Bathroom Monologue: The Drop Off Signal

Theodore sat near the elevator and bathroom on the third floor for fifteen minutes. For all fifteen he pretended to read from red composition book. “William Tell” was the name on the cover.

Sixteen minutes in, an old man in a brown blazer exited the elevator. He paused for a moment, looking at Theodore’s book, then came over.

“Is this seat taken?” Brown Blazer asked, tapping the seat to William’s right. Every seat in the row was empty.

“Slow day,” replied TheoWilliam.

Brown Blazer sat down next to him.

“That is a nice book. Do they come in blue?”

“The pens do.”

“Okay,” said Brown Blazer. He sat there for two more minutes, looking at his watch. The band was brown.

After the two minutes, he rose, tapped his left hip pocket, and went to the bathroom. A minute later he emerged, tapped his left pocket again, and departed for the elevator.

Theodore pursed his lips. He was tempted to go check the bathroom, but H.Q. had said the contact would wear a tan a blazer. Better to be safe and maintain his cover.

Bathroom Monologue: Punctuation Remarks

"!"

"..."

"?"

" :( "

"...?"

" :| "

"~!"

" :| "

" o.0 "

" :| "

"..."

" :) "

"I knew that would cheer you up."

Bathroom Monologue: Alternative Arthurian Lore Story Ideas

-Couples counseling for Arthur and Guinevere (Morgana as therapist?).

-Buddy comedy with Sir Dagonet and Sir Pelleas, as the latter tries to prove he really is married to the chick in the lake.

-Merlin pulls the sword from the stone by accident, and tries to glue it back in the same night as a dinner party.

-Random knight (Galahad? Gawain?) enters beheading contest against an immortal.

-Lancelot carves Jesus's name into a cup from the mess hall so his buddy won't invade the Middle East.

-Anna, Arthur’s childhood friend who we swear is totally not a Mary Sue, puts on young Arthur’s helmet and subs for him when the once and future king gets stage fright following pulling the sword from the anvil. She’s headstrong and so much smarter than those dumb old knights.

-The Black Knight sucker punches Arthur and claims the throne; follow his Clint Eastwood-like grizzled and angry reign.

-The Black Knight sucker punches Arthur and claims the throne; follow his liberal B.S. fantasy reign where he’s so much more progressive than Feudalists (Oscar guaranteed with this role!).

-Janitors of the Round Table, a trashy insider tell-all book from the perspective of people who cooked and cleaned in Camelot

Bathroom Monologue: You didn’t have to elope.

You didn’t have to elope. Okay, your mother never would have given her blessing to you marrying a… one of them. But I would have. You’re my boy. You would have made the decision no matter what I said – that’s obvious because you ran off and got married without asking me! And if you had to do it that weekend, fine. But if you called, I would have come. I would have been on the first plane to be there. I would have gone to your Bachelor Party. I would have paid for dinner after the reception. I will spend the rest of my life wishing I could have been there for this. And I’m not angry at you. You’re a married man now, and you’re going to have a lot more problems than some over the hill guy from the middle class being mad at you. I’m telling you this because I want you to call me. When you buy a house. When she gets pregnant. When my first grandchild is born. I don’t know what I ever did to make you think you couldn’t call me or shouldn’t tell me, but please: call. I will be on that first flight to see my grandson take his first steps or graduate third grade. Just call.

Bathroom Monologue: Livetweeting the Second Coming

For the next hour I will be LiveTweeting from the second coming of Christ. #tweetus

He brought doughnuts! #tweetus

Comes out to Queen. “It’s A Miracle.” Naturally. #tweetus

Be good to each other. Help the homeless. Usual stuff. #tweetus

Has a special guest? #tweetus

I think it's Gandhi. Can He bring back a Hindu? #tweetus

Police are here. Jesus is talking to them. #tweetus

We didn't have a permit for public assembly? Oh come on. #tweetus

How can He get a permit when He was dead until 4:00 PM? #tweetus

He asks everybody to leave peacefully. "Leave unto Caesar..." Awesome sense of humor. #tweetus

Says he'll see us all next year. Some of us sooner. He winked at me. That was disconcerting. #tweetus

Everyone seems pretty happy. Not what He used to be, but you knew what you'd get. #tweetus

By LiveTweeting, are you admitting all your other tweets are dead inside? #tweetus

Bathroom Monologue: The Dubba

One thing I’m introducing into the English language is “the dubba.” We see it all the time, especially on clever television, but have yet to assign it a word. I’m naming it for an imaginary friend I used to have who broke into such monologues until I couldn’t stand him anymore and stopped believing in him. The dubba is a rhetorical mechanism made of two parts.

The first part of the dubba is a monologue, typically underlined by some degree of emotion. It may be coldly disapproving, openly threatening, or even jubilant. It usually responds to a situation in the plot or an argument someone has set forth, most typically shredding a pretense. This only works in artistic mediums where the other character isn’t a conscious person who would never put up with this crap. It is incredibly entertaining to many people, such as myself, as we’d really enjoy it if it worked in real life.

