Sunday, December 28, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Underground

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26892


On Zombie Preparedness
By Christopher Munroe

I’ve always been old-school, that way.

Even before the dead rose from their graves and started shambling across the countryside looking to sate their hunger for flesh, I was at the cemetery every weekend, looking over the tombs.

A bunch of us went, we’d drink wine, write poetry, and discuss what we’d do in the event of actual zombie apocalypse.

People mocked us, called us freaks, but once the graves started opening up again we knew we were the only ones who were ready.

I guess you could say: I’ve been into zombies since back when they were still underground…

Friday, December 26, 2014

You guys....

...no friday flash this week. For Zod's sake, it's Christmas, clearly I wasn't going to have time to write flash fiction. I'll be back for Sunday's story, and have something properly disturbing for you in the new year!

Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: New Jersey

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26877


…for when I go to Flames games.
By Christopher Munroe

I want a New Jersey.

One that won’t make me sick.

One that won’t make me crash my car, make me feel three feet thick…

Sorry, I got off track there. I’ll try again.

I want a New Jersey.

I’ll order it eventually, there are places online to have Jersey’s custom built.

It will be stark black and white, minimalist, numbered zero-zero.

On the front and back, where the athlete’s name would traditionally be, will be the word “Sport!”

This way I can wear it to ANY game I want, and it will always be appropriate!

I’m a genius, yes?

Thursday, December 18, 2014

In Which I'm Visited By Three Spirits (dick pics pt. 2)


The first ghost that visited was a disgraced US congressman, humiliated, ruined, laughed out of Washington after a simple misunderstanding of how Twitter worked led to his sharing much more with his constituents than he’d ever intended.

The second, the ghost of Chat Roulette, and with it the potential to bring millions together, to create a community and bring the world to your home, potential swiftly reduced to a simple punch line about sudden, shocking exhibitionism.

The third, the future, was less clear. Was it a genuine watershed of body positivity, mankind coming together to celebrate its form in all its beauty? Or merely the exploitation by a mass media bent only on profiting off humankind’s animal instincts? I couldn’t be sure, but one thing was clear: The future had come, and it was naked.

I awoke from my dream and threw open my window, screaming down into the street, demanding a passing orphan tell me what day it was, if there was still time, if Christmas had yet come.

Upon hearing that it had not, I nearly wept with gratitude. But I did not weep, I maintained my composure, because Christmas was upon me and I still had much to do.

Shopping to get to.

Gift-wrap to buy.

Genitals to photograph.

Text-messages to send.

I had too long taken the holiday season for granted, but no more. Thanks to that late-night visit from the Ghosts of Dick Pics Past, Present and Future, I was in the proper spirit, and I finally understood the true meaning of inappropriate late-night text messages to friends and acquaintances. And, while once I might have scoffed at the notion of sending such photos to people who had not asked for them, nor given any indication such a thing would interest them in the slightest, I wasn’t going to let another moment go by without sharing myself with the people who were nearest me in the most intimate way that I could.

Christmas is, after all, the season of giving.

God bless us, every one…

Monday, December 15, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Patient

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26864


Patient
By Christopher Munroe

I’ll wait for you, love, for as long as it takes. Because you matter to me, more than I can possibly say, and when somebody matters to you you’re willing to give them all the time they might possibly need…

So…

Um…

Are you ready?

No?

That’s totally okay, I respect your need for time, for space, and I’ll wait as long as it takes. Until the end of time, if need be. Because you, my love, are worth the wait.

So…

How ‘bout now?

No?

Now?

No?

Now?

I’m willing to wait.

I have the patience of a saint…

Thursday, December 11, 2014

My Christmas Shopping


Money’s tight this holiday season. Things are tough all over, and I’ve been no exception. It’s made my Christmas shopping difficult, to say the least.

So, bearing this in mind, this year everybody’s getting dick pics.

Dick pics are still a thing, right? Like, they’re still an appropriate gift? For Christmas?

No need to answer, I’ll just assume they are.

Good.

