Thursday, September 7, 2017

Story 202: You Shouldn’t Have Thrown That Thing Out



            After finally moving into his new home, he saw that the previous owner had left behind a lot of garbage.  He knew that it was all garbage because the items were tucked in back of pieces of furniture and had layers of dust on them, so he had absolutely no qualms in renting a dumpster and tossing out the whole kit and caboodle.
            He only paused when he found one item on a shelf in the laundry room: it was an oddly shaped piece of plastic with several slots, and he could not for the life of him figure out what it possibly could be for.  Did it fall off the washing machine?  Was it once part of the gutters?  He did not feel like searching for images of it online so he tossed it into the dumpster with the rest of the remnants and thought no more about it until….

ONE MONTH LATER

            He opened his front door to see the previous owner was the one who had been knocking.  “What’s up?” he asked, territorially learning on what was now his door.
            “Hi, sorry to bother you,” the previous owner said with nervous sweat on his brow, “I just wanted to check: after you moved in, did you happen to notice an oddly shaped piece of plastic left behind?  It would have been in the laundry room.”
            “Nope.”
            “You sure?  It wasn’t that big, and it had several slots in it.”
            “Didn’t see anything like that.  There was a lot of junk left here, you know.”
            “Oh, OK.  Well, if you do see it, here’s my number – ” the previous owner handed him a slip of paper, “you can call me at any time.  I’m serious: any time.”
            He snatched the paper a bit roughly.  “Sure, fine, whatever.”
            The previous owner sweated a bit more.  “It’s just that, it’s a bit important – it’s possible that someone else may come by here asking about it – ”
           “Sure, OK, bye!”  He almost slammed the door in the previous owner’s face before tossing the piece of paper into the garbage: that guy was such a creep at closing, why was he still not out of his life yet?

ONE WEEK LATER

            He opened his front door to see three strangers were the ones who had been knocking.
            Oh boy, my first solicitors, he thought when he saw them.
           All three were smiling as the one in the middle spoke.  “Hello.  We understand you moved in recently.”
            “Who wants to know?”  He territorially leaned again.
            “We do know,” the leader said.  “We also know that there is a piece of plastic that the previous owner of this residence had left behind.”
            “Ugh, that again?”  He was getting very irritated with all this – what was everyone going on about all the time?  “I told him and I’ll tell you: I didn’t see it, and bye.”  He started to almost slam the door in their faces but the leader stuck her foot in the doorway to stop it.
            “I certainly hope you haven’t thrown that item out.  It was oddly shaped and had several slots in it.”  The smiles were becoming very strained.
            I didn’t – oh.”  He finally remembered the thing.
            “Please tell us that you didn’t throw it out.”  The leader now was starting the nervous sweat.
            He ran through his options and decided that the best was to stick with his story: “Didn’t see it, bye!”  He managed to push her foot away so he could slam and lock the door, throwing his back against it.
            He could hear the leader wail and bang the door with her fists: “You fool!  You’ve doomed us all!”
            He peeped through the peephole – making a mental note to get a screen door to avoid these situations in the future – and saw the three dejectedly walk to their waiting taxi.  In the rain.
           He checked the news over the next few weeks for mention of the previous owner and/or three suspicious people, but nothing.  The last he ever saw about the issue was a note tucked into his front door that read: “YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE THROWN THAT ITEM AWAY, INHABITANT.”
          Since his own life going forward seemingly was unaffected by all this, he concluded that some momentous conspiracies are best left unknown and unsolved.

