Hell is a Pie You Cannot Eat

Miss Sullivan around the corner bakes the best damned pies in this whole damned town. I swear, the smells are what heaven must be like. Apple, cherry, blueberry? Meringues, don't get me started. Key Lime. Coconut cream. She's got a pecan apple crumb would make you cry.

You can't eat them, of course.

Sure, They'll parade you past her house. Give her a wave, that sweet old lady, and she waves right back, and tips you a big old smile on top of it. Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, whenever you walk on by, Miss Sullivan is forever setting her pies on the windowsill and waving out at you.

Even if that smile is a little forced.

Even if she doesn't wear oven mitts.

She'll wave you on over, smile fit to eat you up, but They hustle you past. You have places to go. Things to remember.

Sometimes you wonder what she put in her pies, back home.

But you're pretty sure you know.

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This one wasn't a challenge per se, but someone on /r/writing said you can't make Miss Sullivan and her piemaking interesting, so...

Eliza on the Line (fragment/part 2)

Edgar pressed 1. The connection clicked, clicked again. Edgar's heart pounded into the silence.

A woman spoke, sleepy and very much human. "Japeth Rosswhiler, you philandering son of a bitch. I'm not your 3 AM--"

Edgar didn't wait. "Hello? Who is this?"

The woman's voice sharpened. "Who is this?"

"Where is my daughter?"

A silence. "Mister, I don't know who you think you're calling, but it's ass o'clock in the--"

"Is this Eliza?"

She hesitated. "It is."

Now it was his turn to be confused. The woman wasn't hostile or threatening. She sounded like . . . just a woman.

Eliza on the Line (fragment/part 1)

At the end of the day, Edgar Horton was just trying to run a business. Sure, it was a bit of a sketchy business, and maybe he didn't quite dot all the Ts and cross his Is, but he was making bank, and wasn't that the American dream?

Ring.

To pick up, or let it ring? It was probably downtown, and that was just going to piss him off even more. But it might be a customer. Times were tight and those signs didn't come free.

Damn it. He punched the Speaker button.

"Computer Repair Experts."

A woman's voice, distant and mechanical: "Hello. This is a recorded announ--"

His thumb jabbed at the button. But then his daughter's voice overrode the recorded announcement. "Daddy?"

Dinner At Clingman's Dome

It was dusk by the time they reached Clingman's Dome, and Camille was covered in sweat. With her short legs and waddling gait, she wasn't much of an outdoorswoman, but she was game, and Henckel loved her for it.

"This is amazing," she said, and Henckel had to agree. The sun blazed red between the mountains. Red sky at night, Henckel thought. They were alone in the observatory, the way he'd hoped. He had a few delights in mind for himself.

Lately, she'd been putting on a little weight. It wasn't her fault; they were middle aged and they loved their Haagen Daaz, and he was never going to be confused with a telephone pole himself. But as she'd gotten heavier, that little up-turned nose had started looking less cute and more snoutish. As she'd gotten older, the bristles on her chin had started going unplucked. Her eyes had started to sink into her head, gotten smaller. Her hair had thinned, revealing the spotted pink skin  beneath.

Henckel reached into the pack he was carrying, handed over the water. She chugged greedily. Piggishly, he thought.


Henckel loved a good wild boar roast, but Camille had been a vegetarian ever since he met her. He'd always accommodated her; love made you do that. Twenty-three years had gone by, the way they do. Henckel never forgot the taste.


"Where's dinner?" Camille asked. She'd watched him pack it away, back at the campsite.

He'd emptied the pack before they'd left. No sense carrying extra weight. He reached back into the bag. Pulled out an apple, and the knife.

Camille squealed like a pig when he stuck her.

But she was game, and Henckel loved her for it.

---------------

This one came out of a reddit thread about the chef who cooked his wife. I am not a well person.

A Real Find for Horace

This isn't a complete story - it's a little sample I threw together for a writing discussion on a reddit thread. I was trying to find the funny in a scenario and I'm not sure I succeeded. If I actually have any readers (feel free to say hey if you wanna), and you have any ideas as to how to make this work better, I'm all eyeballs.

--


The door smacked against the wall as Horace burst through, beaming with his latest find. He held the box up in two hands. "You'll never guess!"

Sighing, Caroline pushed her goggles up.

"No, honey, this is incredible. He dropped the box on the workbench with a heavy thud. "I was down on Market, you know that shop there, the one with the gargoyles? One of them called me over, I swear. Not really, but, you know. The way they do." His hands had already moved past the flaps and into the box. They emerged with -- what in Christ was it?

Then she figured it out. It was a chainsaw. Orange with rust, festooned with thin leather gloves.

"Okay..."

"Don't you see? It's an automatic face-slapper!"

"Oh, sweetie," Caroline said, gently so he wouldn't bruise. "I don't--that's an art project at best."

"No no no!" Horace protested. "It still works!"

EULAugh But It's Bad Out There.

Jeremy Jones clicked the checkbox, unclicked it, clicked it again. There was no reason on God's green earth to share his predilection for monkey porn with anyone but BonoboLuvrs.com, there really wasn't. But. Mega Dump Truck II, Return of Mega Dump Truck! He could practically feel the dirt cascading off his rounded shoulders.

Little did he know: each click was a submit, each moment of indecision transmitted to the Mega Dump Truck team. The whole of it broadcast on a live wire with the A/V stream from the camera he'd already authorized in the unread EULA for Mega Dump Truck. His indecisive finger-sweat sucked up by the cushy keyboard, analyzed within the free-with-gas-purchase KP Lovinger laptop, sent to RainForest FoodShip with nutritional information (salt, electrolytes, blood sugar) and to every employer within a 500 mile radius who'd integrated the new Workforce Audit package (free trial, just click this checkbox!) into their desktop data delivery feed.

By the time Jeremy clicked Submit, he was unemployable in three states and a case of baby spinach was already on the way.

On the plus side, Mega Dump Truck II was awesome.

--

Another from a BoingBoing thread.

Stabenaw's Demon

The demons arrived flat-packed, much to Stabenaw's chagrin. Thirteen long black boxes chased in silver crosses. The UPS guy did his best not to grunt and swear but boxes like these are what grunting and swearing were invented for. He left the boxes upside down.

This wasn't why Stabenaw did not tip the man. In a few minutes . . . a few hours . . . unfolding the instructions, pictures of tabs and slots and curling horns and blister-packs of virgin blood, he thought maybe days might be more like it, but, fuck it, at some point this millenium tips were going to become a thing of high irrelevance.

"Oh, honey," Janice said when she saw the wreckage spread across the living room floor. "You know the Hendershotts will be here in fifteen minutes, right? I told you not to start this until--"

Janice was a sweet woman, beloved wife and mother to Stabenaw's seven amazing children and he wouldn't trade her for a buschel basket of Bündschens, but the allen wrench had recently skinned his fingertip and the last fucking thing he wanted to hear about right now was Clarence Hendershott's latest hemorrhoid lasering and the most recent car their juvie spawn had stolen.

Consequently, he invited her to leap from the nearest window. The Blasphemous Heart of Hrrjen (M) glistened with fresh dripped blood (not shown), and Janice did not bother putting on her shoes before she leapt. So that was settled.

Part of Stabenaw was appalled, but as he'd already gotten so far as to insert Talons (V) into Toebones (Q) and wrench them into place, the greater part thought that the Hendershotts would make a pretty fine meal regardless of whether Janice was there to cook.

--


This came out of a BoingBoing discussion thread.