Category Archives: Fiction

Jan 04 2012
2 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Stories, Three minute read

Gummy Dreams: Lisa’s True Story

just because they’re all gummy bears doesn’t mean they all look the same

What if a gummy bear was one of us, just a regular teenage mom trying to make ends meet? What if she had come from abroken gummy home, where dad ran off with a peach ring, and mom committed suicide by going hot tubbing?

What if the kids in elementary school called her dummy bear, gumtard, and sweet cheeks? What if every night of 1st through 5th grade she wept weird gummy tears before dreaming gummy dreams of a sweeter world? What if no one sat by her in middle school because of her pineapple b.o.?

What if she tried to go through a goth phase during freshman year of high school but had no facial features to coat with black makeup? What if no one asked her to the prom senior year because they didn’t want to be the one dancing with a gigantic 6 foot candy bear? What if her first love and father of her gummy cub said he wouldn’t marry her because he had fallen for a Sour Patch Kid?

What if, after she dropped out of high school, she was reduced to selling her body and being rented out for parties as a freak spectacle? “Mommy, mommy! Come look at the huge gummy bear!” The kids would say. Her name was Lisa.

One New Year’s Day, 3 years after dropping out of high school and after working a particularly grotesque New Year’s Eve party, Lisa decided she’d had enough of this life. She quit her job and got her GRE, passing the test with the highest score of the year. She made headlines that week: “Gummy Bear Mauls Test.” “Why couldn’t they use my name?” she sighed.

But the news caught on. Soon she was a local celebrity, attending mini league championships and appearing in car dealership ads. She started a blog called “Faceless” and it didn’t take long before she became a national celebrity after a youtube video of her in zumba class went viral.

Soon movie deals and invitations from talk shows were flooding in. She was already writing a book and starring in a wildly popular reality television series featuring her and her son called “I Want Candy.” Notoriety began to consume every second of her life. She grew weary from the fame.

She yearned for the days she would lumber home from school and spend hours reading and thinking about the absurdity of life. There was no time to think about anything anymore.

A few years after she had quit her rental job, she woke up another New Year’s Day. The night before was hazy and mostly forgotten, a collage of bright lights, glitter, and plastic. She gazed into the mirror and realized what she’d become: a true monster. That very moment she decided to leave it all, the celebrity, the cocaine, the lacquered friends.

She took her son and fled to a small but tolerant city in upstate New York, where people had heard of her but were too interested in living wholesomely to pay much attention.

Within a month she was signing the lease to a space where she was going to build her dream, a dance studio called “Bounce!” where women of all sizes were welcome. As she opened her front door after driving back from the real estate agent’s office, she exhaled deeply.

“I’m home,” she whispered, “Lisa’s home.”

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Jan 03 2012
6 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Modern Life, One minute read

Rejected from the Job Search

these boxes do not hold the key to your future. please look elsewhere.

Thank you for completing CareerBeam’s skill verification exercise. At this juncture, our special algorithm would have usually crunched your responses and placed you in one of six categories we use to classify all of mankind. With the knowledge of your category, the world would have been yours for the taking, success and fortune shortly following the completion of our quizlet.

Unfortunately, due to an irregularity in your responses, we are unable to process your information and provide you with the only thing that would rescue your future self from a failed life. The irregularity could have resulted from one of three circumstances:

a. You are wholly unfit for employment. Return to the cave from which you crawled and burden society no more.

b. You are the antichrist. We are legally obligated to tell you about this possibility while not revealing whether or not you are “it.” If your responses lined up with the predicted skill set of the Man of Sin, a team of US Marine exorcists will have been called to exterminate you. Please remain where you are.

c. You are not human. Most likely you are a forest or river spirit trapped in a human body. In either case, you have no place in the workforce. Please take our quiz “Finding your spirit identity” for advice on how to escape your fleshy prison.

Thank you for using Career Beam and we hope you consider us for all your future self-awareness needs.

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Dec 28 2011
5 Comments
Best blog posts, Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read

The Shopper’s Eye: A Tale of Desperation

My sight grew numb. I didn’t even know that could happen.

An excerpt from the Drevets Log:

“Target: The Shopper’s Eye”

27 December 2011: 15:55

Very tired. Need coffee and Digestive Biscuit.

I wander a vast retail wasteland. Memories of my life before Target fade.  Numbers, letters blend together. Nothing has meaning.

Sister has developed discount psychosis. I fear for her safety. The damage may not be reversible.

Humanoids pace the aisles, eyes glazed, drool tracks on their cheeks. The management has used the color red to hypnotize its prey. Mutters emanate breathily from their mouths. They cannot understand they say nothing. Meaningless. All meaningless.

My humanity burns within me. I must leave this place. The cardigan I search for is not here. Long sleeve crew neck tees choke my being. Everything has a cost, and still the danger grows. We will not sacrifice our souls in order to fulfill our quest. My sister weakens. My own resolve becomes faint.

I have contracted the dreaded shopper’s eye. Items are indistinguishable from one another. I sense my thinking grow clouded. I clutch ill fitting shirts of garish colors. Perhaps I will wear them to parties where glasses will clink and muffled laughter will sound from the other room where a rabbit plays the piano.

I better try on just five, no six, no eight more. Eight more blouses. These jeans don’t look like the cardigan I need. I need to try them on.

Dressing room attendants, here’s a number thank you, walk left right left slam, fluorescent lights, mirror, action. I cannot recognize myself. This is the only reality. Everything is a box, beginning here in this box in the Target box in a boxy suburb, in the box city, in the universe box.

My cell phone goes off. “Mother” is calling. What is mother? Memories stir in the deep. I remember mountains, dancing, Christmas lights on snow.

ESCAPE!

