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Flash Fictions
You can run, but you can't hide (+1)
I paint the tanks. No, I don't paint the round storage containers, or glass fish boxes, or even the fun summery day wear tanks. I paint those wonderful exacting weapons of modern warfare. Tons of steel, electronic switches, packed chock-full of firepower, and I'm proud to say I make them sneaky. It used to be jungle green, desert yellow/grey, or bloody battlefield fire-engine red. Now, I'm researching new color combinations and disguises to go with today's tricky, yet compassionate, small-scale military operation needs. You say you need an example. Oh, you always need an example don't you, you and your budget-cutting, sock-wearing, tank-loving friends. Well, first there's Corporate Logo. With tanks covered in brand and company names, fighting an army of sport's fans at football games would be a cinch. Another in our new line of camouflage is Billboard. A tank hidden on both sides by cigarette and soft drink billboards would blend into densely populated urban areas really darn well. Those screaming throngs of crack-smoking urban paramilitary groups would never know we were coming, until, of course, they were dead. And one of our newest, and most revolutionary camouflages is Playground Equipment. We've all seen the movie Children of the Corn, read the juvenile crime statistics, or watched morning cartoons. It is only a matter of time before our nation's, so-called, kids, as if they were mere goats, rise from their sand boxes and classrooms and attack in mass. But with tanks cleverly painted to look like fun and exciting playground equipment, I think we all know who will have the advantage.
Two Strikes and You're Out
Torque is a twisting force, they tell me. The laws of physics are written on loose-leaf paper by blue bass fisherman, they imply. Voices, they're just voices hiding behind a bright incandescent light in a dingy, cramped room. They say physics and its laws have something to do with the sound that corrugated cardboard makes on long journeys. Interrogation is the only way to convince me, unless I prefer pixie sticks to hypnotism. I ask them what's the big idea, skipping the small ideas from the start. Suddenly, well not so suddenly, actually pretty slowly, but that doesn't quite have the same affect now does it? Suddenly, they alter the subject, switching the run to she runs. Baffling simpletons, I reel, does a verb really equal mass times acceleration or is force what you're really searching? Hindsight suggests, as if hindsight were my friend, that wasn't the right thing to say. They switch off the light, revealing... well nothing actually, because it's dark. Grabbing my ankles, they fling me through an open stained glass window. This IS the only way to learn the force of gravity, they bellow, while laughing in brief rhythm changes.
Raising rabbits is not easy. No, no it's really not. If you get scared, e-mail me and I'll calm you down. Things being what things being.
