Tales For The Crapper: Stories That Won't Numb Your Legs!
Author: Christian Ducharme
Date: 2026-05-01 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Comedy; Anthology
Description: Vampiric houses! Encroaching moss! Sleepy Time Ninjas! Overuse of Exclamations! 13 stories of... something. Much like the thoughts racing through an ADHD-fevered brain, these stories run the gamut from fun to depressing as hell and with a whiplash likely to cause hospitalization if dramatically reenacted. So please, don't do that! Whether we're visiting robotic observer species living for the first time, or a Sleepy Time Ninja whose perfectly balanced bells and their sweet cacophony of music lull children into their dreams loses a bell creating an imbalnce in a rare all ages story of Jingle Ja
Publisher: Kindle Direct Publishing

Table of Contents

1. Waffle
2. We Listen
3. A Bit of a Mistake
4. The Meat
5. The Furnace - Some Like It Really Hot
6. The Dead Earth
7. Mary and the Meat
8. The Work
9. The Taste
10. Myth of The Rock Thrower and The Goddess
11. The Sugars
12. This Story Sounds Mossy
13. Jingle Jangle

Landmarks

1. Table of Contents

The Waffle,

Or How I Met My Breakfast

It was like every other waffle I’d made myself in the iron I’d used for over a decade, y’know a waffle shaped kind of thing ready to become a vessel for syrup prior to being eaten. Putting the syrup on was standard as well, it pooled into the squares as expected and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn it sighed contentedly.

It was when I stuck my fork into it my day got really weird, this was immediately accompanied by the loudest and most animal scream I’d ever heard. It’s what I imagine you’d get when you stick a fork into a raccoon, which is just mean you shouldn’t do it but it’s like if you had that sound. The waffle itself didn’t exactly “talk” so much as I just knew that had to be the source and it was… I’m not even going to try to guess okay?

I touched the waffle with the fork gently, that’s when I found it can do more than scream. It can get angry and when this thing gets angry weird things apparently can happen. Imagine if you will I’ve got a molecular level camera trained on the syrup draped on the waffle and then imagine there’s a team of ten armed aliens with 5 flamethrowers each firing at the molecules to make them move fast, or like I said before this is beyond my understanding and while that’s a good hypothesis I have no clue how the syrup flowed UPWARDS towards my fork hand but it did. “Standing” upright and angled like a hammer with a permanent sharp nail end, it lurched back and then forward at my hand.

As it flew at my hand, as if in slow motion, you could visibly see the liquid cooling into a crystalline form. Much like ice but who the hell knows if that was due to temperature change or whatever waffle magic I dealt with. It stabbed down hard. Piercing right through, sliding around bones and other obstructions I got a neat hand piercing that day!

Needless to say, it hurt more than I could have ever imagined, but mostly because who in their right mind would have imagined this? The waffle laughed. Not a human laugh, that would almost have been an improvement. No this was the laugh of an animal, like a hyena but less natural.

This is when I lost my cool, my breakfast food laughing at me? That’s the last straw! I grabbed my fork with purpose and relished the scream when I stabbed in. It got louder and louder as the waffle got smaller, and I swear the last bite tried to stick in my throat with a barb made of syrup, but I washed it down with hot coffee straight from the carafe.

It was the best waffle I’ve ever had.

We Listen

The Listener was not special, in fact none of its species is special. They are all manufactured to a precise standard such that they all have the exact same useful lifespan. It is an interesting role they fill, you see The Listener’s species consists of many bladders connected to appendages like horrific bagpipes. These appendages themselves hook into the brain and the walls depending on the designed function.

From the holes secretes the highly concentrated nutrient paste the appendages bring to the brain, which has the thought power of two class 3 planets. Class 3 planets have civilizations much like the Earth’s in regard to intellectual capacity. The brain somehow, is less than in inch long.

Every one of The Listener’s many thousands of living relatives are all involved in their own thought tasks, in fact The Listener is no different.

A curious planet, 3rd from its sun, has emitted a continual broadcast. There are many sounds, and it took The Listener some acclimation time. It’s hard to say how much in the early going though, as soon The Listener realized it was a language. It could mark the beginning and end, except it seemed to never repeat and some of the sounds were as if they were from a different tongue.

Maybe even many different tongues. It set about diverting parts of its resources, really looking for patterns on small and large scales. By the time it heard the beginning again The Listener was sure it was at least a dozen or more languages. The Listener was off by at least tenfold.

Nearly through the 3rd rotation of the looping, but incredibly long broadcast The Listener made another breakthrough after diverting more resources to decoding the languages. This was the largest collection of stories the beings had created spoken in their original language. Not their understanding of sciences but of heroes and scoundrels. Not of their formula or figures but of mother goddesses and their figures. Most of all, they told stories of how their beings were often completed by another, they talked of a word all of their languages had a word for, they talked of love.

The Listener was in despair, this is not the data The Creator had fine tuned The Listener’s species for, had generously created the birthday vats and canal tubes when the dead of the species are cleared and the timer sends the replacements down. No, this is something else.

