the can opener

joe and nell were the last two people left on earth. joe was a human male and nell was a human female. they had found a warehouse filled with bottled water and cans of food - enough to last the two of them for well over a hundred years. nell always kept joe at a distance of at least twenty-five feet from her. she had a shotgun she used for this purpose. joe did not have a weapon, and in any case always insisted that he was a peaceable sort and meant no harm, but his declarations were treated with scorn by nell. there was a room in the warehouse that nell spent much of her time in. she kept it locked on the inside when she was in it. the room also had bars and heavy mesh on the windows so that joe, if he had been so inclined, could not go outside the warehouse and break into nell’s room in that way. nell did most of the talking when they were together in the warehouse, or occasionally, when the radiation was not too bad, outdoors. nell’s conversation consisted mostly of berating the otherwise defunct human race, especially the male portion of it. in the early stages of their acquaintance, joe had attempted to win nell’s favor and convince her that he was not such a bad fellow, but he quickly realized the futility of this, and was content to let her run on, occasionally interjecting some placatory comment. nell assured joe that the only reason she did not just blow him away once and for all was that she wanted someone, even a wretched human male, to talk to. that might have been one reason but another, that joe did not suspect, was that nell did not actually have any shells for her shotgun. the bottles of water were not a problem. but the cans of food did not have pop-tops and had to be opened with an old-fashioned can opener. they each had a metal spoon and nell also had a metal fork, they only had one can opener between them, which was thus their most important possession. the can opener was the very old-fashioned kind, with a single sharp prong which was used to puncture a can, and then saw the top off in a circular motion. nell kept the can opener in her possession but would toss it to joe when he needed it. their great fear was that the prong would grow dull or even break off, leaving them to find or figure out other ways to open the cans. in their early days in the warehouse they thought they might find rats or other small animals they could catch and eat but none ever materialized. sometimes nell would let joe go outside to try to find a rock or other object on which to sharpen the can opener’s prong. things went on in this way until one day an asteroid struck the earth about two hundred miles away from the warehouse. this caused a fresh wave of increased radiation to spread in a three hundred mile radius and this increase was too much for the already overburdened systems of joe and nell and they both died.

roger and his name.

roger parker’s name was roger parker. he liked people to use it when addressing him. he did not like being addressed, even by people he “knew”, let alone by complete strangers, by such appellations as “bro” or “dude” or “my man”, or older variations thereof, like “pal” or “buddy” or “slick” or “ace” or “old boy”. he paid some of his hard earned money to have some t-shirts and sweat shirts printed up that were emblazoned in large, bright, legible print - my name is roger parker. please address me as such. roger wore these shirts at all times out of doors. (he happened to live in a climate that never experienced extreme cold.) roger lived alone and worked out of his apartment, so he did not interact with other people much to begin with. after he began wearing his printed shirts, nobody ever spoke to him at all, not even in stores. he increasingly bought everything he needed, even soap and toothpaste and toilet paper, from amazon and other delivery sites. he found he no longer needed to wear the printed shirts, but continued to wear them until they wore out and had holes in them.

