The Spoon

The Spoon

     I can recall my long days sitting at the office, The humming of the pneumatic tubes, shooting in all directions around me, trying desperately to find their place as I firmly sat in mine. Papers would whistle past my head at speeds beyond my wildest imagination, but for the most part I was content to sit at my desk and read stacks of papers. In these papers were numbers of great importance. The accounts for the entire western division of Poly-Corp resided between their carefully manicured, carbon-copy pages.

     Every day was the same routine. I would walk in at approximately 8:07 AM, twenty-three minutes before my shift started, but a full seven minutes later than being a half hour early. It was the perfect time so as not to appear too eager, but just eager enough. I would walk over to the grey filing cabinet to my right and pull a large red lever. From above a tube would open and drop a fresh stack of papers into the first row of filing cabinets. The noise was horrendous, but I didn’t mind it so much.

     The room itself looked a tad like the layer of an evil scientist. Nothing all that exciting went on in there, but it looked as though it might. Every corner was filled with a series of clear, twisting tubes which delivered mail to rooms around the office. Carefully nestled in the middle of them was a drop slot. This was where my mail came. After pulling the big lever I would walk to the tube, check for mail, and usually find a small white card.

     On this day it read: Thanks Pete for whatever it is you do down there. Keep up the mediocrity! –Sincerely, The Management.

     Gingerly, I would pick up the note, grab a red pushpin from the right drawer of my desk, and stick the note to the wall. After the first year I had filled all of the cracks on one wall with tiny white notecards. No one came in to see them, but if they had, I can only imagine that they would have been impressed. Some said: You are adequate. or, Today is Wednesday. Beauty was to be found everywhere in that office. Each corner was full of wonderful surprises for the passerby.

     The file machine wooshed and clanked like a giant metal beast from the corner. “Oh hush now, it’s only a thousand leaflets, nothing to worry about.” I said to the machine. It might have looked odd that I was talking to myself, but only the tiny black camera in the far right corner of the room would have seen it. I gave it a smile and a knowing wink, and continued to talk to the machines around me. “Alright boys, another long day ahead of us! Who’s ready to balance some budgets and cook some books.” The angry filing machine belched a cloud of black smoke, signaling that it was finished receiving the day’s load of papers.

     When the clock struck 8:25AM it was time for coffee. In a small, brown cupboard sandwiched between two wastepaper bins was an equally small, pristine, white coffee cup. After heaving the stack of papers from the filing cabinets to my desk I grabbed the cup and walked out into the hallway. The walls were a sort of drab grey that reminded me of cold, Russian soup. Why the soup had to be Russian I really haven’t a clue, but the point was that they were drab, and for the most part when I picture borscht that’s what I think of.

     The break room was and is approximately twenty five and a half steps from my office. I have counted these steps often as I have had quite some time to do so. The sound that squishes up from the both hard and soft carpet is a fond memory that still brings muted excitement to my tired heart. The door to the break room was brown oak, or imitation oak, and glorious to the point of envy. I opened the door with a gold handle that was almost certainly not gold and entered the break room.

     That morning there was two other people in line for coffee. The machine took notoriously long to finish, but usually spat out its contents by around 8:27AM.  “Morning.” Sniveled Pierre, a crotchety old caricature of an old French stereotype. His mind had never managed to leave the late 1940s though his body had continued to travel unabated through the waves of time. Where his spine might have once been close to straight there was the beginning of a dowagers hump. That morning he wore a tattered black coat over a soiled, black and white stripe T-Shirt. “Is this coffee going to be ready sometime within the next century?! If I do not have it soon my bowels will seize and rust, only to leave behind the frayed shell of a man who can no longer excrete their contents, and breathes only to become closer to that old friend the God of death.”

     He grimaces at the thought of his own statement, revealing a set of teeth more crooked than the streets of San Francisco. “Really Pierre, is that necessary?”

     “I’m sorry that I haven’t yet resigned myself to a system which neither provides nor contemplates my basic human rights!” He pointed his finger at the little black bulb on the ceiling and began to curse wildly in French, his accent dripping like maple syrup from a tree. 

