Writing : Flash Me! NOVEMBER - WAR QUOTES

Why Starbucks Coffee Costs so Much

I stood in line and waited for the woman in front of me to order.

"I'll take a decaf mocha soy latte with no foam in a double copper cannister with green awning," she said and pulled out her breast cancer credit card with a picture of two deformed breasts on it with Frankenstein stitching on them.  Very tasteful.  "I am also a supporter for the ASPCA and the ethical treatment of animals and plants and insects and shadows, do I get a discount?" the woman said.  "Ten cents goes to every child in a third world country who gets an abortion," the cashier said, "That will be twenty-two, thirteen."

"Wow, that's expensive," the woman said.

"Well this month we are forwarding ten dollars from every purchase as a donation to the Presidential campaign of your choice.  Starbucks is backing Angelina Jolie in 2012.  Brad Pitt will be Vice President and the first lady."

"Sounds good," the woman said and smiled.

"What do you have that costs less than five dollars?" I asked.

The barrista aka caffeine creator/drug peddler began to laugh, "Sir, go buy coffee out of a back alley if you want anything less than five dollars.  This is Starbucks coffee!"

"Fine, I'll get a mocha Serbian Guatemalan Democrat cream with light foam and a soy moustache."

"That will be eight twenty-two."

I paid her with my Maxi-pad card. 

I sat on the edge of the counter as I watched the barrista begin to prepare my drink.  First she said a small prayer then she started to heat up the milk until it began to bubble over to 2000 degrees.  Then she started to pour copious amounts of syrup and a thick substance labelled mucus.  Finally she made a small incision on her wrist and poured a few droplets of blood into my drink then topped if off with foam and caramel.

"Excuse me, why did you put your blood in my drink?" I said, "Isn't that unsanitary?"

"Don't worry, it's a requirement of Starbucks to get tested for AIDS and we are trying to open a portal to the dark dimension of Cthulhu this month."

"Oh," I said and saw a large pentagram on the ceiling light up as each person took a drink of their overpriced coffee, a tiny hole appeared in reality to the stygian darkness.

"So that's why Starbucks coffee costs so much!" I said.

The barrista smiled and stabbed herself in the hand, she had a fresh pot of coffee to brew.

GRADUATION SPEECH

Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m honored. I’ve always wanted, secretly, to be invited to speak here. So today’s the day. Well, let’s get right to it, but first, I want to thank the wonderful Dr Hubert Cummings and his beautiful wife, Dr Laura Wilson-Cummings, for letting me loose in front of you all at last. Great honor. Okay, let’s get this over with. I know you’re all being patient, and want to get out of here, out into the real world, etcetera. I realize that. You’ve been working yourselves into a state of exhaustion, and now that you’re graduating, you just want to get out. Understood. Hopefully, if I take up ten minutes of your time, it’ll be worth it. I have some wisdom to impart, though, of course, I wouldn’t presume to consider it my wisdom. It’s just the kind of wisdom you get from making a lot of mistakes. Oh, and I can promise you that as soon as you leave this campus, you’ll already feel like you’re making a mistake. Welcome to post-graduation adulthood.

So, I have nine minutes left. Some of you know me, a lot of you won’t. I graduated from this illustrious institution about, uh, I don’t know, twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, I was twenty-two. Whew. That means I’m now forty-two. Forty-two years old. That’s crazy. It’s crazy because you’d think I’d have learned by now that it doesn’t matter how old you are — you’ll still have to kiss someone’s ass if you want to get ahead in life. When I was ten, I had to be good if I wanted a present. Well, life was simple back then. It’s still pretty simple. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. You behave a certain way, and life rewards you through other people. Or it punishes you. But everything happens through other people. That’s my secret, by the way. That’s the wisdom I’m imparting today. Everything you do will affect others as well as yourselves. You can have the best solitary temperament in the world, and you’ll still be at the mercy of other people. I can guarantee that if you were to lock yourselves up alone in a cabin in the woods, you’d spend the majority of your time talking aloud to someone who wasn’t there. That’s us, in a nutshell. We do that. We’re always at the mercy of an imaginary listener.

