dreadcrumbs

Nevermore

There is a bird staring at me. Right now, as I write this. I think it might be a sparrow, but I don't know for sure. Birdstuff has never been my expertise.

It is perched on the sill outside the piece of office window I have sight of, and it is looking in at me, scratching at the window with one claw in a very un-birdlike fashion.

In an effort to scare the disconcerting beast, I leapt to the window suddenly, but to no avail. It startled the guy in the cubicle next to me, but the bird stayed put, staring at me with unfathomable eyes. I squatted down to its level and started a staring contest, which I won. The bird didn't fly away in chagrin, though. I think it might be mentally deranged. Maybe evil, but probably just crazy. I hate crazy birds. They make me feel like a worm under the open sky.

Microstory Monday

Night Spawn

I wake in the dead of night to the scratching of nails outside my bedroom door. It hears me wake, and waits, breathing.
"Go away," I whisper, still trying to sound strong. "Leave this place."
I am answered by a keening shriek of hunger and rage that I do not recognize as the word "papa" until it stops.
"It's your turn," my wife mumbles, and I struggle out of bed to see what my son could possibly want at three in the morning.

Friday Fives

Top Five Worst Ways to Die

5. Vivisection
4. Old Age/Organ Failure (tie)
3. Suicide "gone bad"
2. Incremental brain loss via spoon
1. Hiccups

Supermarket Divination

When I'm in line at the grocery store (usually the 15 items or less line), I like to try to imagine, based on what the person in front of me is buying, the scenario that drove them to purchase those particular items.  Three bags of chips, some bean dip, and a case of beer usually indicates a sporting-event related viewing party. A single two-gallon tub of ice cream could mean anything, but when combined with kleenex, it's a post-breakup binge. If with flowers it's an "I'm sorry, honey, can I please sleep in the bed again" thing. If a box of sugar cones, a child's party. 

The tricky ones are the vaseline, ziploc bags, and beef jerky combos. Or the whipped cream, mega-pack of Tums and a roll of twine. Hard to say exactly what those people are planning, but it can't be good.

I bring this up, though, because of what the guy in front of me at the drugstore last night was buying. Rubbing alcohol, a large roll of gauze, a bag of cotton balls, one of those rubber suction bulbs, and a 50-pack of razor blades. Not the disposible razors for shaving, mind you. Razor blades. It looked to me like this guy was planning some home surgery. He didn't look to have any visible cysts to drain or growths to clip, so I'm guessing his "patient" is someone else. Hopefully a willing I-need-some-corns-removed someone else, and not a help-me-please-I'm-tied-up-in-a-basement someone else. Because I wasn't about to notify the police and get embroiled in a serial killer hunt again. It's way too time-consuming.

The Scurf of Humankind

I have long believed household dust to be made up of disintegrated people, which, upon researching the matter, turns out to be true. There are also little pieces of bugs, clothing, and food, but it is mostly people (which, technically, could also be considered clothing and food).

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Sure, I've always known it, but I try not to think about it. Like the knowledge that all those cute animals at the shelter are going to be killed when no one adopts them, or the fact that my grandchildren will have to live as slaves to intraterrestrial overlords. You just can't live a sane life if you're always worrying about things like that. So I ignore the fact that I'm constantly breathing man-dander. Here's the thing though: we breathe it in, but we don't breathe it out. Where is it going? Clogging our lungs? Being absorbed, quasi-cannibal-like? Coalescing into discrete homunculi that get excreted with our waste? Could be anything.

So, like I said, I don't think about it.

Ethical Time Warp

Overheard whispered in a meeting:

Late-Forties male manager to late-twenties female analyst: "You look sexy today."
Analyst: "Hah! Thanks!"
Manager, leaning in: "No. Really. You really do."
*Uncomfortable two second silence*
Analyst: "Um, er....must be the expensive shoes."

After that, more seconds passed in silence as she tried to focus on who was leading the meeting, and the manager continued to leer in what he probably thought was a suave way. She then found an excuse to cross the room to speak to another team member.

Disturbing. I didn't think people were that creepy anymore. It seemed like such a 60s-era cliche. All that was missing was the butt swat.

But here's the thing: Do I have some kind of ethical responsibility to do something after witnessing this horror show? She seemed to defuse it, but still. Maybe I should do something. I'm thinking a little quid pro quo.

Next Meeting:

Dean, sidling up to late-forties male manager: "Hey. You look sexy today."
Manager: "What?"
Dean: "You heard me, twinkle toes. You're dead sexy. Keep it up."

And then I would continue with the requisite leer. I haven't ever tried one, but I think I could do it.

Microstory Monday

The Tower of Mabel
"Don't touch me," she said, slapping at my hand with a charred stump.
"But for God's sake, you're on fire! You're burning," I countered.
"Exactly," she said, nodding. "For His sake. And if you have any messages you want me to pass along, you better tell me now before my ears get clogged with skin and hair."

Friday Fives

The top five blog or microstory titles I'd like to use, but just haven't figured out how yet:

5. Archimedes’s Constant & Mrs. Callendar
4. Whigs in a Blanket
3. The Screaming Cloth Scraps of Failed Muppets
2. The Cowled Penguin at my Door
1. The Chalk Outline of the Soul

Unspeakable Hunger

Have you ever been really hungry, but just not able to think of a specific food you want to eat? Not starving, mind you (since when I'm starving I'll eat anything nearby), just really hungry. I'm having that dilemma. Sandwich? That's pretty much all I eat. I'm bored of them. Teriyaki Bowl? Had that yesterday. Taco Bell? Meh. Don't want it, and it isn't particularly healthy. All the other fast food options pretty much fall into that category.

So what do I do? And perhaps more confusing, why is this happening at all? It isn't that I don't have an appetite. It's that my brain is subverting it with boredom, disgust, and moral outrage.

My theory is that what my body actually needs to eat is something that my brain won't let it acknowledge. Some socially unacceptable and possibly reprehensible food. Like human flesh. Or, I don't know, grilled dog paws, or cajun hippo eyes or something. Even bringing it out into the open doesn't help. Disregarding how difficult it might be to legally obtain a shank of human leg meat for lunch, I still don't think I could stomach it. Too many years of anti-cannibalism media exposure, I guess.

Maybe a hot dog. With enough chili on it, I might be able to overlook the "not-quite-pork" flavor. And the fingernail pieces.

No Escape

I went to the doctor's office yesterday (that embedded twin is acting up again). The office itself is on the fifth floor of a maybe 8 floor building, and I accidentally got off the elevator on the fourth floor. Whereupon I WAS TRAPPED.

One of the two elevators was out of service, and the one that I had just been on moved at about the speed of a parked car. I found two stairwells, but all the doors to floors other than to the one I was on were locked. I had to assume that if I had tried to get to the ground floor I could escape, but you never know.

The entire floor was deserted, except for a single door with the words "Cherrick and Szandor" on it. Maybe it was a law office, maybe it was where a couple guys lived. Maybe it was a front for an organ harvesting ring. I didn't know, and I wasn't about to open the door to check. I might have gotten sued. Or interrupted an awkward domestic scene. Or lost a spleen.

So I just had to wait the interminable ten minutes for the elevator with the knowledge that Mr. Szandor was undoubtedly watching me from behind his door.