A Bite-Sized Story: Just Fun

I asked Twitter to give me a prompt for this post, and Twitter delivered. Thank you to everyone who gave their suggestions, and a special thanks to @RogerDColbym whose prompt won out. He sent me this:

'Something exists just at the edge of your vision and when you look it vanishes.'

Here's what I came up with.

Language warning ahead.

            Just Fun

            I feel bad about it. I'm meant to, it's my job. It's just so funny though.

            "He still hasn't figured it out." I giggle.

            "No, he hasn't." my co-worker replies

            Oh Jesus it's killing me, this is just too funny.

            "Again, again, one more time." he says.

            I nod, smile all wry and twisted. What have I become? Oh whatever, it's still funny. My co-worker leans in close and whispers "You're a faggot."

            I'm right on the ball with my response, whispering "No, don't listen to him."

            Then we're snickering away again like two little girls. Poor kid swats at his ears like there's a mosquito about. Oh my sides.

            "Ok, ok, ok, we should stop now." I tell my co-worker, fitting words in between gasps of air.

            "No way, look at him. This'll never get old." he says, that toothy grin of his telling me it's fine to keep going. Damn is he good at his job. And I guess I'm not good enough at mine.

            I don't say anything, but he starts leaning into the kid's ear again. I don't really have a choice but to be prepared. We have to keep up appearances after all.

            "You like boys." he whispers.

            "No you don't, you're mad for pussy." I barely keep it together as I talk.

            Then we're off sniggering again. Ohhhh it's so funny being mean. I lean in again, knowing this will be a master stroke. My co-worker's gonna lose his shit at this one.

            "And even if you do, God doesn't mind these days."

            The kid slaps at where I would be standing, his hand goes straight through me. My co-worker is on his arse, full-on bellowing with laughter. I tried to keep my composure, but as it turns out I'm a comic genius and now I'm full of rolling hysterics. The kid glances nervously left and right, and my laughter redoubles. Jesus he's dumb.

            "Ohhh noooo, we really need to stop." I say, knowing I probably don't sound like I mean it. I do, deep down, but it's hard to sound sincere when you're laughing. And even then, I've already gone this far. I'm fired, sure as shit, might as well enjoy the last day on the job.

            "Haha, maybe. We can wait, then come back. God that'll really fuck with him." he says, grin still wicked with schemes.

            "Aww, come on, don't say the boss' name like that." I saw, laughter finally waning. I'm still grinning like I'm high though.

            "He won't be happy with you." says the co-worker, like he's half of my own brain. I guess he is, in a way...

            "No, not at all, not at this point. Shit though it was worth it." I saw, letting out a long breath like I've just puffed a cigarette.

            "Might as well keep going then." he says, and this time he knows I've already thought it.

            "No, come on, we can't. The kid probably thinks he's a schizophrenic by now."

            "I CAN SEE YOU!" the kid yells. I fall over laughing again, and by the time I get myself together the kid's swatting at his ears and shoulders again. "RIGHT THERE! STOP MOVING WHEN I TURN MY HEAD!"

            Holy fuck, he's 16 and he sounds like he's having a temper tantrum. We're still on our arses laughing. Then my co-worker sits up, leans into the kid's ear again, pulls back to stifle another chuckle, gets right up close.

            "We're not reeeaal." he sing-songs.

            Then he falls back laughing again, harder than ever before. I snigger a little, but damn does the kid look worked up now. We can't see much of him, mind you, but he's flailing his arms about and shaking his head like a mad dog. I can hear crashing sounds, like wood breaking. I've never been able to hear the kid's sounds before. Something isn't right.

            "I think we've gone too far." I say to the co-worker, and thank Christ I actually sound serious this time.

            "Don't tell me that, tell him." he says through his boiling laughs, nodding his head toward the kid.

            Oh Jesus, he's right. I didn't say anything right after him either. The kid's probably panicking. He'll be having a moral crisis nearly. And I was right, he probably thinks he's a schizophrenic now too. Oh shit, I've fucked this up so bad. It was funny, sure, and I'm over the job, but this kid is messed up now. What can I say? What can I say!?

            I lean in close. Something will come to me, right? That's what I do, isn't it? I'm the voice of reason.

            BOOM!

            "Fuck!" the co-worker cries.

            BOOM!

            What the fuck is going on? The sound goes again, and again.

            "He's got a fucking gun. Oh Christ, I was doing my job." he says. I know it's not true. He's just trying to justify himself.

            The bullets don't hurt us, but he's firing like mad. His arms are flailing about and he's just shooting this thing again and again. I think he was trying to aim over his shoulders, where he thinks we must be, but now he's just firing blind.

