AnonDesu

She was like a New Yorker cartoon without the class. Dry, unfunny, and useful for impressing people who were easily impressed. We met outside a bar named after an Ivy League at five past two, when no one's in any particular hurry to grab their car before the pay lot closes. We had a grand total of nothing in common. She wore her hair short and smoked reds, I wore my hair long and smoked Spirits. She read Dostoevsky, I read Kafka. She liked her martinis shaken, I, stirred. She struck a match as I grabbed the lighter from my cigarette case. "Show was pretty eh tonight, huh?" I said, realizing both of us were waiting on DDs who probably weren'

"So I had this dream," I told Mike.  "This guy, this cowboy, was yelling at me." "Like, a cowboy cowboy?" he asked.  "Or like the Lamasini guy?" "A cowboy cowboy," I confirmed.  "Hat, red flannel shirt, bandanna round his neck, a cowboy." "Was he Mexican?" "Yeah, but-" "Lamasini guy." He waved his finger at me while he smirked.  He always did that whenever he felt like he just blew your mind. "He's more like the Malboro Man, only he happens to be Mexican." I countered. "Or like the Lamasini guy took the Malboro Man's outfit." He did the finger smirk thing again. "Do you have a dream you want to tell me about?" I shrugged.  "Because I

Here's the first thing you need to know: Trust falls are bullshit. Count to three, fall backwards, let some guys catch you, and all the sudden you're the best of fucking friends.  Standing there, back to a crowd of IT guys, HR guys, PR guys, any group of guys you can stick a two-letter acronym in front of, waiting for the over-paid motivational speaker to count to three before you lean backwards off that little platform and end the night laughing over canned fruit punch and plastic-wrapped crackers.  You don't need to trust anyone for that. Trust falls are a fucking camp game. If you really trust someone, you'll be perfectly fine being in

We're all just kids playing a part.  That's what it boils down to. I'm the kid who gets to play hitman today.  The other kids, they're playing guard.  Hands in their pockets, feeling up their guns.  Makes them feel big.  Calms them down.  A security blanket in a holster. That's what it boils down to.  Dressing for the part, having the right props.  If you're running around in your street clothes, you're a thug, a hood, a gangster.  You put on a ninety-dollar suit you picked up at Ross, and all the sudden you're a mobster, a wiseguy, paisano. You're still just playing Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, Thugs and Mafiosi. Rule of three.

'Look,' Abby said an hour later. Nobody ever started a good sentence with "look".  Your parents never said, "Look, we're going to skip the trip to the dentist and get you a puppy instead."  The doctor's never said, "Look, not only do you not have cancer, but all that smoking's made you immune to tear gas." It's always, "Look, we're going to the dentist, and last time we had a dog, you killed it."  Or, "Look, I've told you to at least try not smoking while I'm giving you checkups, but given how terminal this cancer is, it wouldn't matter anymore."  Or, 'Look, Charlie, I don't want you to take this the wrong way, but I'd like it if you left.'

'You're alright, though, right?' Abby asked. I paused for a second to take inventory.  A black eye, a bit of swelling where I hit my head on the way down, assorted scrapes, cuts, bruised ribs and ego.  That wasn't an assbeating, that was a Tuesday night. "I've been worse," I shrugged.  I didn't really have the energy left for a shrug, but it was important.  The sarcasm loses its edge without the shrug, and without the sarcasm, it's just depressing. 'You poor thing,' she smiled.  She cocked her head a bit to the left. 'Now, you keep that bottle on, I'll see if I can get somebody to come in.' "What?" She was already on the phone by then.

A girl and two guys with baseball bats walk into a bar.  Now, that's either the start to a shitty joke, or the start to a shitty day.  More likely the latter, though, given that it was my bar. She was the best dressed of the three.  Mostly because she wasn't trying to be something she wasn't.  Either she didn't get the memo, or her idea of business-slash-business-casual was a blue tank and an unzipped hoodie.  Either way, though, it worked.  The other guys, their idea of classy was a blazer that barely fit. "Mornin', barkeep." She said. It was two-thirty in the afternoon. "We don't open for another six hours, guys."  I scanned the three o

There was a war going on. Somewhere, people were dying. Somewhere, at this very moment, somebody was drawing their last breath on ragged lungs, pierced by bullet or blade, or claw or horn. But not here. Here, in the midst of all this death, Mike pulled life from the earth. Here, he grew turnips. To their left, he grew carrots, and to their right, he grew beans. There was cabbage and kale, and tomatoes and peppers and a handful of logs with mushrooms sprouting. He had potatoes and pumpkin patches, pots and planters overflowing with fruit and herb. This was his kingdom. This was his domain. This was the land that he guarded with a quick han

I have not long worked at Pemberton Estate, nor have I had the time to fully digest the intricacies of Mr. Zubrin, but never have I, in all my years as a gentleman's gentleman, seen a man so fully engrossed in the careful selection of his waitstaff.  Nor have I ever seen a man so fully disregard his butler's suggestions on said selection. From his initial list of fifty applicants, absolutely none of which were suited to a maid's profession, three stood out for their unique and utter ineptitude. The first, Evangeline Calavera, was a self-pronounced necromancer and free-lance exorcist.  According to her website, and the large number of very s

"Doesn't it ever get annoying?" Komura asked.  She nibbled on her cupcake. "Doesn't what ever get annoying?" I stared at mine.  It was one of those ones made with the white cakebread that was supposed to taste like vanilla, but just ended up tasting like cakebread.  She'd smeared frosting on top and added a single extra large star-shaped sprinkle on the tip of the frosting.  The vanilla frosting.  And despite how red the extra large star-shaped sprinkle was, it'd still taste like plain sprinkles.  This had to be the most boring cupcake I've ever seen. "Not having a name," she said.  "I'd get pretty annoyed by it." "I don't not have a name,