For instance: “"Hey. If any of you are looking for any last-minute gift ideas for me, I have one. I'd like Frank Shirley, my boss, right here tonight. I want him brought from his happy holiday slumber over there on Melody Lane with all the other rich people and I want him brought right here, with a big ribbon on his head, and I want to look him straight in the eye and I want to tell him what a cheap, lying, no-good, rotten, fore-fleshing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, overstuffed, ignorant, blood-sucking, dog-kissing, brainless, dickless, hopeless, heartless, fat-ass, bug-eyed, stiff-legged, spotty-lipped, worm-headed sack of monkey shit he is.”

The second part of the dubba is a pithy non sequitur. Upon destroying someone’s argument against abortion or insulting his employer at length, the speaker of the dubba then compliments the target’s hat or tells her to have a nice day. This mechanism is amusing, particularly in dramatic exchanges, as it allows a degree of release for the audience, letting them know that the telling-off is over and they can applaud.

For instance: “Hallelujah. Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?"

The dubba cannot be a mere monologue. Yes, the above monologue from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is hilarious, but it’s funnier that it tailspins and Chevy Chase is suddenly not asking to destroy his boss, but would like a mildly comforting drug instead.

The second part of the dubba is just as important, dismissing the original topic, and often dismissing the other party. Being so short, the non sequitur breaks from the monologue to establish that this issue is closed. Normally the speaker of the dubba will exit right after it. The movie continues but this particular issue in it is pretty much over.

Dubbas can be found throughout television, in shows like Columbo where the detective will talk for very long about one thing, convince himself the killer is innocent, then say, “One more thing,” changing the topic radically and implying he’s caught them with this other bit of evidence. Here the thing that is “over” is any shred of the killer getting away with murder. Dubbas are a hallmark of Aaron Sorkin’s writing and appear in his films like American President and throughout his TV shows like the West Wing, including a presidential dubba in the pilot episode. Sorkin is a pathological monologuer, and the dubba is unavoidable to those of us who find monologues appearing in all our stories. They allow a break of laughter, a shift of mood, and even a sweeping close to a charged scene. They remove some of the sting from the monologue that can often make the fiction seem more righteous than its characters, something that most of us would like to avoid. If language had natural selection, the dubba would be a new species of monologue that evolved a pincer with which to cut its own umbilical chord. That’s why we can’t stop writing them. They’ve out-evolved our writing habits, and that means they may soon devour us.

Now please give me the Tylenol.

Bathroom Monologue: In Defense of Snake Oil Salesmen

Listen to the audio version of "In Defense of Snake Oil Salesmen" or download the MP3 here.

I don’t know what everyone has against me. I am a snake oil salesman. If your snake gets dry, you oil it. My product has an obvious use, as a dry snake gets rashes, a snake with rashes gets irritable, and irritable snakes bite.

Look at any happy pet python. They glisten. And what do you think is glistening? Whale sperm? Marmalade? No! It’s snake oil. You apply the proper amount, the python gets a healthy sheen and doesn’t strangle you to death while you’re asleep.

So you see, my product has an obvious use. I charge reasonable prices. What? You say that’s overpriced? The bigotry against snake oil salesmen is atrocious in this country. Look here. I import my wares all the way from Ireland. Naturally it’s more expensive than the next man’s brand because of shipping and handling costs. This is quality stuff, for Ireland is home to the world’s healthiest serpents. Now you’re thinking Ireland doesn’t have any serpents at all on account of St. Patrick, but that’s untrue. Ireland has plenty of snakes. You simply never hear them because they’re so well oiled they don’t make any noise or trouble. It’s the world’s healthiest snake ecosystem, and I am selling you its lubricant at pennies over the wholesale cost. You can’t deny me that much profit, can you? I have many mouths to feed, and scales to grease.

"Rorschark Attack" in Best of the Web contest

This week I was notified by Casey Quinn of the Short Story Library that their e-zine has nominated my story, "Rorschark Attack," to Dzanc Books’ Best of the Web contest. If it places, it will be published in their Best of the Web anthology for 2009. Short Story Library had only three submissions available to them out of the hundreds of pieces they've published this year. I'm honored to have my bit of absurdism chosen.

If you haven't read "Rorschark Attack," it's about a shark that everyone sees as anything but a shark. You can still see it on their site here: http://shortstory.us.com/2009/04/rorschark-attack-by-john-wiswell/

Bathroom Monologue: Bathtub Monologue

If you can’t say it briefly, it’s probably stupid. Like, novels are a waste of time. Nothing should be longer than a short story. Fucking War and Peace? I never finished that shit. Paradise Lost? Fucking Dante’s Inferno? That’s boring, pretentious shit. Nobody needs that. Just get to the point and finish. Even most short stories are too long. That’s why I don’t read them. They’re always wasting your time, you know? Everything is, really. Like movies. Like, it’s great that they’re taking a two-week reading thing and crunching it into one movie, but ninety minutes? Or like, two hours? No movie needs to be that long. Can’t you tell Gone with the Wind in, like, sixty minutes? If you just made King Kong the fight scene against the t-rexes, that’d be badass. But, like, Milk? Or Lord of the Rings? Couldn’t Lord of the Rings be shorter? Three fucking movies? It feels like, if you can’t shorten that way down, to where it takes about as long to watch as it does to look at the movie posters, you’re really lazy. It should be like TV, but shorter. Like Youtube, but like, even shorter, because a lot of those videos go way too long. I blame books. Fucking Paradise Lost. Pretentious fiction shit. Scientists don’t take that long to make their point. Got to be like Darwin, you know? Just the data. In and out. Like, four pages at most.

