Short and Sweet I

Short &

Sweet

Feedback (good, bad, indifferent, just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com

Synopsis: This is a collection of 25 ficlets and one-shots that are not worth posting by themselves. I’m not sure if they’re worth posting even as a group, but I have no self-respect and I love to bother people, so here they are.

Author’s Notes: The date each story was created is added, but not necessarily the circumstances. Most of these just popped into my head, and an explanation of how each appeared would be longer than the relevant story in most cases. So, forget it.

This tale makes extensive use of a free type font called Jester for the titles and subtitles. This delightful, useful font can be easily acquired from Dafont.com and Urbanfonts.com (again, for free, and without viruses—I checked).

Later, if time allows, I might collect more ficlets and add them to another anthology. Just to be annoying. Enjoy.

Acknowledgements: Each story gets a “thank you” appended to it where appropriate.

FIRST CONTACT

(how “Esteemsters could have ended)

It was difficult to pretend she hated being at the UFO convention being held in Lawndale High’s gymnasium, but freedom soon presented itself. Helen waited until her husband and daughters were occupied with having Daria’s picture taken with the cardboard alien on the other side of the convention floor. Then she sauntered over to the redheaded twenty-something with the geeky smile. Geeky men turned her on like nothing else.

“Hey, Earthman,” she purred as she came up to Artie. “Care to take a ride on the mothership?”

Artie blinked, staring at Helen’s cleavage. “Nice crop circles,” he said.

“Thanks,” she murmured. “Is that a cigar-shaped UFO in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

“It’s no lenticular cloud formation, that’s for sure,” he replied as he looked her over. “You could be Majestic itself, but first we need to get past the cover-up.”

“You’re a skeptic?” Helen asked with a playful smile. “If so, you’re getting a close encounter of the first kind instead of the third.”

“Oh, no!” Artie said quickly. “I’m a hands-on investigator, that’s all.” He smiled. “I give demonstrations of ball lightning, if you’re interested.”

Helen smiled back. “My Area 51’s ready when you are.”

Original: 08/03/07, 04/30/10

WORKING FOR THE MAN

(a tragic crossover)

Things cannot possibly get any worse, Daria mused darkly as she began applying the third coat of paint to the outside of the house. She and Jane had been kidnapped and forced into a life of slavery by the cruelest of cartoon masters.

Just then, their master’s limousine pulled into the driveway, and the chauffeur let him out.

“You bitches can’t do anything right!” yelled Eric Cartman, shaking his chubby fist. “That paint job sucks! And both of you suck, too! It’s a piece of crap! More white! I want it more white, white like your big whale butts, or else you’ll babysit my sister again tonight!” He started off into his mansion, then turned and shouted, “But first, go out and get me a Big Mac Meal, super-sized, and make sure the fries are extra crispy this time! Move it, move it, move it!”

“I hate that little !@$#$%~@$!!!” Jane grumbled when he was gone.

“I thought we were supposed to be sex slaves,” said Daria, descending the ladder with an open paint can.

“He doesn’t know what that is,” said Jane. “Just hope he never finds out.”

“I heard that!” came Eric’s shout from a microphone concealed on Daria’s ladder, causing her to slip and fall the rest of the way to the ground. “I do too know what that is, and you’ve asked for it! You brought this on yourselves! While you bitches are out, bring me the complete collection of all the ‘Girls Gone Wild’ videos! That is all!”

Jane looked down where Daria lay spread-eagle on the ground, covered with white paint.

“You want me to drive, amiga?” Jane called.

Thanks to WacoKid and Roentgen

09/20/05

BUMPED OFF

(a tragic ficlet I thought was really funny)

Daria and Jane looked down at the large messy splotch on the street that appeared after their pet cat ran in front of Daria’s car when she was pulling up to their apartment.

“I guess Bump was a good name for him after all,” Jane remarked.

Thanks to Richard Lobinske

03/06/06

STRAIGHT OUTTA LAWNDALE

(a songfic)

[Talent show night at Lawndale High, in the gymnasium. Kevin Thompson walks out on stage.]

Kevin: You are now about to witness the strength of the Lawndale Lions! And I’m the QB!