I don’t want to get all, uh, philosophical on you. My intention is to make you aware that this feeling will never go away. You’ll be in a house full of people, a house party, maybe. Your housewarming party. And everyone’s attending, all your new friends, some of your old friends. You’ve graduated from this wonderful educational establishment. You’re a big kid now. And you invite everyone who knows your name to this big housewarming party. Some people come, enough people for the whole thing to be worth it, at least in theory. But here’s the thing. What’s a housewarming party? Who are you warming the house up for? The partygoers? They’re not living there. Yourselves? Why? Who are you trying to impress? That’s it, right there. You’re trying to impress someone. Someone who isn’t at the party. Someone who may not even exist. Just that hypothetical person to whom one of your guests can say, ‘Oh my Lord, you should have seen how wonderfully decorated the house was.’ Let’s be honest. That’s the person you want to impress. That imaginary human being. And that’s fine. But every person who wanders into your party that night will be trying to impress some other imaginary person. The chick who dressed up to the point of self-caricature — who’s she trying to impress? The guy who keeps talking about how much money he has — doesn’t everyone already know?

Okay, I can see you’re rolling your eyes over there, so I’ll cut to the point. This graduation ceremony’s great and all. It’s an important event for a lot of you. It represents so much. But let’s face it. We’re all trying to impress someone. Let me be blunt. The wonderful Dr Hubert Cummings invited me to speak here because I was his student once. As you know, he’s retiring as dean this year. And he’s earned it. But you know why he invited me to speak? Because — get ready for this — I kissed his ass. I kissed Dr Hubert Cummings in the ass so many times as an undergraduate that he came to like me. Because I was subtle about it. And then I went on to have this so-far grand career as a journalist, so he can flatter himself and think that he had a part to play in my development. And maybe you did, Hubert, maybe you did. Don’t look shocked. We’re all friends, right?

Here’s my lesson to you all. You’re graduating. Some of you spent some time writing your essays. A lot of you just fucked each other and drank as soon as you could, legally, and that’s about it. That’s what growing up on campus is about. Power to your cocks and cunts, my friends. But nobody’s impressed. This whole thing is a sham. Graduation day means nothing, and you’re going to go out into the real world with a degree in Bullshit 101 and that’s going to be your “thing” from now on. You’re the guy with the Art History degree. You’re the young lady with a basic grasp of physics. Good for you. But you’re going to spend the rest of your lives doing nothing except trying to make sense of your old decisions, trying to justify career choices, trying to reclaim the horn-dog arrogance of your college days. This little ceremony will mean nothing to you in ten years. In ten years, some of you will be jobless. Some of you will have committed suicide. A couple of you will have used your family connections to get jobs that you didn’t need a degree for. Circle of life? Maybe. I’d say there’s nothing essential, nothing fundamental about any of this. It’s just how our society fools itself.

Well, my time’s running out. I can see the wonderful Dr Hubert Cummings over there fuming out of his ears. Chill out, man. You taught me to think for myself, or something. Do I sound like an ingrate? Do I sound like I’m destroying my own career by doing this? Ah. Then we’ve finally managed to transfer from wisdom from my life into everyone else’s. There’s something, uh, Freudian about all of this, hey? Any of you study any Freud in between bouts of trying to sleep with your housemate’s girlfriend? Anyone? Killing the father, that’s what I’m doing. Hubert fucking Cummings, who rose to the top because he kissed as much ass as he could. It’s all about kissing ass. Wisdom imparted. This day means nothing. Tomorrow will mean nothing. The day after tomorrow will mean nothing. Fuck all of you. Fuck you, with your optimism and your wallets and your big fat erections and your tits that haven’t started to sag yet. Fuck you, and fuck your future spouses, who will resent you for having pursued a leisurely academic life for a few years while they had to work to help their ailing parents. Fuck you and fuck your irrational self-importance, your sense of entitlement that stems from not having failed a few exams. And most importantly, fuck you, Dr Hubert Cummings, for having invited me here to speak to a bunch of post-adolescents simply because out of all my classmates, I was the one who became semi-famous enough for your precious ego to congratulate itself. Fuck you for standing up and whispering to someone to get that fucking maniac off his soapbox right now. Oh, look, here they come. A big dumb-looking ass kisser, like everyone else in this piece of shit place that publically prides itself on its tradition of academic excellence above all else, but which, in fact, is a little self-protective hub of sycophants and masters of masturbation. Big dumb ass-kisser making his way straight towards me. Looks like I’m out of time, folks. I hope one of you takes my message to heart. I did this for you. Get your fucking hand off me. I did this for you, kids! I’m talking to nobody imaginary this time — I’m talking straight to you. God bless! Good luck!

Phil, that was awesome.  Also, it reminds me why I didn't go to my high school graduation ceremony. 

