More Stupid Stories

Chapter 1

There was once a man who stood very still on the street corner he fully intended to cross. This man was dressed in very brown cotton pants with brown shoes and a tan overcoat. His hair was dark and his eyes bright, looking for a good cloud in the sky. As he waited to cross, automobiles with people in them drove themselves by with little respect for those waiting for their turn to be in the street. As he waited, he thought of his past, how he arrived here, where he was going; just to have something to think about.
He thought to himself - my job matters, I have friends I can have fun with, I suffer no terminal illness, and my clothes are clean..., but none of those ideas really affected the way he would cross the street. Actually, he was quite distracted when he took his frist step onto the hot black asphault. When a speeding car almost blasted his leg from his body the brown man took a larger step back to see where he truly was.
The sky was blue like it usually is, but with no clouds to watch float around. The man's thoughts drifted as the sky does, above his head in the ether. The recent brush with destruction brought him back to the present to where he could distinguish what he needed from what he wanted. Right now he needed a milkshake. Strawberry with a touch of bannana sounded perfect.



Chapter 2

Halfway across the opposite side of the city there was a girl. She was young, and yet thought of herself as womanly. At her summer job she filled sugar cones with vanilla and custard ice cream. Every day was a bore save for the time the darkest colored man she had ever seen came to the stand. She remembered how his eyes were like opals and twinkled when they found the words to communicate their thoughts.
Thinking this as the mechanical whizz churned up someone's milkshake, she felt a chill from behind. Some slacker co-worker left the deliveries door wide gaping open and a westerly breeze caused her gooseflesh. If she could have abandoned her duty to keep her finger on the On button, she would have walked right out that door onto a cloud to talk to that stranger again.

Chapter 3

The grass was getting greener, the smog thicker, and many people this summer felt as if it was becoming the hottest on record. Sometimes there would be bursts of joy or despair from out of nowhere, and those who saw it out there were left to consider if it would happen to themselves. Those who would walk their pets were always looking around for a pat on the back for their effort. Some felt insecure or abandoned, others felt nothing at all. There was a subersive tone of worry among the populace. Who would lose their job for being not at all friendly enough? What would become of the things that seemed to matter?
People crossed the street all the time. It was the matter of making it to the other side that was tricky. Ice cream stayed cold when you knew enough to close the freezer door, but you can't always count on that either. This summer there would be sequels to movies, as always, but how many times does the same story need to be told?
The sun will rise for as long as there are people to watch it set. Water will always be wet, and mothballs should keep the moths away like the label says. On this day there were a few people who looked up into the sky at the same time. What they saw would change their minds, for they were the only ones who saw what happened today.

Chapter 4

Once upon a doodle some animals sniffed around the trunk of a big plant called a "tree". I don't know why it's called a tree, maybe someone saw it once for the first time and expressed their wonder by blurting, "Nnn-treeeh!" Who knows? OK, so, there were these animals right; shaped like hairy bumpy rocks, but with a discernable pointy end where most of their senses were situated. They could smell and look and lick, but not really talk. Thay had a hard time making the same noises as each other, so they wiggled their pointy ends a lot. This made sense to them. If a noise came out their other end they knew what that meant too. It was funny. I think it's funny too, unless you just saw someone die in front of you. Maybe it would be extra funny though. I don't know, it's never happened to me like that.
Anyway, there were a bunch of these critters all looking around the tree when suddenly something happened. It was very sudden, almost unexpected, yet very surprising. No one could have predicted it to happen. It happened real quick too. It might make you jump even if you thought it might happen because of the way it happens. It's like you sit there thinking, "What if this hap-," then it happens real suddenly and you jump up out of your seat.
So, it happened like this: There was no weather in the ozone, just a big light blue void, and where there should have been more light blue, there wasn't. There was a rotating star up there. It looked just like a star when they twinkle at night, but this was daytime. When a few people looked up and saw it they jumped like I said, and that's all they had time to do. It all happened so very fast. It was quite unexpected... a "Wow!" moment.