[rap music starts; Kevin sings]

Straight outta Lawndale, I’m a QB named Thompson

From the team called Lawndale Lions—you want some?

When the ball’s snapped, and the defense is zapped,

I find me a target and the game is wrapped.

You too, dude, if ya mess with me,

The cheerleaders gonna hafta come and drag me

Off to party, that’s how I celebrate

All of the wins that make me the best in the state.

Oakwood starts to grumble, they wanna rumble,

But when they try to catch me those losers just stumble,

First down on the five, the ten, the twenty,

Then it’s a TD and a kick, it ain’t even funny

How they give up the game, they go down like a ho,

Ain’t no tellin’ when I’m—

[Brittany appears on stage and begins to beat Kevin silly.]

Brittany: You told me you weren’t going to say “ho”!

Thanks to N.W.A. for “Straight Outta Compton”

10/22/08

REJECTION

Daria could scarcely contain her disappointment at the twentieth rejection notice she received for her first novel, and after she stomped up the stairs to her room to sulk, her mother took the time to have a look at the manuscript for the novel, which had been returned with the rejection notice, so it was only then she learned that the novel was a 687-page epic tale of high adventure starring a body louse trying to find its way out of Quinn’s pubic hair.

06/07/05

ONE SECOND BEFORE

One second before she pulled the trigger, I was thinking with some surprise that a small girl like that would even have such a large, heavy handgun, and I was a little miffed in addition that I had wasted all my time printing out my best stories for her when all Daria Morgendorffer was going to do was blow my head off without even talking to me about what I’d written. Then

Thanks to Vlademir1

12/24/06

DARIA REGRETS BEING HONEST WITH JANE ABOUT AN AWKWARD EVENT THAT TOOK PLACE LONG AGO WHEN DARIA TOOK HER FLUTE TO BAND CAMP

“So, your first love was always music?”

“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! I WISH TO GOD I’D NEVER TOLD YOU THAT!”

“I’m just grateful you didn’t play the tuba.”

Thanks to American Pie for the idea

10/05/05

IT COULD HAVE

BEEN WORSE

(how “Ill” could have turned out)

“Soooo,” said Jane, trying to grasp what her friend was saying, “when you thought you had only six months to live, you forced Trent to have sex with you at gunpoint?”

“Yeah,” Daria grumbled, “and now I have every STD in the book.”

Jane shook her head ruefully. “Well,” she said, “it could have been worse. You—”

“The rabbit died,” Daria interrupted.

“Oh.” Jane sighed. “Well, it still could have been worse. You—”

“I made Wind have sex with me, too.”

“Oh. Well—”

“And we’re married.”

“Oh. Well—”

“He’s cheating on me with my sister, and now she’s got all our STDs, too.”

“Oh. Well—”

“And so does my mom.”

“Oh. Well—”

“And they’re pregnant, too.”

Jane stopped talking.

“There’s more,” said Daria.

Jane shook her head, determined not to ask.

“Come on,” Daria said. “Ask.”

Jane crossed her arms and turned away.

“That won’t help,” said Daria. “Ask.”

“Oh, fine,” said Jane. “What—”

“I’m a Republican now.”

“I don’t know you,” said Jane as she left.

Thanks to Prince Charon

05/12/07

THE DAY AFTER

“MY NIGHT AT DARIA’S”

“I forgot the K-Y Jelly,” Tom groaned.

“You idiot!” said Elsie. “I even wrote it down for you!”

Meanwhile...

“He forgot the K-Y Jelly!” Daria groaned.

“That’s funny,” said Jane. “He and I never need—er, hey! Let’s get pizza!”

03/11/07, 04/30/10

MACK AND JANE,

WITH SQUIRREL

(a sequel to “Nuthouse”)

[Mack and Jane walk through a park in Lawndale together, hand in hand.]

MACK: I’m glad I found you. I’ve always had an interest in art.

JANE: And I’ve always had an interest in athletics. [grabs Mack by one buttock and squeezes]

MACK: Um, yeah, I realize that now.

JANE: You wanna find someplace to practice those pushups again?

