Breakfast

Marketing a breakfast cereal to bigots was always going to be a controversial thing, there was no getting around that. Nonetheless, when Special KKK hit the shelves, I don’t think anyone was particularly surprised.

Sickened? Perhaps. Saddened? Almost certainly. But surprised? No, absolutely not.

That’s how capitalism works, after all. Bigots exist, they’re out there in the world, they eat breakfast, it was inevitable that somebody would eventually see the money lying there and decide they weren’t above picking it up, controversy or no.

And when the cereal came out, it did get complaints. There were boycotts, picket lines were formed, but in spite of all that the actual cereal wound up selling pretty well.

The market already existed, after all! It wasn’t the fault of a breakfast product, the breakfast product just decided to capitalize on it.

It was never a phenomenon, granted. A commercial product as potentially offensive as that never could be, but it did sell. Well enough, in fact, that the next year it was decided that they’d release a new, more sugary cereal, marketed toward the children of bigots, whose parents wanted them to enjoy a healthy, complete breakfast that taught them the basics of xenophobia and ethnic paranoia.

Frosted Special KKK.

They’re Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-racist!!!

Weekly Prompt Story: Just

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24450

Just

By Christopher Munroe

Remember that Radiohead song with the guy laying in the street?

A crowd gathered and asked why, and when he told them they collapsed, paralyzed by the revelation.

You know the one.

I can’t tell you how many times I watched it, trying to figure out what he says at the end.

Hundreds, easily.

I saw it again the other day, for the first time in years. I think I’ve finally figured out what he said.

I’ll tell you, if you like.

Just… not now.

For now, I just want to lay here.

Just for a minute.

Just to recover…

Self-Improvement

In my experience, while everyone is capable of the most bestial, monstrous acts imaginable, not many people make full use of that capability.

Humans are selfish, and self-serving, and they live at the expense of those around them, but only to the degree that they can rationalize it and still convince themselves they’re good people. Past that point some vestigial conscience kicks in, and to go beyond a certain line, a line which does change from person to person but which nonetheless does exist for everyone, would be to paralyze themselves with guilt, to trap themselves under the immensity of the realization of all that they’ve done, the impact they’ve had on the world around them, the people they’ve hurt.

So they go to that line and they live there, terrified to pass over it but unwilling just the same to back even inches away. And that’s where the vast majority of people spend their lives.

Inflicting the maximum amount of damage on the world in which they live that they can without being forced to take a good long look at themselves and the choices they’ve made.

And most people are happy there.

But I can’t help but think that, in some way, their potential as human beings is being squandered. We’re capable of so much evil and to use that capacity on such trifling little things as we do doesn’t live up to the gift, the capability that we’ve been given!

Fortunately, I’ve come up with an easy way to work around the issue, to bypass conscience and cross whatever self-imposed boundaries you may have placed upon yourself. To stretch out, break free, and finally become the selfish sack of shit you’ve long had it in yourself to be.

It’s really quite simple, once you’ve got the knack for it.

Every time you think, “I want to do it,” instead substitute “it had to be done, there was nothing else I could do.”

And then take what you want.

It’s as simple as that.

Weekly Prompt Story: Billions

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24421

Infinity

By Christopher Munroe

In a nearly infinite universe, there are billions upon billions of stars, surrounded by potentially trillions of planets.

Perhaps some of those planets do contain life. In fact, the law of averages implies that some must.

And yet, only one star in one small corner of the universe, and one planet circling it, with seven billion people inhabiting it, produced you.

Seven billion people on one of trillions of planets circling billions of stars, and yet...

There’s only

One

You

Nonetheless, don’t let that trick you into thinking you matter. Because in a nearly infinite universe, trust me, you don’t.

Comfort

Baby, I know you’re a little freaked out after the movie, and that’s natural, it was kind of a freaky movie. With hindsight, a midnight showing of a horror film might not have been the best idea. But, and I can’t stress this enough, you don’t need to be nervous.

Don’t worry; everything will be terrifying from now on.

We’ll get home, fix a snack, make a pot of tea, convince ourselves that the irregular thumping on the walls is just the sound of pipes settling, and head to bed. You’ll wake up in a cold sweat after something pulls sharply on your left leg, turn over and see me, fast asleep, muttering in something that sounds suspiciously like Latin being spoken backward, head to the bathroom, squeeze your eyes shut when the walls start dripping blood and, when you finally suppress your unvoiced scream and open them again, you’ll convince yourself it was your own sleep-addled brain playing tricks on you.

And by the time you get back to bed, the whispering at the back of your mind telling you that you’re all alone and that nobody will save you will be something you’re so used to that you can almost ignore it.

Almost.

By morning, of course, the baby-headed spiders will be nearly done their hive in the closet. But you’ll wear a t-shirt, so you won’t realize it’s there until three or four days from now. Which will be two or three days after you’ve killed me with an axe, believing that I’ve been replaced with a perfect replicant that hungers for human blood.

