I'm So Totally Phoning It In, You Guys

Another one inspired by a reddit writing prompt:  Tell the story of the end of the world as in the style of a craigslist add, or that's how I take it.


Need Mass Extinction Test Subjects for Immediate Trials - WILL PAY $$$$$
;)

The day that has been foretold for centuries is probably finally upon us, and we're all going to die.  This is not negotiable, but is incredibly inevitable, considering how talked about it is.

Think about all those idiots you have to deal with in work? Do you really want to work with them, anyway? Nah, man. They're gonna die, so... like, be happy.  Be happy, come in, and schedule a pick-up time/place where we can find and take you away to a safe facility.

You may be asking yourself, "What's in it for me, man?"

Well, I'll tell you what's in it for you:  MONEY!!! YOU WON"T EVEN BELIEVE HOW MUCH MONEY SERIOUSLYSOMUCHMONEY

SO

MUCH!!!!

MONEY!!!!
;)

Haha, but seriously, though, if you're an individual that's interested in furthering the obvious fate of society, give us a call at 804-579-3274 any time.  I'll be driving the POS old van without the windows.  Call me Jerry

Inspired by the Front Page of the Internet

     Ok, so check this out.  Last thursday night, right? I was sitting in my house, sitting in the one chair I've got that still has all 4 legs, and watching the static play across the screen of my television.  It's actually pretty neat, because you can imagine anything there.  I like to think I'm watching an epic battle between different armies of ants, but that's just me.
All of a sudden, though, my phone goes off.  It's 3:20 in the fucking morning, who the hell wants to talk to me at that time of day?  I'm a little pissed at this point, but I have nothing better to do, so I look at the phone.  It says the text is from someone named Bill.  I have to think for a minute or two to remember who the hell Bill is.  I met him last year while I was vacationing in the mountains.  We had a beer once and talked politics, nothing special.  What could he possibly want?  Why was I keeping myself in suspense like this?
    With a sigh, I opened the text.
    "Get out of the house NOW," it says.  I would have smirked if I hadn't been annoyed.  He deserved a response, if nothing else.  I didn't want him thinking I didn't get the text and keep sending me the same fucking thing later in the morning. I had to sleep at some point, after all.
    "Fuck off," I carefully typed, deleting the autocorrected idiocy my supposed "smart" phone thought I was trying to say.
    "You don't have time for this, get out!," he replied with startling speed.
    "Nope," I sent back.  I set my phone to vibrate, and tossed it into the kitchen.  Thank God for those tank-like phone cases.  They make my phone damn near invincible.

    Within a few minutes, the someone kicked in the back door of my house.  I didn't have any visitors planned.  How could have Bill known this was coming? A thought occurred as I heard footsteps move urgently towards the living room.  My static channel had betrayed me so quickly.
    "Did Bill send you?"  I asked the intruder(s).  There was a baseball bat in the coat closet. I went to grab it, but it seemed so far away now.  It's funny how rooms seem to much larger when you need to defend yourself.
    The bastard never replied vocally.  He just tossed my dead dog at me, I guess to shock me.  In reality, he had given me a weapon to work until I got the bat.  I grabbed my best friend by the back legs and swung like hell, hoping the head was hard enough to do some serious damage.  It connected, and air rushed out of the intruder.  This sudden success caught me off guard.  And then, shit got kind of weird.
   While swinging, I had seen how my dog had died.  My poor buddy had been gutted like a wide-mouth bass!  The nerve of some people!  This, however, gave me another advantage.  While the attacker was busy regaining is balance, I reached inside my dog's carcass, wrapping my hands around the inside of his jaws to work them like a puppet. A puppet with bad ass teeth, mind you.
   I lunged at the invader, dog teeth first, and caught his face.  In his confusion, he struggled and moved his head, grating his skin against the teeth.  His scream of pain was actually pretty relieving.  I always wonder if I'm going to be invaded by some invincible villain at some time or another.  They have to be somewhere, right?
    He began clutching his face, and I knew that now was not the time to relent, so I sent the jaws at his genitals.  I know this was as cowardly a move as I could do while being aggressive, but what was I going to do, ask him to leave?  Within seconds, the man's crotch was reduced to bloody bits of mangled skin and little tubes.  The fight had gone out of him completely.

   While he laid on the ground, bleeding and crying, I went to the kitchen for some supplies.  I had always wanted to interrogate someone like I saw in movies from time to time.  What better chance could I hope for?

  And it was every bit as fun as I expected.

It Isn't The Same

            As little Johnny walked down the street on his way to school, he could never have guessed what would happen to him that day. He felt that today was an incredibly important day, and his daily fortune cookie that he had for breakfast had told him that good things would be coming his way in the near future. Johnny had a song in his head, and a spring in his step as he made his way to classes, ecstatic about the unending possibilities of today.  Would Susan finally talk to him? Would his parents win the lottery and spend most of it on gifts for him? Would he have a stroke of genius at school, and create something amazing and new that would shoot him into fame and fortune? Johnny was giddy with anticipation!

            He went to his first class, and everything seemed oddly the same as it had been yesterday. Mr. Thompson had the same monotone drawl, the kid behind him kept kicking his seat, the class started and ended at the same time as usual, and he left the class feeling slightly odd. He retained his hopes, though. The day was far from over, as it had just begun. He made it to his next class with much the same optimism he had in the first class. Susan was in this class. He had been trying to get her attention for a few weeks now, but she never seemed to notice. Maybe today was the day! He sat up straight, made sure his shirt wasn’t wrinkled like it had been a few days before (that was embarrassing), and waved in her direction. Once again, she didn’t pay him any attention at all, but turned away to talk to a friend of hers, Veronica. That was unnervingly similar to what had happened yesterday. They even had the same laugh! Johnny reasoned with himself that people don’t change the ways they laugh, though. They tend to laugh the same way from day to day, that wasn’t unusual. Just as the rest of the day had not been unusual.

