Friday, April 20, 2018

public service announcement


by nick nelson



billy got up, as he usually did, about an hour before peggy and dave.

he liked to have some time to himself to eat his cereal and stare into space, before he left for his job at the regional office of cassandra’s, a startup ice-cream shop franchise.

there was a tv in the little kitchen, and he turned it on, as he usually did, to the traffic and weather channel. he usually took the bus to work, but sometimes walked if it was a nice day, so he liked to know the weather forecast.

but this morning, just as he was pouring skimmed milk into his cheerios, the foxy weather girl person disappeared and a screen came up saying - we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special public service announcement.

a swarthy man with a neatly trimmed black mustache, about 35 years old, wearing a dark blue suit with a blue and red striped tie, appeared on the screen, seated at a traditional anchorperson’s desk.

“good evening,” he announced, “or morning, as the case may be in whatever area of the world you are listening from. allow me to introduce myself. my name for your purposes, is ali jones gonzalez-lee, and i am, and have been for many years, the true ruler, or more accurately the steward or overseer, of this planet.

let me begin by saying that everything , and i do mean everything, that you humans have ever been taught to believe, is a complete fabrication.

the persons you are used to seeing on television and in other media do not exist and never have existed, but were simply holographic projections . and the historical personages you have been taught to believe in likewise never existed, and the events they have been portrayed as engaging in never happened.


donald trump, hillary clinton, taylor swift, saddam hussein, mao zedong, margaret thatcher, hitler, stalin, albert einstein, eleanor roosevelt, amelia earhart, jesse james, billy the kid, napoleon, marie antoinette, joan of arc, cleopatra, confucius, alexander the great, moses, hammurabi, tilgath pileser iii - none of them ever existed in the sense that you humans understand “exist” to mean

the reason for all this - which might seem to you chicanery and subterfuge - need not concern you, as it is beyond your comprehension. in any case, our work here is done, which brings me to the real purpose of this announcement -

beginning next week, ships will arrive and the entire population of this planet will be relocated to other galaxies, where you will be assigned new identities and new purposes. different portions of the globe will be embarked according to the following schedule:

monday, the 13th - north america including the carribbean islands
tuesday the 14th - south and central america
wednesday the 15th - africa below the sahara
thursday the 16th - africa including and above the sahara and europe excluding turkey and russia
friday the 17th - russia and the former soviet republics south of russia

saturday the 18th - turkey, and asia east of suez up to india
sunday the 19th - india
monday the 20th - southeast asia
tuesday - the 21st - china
wednesday - the 22nd - australia, the phillipines, japan, and korea
thursday - the 23th - all other


all travel between these designated zones is halted immediately. we regret any inconvenience this new arrangement might cause.

for any questions , log on to relocation.com/faq

we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming

peggy came into the kitchen. she looked at the screen which still had the printed message: we now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

what was that all about? she asked billy. it sounded like walter cronkite returned from the dead.


just some bullshit announcement, billy told her. i wasn’t paying much attention.

peggy opened the refrigerator, she took out a carton of orange juice and shook it,

we are almost out of orange juice, she told billy, are you going past store 24 today?

maybe.

if you do, pick up some orange juice. and some of those peanut butter cookies that dave likes. i’ll give you the money later.

i’ll try to remember.



Saturday, April 14, 2018

hot dog


by nick nelson



dylan and oliver were the last two humans left on earth.

the bodies of their late companions lay strewn in the sand and dust around the last food dump and the last water hole.

the water hole was hopelessly polluted and those who had not died of starvation, or in fighting over the dwindling food, had died from drinking from it.

the last bottles of water had been consumed weeks ago, and the last packages of cheese and crackers, and of peanut butter and crackers, had been consumed, and all the hot dog rolls, and all but one hot dog.

one last hot dog to be devoured and washed down with the filthy water.

dylan and oliver stared at each other across the hot dog.

“we could split it,” said oliver.

“no, man, you can have it,” said dylan. “i insist.”

oliver shook his head. “no, you can have it. there’s been enough killing.”

“no, you can have it,” dylan repeated.

“you.”

“you.”

suddenly st gabriel the archangel appeared.

“at last,” he announced, “the human race has stopped fighting among itself. therefore you will be given another chance.”

neither oliver nor dylan looked very enthusiastic. “another chance for what?” dylan asked gabriel.


“listen up, fellows,” gabriel continued, “i will fly away, and when i do, a couple of beautiful maidens will appear. one for each of you. as soon as you decide which of you gets which, the earth will blossom again, and history will start over again, hopefully with better results this time. how does that sound?”

“better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, i guess,” said oliver.

true to his word, gabriel flew away, and in his place, as he had promised, appeared a pair of beautiful maidens, neither showing any signs of the disease and starvation that had ravaged the human race.

“hello,” said the first maiden, “my name is jezebel.”

“and i am bathsheba,” said her companion.

oliver pointed to bathsheba. “i will take her,” he told dylan.

“no,man, she’s mine. you can make do with her friend.”

“i said i wanted her,” oliver repeated . “and i mean what i say.”

“really?’ dylan picked up a stick which was lying on the ground and bashed oliver on the head with it.

with a scream of rage, oliver grabbed dylan by the throat and began throttling him as dylsan continued pounding him on the head with the stick.

both were very experienced in such encounters, having bested dozens of rivals in the preceding months.

but both were also weakened by those same encounters. the stick fell from dylan’s hand, and he fell back on the sand, dead.

with his head almost split open, oliver expired moments later.

the two girls looked down on the two corpses.

“now, what?” jezebel asked.

bathsheba scanned the sky. “i don’t know. maybe that angel fellow will come back, offer us some other kind of deal.”

they waited, but gabriel did not return. they began to feel hungry.

the hot dog was still lying on the sand. the hot sun was starting to shrivel it up.

“want to split it?” bathsheba asked.

“no, i would rather have the whole thing myself,” jezebel told her.

“let’s fight for it then.” bathsheba pointed to the stick dylan had bashed oliver with. “i will take that, and there is another stick - or a bone or something - over there. you can use that.”

“all right,” jezebel agreed. “let’s do it. let’s get it on.”



Friday, April 13, 2018

the lady upstairs has been taking a shower for five hours






i could describe the good old days
with precision and with charm
but i have a problem
nobody gives a good gosh darn

i don’t know why they should
the world has spun many times
gods and peasants come and go
no one remembers their crimes

or remembers their heroic deeds
or if they ever existed
i didn’t want to write this poem
but you insisted

what was that?
i must have misunderstood
then i leave you with this thought -
people are bad, they should be good

outside the sun is shining
but some think it might rain
tomorrow is another day
shall we meet again?