     “Ooh, I wish you wouldn’t do that Pierre.” Said the mousy man in front of him. His name was Jim. He had been there for even longer than me. All I can say about him is that he was unassuming, his shirts never fit quite right, and the hair atop his head more clearly resembled a shrubbery than it had any right to.

     “Shut up and make the coffee pig! I know my rights.” I stayed out of the fight, not wanting to interrupt my schedule. It was 8:26 in the morning. We were seconds away from the coffee coming out of the machine when BAM! The door burst open and two men in grey suits with dark glasses burst through the door. Each wore a large earpiece with a plethora of blinking lights on it.

     “Get away from me!” Yelled Pierre, dropping his coffee mug and backing against the counter, baring his teeth like a cornered animal. The two men nodded unemotionally to each other and grabbed one of Pierre’s arms each. They dragged him into the hallway. Neither Jim nor I said a word. When they had taken Pierre out I moved a step closer to the coffee machine, taking his place in line.

     His fault for not waiting. From the hallway there was a quick gunshot and then the coffee was done.

     “Ah, yes, finally. Here you go Pete, made it a little stronger this morning. Busy day ahead eh?”

     “Those files aren’t going to organize themselves!” We laughed for approximately ten point five seconds, quickly poured the black liquid into our cups and shuffled back into the hallway. As I stepped into the hallway I noticed two things. One, I had no spoon for my coffee to stir in the powdered milk packets back at my office, and Two, Pierre was lying dead on the floor. Luckily for me, clutched in his hand was a most marginal spoon. I reached down, plucked it up, and continued on my way.

     There was a spot of red on the spoon and I cleaned it off with the handkerchief I kept in my pocket at all times. It was pure white like the cup I held in my hand, only afterward it became an off pink. I shoved it back into my pocket and walked back into the office.

     The powdered milk fell into my drink, clumping around the top. The spoon served nicely to mix it in and made for quite a pleasant taste. As I sipped my coffee I looked up to one of my white notes which said Business as usual.

Written By,

Ashton Macaulay

It's About the Environment? And Caffeine.

A Story of Caffeine and Other Things, but Mostly Caffeine

There was a time, long, long ago. It was a time of minotaurs. For those who are unfamiliar, minotaurs are the insane half human half bull-monster breed of thing that terrorize bad children in the labyrinth and riff on sweet guitar solos with David Bowie. It was a time of peace, and war, but mostly war. I mean the world was ruled by minotaurs, and if I’ve learned anything about them from the mythos of the ancient Greeks it is that they have a penchant for violence, as well as goring things.

It was a simpler time. Minotaurs could be minotaurs and men could be, well, minotaur food, or objects for minotaur amusement. It was the fifth of February, a cold day, colder than a witch’s teat as she stands bare-breasted into the wind atop the great mountain calling forth the new day. The minotaurs had just finished a day of reveling and goring the lesser human beings who inhabited the lowlands below them. Jack, a rather feisty and ripped minotaur was pouring a large goblet of wine for his bros when out of breath a rather thick minotaur burst into his party totally killing the mood.

“Dude, you’re totally killing the mood!” Said Jack sloshing wine over the two minowhores (minotaur whores, not known for being gentle, let’s just say that Elliot Grey would have liked them) sitting at his feet. He had very clearly been about to score and this lesser peasant was cock blocking in a most major way.

“I’m so sorry bro, but something terrible is happening.” Jack set down his wine cup on the table that he had made of human clavicle bones and then promptly punched it toward the peasant, spraying him with wine and shame, but at the same time providing a small moment of interest to an otherwise dull and meaningless life. Yes in that moment, though wine covered his face for the first time he felt truly alive, as if someone had noticed him, someone cared what he had to say, and someone would finally know that his real name was Jennifer.

Jack of course cared for none of that, and merely wanted to spray wine over something. “Speak nerd, or I shall challenge you to a duel with my massive horns which I have just finished sharpening with a stone made with the bones of the pointiest orphans in the land!”