I tear out of the dressing rooms. Sister stands, mesmerized by a promotion display, her consciousness wasting away. I slap her. “WAKE.” I say. “WHAT THE CRAP.” Says she. “RUN.” I say. I grab her hand. She’s irritated. I know this. She cannot understand I seek only her good. I will receive her thanks later.

We sprint up the aisles, burst into sunshine. Winter rays warm our mortal flesh.

“I need to pay for this, Emily,” sister says. She holds a pair of jeans.

“You were taking SO LONG.” I insist. “I have saved you.”

“No, Emily. You haven’t. Wait here. I’m going back inside.”

I watch her re-enter. She will thank me yet.

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Dec 09 2011
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Fiction, Humorous, Two minute read

Must I Do Homework: An Exercise in the Scientific Method

We eagerly await the results of the experiment. Note: real homework is in the corner.

Step one: ask a question

Why isn’t my homework getting done?

Step two: do background research

Current research: This Arabic student has done progressively less homework over the past 4 months despite similar levels of worrying about assignments.

Less current research: During the Arabic student’s second to last semester in college, homework assignments seemed to take up an  inordinate amount of time and be completed at the last minute regardless of when they were started.

Outside sources: According to the internet, homework usually must be completed by an agent other than the homework itself. My mother also recommends that I do it as opposed to not doing it.

Local experts: My own experience indicates that homework usually gets done more quickly if I do it. Also, fellow students who do their homework personally also seem to be continually prepared for class.

Conclusion: There seems to be a lack of research on whether or not mountains of projects complete themselves. Though current knowledge and common sense might indicate that this is probably impossible, if science has taught us anything it’s that nothing is impossible.

Step three: construct hypothesis

My homework, if left undisturbed for long enough in the right conditions, will complete itself with no added energy.

Step four: test with an experiment

After receiving my assignments, I will gently place them in the corner of my room behind the flowery arm chair where they are safely out of the light of the sun and out of my personal eyesight. I will take care of the test specimen by ignoring it completely and doing my best to forget about it. If I have to read anything from a book, I will also place the book behind the armchair and ignore it.

On the assignment’s due date, I will carefully extract the specimen from the corner, being careful not to disturb it too much, and tenderly set it into my bag before taking it to school and presenting it to the teacher without looking at it. At 1 am the following morning, I will board an international flight to a country across a large body of water or land mass.

If no news of my homework reaches me, I will assume it has done itself. Should I find the homework itself, undone, at my residence in the country I have traveled to, I will assume my hypothesis needs more work.

Predicted results:

My homework will complete itself and I will get to spend more time having fun with friends.

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Dec 03 2011
7 Comments
Fiction, Humorous, Three minute read

We Are Middle Earth

A mythical building for an imaginary world

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I am a nerd. This means that I enjoy learning and fantasy fiction. After I finally read Lord of the Rings in eighth grade, I was hooked: Tolkien’s world seemed more real than my own. My fascination with Middle Earth formed a dangerously large portion of my personality, and I even ended up writing my college admissions essay on why I loved Lord of the Rings. A BU admissions counselor probably read it and thought I would add a unique, socially awkward aspect to the campus environment before being sent to a maximum security federal prison. At any rate, I’m thankful to have been admitted.

As I was considering the relationship of Middle Earth and the War of the Ring to my current experience in Cairo, I found that the characters I’ve met during my Arabic study adventures resemble the different races of creatures in Middle Earth. In order to make my life more comprehensible to the small portion of people out there who read Lord of the Rings annually or biannually and/or watch the films obsessively, I would like to present my findings. To these same people, I politely request that you don’t get your panties in a bunch if the comparisons aren’t perfect. To everyone else, I apologize for alienating you.

The subgroup of Arabic-interested persons that I would classify as hobbits are the average Arabic students. Though slightly dim-witted and occasionally reluctant to expend great effort on reading or writing, they are a tough breed and can surprise you with magnificent feats. These, however, are few and far between. For the most part, these students enjoy simple work, afternoon naps, and hearty meals instead of great Arabic adventures that might cause mental and physical discomfort.

There is a breed of student, however, that does take great pleasure in perusing ancient Arabic texts and spending hours composing non-obligatory essays, short stories, and poems. This species can also converse with you at length about the fascinating differences between dialects and other languages, of which they know many and can learn at great ease. These are the elves, who capture the fascination of most others and would earn their enmity were the elves not above the judgements of lesser beings.

Though hard workers that accomplish when focused, the group I consider the dwarves can be antagonistic towards others who are pursuing the same purpose and show little interest in learning about the culture behind the language they’re studying. These are the people studying Arabic for the money and are just waiting for a knock on their door from a defense contractor, intelligence organization, security consulting firm, or government agency.

The great Arabic scholars of old (and new) who have created linguistic masterpieces for the purpose of aiding those also studying Arabic I would classify as wizards, sent to help lesser beings in the field. Because of the effort of personalities such as Hans Wehr, Frederick Lane, Sayyed Badawi, and Kristen Brustad, who have spent countless hours deciphering this language, the great fight has been made more bearable.

Speaking slowly and clearly while avoiding hastiness or imprecision in language, Arabic teachers are best described as ents. Anyone who has studied a language knows the familiar frustration of leaving the classroom and realizing instantly you have no idea what anyone on the street is saying. Are you even studying the same language? The answer is no, since Arabic teachers actually speak Entish.

As skilled as earmuffs in social interaction and exhibiting no signs of living in a civilized society, the shabbab, or roving masses of teen-aged to mid-thirty year old Egyptian males, would have to be the orcs. Not only can they make foreigners’ stays in Egypt less pleasant, but they don’t even really like each other and internecine fighting is often the cause of much bloodshed and mutual annoyance.

I could go on, but I think this is enough nerding out for now. I’m not promising another LOTR themed post in the future, but it could happen.

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