The Listener persevered, it made it 6 more times for a total of 9 when it finally decoded all of the languages, if nothing else it would have achieved this for The Creator’s cumulative knowledge. It disliked English the most but the creative inhabitants of that world often favored it as a universal language. At least the loudest ones did from The Listener’s understanding.

Something happened on that tenth time around, the stories started being easier to not only listen to but something else The Listener wasn’t familiar with. It was alarming but not unpleasant. Possibly it could also be useful data.

As the broadcast came to an end, The Listener for the first time really listened to the words.

“Again, if you’re hearing this, everyone on Earth is dead. Please do not come to save us, we’ve turned on ourselves and we can only come to turn on you.”

This is followed by loud bangs and a scream as the voice’s owner is torn apart.

The Listener’s power is fading and its lifecycle is nearly complete. Before the power fades too much, The Listener ruminates on the thing the stories brought out, it is strange and yet oddly comforting. In its calm and still mind it tries to picture what it thinks these curious bipedal beings looked like matched up to the voice, jumping to tap furiously at something called a computer to send the broadcast.

As The Listener extinguishes, having “imagined” as these creatures call it, it was both sad that these creatures with such a beautiful gift were no more, but also The Listener wondered if it was the first of its species to ever truly live.

This was good data indeed.

So I Made A Mistake

They laughed at him when as a teen he would dress as a zombie and walk around town outside of the acceptable Halloween, the other children didn’t exactly understand, they would dress their favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle or as yet another miniature Chewbacca.

When he started reading the comics they kept in the back rows at the local shops, the ones stocked by the weird guy who insisted color ruined the books within and the truly gruesome was done in black and white, sometimes red, his parents thought for sure this phase couldn’t last. Nothing about this fascination sparked by Romero and his successors could endure, surely he’d grow out of it.

When Jim started working as a grip for low budget movies particularly only those creating the gruesome hordes of undead he loved as a child, his parents finally realized that maybe this wasn’t just a phase or some passing fascination. He truly was obsessed but at least he parlayed it into a career right?

Further and further he worked his way up the ladder of the industry, no not Hollywood, this was gritty and done on a shoestring budget but were labors of love to Jim, he realized though it was not the case for his production partners. During the 2010s when zombies were the biggest rage he had work constantly pouring in.

But alas, what is popular becomes passe. And through the magic that only a stunted understanding of anything not related to zombies and their associated stories could produce he made every poor decision he could.

So now, he’s living back in his old room. Trying to write a project that maybe, just maybe will ignite a passion in someone with deep pockets. He’s unfortunately had no luck, and with his parents growing older and then falling ill. His obsession stopped being a viable career, and his residuals had dried up. Jim was tapped, and he had nothing to show for his life. An obsession that was just that, obsession and nothing more fueling the meager will he had to go about his day.

This brings us to the fourth of July during the year 2019, Jim’s mom had passed two weeks prior. He’d been numb for years so it’s unfair to lay that on the feet of his mother’s passing, let’s be honest it was one less set of tasks he had to do each day and that’s all that really registered in his self-absorbed world.

Jim was at the store when he saw the kid in what looked like a production quality zombie getup, if it had just been twenty years prior Jim might have had a spark of hope there was a kindred spirit. Now he turned around after shrugging his shoulders as she shambled towards the nearest person. It was the scream next that sounded most like the movies, they got that right. The fear, the shrillness, getting bit by a zombie must fucking suck and goddamned if it doesn’t sound like it.

Jim turned, feeling more awake than he had in years through some dislodged sense action he wasn’t even aware existed. The girl, she couldn’t be more than 12 or 13 was tearing a piece of a woman’s neck with her teeth, the arterial spray launching in a widely inconsistent rhythmic pattern nearly instantly. Who knew the movies got that right too?

Jim had in his hand the bottle of beer he’d been about to get, a cheap glass bottled pilsner in a 40oz container. Not even sure why he was acting, Jim twisted the bottle and grabbed it with two hands, raising them above his head he gauged the angle so that as he slammed down he would lodge it into her mouth. Jim has never had good coordination, and this wasn’t an exception. The large-bodied bottle stuck in her orbital socket rather than her mouth. It did stop her from eating more though to see this new development out of her good eye.

Whether she’s a zombie or whatever is going on Jim’s whole obsession screamed at him he had to destroy her brain to stop her. He knocks her to the ground onto her back and with his not insubstantial weight jumps down with gusto onto the bottle. This time he aims right and the bottle shatters, one of the longer shards slicing directly through his shoe but also impaling into her brain.

As he falls backward the glass stays with him, giving a sickening “schlup” sound as parts of the girl’s brain matter starts to follow along. Jim doesn’t get time to be sick though, instead the bitten woman from a few moments ago is beating him with her purse.

Some people are always ungrateful. Jim passes out, turns out he’s not used to this kind of blood loss that his foot is now providing.

The Meat

I sat down on the couch, tired and sore from the day working the local lithium mine. The grade of lithium needed for electronics is rare and we’re lucky they found that deposit here in Maine or we’d be in such dire straits as those whose reliance on the U.S. Government was greater. With the government being in receivership and now owned by a conglomerate of nations who were not devastated by the collapse of the global economy, brought about by North Korea finally stumbling on the formula to actually make a missile with more range than a Buick Skylark shot from a slingshot.