“Have you not noticed how cold it is? Even the witch has covered up today. When I awoke for the morning call  there were no sagging breasts ravaged by time to be found, only a modestly dressed hag, heralding that yet another day was going to begin.”

“You speak like a nerd, and thus I find it hard to listen, but your sentence also spoke of boobs, and so I will allow you one more chance to continue.” Jack sat back in his chair and called to his servant for a snack. Listening to the problems of others always made him hungry. A rather small minotaur rushed out of the room and returned quickly with a fresh-faced ginger orphan in his paws. Jack scooped him up, holding him as though he were his own child, and then promptly bit him in half. The orphan’s screams were loud enough that the walls of the citadel threatened to crack with their glory.

For a moment after there was only the sound of blood dripping from Jack’s jaws onto the gold plated floor beneath him. The minowhores licked it up greedily, wanting nothing more than to forever feed on the purest of blood that only the profoundly emotionally crippled can produce.

Now is my chance to speak. He is sated and will be in a good mood. There is never a better time for him to receive my message. I will forever be heralded as the savior of the minotaur race. They will know me. I AM JENNIFER! “The climate we minotaurs have come to know as normal is shifting. Soon there will be nothing left of the world we inhabit but a frozen wasteland. There will be no more bare-breasted witches, only the bear breasts of great white polar bears coming to usurp our throne and defile our women! It all stems from the unsustainable harvesting of orphans. By killing herds of their parents we are creating a cycle of fear and pain, which ordinarily would be a good thing, but the issue is that fearful beasts produce a great deal of methane.”

“What is this methane?”

“Well, it’s farts.”

“Proceed.”

"If these humans continue to produce such high levels of gas then I fear the climate will spiral out of control within the next calendar year. We must find a more sustainable way to harvest food or we will have no orphans next year. They do not survive the winters well as it is, and if it continues to grow colder we will lose the plumpest before month’s end. Imagine a world where the only orphans we have to eat are scrawny and full of bone. I have prepared a detailed plan of action for how we can reverse this effect, save our climate, and preserve our way of life at the same time!”

“Nerd, you bore me. Destiny, bring me my discussion stick.” One of the minowhores slunk off to a corner and returned moments later with a large axe. Its four blades glinted in the cold evening light and their thirst was evident, there was nothing that would stop them from tasting sweet nerd flesh, they were demons from hell, long since dead, nothing better to do than prey on the living and reap the misery that can only be sown by the wail of thousands of widows crying out in unison: WHY GOD?! WHY WOULD YOU TAKE HIM FROM US?! While their lovers lay dead in the sands of time, bleeding into an every hungry universe in which nothing is fair and everything is unbalanced, just like the galactic whores intended for us all to bow down in servitude, weeping sweet tears of servitude like the true lap dogs of a defiantly apathetic run only by their own avarice and drive to procreate.

“Wait!”

“Sorry nerd, I’m going to smash your face.” Jack heaved the mighty axe and split the nerd in two. Blood flew in all directions, exciting the minowhores and Jack. With that they had a cannibalistic orgy which can only be described as gratuitous, but tasteful.

Night dawned on the minotaur town and all was good, for that evening. Over the course of the coming months the climate continued to change and just as the nerd had predicted there was soon nothing left to eat. After three long winters there was only Jack and a handful of minowhores left.

“Destiny, the end is near.” He said cradling her face in his palms. “Bring me the ceremonial hand grenade.” They did as he asked, and the final four minotaurs huddled together for the warm fires of eternal sleep. “In the words of the immortal Mileytaur: And we can’t stop, and we won’t stop, for we are the ones who rule the night.” He pulled the pin, blowing them all to oblivion. The world froze, and about 300 years later humans became the dominant species.

