Fargo, what do you think?’ Did anyone say that, Fargo?”

            Timmy was glad he wasn’t Fargo right now. This reminded him of the times he made his parents mad at him.  That didn’t happen while he was in his room, though. Fargo was in a bad spot, Timmy thought.

            “No, no one asked that, but everyone else was talking, so I thought-“

            “Ah, see? There’s the problem, you thought. What did we tell you about thinking? You start thinking foolish thoughts, like ‘Phil is dead’, or ‘It’s my turn to talk’. You see why we try not to let you think, Fargo. It’s irritating.”

            “Look at Phil! He is dead! This is what a dead fly looks like! He isn’t sleeping, he isn’t just taking a break, the poor fly just up and quit living. Deal with it! It’s not my fault this whole thing happened, just because I heard him hacking and you want to ignore it!” Timmy thought that was Fargo talking, but he wasn’t sure. He couldn’t see any mouths on the flies, so he couldn’t see which fly it was. It sounded like Fargo, though.

            “No! He’s going to be ok! You’ll see!” and this was followed by babbling in the same voice. The other flies sighed at the same time, took off, and left Timmy’s room forever. The one fly stayed with Phil until Timmy went to bed. When he got up, the fly and Phil were gone. No one ever believed Timmy when he tried to explain what happened, and why he told people to be quiet when flies entered a room.

Dripping

            As Dennis walked around the park, he watched the kids in the volleyball courts play their games.  It warmed his heart to see people being friendly to each other, being outside, and not trying to kill each other.  Seemed like people were always at each other’s throats about things that may or may not matter at all.  The people living in his house, the soulless douchebags that masqueraded as his bosses at work, all those people on Jersey Shore, they all threw the gauntlet down for anything.  Dennis sighed contentedly as he watched the kids play and be happy.

            Since he wasn’t looking where he was going, Dennis happened to run into a jogger, or maybe the jogger ran into him.  Either way, the two ricocheted away from each other, and hit the ground before Dennis realized exactly what had happened.  A tech-store nametag flew through the air and hit Dennis in the face, and he was reminded of that joke about Frisbees and depth perception.  He quietly snickered to himself about the joke as he looked at the nametag.  Sheryll, he read. Let’s see how this works. Time to make a friend, he thought to himself.

           

            “Oh my god, Sheryll, I’m sorry! Are you ok?” He floundered himself in her general direction, hoping to reach her quicker than he would have if he had gotten up.

            “Yeah,” Sheryll said.  She brushed some of the dirt off of her elbows, and looked at Reilly.  “Ok, this isn’t fair. You don’t have a nametag, and you’ve already seen mine.  Tell me, what’s the name of the guy I just ran into?”

            This is perfect, Dennis’ mind raved, maybe she doesn’t have any friends, either! We can be friends!  “Uhh, sorry about that. I’m Reilly, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

            Sheryll leaned closer to him, examining him closely for a few seconds, a weirdly familiar look on her face.

           

            “Wait,” she said. “I know you, Dennis! We dated a few years back. You shat in my cat’s litter box. Remember that, dick?”

            Suddenly, a horrified look came over Dennis’ face. “Oh no,” he murmured.

            “Where is that dripping sound coming from?” Sheryll asked, looking around. “What could possibly be dri- Oh! Oh, for fuck’s sake, Dennis!”

            But Dennis couldn’t respond. His brain was dripping out of his right ear.  Things would be better this way, something told him from the broth that had been his brain.  Dennis smiled, stupidly.

Sweatered Pricks

            One of those guys approached Rick at the grocery store, again.  Regardless of what season it was, those guys always had sweaters wrapped around their waists.  Rick never understood that choice in apparel, but he also never asked.  For almost a year, though, these guys had been walking up to Rick and crowding him in the grocery store.  They would stare at him, and he would stare at their sweaters, until someone broke their eye contact (usually a hunched-over old woman with ridiculous amounts of cereal in her cart), and then they would part ways.  The regularity with which these sweatered pricks showed up was maddening!  How did they know where he was going every time he went to the store? Even if it was just because he’d forgotten to buy toilet paper the day before, and needed some today, they would be there.

