dreadcrumbs

The Five Worst Things To Sit and Wait For

...in roughly ascending order of dread

1. Test Results
2. Death
3. The Cable/UPS/Repair Guy
4. The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young
5. Nothing

“Hatred’s Silver Lining”

Squatting next to the hunk of organ tissue on the carpet, I already suspect what happened here, but the client at least deserves a show for the money he’s fronted.
“What time did you regain consciousness?” I ask.
Mr. Olsen jumps a little, like I’ve just thrown a ball at him he wasn’t expecting.
“Um...I...eight, I think,” he shivers, fidgeting awkwardly, still trying to catch that ball.
I pull the toothpick I’d been chewing on and poke at what I suspect is a bit of human kidney, rolling it to one side. Later, I’ll make sure he sees me with another pick in my mouth, a different one. But he won’t know that.
I sigh, and catch a furtive movement in the corner of my eye and know the family dog is watching us. I decide not to notice.
“Who would do this?” Mr. Olsen asks, a little too loudly, like he thinks he’s auditioning for a play. “Who would take my organs?”
Standing, I glance toward my client, who is still shivering from the ice bath he apparently left three hours ago.
“You have any enemies, Ralph?” I ask. “Anyone who hates you?”
“Well,” he says, still on stage. “I can’t imagine...why, the Gordons! Next door! They’ve always hated me!”
I turn my back to him and ponder the kidney on the floor.
“Hated you?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “They can’t stand that I’m Swedish.”
“Enough to harvest one of your organs and leave it to decay in your living room?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “Definitely.”
“I don’t think we can prove that,” I say, bending to look at the kidney again.
“But that’s why you’re here!” he quails, almost whining. “That’s why I hired you!”
“Look,” I say, “the best I can do is try to disprove your self-surgery there.”
There is a moment of silence, and then he looks aghast.
“What!?” he blurts. “I could never! I would never...”
“Right, right,” I say. “Whatever. Really, though, we’ve got a bigger mystery here.”
“We do?” he asks, immediately calming down.
“Have you ever been bitten by a wolf?” I ask.
“A wolf?” he parrots back.
“Or a dog, a rat. Feral cat, maybe?”
“Maybe,” he says, interested. “Why?”
“Because that,” I say, pointing to the kidney gore on the carpet, “is not a fully human organ.”
His face blanches, and he stares at the piece of meat he pulled from his own abdomen.
“Then I...I’m,” he starts, then mutters, under his breath, “this explains everything.”
He looks up at me, dead serious, and says, “no one can know about this. Ever.”
I nod, and he begins to gingerly gather the meat from the floor.
“You still want to try to frame the Gordons?” I ask.
He turns to me, still hunched over his viscera, in what I think is his best impression of a wolf-man, and whispers, “no...no, that would draw to much attention. Best to leave well alone.” He sniffs loudly. “For now.”
“Right then,” I say. “The rest of my fee?”
“On the kitchen counter,” he growls.
On my way out, I count the money from the demented, though perfectly human, self surgeon, and discover it to be twenty short. I chuckle, and decide to ignore it.

"Cost/Benefit Analysis"

"It's a phenomenal waste of time," Jim says, letting the bathroom door swing shut behind him. "Days lost in a single lifetime."
I watch as he deliberately makes his way about 12 feet across the hallway to his cubicle with a stilted, stiff-hipped walk. It is clear he is in pain.
"But at what cost?" I ask. "You can't possibly be comfortable."
"I'm not," he says, staring at the chair in front of his desk like it's a mountain he's about to climb. "But are you? Is anyone really comfortable?"
"I don't know," I say, briefly taking physical inventory of myself. "I feel okay."
Abruptly, Jim drops onto his the chair with the same speed you would pull a band-aid off.
I hear a sickening muffled crunch like he's just crushed a bag of Doritos with the seat of his pants, and then he screams like someone snipped off one of his fingers with a pair of rusty shears.
It takes several seconds for him begin breathing without any cries of pain, and for me to realize what the sound was. When I do, I feel the color drain from my face.
"Good lord, Jim," I whisper. "How long has it been since you wiped?"

Five Reasons Not To Make A Blog Entry Today

1. You're fretting over why that child at the grocery store threatened you with "a coven of gorillas" and can't really focus right now
2. The Hebrew character for the "W" sound is equivalent to the number "6" which means every time you contribute to the World Wide Web leviathan, you are building up the kingdom of The Beast
3. In a fit of existential rage, you've pried the "Z" off your keyboard and just now realized you can't possibly make a blog entry without the suffix "-z0red"
4. Saggitarius is not in the correct House to properly facilitate the production of autobiographical claptrap
5. You are not in the correct house. Go home.

