Tag Archives: comedy

THE NOISY BATHROOM FAN

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At first, Randall was appalled when the noisy bathroom fan suggested that he murder his girlfriend right there and then, but then he grew intrigued. With the fan’s persuasive voice, the thought of murder solidified into an ideal. Was it possible? In fact, was it the only thing that would set things right?

He was beginning to think so.

The bathroom fan had been broken since Randall had moved into the small corner unit five months ago. So, instead of the calming thrum that accompanied most properly functioning, well-maintained exhaust fans –it instead produced a violent, garbled choking that resembled a dying animal in heat. Its multi-layered rattling occasionally peaked into a wild banshee-like scream that almost seemed deliberate and threatened to take over everything.

And one day it did just that when it simply began to speak.

…Randall…

“Yes?” Randall looked around then up at the fan. “Hello? Is somebody in there?”

…You have to take her out, Randall. Use one of your long kitchen knives…make it dirty…

“Why would anybody do that? And why would I, especially? I really, really like her.” Randall held a quizzical expression on his face. He didn’t really understand, but the noisy bathroom fan would help him with that.

…That’s why you’ve got to do it, to protect yourself from people like her…she’s going to get in and eat you all up from the inside like a cancer…

The voice that came from the fan seemed to fall directly into Randall’s ear in a soothing lull that betrayed its chaotically abrasive presence. The fan knew things. The fan was Randall’s friend and was only looking out for him. But still…

“No! No!” Randall struggled with the idea now. Amy was perfect for him, wasn’t she?

…She’s gonna mess you up, Randall, just like your ex-wife…because she doesn’t know any better…

The fan’s words swept through Randall’s mind, bringing light into where there once was only darkness and planting seeds where that light now was so that ideas could grow. Randall’s eyes widened. He was beginning to see.

“Yes, you’re right. I need to do this.”
…Gotta mess her up, Randall…
“I’m gonna mess her up!”

…Do it now…do it now…
“I’m gonna do it right now!”

Randall left the bathroom and quietly walked past the living room where Amy was sprawled on the sofa watching Netflix. Randall slowly entered into the small side kitchen where he pulled a long, stainless steel knife from a drawer. He then approached Amy slowly from behind raising the knife over his head, readying to plunge it deep into the back of her neck just like the fan wanted.

Amy sensed Randall behind her and spun her head around to see him standing right there. It looked like Randall was holding something behind his back.

“What’s up, Babe?” She asked, eyes widened.

“Nothing, Hon.” Randall swayed on his feet just enough to lean over and leave the knife on the counter. That would have to do, for now. “Hey listen, do you think you can stay over tonight? I can take you home in the morning.”

“Ok, sure. Come, sit down on your favourite recliner.” Randall looked like he thought it was a good idea. Amy tilted her head. “You alright? You look a little triggered.”

“No, everything’s fine,” Randall sighed, “I just have to fix the exhaust fan in the bathroom.”

“I noticed. It’s rather noisy.”

“Oh yeah? You were in there for quite a while earlier. Forgot about that.”

“It told me you were going to kill me.”

Randall laughed nervously as he usually did when he didn’t know what to do or say. The bathroom fan was right: he was a big pussy. Amy slowly pulled a larger kitchen knife than the one Randall had out from under the cushion she sat upon and held it in a firm grip.

“Think this is a joke?” Amy said as she got up.

Mr. Snow Plow

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He’s been pounding back the sauce
since his wife left and took the house
the kids
the dog
now he lives in his snow plow
at the end of my street
idling,
waiting
for me to come out after the storm
to start shoveling.

He can barely see me
as through his alcoholic haze
I am just a moving blurry
insect-like object
but his face cracks into a
twisted toothless grin
as he watches
and shoots a tiny spoonful of
white marching powder
up his weathered nostril.

As soon as I finish and
-feeling ancient
and existentially exhausted-
wearily hobble back inside:

‘Yee-Haw!’
He punches the roof of his cabin
and stomps his foot on the gas
gathering up a tidal wave of the
thickest, filthiest, heaviest,
wettest
snow he could possibly muster
heaving it all across the driveway
feeling like he is touching God
by making my life an unimaginable Hell.

Always the next day;
always I awaken to find that
Mt. Olympus has
sprouted overnight
in front of our house.

And it’s never over.
And it’s a slow murder.