Anyway, it’s rough here, but it could be much fuckin’ worse. Shifting the plate I brought with me to the couch I grab the remote and press the power button. Nothing like watching a cooking show while you eat.

I had set my TV to record all cooking shows as a category, I often just watched the shows wishing I had access to the ingredients, to an avenue of expressing my creativity. But, there’s lithium to be mined to harness the energy we shove into their guts within our batteries, there’s not an abundance of uncontaminated meat though. So watching the shows is always like vicariously living a luxurious life never before dreamt of for me.

There’s a new show, this is pretty rare, especially one titled like this, simply “The Meat”. What the hell, I’m sure I’ve watched worse.

I bite into my soy bean patty, it’s less processed than I’d like and bits of the bean’s husks crunched as I bit down. I don’t like my food biting back, but beggars can’t be choosers and make no mistake even the working are the beggars. The show comes on, its jaunty title with a weird animated clown, a basic circus clown of the Ringling bent but with something clearly dead in its face. I just can’t place what.

A woman, the screen flashes at the bottom “Mary, Home Cook” is butchering an unidentifiable piece of meat. She’s clearing the offal, it’s disgusting but you have to respect someone dressing their own meat, they know just what they’re serving and the kind of canvas they have to paint with flavors on.

Her cuts are definitely clumsy, and her hands are inexplicably shaky, but for a cook who may have never encountered an animal large enough to dress like this she’s doing admirably well. As she finishes up the hunk of meat a door opens and another is brought in, this time I can see exactly what she’s cutting up.

The TV shows on the bottom “George, not the fastest rabbit on the block” and Mary starts sobbing as the men who brought the cadaver in bring their weapons to bear on her. She quickly starts her work, and in a few minutes that I cannot stop watching she takes apart the corpse and makes choice cuts with it. Despite clearly being distraught I do see a marked improvement on the quality of her cuts.

I want to turn off the TV, but this has already happened, these people have already had this experience and wouldn’t it be worse to ignore the results and have them become meat in vain? I don’t have an answer that will fit for all, but for me I wouldn’t want my final moments snuffed by a cold and callous power button on a remote.

So, I keep watching. The contestants are now in a cook-off, judging by the looks on their faces they already know the meat’s provenance. They cook anyway, I suspect they saw what happened to George even if we didn’t.

The show is pretty standard from here, and I got into the characters of the cooks. The only reminder came as the celebrity chef judges ate their mystery plates, they selected Mary and Steven as the bottom two, saying the person who remains will be “The Butcher” and the loser “The Meat”. They are given envelopes and told to open them at the same time.

The camera zooms in on Mary holding “The Butcher” as gunshots sound, her face and card becoming covered in Steven’s viscera.

I can’t wait for next week!

The Furnace: Some Like It Really Hot

“The answer to why we have a lock on our crematory furnaces is simple, it’s so the dead don’t try to escape!” Harry’s instructor in mortuary school certainly had an interesting sense of humor, and Harry still thought of that every time he locked up the crematory and fired up the furnace.

Tonight was his fourth overnight shift, the town doesn’t have a lot of dead so much as the owner of the mortuary had an agreement to only run the furnace at night since the chamber of commerce was hesitant to have the tourists seeing the plumes of corpse smoke and threatened to pull his permits through their connections with the council. So, Harry works nights now. The boss gave him a dollar an hour raise and Harry never had a social life anyway. It worked great.

Harry hadn’t prepared for the weird sounds, which is so damned cliche but here he was jumping at dumb bumps in the night. Oddly the crackling he often imagined he could hear of the remains being burned was the most soothing sound, he expected it even if it was likely coming from his own brain since the furnace is soundproof (“...it’s so the dead don’t try to escape!”) and it can’t be that.

Harry had loaded his phone and brought his incredibly loud bluetooth headphones, with the power of the internet at his hands, he’d defeat the sounds with music. So he put his trusty over ears on, and cranked the volume up. The industrial strength cord he’d gotten with ten feet of slack allowed his movements all around his work space to be mostly unencumbered.

He’d gotten the first set of remains taken care of within the usual 3 or so hours, and he loaded the body singing along with ZZ Ward on his headphones, hips swaying as she sings about how she’ll go if we just say goodbye. He closed the door and went over to the buttons for the furnace. Firing up the ignition and then setting the temperature timers to increase and decrease at the usual intervals.

As he finished the paperwork for the first, and he jumped on to a new song which he sang with gusto, imploring Adeline to not take his man. He turned around, to grab the paperwork for the second body, which was running at him on fire.

Harry didn’t have time to reconcile this impossible situation before the naked and literally flaming man was on top of him. They both crashed to the floor, the headphones crashing to the ground after flying off Harry’s head which was bouncing on the floor.

