Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Foiled Again
Monday, April 6th, 2009
The red Honda cut in front of him. Charles hit the brake, afraid he’d be rear-ended. “Hope your car flies straight to the dump,” he shouted, face suddenly bright red. Immediately, dark gray leathery wings unfurled, the Accord lurched into the air, and flapped heavily away. “Holy shit!” Charles heard screeching brakes and his car slammed into the space previously occupied by the Accord. “Not again!” He put his face in his hands.
No one mentioned the wings, and the police officer eventually wrote “unknown” for the cause of the accident.
That night, watching The Daily Show, Charles suddenly remembered the curse. Maybe he could get his car fixed the same way! “May all damage to my car be inexplicably repaired overnight,” he declared aloud.
At 6 a.m. he looked out the window, but he couldn’t see his car. A telephone pole was in the way. “Damn!” He ran downstairs and out the front door. The cumulative effects of 11 years of urban driving were all too obvious. Maybe he had imagined the day before. Everything except being rear-ended in traffic. Again.
He took the subway, got to work at 7:59, and found an inbox full of forms. “I wish these forms were all taken care of,” he muttered.
“What?” Lisa asked from the next cubicle.
“I wish it was still the weekend,” he said.
“Hear ya.”
He wished for a lot of things throughout the day. Little things (his can of soda magically refilled), big things (a promotion), generous things (an end to war in the Middle East). Far as he could tell, none of the wishes were granted. About 2:30 in the afternoon Mr. Gordon came by and dropped 8 inches of forms on his desk.
“Evangeline is going on a cruise. You’ll be doing her work as well as yours for the next two weeks.”
“Yes sir,” was what he said out loud, but not what he muttered under his breath. When Mr. Gordon got back to his office he went in and shut the door. A moment later he ran out screaming, surrounded by a cloud of furious hornets.
That was when Charles understood that wishes were different from curses.
Charles thought long and hard about world peace. Then he pronounced a long and complicated curse on weapons.
Too bad he couldn’t change human nature.
World War III was fought with rocks and sharpened sticks.
The end
Trash Golem
Friday, April 3rd, 2009
When I woke for the first time I had a little trouble focusing, since my eyes seemed to be made of burned-out light bulbs. Soon enough, things began to come clear, and I found I was slumped in the corner of a weedy dirt lot between two shabby row houses. Crouched in front of me was a grubby little Rabbi.
“I know what you’re thinking,” said the Rabbi. “You’re thinking, ‘Where am I? Who am I? Who is this disreputable person in front of me? Why do I have light bulbs for eyes?’ Don’t worry. It’ll all make sense soon when I turn you loose on my enemies.”
“Something smells bad,” I said.
“Smells bad? Smells bad? Never mind that, you have a job to do. You know what you are? You’re a trash golem. I didn’t have the clay and things they usually use, so I asked myself what we have a lot of here in this city, and I said ‘Trash!’ Of trash, we have plenty. Now, you’ll need instructions.”
I heaved myself to my feet, one of which was a dishwasher and the other of which was part of a rusted-out old street sweeper, with the brushes still on. I shuffled in the dirt, trying out the brushes. It kicked up a lot of dust on the Rabbi, who coughed.
“For crying out loud, never do that,” said the Rabbi. “Are you ready for your instructions?”
“I’m ready,” I said, although I didn’t know if I was or not.
“All right. So, you’re a trash golem. Why trash? It’s ironic! Listen, all these people around you, in all these houses, with their rich families, they make more trash than you could imagine. They’ll bury the world in that trash, so I want you to go and destroy them.”
“The children too?”
“Well, not the children, but everyone else.”
“The parents, but not the children?”
“What are you, a conversation golem? OK, you’re right, not the parents with the children.”
“Young couples?”
“You’re giving me a pain, you know. Right here in my neck. OK, they’re sweet, they’re happy, they’re in love, I get it. So no, not the young couples.”
“So just the people on their own?”
The Rabbi sighed heavily, and I went over and put my lawnmower gently on his shoulder.
“All right, I admit it: the whole thing about the enemies with the trash, I made that up. It wasn’t even a very good lie.”
“You’re just lonely?”
The Rabbi kicked an old tin can across the lot. “Well,” he finally said, “do you play chess? We could go to the park and play chess.”
I followed the Rabbi out of the lot and along the river toward the park. The sun glinted on my metal parts and warmed my rusty parts, and I thought longingly of destroying someone.