Fin

4:2 Deadliest Catch: Dead Edition

4:2 Deadliest Catch: Dead Edition

We have so far talked about the company of death, and how they deal with the many gruesome chores that come with end of life on a daily basis. This section focuses on a small group in charge of handling oversight. Somewhere in between heaven and hell (Don’t get on me about geography, if you want that shit go read an atlas! See: Atlas Too (Coming soon if someone buys this…)) there lies an ocean. When Death Co. misses a soul, this is where it goes. Picture it sort of like the wake up scene from the matrix… Bodies are spewed out strange futuristic tubes into an ocean that looks unpleasant and slimy.

The people who work this area are different from traditional crab fishermen in two ways:

This is seaweed. Why is it pictured here?

1.  Instead of crabs there are smelly dead people swimming around the ocean, confused and pissed off about being dropped into smelly water.

2.  The crew of these ships is made up entirely by scumbags who have died at sea, and while this includes crab fishermen, it also includes such disenfranchised groups as drunken old pirates, and old, white, rapey, boat owners…

Now, as always, I know exactly what you’re thinking: “But good sir how does one fish for the dead in a sea that is purely fiction, and has no logical reason for being where it is?” Well the answer is of course with a massive magnetic hook. The magnetic aspect doesn’t really do much aside from pre-looting the corpses, but the giant hook does exactly what you think it would do, impaling bodies and such…

The ships, which appear mostly to be an amalgamation of various pirate ships, yachts, rubber duckies, and crabbing vessels sail these seas for eternity, as a form of penance for their crew(Similar to Davey Jones in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but rather than being able to dice their years of servitude away, they can pay in fingers).

With the crew being made up entirely of scumbaggy ocean-farers, it is understandably quite a raucous bunch. For this reason this is the department with the highest number of complaints. Fortunately all of these are handed down to the pirate lord Steve Irwin, whom I might add is the only exception to the asshole rule.

Steve Irwin rules over these seas with a mighty stingray barb, keeping all of the rowdy crews in line, and is quite handy with his massive magnetic hook.

Through this process, decaying bodies are fished out of a stinking ocean of rot and decay, and then not so gently escorted into the afterlife. The lesson to be learned here is: Don’t die on a busy day…

A Tale of Pugs and Unicorns

This is the reason I'm not allowed to write children's bedtime stories anymore....

15:2 Of Pugs and Unicorns

A ferocious pug hunting

There once was a land constructed entirely from the sweet tears of candy corn giants. It was in this land that two races, one of puppies, and the other of unicorns lived. These two mighty beasts lived separately  but for the most part equally. With the puppies preferring to take long walks in the fields, and the unicorns(being bros) spent most of their time building Twenty –Four Hour Finesses and Jamba Juices.

Yes it was a peaceful nation, filled with the blissful sounds of pugs grumbling and yapping, while the unicorns filled the air with grunts of manliness as they bench-pressed each other. The geography of the island on which they lived, while improbable, served their purposes quite well. They inhabited an island, perfectly symmetrical, with a small divot right down the middle, so as to delineate where the two groups lived.

One day a unicorn named Chad found himself in a quandary during the annual bicep flexing contest. Somewhere between shotgunning a large orange smoothie with all the proteins and curling other unicorns he found himself wondering about their neighbors to the north. Being of a curious nature he asked one of his other bros about them.

“Yo bro.” He said kindly to one of his fellow muscular equines.

“Sup Bro?” The other muscular equine replied.

“What’s the deal with all those fluffy cute things on the other side of that hill thing?” He asked with a level of curiosity not often seen by the general unicorn population, as most of their questions usually fall into: “Which proteins make the best muscle?” and “Do you even lift?”.

“I don’t know bro. Want to go do some more muscular curls instead of questioning the mysterious nature of the world?”

Saddened by his compatriot's lack of interest and curiosity Chad responded: “No bro, I think I’m going over that hill.”

“Alright bro! Ima go do some mad curls and dead-lift that mountain!” He said, stalking off, biceps chafing together with every step.

Chad sipped down the last of his mega-protein-shake and walked over the hill. As he came to the top of the hill he was greeted by a fuzzy little pug in a sweater vest. 