Harry shoved the corpse off of him, or tried to but the impossibly animated corpse instinctively clutched to him. They got twice to Harry’s knees and both times he was dragged down by the world’s clingiest naked zombified corpse. Harry could feel the blood dripping down his face, its flow reaching his mouth and leaving the iron taste that only blood can leave.

Harry had no idea how long it took before someone came, it was probably the full 5 hours left before his boss would have come in. Sure enough he heard his voice.

“Oh no, Harry did you leave the lock open? The dead can feel the burning you see, it’s a trade secret.”

Harry tried to stand as his boss started to come across the room, only Harry tripped up over his headphones, only a few feet away and conveniently right in his lurching path. Harry remembered feeling the desk really bite his head before everything went black.

Harry woke up as the flames engulfed him and his roommate in the furnace. Harry tried hitting the door a lot, but it wouldn’t budge. They both screamed, flesh popping in Harry’s ear.

His boss had locked the door of course, he was a pro.

The Dead Earth

The guard keeping people in line is bored, chewing from his last pack of gum, knowing each transport is that many more saved from the agony he has consigned himself to by staying behind. He knows the transport isn’t your standard shuttles, with the amount of people this site and the 125 others throughout the Earth are moving and at the rate they were doing so it’d take over a hundred years to get the shuttles built. We didn’t have that time.

No, the people are being transported to a planet near the Alpha Centauri star. It’s been vetted as safe, unlike this permanently gray skyed husk. Mankind hadn’t been kind to the Earth at all. Carving it up for the rocks and pockets of gasses never caring for the damage done, nor the damage done in the processing of the spoils to the protective layers of ozone. Adding into that the increased use of wasteful consumer products. It was a long time coming.

A child is holding the line up a little, crying and clearly lost. The guard puts out the cigarette that he was smoking, regulations have gotten lax the last few days during this push and the people on the platform seemed to understand the personnel are stuck here. Someone has to operate everything after all.

Scooting low, the guard mutters a few calming words, letting the child know their loved one will be waiting at the colony and everything will be alright. They’ll see the light of a sun again, a different light. One that has not turned vengeful and unfiltered.

The child braved up, stepping to the outer edge of the current group on the pad, and the guard heard that familiar cracking sound. They were gone, to the safety of a new planet, where our collective existential dread had been replaced by the boundless hope of humanity.

Amazingly there’s less and less people with each group. Soon a supervisor for the security team comes by and passes out blue ribbons. These, the guard is informed, are passes for security personnel as they are not all staying behind. The names are supposedly being drawn at random. The guard sighs when they pass him, and he goes back to watching the line. Enough so that he doesn’t hear the second supervisor calling his name.

“Johnson! Johnson! You’re going to the colony.”

The guard, Johnson, gives a start. He hadn’t anticipated this, for weeks they’ve been transporting the people using what can only be described as Star Trek style transporters. Though instead of blue light phasing you out it’s just like a loud bang of a popper made of paper followed by the smell of displaced humanity.

“I’m going? I’ll get to see my family?”

With a nod the supervisor hands him the pass. Johnson joins the queue, eager to hear that crack one more time. Practicing in his head every little thing he’ll say to his wife and daughter, who he had said goodbye to last week knowing he’d be working to allow others like them to go to the colony too. His eyes welled with tears, that queer hope only humans exhibit building into him. He’s next up, and he gets into the throng of people on the pad. It’s not as squished as before, but is far from comfortable.

CRACK

A disorienting blur, if it seemed instantaneous off the platform it was far from it on. For what felt like minutes his body felt as if it was tearing itself apart and it was, breaking the matter apart into pure atoms and recompiling using the blueprint mapped on the platform.

Finally his body coming back together, Johnson feels the disorientation slowing and he feels as if he’s come to himself. And immediately immolates, his body touching the surface of Earth’s sun and vaporizing nearly immediately, with only a millisecond for Johnson’s brain to comprehend what has happened and how many he helped bring to this horrendous end.

Mary and The Meat

Mary hadn’t ever cleaned and processed a human corpse until the last two weeks, and she’s now done it a total of five times, carefully working on the sixth. Being the butcher is the job of the second worst chef of the week. This of course means everyone’s results are relying on their skill with butchering a large animal, Mary’s first few times were terrible and everyone was on the chopping block by the end of the episode. The team grew to hate her and kept hoping she’d be the loser of the day’s episode, becoming the meat for the next.

The last two went better, and this one seems to really be going well. Since a large portion of the judging is based on all displayed knife skills in the episode Mary knows that a good performance can save her from becoming the meat, and closer to the promised “lifetime of wealth” she’d been enticed with by the show’s recruiter.

The recruiter hadn’t said anything about what happened to each episode’s loser, just that it was a sustainable cooking show with fresh proteins and a prize that sounded too good and vague to be true, but Mary was broke. Beyond broke, her restaurant not only on the verge of closing she couldn’t make the last two payrolls and no longer had a staff. Needless to say when the recruiter asked Mary if she wanted in, the answer seemed to be pretty clear. So she wound up here.

She’s done opening the cavity of Bruce’s chest, and begins the monotonous task of removing the offal. Mind wandering to the beginning of the show, that first episode with the maniacal animated clown looming over the contestants in the lens covers via some sort of electronics wizardry Mary wasn’t familiar with.