I hear a scream of “Van Halen!”  Freud tells me “He means Valhalla!”  The next thing any of us hear is “Havoc! Havoc! Havoc!”  Thats when Nodnarb/s PSYOP speakers began to blare.  Exiting the trenches we/re blown back by the explosion of the skeletal structure, that Freud told us, was where he fell in love with his eighth grade teacher, Ms. Wilhelm.  Our only response to that had been “Son…she/d better been hot… with a name like that.”   Mortar rounds with immediate implicitly; decimate our emotions, our bodies, our spirit.  I/d never noticed those cracks in Freud/s boots before.  As his, and those of them that encircle me, dash away, I hear the PSYOPs clearly for the first time.  Its Willie, strummin’ Trigger, singing Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I Die.  In static ecstasy my mind reels “Strive on with mindfulness.”

EDIT

First double post, getting used to nothing but a netbook again.

Last one for now:

Today an ambassador of God appeared and explained it all. I’m afraid I couldn’t write everything down, but here are some notes.

The ambassador of God is not a being. We have, apparently, misunderstood the whole concept of what it means to be, what it means to mean, and what the relationship between being and meaning actually is, or means. The ambassador was adamant about this, and almost hostile. An unpleasant moment. Although I cannot say I was able to grasp the gist of his argument, I do know that he repeated himself several times. “I am not a being. I am not a being.” I considered the whole thing a little dull, but because I didn’t want to ask questions and risk having the whole thing explained all over again, I nodded politely and tried to burn the key terms into my memory. They were: being, essence, meaning, doubling and infinite inwardness. I leave it to others with a greater interest in these matters to piece it together.

The ambassador also mentioned the imminent return of the divine. I confess that I had to ask him if he meant divan but he assured me he meant divine. If we are to believe him, the divine is slowly seeping into the universe through the actions of a devout few. We must make room for God, he said, but not in the way we’ve done it so far. He said something about ceasing our debates on the right to life, the ethics of genetic manipulation and so on, but I stopped listening because I take issue with a careless disregard for human life. My opinion is that we are all worthy of life and nobody has a right to say that a baby should be aborted. I told this to the ambassador of God, who told me that my opinion was irrelevant in this situation, to which, with infinite patience, I responded that my opinion was relevant, and that we had come a long way since the days when someone could just shut someone else up by force. We live in a democracy and that means we acknowledge the validity of different opinions. The ambassador did not appreciate this, but, of course, I suspect he respected me for standing up for myself. I then proceeded, with caution, to explain to him that we are all united by the gift of life, and that to take this gift away from the unborn is genocide. I also began to explain other things, but the ambassador interrupted me to tell me that the imminent return of the divine would render everything I had ever thought important rather useless. This was cheeky. On the one hand, nobody — not even those with pretensions to divine knowledge — will ever instruct me on what to do, think or say without my consent. I consider it my duty as an individual to serve myself however it is best, and if an ambassador of God or a street urchin or anyone in between wishes to try my patience with his bullying, I will stand up for myself. But on the other hand, I sensed a threat in the ambassador’s words that seemed to go far beyond the language of mortals. While I refuse to be threatened, as a matter of principle, I realized I was dealing with someone or something quite dangerous, and even unhinged. So I remained silent.
I remember one thing he said very clearly. Sensing my discomfort, perhaps, the ambassador declared: “The hour’s coming. Brace yourself, and remember your place.” But as he carried on, I lost interest. Truth to tell, I found the ambassador of God an unbearably pretentious and self-important man. Not, I must add, because of his words, which, as I say, I didn’t listen to, but because of his zeal. All business. You surely know the type. Very boring.

When the ambassador of God left, I decided it would probably interest the academic types if I described what happened. So I have written down what I remember, and I hope it proves of some help to priests or whoever is into this sort of thing. Frankly, the whole thing seems undemocratic to me. I do not think I will be taking any of this too seriously anytime soon.

Renfield

I usually like midnight walks to the corner store until the leaves start following me and there's this nasty, hollow scraping sound in the distance. As luck would have it I'm armed with a recently opened Dr. Pepper and this measely cigarette lighter. I arrive home okay, locked all the windows, but the lights, do I turn them on so I can see them or keep them off so they don't see me? If I don't update by the morning, call my girlfriend and tell her I wish she loved me more, but don't come looking for me. They might be waiting for you.

1 day ago

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Everlasting

As the Martian sky marks midday, Stan thinks about his father's death. It'd been voluntary. Nearly all death was, even back then.
His father told him it was better to 'go natural' - there's such a thing as quitting while you're ahead.
Fifty-three years later, no one thinks like that anymore. His father was one of a dying breed - those willing to die.
For most people, life had become so accessible they couldn't be bothered with death.
Survival is now purely recreational. The circle of life is now a straight line.