            The day continued to not stray from its lack of conformity to Johnny’s standard day (it even had the same amount of hours, for Pete’s sake!), and Johnny felt a seed of doubt grow and fester in his mind. Lunch was the same: loud people everywhere, a ham and mayonnaise sandwich with Pringles, which were as good as they usually were, and a distinct lack of fireworks, magical midgets, or anything out of the ordinary like that. As he walked home from school, he thought that something extraordinary had to be going on at his house. The feeling that something was special about today crept back into him, and he soon knew that something would be at home that would change his life forever. The fact that the Hartfords’ dog barked at him as he walked by, exactly as it happened every other day, didn’t dampen his spirits. Something was going to happen at home.

            Johnny got home, and his mom was watching TV, exactly as she always did on weekdays. She asked how his day was, gave him a hug, and told him to go do his homework like a good boy, exactly as she always did. He suspected that this was a trap to divert him from the surprise in the kitchen, so Johnny made a quick peek in the kitchen, only to find absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. He made his way up to his room, and he found that the door to his room was cracked open. He rushed inside, and found the family ferret, Gorgonzola, playing on his bed. Dismayed, Johnny moved Gorgonzola off of his bed, and started doing his homework. Dinner came, and nothing happened.

            His bed time came at the same time it always had, and as Johnny laid awake, staring at the ceiling fan in his room, which squeaked quietly exactly as it had for the past 2 weeks, he realized that nothing had happened today that hadn’t happened every other day. His fortune cookie had lied to him, he had that feeling for the whole day, and it had been wrong. Johnny felt cheated. Why had he felt this way all day, when nothing had gone as it shouldn’t have? He realized that, if he wanted anything to change, he had to change it himself.

            Late that night, Johnny snuck into his parents’ room as they slept. He went to the night stand on his father’s side of the bed, found the wallet laying on top of it, and took the first credit card he saw. He then snuck into the living room, bought a plane ticket to Tibet and a bus ticket to the airport. He was gone the next morning.

Silence Takes Two

            The silence just made Albert sick.  Did she get off on not talking to him, what the fuck was this?  Albert and Sarah had been dating for a year and a half, and she still gave him the silent treatment sometimes.  He had hoped that it was something that she’d grow out of after a few months, but no.  He was very wrong.  Now he had to guess what the hell was causing this little fit.

            “For fuck’s sake, what did I do, Sarah?  Our anniversary is in 24 days, your birthday was months ago, I can’t forget MY birthday, I paid the electric bill today.  Do we really have to play this way?” he asked, running his hands through his hair to keep from balling them up.

            Sarah remained silent.  Acted like Albert wasn’t even there.  He wondered what was going on in her head.  Why wouldn’t she just let him know?  The only response he got was the chatter from that ass-hat in the tv infomercial.  Fuck that guy, too; Albert didn’t need any special towels, even if the order was doubled for free. He wondered if anyone really bought the things on infomercials, anyway. 

            “We’ve been dating for, what, a year and a half now?  You really aren’t going to talk to me? I’m not a fucking mind reader, Sarah! What’s going on?” She still didn’t acknowledge him at all, and he found himself getting up and walking to her without really thinking about it.  He crossed their small living room to the couch she was at, and shook her by the shoulders.  Her head rolled with her shoulders like a rag doll, and concern immediately flooded his mind.  Albert slid one of his hands from her shoulder to her neck to feel for a pulse.  He couldn’t feel a thing, but when he pulled his hand back, he saw a bit of blood on the fingertips.  Slowly, he pushed her hair back, and found a small, bloody hole behind her ear.  She must have been dead the whole time. How could he have been so stupid?

            “God damn ninjas!!” Albert shouted as he ran out the door as fast as he could.

Seasons

            As Adam stared down at Penelope’s head stone, he did his best to remember her at her happiest times.  That was what funerals were for, right? There was the eulogy and everything. People had things to say, tears to cry, and black suits to wear, but none of that mattered to Adam.  His best friend was fucking gone, what could they possibly do to alleviate his sense of loss?  Nothing, that’s what.  So he blocked them out, and focused on his memories of her.  She wouldn’t have liked the font with which they etched her name into the stone, it was entirely too fancy. You almost couldn’t read it, for all the extra curls and enormous serifs.  She would have wanted a plainer script, maybe a bit jagged to reflect her own lack of uniformity.  She wasn’t here to complain, though, was she?

            But back to trying to find a happy memory of her.  The last few years, she hadn’t really been happy.  At best, she’d been approaching complacency, but never actually happy.  Had she even remembered what that emotion was like, before she died? Adam thought not, and would have pitied her had she still been alive. No, upon reflection, it seemed that death was her favorite season.  He couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t been waiting for this moment for a long time.  Death became her, now.  It had been becoming of her as of late, but he hadn’t wanted to mention it, out of some sense of decency.  They’d never bothered to open the casket. They didn’t need to.  He knew she was where she wanted to be now.  The drugs, the struggle for food, the questioning why life had even bothered pissing on her developing embryo, that was all over.  She had only cared for the summers when the droughts were bad, and all of the plants were dead.  Same could be said of winter. Only when the plants were dead, and the only animals alive were hibernating, was she ok with going outside. 

            Their conversations had been increasingly morose, but he had enjoyed it in his own way.  He had a mind for morbidity, as did she, so it was bound to happen.  There was a reason neither one of them could hang out with people for very long.  People just wound up leaving.  Now, she was gone.

            “Thanks for that.” Whispered Adam.  Satisfied, he turned and left the funeral, tired of the others pretending to give a damn.