Weekly Prompt Story: Connect

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=27220

Theories

By Christopher Munroe

Correct me if I’m wrong…

But vaccines cause deadly genetic defects, while measles, mumps and rubella are minor illnesses that are easy to deal with.

Immigration is an ISIS conspiracy to spread Ebola.

It’s not just Obama, EVERY president was secretly a Muslim.

Fluoridated drinking water is a plot by the UN to, as part of agenda 21, turn our children into communists via mind control.

The world itself is hollow, and the lizard men who rule us in conjunction with the illuminati live in its core.

…what, I AM wrong?

Which part?

All of it?

Oh. Okay. My mistake…

At work, the other day... (a true story)

The other day, at work, I witnessed two people collide with one another.

They were coming around a blind corner, neither knowing the other was there, and they hit each other head-on, bouncing off each other and staring, stunned, for a moment before going on their way.

Fortunately, neither was carrying a tray, lest they’d have shattered every plate upon it.

I cannot stress this enough: I was not the person who collided with someone else.

Nor was I the person who was hit.

In fact, I had absolutely nothing to do with this turn of events in the slightest, there was nothing I could do to prevent it, no way I could have warned them, and I was completely uninvolved with the actions that led to it. I merely happened to be standing near enough to witness the collision as it occurred.

“I’m sorry.” I said, the words escaping my mouth before I even knew they were coming…

And that’s the most Canadian thing I’ve ever done.

Weekly Prompt Story: Paint

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=27208

Portraits

By Christopher Munroe

I’ve had my portrait painted, so as to live forever.

Because that’s how that works.

I like it rough and weird in the bedroom, you see, but my proclivities have on occasion left marks upon my body that were tough to explain to my more vanilla friends.

Now, the painting bears the scars, the bruises, it wears the collar and ball-gag and, no matter what I might get up to in the privacy of my home, I always look fine to go into work the next day.

All in all, it’s been a good system.

50 shades of Dorian Grey…

...on economics.

The time has come, I think, for me to fix the Canadian economy.

Yes, me specifically. Who else is going to? And, before you answer, remember that whomever you were going to say has yet to step up and affect meaningful change in this particular realm. I am offering to. Put me in charge of Canada’s economy and I guarantee you, within two years we shall see growth and prosperity beyond our wildest dreams.

Not a guarantee.

You have, I presume, heard tell of the theory of “trickle down” economics, in which money is provided to those at the top of our current economic hierarchy, who then proceed to hire people, to invest it, allowing our economy to grow, that that money might trickle down onto the rest of us, allowing everyone a better life. A rising tide, and all that. We have tried this in many places, through lower taxes for invested income and subsidies to corporate interests and, in general, it has not worked. The average person in the industrial west, adjusted for inflation, is no richer than they were in 1980. In fact, many are poorer. Therefore, clearly, a new approach is required, the sort of bold, visionary action plan so simple that you’d wonder why no one had thought of it before. Fear not, fellow citizens, for I have one such plan, a plan I’ve dubbed “trickle OUT economics”, in which all the money trickles out from me. This economic theory will ensure that everything that matters is properly funded, and the process by which it’s funded couldn’t be any more simple...

Give me all the money.

All of it.

I guarantee you, I will spend it.

This IS a guarantee.

Give me all the money, in one lump sum, ideally in small bills, and I absolutely will have spent every penny of it within my lifetime. I will spend it on things that I like, on things that I believe in, and as I do, the things I like, and the industries that create those things, will grow, hiring people, providing jobs for those who need them in fields that I personally take an interest in. Companies I don’t care about, conversely, will wither and die, and I will barely notice, because I don’t care about what those companies had been doing. And if I don’t notice or care, does something really matter?

Clearly it does not.

Thus, everything important (to me, specifically) will be fully funded at all times, and as such the economy will grow, and thrive, receiving all the stimulation it needs to do so.

The economy, you see, is like my cock. Sometimes it needs to be stimulated in order to grow. And I am not afraid to stimulate either one, when the need arises. Because while I would not call myself a hero, or a genius, I will pay you to call me those things once I have been given all the money.

Some of you might ask, “But wouldn’t this create a system whereby you essentially rule the world, and the rest of us serve as your vassals?” and to this I say, “Perhaps. But fear not, vassals, for I am not afraid.”

The burden of this responsibility is one that I am strong enough to bear, and bear gladly, that our economy might prosper under my leadership. The things that I care about WILL prosper, and I WILL rule you in accordance with my beliefs, my principals and, when I’m drinking, my whims, never once complaining that what has been asked of me is too much.

Because somebody has to, after all, and I’d rather it be me than anyone else I can think of. Give me all the money and I will never once complain about the hardship spending it is causing me, I will never shirk my responsibility, never say no to my naked id. I will fix the economy, Canada, I will make it hum again.

Just give me all the money, and let this bright new age begin!

Weekly Prompt Story: South

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=27192

Winter

By Christopher Munroe

I can’t deal with winter.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous, it’s cold as balls and I’m not going to put up with it.

And neither will my balls.

I’m going south. Birds go south for the winter, and so do elderly Canadians, and while I’m not elderly , I’m certainly Canadian and I’m sick of this weather.

The time has come to go the fuck south.

As far south as it’s possible to go.

