Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Presents Flush Fiction (28 page)

I have lots of ideas, such as using apes to find equipment lost at the bottom of the sea. (Repeated dunkings build up their lung capacity.) But most of my ideas are for TV. Here’s a cop show I think will really catch on. Its called
Epoch
. Each week a crime is committed and the police must solve it within a geological epoch. In the foreground, the police could be knocking on doors and asking questions. But behind them we see the city decay and buildings disappear and a forest arise. Then the police turn around, but there’s an oak tree where their car used to be because an epoch is passing. I tried Fox, but they said they already had something like it in development.

Breaking news! Here among the fluorescent lights, tiny cubicles and industrial gray carpet of Fairchild Industries, justice has arrived. Toad Woman fired Bob! Bob’s shouting wildly, making threats. Toad Woman called Security. Oh, what a plate of goodness, rich as a big Mexican meal with golden beans. I think I’ll hum some Eurythmics. A little “Sweet Dreams,” if you please. I’ll like being section supervisor.

Here’s an idea for a reality show entitled,
Yes, I Am a Dentist
. Eight men and women in different cities, without any medical
training, impersonate dentists. The one who gets away with it longest wins an electric car.

Whoa! Bit of a scuffle! Bob Grebble got wrestled out the front door by that hick guard, Darrell Something. This is so sweet. Toad Woman is talking on her cell phone, notifying upper management, letting them know how professionally she handled things. What a kiss-ass!

That’s what minor power does. So typical. They give the weak a little authority to toss away weaker ones. Only wisdom and compassion, such as mine, can overcome the allure of power. This is reflected in my idea to have combs and pocket-handkerchiefs on every corner that could be taken by people and later exchanged for cleaner ones.

Toad Woman dropped her cell phone and sprinted past me. She runs well for a short, squat woman in platform heels. Darrell Something—Garmenting, that’s his name—Darrell Garmenting also bolted by my cubicle, his guard keys jingling like sleigh bells.

Toad Woman and Darrell duck inside the break room and close the door.

Meanwhile, Bob Grebble has reentered the building.

His hand is inside a backpack.

I stop humming.

Bob’s bellowing about cold stew; cold stew for cold people. A metaphor? A quip?

I am suddenly frightened. So frightened, I keep typing this, this, this, this……..

I want to be Harry Potter and vanish to that town near Hogwarts where I’ll buy sweets for my friends.

Bob and his backpack are here, smelling of WD-40 and gun oil.

“Watcha typing, Prime Time? Better not lie.”

“Nothing, Bob,” I whisper. “Just a few ideas.”

“Keep it up, Gobi.”

He walks away, pulling a large semiautomatic pistol from the backpack. I am so relieved I hum “Mr. Roboto” by Styx.

Section supervisor? Couldn’t today’s events propel me even higher?

I stand and catch Bob’s eye, pointing to the break room.

Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three…

Pop! Pop-pop-poppoppoppoppop!

I believe the position of department head just opened.

Of course, Toad Woman was a sloppy, inefficient manager. She should’ve fired Bob years ago.

Luckily, I possess fresh ideas to tighten things up around here.

I hum a little Tears for Fears: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”

David Steffen

T
he afterlife was arbitrary, Sam Fichtner decided. There was no Heaven or Hell, only one place. He’d had plenty of time to ponder since he crossed over. The Hereafter was filled with endless rows of clear domes like the one he occupied, a space of infinite size covered with a grid of cake platters. When people died, they were partitioned into one of these domes to spend the rest of eternity.

The domes didn’t curve downward out of sight, but upward so that they filled the sky, like the interior of a giant sphere. And although the distance across the sphere was so immense that he should not have been able to see them clearly, he found that if he concentrated he could see the tiniest of details of the domes at any distance.

God works in mysterious ways, so the expression says, and it is true, no matter what name you give Him. But Sam had never understood just how mysterious His ways really were. Sam had always assumed that nothing awaited after death except oblivion. Many believe the afterlife is bifurcated to reward earthly behavior, like toys promised to a child by parents pretending to believe in Santa Claus, and that made a sense of its own, but both views were dead wrong.

Sam remembered dying in a car accident, so clearly there was an afterlife, but the segmentation of souls into their respective places apparently had nothing to do with morals, and there were millions, maybe billions, of partitions, not just two. Some of the
domes appeared to have millions of souls in them, though they somehow never looked more crowded; some had just a few. Domes with just one individual were extremely rare. From his lonely dome, population one, Sam could see into the other domes full of people talking, laughing, fighting, loving. In his dome was a marble pedestal. Upon the pedestal, a sandwich. His favorite breakfast, his own strange invention. Peanut butter and honey, with garlic salt mixed in.

He took the sandwich and nibbled it, not because he was hungry but because he had little else to do. It was sweet and salty and rich, as it always was. Another sandwich would then appear on the pedestal, taking the place of the first one.

Time passed. With nothing to mark the seconds, it could have been days or months or centuries for all he knew.

He had little else to do but watch the other domes. A dome next to his held a huge crowd constantly drinking, talking animatedly, fighting. Other domes were more subdued, but the people were always interacting, finding ways to entertain themselves with their meager belongings, armwrestling, playing cat’s cradle with their shoelaces. He ached for any kind of human contact. Even a fistfight sounded appealing, just to feel real again.