Some days not even
a single patch of white
could be found
anywhere in sight
deep into July

still there will be that
dirty heavy heap of snow
-possibly shipped in from Alaska
blocking my driveway
ten minutes before work
and somewhere in the back of my mind
I can hear him
cackling maniacally
because he hates the universe.

He hates babies.
He hates Jesus.

His life has dissolved
into a derelict world of
cheap motels
and five-dollar hand-jobs
from blind 50-year old hookers
and for some sick reason
or no reason at all
he has targeted me.

He is the antichrist.
A poltergeist.
The dirtiest, meanest,
snarling, snow-slinging,
heathen
there ever was
on four thick bastard wheels.

Mr. Plow,
I am on to you.

Killing My Neighbor Softly With an Ice-scraper (A Dark Comedy)

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It was only -17C this morning but still I had to scrape off and warm up the car hopefully without stumbling this time and helplessly sliding down the sloped driveway screaming towards the merciless blade of the gigantic plow that marauds our street in these ridiculous hours because I once again forgot to purchase road-salt at the beer store.

So after I quickly threw on multiple layers of clothes, scarves, duct-tape, old newspaper and my jacket before stuffing pillows into every available space I then set myself on fire, opened the front door and charged towards my car with the ice-scraper in hand like a war-crazed native from a dense jungle wall.

As I was viciously scraping the impenetrable ice from my windshield my next door neighbor casually strolled out of his garage whistling Niel Young with his hands shoved deep into his pockets as if it were a calm spring morning. I scraped faster trying to avoid eye contact which was an exercise in futility because he was standing right beside me.

“Hey Neighbor! Nice crisp morning, ain’t it?”
“Crisp.” I said. “Like lettuce.”

I scraped even faster. You could barely see the scraper by this point it was moving so fast. He started wandering around my car.

“You get any letters from the city?”
“no…lettt..tt..err…s..s.” My teeth were chattering and starting to crack. Please go away, please please go away and I’ll never jerk off again. I thought.
“Well, welly well well…I got a couple.” He exclaimed as though the very idea of it aroused him. “One for my truck being a couple inches out onto the sidewalk overnight and another for the sidewalk not being cleared.”
“That’s horribb..bb..bb..le.” By this point there were icicles forming in my esophagus and my eyes were crystalizing.

He obviously didn’t share my pain because he was a polar bear of a man and had a lot more blubber encasing his bones than my South American ass. But I couldn’t be anything but nice to him because he was always kind and plowed our driveway whenever it snowed so I occasionally cut the eternally joyous fuck’s lawn in the summer.

I was just about done and he was strolling towards the road where his wife was calmly seated in their nice warm minivan when he turned to me and began talking about the weather just as I was about to scurry back inside like a cockroach when the lights came on.

I thought about killing him to end my misery. Sometimes certain things had to be done and this was why people turned on each other. I could lunge forward and ram the scraper into his throat, thus rendering it futile for him to breathe. I could picture his huge head turning beet-red as he helplessly clutched at his crushed larynx until he fell lifelessly backwards to thud against the pavement.

But then there was his wife that had witnessed it. Would have to take care of her too and then ditch the minivan. Fuck, that might make me late for work.

Yes, when you are talking to someone who is quickly turning into a snowman this is what is rolling through their head. Be kind to your neighbors who are not whale-seals like your complacent couch-eating selves and just let them scrape for God’s sake or maybe next time you’ll end up garbage-bagged under a foundation of the housing project across the field wondering what was going to happen on the next episode of Duck Dynasty.

Slide.

Sleeping With Both Eyes Open (I Thought You Were Dead)

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One of my cats
sleeps with both eyes open so
often when I get home and see it
nestled on top of the couch
like a twizzler
paws up in the air
head twisted violently vertical
both glazed eyes staring out
at nothing unblinking
I will think that it’s dead
and will feel compelled
to look into the matter.

So I would go into the kitchen
to return with a spatula
and begin to prod it
waking it from relentless slumber
to meow and yawn
at the same time
in response
which makes it look and sound
a lot like a scream
and I will then regret
tormenting the poor thing
with a spatula
if it has come down to it
screaming at me
like so.

Next time
I’ll try something more subtle
like the oven mitts
cause that won’t
totally scare the crap out of it.
Not one bit.