Anyway, dick pics it shall be. Though for obvious reasons I shan’t be doing anything so prosaic as sending them via text or email. It’s Christmas, after all, and I do love to celebrate the holidays.

I’ve booked a photo shoot with a professional photographer to make sure I have the absolute perfect portrait of my genitals, and I’ll be printing eight-by-tens for each of you, which I plan on delivering in person, each in a sterling silver frame, that you might forever remember my cock and display it proudly in your various homes.

Because I value you, as friends, I care about you. Each and every one of you. And when you care about somebody you want to share the things you love with them.

And I love my dick, you guys. I love it so much and I want so badly to share it with you, even if it’s only in pictorial form…

Some of you will point out that this project, by the time I’m finished, will be much more expensive than buying the people on my shopping list actual gifts in the first place.

I know.

No need to thank me. It is Christmas, after all…

Merry dick pics for all, and for all a good night!

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Shoe

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26829


Shoes
By Christopher Munroe

I’m never more nervous than when things go well.

I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Which isn’t healthy, it isn’t normal, I know it isn’t, and it robs me of my ability to enjoy the good things, and there are plenty of good things in my life!

I can’t help it, it’s just who I am.

Even my victories I find myself unable to enjoy…

For example, if all went well, by the time you hear this I’ll be done my NaNoWriMo draft.

And yet, as of writing this, I’m kind of still freaked out about it…

Thursday, December 4, 2014

...on business.


I knew that people online would get on board, that was never really in doubt.

It was whether that online interest would translate into actual sales, always a shaky proposition, that worried me. Let us not forget “Snakes on a Plane” after all.

But my worry, it turned out, was misplaced.

And now, a four million dollar house, new Ferrari and month in Vegas later, the only worry I have is what I’m going to do with the seemingly endless flood of cash that’s still coming in…

I feel some small measure of guilt, perhaps, at the increase in heart disease and obesity that I’m no doubt partially responsible for, but I can’t feel too bad about that. People do make their own decisions, after all.

I merely provided new options, I never forced anyone to do anything.

If people can’t control their baser appetites, that’s no responsibility of mine.

At the end of the day, I’m merely a businessman.

And, it turns out, Pumpkin-Spiced Bacon was the best business decision I ever made…

Sunday, November 30, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Cranberries

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26792


Assumptions Based on the Prompt “Cranberries”
By Christopher Munroe

American Thanksgiving!

Right?

I assume that’s what the prompt means.

I don’t understand how American holidays are structured, honestly. Our thanksgiving is your Columbus Day? I think?

Your football’s different than ours too, and it’s nearly impossible to get a proper Ceaser down there…

…and don’t get me started on baseball. If you want to watch a sport where a thing gets hit with a stick, watch hockey like normal people!

Ah well, at least your “hit-thing-with-stick” sport isn’t Cricket. I have zero idea how Cricket works…

But I digress.

My point is, it’s American Thanksgiving! Probably!

So: Thanks, Americans!

Friday, November 28, 2014

Notes


Desperation sets in the moment he realizes there’s no way out of the room, and his eyes go wide.

He’s already verified that the door, locked tightly from the other side, is too thick to batter down, and the room’s lack of windows or features of any sort makes it impossible to even consider other methods of escape. The floor is concrete, the ceiling equally so, the walls solid brick once he chips away enough of the plaster to see them. He doesn’t know how he got into the room, but he knows he’ll never leave, under his own power, at least.

And so: In sets Desperation.

Within minutes he’s screaming, within hours his fists have been torn bloody as they pound upon the walls, his voice hoarse as he calls, then threatens, then begs for release.

He’ll die of thirst in a matter of days, but by then he’ll most likely be mad, driven so by the combination of hopelessness and confusion that helplessness and lack of answers brings.

He’ll be a shell of a man, in a corner, babbling to himself. Just like all the other subjects I’ve put into this room for observation.

It’s disappointing, in its way.

People speak so highly of the power of the human spirit.

I have yet to observe it first hand…

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Community

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26781


Our Community
By Christopher Munroe

I’m proud of the community we’ve created.