“Greetings Unicorn Chad, we have foreseen your coming, and wish to romp!”

“Who are you bro?” The highly intelligent pug regarded him with a sense of pity.

“It matters not who I am Chad, but only that we romp together. The prophecy has long foretold our romp, and the other puglets will be sorely disappointed if we do not romp this day.”

Clearly confused by his language, Chad stood, dumbfounded, chewing some grass he had found.  “What?”

“Follow me, for I am Balthazar, speaker of the puppies, and lord of the puglets.” And so, against his bro-like nature, Chad followed Balthazar and together they went to a field of buttercups, where there was a grumble of pugs frolicking.

“Come join us Chad!” Said the puglets ever so creepily, but with no malicious intent.

Early Portrait of the Pug Ruler Balthazar (Left) and an
unknown puglet (Right)

“Alright!” Said Chad, clearly moved by the immobilizing cuteness of a face that looks as though it has been squished in a waffle iron. Together they romped for hours. Chad would curl the tiny pugs, and then the tiny pugs would snort at Chad. It was a cavalcade of cuteness. All the while Balthazar watched from a throne of butterscotch, contemplating.

“Today is a good day for romping, so romp Chad, romp among those you have shunned, romp among those who your people have spurned and ignored, taste of our innocence, and bask in the wrath that is the rise of the pugs!”

Suddenly the romp drew to a halt and Chad saw that a group of dark clouds had begun to gather above Balthazar's head. Lightning cracked across the sky, illuminating the withered lines of the smushed puglet faces, giving them a ferocious appearance that Chad would have previously thought to be impossible. 

"What's going on bro?!" Chad said, nervously curling a handful of puglets. 

"You're people have left us to lie in the shadows of the gumdrop mountains long enough Chad. We yearn for greater fields, more grass, industry, profit, and new lands to settle. Unfortunately for you, that means the extermination and enslavement of your people. It's nothing personal, but it's all for the greater good."

Chad looked at Balthazar with a blank face as the gears in his mind turned, attempting to discover the meaning of the word 'exterminate'. "You can't exgerminate us! Why are you so mad bro?"

"While your attempts to assert fraternity with me seem relentless, I can assure you that they will do nothing to save your people. Puglets, bind his biceps!" Out of the rushes popped a grumble of puglets, armed with gold chains and aviator sunglasses. 

"Don't tase me bro!" The puglets rolled their eyes and tied the chains around Chad's massive arms. When he was bound, the puglets put him on a sled and pulled him to the top of the gumdrop mountain, where a massive thunderhead had formed. 

Down in the valley unicorns ran in fear of the dark apparition, not understanding how weather works. Shouts of: "What is it bro?!", "Bro!", and "No bro! Not like this!" could be heard echoing off of the valley walls.

Chad watched in horror as Balthazar ascended the hill, with a giant metal object in hand. "Do you know what this is Chad?!"

"Um... A death ray?"

"No you imbecile! Wait, yes, yes it is a death ray. I will use it to melt all of the unicorns into sparkle jelly which we will use to butter our toast! Those who survive will build massive monuments to our greatness, and serve us in our doghouses! We will rule this land! Come Pu

glets, the time has come!"

"Nooooooooo!" Chad said in his best impersonation of the re-released Return of the Jedi final battle, which of course was his favorite version... dick.

Fortunately for Chad and the entire unicorn population pugs have never been known for their prowess in technology. They lack opposable thumbs, and thus tend to make many mistakes in the construction of complex items. As Balthazar pulled the trigger a massive orb of light enveloped the island and sunk it into the sea. 

A pug attempting to use technology...

Luckily for the pugs and unicorns, they were instantly teleported to the far corners of the world. The pugs were sent through time to feudal China, where they served as royal lapdogs, advising warlords to the end of their days. The unicorns were transmorgified and sent through time to December 5th, 1776 where they formed the Phi Beta Kappa Society, more commonly known as the first true fraternity...

As for Balthazar, he was transported to 1997 where he starred in the movie Men In Black as Tommy Lee Jones.