            Then it happens. He hits himself, right in the head. Chunks of blood and brain go sailing past me. Oh no, oh we fucked up bad.

            "It was fun..." mumbles my co-worker. His face looks pale as my robe. "It was just honest fun..."

            I guess the kid didn't agree.

The Worst Prompt Ever

Sorry John

So about a year ago I was on a writing course, and it was excellent. In the last few weeks of it we were given a writing exercise that went 'here's three things, write a piece that includes all of them'. Some of them were fun and challenging, but one of them had the following three prompts:

Donald Trump's gold encrusted 757
A lobster
A bad acid trip

What the fuck is that? You want me to write a story using those?

Whatever, I'm not afraid of a challenge, so here's the story I wrote. Let this be a lesson in bathos.
Oh and yeah, language warning and all that. Like seriously, if you've found me offensive so far then do not read on.

                Some lobsters are blue. Most are pink, but some are blue. Of course Donald Fucking Trump would buy a blue one. I'm sitting at a dinner table across from him and he's wanking on about Kobe lobster, as if that's a real thing. It sounds like the rich person version of the gluten-free fad. Slap 'Kobe' on something and the Donald Trump's of the world, yes all 7 of them, are all over that shit. I would bet $20 that the truth is that the lobster's name is 'Kobe', but $20 to Donald Trump is like a jumbo jet to a cockroach; totally fucking irrelevant.

                The menu is about as wanky as the man himself, shit like 'venison Carpaccio' and 'corn-fed chicken'. I don't care about the chicken's childhood, just how it tastes. I actually don't care about Donald's childhood either, but here he is going on about it. Fuck off, this isn't your autobiography Donny just some kid who won a competition. You know that shit on cereal boxes and cans of V where they say shit like 'buy one and you're entered in the draw to win'? Well fuck me I didn't know they could enter you automatically and track you down using your credit card number. Creepy shit...

                Backtrack with me for a second. I buy this coke months ago because I'm thirsty as an east-end whore. This can has their latest summer promotion emblazoned over the side, and Donald Trump has just done some ghastly TV ad with him in a Hawaiian shirt drinking coke with teenagers like he's finally found time for his midlife crisis. I don't put two and two together ok? And why the fuck does coke do a competition to win dinner with Donald Trump? I've seen the apprentice, dude's like the corporate version of Gordon Ramsay.

                I get a phonecall, and I'm a winner winner fucking corn-fed chicken dinner. Donald picks me up from an agreeable location, which means I had to bus to the richest part of town so that poor people don't tarnish his car with the gaze of their unwealthy eyes. He rolls up in, I shit you not, the author shits the reader not, one would not consider themselves shitted, a stretch Maserati with his initials made from rows of diamonds on the side. What the ever-loving fuck? What does his automobile actually fucking gain from that? Do diamonds increase the fuel efficiency of his car so that he can pay less for gas and have more to spend on diamonds? Fuck this cunt and his god damn car. Especially fuck the pictures inside. He looks like a rapper with his framed picture of a plane made of fucking gold and him beside it with his toupee that's probably made of the hair of fucking Kobe African orphans.

                I don't know what to order, mainly because I can't pronounce half this shit and the other half has 'Kobe' written next to it and I couldn't possibly subscribe myself to such wanky dining. He explains to me that the plane is a Boeing 757, and he has a huge, throbbing stake in the company with his 9-inch shares and he can arrive 7 times in a night at any given airport with this plane. The rage boils inside me and I start doing this thing where I stop breathing and imagine my fist buried in various objects around me.

                The waitress wonders over because Donald clicked his fingers and I get so angry tentacles begin to sprout forth from my upper lip. He orders that blue cunt-fucking lobster and looks at me, ready to judge my mispronunciation of my choice of main and I look at the waitress and I say 'I'll have the twice-cooked Donald Trump' and she looks at Donald Trump and he says he'll have the crème brulee for dessert and I lose it. I've lost it before, but in the past 'it' has referred to 'most of it'. Today I lose literally all of it, absolutely everything 'it' could ever be. I look at Donald and say in a voice so neutral it could calm Hitler 'I don't fucking care'. Leathery wings break through the skin on my back and spread out behind me, my head grows outward, morphing into that of a cephalopod, Donald implodes leaving behind a small raincloud and the smell of mackerel. I raise my head and let out my mighty Cthuloid screech, fist-bumping the waitress as I stand and moonwalk out of the restaurant. And that, kids, is how I met your mother.