We built replicants, from scratch, then programmed them to believe they were actual people, before dropping them into a perfect recreation of an early twenty-first century town.

In this recreation, they work, strive and live, believing themselves to be real human beings, believing their actions to matter in the grand scheme...

Believing nobody’s watching, taking notes.

There’s more conflict than we predicted, but they manage it among themselves, and to date the results we’ve gotten back have been… useful.

We’ve learned a lot, through their simulated lives, about how people lived back then…

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Eternity


There is no way to know for certain when your time will come.

Or if, for that matter.

Yes, it is true that every other human life to this moment in history has, barring one or two exceptions depending on your religion, come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that yours will, necessarily.

You might be the first, or one of a lucky few, who simply lives forever, watching empires rise and fall and mountains crash inevitably into the sea, meeting people and losing them in the blink of an eye, kept from getting truly close to anyone by the dispiriting knowledge of their oncoming demise, one which looks from your perspective of millennia as though it looms just around the corner.

Completely, utterly, eternally alone you will walk through the ages, unable to free yourself even by that icy abyss as immortality itself acts as your prison, your Hades, your purgatory.

Wait, did I say “lucky” earlier? Actually, that sounds quite horrible.

And don’t get me started on how bad it would be were your eternal life not to come with eternal youth.

I shudder to think.

So bearing this in mind, allow me to begin again from where we started…

There is no way to know for certain when your time will come.

Or if, for that matter.

So all you can do, in the end, is hope…

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Bank

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26757


On the Process of Memory
By Christopher Munroe

Every moment of my life, everything that matters, every face and name, good time and bad, everything I do still need to know.

The moments that, as a whole, have made me “Me”, and all I’ve learned and lived and loved and done, each thing I’ve wanted, every failure and success, every thing I’ve tried to do…

…I keep them near me at all times, close to me, dear to me, easily at hand should the time come when I need them, at my fingertips.

They’re spray-painted across the very walls of this fine city.

For I… Am Memory Banksey!!!

Friday, November 14, 2014

At 3am...


I splash cold water onto my face, breathing deeply, and stare at myself in the mirror, taking three long breaths to get myself back under control.

I am alone in the house, I am not having a panic attack.

I’m not.

I do not have to worry, I’m just naturally panicked, I’m a little brittle and that’s okay. Lots of people are brittle some of the time, and with the year I’ve had it’s natural I’d have a weak moment now and again.

It’s okay to be a little brittle, so long as you don’t let it control you, so long as you don’t give in to panic. I splash more water and grip the sink with both hands, to steady my nerves.

I am in control of my nerves, you see, and brittle isn’t broken. I know there is no need to be afraid.

“I am alone in the house.” I tell myself in a whisper, staring at myself in the mirror, alone in the reflection I find.

“Yes,” comes a voice from behind me, “You are.”

Sunday, November 9, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Brain

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26744


The Perfect Team
By Christopher Munroe

We’re the perfect team, if you think about it.

Me, the brains, you, the one doing what I say without question.

In fact, maybe you shouldn’t bother thinking about it.

Take my word for it.

We’re the perfect team.

And, once this day is over, thanks to you, I’ll be rich.

You’ll be either dead or imprisoned and, upon questioning, you’ll realize I never even gave you my name.

But that’s not important right now.

What’s important is that you trust me, and do what I say without question.

That’s the way this team works.

Got it?

Good.

Let’s roll…

Thursday, November 6, 2014

The Week After


In celebration of Halloween, I filled my apartment with spiders.

As one does.

And the webs they spun, I must admit, proved very festive. Overall, I have no complaint as to the quality of cobweb they provided, A+, 10 out of 10, would cobweb again. My guests were duly impressed by my décor and everyone found the whole place downright spooktacular.

I cannot stress this enough, I have zero complaints about the way my place was decorated for Halloween by the infestation of actual spiders I inflicted upon my home.

It’s just that now…

It’s not Halloween anymore, you see, and the spiders are still here, and however much time I spend clearing away cobwebs there always seems to be more by the end of the day.

