Unhappy Purchase

The door chimed as it opened, without any actual bell.

The old man who slowly walked out of the back room had a smile that was "friendly salesperson" at one point in his life, but was now "technically sign of life".

"Welcome to my Magic Shop, what can I help you with today?"

He looked at the customer for a brief moment.

"Body modification, perhaps?"

The young man answered without answering.

"Ah, right. Well, true love is impossible, but I can give you one day of passion with them."

"That'll do!"

"You say that now" the old man didn't say.

Ges

I had introduced her to most of the ship's crew, but paused outside the science bay.

"Now, our final team member is Ges. They are... different."

"Different like K.A.R.L?"

"Goodness no, the reformed murderbot is miles less weird then Ges. Ges is, well, everyone. They cycle through everyone in the universe, every few seconds they change. But they keep their memory, so don't worry."

"I see... So Ges is short for Gestalt then?"

"Ha, no."

I opened the door, and she stared at them for several seconds.

"I thought-"

"Turns out this specfic guy is 99% of the universe's population..."

An Answer

The Grim Reaper waved a bony hand, and suddenly the endless black desert was replaced by an endless corridor of mirrors.

"Here, you will remain, until you find the answer, and only then-"

"73."

I didn't think a skull could look deadpan, but it managed it.

"73?"

"Yeah, that's the answer."

"I don't think so."

"Well what's the question?"

"It's more metaphysical than-"

"Metaphysical questions are easy, any answer works for them. 73. Final answer."

The Grim Reaper sighed, then a small portal opened in its hand.

"73?"

There was a pause.

"I suppose if you count... Yeah, that'll do."

Love Locked

As I walked around the foreign city in the early hours of the morning (doesn't matter why), I came across a bridge, upon which were hundreds of padlocks, all engraved with initials and love messages. By the time my inebriated brain remembered about love locks, couples putting locks as symbols of their love on bridges, I noticed the man working on removing them, quietly, with a small electric saw.

I walked over with drunken confidence.

"I bet their damaging the bridge, so you're from the local council, right?"

He sighed, softly.

"No, if I can't be happy, why should they?"

2 For 1

I slowly made my way through the crowded bar, a drink in either hand. As I got to just near the door, my constant muttering of "excuse me, pardon me" was enough for the woman in front of me to turn around.

And it was my ex-partner, the woman I'd never gotten over.

Time stood still as we looked at each other, as I tried to think of something to say, and she seemed to be doing the same.

Until she saw the two drinks, sighed, and left, before I could even think to explain they were both for me.

Thrown

Five people, ten guns.

Everyone had two trained on them, and no-one was quick enough to take the shot. After several long seconds, the tension was broken by a voice.

"Well this is a situation, huh?"

The voice seemed to be coming from the radio at the far side of the room. Everyone began to fidget.

"I don't have all day. Just end your fake partnership and let's be on our way."

The two married couples blinked and all four fired.

As they fell to the floor, the survivor was grateful they'd kept up their ventriloquism training all these years.

Post Death

Before my death, I assumed nothing would happen after my death.

But then when I did die, and something did happen, I assumed it would be the Pearly Gates, angels, and so on. Or fire and pain, maybe, but I thought I lived an OK life.

Instead, I found myself in a void, grey, lifeless, alone. I called out, over and over again, until my voice gave out.

Eventually, a figure approached me slowly, a scythe on their bony hands. When they got to me, their voice was heavy, stone like.

"Wait, how did you get here?"

Didn't explain anything.

Trunk

I had plenty of time to consider my options, but very few options to consider.

My bindings were just too tight to slip out of, so trying to do anything while the car was in transit wasn't an option.

So I'd have to try something when we arrived and they opened the trunk. I eventually decided on kicking up, and hopefully managing to knock them away long enough to hop out and then...

The car stopped, and I had to settle on that plan.

Unfortunately my sense of time passing was off and I eventually kicked my would-be rescuer instead.

Retold

They thought they were doing the right thing. A God of Stories, trapped by the other gods and goddesses, it had to be because of mortals and their fate to one day overthrow the gods.

So, the group trained, studied, fought, and eventually broke the seals and released the God of Stories from their imprisonment.

The God of Stories was grateful, and promised to make good, when they snapped their fingers and remade the world in a 'proper' way. One where they were important characters, but in someone else's story, the final bosses to a true, proper hero's glorious success.

