cordial highway, part 2

by bofa xesjum

part two of two

to read part one, click here

the broad back of the vice consul disappeared down the corridor to the kitchen and the servants quarters. the queen turned to sam jones with renewed urgency. listen, my friend, at midnight the minister of information, in collaboration with the vice consul and the third secretary, will issue an order closing all the roads out of the kingdom. what is that to me? sam countered airily. i have been down both sides of all these roads before - both into and out of the kingdom. but it means everything to me! the queen implored him. do you not remember the time - just then sam and the queen were interrupted by a young woman with a bland expression on her perfectly round face and carrying a clipboard. i am sorry to interrupt but are you the persons designated as queen catherine of l—————, and sad sam jones. yes, we are, sam answered with a ready smile. and which of you is which? we will let you be the judge of that, the queen replied snarkily. as you wish, the young woman replied without taking her blue eyes off her clipboard. now that we have settled that, was there something you wished to share with us? yes, you have both been assigned new identities. i have two new identities here - which of you takes which one is irrelevant, as long as you each take one. what a bother! all right, let us hear them. later that night, red dooley and wanda wilson are cruising down the interstate - hold it - what does that mean- cruising down the interstate? it means they are driving down the road. why not just say that? the implication is that the road is empty except for themselves. all right, if you say so. they round the bend - the bend? they round a bend - that’s better. and they see a prophet standing beside the road with a large suitcase. does the prophet have a name? howard johnson. what is in the suitcase? red and wanda pull over to find out. are red and wanda authorized persons? red is the sheriff of area 459-p. wanda was just passing through when red offered her a ride. so, what does howard johnsom have in the suitcase? suddenly all hell breaks loose. was hell in the sutcase? you sure ask a lot of questions. end of part two

cordial highway, part 1

by bofa xesjum

part one of two

the empty room laughed. maybe i made a mistake, sam jones mused mournfully. remembrance flooded back. all the awful images resurfaced in his brain. it all began at funnyman ’s new year party. doctor ninety-seven was there, having just completed his prison term. some of the guests ignored him. others treated him as a conquering hero. sam jones had still been young and innocent when the doctor’s trial had been such a cause celebre. but now, of course, it had been swept under the rug of time with john wilkes booth and the pig lady and the highway 77 killers. very soon, i can make my mistake, i mean my escape, sam thought. but just then queen catherine appeared at his side in her violet dress. are you having a good time, she purred. of course, what other kind of time would i be having? it is useless to try to taunt you, is it not, ma cheri? some people here seem to be enjoying themselves. some people have the happy facility of always enjoying themselves. let us flee this place. excuse me, but i have responsibilities to our host, the ambassador. of course, what was i thinking - my mind must have gone blank. are not all minds blank - waiting for fate to write on them? you told me once that i was a strange man. if you were not, you might be the ambassador. are we not all ambassadors - if we are not kings and queens? here is the vice consul now, with a tray of drinks. ah, vice consul. do you bring good good tidings, along with these nicely frosted concoctions? your majesty is in a particularly cordial mood this evening. get along with you! the queen laughed. but things may turn grim before the night is over. but, in truth, the festivities had just begun. when the vice consul was out of hearing, the queen put her slender hand on sam jones’s arm. come, we must flee this place, we have fled it too many times - i am tired of flight. does the butterfly tire of flight? does the seagull? does the pterodactyl? part 2

a million more

by bofa xesjum

johnny johnson woke up, on the first day of the rest of his life. but would it be his last? he had an appointment with dr webberly at ten o’clock. it would be the final test. every day is a final test and might be my last, johnny thought philosophically. he wondered if he should get a jelly donut or a glazed donut with his coffee on his way to the doctor’s office. johnny’s phone rang, even though he was sure he had turned it off before going to sleep. but was anything ever really turned off in the so called modern world? the caller i d said “unknown” - no surprise there. but johnny answered all calls - it was the way he had ben programmed by dr webberly, and by officer vergil and instructor underwood before that. hello, who am i speaking with? is this johnny johnson? it is a johnny johnson - there are many johnny johnsons in the world, and i am only one of them. are you sure you are not four or five of them? excuse me? ha ha, just having a little fun with you, on this morning which may be the last one of your life. that is not a very nice thing to say. maybe not, it depends on how you look at it. but seriously, are you the johnny johnson who finished 544th in the origami contest and 477th in the battlestars tournament and 1007th in the lowball tournament in the 33rd sector last season? that sounds about right. about right? that must be me. moving right along. and you are scheduled for an appointment with dr william webberly at the 784 building at 1000 hours? that’s me too. an appointment which may well be the last one you ever keep. any appointment which may be the last one you ever keep. any appointment may be the last one i ever keep. i see you have been well trained. be that as it may,what can i do for you? i have to get ready to get to dr webberly’s office. of course. and you want to be well nourished and look your best when you get there. what else would i want? to live another day maybe? my name is robin hood, and i am the leader of a band of merry rebels who seek to overthrow -the corrupt and murderous - i have heard enough - i know all about frauds like you and have even been taken advantage of by your kind in the past, i am sorry to say.. suit yourself. there a million more just like you, this morning alone, and they have a right to my services too. the connection went dead. johnny got up, and brushed and flossed his perfect white teeth.