I’ve tried spraying, but it’s done nothing. I don’t know where they’re hiding, where they’re laying their eggs, but there seems to be more of them every day, skittering out of the way when the lights come on, cleverly avoiding my tread as I walk through the place, and at night…

…at night I feel them crawling, crawling 'cross my skin. Ten thousand tiny legs caressing my body as they swarm me, covering every inch of me, up over my torso and onto my face and into my mouth…

…oh God, into my mouth.

I wake up now, most nights, screaming and spitting out spiders, afraid I’ll never get a full night’s sleep again, afraid that this will soon drive me mad if I can’t find a way to get rid of them, afraid of where they might be laying their eggs. There are moments where I catch myself believing  that this place is their true home, not mine, and that it is I who am the interloper in their sanctuary. But this is madness, surely? It has been but a week since I allowed them in, they cannot have made the place their own so completely in so short a time?

In my mind I know this to be true. But in my heart? In my heart I do despair that this tale has only one ending, and that it is not an ending that I will survive.

Bearing this in mind, I cannot give your “Spider Infestation Service” the full five stars. I hope that you will understand.

4.5 stars out of 5

Sunday, November 2, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: X

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26687


On Problem Solving
By Chris Munroe

Good morning, class. Today’s assignment; Solve for X.

Because X demands solutions, and X won’t be trifled with when it comes to getting what he wants.

And, as you know, X, or “The Mysterious Dr. X” as he prefers to be called, does have your loved ones hostage, meaning that you will not want to fail him.

You will not want to fail him.

Oh no.

The Mysterious Dr. X is not a man to be trifled with, as those who have come upon him will be only too quick to tell you.

He will not be failed.

So: Solve.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Halloween


I have a friendly, easygoing demeanor, and because of this fact people tend to instinctively trust me.

A shame, since I’m a horrible person.

Not that that’s your neighbor’s problem.

Your neighbor has no part in my plan, after all, beyond loaning me your extra key so I could check your mail. I returned it two hours later, and she never even realized I’d run to Home Depot and had a copy cut.

Why would she suspect anything along those lines, after all? I’m so pleasant and charming. And anyway, I did it months ago, by now she’s completely forgotten it ever happened.

But I haven’t forgotten. Not least due to your key on my key ring, waiting for the right time to be used.

The time when, as you sleep, I use your key to sneak into your home and creep up on you in your bed, so silent that you never once stir, that you never once suspect someone else might be in the room.

You look so peaceful when you sleep.

And when you wake up and check your cellular phone, you’ll find you’ve received a text reading “Happy Halloween,” that was sent from that same cellular phone during the night.

Just keeping things nice and festive.

Keeping you in a heightened state of paranoid terror.

Because it’s the reason for the season.

Happy Halloween.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Doom

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26670


Doom
By Christopher Munroe

The most interesting character in comics, to my mind, would be Dr. Doom.

Specifically, the fact that Doom is his actual last name.

And, therefore, the last name of his parents. Parents who, in spite of the last name “Doom”, never once attempted to conquer the world and bend humanity to their horrible will.

That we know of.

Also Dr. Doom had an actual PHD, which is nice.

Dr. Strange was a surgeon.

Doc Sampson’s a psychiatrist.

Because Marvel, apparently, has the utmost respect for intellect and education.

Not that you could tell that from some of their recent storylines…

Friday, October 24, 2014

My Pillow Talk Gets Weird (a dialogue)


"I’d sleep with my duplicate, given the opportunity. I mean, it's pretty once in a lifetime as far as opportunities go. Not just a physical twin, tho', it’d have to be my duplicate in every way..."

"I don't know that I could."

"Huh? Why not?"

"I have issues with control. As you may have noted. I don't know that I could give up power like that."

"I'm sure you could. You can be VERY persuasive when you need to be. Especially with regard to bedroom matters.”

“Yeah, but I’m also very stubborn when I dig my heels in. I don’t think either version of me would want that very much.”

