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.