Murder by Needle

Scene: Interrogation room, of course. Dimly lit this time.

Characters: Fat Policeman #1 and Barb

 

Policeman: Do you waive the right to have a lawyer present?

Barb: (Silence)

P: Ok, I’ll take your silence as a yes for the remainder of the interview. Do you understand the miranda rights as they were given to you?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Do you have any information that might help us in the murder of Alice Bailey?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Ok, but are you refusing to give us that information?
B: (Assumed yes)

P: Aren’t you a clever one.

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Do you have an alibi for last night between midnight and 4am?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Well, don’t think we aren’t going to confirm that. As we understand it, Mrs. Bailey was murdered by lethal injection sometime in the night. Do you have access to that?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Now we’re getting somewhere. Is that all you have to say about that?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: I’m sure you’ve already guessed that we will be checking the room for prints.

B: (Assumed yes)

P: And does that make you nervous?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: This isn’t looking very good for you. The way I see it, Alice was working the night shift. And from what I can understand that’s when they-how should I phrase it? Put the doggies to sleep, shall we say?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: And, from the way you’re shaking, I’ll hazard a guess that you have a problem with that.

B: (Assumed yes)

P: And, so last night Alice was doing her job, and it appears she had a list of dogs who had, sorry to be blunt, come to the end of their road. Now, this name here. Can you read that?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: It says “Finn.” Apparently, Finn was a labrador retreiver. You knew him?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: You even shared a kennel with him, when you first arrived here. Is that true?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: And last night, you entered the room in question as Alice was preparing to inject your so-called friend, jumped on her, and she accidentally stabbed herself with a lethal injection of whatever it is they use for that. Is that not true?

B: (Assumed yes)

P: Well, that was easy. Thanks for your cooperation.

Murder on a Generic Train

Scene: Classic Police Interrogation Room

Characters: Alice Bailey & Handsome Police Office #1

 

Policeman: You think she was murdered on the train? That’s not terribly creative. Didn’t Agatha Christie already solve that mystery?

Alice: No, dummy. I said she got a burger on the train. Do you ever listen? But she died later in the hospital from poisoning.

Balance

“I think the reason God designed us to stand upright is to ingrain into the fabric of our reality that balance is a core part of being.”
-Dan Smith, Thin Lines or Oceans

I fell down. Really hard. Like gonna-need-a-bandaid hard. I do this thing where I’m moving away from something, then I realize I’m going to have to turn around and get the heck out of there, so I spin around and directly slam my face into any multitude of different objects. Doors, poles, tables, people. And I have the knack of timing it perfectly so the momentum of my backward motion added to the kinetic energy of my twisting escape equal the maximum impact possible.

Comment below if interested

“Semi-experienced camper looking for competent hiking companion.”

Probably not my best idea to search for a camping buddy on the internet, but then again you probably haven’t met the people I’ve been camping with for the last few years.

For example, I went camping with a good friend and halfway there his Jeep broke down. Not a big deal. It only took us four hours to fix it. And then we missed the ferry. And then we slept in the Jeep with a hoard of thirsty mosquitoes. And then we finally got to the island where we were camping, got our fishing gear together and didn’t catch anything. For the third year in a row! No fish. Spent a few nights in a

The End of Bread

 

Let’s be honest. Bread is quickly becoming a thing of the past. We all know it. Some of us will never admit it. Some of us will blindly adhere to our baguettes no matter how obvious it becomes that bread is no longer a relevant food option. They will call upon the ancient law of tradition saying, “We’ve always had bread at the table.” Or even, “Waitress, can we get some bread for the table.” And in a perfect world, the waitress will answer with an eye roll and a flick of her hair, knowing that there is no bread to be found.

If we were more self aware, I think we would be able to admit that bread has never been the necessity so many claim it to be. This may sound like

Which Sister?

She ran her fingers along the buttons of his satin shirt but knew there could be no heart beating beneath it any longer. Her brother was dead lying in the same place they had found their father dead of a heart attack only a week before. Behind the great mahogany desk, in front of the floor-to-ceiling shelves full of books they had never been allowed to touch. On the rug they had never been able to walk, now covered in blood. They were no longer children. Her light grey dress was ruined, stained an ugly black in the dark room. She noticed the moonlight coming in from the window shining off the blade. She opened the window and threw the knife  as hard as she could into the neglected garden far below.
She had killed her brother. She screamed.

Lines

I stood on a line. A line of sheet music. And as I climb up to the next line I get higher and higher. And after I rest, I go lower. Until I enter the next bar, and after my one and a half note, I start flying higher again. I can only go so high before, I have to come back down. This is trumpet sheet music after all, and my minstrel isn’t that talented. So I spend my time climbing and falling. When I’m falling, I’m thinking of when I’ll get high again. And when I’m high, I’m wandering how long I can hold it before I have to slide back into reality. Reality is where I have to live. Between the lines of the treble clef.

I can make myself go higher, but I always fall. No matter how good people think I am, I will always fall back between the lines. That’s my home. I don’t ask anything of you.  Just watch me and listen. Try to harmonize. Good luck.

Peedee River

We carried our fishing poles across the railroad tracks and slid down the steep embankment that led right to the river with just enough flat space for us to set up a bucket to sit on. As always we were using the wrong type of bait. We had some shrimp bait because we were thinking about fishing off the pier but decided on the river because they were too many tourists tangled up in each other’s fishing wire there. We considered that shrimp might not be very good for freshwater fish who probably had never seen a crustacean before, but my brother suggested that we shouldn’t assume that fish were picky, or uncultured, eaters. I thought this was an unnecessarily progressive way too think about fish culture, but I also know you have to keep an open mind if you want to stay current in this day and age.

Dilapidated

My shirtsleeves were dripping wet while I pushed them up past my elbows after searching for the second steak knife I knew was lurking in the bottom of the sink. Of course, as I found it Ben screamed out for me and I slid my finger across the blade as I stumbled over the kitchen table into the living room clutching my bloody hand.

“Ben, are you okay?” I asked repeatedly as I tripped over the rug and fell onto my knees behind the couch. He was sitting on the couch, watching batman boom and pow and zing some villains.

Waiting

Some things in life we do regret. Hollow memories echoing off the cave walls of our skulls. The crossbones of a former you, but in a time almost forgotten. To live in the moment, but one lonely moment has no anticipation. No hope. No chance for redemption. The time that we have not yet held, that waits for us tomorrow, or the next day.