Archive for the ‘David Kopaska-Merkel’ Category
The Hole in Chestnut Street
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008
The hole got bigger after we went to bed. That must have been what happened to Mom. She always comes home late after going out with Mr. Sanders and she’s usually high when she gets in. I had put a traffic cone in front of the hole, but it must have fallen in.
In the morning the old orange couch was gone and Mom’s recliner was hanging over the edge. Jase pushed it in. I told him he was a butthead.
“We can’t stay here, Jase. At the present rate of expansion we’ll be cut off from the kitchen by afternoon and we won’t be able to reach the bathroom after tonight. It is not going to be okay to just go on the floor.”
The baby just sat down and cried. He said I was much meaner than Mom and he wished I was the one who fell down the hole. Well excuse me! Who was it got into the Professor’s books and recited some of the spells? He was just lucky he hadn’t summoned a three-headed demon covered with warts and with flaming lava eyes. So then he cried some more. Completely unproductive.
Then, he wanted to go after Mom. I explained the hole could only be closed from here and then he said we can’t close it because Mom would be trapped inside. So I explained, again, there is no inside. The hole is like a door. The other side is just another place. Mom is there, and she’s doing just fine. She would be better at getting back by herself than we would at finding her. I don’t know the first thing about how to find her. Okay, I do know the first thing. We need something of hers, like some hair from her hairbrush. If she wasn’t so freaking OCD there might be hair on her hairbrush. As it is, I’m not sure there’s any trace of her in this house at all.
So that’s not an option. I grabbed the book, we packed a picnic basket, and got out. Right before we left I measured the hole again and it’s expanding exponentially. By Wednesday morning Chestnut Street will be gone. Sorry. Remember, it’s Jase’s fault. In the meantime, I’m getting far enough away so I’ll have time to see if there’s anything in the book about closing a hole. This is so annoying. Now I’ll never finish my project for Thaumaturgy.
The End
When Veggies Go Bad
Friday, November 7th, 2008
Ellen peeked out between the leaves, then sighed. A small herd of juvenile cauliflowers milled around in a clearing. Most had strips of of black fabric tied around their stalks – apparently this was a gathering of some kind of vegetative cult. One hopped up on a stump and the rest quieted down. As the leader began to speak, Ellen started to sidle around to the north side, closest to the road.
About halfway there she stepped on a brittle worm. The head cauliflower thrust a floret towards her, screamed gibberish at the top of its lungs, and jumped up and down frenziedly. Its followers ran at her, their lateral florets rotating menacingly.
Holy compost! She recognized this behavior. These weren’t delinquent young cauliflowers, they were albino midget ninja broccoli stalks in full flower. She turned and ran.
10 minutes later she burst through the door of the cooperative pipefitters workshop. “Get the cheese sauce, Ma! We got a full scale invasion on our hands.” No need to say what was invading.
Micha paled, put a hand out to steady herself. The CPW was scarcely equipped to deal with this.
“Ellen. Run. Head for the river.”