the garden

genevieve and hermione lived in a big old house by the side of the road to nowhere. the house had once held swarms of aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews but now only genevieve and hermione were left. they had lived a long time and were running out of money. they could not imagine selling the house because they had never lived anywhere else. they could not imagine renting rooms - assuming anyone would want to rent them - because the guests would want some kind of service or at least attention. there was a wide empty space behind the house which had always been called “the garden”, although they could not remember anyone actually doing any gardening in it, not even in grandmother’s day. “perhaps,” genevieve ventured, “we could rent out the garden.” “you mean,” hermione answered, “to someone who would come every day and work in it and make a lot of noise? they might expect us to invite them in for tea or whatnot.” “no,” genevieve said. “ do you remember how uncle isaac used to say the garden would be a perfect place to bury bodies, and aunt jennifer and aunt kathryn thought that was so funny? and uncle lawrence said it was a great place to hide buried treasure? well, perhaps we could put an ad in the gazette, or on craigslist, to rent the garden out to anyone who wanted to bury some bodies or buried treasure - or anything at all.” “but surely ,“ hermione, who considered herself the more levelheaded of the two, protested, “we can not put the words ‘bodies’ or ‘buried treasure’ right in the ad. might that not attract the notice of the authorities?” “we could just say. ’space to bury objects’ and leave to the imagination what is to be buried.” “i suppose it is worth a try,” hermione agreed with a sigh. they placed the ad. it read, “space available to bury large objects. discretion assured. “ they received no written or texted replies after two weeks, and had almost forgotten about the ad. then one afternoon they were sitting on the front porch as it was not too gloomy a day, when a dark blue van pulled up on the road in front of the house. the van had no lettering or pictures on it, but looked as if some had been painted over . a man got out of the van and approached the house. he wore a dark suit, a bright red tie, and he wore a blue baseball cap on his head ,which both ladies thought looked quite ridiculous but of course they did not say so. the man tipped the baseball cap to them, just as if it had been a real hat. “are you the owners of the plot of land suitable for the burial of large objects?” “we are indeed,” genevieve answered, “and we are at your disposal to discuss terms.” the man moved on up to the porch. “my name is jonathon walker,” he told them. “and this is my story.” “it will not be necessary to tell your story,” hermione assured him. “but i have a story all prepared,” jonathon walker protested, “and like to consider myself a forthright and up front fellow.” jonathon’s story, which he recounted after being invited to take a seat on the porch, was that he was a dealer in tea, and.that he had developed a new blend of that beverage, which had not found favor with the world, but which he was confident was just ahead of its time. therefore, he had a large box of this tea, both in bulk and in teabags, which he wished to bury in the ground until its time finally arrived. he concluded his narrative, by asking the ladies if they would like to sample the tea, as he was always interested in feedback and constructive criticism. how could they refuse? they would be only too happy to sample the gentleman’s wares. accordingly he produced three teabags, and sat and chatted amiably with hermione - they found common ground in deploring the insanity of the modern world - while genevieve prepared their three cups. jonathon walker only pretended to sip his beverage, and when genevieve and hermione tasted theirs, they expired immediately, as the tea contained the strongest poisons from the remotest jungles. the man who had called himself jonathon walker then set to work. his name was not really jonathon walker, but walter hargraves, and he had been born in wichita falls texas during a violent snowstorm. he had spent his life searching for the lost treasure of patheta-ru, last emperor of the lost continent of mu, and had been attracted to genevieve’s and hermione’s advertisement by the prospect of discovering that treasure, left behind by another respondent to the ad. it was a long shot to be sure, but had, he thought, been worth a try. taking a shovel from the back of his van, he proceeded to spend the rest of the day until nightfall digging up the garden, with, as the reader has no doubt surmised, no results. he had brought a large box with him, as part of his story to be used as necessary, and after giving up on finding the treasure, he placed the bodies of the two ladies in the box and covered it with the dirt he had dug up. he then returned to the van and proceeded on his way. a year later, two small flowers sprouted in the garden, one white, and one red.