Bathroom Monologue: Simply Lost

Bradley rested his forehead on his palms in that way that set his fingertips along his hairline. It was oddly comforting and he needed odd comforts right now.

He was going to miss the end of Lost. The whole final season. Those bastards stretched the show out so badly that he didn’t even know when they’d air the new episodes. Could he write the network and ask to see them early? Or at least have one of their two hundred stars drop by and tell him how it all ended? It was a stupid show. He was pretty sure at this point they were just pulling ancient smog gods and nuclear bomb-induced time travel out of their asses, but he couldn’t know for sure unless he saw it. That first season had been so smart. So calculated. At least part of it had to have some grand design. At the very least Kate was going to have to pick a man instead of bopping between Sawyer and Jack like a hormonal ping-pong ball. And he wanted to know who she'd pick, dammit.

He sighed. You never knew what would come to mind in situations like these.

“So two months?” he asked, looking up at the doctor from between his fingers. “There’s nothing we can do?”

Bathroom Monologue: Dear Pet Owners Weekly

Dear Pet Owners Weekly;

I do not own a cat or a dog, but can’t help feeling the debate between their owners is disruptive and ultimately useless. Anyone not enamored with these pets can see that dogs are morons and that cats would eat you in a second if they were big enough. This may seem like a bias given my choice of pets, but I've never met an ill-tempered bulldozer. When you really think about it, they are the optimum companions.

Consider maintenance. You have to feed a dog every single day. Sometimes more than once a day. Meanwhile you only have to feed the bulldozer when you want to ride it.

Also, have you ever tried to clean a dog with a hose? They hate it. They're so annoying, constantly running away, and if you get them wet they flail and spatter your clothes. But if you pay this affection to a bulldozer it will just sit there, even if you spray it between the tires. Try spraying a cat down there. I dare you. It'll convert you to bulldozers immediately.

Some say the bulldozer lacks compassion. There is nothing like a heavily panting dog or purring kitten. I dare these people to compare the purr of any kitten to the purr of a bulldozer’s engine. You can compare them, on the decibel level.

One time my family had a dog, Julie. There was this neighbor who threw a party for her terrier and invited all the other dogs over, which admittedly was pretty stupid. My sister and mother took Julie anyway. During the festivities, a pit bull got out of control and mauled Julie. She was very badly hurt and the hospital bills were outrageous. Thankfully she recovered.

I was thinking about that recently. I've taken my bulldozer to a lot of parties. Even human-centric parties. It has never lost a fight.

The only downside to the bulldozer is that when it dies you can't flush it down the toilet. In that sense I guess the crane is the best possible pet, because it can dig its own grave. But up until that tearful day, the bulldozer is pretty clearly the most loyal and reliable pet on the market.

Sincerely,
Dozerfan412

On "Trade Secrets Revealed" and Clickable Comments

Today Michael Solender is featuring On "Trade Secrets Revealed," a piece of my non-fiction on his site, Not From Here, Are You?. It's a reflection on a writing workshop I took at Bennington College during my Sophmore and Junior years. Aspiring writer/student meets successful writer/teacher, Fantasy nerd meets class of people who hate Fantasy - it's a classic love story. You can read On "Trade Secrets Revealed" here.

Also, after many e-mail requests, I've added clickable response tabs to the bottom of every post here on The Bathroom Monologues. Apparently people really like the option to tell me that Hate/Were Indifferent Towards/Liked what I wrote without typing those words. Well, your time has come! Detailed comments, whether it's to tell me what line made you laugh or specific criticism of the piece, are still most welcome.

Bathroom Monologue: 52 Times

As soon as the show let out Carl and Brad made for the nearest bar. It was an odd little joint, not so much in its shape or the generic pop music on the stereo, as that to get to their table Carl and Brad passed two men in pink tuxedos and a tall woman in a chain mail bikini.

“They were plants,” Carl said as they sat at the first empty table.

“I could believe that if he only picked one or two of their cards,” said Brad, looking for a waitress. One smiled at him from another table and stuck up two fingers signaling that she’d be there in a moment. “Even three. But the magician called fifty-two people up on stage from all around the building. Fifty-two people picked cards. They took the whole deck! If they were marked, he wouldn’t even have been able to tell who picked what marked card. And when he went around handing everybody their cards back, we saw that he got all of them right. We saw that there was one of every card.”

Carl shook his head. “One of most, maybe. Sometimes he was out of earshot and we could only really see the ones he gave to people near us.”