The animated host was bad enough, when the meat was unveiled it was a corpse who was the very recruiter that they had all talked with prior to the show's beginning. They voted on who the butcher was going to be when George tried to make a run for it and was dispatched by the snipers watching from the top of the almost endless walls that surrounded the contestants and their open kitchen.

She threw up in the corpse and also onto George’s corpse, but still somehow Elisa’s dish was voted worst by the judges, all famous TV chefs known for using unusual ingredients. Though none of them had ever had to cook with human.

Mary realizes she’s done breaking down the corpse into the best cuts she can manage. A noise draws her attention, that of a door opening. Which is exactly what is happening. The executive producer comes in to the room, a gleaming smile on his face.

“Mary! You’re a hit, the people love you and you draw the best ratings. That’s what makes this being a double elimination so terrible, you see we need double the meat!”

As he finishes his thought, Mary’s forehead caves in from the high powered rifle round passing through her skull.

The Work

He could never quite get the eyes right. No matter how hard he tried, how he looked and envisioned, they always were too narrow, or too open. Too almond, too round. Never fucking right.

Jeff had been trying to finish this work for two years now, it shouldn’t be as difficult as it has been but here we are, two days until the very generously timed commission is due and he still can’t get the fucking eyes right.

It had gotten maddening honestly, thousands of paintings and he didn’t have problem ONE with this. But give him the riches his heart has desired forever? Dangle the good life in his view?

Nothing. A fat zilch-o.

Throwing a brush towards the general direction of the trash after cracking it in two, Jeff suddenly realizes what he must do!

Realism is demanded, this client is exacting and one of the wealthiest people in the world. They’ll not harbor excuses.

The subject of the painting is their daughter, it’s a gift for her 16th birthday. Painted into a lavish ballroom that likely hasn’t existed for over two centuries. Every detail in the painting so immaculate, so real that it almost breathes off the canvas in front of you.

All but those cursed eyes.

He throws on his coat, grabbing his phone and shooting off a quick text. Seeing if he can get a last minute session with her.

On auto-pilot he makes his way to the hardware store, picking up tarping and various cleaning supplies. They’re used to seeing the artist and don’t bat an eye, since his eccentricities are the stuff of legend there.

At his work studio, Jeff starts setting up. Tarping the walls and floor, placing the working painting on the far wall, the blank spot where her eyes should be laughing at Jeff. No more.

No today, Jeff will fill that spot in the best way possible with the natural eyes of his subject. He turns around, and runs directly into the board of wood Griselda is holding.

Coming to groggily he hears his employer’s voice.

“I’m telling you, they said he was the best. Who knew he can’t paint your eyes? Why don’t we just complete the work for him?”

Suddenly Jeff’s head is grasped, and his eyelids are forced open. Wordlessly, Griselda reaches into his socket and yanks out his eye. There's a sudden vacuum in his socket, and a tug from within his skull as she yanks the orb completely free. She smiles at the eye in her hand, seemingly satisfied it will do.

Then the second eye and it all goes dark. But not empty. No, not empty. Jeff can still hear and feel. Oh gods can he feel.

The work is well received, she must have done a good job affixing to the canvas. And the praise came rolling in for years. Sadly, of course, Jeff never got to follow up the work.

The Taste

Lucious pulled away at the stones piled in the cavern mouth, mind idly wandering back to when he first met his Master.

It was a glorious evening, except for the fights in the square. Any celebration, this time of the success of the men of the city’s Mastery of the aqueducts and the best harvest ever as result of the new irrigation patterns they thought of, winds up with a raucous crowd. Lots of the two glorious f-words fucking and fighting. Somehow it’s always fighting that’s louder, Lucious laughs thinking of the implications of this observation as he pulls more boulders from the cavern.

Lucious was one of the chief architects of the massive stone works of the city, many would have said the very brilliance they carry was his primary doing, they were at least mostly right. But that evening? The only thing he really was was drunk, both on wine and the accomplishment he had achieved. When the handsome Jewish man, marked with his slave’s dress as such, stepped in his way Lucious was merry enough that evening to not strike at him. Instead he laughed, as something about the man had comforted him.

“Come brother under these stars, let’s drink and revel in my accomplishments tonight!” Lucious then extended a hand to the slave, which is when he noticed the smile growing unnaturally wide. Rows upon rows of teeth shifted down, as if on a pulley that let loose. Within moments Lucious was being drained, it should have hurt but as the blood disappeared it was as if an anesthetic was introduced to his system. It felt glorious.

Then the drinking stopped and the very handsome stranger with the impossible mouth grew four more sets of eyes, all aligned vertically as if five sets, all independently moving. Impossible to track yet utterly hypnotizing were a normal occurrence.

Lucious shifts the last two small boulders and starts working on the largest boulder. His Master started proselytizing in public, working to convert the Jews and Goyim alike into worship of YHWH in some ways breaking the covenants of old but in all ways causing the State to mark him as an enemy.