the dead man

the dead man woke up. it was dark. he had an overwhelming urge to play a game of checkers. remembering his recent unpleasant experiences in the elevator, he walked down the five flights of stairs to the lobby on the second floor. daniel boone was behind the desk at the foot of the stairs and the dead man nodded to him. genghis khan, ed gein, and winston churchill were slumped in chairs around the lobby. churchill was smoking his eternal cigar and the other two were just staring into space. the television and the big cabinet radio were both turned off, and the checkerboard was nowhere in sight. neither was the gray cat. “anybody up for a game of checkers?” the dead man asked hopefully. “no, man,” ed gein told him. “nobody wants to play checkers with you.” “where is everybody?’ the dead man asked. “where are the teds?” “they went across the river to newark,” genghis khan said, “to see the new hoochie koochie show.” “the hoochie koochie show? at this time of night?” “where you been, brother?” ed gein asked. “this is the modern world, not like old times. the action runs all night, if you just know where to find it.” stonewall jackson wandered in, and joined the conversation. “i remember when the blue laws had teeth in them, and you couldn’t smoke a cigar or buy a pack of gum on sunday.” “that must have been before my time,” winston churchill growled. “must have been,” stonewall agreed. the dead man went down the last flight of stairs to the street. there was a bit of fog in the air. a little girl approached him. she might have been the little match girl or she might have just been anybody from nowhere. “they stole my duck,” the little girl said to the dead man. “what?’ “the bad men stole my duck,” the little girl repeated, with a sob. “they did, did they?” “i will give you ten million dollars to get it back.” “you don’t have to do that, honey. i will do it just because i am a good guy. show me where these rascals are and i will fry up their bacon in the devil’s own grease.” “follow me, then,” the dead man followed the little girl down a long flight of wide stone steps. the fog got heavier. at the bottom of the stone steps the little girl pointed to a warehouse . its door was cracked open, and a dim light showed through. “they are in there. but be careful.” “they are the ones who are going to have to be careful,” the dead man assured the little girl. the dead man pushed the door of the warehouse open. and there, sitting around a card table with a bottle of whiskey and some glasses, were his old nemeses - pope ignatius xv, and his two henchmen, allen dulles and sir edward gray. “got him again, boys! “ pope ignatius cackled. “fell for the oldest trick in the book!” allen dulles crowed. “please, fellows, don’t do this to me,” the dead man begged. “we got you fair and square,” pope ignatius intoned. “now, listen up , and listen good, because we will only go through this once. get down to waterloo station and get the 4:45 to istanbul. it will make a stop at vienna. a woman will get on wearing a green hat and carrying a red briefcase…” three days later, after the most desperate, hair raising, and yet tedious and interminable hours of his existence, the dead man crawled back up the stairs of his hotel. churchill was still in the lobby, along with two of the teds - bundy and roosevelt. the dead man started to tell his sad story but none of them wanted to hear it. “why do these things happen to me?” he cried. “only to me?” “stop your whining,” ted bundy told him. “why don’t you pull yourself together and try to make yourself useful for once and make something out of your life?” “out of my life? but i am already dead - dead!” “nobody wants to play checkers with you, man.”

three numbers

clarence albert fanshaw was a dreamer, had always been one, and had never done an honest day’s work in his life. in his youth his dreams had been somewhat varied, involving fame, achievement, romance, and even good works, but after his small inheritance had been wiped out in one of the more obscure financial crises of the late twentieth century, his dreams had focused almost exclusively on money - on winning a lottery, finding buried treasure, doing a good deed for an anonymous person who would turn out to fabulously wealthy and properly grateful, or some other windfall which would restore him to some measure of the comfort he had known in his youth. meanwhile he spent his days in the streets, cafeterias, libraries, and homeless shelters of the great city, dreaming… always dreaming… the times changed, never for the better. clarence missed the cheap movie theaters where he had spent so much time in the vanished century, and which had virtually disappeared. so had the old-fashioned missions, which would give you a feed and ask nothing more of a guy than that he say a prayer or sing a hymn. they had already been fading away when clarence first hit the streets, and he had rather enjoyed them. clarence had another, somewhat curious grievance. there was not as much paper to be found in the streets, or left behind in cafeterias, as before. one of his most persistent fantasies had always been of finding a letter, or scrap of paper, which would contain a secret message which would somehow unlock a mysterious source of wealth, or contain a map or clue to the recovery of buried treasure. treasure island and the count of monte cristo had been his two favorite books as a child, and had made a permanent impression on him. but now, of course, in the miserable and unromantic twenty-first century, nobody wrote letters, or wrote down telephone numbers or much of anything else on paper. everything was transmitted or recorded on the same infernal cell phones which prevented them from meeting the eyes of a guy asking for spare change. so it was with both pleasure and surprise that clarence found, one rainy morning on a table at a burger king, a small piece of lined paper, apparently torn from a pocket sized notebook. the piece had three numbers written on it in blue ink. the three numbers were: 3,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 150 what could they mean? * despite his hatred of the modern world, clarence had learned to use the computers available in libraries. so, the first thing he did when he found the piece of paper with the three numbers was to google the numbers. the first thing he did was google the three numbers together. what he got seemed like a whole lot of nothing, including. “the annual report of the secretary of state to the governor of ohio”, and “ the annual report of the water department of cincinnati”, and “coins of the world - netherlands” and “growth - coconino community college.” nothing much there. next he tried the numbers separately. when he put in 3,000,000 he immediately got “convert 3,000,000 seconds to years”. it turned about to be 95 years. that might be promising. the treasure had been buried 95 years ago! next he put in 8,000,000,000. the first thing that came up was “don’t take that call from 800-000-0000”. all right, clarence thought, i won’t. he scrolled through 4 more pages and found somrthing on reddit - saying “there are about 8,000,000,000 people on the planet”. yes, and they are all looking for the treasure. finally, he tried 150. all sorts of nothing. the best was on the fourth page of scrolling. “nancy pelosi removed a 150-year-old sign reading “in god we trust" from the entrance to the u s house of representatives chamber.” what a bitch! to do somerthing like that! but did it have anything to do with the treasure? maybe the 150 year old sign was worth 3,000,000 dollars? maybe nancy pelosi was going to bury it for 95 years and come back and dig it up and it would be worth 8,000,000,000 dollars. clarence felt that he was getting somewhere now. but just then he heard a loud recorded voice behind him announcing: “the library will be closing in ten minutes. if you have anything to check out, please do so now.” clarence sighed. he would have to come back and resume his researches tomorrow. but maybe it was just as well, as his head was starting to hurt. why did everything have to be so complicated? and would his dreams ever come true? like 8 billion other people living lives of possibly 3 billion seconds, clarence asked himself these questions about 150 times a day.