“So maybe two people had the Jack of Spades. It was still their card.”

“Unless they were plants pretending whatever cards he gave them were right.”

“Fifty-two plants in an audience of what? Two hundred?”

“Magicians use plants all the time.”

Brad smacked the table. “Not that many! He planted a quarter of his audience? How could he afford that?”

“So the place wasn’t close to full. Next time it’ll be fuller. It’s a publicity stunt.”

“But if the guy is broke from having nobody come to his shows, how’d he afford fifty-two actors?”

“Maybe they were all magicians.”

The waitress came over with two menus.

“What can I get for you guys?”

“Pilsner,” said Carl.

Brad asked, “Have you got Cherry Coke?”

The waitress pushed her pen into her pad. “We can mix some cherry extract into Pepsi for you.”

“How about you mix a lemon into some water for me?”

She left with a confused expression. Brad immediately turned on Carl again.

“So fifty-two magicians spent the night watching his act just so they could help a competitor?”

“They could be friends. Or there could be a union.”

“So everybody from Hogwarts clears out to help this one guy?’

“Firstly, Hogwarts isn’t real. Secondly, maybe. But nobody can guess the real fifty-two cards of fifty-two strangers. Do you even know what a permutation is?”

“No. Is that the mutation that makes you such a killjoy at magic shows?”

“Fifty-two times fifty-one times fifty times forty-nine and so-on down to one.” Carl ticked off the numbers on his placemat. “Multiply them all together and you the number of possible orders the cards could have been drawn. That’s not even a trillion. I don’t know how to say what magnitude that is.”

“And he shuffled them really well. He let two of the card-pickers shuffle them before they all went back to their seats. You’re crazy if you think he memorized the order.”

“Which is why I think the pickers were plants.”

“The shufflers weren’t plants.”

“They could have been!”

“No they couldn’t! Nor could he have bribed a quarter of his audience without anyone blowing his cover. His act will be in the papers tomorrow. Some of those people got interviewed. Somebody would slip.”

Carl put his hands out. “Unless they were all professionals.”

“Excuse me,” said a girl from behind Carl. They recognized her from the show. She’d picked one of the cards, and in fact held it in her hand right now. “It just seemed like you could use this more than me.”

She laid the card next to Carl’s hand. It was the ten of hearts. Then she patted his shoulder and followed her giant boyfriend to another table.

“What the Hell does that mean?” Carl asked, but she was gone, and Brad got up for the bathroom.

Bathroom Monologue: Ghosts are Jerks

"Why do ghosts never just explain themselves to people? Why are they always cryptic, and often straight-up jerks to the living? My answer is simple: they're like Seniors.

“Why doesn’t a class of high school Seniors recognize that Freshmen are awkward and cut them slack? Why not sympathize with this group when you used to be one of them? Why not hang out with them and treat them as equals? They’re only a couple years younger, and honestly neither group has a better idea of how the real world works. The Seniors only hold a little more experience in this one.

“But they don’t behave decently. They don’t because it was hard on them when they were Freshmen, because it’s their turn to be jerks now, and frankly, because being a Senior takes a lot of time and energy, leaving them much less likely to empathize with their inferiors.

“You are a ghost’s Freshman. They already took Bio and Home Economics and don’t feel like putting up with that crap again. That you’re so lost only comforts them, because at least they aren’t in your position anymore. You’re lucky ghosts only take it so far, because while getting stuffed in a locker in bad, a coffin is a whole other thing.”

Bathroom Monologue: Devil Gone Missing

Pat shot out of his chair when Conner finally came home. The boy’s clothes were crusted in brown grime and he was breathing with heavy excitement.

“Where you been, boy? Gone for four days without a word!” Pat said, pulling him inside. Conner followed his old man’s lead to the kitchen with such a smile that Pat could barely bear it.

“You look devastated. Like you found Jesus.”

“Is he missing, too?” The boy sucked in air in little bursts, like reverse laughter. “I just spent days finding the devil. You’d have been so proud, Pat.”

He reversed-laughed some more and bent towards the sink. When the water ran over his hands the brown turned a little red and circled the drain. Pat’s eyes widened at the change of color.

“You did what, boy?”

Conner beamed at him from over his shoulder, scrubbing his hands with lava soap. “Finally cornered him at the dump. His tail stuck in an old box spring, and he’d dropped his pitchfork.”

“Boy?” Pat moved nearer to the door. “Boy, what did you do?”

Smoke began to rise from the sink.

#trickortweet

Sick of their brethren's mutilation, the pumpkins took up knives. This year, it would be the children that were carved.

Bathroom Monologue: Succubyebye

Listen to the new audio version or download the MP3 here.

The original recording didn't work out so well, so I did a new one at midnight before the crack of Halloween. Hope you all enjoy it!

Aisling panted and collapsed onto his chest. She was about to disappear when she realized that chest was still warm. She slid a palm up his bare sternum. His ribs rose and pressed into her fingers.

He was breathing.

She looked up in surprise and found him looking back at her.