Chapter 5

Space Man Lands In City River

He arrived in a ship that fell into the river. That is what witnesses at the scene claimed as firetrucks, ambulances, and the local police force gathered to claim responsibility for the unusual occurance. However, it was not the fear of large objects splashing down unaccounted for in our mighty river that has the city awake tonight, but the safety of a man who claims to be the pilot of the contraption.
He is most certainly a man, a unique man with no identification and, seemingly, no reason to be where he was found by paramedics on the bank of the downtown City River. Trudging out of the water wearing a bulky suit made from what appeared to be heavy fabric, this traveler was overheard asking where he may find our leader, and if anyone could take him there.
Rescuers were still working to lift his soup can shaped craft out of the river late into the night while the stranger was questioned about his origin and namesake in the back of a police paddywagon. Details have yet to surface, yet speculation abounds and is as colorful as the people who report their version of the events.
When asked by reporters bearing microphones and television cameras, one city employee working near the splashdown replied, "It looked like a Christmas tree on a merry-go-round." Others told different tales such as seeing other "space-men" walk out of the water and scurry into the nearby Community Arts Pavilion facing the river. A man in stained overalls eager for an interview insisted, "I've been waiting for them to come back," and after being asked what for, he replied, "my sister's pink underwears. (sic)"
Whatever any bystander has to say to the media is just as puzzling as the actual event itself. Something has arrived in our city, and it has made us all feel wary of what new facts could emerge from the evolving miasma of gossip and truth.


Man From Space Claims To Be Time Traveler !!!

BRANDON WOODS,

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We introduce to you, BRANDON WOODS, the Alpha-1: Automated Laborer. Built in the likeness of its engineers and created to serve and obey, the Alpha-1 can do all the things you so often have trouble finding time to do. Alpha-1 can drive you to work, balance your budget, bake you a cake, and even breast feed your children* if need be there. Yes, Alpha-1 is your personal maid, butler, chauffer, cook, wet nurse, and analyst all rolled into one unique humanoid package. Tell your shareholder friends about the Alpha-1: A.L. and recieve a single free cleaning and maintenance treatment within 6 months of purchase.

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Ernest Kellogg S.V.P.

* breast feeding attachments only available after mailing in rebate coupon and installing proper software

Chapter 6

And the storm became like a massive heart attack. Clouds boiled in the sky, bacon overcooked. People went. It was a chaos of a day. And, when she read these words, she loved every one of them.
Then, mavericks ascended upon the building. They were an elite faction of deterrents, raised to obey and sent to obliterate. No one knew of their purpose but their master.
Many were slaughtered. Only one survived. She was busy typing at the time, enough time to avoid being sent to the void. She was strong, like an iron beam amidst a forest of shag grass. None could bend her. When she pointed, all fell.
Where was I but trying to survive in the assault?


Chapter 7

It was a holiday for those who remembered. There were sad clowns and happy ones frolicking amonst the populace. Though the pavement was black and hot, children delighted at the silliness abounding. The festivities went on for the rest of the afternoon as the adults and their young just enjoyed the fair weather.
I was standing with a clutch of revelers, looking into the street for the requisite candy throwers in the parade. If something shimmering caught my eye, I would turn toward it hoping for a reward. There; I looked left and glimpsed pinstripes- silver on charcoal. It wasn't impressive, but the cut of the fabric was tapered and modern. I looked higher to see a femenine face turn towards mine. Uninterested in engaging, I looked to the street again for a sugar-chucker.
It is not my style to embrace fate, or destiny. I take what comes to me with appreciation mixed with a little fear to balance my judgement. Sure, everything can mean something, but it doesn't have to mean everything. I didn't expect her to call out my name to me, because I didn't have a clue as to who she was. As with every opportunity, I accepted it; later I could tear it down to make it my style. Maybe I could feel like I'd earned it that way.

Chapter 8

The morning began as every other: masturbation to ejaculation. There were other measures too; brushing, swabbing, and gargling, per usual, to start. Then, on to showering, wiping, the obligatory self-deprecation; and, finally, the decision to go to work, again. On the way, depression sets in. Thoughts like, "Why?", and, "What for?" impose their will.
Arriving there, the workplace, various accounts are checked off. These are: "How do I look?", "Am I well cleaned?", also, "Does everyone else think I am alright?" These are important precautions to take. No one wishes to arrive at their job and be scrutinized into compliance. At all employment, employees are there to help. The rest is a journey of discovery. That's the exciting part, knowing it.
Some go to earn a living, i.e. money. Others go to exert some extraneous desire to be busy. There are a few who even convince themselves that the work must be done for the good of... well, good. Whatever the reasons, everyone goes to go. To be available and needed and useful is a paramount affliction, tantamount to purpose. Some know this and agree. The rest ignore this. They prefer not to agree.

