Understanding

It isn’t that I don’t understand what you’re saying, I assure you.

I’ve listened, intently, as you’ve explained your points, addressed your concerns and itemized every wrong, real or imagined, that you feel has been done you, and through it all I haven’t said a word, allowing you to make your position crystal clear.

I understand what you’re saying.

It’s just that it would take a team of German scientists, a NASA supercomputer and the world’s most powerful electron microscope to determine how little I cared about your tiny, pointless problems.

So, that’s my position. Do we understand one another?

Weekly Prompt Story: Chance

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=22979

Chance

By Christopher Munroe

They say leave nothing to chance.

But I knew a guy nicknamed Chance once.

We worked together in Edmonton for years, hang out to this day, I see him whenever I’m up there. I make a point of dropping in to say hi.

We maybe aren’t the closest friends, but he’s good people, my life’s richer for having him in it.

Were I to pass away, I’d leave him something. At the very least a token, to remember me by.

Wait, now that I think about it, his nickname was Chase, not chance.

No, yeah, I’ll leave nothing to chance.

Meanwhile, at my Realtor's office...

There are only so many places in a rented space to hide a body.

Apartments aren’t large, after all.

Buying allows for a lot more room.

Behind walls, an unfinished basement you can dig up, the yard, there are dozens of options for the discerning murderer looking to settle down.

And with the housing market how it is, there’s never been a better time to buy. In fact, I’d say any serial killer still renting would have to be out of his mind!

So: I have a few places in mind I’d love for you to see. How’s your Monday?

Weekly Prompt Story: Funk

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=21148

Occupy Funk

By Chris Munroe

1% of this country controls 70% of its funk. And that’s not right.

I’m not criticizing the funky, plenty do their part, sharing funk with the world. Prince, for example, releases music every year, and we’re all better for it.

However, not everyone shares Prince’s decency. How long’s it been since Morris Day and the Time released an album?

So we’re taking to the streets, the 99% of us who aren’t funky, and we won’t be silenced. Join me, let our voices be heard!

We want the funk.

Give us the funk.

We need the funk.

Gotta have that funk.

Schrodinger's Pandora

I’ve taken all the evil in existence, every sin and shame and human weakness, put them in a box, and given the box to a Greek girl.

Why have I done this? Because fuck you, that’s why. Don’t you question me, I’m all-knowing, bitch!

If she restrains herself from opening the box, the world will exist in a state of perpetual innocence, with all of humankind living in perfect peace and harmony, one with each other and with nature, never knowing anything but happiness. If she opens it, all the plagues of humanity will be unleashed, and life will be perpetual struggle and suffering, violent, brutish and very, very short. I’ve included hope in the box, but it will prove shallow comfort indeed to the afflicted, and should the box ever be opened, all will be afflicted.

So, did the Greek girl open the box? Or did she restrain her curiosity?

I have absolutely no idea. This happened three thousand years ago, and while I could have checked back and seen how it turned out at any point, I have yet to. As such, since I believe the Greek girl in question was equally likely to choose either of her two options regarding the box, I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to whether it was opened or not.

I’ve got to assume, therefore, that the world is simultaneously brutal and beautiful, inspiring and dispiriting, capable of the heights of nobility and the depths of savagery. A study in contradiction where the best and worst are possible every second of every day. And it will remain so until such time as it’s observed.

One day I’ll go see for myself the result of my little experiment, and on that day one of the two possibilities, good or evil, will actualize by virtue of its having been witnessed.

One day.

But I’m in no hurry…

Weekly Prompt Story: Pudding

http://podcasting.isfullofcrap.com/2012/12/16/weekly-challenge-347-funk/

Pudding Cups

By Chris Munroe

Look, none of this is complicated.

I recently received a frequent-shopper gift coupon in the mail, offering double air miles, and regular double air miles day was only a few days off.

So that’s quadruple, right?

Right. So I went to Safeway and found something that both a) was on sale, and b) offered 100 bonus air miles per unit.

In this case, pudding cups. Three for two dollars.

And now I’m going to Vegas. Hundred ten bucks for a week there, hotel included.

It’s going to be a blast!

Anyway: Do you want seventy pounds of pudding, or not?

Meanwhile, at a local haunted house...

I know how you got here.

At least, I can hazard an educated guess, based on my own experiences.

You and your idiot friends learned about this little house, a ways off the beaten path but still easy enough to find if you bother to look for it. You heard that nobody’d lived here for years, and when you dug around for more information you heard about the murders that took place here, too long ago for anyone who might remember firsthand to still be around to ask about.

They dared you to spend the night in the “haunted” house, and you agreed, and now here you are.

I know this, or can guess it, because that’s what happened to me.

I wasn’t murdered here, that wasn’t me. The family that was is still around, somewhere, but I’m just some guy, who’s idiot friends once dared him to spend the night here, who found the ghost and, petrified by its ghastly visage, panicked and ran for the door, only to find it locked upon my arrival.

I pounded on the door, screamed in fear and agony and, after what seemed like a dozen lifetimes spent lost in a terror that I’m sure must’ve at some point driven me insane, sank to the floor, my heart giving out from overwork as the world slowly, finally, went black around me.

I died in front of that door, and when my friends returned for me in the morning, they found my body there, mouth still frozen in silent scream, cold and dead and very, very pale.

Yes, as pale as you’re looking right now.

And in a moment you too will, no doubt, break for the door and find it shut to you, and as you throw yourself, over and over again, against it in a desperate and futile attempt to find your way to freedom, I want you to know, I’ll feel no pleasure at my victory. It will bring me no joy.

No, in fact I’ll feel tremendous guilt at the role I play in scaring you to death, guilt that, were I not already deceased, would no doubt haunt me to the grave.

But there’s nothing I can do about that. I haunt this place, and you entered it, and such is the way of these things. I could no more let you pass the night here unimpeded than the family could let me loose when I came here so long ago.

I wish I could make you understand, this isn’t personal. It’s just what I am now, appalling though it is, and much though I’d like to I’m not capable of going against my fundamental nature.

Of course, are any of us?

No matter. I can explain all of this to you afterward, once your body has ceased and you’ve calmed down a little. We have all the time in the world for conversation, after all, we’re going to be here together a very long time.

Once you’ve passed over, I’ll introduce you to the others, too. They’re anxious to meet you, it’s been so long since anyone’s ventured inside this house, we’d worried that the legends surrounding it had finally warned people off for good.

We’d missed the visitors.

That’s part of why we’re so glad you’re here.

You’re sure to add a little life to the place…