One With A Lot

He approached the small hot dog trolley.

"Basic Deluxe."

She nodded and quickly assembled the dish, putting each topping on with fast but exact movements, then took the offered money and handed it over.

He took it, and paused, staring at the slightly steaming maybe-sandwich.

"Something wrong?"

He half nodded, and then shook his head.

"I... Today sucked. Not quite total catastrophe, but it was not good.

And yet, here and now, this..."

He took a big bite and chewed, smiling.

"This makes things better. Thank you."

She considered her words.

"You're welcome, I guess? It's just a hot dog."

Selfish Sacrifice

Marcy.

I'm writing you this, while I still can, because tomorrow morning I may well not be able to.

I know you've told me to stop using it, but you, none of us would be alive right now if I didn't use it in the past, and there's no way tomorrow will be any safer for us, not while the monsters are still out there.

So, tomorrow, I might be a little dumber, a little less me, a little more like them. And eventually, a lot like them.

And when that happens, just accept it, rather than use the device.

Count On It

"So what would you tell your 18 year old self?"

"The winning lottery numbers for that week."

"No jokes, I'm being serious."

"So am I."

"You really can't think of any life lessons that you want to pass on?"

"Oh, plenty. I've made a lot of stupid mistakes in my life, most revolving around not taking risks, not chasing my dreams."

"Well there you go, why not tell your younger self that?"

"Because I know my younger self, and he wouldn't listen to anything I said unless I proved myself worth listening to."

"How?"

"By giving the winning lottery numbers."

Family Planning

My second in command ripped the hoods off the three of them, and they all saw me and began to panic. As they began to struggle against their bonds, I explained that someone in this room had stolen from me, and more importantly The Family, and no-one was leaving until justice was done.

They all pleaded their ignorance, but as I laid out the evidence my second in command had provided, they fell silent.

After a moment, I told them that it wasn't personal, but I had to be sure of things.

I then killed my former second in command.

Short Cough

Every so often (usually right after that old Strangelove movie gets revived) someone puts for a proposal for the Earth Government to build a Last Resort device, something that would poison or destroy the Earth and as much of the surrounding space as possible, to act as a deterrent for invasion.

And while enough civilisations believe we'd use such a device, the issue is always that if we build it, someone will try to set it off instead.

So ideally, people would think we had one, but we actually didn't.

But that seemed hard, so Earth just made one anyway.

Gods Plan

The Gods and Goddesses looked down upon the land that they had created, and lo, they began to argue and debate about it. The placement of the islands, the colors of the trees, every choice they had made impacted all the others, and soon they were locked in fierce debate about what to do.

As they debated and discussed, the Great Hero stuck into the Home of the Gods and Goddesses, and there, stole the blueprints of life.

And lo, they did return to the Earth and examined them, and yay, he did determine this was a right fuck up.

Landslide

I woke up and went to open my phone, but I paused. I sat up from the sofa where I'd crashed and took a few deep breaths.

Despite all the setbacks and soul crushing disappointments I'd had over the past lifetime, some tiny part of my soul still had hope, still had a light in the darkness.

And so, as I breathed and paused, I tried to protect that light with cynicism and pessimistic pattern recognition before I turned on my phone and went to the news app.

I saw the headlines.

The light glowed just a little bit brighter.

The Fixer

"Givnosia Elebactum Sansoifia Grees!"

"You learned Demonic from Fino The Dark's text, huh?"

I turned around, pushing the air out of the way as I did so, time having stopped.

"Who-"

"They got their pronunciation wrong, its a short e, not the long ee. Minor spells, doesn't matter, but something like this, it causes a ripple cascade. Destroys the universe."

"I... So who are you?"

"Oh, I'm just the poor sucker who's job is to stop and fix stuff like this."

"OK, I'll pronounce it correctly this time."

"That's not how this goes."

They swung the device to unexist someone.

Cheese Squish

I stared at the sandwich in the frypan, somehow able to count the seconds as well as count all the ways my life was going wrong.

I got to 250 in both before I flipped the sandwich. Little dark on that side, but still good.

I probably could consolidate some of those ways, I'd gotten it down to a more concise 150 when the other side was done.

I turned off the heat, slid the sandwich onto a plate, cut it in half, and took a bite, burning my mouth.

So 151 ways things had gone wrong, it turned out.