MACK: Jane, for God’s sake, we’re out in the middle of—

JANE: [points] Oh! Look! A squirrel with a gun! I have to get my camera! [runs off]

MACK: Jeez, not again.

SQUIRREL: [runs up and aims a miniature gun at Mack] Freeze, human! You are my prisoner! Lower your tail and—

MACK: Right. [kicks the squirrel 75 yards for a field goal]

JANE: [runs back with camera] Damn it! I was all ready to take a picture of that squirrel! This is just like the time Tom ate my art project! That’s it. I’m out of here. [leaves]

MACK: [sighs] Good thing I still have Quinn’s phone number.

Thanks to Crusading Saint

01/19/03

TOGETHER AGAIN

Daria Morgendorffer drank too much at the frat house party the weekend before finals, and she ended up where she always did on a Saturday night at Raft University about 2 a.m.: vomiting in the street outside the frat house on her hands and knees, wearing a sweater but no pants and only one boot. It was while she was feeling around for her glasses, crawling through the pool of vomit on her hands and knees while trying to push her clotted hair out of her face, that she discovered a blurry pair of fine black leather shoes on the road before her. She stared at them, thinking hard but coming up with nothing in her train wreck of thought except the assurance that the shoes were in all probability not her glasses. The voice of the owner of the shoes, however, managed to bring her to a higher state of consciousness in short order.

“Daria?” said the shoes’ owner in horror. “Is that you?”

“Tom?” she gasped. Then she threw up all over his leather shoes.

05/07/09

OH JOY,

OH RAPTURE

UNFORESEEN

“Attention, students and faculty!” blared the intercom system with Principal Li’s unmistakable voice. Daria sighed and glanced up from her history test, as did most of the others in Mr. DeMartino’s classroom. “I have a special announcement,” Ms. Li continued. “It appears from many news reports we are receiving around the world that the Rapture has occurred, and millions of Christians have suddenly disappeared.”

Ms. Li coughed, then added, “No one from Lawndale seems to have been affected. In an unrelated matter, anyone wishing to continue eating lunch at school or buying supplies from the bookstore must have a number tattooed on their forehead. You may continue with your studies. Go Laaawndale High!”

05/08/09

INNOCENCE

Ashley-Amber Taylor surveyed her husband’s blood-spattered study with a grim face. This will take forever to clean up, she thought. Damned if I’m going to do it. That little rascal’s gone too far this time. She shook her head and went upstairs to the children’s rooms. There she knocked on her adolescent stepson’s door until the deafening death-metal music was turned down.

“Brian, I want to speak to you!” she called at the door. “Come out now, young man!”

After a moment, a sullen, blond-headed boy opened the door with a baleful glare. He was such a handsome child it was hard to be angry with him for long.

“Brian, Brian, Brian,” said Ashley-Amber with a sigh. “You’ve got your father’s eyes.”

They stared at each other for a moment more before Ashley-Amber put out her hand, palm up, and said, “Give them to me.”

05/05/09

VISITING HOURS

Just before noon on a dry sunny Saturday in mid-August, a young woman parked a white Porsche coupe to the side of a one-lane cemetery road, in the shade of a lopsided birch that had lost most of its limbs to an ice storm the year before. She glanced about at the rolling green landscape, dotted with gravestones, then adjusted the rearview mirror to fix her makeup. That done, she left her purse on the floor of the passenger side, put up the convertible’s top, got out, shut the door with the windows down, then walked to the rear of the car.

She was dressed comfortably for a hot day, and fashionably too: loose white bellbottoms and jacket, silk turquoise blouse, a colorful silk scarf from India, a wide-brimmed sun hat, Gucci sunglasses, Jimmy Choo sandals. From the trunk she took an aluminum folding chair and a woven carryall tote bag, then shut the lid and thumbed the electronic lock on her key ring.

After a last panoramic look at the deserted grounds, she left the road and began walking across brown grassy stubble between the rows of tombstones and markers. She did not walk over the graves themselves, following instead a little path between the graves and the backs of the next row of monuments. Her gaze moved back and forth, searching for a pair of clasped stone hands on the left, then a tall black granite marker on the right, then a small, rose marble headstone near the middle of the large, rolling field. When she spied the pink stone, she slowed her pace until she stopped short of the grave itself. She raised the sunglasses to perch on top of her head, then gazed down at the headstone’s smooth, chiseled face.