The gun catches cold sweat from Stan's brow.

Stan is more afraid of facing the end of the universe than the end of his life. He doesn't want to live forever like everyone else. He doesn't want there to come a point when a year feels like an hour. There's such a thing as quitting while you're ahead.

A muscle contracts. A firing pin hits a percussion cap. Stan joins his father.

Giving Up

It started one morning with sugar. He looked at his cup, sipped at the silt, and decided it was too sweet. I’m giving up he decided and he did. At first it was hard going but eventually he got used to it.

Next day was cigarettes. This one was harder to crack than sugar in tea, but after a few days the cravings subsided. He was beginning to feel pleased with himself.

That Friday in the pub he finished the last of his beer and placed the empty glass down on the table. ‘Want another one?’ his friend asked. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I’m giving up.’ And with that he walked out never to return.

When he got home he looked at his wife as she ironed his clothes. He realised he didn’t really know her – even after seven years. He took her out into the street and explained to a passer by that he was giving up and would the man consider taking her. The man looked her up and down for a few seconds before nodding. She left in the early morning with a bag of her belongings.

Without a wife the man had no one to cook for him and he began to starve. He looked at all the ingredients and instructions in the cupboards and decided it was too complicated and he’d be as well giving up food as well.

He was feeling weak before too long and he took the extra step of giving up on water too. He’d read this gave him three days. I’m giving up he thought as he climbed into his bed.

They Called Him Pandemonium

They called him Pandemonium and the way he rode his bike was like a typhoon come to devour every cobbled street and every dusty path this side of Culver Creek. He'd keen across corners downtown and knock old ladies off the sidewalk, he'd sail across drain ditches until he could jump the entire two lane blacktop and when he'd come crashing down he would kick out his feet and skid and keep on going and every other kid would cheer Faster Faster until he'd mow them over on his way to the break the sound barrier.

He would grab his skateboard and hold onto the bumper of Jimmy Prescott's old Cadillac and yell Go Go until he got up to speed and he'd spread out his arms, he really did resemble a soaring hawk until he'd hit a pot hole and start resembling a tumbleweed filled with exploding blood. It was Jimmy Prescott's ratty old Caddy where'd take me to push my skirt up and ride me fast just like he did his bike, until I found out about all the other girls in our grade and even some of the homelier high school girls. When I asked him Why he just shook his head, I just couldn't stop.

His skateboard was chipping at the sides and the wheels creaked and shuttered over every railroad tie but he couldn't let it fail him when he jumped into place just in time and caught the tail end of the train, screaming Go Go and the kids shrieked Faster Faster when his body burst open from the force and the blood rained down like a typhoon come to devour everything from here to Culver Creek.

Napper

by Dakota Taylor

11-12-11

Sent From: Kathy Burns M.D

Sent To: Michael Napper

Hello from Dr. Burns office. As of recently I have not been able to reach you via telephone and your attendance has been less than sparse. When I contacted your wife, Darla, she informed me that she has not seen you since our last session. I'm concerned that you haven't been taking your medication regularly because you have not been in to get your prescription re-filled. Your mother will soon file a missing person's report after the 24 hours have passed. Please E-mail me back ASAP.

11-14-11

Sent From: Michael Napper

Sent To: Kathy Burns M.D

Dr. Burns, as of now I can no longer establish contact. You may have heard of my so called "atrocities" but I assure you that my actions were completely justified. The lady was in the parking lot of the abortion clinic and it was very easy to mistake her intentions. Whatever her intentions were, I tell you, mine were pure. I only wanted to keep the baby safe and there was no way I was going to let her kill it. When a mother is unfit to care for her child, she loses the privilege. Rupturing her uterine wall was only collateral damage. But rest your mind Doctor, the child is in safe hands now. Please do not reply to this message.

P. S.

I will stop by your office to get my prescription re-filled. My schedule has been hectic with the case I'm working on. I'm considering changing my profession, being an attorney is too stressful but I would also risk losing the financial security. What is your opinion on this?

Sincerely,

Michael Napper

I did not write the following piece of flash. I read it years ago and I don't remember who the author is. Maybe someone can tell me. 

I'm the guy who crashed into your car in the parking lot. The people watching think I am writing my phone number on this note. They are wrong. 

I never quite understood how to block somebody on Facebook and she was rather annoying to talk to, sad that it took a bullet to shut that little slut the hell up. Always half-naked in photographs, exploiting men twice her age with her birth date hidden. It served her right, and the nude display picture in her parents' bloody deep freezer was a nice finishing touch. Seems silly now, who would of thought being the only one to "like" my work would lead them directly to my front door? 