The Roman guard didn’t believe Lucious at first about his Master, the guard had never heard of this purported “Judas” he was supposedly talking to. The Master had assured Lucious the guise would work, and with time and great care it did. The event was set! His Master’s will shall be done, just as his father’s was!

The blazing crucifixion was something no Roman had ever seen, when Lucious’ Master had promised a great show Lucious had no idea that when his skin met the sun there’d be a visage of flame that somehow spared the very cross his Master was affixed to. Lucious laughs as the memory of everyone’s shock, including his own floods back to him.

The last boulder moving, Lucious is expecting to see his Master and the three disciples he brought with him. Instead Lucious slips on the discarded skin of the real Judas, its inside layer sucked clean by the Master, the very Master who spoke so eloquently to get a following that will surely last the ages who now stares at Lucious.

There’s nothing left of Jesus in his eyes, all that remains is a slobbering mindless monster, and the last thing Lucious sees is his Master’s many many teeth in his impossibly enlarged head surrounding him. Then with a bite and a crunch Lucious is no more, but the thing that once was Jesus wept. It tasted so good.

The Myth of The Rock Thrower and The Goddess

A tale of Celebrity Divorce and Apocalypse

My mother told me of a tale, she said this is how the before times of opulence and wonders became this land we have now. Dry, arid, and with insects the size and temperament of the worst nightmares.

How, as they used to say she told me, it all went to a puddle of Mountain Dew. I’m not sure what a Mountain Dew is, but I surely don’t ever want to come across a puddle of it. She tells me this all happened in her grandfather’s youth, we die pretty young so I think this is probably 70+ winters ago.

Her tale to me usually goes something like this:

To understand what happened, we have to understand a bit about those who participated in this tale.

We have the deified Rock Thrower, the meaning of Rock Thrower has been lost but we believe it to mean chucking hunks of molten rocks at the invading “Backs” who came in nickel and dime formations while the Thrower often utilized his shotgun to stave off the Backs to get the rock into the hands of his various underlings. This Rock Thrower was deified as one of the most successful ever to do the job, which is sometimes confusingly called playing.

A verifiable Goddess took an interest in this Rock Thrower, her entire life’s work involved being stunning and worshiped by both those who wanted to couple and those who wanted to exploit for their own gain. She too was adept at the perils for much like our Rock Thrower she was not the only professional Goddess, just one of the most successful.

Outside of this couple was an angry orange, surviving videos suggest he was an actual orange with a human face somehow superimposed over the orange saying things in an angry tone. They were often about video games from the two that still exist so we’re not sure how but he became leader of something called ‘Murica. Where I stand now used to be part of ‘Murica and there’s conflicting reports to whether ‘Murica was as some claim “the greatest” or “a cesspool of fascism” as others do. The Angry Man’s name was forgotten in the history books, or more accurately the book burning craze of year 12 after The Shittening.

So our Rock Thrower and Goddess were wed, and for over a decade the Rock Thrower threw rocks longer than most had while earning more currency than most make in their lifetime in winter, speaking of currency they used bits of paper then not human teeth like we do which I know is silly. Quietly though the Goddess, being a Goddess, earned more than he did in his career by three times. Some say as many as 2 million infants worth of teeth a winter!

Meanwhile the Angry Man was getting friendly with the Rock Thrower’s friends as well as a leader that for some reason a song says is “on the Ritz” which we’re still trying to decipher. These two unrelated relationships became strong but also controversial as the Angry Man entered an arena called Politics, it’s theorized that opponents beat each other to death with books of philosophy in this arena by our top minds. Another theory is that you just had to shout the loudest, and Angry Man’s rise supports this theory.

The details are murky but Angry man and On The Ritz made an alliance that pissed off ‘Murica. Well some of ‘Murica, chaotically it encouraged others in ‘Murica despite On the Ritz’ homeland being the stated enemy of ‘Murica.

Our Rock Thrower mostly stayed out of the fray, Angry Man did not like those from other nations much and The Goddess was from a land called South ‘Murica, no one’s come from or gone to there successfully that anyone knows since The Shittening. But The Goddess was tired of waiting for him to stop playing his game of rocks, backs, shotguns, and fancy configurations of beefy men. She wanted her husband.

But Rock Thrower just threw the rocks, still to accolades, believing this would be all his family could ever want, after all he can throw rocks!

The Goddess ended the union. Things seem quiet and normal at first it’s said. But within two months Rock Thrower was spotted with the deposed Angry Man and On The Ritz. They were seen laughing and holding their bellies. Some reports state they kissed, but that could just be my wishful thinking.

If they did kiss, it wasn’t a good one. The bombs that brought The Shittening flew that night, the world was never the same.

Now you need to go to bed, little one.

So there you have my mom’s tale, written down now that we can make paper again. Hopefully this doesn’t live on as the most accurate telling of this.

Year 3120 archival notation: most accurate tale of the fall of civilization

Sugars of America

Stromae liked the Americans best, not their personality which he finds brash and distasteful. No, Stromae loves their blood. Americans have some of the highest fat and sugar diets in the world, no matter who you tap into it’s going to be some mixture of fats and sugars. Stromae liked The Sugars the best.