“It’s a nice chest, isn’t it? I don’t even work out.”

She bolted up, but not away. The sheer impossibility of him still being alive kept her in place. The bedsprings creaked under her movement and the covers slid down her back.

“It’s a miracle,” she murmured.

The man folded his arms behind his head and smirked.

“I think it’s diet, really.”

She shook her head, stardust falling from her curls.

“How are you not dead?”

“Were you hoping I’d be?”

"You don’t understand. It's..." She’d never had to explain this before. For the first time in her life, she felt something like guilt. "I'm... I’m a succubus.”

He paused, then laughed at the ceiling.

“Well that explains some things!”

She leaned closer, trying to see what was special in this man. He was handsome, but that didn't rescue any of her other victims. And aside from his healthy looks, there didn't seem to be much to him.

“You’re not upset?”

“It’s not like you could have killed me." He gestured to himself as though the answer to all her questions was as obvious as his skin tone. "I’m immortal.”

“Immortal?”

“Yes. I have inside me blood of kings. Great coincidence, eh?”

“I thought the immortals were just legends.”

“I would have said the same thing about succubae until you fluttered through my window. By the way, I loved that trick.”

Now she leaned away, covering her chest with an arm.

“You didn’t think anything strange about a woman drifting through your window and having sex with you?”

“I figured most women want to do that and you were just the first to fulfill the fantasy.”

She left the bed, dragging the sheet off to wrap herself. She scowled at him from under a makeshift robe of his own linens. Another emotion occurred to her for the first time in her life now.

“Pig.”

“Pardon me if I offend the slut who wanted to drink my life away. Loosen up! You've finally found a steady guy.”

Though now naked, the immortal didn’t budge from the bed. Well, a bit of him budged, but Aisling wasn’t dealing with that bit anymore.

"Like you didn’t enjoy it!”

“I did. You’ve got decent stamina. Dynamite hips, too.” He gestured like she might hop back on the bed at any moment. “I assume you prefer to work nights?”

She gaped at him, then turned to the window and vanished. His sheet vanished with her.

He waited for her to return. When she didn't, he yelled out the window in case she could still hear.

“If I move, I’ll leave a forwarding address! The name’s Hatiel!”

He moved to lie back down, then thought of something.

“Hatiel with a ‘t!’”

"Familiarity Does" at Listen to the Voices and Imagination at Editors Unleashed

I have two pieces at two blogs today.

Erin Cole is featuring a story of mine, "Familiarity Does," on her blog. It's about a man who does unspeakably dirty work, and how you can do it too. It's about as far from Succubyebye as you can get. You can read "Familiarity Does" here: http://erincolelive.blogspot.com/

Also today, Maria Schneider has an essay of mine on imagination at Editors Unleashed. It's about how I get enough ideas to write 365 shorts a year (plus what I've been submitting to magazines), and how you... can do it too. You know, that irony was totally unintentional. That's a little creepy. Regardless, you can read about imagination here: http://editorunleashed.com/2009/10/30/how-to-let-your-imagination-take-flight/

Bathroom Monologue: Culturally, it's Three Wishes to a Genie or Three Sneezes to a Wish

Grandpa taught him an Irish superstition. Two sneezes? Sure, somebody could be talking about you behind your back. But if you sneezed three times, then that was an opportunity. Whatever you were thinking when you sneezed three times would come true. Why, Grandpa had been thinking of a pretty girl when he sneezed three times in the middle of World War 2, and he met Grandma on his next shore leave. So the child tried to summon good thoughts whenever he felt a sneeze coming on. He had a mental narrative that took up about the length of three sneezes. It was a struggle to keep his mind on anything but the fact that he was sneezing, but he was devoted to this. If it were one or two? No loss. But if his wish ever took, man that would be cool. He’d know instantly, too. No waiting to meet a girl. Girls were gross. No, one of these sneezes he’d get lucky and know it immediately when he turned green and grew so big his clothes ripped.

Bathroom Monologue: Cadet Report – Alex [LAST NAME WITHHELD]

Alex would be the perfect field commander if he could stop eating people. He is charismatic, quick on his feet, and knows the strategy manual backwards and forwards. People naturally trust him thanks to his competency and the pheromones he exudes. I feel my judgment swayed by his ethereal charisma even now, and he’s been off-base for two hours.

But, if may be a racist for just a minute, the hard fact is that Alex cannot stop eating people thanks to his ghoulish lineage. He did not choose his grandparents and cannot fight the urge, but we have to factor into our judgments. The same things happen every time we place him on a team. The most lithe female cadet chats him up even if they have nothing in common. She cannot help herself and they fall into something they think is love and that looks like a bad porno. Post-coitis, he devours her, we lose another high-pedigree cadet, and he goes into therapy again. His ability to rebound from the trauma is admirable, but perhaps he is simply best suited to a civilian-side desk job where love interests are more expendable.

