The Mezunian

Die Positivität ist das Opium des Volkes, aber der Spott ist das Opium der Verrückten

Boskeopolis Stories: SCARY CREEPS SUPER MONSTERS KEEPS ME RUNNING BEARSHARE IN THE BACKGROUND

Sarangerel Oktaybr crept thru halls as dark as a black hole, all light sucked out. She fretted ’bout many things, from running into a monster or e’en just a spider or losing her best friend Natmar Černý, who she ’course couldn’t see, or e’en just bumping into her & annoying her.

She was relieved when she heard Natmar’s familiar voice whisper from just ’head, <Saran, ¿you there?>.

<Yeah — I’m right here>.

Tho Saran had tried to be as quiet as she could when whispering, Natmar whispered back with annoyance, <OK, but don’t be so loud, tho>.

After a few mo’ minutes — tho it felt like an eternity — o’ wandering, she heard Natmar whisper, <There it is>.

<¿What is it?>.

<Shh, stand here>.

Saran felt invisible hands clutch her & move her, which chilled her to her fringes, e’en when she kept telling herself ’twas just Natmar.

Natmar whispered, <Now bend down so I can climb on your shoulders>.

Saran nodded, tho she knew Natmar couldn’t see her, & then bent down as Natmar ordered.

<I’m dow—>.

<¡Shhh!>.

She felt Natmar’s heavy weight press down on her back, which hurt quite a bit, tho Saran knew better than to complain.

<All right, now stand up>, whispered Natmar.

Saran put all o’ her strength into standing, which was hard with such heaviness pressing down on her shoulders like anvils. She wrapped her hands round the soft cotton o’ Natmar’s pajama pants round her ankles to keep her steady, since she could feel her legs shaking on her shoulders. Then she waited with her eyes closed & prayed for Natmar to hurry & finish before Saran’s bones collapsed under her weight.

Then she started as she heard & felt a heavy thump right next to her — so much that she would’ve dropped Natmar if she hadn’t realized she was still holding onto her & tightened her heels to the ground.

She felt Natmar climbing down, anyway. But before she could ask her what that noise was, Natmar pulled her round till her hand was on a diagonal block o’ wood.

<Climb up>, Natmar whispered in her ear.

Continue story…

Posted in Boskeopolis Stories, Short Stories

Boskeopolis Stories: YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ASSASSINATIONS MAKE AN ASS ASS OF I AND NATIONS

TEASER

* * *

INT. SMOGGY SMELTER WALKWAY

It’s hard to see anything thru the thick curtain o’ mustard-colored smog rising from below the screen, mixed with the low light.

CLOSE UP to the faint view o’ a handrail, where a lobster claw slides past view, followed by a white-gloved hand, & then a row o’ similar gloves in close approximation.

A somewhat NASALLY voice, but 1 with a tone o’ deep confidence, speaks out, tho all o’ the figures are too dark in the shadows to see where it comes from.

LANCE
Hey, ¿how much longer is this stupid walkway?
‘Cause I’ll tell you: if I slip & break
a pinky joint or bend a hair… Ooo boy,
will there be lawsuits.

AGENT P. M. MAJESTY
                      & my feet are getting tired.

EQUINOX
I think we’re deep enough.

Continue story

Posted in Boskeopolis Stories, Short Stories

Boskeopolis Stories: TAKE A PICTURE IT WILL LAST EXACTLY THREE YEARS SEVEN MONTHS EIGHT DAYS AND FOURTEEN HOURS

Autumn slowed her steps as she neared the window o’ a place named “Li’l Shop for Hoarders”, glossy e’en under fall’s faded sun, as if the storeowner had set up the sun itself to improve their presentation, so she could capture a longer image o’ the camera — sleek, black with a silver circle round its lens, text too small to read embossed in silver letters in the top left corner, & many other tiny details that probably pumped up its price. But it wasn’t the appearance o’ the camera that interested Autumn so much as the possibilities it presented: she’d read ’bout a local contest where people who took pictures o’ the strangest thing they could find in Boskeopolis would get a 30,000₧ prize; & part o’ her thought, well, she knew a disgusting abundance ’bout what was out there in this ferreous forest thru her many explorations searching for treasure, which she ne’er found…

{ I’ve ne’er found any ’cause I’m a dumbfuck guttertrash teenager, which is why I wouldn’t win this contest. I’d be competing with hundreds o’ people, many with decades o’ experience in photography & photo editing. My slow-ass laptop wouldn’t e’en be able to run whate’er expensive programs I’d need, much less would I be able to afford them }.

{ I mos-def won’t be able to afford the camera, either. ¿So why am I wasting my time looking @ it? }.

Then a voice — like a demon, if Autumn were so superstitious — said in her mind, { ¿So why not steal it? }.