QUINN ANNE MORGENDORFFER

APRIL 15, 1983—AUGUST 23, 2000

Her brown-eyed gaze dropped to the final line.

BELOVED BY ALL

A long minute passed. She put down the tote bag, opened the folding chair and sat it next to the headstone, then began a visual inspection of the grave itself, walking slowly around its perimeter. As she examined the grave her mouth became a tight line. Her turquoise sandals prodded seeding dandelions, trod parched clumps of dying grass, scuffed dust from patches of bare hard soil. When she reached the headstone again, her right hand reached out. Soft fingertips touched the cool marble top. She swallowed. Her eyes closed as she bowed her head.

There was a long pause before her lips moved to form three silent words.

Her eyes opened a while later. Thin fingers slid along the top of the stone, then fell away. She wiped her eyes, then walked around to the folding chair and took a seat, moving so she faced in the same direction as the headstone. The stone was next to her shoulder.

She bent over and opened the woven tote bag at her feet. From its depths she removed a broad-bottomed vase holding a dozen cut roses, each a brilliant pink. This she placed in front of the headstone. Next she withdrew a single photograph showing two teenage girls smiling at the camera, shoulder to shoulder, arms around each other’s waist. One girl had long orange-red hair and a pink tee, the other long brunette hair and a baby-blue tee. The second girl’s hair was the same color as the young woman’s, though her face was years younger. The photograph came to rest on the dry ground in front of the roses.

The last thing the young woman withdrew from the carryall was a magazine. The glossy cover showed several teenage girls modeling current fashions under a script logo that read Waif. The young woman gave the grave and tombstone a sad look for half a minute, barely breathing. She then settled back in the lawn chair, put her Gucci sunglasses back on her nose, and opened the magazine to read, alone in the quiet of the August sun.

05/05/09

VISITING HOURS

REDUX

Just before noon on a dry sunny Saturday in mid-August, a young woman parked a white Porsche coupe to the side of a one-lane cemetery road, in the shade of a lopsided birch that had lost most of its limbs to an ice storm the year before. She glanced about at the rolling green landscape, dotted with gravestones, then adjusted the rear view mirror to fix her makeup. That done, she left her purse on the floor of the passenger side, put up the convertible’s top, got out, shut the door with the windows down, then walked to the rear of the car.

QUINN ANNE MORGENDORFFER

APRIL 15, 1983—AUGUST 23, 2000

Her brown eyes read the final line.

BELOVED BY ALL

She put down the tote bag, opened the folding chair and placed it next to the headstone, then took a seat. She reached down and from the depths of the tote bag removed a Hollywood gossip magazine, then settled back in the lawn chair. She did not open the magazine right away. Instead, she relaxed and closed her eyes, and remembered the muffled thumps, the faint mad screams, the scratching of fingernails at the lid of the coffin below the freshly turned soil. It had continued for hours and hours and hours....

...ten years ago.

With a contented smile Sandi Griffin opened her eyes, put her Gucci sunglasses back on her nose, and opened the magazine to read, alone in the quiet afternoon below the August sun.

05/05/09

THE MAN

(how “The Misery Chick” could have ended)

“You know what Tommy Sherman’s going to do now?” he sneered, pushing away from the lockers. “He’s going to go out onto the field and check out his new goal post. He’s going to read the plaque and think of all the people who admire him. But you wouldn’t know anything about that. You’re one of those misery chicks, always moping about what a cruel world it is, making a big deal about it so people won’t notice that you’re a loser.”

He strode away in disgust. Little four-eyed geek, dissing The Man. Well, forget her. He went out to the gridiron and checked out the new goal post, exactly as he said he would. He looked at the plaque. He thought of everyone who admired him. It did a world of good. He was Tommy Sherman, the hero of Lawndale High. No one would ever take that from him.

