over

by bofa xesjum

it’s over. i guess. i don’t believe it. after all these years, it’s over. yes, so it seems. what do we do now? i just can’t believe it. get up tomorrow and go to work. what else are we going to do. you’re right. we can’t tell anybody else about it. exactly. we should have some kind of little celebration. just me and you. maybe. how about friday, after work. that sounds good. friday it is. nothing too spectacular. no. all right, then. i will see you tomorrow. tomorrow. see you. take care.

circus in the fog

by genghis gilgamesh

bill gates had a whistle jeff bezos had a dog they went down to the river and got lost in the fog the whistle’s name was willie the dog’s name was joe they joined the foreign legion a long time ago the foreign legion lost the war and the circus came to town joe and willie signed a contract with a fellow named hash brown the circus passed through paris on to harrisburg pennsylvania hash got tired of making money and developed a new mania hash brown had a master plan to educate the masses he wore a red and white bow tie and blue aviator glasses joe was told to grow a beard and wear a shirt of white willie wrote a sacred book it took him a whole night the gypsy and the elephant the strong man and the clown the lion and his trainer were all left at the next town hash and joe and willie continued on their way but if and how they saved the world it would be difficult to say a ventriloquist named velma jones who worked with a wild turkey last saw them on the highway between tulsa and albuquerque bill gates had a baseball jeff bezos had a bat they started for the playground but jeff forgot his hat when jeff went back to get it he found a messenger at his door the messenger whispered in his ear that is what messengers are for o ye who fame and fortune seek and unexampled wealth do not go out in rain and fog lest they undermine your health <

poem - 2 - 22 - 22

by anonymous

a dog sat on the sidewalk as humans passed it by the creature looked so sad it made me want to cry i went home and fed my cat who expressed no gratitude i felt blue and lonesome but it was just a passing mood i went to bed at evening and dreamt i was a child the moon was white behind a tree i was lost in the wild then i had another dream and was by a beast pursued o how happily i woke to my dark solitude

blue city

by genghis gilgamesh

i dreamed i was back in blue city where the women wore high heels the smiling people slept all day and the sad ones ate happy meals the mayor had a chair on the sidewalk where she accepted all bribes the chief of police locked himself in the jail for crimes that could not be described the schoolyard was deserted because the children ran away the teacher kept their pencils and notebooks because they might return some day the teacher's name was amanda her friends called her the great everybody thought well of her but she worried about her weight the mayor's name was cynthia she was descended from a race of kings sometimes the rain fell on her head bur she didn't worry about such things the naughtiest boy who ran away was the mayor's seventh son they called him el chozo because he was the chosen one the banker was bill brady he had no home to call his own he sat all day on a bench in the park with a vanilla ice cream cone the bank is closed for the summer or maybe until the end of time if you ask me for a nickel i might find you a lousy time a spaceship landed on the river bank down by the old mill stream they made it into a movie because life is but a dream mary jones and billy smith were the cutest couple in town mary hitched a ride to hollywood billy fell in the river and drowned someday the flowers will bloom again and the town get back on its feet so save the soybeans for uncle roy because roy don’t eat no meat i hope you are taking all this down because there will be a test grandpa is drunk in the graveyard because grandma knows best

a story with 250 words

by bofa xesjum

a man walked down the street. he had a name, which he had no trouble remembering, though other people often mispronounced it. it was dark. he came to the house he lived in. he went inside and turned on the light. he went into the small kitchen and took a fried chicken tv dinner out of the refrigerator. tv dinners had gone out of style but he still liked them. he turned on the television. he had formerly been a sports fan and watched football games and other sporting events on television but they caused his blood pressure to rise dangerously, and he had no interest in politics or the news, so now he watched a channel consisting of easy listening music with accompanying soothing videos of meadows and sunsets and waterfalls and beaches. when he finished the tv dinner he washed the aluminum tray and put it in the recyclable trash and went to bed. he had a dream in which he went on a date with a pretty blonde girl with straight white teeth wearing a white dress. he talked to the girl about himself and about his job as a sales representative but she did not show much interest, and he woke up. he went back to sleep and woke up in the morning without remembering any other dreams he might have had. his next day was much the same except that it rained, whereas the day before had been cloudless and bright. he went outside again.

doll

by genghis gilgamesh

dolls are not sad when they are thrown away they don’t like little girls anyway now they can do what they do best lie on the ground in eternal rest thrown in the air and land on their heads trapped in viselike arms in beds having their eyes and hair pulled out not allowed to complain or shout it is not easy being a doll at the little princess’s beck and call the sun shines through the windows high the governess gives you the evil eye though you may not be flesh and bone you would like to be left alone trees have leaves and birds have wings but you are only somebody’s thing o blessed the day when you are tossed and join the legion of the lost in the back of a closet or high on a shelf you can finally be yourself

quinley tucker

by nick nelson

quinley tucker was an ordinary person. or so it seemed. he had a job, which occupied his time five or six days a week, at various hours, on a staggered schedule. sometimes at a desk in an office, more often visiting various places in the city, and sometimes even outside the city. he kept careful track of the mileage of his company vehicle he traveled in, as the company was notoriously strict on this matter. he kept the vehicle in as close to perfect condition as he could, sometimes even spending a little of his own money on it, as the company was very suspicious of their employees scamming them in this regard. he had a room in a downtown apartment complex with over 20,000 units. he seemed like a perfectly normal person. but what nobody knew was the contents of his dreams and fantasies. he had the most terrible, violent, disgusting, unspeakable, loathsome, unforgivable fantasies of any human who ever lived. the so-called worst humans who ever lived - caligula, nero, gilles de rais, henry viii, vlad the impaler, christopher columbus, the marquis de sade, hitler, donald trump, mitch mcconnell. would have turned from him in disgust if they could have seen the continuous movie running inside his head. quinley never made any attempt to record his fantasies in any way, either on paper or digitally, or to confide them to a psychiatrist or priest or any other human. the fantasies flooded his brain throughout the day, at his desk at the office, in the company vehicle, and during his polite and smiling interactions with the company’s customers and contractors, and they especially tortured him at night in his room, when he was alone and unobserved. finally they overwhelmed him and his brain burst and he died. after a couple of weeks, the company managed to contact a half sister who lived in kansas, whom quinley had never met, and she arranged to have his body cremated. his dreams died with him. who knows how many like him may walk the streets and drive the roads of the earth?