Which, by the way, will not be the case. It will actually be me that you kill. Still, the bloodthirsty replicant will continue going to work in my place, so you’ll never be questioned about my absence. Not that the police would have much time to question you even if they did realize that the real me was dead, chopped up and hidden in the hallway linen closet.

Because, like I said, three or four days from now, you’ll open the closet to find a button-up blouse, and realize that the baby-headed spiders have long since occupied it, and moreover that they’ve been breeding freely. And, finally freed from their confinement, the first thing they’ll do will be to…

…well, I don’t want to give away EVERYTHING that will happen. After all, what is life without surprises, right? Sufficed to say, it won’t be pretty, and you aren’t likely to make it out of the room. But, if you do manage to make it to the door, get past the ghost twins and find your way down the endless echoing hallway and out of the suddenly abandoned building, don’t take any pleasure from it. The only thing your unlikely survival would mean is that you get to see what happens to the world around you once the plague of baby-headed spiders is released upon the unsuspecting city.

And that might be the worst part of it all.

No, wait, the coming of the Hungry Ones. Had I mentioned they were coming? No? That’s my bad, they are, I’ve invited them and they assure me they’re coming. And that’ll definitely be the worst part of it all, that part will be really bad.

So, you see, your life going forward will be an endless nightmare. You will know no peace, no moment of respite, for the rest of your potentially very short existence.

From here on in, everything will be terrifying.

I’ve already arranged it all.

And that’s why, you see, there’s no need to worry…

Weekly Prompt Story: Grace

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24374

Graceland

By Christopher Munroe

I believe, I believe, we all will be received in Graceland…

Except for the clumsy.

Anyone clumsy gets turned away at the gates, cast out to wander, shunned and utterly alone, through the desolate, awkward wastelands from whence they came, and shall so wander until the day they die.

Hopefully that day won’t be long coming. Hopefully they’ll eventually bump into, trip over or fall upon something they can’t handle.

And then die, alone, as they lived, alone.

We, meanwhile, will relax in a land of permanent grace.

Well, you will.

I’m clumsy as hell, I likely won’t get in…

Smallness

As time goes by, the world becomes smaller.

This is true for individuals, we age and as we do we grow to understand what’s going on around us better, mysteries are resolved, and we find more knowledge, more power, at our fingertips. But at the same time our options, the possibilities that once upon a time seemed limitless, shrink until we find ourselves helpless and isolated, trapped within the small lives we’ve built up around us like prison walls.

So too is it true for civilizations. We expand, and bring the world toward us, but as we do we’re more and more hamstrung by collective obligation until there’s nothing we can do that doesn’t feel somehow preordained. The more powerful an empire becomes, the more it paradoxically finds itself at the mercy of its very nature.

In this way, alone or together, we inevitably reach a state of utter helplessness, as the walls of our experience close in upon us. What once was boundless we bind, what once was open we close, and before long the world is at our fingertips. But the price of this access proves to be too much. Experience becomes a cheap, little thing, easily gained but ultimately worthless. The act of growth makes everything around us tiny, until finally there’s nothing worth having, nothing worth doing, and we sleepwalk through our little lives, lost in our own little worlds, remembering a time where things seemed big but on some level knowing we can never go back to that state of innocence ever again.

So in that way, I guess it’s true what they say.

It’s a small world, after all.

It’s a small world, after all.

It’s a small world, after all.

It’s a small, small world…

Weekly Prompt Story: Spark

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=24338

Helping

By Christopher Munroe

The place is a powder keg.

No, seriously, I’ve filled your home with gunpowder.

I’ve also saturated the floors, walls and furniature in kerosene, because why not? If you’re going to do something, go all the way.

Speaking of…

…there we go. Now you’re covered in kerosene too. The slightest spark would turn this whole place into an inferno.

Because the time has come for you to quit smoking. I promised I’d help, and by god I’ve taken my duty seriously.

Gotta run, tho’, I’m meeting people later. You hang out here, not smoking.

Let me know how it goes...

The Wandering One

He wanders, lost and afraid, and he knows he’ll wander forever, consumed with his hopeless, inexpressible regret.

Regret at choices unmade, at the simple mistakes that spiraled beyond his control, escalating so rapidly beyond anything he could ever have imagined until, finally, they left him trapped within this wasteland of discarded information.

Regret, regret at that one fateful day what now seems a lifetime ago when, in an act of hubris, he used Wikipedia to look up Wikipedia.

It seemed such a harmless thing at the time. Read a few innocent factoids, click a few harmless links, and all within the safety of his home. His refuge, his one safe place, where he’d thought nothing could touch him.

He doesn’t think that anymore. There is no safe place in this life, and only too late has he grown to realize that fundamental fact.

The Internet sucked him in, and even if he knew his way to its exit he knows it would never let him go.

And even if it did, how could he possibly go back to his old, comfortable life, knowing what he now knows, having seen what he has seen?

No, it’s far too late to turn back now.

So on he wanders…