* * *

Chapter 9

Out there is a man segregated from his intrinsic counterpart. He lives alone, curious of his past. His thoughts often drift to his quest for where he came from. When the journey begins, his actions will create his destiny.
Another man of ill temperment has a mystery of his own. This man has come to possess a machine of unbridled power, and unspeakable dimension. His only desire is to figure out how the damn thing works.

10

He realized how he could make a brain that could create its own reality without the God complex syndrome. In the lab, he always programmed his thinking machines to make thier own choices based on the boundaries of their physical capabilities. The failures informed him of that weakness of omnipitent self absorbtion. The trick, he conjectured, was to draw boundaries. Concrete rules never panned out well enough. There was no growth with that. Defining good and evil also didn't go over well. Those opposing ideas manifested outside the machine mind as a social psychosis. Instead, the path to take in inventing a proper independent thinking intelligence is to issue a paradigm of "mean" and "nice", and to let the machine decide between the two. In doing so, the brain can draw it's own borders for what it needs to do to overcome, to push forward on a task. This way, there aren't omniprescent entities to be penitent toas with, "good" vs. "evil". In the machine mind, nice and mean are merely options, choices to evolve the structure of choices available.

I Don't Want To Be Crazy Anymore

I am walking throught the park because I hate driving. Besides, it's illegal; to drive through the park you see. I feel dirty - dank and musty. I had been sitting at my computer for 48 hours editing my next video project. Some people use meth-amphetamines to stay awake, I use willpower. It's cheap, and doesn't make me itch my blemishes. Today, in the park, my blemishes had blemishes. My skin is jaundice so I'm out to absorb sunlight. My brother was jaundice when he newborn and it helped him. Bright light makes my eyes hurt now. I squint and consequently make a pinched face like I'm perturbed. People walk around me and avoid eye contact. That suites me fine, I don't feel like engaging them either.
As I'm walking I see a child in a stroller by its mother. She levels an oversized sledgehammer across it's unfused skull. Wait, that didn't happen. She is just kissing the baby. That was odd. Now I see a candy apple red Ferrari parallel park itself. I know this because the door is opening and no one is there. Yes there is; now. What's going on here?
I decide I'm too wonked out to be here because I don't feel comfortable with what is happening. So, I go back home, quickly I turn on the T.V. and it shows the worst.

* * * * *

This morning I woke up and decided to just fucking get up instead of lay there and try to masturbate myself into doing it. So, I figured today would be the same as any other morning, only it was Tuesday that I was going to work and I called to wish a good day for you. I don't remember any details of driving to work except that the sun seemed a few minutes lower in the sky and hotter on my left arm because of the fact. It was humid too, like it has been for the last month. I still held onto my hypothesis that the weather would break very soon now, and the cold air would finally come.
At work, the parking lot was re-tarred, re-painted, and smelled like cancer. Inside, I smelled detergents. That's not as bad, it reminds me of when I started working there- Christmas time. Again, I don't recall any specific fun or learning moments; just "heys", and "how-do-you-dos". I felt bleary and drugged from not eating breakfast. This morning I took a ride out to Bexley, I walked to 7-11 and bought a gross Tsunami flavored SoBe drink, I drove to Jimmy John's for lunch, mowed the lawn, and helped hang a sign out front for the sidewalk sale. That had to be rehanged. I've never pitched a tent so I didn't do a smashing job on it. But, I did enjoy being outside...
Quitting time came and the clouds brought all that cool rain smelling air I'd been waiting for. This past weekend I could smell the lake at home, and here is was again in the sky over Columbus. Tonight I walked the two blocks to the Grandview Public Library and on the way I saw something I had never seen before. Over the public school's chimney was a swarm of what I guessed were bats. They were chittering or chirping or squeaking or whatever, so I asked this man sitting on his steps if he knew. He told me they were chimney swallows, and they do that all the way into November. He said that they'll settle down, then it will take one bird to fly up, and the swarm starts all over again. It didn't stop while I was looking. The farther out from the chimney they flew the faster they would bank around, sort of resembling a cyclone. His young daughter (I assumed daughter) said something about seeing them around too, but I don't remember the rest. As I walked on, I heard the guy say: "Chimney sparrows.", and I repeated him.
"Chimney sparrows."