I’m going to Antarctica.

Wait, that might be too far.

Well, I’ve said it out loud. Antarctica it is.

Hopefully it will be a little warmer…

Ayn Rand

He told me, over drinks, about Ayn Rand.

That she had changed his life, freed him from empathy, taught him that only action motivated by perfect self-interest could truly shape this world for the better. He told me her work had opened his eyes the tyranny of government, enforcing their laws, their “social contract” with nothing more than brute force, and that by following this “social contract” as though it were anything more than a means of control we would never be truly free.

And I was inspired.

So, when I felt the time had come, I made my exit, quietly, leaving him with the bill.

I didn’t want to pay it, you see, and therefore I left it with him, confident that I, the smarter, more capable of the two of us, had no responsibility to subsidize his social life by paying for my own drinks.

If he’d been the better man, after all, he’d have thought to ditch out on the tab before I had the chance to.

I’ve not spoken to him since, but I assume that, as he paid my bill, he rejoiced that I had seen the light and, finally, was behaving in a perfectly selfish way, the sort of way that, if only everyone did the same, would allow us to step boldly into a new, bright future.

And the joy this notion brought him, I do not doubt, was something he was more than willing to pay the price of my drinks for.

Libertarians are, after all, very intellectually consistent…

Weekly Prompt Story: Trench

Exploration

By Christopher Munroe

I’d like to see the bottom of the Marianas Trench.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s much down there, no sea monsters or anything, it’s just the furthest, remotest place we can explore on earth, and as such it’s important that we see it.

The last frontier in the world before we start venturing into the stars, a sort of symbolic “We’ve seen everything” moment that might motivate us up and, finally, off the planet.

It feels important, on that level.

That said, if there WERE sea monsters, I’d like to see that too. That would be amazing…

Art

Make art, motherfucker! Make art!

Make art now! Make art here, in the moment! If you have something in you that needs out, let it out, make it art and put it in the world.

Now.

Seriously, get the fuck up from where you’re sitting, get out there and make art as hard as you can, do it today. Today.

Do not make art tomorrow!

I mean, make art tomorrow, obviously. Make art every day. But  make art tomorrow as part of a continual process of art that begins today, don’t put art off until tomorrow, is what I’m basically getting at.

I’m not kidding, people, make art immediately. Paint something, sculpt something, paint a sculpture. Your own sculpture, I mean, painting somebody else’s sculpture probably wouldn’t be cool, especially if you don’t have the original sculptor’s permission to do so, but if you have at some point made a sculpture and think it could use a little color, by all means, go for it!

Make a film, it’s never been easier to do so than at this moment in history. Night of the Living Dead could be remade over the course of a weekend with a cell-phone camera and a Facebook invite, don’t tell me you can’t make a film. If there’s a film in you, get it done!

Do you have personal pain? Channel it into poetry, or prose, or, if you lack personal pain, poetry and prose can just as easily channel joy! Write a short story, write a novella, write and mount a one-act, one-man show about growing up in a small prairie town, apply to the fringe festival, pick up a guitar, deliver an angry tirade peppered with the occasional self-referential joke, I do not care what art you create, just that you create the fuck out of some motherfucking art.

I am not joking. Get up off your computer, get away from the Internet and MAKE ART!

Or stay on the Internet, frankly. There’s an enormous amount of art on the Internet, add to it. Host a podcast, post to YouTube, join Deviantart, maintain a blog. Start an especially well-crafted parody Twitter account pretending to be a major corporation that kind of pisses you off and ruin their public image. I do not care what you do, only that you DO it.

Whatever art is inside you, why the fuck is it still inside you, rather than out in the world? There has never in the history of humankind been a civilization that afforded more opportunities to share creative work with an audience than our civilization affords us right now. You might not find a large audience for what you do. Who gives a shit, it doesn’t matter whether your audience is large or small, only that you give them the opportunity to see what it is that you’re capable. Do you not owe that opportunity to them? Do you not owe it to yourself?

Because life is so short, people, and it can end in death at any moment, like Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones. But it’s also more wonderful than you could possibly imagine, and it deserves to be celebrated.

Also like Peter Dinklage in Game of Thrones.

But I’m getting off-track, here. My point is: ART, motherfucker! Art!

You are the only you that has ever existed, and the only you that will ever exist, and in one hundred years you will be gone and, most likely, forgotten.

If you have something within you that burns, no matter what it is, you have an obligation to share it with the world, otherwise what’s the point of any of the rest of your life?

If you have something within you that burns, that you need to share, share it. Make art. Make art as hard as you possibly can for as long as you can, and do not stop until you literally cannot art any more.

And if you don’t?

Well in that event, carry on, I guess, with whatever it was you were doing, and I hope it brings you meaning…

Weekly Prompt Story: After

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=27118

Now

By Christopher Munroe

There’s no such thing as after.

We look to the future, wonder what awaits us in a desperate, ultimately futile attempt to avoid what we already know to be true, but reality doesn’t care what we want, or what we believe, it simply is in spite of our wishes, and nothing we can do will change that.

We have no future, separately or together, because there is no future, only moment after moment of endless Now approaching us, unrelentingly.

There is no “After” and the future will never come.

And, as such, it’s our duty to live in the moment…