A few weeks later he became a security guard after failing to pass the entrance exams for the police. He changed jobs a few times, then got on at Boston’s Logan Airport. In September, four years after his triumphant return to Lawndale High, he challenged a group of Arabic-looking young men entering the airport, thinking there was something odd about then, and got into a fight. Though wounded, he took down three of them and alerted the police. The newspapers credited him with preventing two hijackings that would have destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City. Another hijacked plane hit the Pentagon, another crashed, but they were from a different airport. Tommy had stopped the Logan hijackings cold and saved tens of thousands of lives.

He went back to Lawndale High the year after that, wearing his Medal of Freedom and a button that read I ♥ NY, and he spoke at the graduation ceremony. They renamed the high school for him when his speech was done. He was getting drunk in his hotel room that evening when who should come by but the misery chick. She apologized to him for everything she’d said to him years earlier. He barely remembered her, but he invited her in anyway. She was already drunk. He knew why she had come by alone and plastered. He was right. As apologies went it was satisfactory, though she threw up in the bathroom later.

This is the life, he thought as he lay in bed and listened to the misery chick puke in the bathroom and cry. This is what it’s all about, the good life. He let the misery chick get cleaned up and dressed before he threw her out, then he got the best night of sleep he had ever had.

The next day it was on to Chicago to give another speech. He forgot the misery chick. She was a loser. And Tommy was The Man.

04/30/09

DARIA’S THOUGHTS ON

THE MORNING AFTER

(a Daria/Trent ficlet)

Was it good for him? Should I have been more active? Is he mad because I hit him in the eye with my elbow? Was he thinking of Monique? How did I look to him with my clothes off? Does he think my body isn’t attractive and that’s why he wanted the lights out, or was it harder to imagine I was Monique with the lights on? Or, did he mind that I wanted the lights off and didn’t want him to see me nude? What’s wrong with saying “nude” instead of “naked”? Is he going to tell Jane? Am I going to tell Jane? What was it that Jane wanted to tell me about what Trent likes, and what would ever possess Trent to tell her this? If Trent tells Jane the pet name he called me when we were doing it, which one of them will I kill first? Is Trent going to fight with me like he did with Monique every time after they went out? Why can’t I stop comparing myself to Monique? Do I really know for sure I’m not pregnant? Do I care? Does he want to get married? Do I? What will our kids look like? How many should we have? Will they have his hair and eyes or my hair and eyes? What names should I pick out? Why am I thinking about this? Was Quinn doing this years and years ago? Why am I doing it only now?

Thanks to Ruthless Bunny and the old Scorched Remnants MB

01/04/03

AND TWIST IT

“Stacy is looking fashionably thin, don’t you think?” said Sandi at the outset of the Fashion Club’s very last meeting. She gave the white-faced Stacy a crooked smile and added, “Was it that new diet you were trying, or because you lost the baby?”

04/27/09

JANE’D

“It’s not just that they named a cool magazine after me,” said Jane as she and Daria walked to school. “They just released that movie, G.I. Jane, and there’s talk about making another film in a few years called Becoming Jane, and that band, Jane’s Addiction, and that airplane and space compendium, Jane’s, and Janesville, Wisconsin, and Jane’s Intelligence Review, and any woman without an identity is a Jane Doe, and now there’s even a dinosaur in Rockford, Illinois, named Jane.”

“What’s your point?”

“There wasn’t any point. I was just wallowing in it.”

“I know of a new use for that name, too.”

“What?”

“Go jane yourself.”

10/01/07

THE BROTHER GRIM

(a poetic epitaph for the great BG, who is thankfully still with us

because this was only for a contest on SFMB)

Brother Grimace is gone, yeah, the Brother’s hell bound,

He got caught in a crossfire, laid him in the ground,

And they said he was dead, but all the messengers erred,

‘Cause the Grimace never dies—never dies, mon cher—oh,

[chorus]

He’s grim, Brother Grimace

Like Shadrack in the furnace,

Like “Victory Lane,” Big Brother in earnest,

Hey, it’s all about respect, it’s

Terror, angst, and sorrow, it’s

All about the sun never coming out tomorrow, it’s

All of the winters of those

Gone before, don’t you see, it’s

The 3-D chess of the Devil, B.G.