Bathroom Monologue: Price War

Sarah knew something was up when seven people walked into the store at once. You rarely got a party of adults that large, and never at 4:30 AM. Six of them wore slacks and button down shirts, like they’d just gotten off shift somewhere else. The seventh was a tall lady in an unassuming blue dress. All seven took carts and rolled them past the Pharmacy and into the Entertainment aisles.

Since the only customer was using Self-Checkout, Sarah ducked from her counter for a minute. She slid up the aisle and peered around the corner of nasal spray shelves.

At the edge of Entertainment, three of the seven were dismantling the new book display that gone up just two hours ago. It was huge, with more copies of a single book than they’d ever put on the floor before, meant to attract attention for a big new fiction release. It was some crazy Horror book or something. Apparently the display worked, as the group stacked every copy in their carts. They spent a minute going through the aisles, presumably hunting down any other copies. There was no sign of the rest of their friends.

Maybe they were huge fans. People had gotten eccentric about their books since Harry Potter.

She heard yelling from way in the rear. Rather than check on that, she followed an all-night Wal-Mart employee’s instinct and dashed back to her counter. She felt guilty, even though no one else was at the registers. Hers was the only one open tonight.

After a minute, Sarah dialed the manager’s office. It rang on and on. That was odd, because Fred didn’t do much more than watch the office TV when he was in charge at nights. He wasn’t the regular manager, just an assistant who enjoyed a little power.

Finally he picked up, immediately ordering, “Hold on.”

“Fred?” she asked.

She heard muffled argument on the line. Fred sounded distressed.

“Fred? What’s going on?”

Before there was a reply, a fleet of shopping carts rounded the corner. It was the book group, two of the plain slacks brigade with the woman in the blue dress in the lead. She led a convoy down her aisle.

“Hey there,” the lady said, smiling wanly down at her. Her hair was mussed, like she’d been up all night. She extended the first book to Sarah. “Can you scan this one and just enter the number of copies? We have four-eighty.”

“You’re buying four-hundred and eighty copies?” Sarah asked in disbelief. She took the book, though hesitated to scan it. She had a feeling Fred was going to yell some weird orders over the phone in a minute, and that they would pertain to not scanning certain merchandise.

“That we are. Can you scan just the one and type in the number?”

“I’m not sure.” Sarah looked down. It was hard to make eye contact when she was so confused. She looked at the cover. There was a big bubble on it. It looked boring. “Why do you want so many?”

The lady gave her a look, as though Sarah were the one being weird. Sarah felt herself shrink, which didn’t help as the woman was already three inches taller than her.

“I’m from The Reading Room over on Robin Street. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there.”

Sarah bit her tongue.

“I’ve passed it…”

“My mom started it forty years ago. It was the town’s first independent bookstore. Do you know how much we have to pay the publisher per copy of this book?”

The two guys with carts of books behind the lady both seemed to bristle in unified indignation, like this was Sarah’s fault.

“No.” She couldn’t say anything else.

“Over twenty dollars. More than double this.” The lady reached out to the copy Sarah held and tapped the 9.98 sticker on its upper right hand corner. “There is no way we can make a profit if we even went near ten bucks. We’d lose thousands of dollars just to make the sales. If you do this on more books, we’ll go out of business whether or not we match prices.”

Sarah tried to change the topic. “So you all came over from The Reading Room?”

“No. Ron’s from Borders.”

The lady gestured to the man behind her in line. He was an older man, wearing a sharp green tie.

“Borders?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” said Ron. “I’m running a little joint venture with The Reading Room. We’re doing an inter-store release party at noon. Half my staff is here helping us stock up here. The other half’s across town at 24-hour Target doing the same thing.”

Sarah blinked. “You’re going to sell these? You can do that?”

“It’s better than wholesale price,” said Ron. “By a lot. We cancelled our orders with the publisher and just came here. We’re taking all of you’ve got. Readers can get it from the bookstore.”

“You know there are more in the back…” Sarah began, then stopped as pallets rolled around the corner of the checkout counters. Pallet mover after pallet mover appeared, wheeled by the remaining members of this book club. Each pallet mover was stacked with cardboard boxes. Some were opened, all sporting more copies of the ever-popular Horror book.

“Hey Jess! Ron!” the one on the front pallet called, waving. “These were all they had.”

“Sarah! Sarah!”

Sarah stiffened. That was Fred’s voice coming from hip level. She looked at her counter and realized she hadn’t hung up the station’s phone. The night manager was yelling for her attention.

She dropped the book and picked up the receiver. When the crew from Borders began forming a crowded line in her aisle, she held up a finger as though to say she’d help them with those three thousand copies in just a minute. Then she turned and spoke into the phone.

“Fred?”

“Do not sell them those books. This is bullshit.”

“Isn’t this illegal? Can’t security do something?”

“We’ve got one guy on staff and he says this isn’t in his contract. I don’t know. They don’t talk about this in manager training. But the branch officer is going to be pissed if we do this. I just know it. I’m not getting blamed for this. Do not sell those books, Sarah.”

“They really want them. What am I supposed to say?”

“Hey Ron!” somebody behind a pallet called. “Are they going to scan these soon? I want to take a shower before the release party.”

