Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Incomplete short stories

Story 1:  The Animator.
 

Sunlight slowly emerged from the canopy of clouds outside the airplane window, giving mounds of vaporous fluff a golden hue.  The shapes in the mist reminded me of famous cartoon characters.
The visage of Blaster Bunny reminded me of my recent job offer.  I dug it out of my carryon bag, re-reading it once again.


Story 2:  Animal Crossing.


"I've seen your Youtube videos.  If anyone can find the answer to this thing, it would be you."
She handed me a game card for the Nintendo Switch.  Googly Goose World.
"I'm familiar with the title," I said dryly.  "I've posted about a hundred tutorials on it.  Want anything in particular?"
Looking dead serious, the woman said, "The location of five million dollars."
I stared, blinking like a toad.  "For starters, the game's economy is—"
"Moonlight gems," she groaned.  "I know."
"I'm...not following you."
She let out a heavy sigh.  "My husband gave the coordinates to a video game character.  He wrote a letter to one of those little bears, in the game itself.  He said I'd never find it.  I want to prove him wrong."
"Ma'am, I don't know what you expect from me.  Those letters, you have to talk to the...bears more than a hundred times to get them to show you just one of them."
"Can't you...do your thing  and unpack the code or something?"
"Um...it's not quite that simple."
"How much?"
"How much what?"
"How much can I pay you to do this for me?"
"Well..."
(I thought this was a great idea, but a story about a guy playing Animal Crossing really isn't that exciting.  It's not like anyone is going to die).


Stoiy 3: Commander Pickles


(I didn't finish this one because it didn't fit the contest I was supposed to write for.  It was supposed to be a story about making history, not making a historical footnote.)
I was in first grade when Commander Pickles blew his brains out on live national TV.
They'd canceled my school because of a blizzard.  All alone in my parents' house, I watched the man draw a Smith and Wesson from his voluminous pockets, sticking it into his mouth.
I'd been peeling an orange with a steak knife at the time.  When the gun went off, I cut my finger.
Honestly, they should have stopped rolling the cameras the moment his meltdown began.  You could kinda tell something was off when he tripped over something in front of Haywire's handless clock.  He came up with sweat beading on his fat face, hands shaking as he gripped the side of Doctor Gizmo's multicolored Inventron for support.
Commander Pickles wasn't even supposed to be in Magic Land.  He used to steadfastly exist in the humdrum realm of 1716 Bell Street, to teach kids the ironclad division between reality and fantasy, but somewhere along the tenth and untimely final season, the Commander's picnic basket lost a couple sandwiches.
"Hey," he gasped as he stared at the camera.  "What's the dill, pickle?"
He paused after this, as if listening to me or some other viewer talking back.  "Oh fuck, man!  Sorry to hear that!"
Oddly pessimistic of the man, what if some kid were having a birthday?...And he cussed!
"I'm not doing too well myself."


Story 4:  Ratatat  (Not the same character).


I found a book called Ratatat in a thrift store.  It was about a brown fuzzy rodent who helped people.  Worked and slept in an office.  He was always typing on an Old Royal, hence the name.
What he helped people with, that was the strange part.  Honestly, I don't even know how it got published.
The first chapter has a young homeless man who stubbornly holds his breath waiting for a big art job.  Every day he sits on the corner of an overpass, drawing and painting in the freezing cold instead of learning a valuable lesson about taking a normal job in order to "support his habit."  Ratatat appears out of an icy fog to give him an easy out.  He only has to paint a door on the canvas and he's stepping into the magical land of Furton, where he's a successful painter...and also a humanoid squirrel.
Then there was the story about the lady who didn't want to have kids, but had one anyway.  Her boyfriend had tricked her, so she ended up pregnant and unhappy.  Instead of working through the conflict, Ratatat shows up at the hospital and takes her, baby-less, to Furton.
(I couldn't figure out where to go with this).

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