The cat is getting on in years
and one day it will pass on
all things do
especially things that are furry
and cute.
They pay for it. They do.
Because nothing screams death
like a teddy bear
and when my cat finally does
cash out its chips
I will most likely have some veterinarian
over for tea
and while on my couch
she will turn her head
to stare directly into its
frozen stare of harrowing death.

“Is your cat dead?” She will ask, alarmed.
“Nah, it’s all good.” I will mutter
or just blatantly ignore her and
continue watching Duck Dynasty.

In being of the profession that
tends to such things she will naturally
check for a pulse and there will be none
as in fact the poor thing will have
by this time
gone into rigor mortis days ago
and will even have
flies already settling
upon the cadaver and I will look like
the biggest asshole in the world
or even quite possibly bigger
as I will be out
one possible love interest
and certainly down
one cat.

You just watch.

Tale of the Nightmare Princess: An Adult Fantasy Comedy Adventure (New novel coming out)

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It’s a funny story. I was working heavily on my third novel for over the course of a whole year fully intent on the finished product being the darkest, most horrifically intense and emotionally engaging cerebral masterpiece ever written! The problem was that I had never gotten past the first chapter. In fact, I kept on rewriting it so by that time I had twelve first chapters. Well, I don’t have them anymore. I purged all the files and burned the hard-copies in my backyard one night on the tail end of a whiskey bottle and my own sanity.

It was during this time that I started a new project, a complete reversal of the very thing I was trying so hard to create in both style and subject matter. It was the satire of a common fairy tale that surrounded two characters I had created based on my very colourful best-friend and his flighty hippy girlfriend at the time (God bless her magical soul). The whole thing started off as a joke with a very long punch-line and before you knew it I was halfway done and loving every minute of writing it. I had never approached comedy before but quickly became rather hooked on seeing what kind of off-beat characters and calamitous situations I could come up within the context of the story. Fourteen chapters and one-hundred and thirteen thousand words later I was finished.

That book is called ‘Tale of the Nightmare Princess’ and I am now going through the motions of putting it out on Amazon. Check it out:

TOTNP COVER 600 X 800Back Cover

Here’s the synopsis:

This was a mistake
In an age of utter calamity, two unsavoury monks about to be hanged for crimes against humanity and other, more interesting species are instead reluctantly brought before a drunkard king and given a task only slightly better than death: to guide his daughter, the Nightmare Princess, to an unholy matrimony with the Prince of Darkness.

Nobody is safe
The hastily formed dysfunctional group of outcasts quickly embark on a drug-laced, alcohol-fuelled journey fraught with disaster as they carve a path of chaos across the land, leaving a trial of fiery devastation behind them that consumes evil foe and innocent bystander alike.

Only death awaits
Haunted through the night by the ominous drumbeats of a vast army that pursues them solely intent on their annihilation, the group treads through forest, village and mountain facing unrelenting menace on their way to the ultimate battle that will decide the fate of all things to come…and it has never looked so horrifyingly bad!

And you are in my face
Untrusting of each other and the world around them, the group must battle with their own demons and survive one another first as only when the pills are gone, the flask is empty and the unknown army is closing in like the darkness that surrounds them will they find their greatest challenge –themselves (and their cat).

And here’s a sample from the book:

Hemer was having a bad night. His day was pretty shitty too. In fact, as soon as he laid eyes on the bald maniac parading around in a monk’s robe everything had turned into one big freak show. Upon awakening Hemer began to recall being eaten by two whores of Hell and dying in front of an exploding bar. As everything began to sink in and spin Hemer opened his mouth and it was dry. He wanted blood and lots of it. The more the better. Wait, there was probably something wrong with that. Hemer had never experienced such thirst for human blood before so that was definitely new.

“Fuck, I’m a vampire.” Hemer realized. Things could not possibly get any worse than this.

“No shit.” He heard a voice say from behind him. Suddenly things became very bright and very hot, very fast. Hemer didn’t need to open his eyes to know that he had just been set on fire. His night had just gotten worse. It might have been a contender for one of the worst nights in the history of mankind.

Coming out soon! (unless something else goes horribly wrong which I really wouldn’t be surprised if it did but I do suppose that you should have a sense of bravado when announcing such things so there it is)
Would love it if you would give it a look when TOTNP comes out and please let me know what you think. I have a few things I will be working on getting out in the near (and far) future and would like to know how I can improve so your feedback is valuable to me. Above all, thank you for your interest and support.