“Well the two of you could have sex as equals. That option exists, people do it every day.”

“Pfffft, what would be the point in that?”

“You might like it!”

“You don’t know me at all, do you?”

“No, hear me out, you could have equal, peaceable, completely egalitarian sex! FOR THE REVOLUTION!!!”

Long story short, I’m now shopping for cold war era soviet military uniforms online. I don’t know if I’ll buy one, but it’d be a fun thing to have, and “FOR THE REVOLUTION!!!” is too amusing a thread to leave hanging without at least having a look…

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Skeleton

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26630


Skeletons
By Christopher Munroe

There’s a skeleton on my T-shirt, when I go to the bar.

And another beneath my skin.

The visible is styalized, white and red on black, to give a flash of color as I move through the night, a marker to show I’m there.

The hidden is more utilitarian. It props me up, keeps me standing. It receives little credit, but I use it every day.

Of the two, it’s the first I’m known for, that people would recognize when they see me.

But, in spite of this, the second is the more important.

It allows me to be me…

Thursday, October 16, 2014

The Dangers of Pumpkin Spice


I left my phone on the table at my local Starbucks.

And by the time I got back, having realized it missing, ten minutes later, it was gone.

I checked that night, and again the next day, but nobody’d turned it in, so I had it bricked and bought a new one.

They rolled the price over onto my next bill rather than making me pay in the store, which was nice of them, I suppose.

I mean, they didn’t have to do that, it’s not as though I could get by in 2014 without a phone.

But still, this means my next phone bill will be in excess of four hundred dollars, which I can’t really afford. Especially with Christmas season coming.

Four hundred dollars for a seconds-long lapse in judgment at a Starbucks.

Overall, it was the most expensive pumpkin spiced latte I’ve ever had.

Still kind of worth it, though.

I do loves me some pumpkin spice…

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Superconductor

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26618


Superconductor
By Chris Munroe

I’ve been good, for the last little while, about the puns.

When the new prompt, each Sunday, is announced, my instinct is to go meta and warp the story toward a gag, but I’m aware that I’m frequently the only one who finds such shenanigans amusing, and I’ve been consciously trying to wean myself away from this behavior.

Mostly successfully.

My stories haven’t always been great, but they’ve at least been on topic.

It’s something I think I’m entitled to be proud of, and that nobody can begrudge my pride in.

Yes, on this point my conduct has been super…

Thursday, October 9, 2014

On My Caffeine Consumption


One day, I know, the amount of Diet Coke I drink will catch up to me.

It’s inevitable.

I drink six to eight liters of the stuff a day, after all, it’s a wave of nonstop caffeine I surf to make up for the fact that I can’t get a proper night’s sleep due to the amount of caffeine I ingest. It’s not normal, it’s profoundly unhealthy, and there are bound to be consequences.

I am aware of all of this, acutely so, yet I persist with my unhealthy habit. I do this consciously, making the informed decision, even knowing as I do that it will come back some day to haunt me, to follow the path I have placed myself upon.

It is who I am. It is what I am. I know that it is wrong, and yet I continue.

I have thought it out, fully, you can trust me on that. And I drink this much diet coke anyway.

So you may know, beyond doubt, that your protestations of the side effects of what I’ve chosen to do to myself, your helpful advice and suggestions regarding what might be best for me, will fall upon deaf ears.

I know it’s wrong, I do it anyway, it hurts no one but me, so try not to worry to excess.

Yes, I have heard that aspartame causes brain tumors. No, this hasn’t deterred me in any way.

In the event that I develop a tumor upon my frontal lobe, I have learned from popular culture, this tumor will in the months I have left to live provide me the ability to either see the future or read the minds of the people around me. I will use this ability, for however long I have left, to fight crime, constantly at odds with a female detective that I’m constantly one step ahead of, and with whom I share a fascinating “Will they/Won’t they” sexual tension.

Don’t get me wrong, she will be much more than simple eye candy for the fans. The good detective will, indeed, be a very good detective, and on more than one occasion will her training and keen analytical mind uncover clues that I, even with my ability to read minds and see the future, would have missed. Ours will be a partnership, in the truest sense, in spite of our oft strained professional relationship.

