Another Fucking Story About Juggalos (Part One)

I heard them coming long before I saw them...

The haunting strains of ICP from the car window as their matte black, 1984 Cadillac Coupe de Ville pulled up next to me and the three of them jumped out.

All three wore full, black and white demon-clown war paint across their faces, two wore dreadlocks. The third’s head was shaved, and all three wore matching “Hatchet Man” medallions around their necks.

The first, their leader I presume, wore a faux hockey jersey proclaiming him to be named “Thug Ballz”, and as they approached he looked me dead in the eye.

I consider myself a generally open-minded person, accepting of all to the degree that I can be, but I admit, in that moment I was afraid. Involuntarily, I took a step back, frightened of impending attack, scared that they might hurt me…

Instead, they put their arms around, and held me tight.

“You are not alone.” One told me.

“We are all in this together.” Said another.

“You are the real miracle.” Thug Ballz added, and then they got back into their car and were gone, as though they’d never been there in the first place…

…this was my first experience, though by no means my last, with the Contact Juggalos.

Weekly Prompt Story: Temper

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26115

Temper

By Chris Munroe

I can’t seem to get angry anymore.

I try, I mean there’s plenty of horrible shit going on around the world that’s well worth getting angry over, but however much I strain I can’t.

I used to be able to summon up appropriately righteous fury, and I still mean to, but I never seem to get there.

I’m no longer shocked by mankind’s inhumanity. I’m used to it. Outrage fatigue, I guess. I don’t know the technical term. I just know I used to be angry, but I can’t get there any more…

…at some point, I lost my temper.

Torture

I’ve kidnapped a stranger and brought him back to my lab, in order to intentionally traumatize him for my own personal entertainment.

Yes, I know, again.

Realistically, half the blame is yours. I mean, this is by no means the first time I’ve told you people about something like this. I’ve been an open book about my life and each new monstrous thing I’ve done has been dutifully reported back to you. You have done nothing to stop me, in spite of each story I’ve written in this vein, and as such yes, you are as responsible for traumatizing this person to near-insanity as I am, in spite of the fact that I was the one actually torturing him.

Tho’ yes, it was me torturing him.

The specifics of how? I thought you’d never ask!

Upon kidnapping him, I brought him back to my lab, strapped him into a chair, held his eyes open with Clockwork Orange style mechanisms and forced him to watch video of horrific, violent acts, the sort that no human being should ever be made to witness. I forced him to do this for thirty-six hours at a stretch, unrelentingly, without any moment of relief, without the possibility of sleep or respite. I did this until his fragile human mind broke in such a way as to never be put back together.

And, as I did, I forced him to listen to Chic’s 1978 hit “Le Freak”. I put it on repeat, over the course of the thirty-six hours he listened to it a total of three hundred ninety six times. More than enough to cause him to forever associate it with the most emotionally torturous experience he ever has, or ever will, go through.

For the rest of his life, he will associate that song with traumatic imagery and emotionally painful events. The song will, unbidden, bring him feelings of primal, fight-or-flight style terror, terror that he will be unable to control, terror that will make him its slave.

Funk chords will play and he will go white.

Bass will begin and his knees will shake.

And when a woman’s voice sings “Freak out!”, rest assured, he will.

As I was doing this, I found it very funny. Although it is not.

It is not funny.

It is not funny because an innocent human life has been destroyed by a sociopath.

An innocent human life has been destroyed by a sociopath that you, dear reader, could have stopped.

But you didn’t.

You monster.

Weekly Prompt Story: Storm

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/?p=26071

Flood

By Christopher Munroe

We’re a flood town.

We always have been.

You may remember last year being the first major, city-debilitating flood Calgary’s had, but you’re remembering incorrectly. We’ve always been a flood town and as such we’ve always had floods.

Whenever there’s a major storm, we flood, nothing could be more natural and we’re all used to it.

It has always been thus, and there is no need to examine it further.

We are a flood town, we always have been and we will always be.

There is no such thing as global climate change.

Now: How goes the war with Eastasia?

...when waiters attack.

Say “Gluten free” again, motherfucker, I dare you. I double dog dare you. Say it one more fucking time.

I have had it with you people and your fake allergies and fad diets. I don’t need it, I don’t deserve it, I’m a good person and a hard worker and I’m better than this. You don’t have an allergy, you just saw a thing on TV and decided to change your diet in fundamental ways based on very little information, and now you think you’re within your rights to get pissy with me that our kitchen can’t bend over backward far enough to kiss your ass and make you happy? Eat a bag of fucks, you low-information, off-menu-ordering piece of garbage…

What? Of course I have a gun, all the waiters here have guns, it’s company policy. Now sit back down and shut the fuck up, I’m trying to tell you something.

And the worst thing is, there are real people suffering real, in some cases life-threatening, food allergies, and they have real problems getting their issues taken seriously because peasants like you use “I’m allergic” as though it and “I don’t happen to like it” were interchangeable.

They’re not. They’re different words that mean different things, and you can’t use one in place of the other. You aren’t allergic, this is not a real allergy, you just happen not to like it.

Huh? How do I know you don’t have a real allergy to gluten? Why am I so confident? I apologize, allow me to explain…

…YOU ASKED IF THE BREAD WAS GLUTEN-FREE! YOU DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER ASKING IF THERE WAS SPECIAL BREAD, YOU ASKED ABOUT OUR REGULAR BREAD, AND WHETHER IT WAS GLUTEN-FREE!

I mean, seriously, do you even know what gluten is? A person with a legitimate medical issue with regard to processing it would already know that yeah, there would be gluten in the bread. A person with a non-fake allergy to gluten would not have to ask.

And you don’t have to ask either. Just order your fucking food, pay your fucking tab, tip thirty percent for wasting my time and get the fuck out, and take your weird fad diet with you. Can you do that? Can you? Can you please do that for me?

Thank you. That wasn’t so fucking hard, was it?

Anybody else here have a problem with how I handled that?

Good.

Now, how about you, sir? Have you figured out what would you’d like for your dinner?

WHAT THE FUCK IS PALEO??!?!??!

Weekly Prompt Story: Cold

http://oneadayuntilthedayidie.com/

I Wasn’t There

By Christopher Munroe

I’m thirty-six years old.

Which means that, when the Berlin Wall fell, I was twelve.

Do you get that? I was twelve. The idea of the cold war, and all it entailed, all the fear, hate, dread and paranoia, are things that I’ve only ever viewed through the prism of a twelve-year-old boy’s perspective.

I’m reasonably intelligent, good with history, but let’s face it, at twelve I wasn’t able to properly interpret the level of geopolitical relpolitik the fall of the wall required.

I wasn’t there yet, intellectually speaking.

And now, it’s too late.

That moment in history has passed…

Caught By Fire

…I stand in the street, gazing back at what once was home.

I’d lived there so briefly, and had such hopes for it, that I can’t help shock at its loss, too sudden to be properly prepared for.

But then, isn’t every loss?

Precious few hours ago, I welcomed guests, took coats, so prideful, so pleased at my new apartment, so unaware of what was to come.

Now I’ve lost it all to the flames, my hubris proving my downfall, suddenly homeless.

I should not have invited Prometheus to my housewarming.

What on earth did I expect him to bring?