Death In Autumn: Two Short Stories

Death in Autumn: Two Short Stories

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1. “Wax”

Once upon a time, a man went to a garage sale and bought two candles. They were matching, but had been burned to different lengths. This bothered him, and so when he arrived home, he lit the taller candle and placed it on his kitchen counter. He set the shorter candle next to it, such that he would be able to judge when the taller candle had burned down sufficiently and could be extinguished.

It was a Sunday, and he had been out late the night before. He felt tired, and took a nap. When he woke, he found that the (initially) taller candle had burned down so far that it was in fact now shorter than the other candle. He blew it out, put on his jacket, walked down the street, and jumped in front of the CalTRAIN. He died instantly.

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2. “Clipboard”

Once upon a time, a man was walking past a stairwell which lead down, below the street level, into the basement of an apartment building. Mr. Morales walked from the bottom of the stairwell up toward the street, stopping three stairs below the street level. Mr. Morales was carrying a clipboard. Neither of the men had ever seen each other. It was autumn.

“If you had to describe yourself in one word, what would it be?,” Mr. Morales asked the man.

The man thought for several seconds, scratching his chin and muttering “hmm...”

“Old-fashioned,” the man said.

“That is two words,” Mr. Morales said.

“Oh. But it’s a compound word, with a hyphen...,” the man said. He started to think of another word, again scratching his chin and muttering.

Mr. Morales set the clipboard down on one of the steps of the stairwell, but it started to tip. The steps were not wide enough to accommodate the entire clipboard. Mr. Morales rearranged the clipboard so the heavy metal clip was as far forward on the step as possible, with the lighter part of the clipboard hanging off the step. This kept the clipboard from tipping. His hands empty, Mr. Morales removed a revolver from a holster hidden under his jacket.

Mr. Morales aimed at the man’s chin. Mr. Morales closed his eyes and tucked his lips into his mouth a moment before he pulled the trigger, because he did not know if the man’s blood might spatter onto him, and although the man did not have hepatitis or HIV, Mr. Morales did not know this. All he knew was that the man had described himself in two words when explicitly instructed to describe himself in one word. Mr. Morales shot the man. He died instantly.

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Next, on Menthol University Press:

1. Stories about neat freaks: being neurotic isn't as simple or straightforward as you might think.
2. The word "Girl" has the abbreviation "IRL" ("In Real Life") in it. Coincidence?
3. Did you know that Germans refer to the constellation we call "The Big Dipper" with a phrase that translates literally as "The Big Cart"? Well, now you do!
4. Sometimes, you see someone and want to sleep with them. If they're wearing a fedora hat (or if any of their friends are), it's quite straightforward: just walk up to them and ask "Excuse me, is the word 'fedorable' in your vocabulary?" It's pretty easy from there.
5. As people get older, they tend to become less idealistic. My level of idealism is about equivalent to that of the average seven-thousand-year-old.
6. I am starting to no longer believe in things that can't be assigned units. I still halfway believe in things like distance and filmspeed and vehicle speed--but what about things like love, truth, and Australia? They have no units, so their existence is suspect.