Continue story

Posted in Boskeopolis Stories, Short Stories

Take My Supplement ( Una lamida de los labios y un agarre de la cadera )

I'm paranoid o' my appendix. 1 day it will kill me.

¿Are you thinking, well, have you had trouble with it in the past? & I tell you no, but appendices ne'er warn you, now do they. No, it's a ticking, ticking time bomb, ready to go off with aplomb & a song.

¿Why have you not gone to see a doctor 'bout it? Maybe they could have this deviant removed from the premises. That is a good question. ¡But you forget 1 thing! I am also paranoid o' health insurance. Look @ them combing o'er my claim with fine molars, ready to scratch out the infinitesimalest-print gotcha I tripped o'er & then, slappo, rejected, my friend in a tent; & then I owe literally billions & have to eat store-brand pot pies 'stead o' the Marie Calendar 1s. You also forget that I'm not rich @ all, but make below-market wages making websites, & therefore don't have billions to literally pay.

¿Do you constantly think o' this appendix? ¿How can you e'er concentrate on your Marie Calendar pot pie when you're constantly looking o'er your shoulder to keep yourself ready for when your appendix begins to strike?

No, that's the problem ‐‐ ¡I'll forget! & 1 day when I'm forgetting ‐‐ ¡BOOM SCOOB! It drives me mad all day every day, o' what happens if I forget.

¿What made you remember today?

Today is when the pain became.

¿For no reason? ¿Out o' the blue?

No, outside my house, hurrying back to where I left those stupid, shitty, pointless books I left in the bushes.

¿Why did you leave your books in the bushes?

I couldn't carry them. I was bringing home 3 bags & a backpack full o' whate'er books I thought I might e'er want in my life from the library @ a $ a book that I'll ne'er get round to reading & groceries when the handle on my biggest bag, Jay, ripped, which ripped my heart.

¿Just a handle ripping? ¿What big difference does that make? It sounds like you couldn't carry all that junk already & you should've managed your inventory better.

No, the handles make all the difference. When I put all my inventory in my backpack on my back & these thick bags on my shoulders, I can lift the entire earth like Atlas. I don't know the science, but some chemical compounds in either these handles or my shoulders lessens the weight. But without the handles, carrying the bulbous big bag by the bottom with my lower arms, the weight felt like it exponentialized.

¿So that's why you left the books in the bushes?

They were the most expendable, since I didn't go out to get them, anyway. I bent down & hid them in the nearest bushes ‐‐ so exhausted that I didn't e'en bother to keep my knees twisted so that nobody accidentally looked up my black denim skirt & saw my red checkered boxers & was disturbed, tho if they weren't disturbed but enjoyed what they saw or e'en was just intrigued I wasn't quite sure whether or not I would be disturbed or thrilled ‐‐ so that nobody would see them & perhaps throw them 'way.

Or steal them.

Nobody was going to steal these books: 2 o' them were unpublished proofs & 1 was a book by Jonathan Franzen. I made sure to keep the Tom Sawyer & Great Gatsby on the 1st trip ‐‐ nobody was getting their soggy hands on these. 'Haps if somebody looked closely @ them & noticed the Good News Bible I'd bought, which had the words I ♥ Green Day written in marker on the page edges, they would've realized how priceless this copy was. I can't believe that library were such fools to give such a rare edition for only a $, but they probably figured some ne'er-do-well would just steal it, anyway.

So I hid these in the bushes, hustled my way back with my lighter bags ‐‐ I want to emphasize "lighter", since they still made me feel as if I were going @ a turtle's pace, my whole body constantly puffing like a slowly deflating balloon ‐‐ & then dropped the bags in the kitchen for the nephew to put 'way, & then ran back with just my backpack, forgetting my sunglasses, which I regretted, as 'twas bright outside & hurt my eyes ‐‐ feeling free as a frisbee without all the weight round me ‐‐ & in my rush to make sure nobody stole my vital shitty books I felt a pain in my side begin to fester. I blame the soda I guzzled when I got home just before leaving ( I should add that I had gone 5 hours without drinking anything & was losing literally gallons o' sweat from my burdens, which contributed to the oppression o' carrying everything home in 1 go joe, which was worsened by the way I could barely breathe 'neath my face mask, my mouth smothered by my beard & moustache like thick blankets ). Those 2, Coke & my appendix, are always conspiring gainst me. They think I don't know, but I do.

Well, a'least when you got back from your 2nd trip you were able to finally relax.

You forget that the reason I went to the library in the 1st place was to print out fliers, which I now had to hang up all round the apartment complex ( & the other complex on the other side o' the gate 'hind my apartment, which had a convenient hole @ 1 point in the dirt for me to crawl under ).

¿Is that your job?