            As this one approached- and he couldn’t tell how many of them there were, they all looked the same with their close-cropped dirty blond hair, polo shirts, and khakis (AND those fucking sweaters!)- Rick decided that today was it.  He had had it up to his nose with these guys, and it was high time figured out the meaning of their shenanigans.  When the guy started staring, Rick threw his double pack of t.p. at him, and ran up behind the projectile, using it as cover.  When the sweatered ass hat batted down Rick’s Charmin, Rick was just a few feet away from him. 

            “Who the blue fuck are you?!” Rick demanded loudly, while trying not to be too loud and create a scene.  It proved to be a difficult balance.

            The sweatered prick never broke his irritating stare as he replied “I’m Rick.”

            “That’s impossible. I’m Rick!” Rick heard himself say, then thought it wasn’t really the most logical thing to take issue with.  “Wait,” He thought about it, and decided to just go with that, to keep from looking too bad, “yeah!”.

            The sweatered Rickposter (Rick+imposter= Rickposter, Rick chuckled to himself) picked up Rick’s Charmin, and handed it back to him.  “I don’t know what this hostility is about, but I can assure you that I am Rick, too. Surely you are not the only Rick in existence.”

            “I’m the only Rick in the county, get the fuck out!  I checked, asshole!”  Rick couldn’t exactly help the fact that he was a pathological liar.  It worked so well most of the time.

            The Rickposter muttered, almost inaudibly, “Shit, he’s onto us, Ricks. Abort, abort.” And he ran out of the store, groceries completely forgotten.

Fuckin' Shoes

“The shoes were staring at me again.”

I stared back. Why I had to waste my time and call that stupid phone number within the 10 minute time slot was beyond me, but I had done it anyway. I don’t even like infomercial crap, what had intrigued me so much about these shoes? I always laughed when they said “But wait! There’s more!” or “Call in the next ten minutes, and we’ll give you…” but I hadn’t this time. I had actually picked up the phone, like the idiots these things cater to, and dialed the number as fast as I could. I had wanted these Nepalese shaman shushu shoes. What the hell kind of a shoe is a shushu shoe, anyway? They didn’t warn me that the fucking things were going to stare at me. I don’t even know HOW they stared at me, they don’t have eyes. At least, not eyes that I can see. I still feel like they’re watching me, waiting for me to make a mistake or show them some sort of weakness. I couldn’t let that happen. They weren’t going to do anything to me. I remembered something my old dodge ball coach told me once, ‘The best defense is a good offense.’”

            “Sir, is THAT why you set fire to your house? Your new shoes were watching you?” Stupid 911 operator, he thought to himself, they never seem to really grasp the severity of the situation. Who would believe me, though? He sighed, and kept talking on the phone, looking at the wreckage that was his house. At least those shoes were gone. He had seen them run out of the two-story inferno in tatters, but they had been running just the same.

            “Well, when you put it that way, I sound like a jackass. I was trying to save my soul! Things that come from Nepal don’t really belong to any other part of the world. Their mere presence creates some form of discontinuity with the rest of reality, don’t you get that?  The shoes were going to kill me and devour my soul! It might have been one of the side-effects mentioned on the infomercial, I can’t remember. All I know is, I can’t return ‘em, and they were no good to have in the house. Since they are shoes, they cannot be reasoned with-“

“So you decided you should abandon your reasoning, too, huh? How did that work for ya? Now you’re homeless and talking to a 911 operator.” The 911 operator interrupted, very rudely. Woah, sarcasm. I did not see that coming from someone with that job, he thought with a smirk.

“Yeah, sarcasm does a lot to get the fire department here, doesn’t it? Look at all the good you’re doing, judging me for staring at shoes and shit, while not calling the fire department because my house is a bonfire now, and may turn the rest of the neighborhood into one as well. If you’re not gonna help, I’m out of here.”

“Fine, fine! You’re right. The fire department is on their way.”

“Good.” Good, he repeated in his mind as he ended the call and walked over to a pay phone. He needed to call his sister for a ride, since his car was in the mound of flame that used to be the garage.

A Most Shocking Development

Hearken, my dear,

And prepare to hear

The irreverent doings

That were done last year.

On the subject,

No books were written.

For no one was especially out to protect,

Felt important or was smitten.

They thought they knew

What they ought to do,

And he, she, they, and you should do.

I think they’re kind of funny, that way.

What happened?

Some asked, perturbed.

Curiosities sharpened,

But truly nothing had occurred.

So it’s safe to say

That on this day

Back one year away,

Everyone was bored to death.