He’s cruising the Inferno in a ‘69 Chevy

Corvette Stingray, flame red, top-heavy

With three succubi vampire cheerleader groupies

In the passenger seat, buck naked, making whoopee

With each other when they’re not shooting full-auto guns

Out the window, drinking wine, just having some fun

While he cruises through the hellfire, nodding to the beat

Of the damned and the demons and the dead in the streets

Of the city where the Devil used to lay around rich

Till the Grimace walked in and made the Devil his bitch,

In the wasteland Satan called his Home Sweet Home

Till the Brother took it over and he made it his own—oh,

[chorus]

He’s grim, Brother Grimace

Like Shadrack in the furnace,

Like “Victory Lane,” Big Brother in earnest,

He knows it’s all about respect, it’s

Terror, angst, and sorrow, it’s

All about the sun never coming out tomorrow, it’s

All the winters of those

Gone before, don’t you see, it’s

The 3-D chess of the Devil, B.G.

And the kid who pulled the trigger doing Big Brother wrong

Is gonna wake up in a nightmare in a place he don’t belong

In the clutches of the new Lord of Darkness and Fire

Who will laugh as he listens to the screams growing higher

As the Grimace works his art on a canvas of gore

And the succubi fight for the scraps on the floor—oh,

[chorus]

He’s grim, Brother Grimace

Like Shadrack in the furnace,

Like “Victory Lane,” Big Brother in earnest,

He knows it’s all about respect, it’s

Terror, angst, and sorrow, it’s

All about the sun never coming out tomorrow, it’s

All the winters of those

Gone before, don’t you see, it’s

The 3-D chess of the Devil, B.G.

Thanks to Kaime Lithler (“The Dead Roll Call”), and of course to Brother Grimace for being so understanding

10/21/05

THE BIG BLUE GUY

FROM THE LITTLE

BRASS LAMP

“. . . and the big blue guy from the lamp said he’d give me one special ability, like a superpower! Isn’t that great, Mack Daddy?”

Mack sighed as he closed his gym locker and turned to Kevin. “Great, Kev, that’s just great, but I’ve told you not to call me that.”

“Don’t you want to know what my superpower is? It’s so cool!”

Get it over with. “Sure. What kind of superpower did the genie give you?”

Kevin was practically dancing in excitement. “He said that if I ever wanted to destroy the whole world, just make it blow up like the biggest thing ever, all I had to do was say, ‘Finisimo!’ and two seconds later, it

04/25/08

STALKED!

(a self-insert ficlet)

Sitting together on the edge of Daria’s bed, Daria and Jane huddled over a sheet of notebook paper covered with words and letters cut from newspapers and pasted together to form a message.

Dere Darea & yor frend Jane,

i saw yr persunl adds in the Sunherald & wish 2 send u sum dirty storys an pix as u askd. the storys & pix r very distubing & even prevrted & i did not copiy thm from last months Pander magzine letters colum, promis. i am over 30, replsive, dirty & pour plus moraly irredme irideemb irrredim not going 2 get any bettr. Pleez writ bak soon but donot tell VP Dick Cheney wher i am, he wants 2 steel my shopng cart. if u donot go out w me, u wil be sorrry, i will touche mysef in yr sock drawr (upchuk showed me wher it was). do u like pengins? i hav a used onne we can shar.

hope 2 here from u soon, i am n yr bushs undr yr window wating 4 yr answr

yrs 4evr

XXXXXXXX

tag

ps do not tell trent 2 shoot me agan, i lost 2 much blud last time

“So, whaddya think?” asked Jane.

Daria sighed as she folded up the letter. “Same as before,” she said.

“Right.” Jane got up, went to the bedroom window, and shouted, “SHOOT HIM, TRENT!”

A rifle shot echoed across the neighborhood, followed by a “Damn!” and the thump of a body hitting the ground under Daria’s window.

“There’s got to be an easier way to get a boyfriend,” said Jane on her way back.

“Maybe,” said Daria. “Let’s go to the Zon and see if there’s some rich kid slumming around that we can fight over.”