"I'm looking for my wife's killer, but I can't find anyone to do it." - Not mine, but thought I'd throw it on here.

Scooter Champion

 There is a small boy, too young to have a concept of long division, who rides his scooter on the sidewalks of my apartment complex. I do not know much of the context of his existence outside of the scooter, from which I must constantly pull my dog who is convinced that there must be something unnatural to the smoothly gliding mechanism. His name is Tyler, Erik, or something else appropriately ethnic, corresponding to the pale hue we share, another thing to set him awkwardly apart in the slum where we live.

But I do know him to love his scooter, lightly gripping the handles while guiding it into graceful leaps at all hours of the day. On rare occasions he falls, and on those occasions I have heard him complain to his mother, a slight hint into his home life is that I only see her alone, that he needs pads and after a brief moment where I shared his childhood passion so intensely that I considered going immediately to provide those pads I wondered instead if it would be better for him to go without, and learn the hard lesson of never falling.

In that moment I found myself imagining a future for this boy, scooter champion, doing all the greatest tricks and aerial acrobatics that have not yet been imagined for his machine. I am old enough to have seen skateboarding rise from idle play to multi-million dollar industry, and I hold out hope that those like him will hold on to their passions and see them through to new and unimagined heights. And for him to be a great, to be a pioneer among his peers, he will have to learn the lesson of never falling.

When I was his age it was poetry for me. What I loved was words, and in them I found my ability to smoothly glide forward with the wind at my back. The path, some might say, of least resistance. The place where I could slide unencumbered, be they idle thoughts or no, into a satisfying conclusion, bringing to my own face the sort of wanton smile I see on his when he lands a jump.

I wondered, later, in my own idle time, whether he would keep with it. Would he be a master of his art, obsess over the form, spending years and years riding that scooter in his dreams until the temptation to live out those fantasies becomes too much to resist? Or will he whittle his life away in compromise, living day to day, trying to flee from the things that hurt him and serving the things that threaten him?

When the bills are due and obligations must be fulfilled, when we are angry and alone, it is often too easy to forget about the things that first lit our souls. But life is short, and we will only have this chance to enjoy them.

BUMP

The title works for me. Thanks, I will need all the luck I can get. Some scrappy contenders here. Great thread Chester, I wonder when they will mention this in the Litreactor Recapper :D

Congrats Rennie! Really great story!

Though probably not with this one. This one is dumb.

Alleywar-in-Heaven (and he who mews after)

Meowzemog. Devil in furs, master of the scalpel smile. The blackfur bastard, banned from the-realm-behind-the-bins for cutting in front of Godpuss and eating from the holy take-away carton.

His whiskers fused into horns that night. Now blasphemecats are sworn to the darkness. “Loose,” they cry. “Loose the moggies of war.”

War banners unfurl to show clawed fists crushing the skulls of mice and hounds alike.

The bugle of tortured prey cuts through a silent dusk. Daemonkitties swarm Godpuss' gardens and shit freely. A thousand claws rend each polished surface they encounter. The prisons are thrown open, their biddyguards overpowered. Old ladies sleep alone this night. The crepuscular war-host is risen.

Succupussies lure angelcats into shadows with balls of coloured yarn. Woe at the wails of cat-rape and felinacide. Woe beneath every bedroom window. Each and every victim is sprayed with the scentmark of the beast. It smells like three furry sixes.

Cometh the cusp of victory, at the mouth of the backstreet-in-the-sky. The final battle of the alleywar-in-heaven. Meowzemog looms over Godpuss and pushes a claw-splayed paw into his throat. “The alleys run red with blood, my brother,” he yowls in glutton. He dips his gravelly tongue in the gore, laps up a mouthful and drinks deep. He shudders with purr pleasure. “The last trump is a mating call. The swarms are not of locusts but of fleas. This world curls in front of the fire and dies tonight.”

He hacks and coughs and vomits the seed of a new world. 

Furball-world is a cat’s paradise. The sun never rises and scratching-posts bloom from littersoil. Catnip grows in the moonlight, from the eye sockets of the fallen.

Heh. I agree. Lips are kind of amusing. Disembodied lips even more so. Supposedly cannibals have been known to prize a persons lips and cheeks as a tasty morsel. Something about the thought of eating a man's eating apparatus has a depraved yet poetic beauty to it. Or at least it does if you are as morally bankrupt as we seem to be.