the creature

by bofa xesjum

the creature made its way steadily across the virgin plain. paxton watched through his brown leather binoculars with a beating heart. he had been dreading this moment for his whole nartural life. suddenly the creature stopped. it seemed to be listening to something. it turned and ran swiftly back into the gray shadows. anything wrong, paxton? ogleby’s voice came piercingly into paxton’s headphones. just a temporary setback, paxton mumbled unconvincingly. i will mark it on your file. paxton did not ask how any marks he now had on his file, or how many more he was allowed. he knew. he was born knowing. and now the creature was gone. it had been his best chance and now it was gone.

company man

by bofa xesjum

i am sorry, but this thing is a joke. this thing, as you call it, is only a number. the child will keep you company while you try to sort it out. it had been a year since the animal had appeared on the lawn. paul waters had quietly kept his eye on the problem. he was sure there was a way to work it all out. but was the child an agent of the government? he knew the company had its ways. maybe the child was an agent of the company. even though the day theoretically belonged to the government. the hand of fate seemed to point that way. the hand! always the hand! a young executive was watching the scene from behind a quiet tree. he was debating whether to call the government or the company. he had always been a loyal foot soldier of the government. but had dreamed of moving up the ladder to the company. where the real action was. the young executive’s name was franklin joseph lewis. he had never been either a poet or a dreamer. he thought of himself a hard headed person, with his eye on the main chance, his dad hunted moose on the weekends. his mom baked cookies every day except saturday, when she baked brownies. she never baked cakes or pies. she was not a cake or pie person his dad never hunted rabbits he was not a rabbit person. franklin himself never watched football. he had learned to pretend he watched football, and join in the conversations about it with his fellow employees. it was the old army game. now you see it, now you don’t. from behind a quiet tree. waiting - just waiting - for his chance.

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 johnson 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

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 23 - lorelei

by bofa xesjum

look at you, mister brown growled. sebastian looked down at himself. his shirt was not on backwards, so far as he could tell. you are a hopeless case, mister brown continued, but i am going to give you one more chance. one more chance, but only because i owed your grandfather a favor, do you understand? yes, sir, i understand. what do you want me to do? moloch will tell you what you have to do. mister brown tapped a number on his desk phone. the door opened and moloch’s hulking figure appeared. job number 53, mister brown said to moloch. he nodded to sebastian that the interview was over and that he should accompany moloch. outside, the night was dark and the streets were deserted. an ordinary looking pickup truck was parked beside the building. moloch got in the driver’s seat and sebastian went around and got in the front passenger seat. sebastian did not speak until they were out on the main road, which was as empty as the streets in the city. what is job number 53? nothing that concerns you. i will be doing it myself. you will be doing a job, a real easy job, for me instead. sebastian knew enough not to question this. they drove along in silence. they drove and drove, out to the outskirts of town. finally they came to a little house, on a back road by itself in the middle of nowhere. moloch turned his lights off and pulled up about fifty yards from it. he reached into the glove compartment and took out a small pistol. it looked like a toy. take this. go up to the door and ring the bell. the bell works. a dame will come out - she will take her time, but she will come out. just plug her. right there, in the door? go inside if she lets you in right away. them let her have it. don’t waste time, just do it. i will be out here waiting. why don’t you do it yourself? because she knows me, you idiot. just do it sebastian took the small weapon, put it in his side pocket, and approached the door. he hoped there was nobody inside. he rang the bell. no answer. he looked back at the dark truck. he decided to ring again. the door opened. a woman with long black hair, wearing a tightly belted black bathrobe, stood there . and what a woman! the most beautiful woman sebastian had ever seen in his short life. he felt overwhelmed by her spectacular knockoutedness. her eyes scanned the street behind sebastian. who are you and what do you want? she asked. sebastian’s hand shook in his pocket and he could not get the gun out of it. who are you? he gasped. without answering, she grabbed his arm and pulled him inside. when she let go of his arm, he got his hand out of his pocket but the pistol fell out of his hand and clattered on the floor. the woman picked it up. she looked out the window. the lights on the truck were still off. i have to get out of here, she said to herself. gripping the pistol, she headed toward a back door. take me with you, sebastian implored. she ignored him, but he followed her. a small black two door sedan was parked in back of the house. the woman got into it. take me with you, sebastian asked her again. all right, but only as far as the bus station. instead of circling around to the street where the truck had been parked, the woman backed the car up an alley behind the house. soon they were on the main highway, moving at just under te speed limit. there was no sign of the truck, or anything else, following them. what is your name? sebastian asked the woman again. what? what do you care? i am just curious. um - my name is lorelei. thank you. i like to know peoples names. i am peculiar that way, why? they don’t have to give you their real ones. lorelei dropped sebastian off at the bus station. he took the first bus he could, as far as it would take him for the money he had in his pocket. it took him to thompsonville, just as dawn was breaking. from thompsonville he hitched a ride to weaverville, and from weaverville through death valley and up the coast to santa cruz. he joined a small commune of peaceful souls like himself and stayed there for sixty years, becoming known and revered as rhe old man of the mountain, although rarely venturing near any mountains. but he never forgot that night in mister brown’s town. and he never forgot lorelei.