original story - 30 - bill's game

by bofa xesjum

for many years, bill bailey had bored his acquaintances and coworkers by ridiculing and inveighing against the lotteries which have become such a prominent institution in the modern world. one morning, sipping his paper cup of black coffee at mcdonalds before heading up to his soul-crushing (his own term) job at the z———— corporation, he could not help but notice the headline on the morning news that one of the megalotteries had reached a sum of four billion dollars. the brief article pointed out that even after taxes, and the reduction of the total if taken as a lump sum, a lucky single winner would still have over a billion dollars “cash”. a billion dollars cash! that might almost make it worth it, he mused. but he put the thought from his mind. he had long since made himself aware, and made his awareness known to anyone who cared to listen, or was forced by circumstances to listen to him, of the perils of winning lotteries. but a billion cash! he finished his coffee and the last crumbs of his egg mcmuffin, put his phone in his pocket and headed out of the mcdonalds to the building half a block away to ascend to the 45th floor for his daily soul crushing. chuck chan and dave dooley were in the office before him. both were unashamedly avid lottery players. i am surprised to see you guys here so early, bill observed casually. oh? and why is that? chuck asked innocently. i thought you would be waiting in line at 7-11 to buy your big game tickets. oh, there are no lines for those things any more. you can buy them so many places - including online - that there are no lines any more. oh, bill replied. i did not know that. he left chuck and dave and walked thoughtfully to his work space. he had been considering buying a ticket, but had been held back by the thought that his fellows would find out that he did and taunt him mercilessly about his hypocrisy . but four billion dollars! even accounting for taxes and inflation, that was not nothing! but if he could find some little mom and pop store or bodega where he could slip in and out quietly. and buy a ticket… he thought he knew just the place, on a little back street about two blocks behind the financial district, wedged in between a couple of loading docks… at lunch time, he wandered over there. as he always went to lunch by himself, nobody took any notice, and he purchased two tickets without incident and placed them carefully in his wallet. well, you can just guess what happened next. * holding the only winning ticket in the “four billion dollar” lottery, bill bailey found himself in a quandary. sure, he wanted the “four billion” (actually closer to one billion) dollars - there were a lot of fun things he could think to do with it - but how the guys would laugh at him! he had to figure out a way to get someone to cash the ticket for him without a) the person simply cashing the ticket in for themselves. - and maybe killing him, bill, in the process. or b) cashing it in for him for whatever price agreed on but then telling the world about it - maybe writing a best selling book about it. maybe the best thing would be to just cash the ticket and suffer the world’s ridicule and abuse. after all, that was probably what 99.9 percent of the people in the world would do. but he was not 99.9 percent of the world - he was himself, a fragile, sensitive soul who could not bear criticism or ridicule. but who made fun of other people every chance he got - the classic guy who could dish it out but could not take it. even if he built himself a castle in florida or the bermuda triangle , he knew the servants and the delivery people would always be laughing at him. in the end, he decided to do what he always did. he went to see the gypsy. he just gave her the ticket. he knew she would just take it and cash it and keep her mouth shut about how she got it. and she did. bill went back to his day to day routine, as if it had never happened. * a week later, a story appeared on the front page of the gazette: exclusive! security camera shows picture of original purchaser of winning four billion dollar ticket! and there bill was, for all the world to see. you can run but you can’t hide.