Because she, you see, will not believe in the paranormal, and will believe me a charlatan in spite of the proof I weekly put in front of her of the results my unorthodox methods achieve.

It will run on Fox, for a season and a half, and when it is abruptly cancelled midway through a season arc that will later win multiple Emmy’s, the fan reaction via internet will be explosive, passionate and furious…

Does this seem unlikely? Unbelievable? The fantasy of a man in denial? Perhaps.

But I do know that the “aspartame causes brain tumors” meme is based on one flawed study from more than a decade ago, and for me to have the equivilent amount of aspartame as the mice the tests were performed on I would have to eat truckloads of the stuff raw, every single day.

Which I do not do.

That’s science fact, bitches.

So no, I’m not worried about the amount of Diet Coke I drink. The caffeine’s bad for me, I’d be better off if I quit, but it’s not an immanent threat. And in the meantime, I still have to quit smoking in a permanent way, that one WILL kill me, and that’s by far my higher priority.

Plus, really, don’t pretend you’d watch the show. It’d be a fun one.

Now, if I can figure out how to get Diet Coke to sponsor…

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Brass

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26560


Marching Band
By Chris Munroe

It seemed like a good idea at the time, allowing the marching band to choose its own playlist.

Students would be more invested in their band, morale would improve, school spirit would soar, what could possibly go wrong?

We agreed it was genius, and so the plan went forward.

It wasn’t until halftime, first game of the season, that we saw the problem with what we’d unleashed.

When the song they chose was Big Sean and Nikki Minaj…

Brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass, brass brass brass brass…

STOP.

Now make that motherfucker Hammer-Time.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

The Samaritan


I hate you people so, so fucking much.

Grasping, needy, desperate, always clawing at me, demanding.

Pathetic.

“Help us!” You scream, with every giant robot that rampages through downtown, every alien invasion of earth or asteroid on a collision course with the White House, every Mad Scientist using his laser satellite to blackmail the United Nations or Psychotic Juggalo trying to poison the city’s water supply...

“Help us!”

Help you? Where were you people in my moments of doubt and weakness and fear, when new powers I didn’t understand terrified me more than words could possibly express? Who was there to help me?

Nobody, that’s who. Yet now that you need my help I’m supposed to just drop everything and come running. I’m supposed to swoop in and put my life at risk to help people I don’t even know, people who I know for a fact would never in a million years do the same for me?

Just because I’m stronger and faster and can fly, abilities I never once asked for, never once said I wanted, and don’t even enjoy, I have some sort of obligation to you people?

Fuck you people!

Fuck you, fuck whatever psycho got it into his head to build a machine that controls the weather, fuck all five tornadoes heading toward the city, and to reiterate: Fuck you.

Yes you, you screaming civilians, swarming beneath me, staring up, pointing and calling my name, you.

Do you have any idea how deafening your screams are to somebody with super hearing? Did it ever occur to you?

Shut the fuck up with all the screaming!!!

You shrieking, squalling little nobodies, so frightened of the idea that you might ever be expected to solve your own problems, pointing up at the flying man in the cape and begging him, once again, to save the day…

And I will.

I will save the day.

Because I’m a sucker and I have a hard time saying no to people, I will save the day.

Again.

I’ll save your miserable, pathetic little lives once again.

Because that’s what I do.

But I don’t have to like it.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Weekly Prompt Story: Always

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26546


On Motivation
By Christopher Munroe

Kids, I have something to tell you.

You won’t like it.

I don’t care.

You’ve been told, mostly by parents, that if you apply yourself you can accomplish anything. I’m here to say, you can’t.

Parents have to lie, sometimes, to keep you from harsh truths about the world.

You’ll accomplish many things, true, but Anything? No.

There are things that, however hard you try, you will fail at, and it’d be a good idea to prepare yourself for that.

Because it’s true of everyone, and the sooner you learn to be okay with it the better off you’ll be…