No. You forget that I'm a web developer, not a flier applicator. These were for my cat o' 15 years, who had mysteriously disappeared o'er the last week. As you can see, I'd been procrastinating putting up these fliers for far too long 'cause I've been so busy with my real job, which is not hanging up fliers. Still, hanging them up on Saturday wasn't the worst curse to work up my nerves, as that gave me 2 extra days before the office staff return from their days off & inevitably call me to tell me, sir, you need to take down these fliers; such advertisements are not allowed on our walls.

¿You hung them on people's walls?

The outside walls. The tape wouldn't stick to the tree. I'll have you know that some stranger rudely told me that my tapework was amateur minute shit & I asked them if they'd seen my cat & they told me they hadn't, despite my offering a $100 reward, so they clearly hadn't forgotten to be rich & didn't need the money; otherwise they would've found my cat by now 'stead o' wasting their time analyzing how crooked my tapework was.

¿Did the pain in your side e'er dissipate?

Yes, but it'll be back & 1 day it'll do me in ‐‐ & probably soon. I know it knows that I'm currently speaking with my lawyer ‐‐ in hushed tones in back alleyways, since my appendix's cameras are everywhere ‐‐ 'bout removing my appendix from my will ‐‐ or a'least only giving it the minimum $5,000 so it can't pull that cow 'bout me forgetting 'bout them, when I ne'er forget 'bout them, I ne'er forget.

Posted in Short Stories

Questionably Relevant Content Is a Great Way to Cover a Lack o’ Updates

If anyone remembers those Nasrin stories I published here almost a year ago, they now have their own website… sort of. That also has some new stories that I wrote o’er the last year but ne’er bothered to publish like many other things.

& since I’m talking ’bout other stuff I’ve been doing ( ¿isn’t that all this blog is, anyway? ), there’s this short story series I’ve been doing for 5 years whose website I recently ( read: 4 months ago ) overhauled & a microstory series based on random prompts that I started doing daily ‘gain this month.

In my defense, I have been doing things, it’s just that I haven’t been finishing them, which is the trick. For instance, I’ve finished 2 levels for Boskeopolis Land, but am still trying to record “The Minus Touch”, but am failing, ’cause Ubuntu likes randomly making programs stop working, or maybe it’s just linux video-editing programs. I may have to resort to using screenshots, since, to be honest, I hate video-editing, anyway; but this bugs me, since ’twas a pain beating “The Minus Touch” so that I could record a successful run in the 1st place.

Expect 2 editorials ’bout video games before the end o’ the month. I thought last October would be my worst, but 2017 nadirs as always.

Posted in My Crimes Gainst Art, Nasrin

Two Italian Uncles Getting down with the sickness to the Beat

(Courtesy o’ John Jacob Whistleford, the Plot Generator)

Bubsy Bubs was thinking about Pepsi Cola again. Pepsi was a piratical clutter with big in the grits spleen and skimpy phantom leg.

Bubsy walked over to the window and reflected on his pumpkin-colored surroundings. He had always hated dank my face with its warm, watery whirlpools. It was a place that encouraged his tendency to feel ziggy.

Then he saw something in the distance, or rather someone. It was the a piratical figure of Pepsi Cola.

Bubsy gulped. He glanced at his own reflection. He was a plump, nubile, sewer water drinker with pimper spleen and straggly phantom leg. His friends saw him as a barbecued, bewildered butter. Once, he had even jumped into a river and saved a teeny hand cans.

But not even a plump person who had once jumped into a river and saved a teeny hand cans, was prepared for what Pepsi had in store today.

The rainy sun teased like bitchin snakes, making Bubsy chuffy. Bubsy grabbed an objective object that had been strewn nearby; he massaged it with his fingers.

As Bubsy stepped outside and Pepsi came closer, he could see the wonky glint in her eye.

Pepsi glared with all the wrath of 1783 snoozy tasty tanks. She said, in hushed tones, “I hate you and I want her nose back.”

Bubsy looked back, even more chuffy and still fingering the objective object. “Pepsi, I put the lime in the coconut & shook it all up,” he replied.

They looked at each other with zaggy feelings, like two friendly, frightened fakes snitchin at a very radically moderate train ride, which had grunge jazz music playing in the background and two Italian uncles getting down with the sickness to the beat.

Bubsy studied Pepsi’s big in the grits spleen and skimpy phantom leg. Eventually, he took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” began Bubsy in apologetic tones, “but I don’t feel the same way, and I never will. I just don’t hate you Pepsi.”

Pepsi looked lippy, her emotions raw like a burnt, bright box with socks.

Bubsy could actually hear Pepsi’s emotions shatter into 6722 pieces. Then the piratical clutter hurried away into the distance.

Not even a drink of sewer water would calm Bubsy’s nerves tonight.

THE END

Posted in Short Stories, What the Fuck Is this Shit?