personal

hello. my name is p. i am a person. a person just like you. or maybe not. i mean - i am a person. although at this point you just have to take my word for it. but you might not be. in fact, now that i think about it, if you are reading this, it is much more likely that you are not a person, but a bot, trying to determine - something… what i can be sold, or whatever … anyway, if you are indeed a person and are reading this, i have a message for you. i would like to trade places with you. i should say, i might like to trade places with you. that is to trade my brain - or “soul” or “personality” or whatever - for yours. so that “i” would be in “your” old body, and vice versa. don’t worry, the technology is coming. it must be, i read it on line. and even if it really isn’t, i am sure a couple of 21st century personages like me and you can work something out. before we go further, i have to say there are three exceptions i can think of to my offer to trade bodies with “anybody”. first - if you expect to be dead within the next six months. i am sorry, i have to give myself at least that much to enjoy my new “self”. second - if you are in constant physical pain. sorry to be such a coward and sissy, but there it is. and third, if you are so physically repulsive that people openly recoil from you. the only thing i can think of that would qualify in this regard is to have terrible odor. no matter how ugly or deformed you might be, after the first shock people will just space by it, but if you stink, really stink - again, sorry, but i am too weak for that. otherwise - it’s all good, good buddy. old, ugly, deformed, stupid, any race or breed or creed i don’t care. or young! if you can’t wait to grow up and get away from mom and dad, that’s cool too. and if you are rich or famous or a movie or tv star, and your fans and the intrusive media and paparazzi are driving you crazy, i think i can handle that also. but - i can see you asking, what is in this swap for you? i can only say - i am me. and i am just about the most ordinary, boring person in the world. which is basically why i would like to be anybody - almost anybody - else. you want a few more particulars? i am between twenty and forty years old. i do not have a college degree but i am not completely unemployable. i even have a job - sort of - right now! i am an american. i am not sure what it means to be an american in the 21st century. i watch the same tv shows and listen to the same music and watch the same news as everybody else. i guess being an american just means i can’t speak any language except english. i can’t speak any language except english. (american english). i am white. i was brought up by a white american mom in the “american heartland”. i don’’t have any religion. i am not sure what religion is, really. i keep meaning to look it up on wikipedia, but i never get around to it. i keep my weight down, more or less. my favorite tv shows are “law and order” and the various “csi”s. my favorite writers are agatha christie and james patterson. i play lotteries every chance i get. my income - unless i win the lottery - is below “poverty” level, but if i wanted, i could eat more than nero or henry viii ever dreamed of. like i say, i’m an american. so, how about it? would you like to be me? if you are interested, i m me, or call the number listed above.

the carrot

by nick nelson

illustrated by palomine studios

donald was a regular guy who did not have very high expectations. he wanted people to like him or at least ignore him. he did not understand life or his fellow humans very well but hoped to improve in that regard. one day he was feeling a bit nervous about some applications he had made to participate in certain activities. he decided to relieve his nervousness by going for a walk. at the last minute before embarking on his journey he decided to take a carrot with him to munch as he walked along. this proved to be a mistake. it was a pleasant enough day and there were many other people on the street besides donald. all of them noticed that donald was eating a carrot and most of them made some comment, either to a companion or to the air or directly to donald. "dude, how's the carrot?" "that guy is eating a carrot." "mmm - good vitamins." "look at that person - is he doing what i think he's doing?" "it's always a good day for a carrot." "i don't believe this." "bro, try rutabaga some time - easier to digest." "down the street eating a fucking carrot." donald did not enjoy these attentions but he did not want to throw the carrot away either - he felt that would represent some sort of obscure defeat. and would be littering. he did not want to put the half eaten carrot with his teeth marks in his pocket - that seemed unsanitary. the climax came when he was stopped by a broad-shouldered young man with a posse of five other young persons, male and female, tagging behind him. the young man pointed a finger not quite in donald's chest and with a big white toothed laugh, announced - "i know what you're doing." donald was too startled to answer. "you're making a movie, right?" the young man looked, or pretended to look, up and down the street. "where's your buddy with the camera?" "he's filming it himself," said one of the entourage. "he's got a camera in his shirt pocket." donald still didn't know how to respond. one of the two young women in the group grabbed the arm of the first young man. "come on, adam, you don't have to be a total dick every minute of every day." the group moved off, laughing. donald heard the first young man say "nobody eats a fucking carrot in the street -" donald finally got home safely. he felt that the nutrition he had obtained from the carrot and the fresh air and exercise from the walk had been more than offset by the relentless mockery he had received. he never walked down the street eating a carrot, or any other vegetable, again.

