Recently in Chris Woodward Category

Ben lifted his head from the pillow. He looked out the window into the steel gray light of early morning. His eyelids felt heavy and after looking into his mirror he confirmed that he looked like the nearest representation of death, in other words he looked like Joan Van Ark. Ben shook his head and as he walked to the bathroom he remembered a time when he could wake up and feel refreshed. That time was before he moved into the quaint hamlet of Briarberry

For the summer, between semesters at the fine school I attend in Philadelphia, I'm currently employed by a certain unnamed pharmacy chain. Customers are welcome to bring back items from the front of the store and pay for them in the back when they pick up and pay for them at the pharmacy. This item caught my eye:

It was then I realized that no, I had not scanned in the bar code on the nice lady's hand, but actually one gallon of homogenized milk. Ho ho ho, I chuckled to myself as I realized the humorous folly I had fallen into. The wonders of the computer age never cease.

I was recently at the Mall at Steamtown and ate at the fine Chinese establishment located in the luxurious food court. Being the sinophile that I am, I decided to try and eat my fine Orange Chicken with chopsticks. And I was granted another glance at amazing adventures in the world of Chinese copy.

His eyes opened in a flash to the morning light streaming in through the Venetian blinds. He closed his eyes again and rolled over to go back to sleep but then snapped back awake and alert. As if suspended by wires, Henry Black floated out of bed and softly onto the bedroom floor.

In Key West I discovered the Fryman's cousin, Coneman.

Muffled conversations stopped as it became apparent that the short woman at the front of the lecture hall was ready to begin. The Dean stepped up next to her and said, "Today's speaker is Cynthia King and she's going to be talking about her experience working as a pharmacist in a hospice." The Dean sat down in the front row. The woman, Cynthia, straightened the jacket of her sensible pants suit that was in a light shade of puke green. She looked up seriously and surveyed the small crowd through her trendy thick red framed glasses; the crowd was barely one quarter of the capacity that the hall could hold.

(How pretentious is that title?)

Hello there. Want to know something? Those sparing few who get close enough to know the truth of my upbringing often have many questions. All of them about cotton candy. That's the way it is when you were raised in an amusement park.

Let the parade of photos continue with...

Jesus may have been able to raise the dead but his brother, Lamar, sure could prepare them very presentably for viewings and funerals. He has a way with the rouge and lipstick.
(Sorry about the quality but as I was pulled over the side of the road snapping this picture the local cops pulled up and stared at me menacingly.)

Back in the day, when science was not just science but SCIENCE!, the scientists needed gadgets that really let the layman know that important and explosive knowledge was being gained. Room-sized computers with an infinite amount of knobs and of course the slide rule. It separated the men of SCIENCE! from the men of science.

Then the calculator came along and allowed everyone to enjoy science at a leisurely pace with no emphasis or fancy art deco laboratories.

Sweat beaded on Phoenix Waterfall's forehead. His hazel eyes darted back and forth. Phoenix tried to keep his heavy breathing inaudible and so it came in short in and out breaths. Phoenix felt the coolness of the thick leather seat through his cut off hemp pants. The air was crisp and cool and blew breezily through Phoenix's tank top. He was glad he put the bright orange hat on. Not only did it keep his head warm in the cool room (in addition to the thick gnarly beard), but it gave him comfort and self-confidence. Confidence enough to do his mission.

Nothing quite screams 80's pop culture than Spuds McKenzie. And sadly, Spuds doesn't scream much anymore. My roommate had him stuffed to preserve the memories. Like that one time, at Daytona beach....you know what I'm talking about.

Jeb, the existential puddle of shampoo, bubbled and gurgled in your shower. At this particular time of the day, around noon-ish, Jeb liked to lounge around on the cool ceramic tiles amorphously and think. Jeb thought about everything in this expansive universe. He thought about whether it was moral for human beings to take the life of other human beings for punishment. He pondered the question of whether or not the bar of soap you use was gay with the washcloth (Jeb didn’t have any objections but was just merely wondering because they sure did dress nicely).

Keeping the parade of pretty pictures rolling, here is my latest entry in the "Weird Things My Roommate Has In Our Dorm Room" file. Not nearly as terrifying as the previous bobble-head (see below) but still enough to give you the willies. I don't even know what to say about this one. It was made in Germany. I think that's really all I need to say about it. I'm just surprised it doesn't play crappy techno music.

This thing is just one of the plethora of knick-knacks my roommate brought to adorn our dorm room. It's creepy and he loves it. He claims there is another that he owns that has a pipe in its hand. And the Hitler is an inference I made due to it being made in West Germany and come on...look at the mustache.

The dear and lovely Andrea passes the time on the "World's Most Comfortable Swing." What sort of governing body decreed that particular swing the world's most comfortable? Guiness? PA Tourism Board? And what system of comfortability measurement were they using, was it in the metric units of comfortability? So many unanswered questions, so much comfort.

Coal Falls, Pennsylvania, U. S. of A stank of weeks old bologna and body odor. It was wretched and dirty. Coal Falls was (is, always will be) the worst town in the entire world. Well, actually, Coal Falls wasn’t a town per se due to the fact that there was only one official town in the entire state of Pennsylvania. And in the sense of full disclosure, Pennsylvania really wasn’t a state either, it’s a commonwealth…but I digress.

The full moon illuminated the night and cast a pale glow across the expansive desert. A lone figure could be seen trudging up the mountainside, his long robes flowing out behind him. At the top of the mountain another light source grew brighter as the figure approached. Moses stepped forth and bowed before the light source, the burning bush. The disembodied voice of God bellowed from the bush.

Glistening spurts of water sprayed into the air out of sprinklers. The water fell down and dampened the already dew covered lawns. Simultaneously, all the sprinklers shut off as every door in the cookie cutter suburban paradise opened.

Warm and golden sunlight streamed into Morningwood Planned Retirement Community as cheers and loud smacking noises emanated from the recreation room. A large orderly who smelt of bologna took long strides into the source of those noises. In his hands he held a small plastic tray, on which various pills in a plethora of colors were lined up all nice and tidy. Carefully, the orderly placed the tray on a table and stood up. He looked around the gray room filled with small puddles of droopy skin and bent bones covered in macramé and polyester. The orderly sighed.

The night I lured every celebrity in the world into a dank and dark basement and then killed them was indeed a great night.

Pork Pony only saw a writer's ideas and enthusiasm. It was blind to age, race, and cool-factor. The latter worked well for me as I'm chronically uncool. The former worked for Chris Woodward, who was in high school at the time he wrote and we published this story. He's got great sensibilities, so we're really glad he decided to rejoin us here at Unloosen. This was his first story for Pork Pony. (CL)