“Done,” said Jane, and they left the house in high spirits.

07/13/07

AFTER-HOMESCHOOL

ACTIVITIES

(an alternate universe tale)

“Daria, want to be part of my new club?”

“What new club?”

“I’m starting a fashion club!”

“Quinn, did you smoke your lunch or drink it?”

“DAH-ria! Come on! There’s nothing else to do around here with Mom homeschooling us like this! It’s worse than torture! It’s against the Godiva Conventions!”

“All right. I’ll be in your fashion club, but you have to be my cynical friend for an hour every day and watch bad movies with me.”

“Forget it. Dad? DAAAD!!! You want to be in a club with me?”

Thanks to jak981125 for the idea

10/19/06

LEFT FOR DEAD

(an original songfic)

The blonde girl in the bomber jacket tuned the old Gibson at the microphone before the lights came up, half listening to the cat calls from the audience as she waited for the rest of the band to signal readiness. Andrea adjusted her seat at the drums, redheaded Kelly plucked a few notes on her bass guitar and fell silent, Trent lifted his head from the mixing board at the back of the room and gave a thumb’s up. She gave a last look around and nodded to the lights man. The sudden brightness in her face made her blink and washed out the rest of the room. It kept her from seeing the audience, a definite advantage this night. The noise around her fell but did not end. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Go, Jenny!”

“Thanks, and welcome to McGrundy’s,” she said into the microphone, her voice rough from cigarettes. Cheers broke out with scattered applause. It was nice to hear. “It’s Thursday night again,” she said, “Showcase Night, and we’re Gorgon’s Breath.”

She hit the opening chords right in time with Andrea’s drums and Kelly’s bass. Her slim fingers ran up and down the neck of the guitar, laying down the bluesy rhythm that rolled through the smoky room in waves. When it was time she lifted her head and put her lips to the mike.

If there’s a hell for men like you, then baby you’ve got the throne,

You’ll be there sittin’ on the summit of a mountain of bone,

You’ll have my heart for your cushion and a robe from my skin

And my curses carved upon you with a dagger black as sin.

Andrea and Kelly joined in.

From the very beginning, you were messing with my head,

You drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

You drank my tears and my sweat and my blood warm and red,

Drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

Jennifer’s fingers worked the old Gibson through a voiceless stanza, then she was at the mike and singing alone.

Every day I swore I’d quit you, swore this time I’d be strong,

But every night I let you touch me though I knew it was wrong,

Every time I tried to stand I found myself on my back

And begging for your lovin’ like a crazed maniac.

Then all sang.

From the very beginning, you were messing with my head,

You drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

You drank my tears and my sweat and my blood warm and red,

Drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

Jennifer played a longer riff, showing off a little to the audience’s delight, then the music came around and she was at the mike again.

I prayed to God to let me wake up all alone in the dawn,

I thought I’d finally be free when I was sure you were gone,

But when you left me on that morning you left nothing behind

Except the shell of a ghost on which the devil had dined.

Then all:

From the very beginning, you were messing with my head,

You drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

You drank my tears and my sweat and my blood warm and red,

Drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead

You drank me dry as a desert, then you left me for dead.

The cheering came up as they went through the ending chords. It was going to be a good night, Jennifer could feel it in her bones. It would be a good night once again.

Thanks to LSauchelli

09/18/09, 04/30/10

EMERGENCY RUN

“Daria!” screamed Jane Lane, running from the high school and waving her arms. “Help me!”

Daria stared wide-eyed at her friend. “What’s wrong?”

“DeMartino’s on a rampage!” yelled Jane. “He flipped out at his fiftieth birthday party and stole a twenty-ton bulldozer and a bear from the zoo, and now he’s heading for the high school with O’Neill and Barch tied to the front of the bulldozer and the bear’s in the seat beside him, chewing on Kevin Thompson’s left arm!”

“Oh, no! What can I do?”

“You can go to the store and get more film! My camera’s almost out!”

Thanks to Decelaraptor, wherever you are

08/31/04, 05/01/10, 05/28/10

FINIS