the awakening

by nick nelson

illustrated by palomine studios

walter walters was sixty-six years old and had been married to the same woman for forty years but he still wanted to have sex with every woman in the world. since he was thirteen years old, walter had never really been conscious of anything much except women’s tits, legs, and asses, and occasionally, if they were really really good-looking, their faces. even when he was eating, sleeping, going to school, or making a living as a financial analyst, the front of his brain was usually occupied with thinking about women, sex, and porn. and then one morning, two months before his sixty-seventh birthday, he woke up from an unusually deep sleep, or at least one in which he could not remember dreaming. he felt strange, although he at first did not realize why. his wife, shirley, was on a cruise ship with a couple of her friends. she had been going on such cruises every year for the last ten years. walter went downstairs and began making himself his usual big breakfast of eggs, sausages, and pancakes. he still felt strange. as he was pouring his second cup of coffee he realized why. he was not thinking about sex. in fact he could hardly remember what sex was, or what it had felt like, or why he had liked it so much and been so interested in it. as he stuck his fork into his scrambled eggs, he noticed something he had never noticed before. the eggs were yellow. and the coffee - which he drank without cream or milk - was black. not just “black”, meaning no cream or milk, but the actual color black. and the sausages, which he liked well done, were almost black too, but a little brown or almost red in streaks. the toast was brown too, but a much lighter brown, almost yellow or white in spots. as walter’s usual day progressed, he noticed many other things - things he had forgotten for the past fifty-three years. as he walked to the bus stop, he looked up at the sky. it was blue! really blue! and the clouds - they were white! and the buildings he walked past everyday looked strange. to walter a building had always just been a building - you went inside one when it was cold or raining and then you were warm and dry. but now he noticed that some of the buildings were taller than others. and some were not even quite the same shape as the others! and those things in front of some of the buildings - they were trees! and the air. it was a slightly chilly morning and he felt the cool air actually getting into his lungs. and the people - at the bus stop and then in the bus and at work - he noticed they were wearing all sorts of different clothing. many of the women were dressed almost like men, and a surprising number of people, male and female and young and old, were wearing hats, including a lot of baseball caps of different colors. this is interesting, thought walter. he decided he would go for a walk at lunch time instead of eating a sandwich or bagel at his desk and fantasising about threesomes and foursomes as he usually had, and check out this strange new world of sight and sound. he just wondered how much longer he had to live, and how much time he had to explore his new found existence.

arnold toynbee

by nick nelson

illustrated by palomine studios

bobby blue and rita red woke up one morning in a big white bed outside the grass was growing green and a yellow sun lit up the scene rita shook her tresses loose and poured a glass of orange juice and bobby with his brain so gray put on his clothes to face the day bobby worked for mister brown the biggest employer in the town his immediate supervisor was miss pink who had been known to take a drink rita was a spirit free who flaunted her prodigality she had been raised by a purple aunt whose favorite words were “don’t” and “can’t” rita dreamed of rosy fame when everybody knew her name and she had her pick and choice of guys under clear cerulean skies bobby and rita were only two people in a world no longer new people whose overflowing dreams sped through the cosmos in widening streams the world was blue five billion years ago and then turned brown so very very slow red people with green eyes woke up to find they were prisoners of universal mind universal mind was a mauve baboon who could not leave behind too soon the curious magenta concoction he had dreamed where nothing violet was what chartreuse seemed in a drugstore in paris tennessee rita bought a ticket in the lottery and since she had already come so far she also bought a hershey bar

three guys

by nick nelson

illustrated by palomine studios

ted, joe, and stan were three guys. ted got a job in a pizza store, on a little street just beside the entrance to the interstate. he did not think he would keep the job for very long, but he ended up staying there for twenty-three years. ted felt that he had found something in the pizza place, though he did not know exactly what. every day he would look out the window and see joe, standing at the entrance to the interstate. not hitchhiking, just standing there. like he was waiting for something. around ten o’clock every morning, stan would run by. he was always dressed like an ordinary guy, just out running for exercise. but if you looked closer, he had a look in his eyes like he was running from something. what had ted found? what was joe waiting for? what was stan running from? maybe what ted had found, joe was waiting for, and stan was running from were all the same thing.