Thursday, August 31, 2017

Story 201: I Want to Live Life Like That Puppet Does



            “You got a minute?  I need to vent,” Co-Worker 1 said to Co-Worker 2 as she stuck her head in the latter’s cubicle.
            “Uh, not really,” Co-Worker 2 said, half-turning away from her computer.  “I really have to finish this report now, since it’s due about two days ago.”
            “Know the feeling,” Co-Worker said as she dragged a chair in and slumped onto it.
            “OK, then I’ll just….” Co-Worker 2 turned back to her screen and started typing again.
            “Sure, I just need to complain.”
          “Oh brother, what now?”  Co-Worker 2 asked, not bothering to turn around.  “Did your favorite show morph into an alternate-reality version of itself this season and you have no one else to whine to about how disappointed you are in it?  Again?”
        “You would have made an excellent point, except it’s not my favorite show.”  Co-Worker 1 propped her feet up on the desk, where Co-Worker 2 could see her shoes were in dire need of resoling.  “No, I’m just mad about my attitude.”
            “So am I.”
            “I mean my attitude towards life.  I let everything bother me!”
            “Well, I’m sure you have a lot on your mind.”  Type-type-type.
           “I actually don’t, and that’s part of the problem,” Co-Worker 1 said as she noisily slurped her coffee.  “I’m surrounded by the small stuff, and the small stuff is driving me bonkers!”
          “You want some big stuff, then?  I got some dependent relatives I’m willing to off-load on you, heh-heh-heh – I don’t mean that.”
            Co-Worker 1 felt it was best to keep going.  “I just wish, I don’t know – I wish I could live my life the way that weird puppet does!”
         Co-Worker 2 actually turned to look at Co-Worker 1 again.  “The weird puppet that nobody knows what he is exactly?”
            “Yeah, that guy!  He’s the best.”
            “I don’t understand; he’s a piece of cloth.”
          “I’m not talking about that, of course he’s a piece of cloth – I’m talking about the way they write him!”  This got Co-Worker 1 to take her feet off the desk and sit like a human being.  “I mean, he endures mostly self-inflicted life-threatening ordeals, he occasionally gets kidnapped and tortured, and he LOVES it!”
            “Kidnapped and…?”
        Co-Worker 1 did not hear that as she warmed to her topic: “He’s always open to new experiences; he’s undaunted by failures; he just lives life with such a passion that I will never ever have!”
            “Isn’t he a Whosit?”
            “He’s not like the rest of us, but nobody cares.  And possibly because of that, he is completely non-judgemental!  He is the perfect being!”
            “He also is a being who was made up by puppeteers.”
          “You’re not listening; I know all that, I’m not some nut!”  Co-Worker 1 almost flung her coffee out of the cup in wild gesticulation, then reined in herself.    “I’m just saying I wish I could be that positive, that open-minded, that adventurous, that… happy.”
          “So just be all those things and leave me alone – my supervisor sent me an e-mail for me to see him now about my late report, so I’m probably going to be fired.”
         “See!  If you were that puppet, you’d be thrilled to find out what’s going to happen next!  I think he was actually fired once, and he totally rolled with it!”
        “Bye.”  Co-Worker 2 left the cubicle and walked towards what may be her doom, but more likely would only be a shame session.
         Co-Worker 1 stayed behind for a few moments, staring at her coffee and thinking how unfair life was: of all the things to wish for, she was depressed knowing how much she wanted just one ounce of the positivity that had been bestowed upon a flippin’ puppet.

Thursday, August 24, 2017

Story 200: Neverending Encores

            On closing night, the cast members of the regional theater company were beyond thrilled when they heard “Encore!  Encore!” after taking their bows.  They had worked so hard on this show for weeks, and it always was bittersweet saying good-bye when it was all over.
            “All right!”  The dance captain corralled the cast as the director and stage manager signaled the lighting booth to reset, the orchestra to take it from the top of the finale, and the dry ice gal to fire up the machine again.
            Running on the euphoria, the cast members sang their hearts out and danced their feet off in an almost-exact duplicate of the number they had just performed.  Flushed with the exertion, they took their bows again in triumph as the cymbals deafeningly crashed in conclusion.
            “Encore!  Encore!”
           Starting to feel short of breath, the dance captain looked to the director, who signaled everyone to take their places and go through it again.
            The dance captain hissed to the director off-stage: “Most of us can do it, but the ones I stuck on the ends are about to pass out and we’re all choking on the dry ice!”
            “I’m sorry, but we need to keep the audience happy – they’re the ones who’ll keep buying the tickets!”  And that was that.
            Another run-through, and even the veteran dancers were winded as they bowed to the floor.
            “Encore!  Encore!”
            “You want another one?!”  The director maniacally asked the audience.
            The dance captain’s “Nooooooo!!!!!!” was drowned out by a voice in the audience shouting “YESSSS!!!!”
            Half the orchestra left in protest so there was minimal musical accompaniment that failed to conceal the wheezing, stumbling, and mumbled cursing as the cast members tripped their out-of-breath way through the finale for the fourth time.
            “Encore!  Encore!”
          “WHO SAID THAT?!”  The dance captain squinted into the darkness: the lone lighting operator at that point turned on the houselights to show that there was only one person sitting in the audience – everyone else had left or been waiting for the cast to come out to the lobby for quite some time.
            “Encore!”  The man in the audience cheered again.
            One of the supporting players in the back came forward: “Dad!  What are you doing?!”
            “I’m just so proud of you, son – I’ve never been to a play before, isn’t ‘Encore!’ what you’re supposed to say at these things?”
            The rest of the cast collapsed on stage as the director said, “I’m glad you enjoyed the show, sir.  We’re just going to head backstage now, if you want to wait in the lobby for your son.”
            “All right, but if you all leave then who’s going to encore?”