original story - 10 - anger

by bofa xesjum

the glass was empty. don’t underestimate me, bob warned. don’t tell me what to do with my life, nicky repied. it’s cold outside, you understand that, don’t you? i heard that. nothing had prepared bob for this moment. he was not accustomed to people telling him what to do. nobody had ever told nicky the truth about her origins. night had fallen quietly while noreen was reading her novel. it was cold outside. when she resumed her reading, bob was still angry. you think it’s funny, don’t you? he asked nicky. don’t tell me what to do with my life, she repeated. noreen sighed - this was starting to get boring - she decided to skip ahead. you all think it is so funny, don’t you? bob asked yet again. make mine a double, sam declared. nobody has ever told the poor child about her origins. and my glass is empty. i do not care how underestimated you think you are. the wrong side of the tracks - what an old-fashioned expression! they all kept telling each other what to do with their lives. noreen put the book down and went into the kitchenette. you’re a hard man, henry. my glass is empty. the bear wandered into the parking lot of the burger king. it was cold utyside but it looked warm inside. i think the joke is on you.

original story - 5. the lion

by bofa xesjum

has anybody seen joe? emily asked plaintively with a glass of gin in her hand. why would anybody see joe? ralph responded. this is bucky’s party. a lion had escaped from the zoo earlier in the morning, and this event had dominated the conversation until emily’s question. more people had shown up than bucky and belinda had expected, and they were running out of everything. belinda was trying to reach the caterer to order more sandwiches, especially the peanut butter and marshmallow, which had been a great hit. you will never understand, professor maling was explaining to deborah, events like the lion escaping are all part of an elaborate plan. deborah was wearing an old red t-shirt with power to the people stenciled on it in fading black letters. her eye caught a blue flower in the hair of a younger woman she did not immediately recognize. where is the passion, the commitment, emily asked bill waters, who had been standing in one spot with a blank stare through most of the afternoon. it disappeared when the people stopped wanting power, bill replied with surprising force. you think it’s funny, don’t you, bill? emily’s dark eyes glittered. you want passion and commitment? a voice asked behind them. a lion is roaming the streets devouring innocent citizens, and you all stand around with drinks in your hands like it is the most natural thing in the world - you young people are the problem, professor maling interjecetd forcefully. but before he could continue, belinda intervened - let’s all take a break, she suggested, a fifteen minute break, and then we can all assume new identities and start this party all over again. that’s a great idea, honey, bucky seconded, because dead men tell no tales. even after we assume new identities, the young woman with the blue flower in her hair exclaimed, the people will still be without power. the flower trembled in her hair, as if it wished to bloom in the spring. let us make this a day we will always remember, emily opined. why are you always picking on me? deborah whispered to bill waters, as the guests drifted apart to take a break and assume their new identities. i forget, bill answered sheepishly. let’s do it people, belinda reminded everybody, because we have a bigger crowd than we expected. the girl with the blue flower in her hair, whose name was jenny lake, sighed wearily. outside, the lion was still on the prowl. the guests began assuming their new identities, even though nobody had seen joe. why does everybody hate me? belinda wondered, i am trying to do the right thing.

original story - 3. the queen's stratagem

by bofa xesjum

reynaud had nothing but a cat to present to the emperor. sinbad envisioned the delicate witticism he would deliver to the terrible prince who waited outside. i believe the empress has charmed this clown with the express apprehension of obliterating the many regrets of the old lady. nevertheless the warlord and the queen have agreed on the destruction of the ancient formalities. heaven sent its best wishes to the old lady. the feline tailor judiciously interrogated the sturdy guardsmen before the queen nodded knowingly to the master. under peril of annihilation, the barbarian gave way -

original story 2 - the adventurers

by bofa xesjum

yesterday pope alexis questioned the turkish envoy as to the benefits of a quiet kinesis when revenge is cold and the joke is not worth the price of exposition. many of the adventurers made an exhibition of sorrowful virtue when the notary ordered them to be beheaded. they all laughed at the viceroy when he grew sentimental about the adventurers’ ’youth. the lady waited patiently for the cavalier to implicate the groom in the judiciously defeated insurrection under the count’s jeering opportunism. a saucy fellow boldly offered to evoke another revolutionary fracas at midnight. and the ladies grew indignant at last under the clouds.