Pounding on the glass did nothing but send the whole dome vibrating, and it made his teeth ache. One of the drunks in the next dome saw him and pounded on his dome in return, laughing at the vibrations it caused and prompting his buddies to start a fistfight to get him to stop. Lucky bastard.

He resigned himself to his lonely, dismal fate. Watching the other domes wasn’t so bad. It was better than network TV, at least. He could make up stories about the people he was watching and guess what their lives had been like. He watched and sang songs and watched, and paced and watched.

One day, after unknowable eons had passed, he heard a voice
behind him, soft and sweet. “Hello?”

He spun to look, and there she was, brown hair, unfamiliar clothes, deep green eyes. “Hello.” Just the presence of another human being sent chills up and down his spine. He thrilled at the novelty of hearing sounds generated by a completely different person.

“Where am I?” she asked.

“I don’t know. The afterlife, I guess.”

The silence stretched on as she looked around, looking at the domes beyond the glass. He struggled to think of something to say, his social skills having waned considerably. “Would you like a sandwich?” he asked lamely as he took a sandwich and handed it to her.

She lifted a corner of the bread and peeked inside. “My favorite!” As it turned out, it was the last food that each of them had eaten before they died.

David W. Goldman

S
ince the short time from mutual greetings of worlds, many Earther wish to visit the lovely world of the Pooquar peoples. This explainer before so will bring yourselves a voyage most lovely.

WITHIN THE TRANSIT

The travel via cross-continuum portal will be novel to many Earther. Hydration is a paramount for not having the small problems of liver, marrow, blood tubes, and self memory. Also good before your trip is to make fat, especially under the skin. The scrawny traveler should begin preparation many week prior.

Portal going is sudden and then done. But many Earther say after that they think the journey is very very very long and never to stop. Thus is Earther brains supposed bad attuned to one or more of the interim journey continuum. For thus, non-conscious makes for most lovely travel. Means of non-conscious both pharmacological and percussive are on offer by helpful Pooquar portal agents.

AS THE EARLY DAYS

Because subtle differences in physics regulations from what most Earther are parochially accustomed, the traveler is suggested to acclimate in the “horizontal” position until local niceties of unreliant gravity, time-keeping, and atmospheric presence become appreciated. Acclimation such will entertain you for no more than two—or for some traveler, twenty or thirty—“days.”

While thus occupied with your appreciation of localness,
helpful Pooquar hostelry staffpersons will provide you with lovely hydration and fat-making nutritionals. For your best healths, stint not on your consumption.

TOURING THE OUT-VICINITY

While you delight yourselves in the appreciation of very-known scenics as the Flowing Up Falls of Nagbaf, the Lesser Half Dark Big Hole, the Plain of Many Breath Sucks, and other such lovely vicissitudes, some attention to health and safeness are ordered.

Firstmost, if urgent advised by helpful Pooquar tour leader, immediately disobey not! Your very life endurance may happen. This is especially as pertains to stepping away from lovely trails, consuming unadvised nutritionals, perusing explainers offered by exiled dissident non-persons, or providing unsolicited refreshment to local fauna/flora/other life-beings.

Next, maintenance your lovely all-enwrapping tourist jumpsuit and coverall always. The presentation of the skin, even a small only piece of the skin, is discouraged for health. This from the fad of local life-beings to reproduce by injecting seed-forms into passing faunas, later to germinate and partake of the subcutaneous lipids in achieving bigness. Thus is best always your jumpsuit and coverall with integrity. (Small note: In the event of any rash of discolor or tendrils from the skin please notify immediately your helpful Pooquar tour leader for the swift extirpation.)

In finality, avoid districts of elevated temperature and humidity. In these grow the grubs of local life-beings, who may exhibit unsolicited hunger of lovely Earther visitor.

After leaving the out-vicinities, you should place the above-spoken biologic factual concerns far from your self memories.

OF THE URBAN JOLLITY

In welcome for subsequent your joyful tours of the out-vicinities, the Pooquar peoples of the citified regions will ply you unsparingly with lovely bring-home curios and appliances and also nutritionals without betterment for taste and skin-fat-making. Enjoy all these with loveliness!

In the cities is no great harm for concern of health. But be full of alert to avoiding speech from irksome disagreers with lovely policies of the governings of the Pooquar peoples. Such talkers of stupid are not amiable with the lovely Earther to travel of yourselves across continuum and returning with lovely Pooquar guests. If approached by busybody of imbecile forebodings regarding Earther traveler, heed not but call loud and with strident!

Many are the friendly Pooquar peoples who find lovely the Earther holding of limb extrusions in greeting. When such friendly Pooquar enjoin with protruding outstretched, please enjoy the removing of any encumbrance glove, sleeve, or trouser legs for sharing in the lovely joint-holding of limb parts. Stay fast so long as to experience lovely sensation of pleasant tingling, warmth, and small piercings. All is joy then for your new friend and yourselves.

In rarity, the Earther of sympathy and astute may note a small beautification of the skin with lovely color or perhaps small out-swellings. When such occurs within urbanity, please request of any apothecary for much cream of obscuration, so as to prevent envy and jealous from other Earther during your remaining voyage and after return.