Mouthful of Dirt

Beets suck.

Trapped in my Mind

Did I leave the TV on? I'm asleep and I can't move. I'm asleep and I can't awake. I'm paralyzed with dread and then fear. Is that someone in the hall or at the door? What are they doing here? Is it a burglar or thug? Is that something in the room; something not quite human. An alien terror unknown in the waking world, only existing in the back of my mind, waiting on these moments to feed. Why can't I move? What's wrong?

I can feel it slither around and over me, holding down an already paralyzed figure. My heart accelerates. Move, dammit! I can feel a breath from the terror, breathing down my paralyzed mirror-self. My mind reels in a torrent of reality and unreality colliding violently. I can't distinguish the two. I'm not so unconscious as to be unaware of reality, yet not so conscious to recognize that existing only in my mind.

Concentrate! Try to move. Wake up. My arm twitches. My heart speeds up further. Focusing as deeply as I can in this state, I force my arm to move. My unconscious self dies and I awake, confused, sweating, and heart pounding. I get up, exceedingly disturbed. Was that real? No. What's that noise? How come I'm still lying down if I just got up? Why can't I move?

Stage Fright

The phone rang promptly at 3pm.

"Hello? Yes. Thank you. Goodbye. And to you."

"Mort? Mort. Mort!"

"Hunhh?"

"It's time to wake up. We've got a job to do."

"Five more minutes." Mort pulled the covers back over his head in his own bed. "Owww! What'd d'you do that for?"

"I said it's time to get up. Now."

"Alrigh' Alrigh', no need to get all snippy."

"Take a shower. I'll get breakfast."

Mort was finishing up in the bathroom as Albert returned with the meal.

"Here's your breakfast."

"But this's a burger."

"Right. They were all out of breakfast in the middle of the afternoon. Now hurry up.

After eating and final preparations, Mort and Albert headed down to the lobby.

"Another long night, gentlemen?"

"We expect so."

"So where will you be performing tonight?"

"Performin'?"

"Mort prefers the term 'presenting'."

"Oh, of course. I am so sorry."

"Think nothing of it."

"Well, break a leg, sirs!"

"I expect we will."

"Huh-huh, we'll knock 'em dead!"

"Terrific sir."

"Come on Mort."

They headed out into the street to hail a taxi cab.

Low-carb Toe-nail Sandwich

Okay, so I'm hungry. So, I get some turkey and pepperjack cheese out to eat, minus the bread. Not because I'm against carbs; I just didn't want the bread. Earlier that night, I had had a bottle of water, as I am often wont to do. Sometime after that yet before the sandwich, I was clipping my toenails. The bottle of water was gone but the cap was still on the coffee table. Since I needed somewhere to dispose of the nails, I placed them within this water bottle cap. Of course, when I was done I did not dispose of the cap properly. This is what I like to call foreshadowing.

So, I'm finally ready to eat my low-carb non-bread sandwich. I get the turkey and cheese out from the fridge and place them on a paper plate which I then take into the living room and place on the coffee table. But wait, I need a drink. So I go to get another bottle of water. But you know, water can be dull. It just so happens that I have five and one-quarter key limes in my fridge, which my uncle brought with him from Florida when visiting for Thanksgiving. So, I take the one-quarter key lime and squeeze it into the bottle of water. Well, key limes are very sour and the first time I did this, all the sour lurked at the top of the bottle, so I needed to shake the bottle up. Obviously, I can't shake the bottle up without the cap replaced or the water would go everywhere. That could be a big mess. This, now, is what I like to call dramatic tension building. Bob Barker's big into that sort of thing.

So I reach down blindly and grab the cap next to my hand. Except it's not the cap I just removed. It's the cap that had the night's toenails within. Well, I didn't ruin my limey water, because as I lifted the cap towards the water, I started to rotate it in order for it to be in the proper position as I placed it on top of my bottle of water. Well, as I did this, I crossed the territory of my paper plate containing my turkey and cheese.

And then it rained toenails on my precious non-bread sandwich.

I stared at this in fascination for just a little while. I pondered on the events that led me into this predicament and couldn't help but laugh at myself. I shook my head and thought, "Only I could do this. I'm so special." Not the good kind of special either.

So, after starting over with a new plate, new turkey and new cheese, I enjoyed my low-carb sandwich and my key lime water-shaken with the correct, clean cap replaced.

I'm pretty sure I didn't eat a single toenail.