original story 29 - big boy

by bofa xesjum

the obnoxious desk clerk loved death. he had a round face, he had been young once, but not for long. the name on his driver’s license was george q williams. nobody ever asked him what the “q” stood for. he often had dreams standing up behind the desk. but so far he had always managed to wake from them when approached. he had always been a dreamer, in his present life and in past lives. were his dreams derived from his past lives? or were they just dreams? occasionally, when he was off duty, he would try to remember the dreams and record them in a notebook he bought at cvs. when he first started doing this, he would do it sitting at a table in a coffee shop or a mcdonalds or wendy’s. he thought that perhaps somebody might notice him and ask what he was writing, but nobody ever did. when he was tired of trying to record the dreams, he wrote little stories, mostly about zombies and werewolves and mighty barbarians and professional hit men. but never about vampires - he was not a vampire person. one night, at wendy’s, he was so engrossed in a story about a barbarian and a hit man whose brains are swapped by a mad scientist from the 27th century, that he almost forgot the time. he would be late for his shift! he gulped down his cold coffee, left his half eaten hot honey chicken sandwich behind, and hurried out the door into the falling night. a light rain was falling. as he reached the door of the hotel, he patted his coat pocket to make sure his notebook was in it. it was gone! although he always put the notebook in the same pocket, he checked the other ones. it was gone! he retraced his steps for half a block in case it had just fallen out of his pocket - no luck! and he had to get to work! another, more terrible thought hit him. somebody would find his notebook and steal all his dreams and ideas! in despair, he turned back and headed to work, barely getting there on time. he would never get his dreams back. he wanted to cry. but big boys don’t cry. so he fell in love with death.

original story 28 - chiffon

by bofa xesjum

there was a lull around the christmas dinner table, all but a couple of the older guests had finished eating, and the others were obviously or not so obviously impatient to get up and get a drink or mill around or do whatever else they wanted to do. shirley found a bunch of really old photographs that grandma took a hundred years ago, they are kind of cute if anybody wants to look at them. a hundred years ago? of who? it was just an expression - they are probably i don’t know, sixty, seventy years old. you would be surprised how clear they are. all right, if you have them with you, we may as well look at them. gloria reached into the big old fashioned purse at her feet and took out a pack of about thirty old polaroid photos enclosed by a rubber band. oh, these are so cute. and you are right, look how clear they are. better than what you can get on your phone these days. who is this? it is just a baby, like it was just born. look on the back, grandma wrote on the backs of most of them. oh, it’s uncle joe! uncle joe was one of the older guests, and the one least known to the others. he had returned to the area about two years earlier after living “out west” since he was a young man - probably in california although no one knew for sure. he was not a communicative sort, and was the only member of the party referred to as “uncle” or “aunt” by the others. look, joe, weren’t you cute! joe stared at the little photo for a few seconds. yes, he stated in his loud clear voice, who would have thought that such a sweet looking child would grow up to be a serial killer. a brief silence fell on the table. was joe trying to be funny? in what little they had seen of him, humor had never seemed to be his game. well, since everybody is just about done here, maybe we could get up and get some of the pies and cookies gloria and mindy brought. oh, i love mindy’s lemon chiffon pie! did you bring it, mindy? actually, it’s lemon meringue pie, but yes, i did bring it. great! it’s the best!

original story 27 - the highway

by bofa xesjum

the highway is filled with victory all day. who are you? what are you doing here? i am lost. i guess you are. don’t move. i am going to call security. fine. maybe they can help me. hello security. this is t-87 in 55-p. i have an intruder how did they get in? i do not know. should i question them? wait for reinforcement. they will be there in forty-seven seconds. thank you. reinforcement will be here in forty-five seconds. do not try anything. what is your name? do you like your job? my name is t-87 and i love my job and my associates and the department and the whole human race. that sounds familiar. if you say so. i might have had a name like that and sentiments like that, long ago in a distant time and place. here are my beloved associates now. here you go guys, they are all yours. thank you, t-37. we have brought along u-33 to replace you here, as you will have to accompany us as we investigate this terrible breach. i understand, and i love you guys. and you, fellow, what is your name? i do not know, right. can you respond to a name? can you follow commands? i think so. we will find out. your name is jesse james 17. can you respond to that? i will try. do not try anything foolish or make any sudden moves. get in the back, and you, t-87, get in the front. goodbye, u-33, until we meet again. i love you guys. t-87 and jesse james 17 got in the cruiser, which roared off into the stratosphere, leaving u-33 behind to their thoughts. the highway is filled with victory all day. love your associatres. love the department. love the whole human race!