Fred ordered, “Tell them you’re closing your counter.”

Sarah’s eyes bugged out and she turned away. “I can’t do that. I’ll look like an idiot. Come on down here and tell them to go away yourself.”

“I told them to fuck off when they came in the back. I can’t touch a customer, though. They’ll sue. You know they want to.”

“Can’t you, like… call the cops or something?”

“I was just on the line to them. They made fun of me and asked I should arrest their sergeant for buying too many garden hoses. I don’t think they’re coming.”

“Hey Ron!”

There was movement behind her. Sarah turned instinctively and saw all the shopping carts withdraw, like someone had put the night on rewind. At first, in a daydream-like state, she imagined they were going to return the books. Then she saw the guys with pallets wheeling around the bank of counters. They weren’t heading back to Entertainment. They were heading towards…

“Guys!” one of them pointed. “Self-Checkout’s open!”

Bathroom Monologue: Hamachi Construction’s Best Day

A cheer went up through the Hamachi Construction office. The foreman ran around, arms flapping wildly. Kyoko from accounting broke out the champagne. When the cork flew off and cracked a window, everyone paused, then burst out laughing and hugging each other.

Toshiro walked in, smiling but confused.

“What’s everyone celebrating? I thought we were going out of business.”

“We were!” the foreman cried, gripping Toshiro by the shoulders. “But a miracle happened!”

“Is the recession over?” Toshiro looked at the office TV, expecting to see someone from the Diet explaining a new bailout. Instead, JNN showed live footage from a smoldering downtown Tokyo. Godzilla loomed through the smoke.

Bathroom Monologue: Being the Same

“I hit my head this morning and started thinking: aren’t you both really saying the same things? Don’t you really believe pretty much the same stuff, but say it so differently that you can’t stand each other? One critic says art reflects life, and other says art creates itself, and couldn’t they really be having the same thoughts but articulating in idiotic fashion? And they articulate is so differently that they actually wind up doing different things even though they had the same intentions. And might some people realize this but are so embarrassed and insecure about the acts of their lives that they stick to the divisions? Maybe live by the divisions? Because if they admit for a minute in public that the conservative and the liberal want the same state of harmony, of not needing violence or relying on other countries, but are so messed up in a history of semantics that they can’t even hear each other being the same? It hurts, and not just where I hit my head. This isn’t what you want to be thinking when you’re on the frontline and handed a rifle to kill people who disagree.”

Bathroom Monologue: Think he can still get a reference?

"Oh, you're firing me for a new black guy who you can pay less. Yeah, I understand completely. I've always wanted to lose my paycheck and health benefits so you can start a new guy at bottom salary and claim a tax credit. It's a lifelong dream. I'm just wondering, you know, since there are already so many African Americans on staff, if you're going to hire Latinos. I mean, it’s affirmative action, right? If your staff is half black and half white, you're ignoring Hispanics.

“And Asians.

“And Native Americans.

“Not to mention immigrants. I mean legal ones, of course, because you'd never hire illegal immigrants no matter how little they'd work for, or how many rights they'd give up for the privilege of serving you, right?

“Right. They can't type well.

“Yet.

“Yet how many immigrants, and how many colors of immigrants are you going to hire? Because come to think of it, we only speak English in here. Your little monochrome rainbow isn't exactly cutting intellectual xenophobia. Where are the French? The Russians? The Taiwanese? Or do you not consider them a country? You do want to act affirmatively, don’t you?

“Do you have a quota for the countries and backgrounds you like? A quota of Taoists? A quota of Jews? No, that's poor taste. They have a bad history with quotas. But since I'm losing my job, I guess I don't like quotas either."

Bathroom Monologue: The Great Ghost’s True Identity

Listen to this story streaming or download the MP3 here.

You will receive four stipends, one every fiscal quarter, each for a sum of $50,000. Each will be deposited in a new and different foreign bank account. Their access information will be mailed to you on seemingly random days within the first three weeks of the corresponding fiscal quarter. There will be no return address.

In addition, you will have a substantial life insurance policy to benefit your family, and the best health insurance in the world, both of which will be paid for by a dummy corporation. Attempting to trace the corporation will be seen as termination of this contract.

In return for this, you will live in a particular tenement of Penny Quarter. It sees the highest occurrences of armed robbery, vehicle theft and murder in the city. It is not pleasant.

You may have a job if you like, but it must end every night by 5:00 PM, at which point you are to return home. You must be home every night from dusk until dawn, and the curtains must be drawn until the end of that period. No one is to have any contact with you in the evenings; you may not answer e-mail or phone calls. You may have no company.

On rare occasions you will be sent orders to make public appearances. You may be asked to make these appearances in the evenings, at which point you may disregard the above instructions. These orders will come exclusively from a cell phone hidden under the floorboards of the bedroom closet in your apartment. Do not mind it until it rings. You will hear it if it rings no matter where you are in the apartment.