Europeans, having less corporate interference in their governance in general, have blood that will certainly keep a vampire in fit and fighting shape but for those who cherish decadence only American will do, and one slightly obese but not too obese. These seem to be those who have the sweetest blood.

There is a misconception, well many but a big one, among the vampires of mythology. It is true they are immortal, in that their flesh regenerates and because the majority of their organs are already dead so they can’t fail. They still have to take care of themselves as the uninitiated have to. This means, really becoming a vampire is an eternal commitment to keeping your body in shape enough to hunt or to face eternity unable to move or die.

There were many who told Stromae he was going to suffer the worst of those fates, they all tried to keep him from indulging in the Americans, their average diet being so very toxic to the vampire they should be nourishing.

They were not that wrong. Stromae cannot move his legs very well any more, he can though rely on his sons to bring new Americans to him. Stromae fled France in the 1800s for America, though this was to escape the consequences of his gluttony on the outskirts of Paris as the government started hunting his kind, his children he’d sired.

The New World proffered all kinds of possibilities. Stromae fed and fed on the frontiers, creating new children across the lands. Eventually when his legs were unable to move, his progeny were established enough to set him up and help feed him.

It’s rather ingenious how they did this, as he was unable to workout or even move he used the last of his skin’s elasticity to make his mouth as large as a door and matching the shape. They build a wall around him, leaving one side open in the rear for expansion room and he lets them know when it’s time.

If you try to hear at just the right time, you may hear in your mind “The Sugars! Bring me The Sugars!”

Just know, after you hear this someone will be entering a house for the first time only to find it will eat them while extolling the virtues of The Sugars.

This Story Sounds Mossy

William turned off the telly in disgust, sure it hasn’t produced anything of worth beyond the occasional glimmer of an old style signal. Not being digital and all of those stations being down regardless, some amateur had taken over some tower somewhere. As much of it was able to escape the moss. One of the few things it doesn’t like is signals from our communications frequencies. In fact that may be all it doesn’t like.

William sighs and moves his body up from his chair, only its lower half covered in the green fur that has become ubiquitous with the island his beloved Britain sat upon, the moss seemingly built up enough to sway with the wind at the pinnacle of its piles. Trouble with this being there isn’t actually any wind in William’s flat.

As far as anyone knows the moss has always been here, spade and broom being a staple of country living as long as anyone could remember. Removal from the streets, cobblestone and more modern design both seemingly at the mercy of this moss without diligent removal efforts, causing councils across the UK to hire on men who made a trade of it, complete with certifications as more became known about what made the sudden troubles happen.

It began one day when the Prime Minister showed up with moss on his shoes, not much different than previous days, the moss had crept more and more up the Palace of Westminster, the groundsmen removing more and more every day yet the moss soon covered the lower level’s windows. This was just a few weeks, but during this time moss on the bottom of the shoes of Parliament was so common it became a non-issue with the grounds also dedicating a man to be a “scraper” who removed it from the bottoms of all the shoes. No one ever asked what he was doing with the remains, it was unsightly already. Why pollute the mind with musing of its whereabouts?

That day, the day it crept past the ankle, the Prime Minister acted even more erratically. He was never the stable sort, in fact his bombastic attitude and freewheeling along with sycophantic worship of the American President at the time of his governance beginning made him one of the most unstable conservative ministers ever, but this day he was truly unstable. In and out of main proceedings but also dragging a new member of the House of Lords with him each time, they then came back and voted along with him regardless of usual affiliation. Every one of them had the moss somewhere, some just a dot of green, others with a full beard of the stuff.

No one said anything, they were too timid or used to unusual behaviors at this point. William doesn’t really know, he didn’t follow politics before. He just knew those the moss had altered acted differently, quitting employment and dedicating to building large masses of refuse in the middle of their home cities and towns.

William’s own village was one of the last to have the pile, those with the moss could not tell anyone why they did the things they did, seemingly only the more elite of the of the previously un-mossed were able to verbalize more than grunts and gasps.

William’s body slowly moved among the moss in his flat, kicking for his shirt. Foot finding it, William slowly bent over and picked it up. Hoping he brushed the green fuzz off successfully, he put the shirt on his body.

A burst of internal fire raged through him almost instantly, as if he could feel green tendrils reaching through the recesses within his body and depositing repellent filth into them. Slowly the agony walked, nay ran, through his body, towards his neck, then up his throat.

Gagging on nothing, or at least nothing within his airway, William is brought to his knees among the ever swaying and creeping moss. As the pain worms up through his head the swaying seems less random. The languid dances, subtle stops and starts, the very pheromonic smells coming from it, they all take new meaning. As if the language was always within him William started to know. To know what must be done.

Grabbing his remnants of his last meals, William lurches through the flat’s halls to emerge from the building into the street proper. Bringing himself down to the square bit they used for gatherings and the occasional Saturday public movie showing designed to engage the village into a more tight knit community. He climbs the giant pile, proudly placing his chinese takeaway bits upon the top of the pile. Smiling, he knows.