"Wormhole"

I stare at Jeff's forearm, swollen to at least twice its normal size. He looks like Popeye.
"Doesn't it hurt?" I ask.
"A little," he says, prodding the mass with his fingers. A single drop of blood pushes out of a small wet wound about two inches from his elbow.
"You should see a doctor," I say, but Jeff isn't listening. He's staring at the red wound.
"Wait," he says. "Here it comes! This is what I wanted to show you!"
"I thought..." I start to say, but my voice chokes off when I see the little red hole on his arm twitch.
I stare as a small white maggot streaked with half-clotted blood squirms out of Jeff's arm and drops to the floor.
He lets out a huge sigh and gingerly pushes the larva to the corner of the room with his bare foot. As my eyes follow the progress, I see what look like several more of the wriggling thing's fellows waiting for him in the shadows.
Jeff pads back over to me and cocks an eyebrow.
"Gross," I say. "How many are over there?"
"Oh, I don't know," he says, looking back to the maggot-corner. "Five, maybe six. Not a lot."
"You seriously need to see a doctor," I say again. "Get that thing cleaned out."
"I can't do that," he says. "I'm a gateway. I'm their gateway."
"What?" I ask.
Jeff sighs again, and somehow manages to sound condescending, like he's explained this to me several times already.
"This proves I exist on the cusp between realities, Sam. This hole in my arm is the doorway from their world," he says, nodding to the maggots, "and ours."
"Um," I say. "Okay...but I don't think anybody really wants squirmy grub-things in our universe. Let's, uh, let's just close the door. Keep them out."
He turns to me, wide-eyed. "Can you imagine what closing that door would do to the fabric of spacetime?" he blurts. "Can you?"
"Er," I say.
"I'm not willing to take that chance," he says, head dropping in resignation.
I stare at him, trying to decide how seriously to take him and at what point I need to get the authorities invloved.
"Jeff," I say, "this is just stupid."
He looks up, smiling. "You were going with it, though," he says. "'Let's just close the door'," he says, mimicking my voice, but making it sound much more terrified than I'm sure it sounded.
"You're a dork," I say. "So you are going to the doctor?"
"Tomorrow," he says, looking at his arm. "I think there's just one more in here."
"Good," I say, walking to the maggot corner. "These are just nasty."
"You know," I say, raising my boot to crush the infestation, "we should really..."
My movement is interrupted as Jeff barrels across the room, planting a shoulder in my gut.
I fly backward, sprawling onto the floor.
Jeff is immediately above me, eyes red, fuming with rage.
"DON'T TOUCH MY BABIES!" he screams.
I stare at him, stunned, and feel something wet drop from his arm onto my face.
I hope it's blood.

Five Bits of Advice I Would Give to a Very Nice Guy at Work

...if they weren't so petty and that actually saying them to his face would be pretty awkward. And a little mean.

1. The shoes that you wear every Friday that everyone comments on? While being pleasantly out-of-character, they also clearly identify you as The Noisome Dweller In Stall Two.
2. Get a sense of humor, even a fake one. When I secretly rearranged your gaudy "GO TIGERS" craft-store letter block display of fan pride to say "EGO GRIST," "GO GET IRS" and then "I ROT EGGS," it deserved some kind of comment. Quietly putting them back into "TIGER" configuration every time? Without saying a word to anyone? Kind of creepy.
3. Don't keep asking your cube neighbor to "take a look at this" to showcase whatever Mad Skill you've discovered via the "Filter" menu in Photoshop. It's nice you're learning a new non-work-related skill, but, you know, just stop.
4. Also, if you're going to be spending hours of work time experimenting with all the lighting and gradient tricks you can do on an image of a football helmet, don't keep turning around furtively to see if someone in authority is watching. Own your malfeasance proudly, or stop it. Or learn to sneak better.
5. Lastly, I'd scale back on the complaining about how you've got too much work to do. At least, you know, until you finish all that helmet art.

"Domestic Compromise"

Stepping over the mess in the yard, I open the front door.
"Honey?" I call.
"Here," I hear my wife say.
Crossing the entryway and turning the corner into the kitchen, I see Amanda boiling something, spaghetti maybe.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
"Sure," she says, turning to plant a kiss on my cheek.
"There are...um..." I say, pointing back to the door.
"Hm?" she noises, looking vaguely in the direction I'm pointing.
"Bodies," I say. "Dead bodies on the front lawn."
"Halloween decoration?" she asks.
"No," I say. "You really don't know where they came from? Two men? One has a beard?"
I watch her think for a moment, and then her eyes brighten.
"Oh!" she says. "The spam!"
"The what?" I ask.
"Those guys," she says. "They came ringing the doorbell, interrupting me, not leaving me alone, trying to sell me something. It was annoying."
I walk back to the front door and peer at the bodies.
"I think one of them is Mr. Greenberg," I say.
"Really?" I hear my wife ask, padding across the floor to my side.
She stares with me for a moment. "He's wearing a hat," she says.
"That's true," I say.
She looks at me. "That's why I didn't recognize him," she says.
"So...do you know why they're...uh...there?" I ask.
"I imagine that's where they fell," she says, and turns to me. "Does Mr. Greenberg sell insurance?"
"I don't think so," I say. "I think he's retired. So to speak."
Amanda laughs.
"It's just that he seemed so alarmist when he came to the door," she says.
"Probably saw the body," I say.
"Ahhh," she says, pointing at me with an aren't-you-such-a-smartypants look.
"We should do something with them," I say.
We stare at the bodies for a moment, and then turn simultaneously to look at each other.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Amanda asks.
"I think so..." I say, and shout "Meat!" just as she yells "Puppets!"
"Oh," she says.
"I mean," I say, "it doesn't have to be meat."
"No, no," she says, "that's a good idea. It's just that I've already defrosted some chicken."
"Let's do puppets, then," I say.
"Are you sure?" she asks.
"Definitely," I say. "Puppets are fun."

The Five Most Frightening Halloween Costumes I Saw This Year

...while taking my son trick-or-treating

1. The Passive-Aggressive Parent
2. The Businesswoman-At-Rest (The nondescript bowl of individually-wrapped baby carrots was a nice touch)
3. The Climatologically Ignorant Teen
4. The Overly Talkative Man (it was very realistic)
5. The Rabbit-Who-Watches