albert quipp

by nick nelson

albert quipp was born in trenton new mexico. he dd not think that was a cool place to be from so he always told people he was from rochester new york. all went well until albert appeared on a small syndicated quiz show called “you know what?” snd won a few thousand dollars answering questions mostly about american college football, of which he was an enthusiastic and knowledgeable fan. on the show he claimed he was from rochester new york, but a couple of people from his home town of trenton new mexico recognized him, and filed a suit against him for disrespecting trenton new mexico by being ashamed to admit he hailed from it. the suit was eventually dismissed, but lawyers got all the money albert had made on the show, and a bit more. albert never appeared in any shade of the public limelight again. when he died many years later, in mansfield ohio, his brief obituary misspelled his name as albert quipley, and incorrectly listed his place of birth as parsippany new jersey.

friends

by horace p sternwall

i had a friend named whitey and a friend named red a friend named blackie and a friend named ted we all lived inside our own heads we were alive but will be dead whitey worked in a liquor store and had walked this way before red was enamored of a girl named slim but whitey was way ahead of him blackie had no life of his own and spent his time on the telephone selling things that did not exist his brain was covered in a gray mist ted was a dreamer, like me all we wanted was to be free free to do what, we could hardy say and so we drifted through the days i woke up this morning overhung and thought, i am no longer young i should get up and make some coffee but i did not take the blankets off me i lay awake and tried to dream of the days that once had been and wished that things were still the same but could not remember my own name

hug

by nick nelson

grover cleveland was walking down the street. the street was lined with tall buildings, and the sky was gray. there were a lot of people. they were all wearing t-shirts. as grover got closer to them, he saw that most or all of the t-shirts had the words “hug me” on them. some of them had other words on them as well, such as “nobody loves me” or “i really need this” or “life is horrible”. grover looked down at his own chest. he saw that he too was wearing a t-shirt saying “hug me” and in smaller letters underneath “if you don’t love me, you hate me”. he looked up and saw that the people on the street were starting to surround him, with their arms outstretched for hugs… they closed in on him… everything went black… he woke up. it was all a dream. he was back in the real world, safe. he was himself, grover cleveland, a trained deadly assassin. in a few hours he would have to go to work snd assassinate the emperor and empress of persia.

the universe

by anonymous

there are three types of creatures in the universe -apples, bananas, and cantaloupes. there are 5,000,000,000 apples, 5,000,000,000 bananas, and 3 cantaloupes. the apples care about other creatures, and want them to be happy, to be free to do whatever they want, to be equal to each other and to respect each other, to never hurt each other, and to sing and dance in the sunshine. the bananas hate all creatures, and wish to enslave them in meaningless and repetitive tasks, to torture them and grind them down, to fill their minds with terrifying lies, and to watch them suffer and to laugh at their suffering. the 3 cantaloupes are blank. after 1,000,000,000,000 years, each of the 3 cantaloupes will decide whether to become an apple or a banana. if at least 2 of the cantaloupes become apples, the apples will rule the universe forever, and if at least 2 of the cantaloupes become bananas, the bananas will rule the universe forever.

sammy and jerry

by genghis gilgamesh

sammy was a snowflake jerry was a jock jerry walked into sammy’s room but forgot to knock you have no call to be here sammy stoutly said i have sailed my ship for hours and wish to go to bed jerry was from columbus ohio and wore a black baseball cap sammy was from san mateo and took afternoon naps there were many other humans in the building where they resided some were enlightened daily and others were blindsided the world turned on its axis the sun devoured the moon jerry went back to chicago and quickly changed his tune o ye of little faith with your burgers and your fries look not into the mirror because you might be surprised

riders

by dog e relaford

does a dog have a right to a cat? does a ball have a right to a bat? does a monkey have a right to an apricot? does a brain have a right to a thought? a brontasaurus named big ben had trouble counting to ten with larger numbers he was more adept and after counting to seventy, soundly slept a panhandler named jezebel lee was born in burger king and lived in a tree admirers she had not any and gladly accepted nickels and pennies billy the kid had a horse and a mule but did not like to go to school some folks thought mother hubbard was strange because all she did was ride the range omar the tentmaker understood the important thing is to always look good genghis khan rode across the sand but who will be here when the aliens land? people dance and sing and such but they don’t know anything much they get in each others faces and have forgotten the old fashioned graces

brothers

by horace p sternwall

i never belonged to a band of brothers or had any significant other i was born behind the graveyard in a wooden shack and nobody called me buddy or mac every night when the sun went down i shut my shack and went to town i bent my back and searched the ground for anything that might be found the road was my brother, and my friend it went to town and back again it taught me everything i knew and some of it was mostly true sister moon shone through the trees wolves and foxes winked at me the frogs and toads croaked their sad songs as i trudged wearily along i had an enemy, sheriff john brown who wished i would fall in the river and drown i wished that he would do the same but. to him it was just a game in the moonlight, white and pale i see him in the window of the jail with his boots up on his desk never letting poor folks rest now john is gone, and so am i dark clouds float across the sky lightning flashes occasionally the river flows, and we both are free