You have been selected because you lost your parents to gang violence in early childhood, because of your time in the marines, and because of your physical resemblance to the Great Ghost. Even your jaw line is vaguely reminiscent of his. You are never to suggest you are him. If inquiries are made, deny them. With your personal history and your residence being within a thirty-mile radius of 85% of his anti-criminal appearances, you will become a prime suspect.

Eventually a dummy costume and some of his utilities may be hidden in your apartment. You will not necessarily be notified of the placement of these items. If you come across them, do not touch them. They are highly dangerous and the Great Ghost will collect them shortly.

His enemies will eventually track you down, intending to kill their predator. The Great Ghost is watchful and will not allow harm to come to you or your loved ones. You are first and foremost a tool to draw out the unsavory but persistent elements, so that they can be captured.

Please do not think of yourself a decoy allowing the Great Ghost to lead some luxurious existence, unmolested by his enemies. I suspect he doesn’t have an alter ego life at all, spending all his energy on vigilantism. I don’t know that for certain, though. I’ve never met him directly.

Bathroom Monologue: An Eye, a Finger

Pa shook his head, holding the ice pack around Billy's face.

"It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye."

Rob stamped his feet and scowled at them all, holding the rag around his hand.

"Why doesn't anybody care about me? Losing a finger sucks, too! Everybody likes Billy better."

Their mother sighed and drove faster.

Bathroom Monologue: Heart of the Waterfall

Hey there, waterfall. Today I want to plunge my hands into your heart. There, beneath the froth where the crystalline fall hits the blue pool and turns into billions of white bubbles. Up on the trail I just wanted to kneel at your bank, sore knees on this stone, and wash dirty hands in you. The water’s cold and fingers are clean now, but I’m not baptized. I feel dirty everywhere, and something about the sight of you stirs in me the feeling that everything I dislike about me would wash off like grit, if only I plunged my hands where you explode. I’ll wade out there in shoes, socks and pants, and climb the trail back up to the car uncomfortably wet in penance for the privilege, if you’ll let me. May I violate your heart? It will not be like you piercing mine. Yours will be restored in a second, and as soon as I leave you will look as though I was never here. The exhilaration would mean everything to me. It would mean absolution.

But swimming is illegal here, and I can’t break that law. There are people who spend time and money to keep you. They don’t have ultimate right, and none are here to see it and be offended, but it would still wrong them. I cannot harm your keepers, even if only in idea.

Still I want more than my wrists in this pool. You’re so cold you sting. My fingernails are numb and I want more. So blue, so wrongly blue are your depths that I think if I submerged, if I went deep enough, I would find you warm. The downpour would dash against my scalp and my clothes would stick to me like shreds of skin. Everything I can’t forgive myself for would wash down your streams. Every time I broke the speed limit, lied to a lover or wished worse on a man who deserved better would trickle away. My sins would be your soil, and would even you notice a few grains more in your mud?

I’d like to swim in you afterwards, feel you wash over me. But I can’t break the laws of those that keep you.

I also don’t have to tell anyone if I do.

Bathroom Monologue: Spread it on Asphalt Toast

The giants bided the afternoon behind a couple of fast food billboards. At 4:55, Shean could barely contain herself, but Cyclo kept her honest. You couldn’t collect this stuff too quickly. Like honey or wine, it had to age. 5:00. 5:05. 5:10, and even Cyclo wavered, salivating at the smell of all the exhaust wafting off the highway. When horns started honking, they broke out and charged the interstate with their bottles. They caught hundreds of cars that day, enough traffic jam to last them all winter.

Bathroom Monologue: While Shaving Monologue

I’ve always said one in the hand is worth two in the bush, because you can take the one in your hand and beat the two in the bush to death with it. Then you’ve got one in the hand and two in your bag. On your way home you stop by the wet nurse’s place, chat her up about the day’s work, and give her one from her bag. Make sure it’s the nicest one of the three. Then you’ll have one in the hand, one in the bag, and one that might get you into her shrubbery. You’ve been looking for an “in” there, haven’t you? Then you head on home and elbow Cain in the side, asking him how that vegetarianism is going for him as you cook your two in the pot. Two in the pot, while your idiot brother eats the bush. Maybe you invite him over for supper, since you have two in the pot anyway, and he’s been glaring at you lately. But there you go: you’ve got one in the hand, another hand on the wet nurse’s thigh, and Cain won’t commit fratricide this week. That’s why you should be a hunter, not a gatherer, my friends.

Bathroom Monologue: legit lol

A proposal to the civilized people of the world:

Proposed: that anyone who types "legit lol" should have a man dispatched to his or her (hereafter, “the offender”) house. A magnum will be placed to the forehead of the offender’s dearest loved one, be it wife, sister, mother, mother superior, or pet goldfish.

Further Proposed: The offender will then be given the option of watching that loved one blown to kingdom come, or tracking down ten people who type "lol" without actually laughing, and once the offender tracks these individuals down, break their thumbs and forefingers with a foam-covered bat (hereafter, “the defender”).

Finally Proposed: The implement used must be a defender, or otherwise the task will go too quickly. Proper pacing is essential to learning a lesson.