William knows he’s helping the moss be found, found by the beings who sent it here. These are the beacons, and the moss knows it will be rewarded. As will William!

Sleepy-Time Ninjas: Jingle Jangle

The Sleepy-Time Ninjas all look very different but not so different from us. They have the same arms and legs as you and me. Much like the rest of us, there are wonderful differences from skin all colors of the rainbow to their sense of style.

No matter what they look like or how they make it happen all the Sleepy-Time Ninjas have one goal. To help people like all of us have good dreams.

Some take the sleepy-seeds and use a sling-shot to avoid waking us up. They aim for the eyes you see, those crusty things we wipe off when we wake up? You were visited by a Sleepy-Time Ninja. When we leave the room to go to breakfast a lightning quick Sleepy-Cleanup Crew takes the crusty and grown seeds away.

Because they all want to avoid being seen, they also naturally dislike making noise. Except Jingle Jangle. Jingle Jangle wears a suit made of very polished shiny bells, not the kind with a handle but the kind found on a Fool’s Cap.

There must have been 200 or more of these bells, making a wonderful music with each step. Jingle Jangle’s magic you see was musical in nature. When you or I have to make music, we must think about it and formulate it. Not so with Jingle Jangle.

One could say Jingle Jangle was one of the most musical beings to ever exist, after all his job involves getting the not yet mature sleepy seeds onto the eyes of the sleeping. This gives us the nice dreams and the remains are used by the Sleepy-Time Ninjas and Crews in their magics. It’s a good system.

Not only does Jingle Jangle make music by walking, he shines in any light because he polishes those bells so much they reflect all light. I know you are probably wondering if he’s ever successful?

Jingle Jangle is the Sleepy-Time Ninja with the least amount of times being caught, in fact no human has ever laid eyes or awake ears on Jingle Jangle.
Even he does not understand the way this works, he just knows that if he moves without thinking he will not wake up the children nor their parents. It’s a good system, even if Jingle Jangle doesn’t know quite how it works.

On a night like any other, Jingle Jangle was in the room of one of his sleepy seed recipients when the unimaginable happened. A bell fell off. Suddenly Jingle Jangle’s music was loud and harsh.

Try as he might over the next few days Jingle Jangle could not adjust, he was now the loudest and most caught Sleepy-Time Ninja. His friends always seemed to be whispering and then stopping when he enters any room they are in. It made Jingle Jangle so mad, these are his friends!

That night Jingle Jangle was determined to change things, he brought everything they use at any time as ninja. Suction cuffs, a grappling hook, sleep seed ninja stars with no points that fling the seeds as they twirl, and a teddy bear. The teddy bear was not for his ninja skills, that was purely for luck and comfort.

Jingle Jangle found out that night he is a terrible thrower of the stars. The seeds flung off as expected but his aim was so bad that a pet hamster got a double dose and fell asleep to dreams endless wheels and fruits.

The trouble is the hamster was running on his wheel and falling off as it spun made him hit his bowl against the cage and the little boy woke up. He even laughed when he saw the hamster half in his bowl with his butt in the air.

Next house Jingle Jangle broke a lamp with the grappling hook, also causing the laughter of a little girl. Jingle Jangle’s pride could not be more hurt.

It’s just the suction cups left to try, Jingle Jangle was never good at this in training. He always fell of the the ceilings, and true to form he fell. Not only did Jingle Jangle fall, he danced on every surface his feet touched in motions like a cartoon lots of legs pumping with no progress or grip gained.

Of course the twins, a boy and a girl, woke up. And they laughed yes, but the most curious thing happened. Instead of hurting his feelings, their laughter made Jingle Jangle’s heart swell with all the good and warm feelings he used to get over many nights not just one.

He grabbed the teddy bear and pretended it was a giant monster and he made himself fall over as loudly and wonderfully as he could.
It must have been such a sight for the parents to flick the light on just then. To spot a Sleepy Time Ninja dressed in shiny bells making a fool of himself making their children laugh so much. Thing is, Jingle Jangle’s still a Sleepy-Time Ninja.

The parents only found their twins laughing but settling back in. And an unexplainable teddy bear with silver polish on the floor.

Jingle Jangle went back to Sleepy-Land. He thought his friends would still be whispering about him when he arrived but instead the most peculiar thing happened.

Jingle Jangle was surrounded by the entirety of Sleepy-Land, everyone clapping and clamoring to hug him.

You see, the Sleepy-Clean Crews were reporting back about the massive seeds that Jingle Jangle must have planted. This confused him of course since his night was not a success. Or so he thought.

This is how Jingle Jangle went from the most magically musical yet stealthy Sleepy-Time Ninja to the funniest Sleepy-Time Ninja. It may seem backward but it turns out making you or me laugh before bed makes us have better dreams.

Jingle Jangle and his friends feasted and rested, tomorrow night’s a busy night for them all.

Table of Contents

- Waffle
- We Listen
- A Bit of a Mistake
- The Meat
- The Furnace - Some Like It Really Hot
- Mary and the Meat
- The Work
- The Taste
- Myth of The Rock Thrower and The Goddess
- The Sugars
- Jingle Jangle