Weekly Prompt Story: An Unpublished Labor of Hercules

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=25980

Mythology

By Christopher Munroe

He did NaNoWriMo, you know.

Yes, he was there, writing 50k words, crafting his novel.

He finished, too. Finished, and was pleased. His story was everything he hoped it would be, yet even after edits he couldn’t figure out what to do with it.

Every publishing house said no, called it unrealistic in spite of every word being true, and that was when he realized his autobiography had no home in the literary world.

He’d wait for somebody else to write his story, however they might change it.

And so, his real life went unread.

The unpublished labor of Hercules…

Illness

You know that feeling you get when you’re just starting to get sick?

Not the feeling when you ARE sick, being sick is a completely different feeling. Merely the feeling when you’re ABOUT to be sick.

You’re healthy, or at least you’re okay enough to go about your business, it’s just that you’re about to be sick. The feeling where you know it’s building, at the back of your throat, behind your eyes, at the bottom of your stomach, nothing’s wrong, but you know you only have a day or two before it all becomes tremendously wrong. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but your health’s about to drop out from under you, and the combination of pre-sickness and dread at what’s to come haunts you, lurking behind your every moment, making every cough and moment where you think you might sneeze but don’t, a horrific taste of what’s to come. You know that feeling, yeah?

Of course you do, we all do. That’s an important part of being human. We’ve all been sick, and therefore we’ve all been about to be sick. It’s as normal a feeling as breathing, or hunger, if a less frequent feeling as either.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling thusly, so long as you don’t feel it all the time.

Anyway: Going forward, you will feel that all the time.

Every second of every day, from this moment on, you will be about to get sick. You will never actually be sick, but you will always be on the verge, always skating the edge, always dreading the onset of a debilitating illness, every moment of every day, waiting for illness to set upon you.

It’ll never be a bad illness, merely the flu, the sort of thing you could recover from in a day or three if you could only just get it over with. But you’ll never get it over with, will you, no matter how long you might wait to…

You will never be sick, therefore you will never get better. You will merely be about to be sick. Every day. Forever, for all eternity. This is your existence, every moment of every day, until the end of time.

This is your punishment, for your sin. This is what hell is for you.

Other than that, your existence will be exactly as you’d expect it. You’ll go about your business as though nothing was wrong, but you’ll feel as though you’re about to get sick.

But you’re not sick.

But you’re about to be.

It seems like a minor irritant to deal with, I know.

Over the length of eternity, I look forward to watching you realize that it is not.

Weekly Prompt Story: Butter

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=25923

Butter

By Christopher Munroe

I can’t believe it’s not butter.

By which I mean I can, I just don’t.

I don’t know what sick game it is you’re playing, what you hope to gain from spreading such an obvious lie, but it’s butter. I know it’s butter, you know it’s butter, so let’s come together and be real about it, here, now, together.

It is butter.

You are a liar.

And it is fucking butter!

I apologize for the profanity, liars just make me so fucking angry, is all.

And such obvious lies, too.

It’s disrespectful.

It’s clearly butter.

I can’t believe it’s not.

My Soul

I recently sold my soul…

I called up a demon at a crossroad, out in the middle of the woods, as is traditional with these matters, and offered up the essential, immortal bit of myself that demons traditionally seek.

And he was very impressed.

Apparently, comparatively few people bother with the old ways anymore, and when somebody goes to the trouble, it’s appreciated by those in the know. Craftsmanship, and what not.

That’s a selling your soul fun fact, by the way. Demons appreciate craftsmanship. If you ever choose to sell your own I hope the information serves you well.

In return for my soul, I asked for immortality, because really, if you’re pulling the trigger on something like this you might as well go big on the asking price, you might as well go as big as you can possibly imagine. It’s your soul, after all, and you only get the one, so go big or go home.

Or, in my case, go big and then go home. I asked for immortality, and it was quickly granted. I don’t know if the demon had some big scheme to cheat me of my prize, or if he just appreciated my combination of commitment to tradition and gumption, but he paid my price with a smile on his face, even asking if there were anything else I might want in addition.

And there was.

I asked that he take my soul there and then, at the crossroad, that my mind and body might live forevermore without it.

My soul, you see, had at some point or other become a burden to me. Existence is a hard thing, as you well know, and I’d seen what felt at the time like far more than my fair share of tragedy. I could not bear the grief, the sadness, the thousand tiny cuts that living in the modern world had inflicted upon me, and I’d hoped that, without a soul, accepting my lot in this world might be a little easier.

You cannot be weary to your very soul, after all, if you have no soul with which to feel the weariness.

So I asked, and the demon obliged, glad as he was to take his payment without needing more than a minimum of effort, and I’ve been soulless ever since. Which some would call a tremendous tragedy.

Some would say that without a soul, however long my body and mind might live on, my existence has no meaning, that there is no purpose to my presence here on earth, that I am nothing. And this might well be, who am I to say?

I’m not here to debate metaphysics; I’m simply here to explain the choices I made that have brought me to this point.

Because this point, I’ve got to admit, is a magnificent place to be. The moment my soul was taken, all the worry and pain and grief and self-doubt that had plagued me went with it. It was as though a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, and for the first time in my life I felt truly free.

I walked forward from the deal soulless and, finally, genuinely happy. And there has been not one moment where I have regretted the decision I made.

Also: I am now immortal. And while that wasn’t the real reason I unburdened myself of my cumbersome soul, it is a not inconsiderable perk. I don’t doubt the coming millennia will be fascinating to see.

Admittedly, I’ve been killing WAY more people than usual, lately. But that’s neither here nor there.

Two roads diverged in a wood, you see, and at the crossroad I sold my soul. And it’s made all the difference…

Weekly Prompt Story: Watch

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=25905

On the Subject of Film

By Christopher Munroe

I don’t care, I liked it.

I’m aware that Zack Snyder values style over substance, and that he skews toward the superficial, but when he hits he hits.

And when somebody else writes the story for him, he usually hits! Direct adaptations are definitely within his wheelhouse!

He did change the third act, but I’d say for the better. Let’s face it, that squid monster would have looked goofy as hell on the big screen.

So I liked it. I liked the movie and I watch it again and again.

I watches the Watchmen.

I like to watch the Watchmen.

...on doomsday.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have destroyed the world. Looking back, I don’t even really remember why I did…

You know how it is. You have a bomb big enough to destroy the whole of planet Earth, it seems somehow wasteful not to.

Still, I could’ve at least asked first.

Admittedly, I don’t know who I’d have asked. Even finding Earth again was tough, after so long.

Nobody’d lived there in millennia.

Still, it’d been nice to know that it was out there, our cradle, waiting for us should we ever return.

No, I shouldn’t have destroyed it.

My bad?

Weekly Prompt Story: Monster

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=25823

Appetites

By Christopher Munroe

I wouldn’t call myself a monster.

Merely a man occasionally made slave by his appetites.

The sort of man who’d never deny his desire for wine, for song, for celebration. His appetite for every one of life’s pleasures, those things that make living worthwhile, his appetite for joy, unquenchable.

Of appetites, unbound.

And yes, occasionally the appetite for human flesh. Ideally the flesh of children, but in a pinch any warm human will do. Yes, that’s the kind of man I am.

But not a monster, no, I’d never call myself a monster.

But then, I suppose no monster would….