New Friday story, and I’m afraid it’s a bit shorter than usual. My usual thousand words is on the longer end for “flash fiction” anyway, this one just didn’t need to be that length.

And today I’m going to talk about the perils of excessive social networking website use; not autobiographical, I hasten to add. (My jokes are way better than his.) More stories available here.

COL

By Nick Bryan

Three Days Ago

I finally added that girl on Facebook, I thought this might be how we finally bonded. Unfortunately, seventy-six minutes after she accepted my request (yes, I counted), her uncle died. I know he died, because she posted this:

“Uncle John passed away this morning. Can’t believe he’s gone. :’(“

So presumably she’s quite sad. I mean, I’m not certain. I know she used a crying face made of punctuation, but ever since “LOL” lost all meaning, it’s hard to tell whether feelings typed online are mirrored in the real world. I mean, are those real tears or are they “LOL” tears? Is she crying out loud?

It seemed rude to ask.

Two Days Ago

I woke up from a nap at 4PM, wondering whether I should have left a sympathetic message out of respect to the dead uncle. I mean, I barely know her, we’ve exchanged thirty-eight words at parties (yes, I counted), but still, it’s a nice thing to do isn’t it?

When I checked my computer, there were six responses to that status, many had the same surname, and one was from her. I didn’t recognise a single person there. Most of her friends had stayed out of it, so I’d probably gone the right way.

Or perhaps they’d all expressed their sympathy by private message or text. I do not have her phone number. Later, I typed “Sorry for your loss.” into the comments box and stared at it for a while.

And then it was bedtime.

One Day Ago

So, she posted something new today. It was surprisingly upbeat.

”Great day at work – boss was out so built fort out of stationary. Then it fell on Johnny’s head!”

So maybe she isn’t that upset anymore? How long does it take one to get over the death of an uncle? I mean, it’s only an uncle, after all. When my uncle died, I barely even registered it. Didn’t even warrant a Facebook posting.

So I decided, since she was being jovial, I could probably be funny in return. I settled on this:

“Did you only hold it up with sellotape? I really recommend staples.”

I waited for a while afterwards, but there was no reply from anyone else, which was a bit of a downer. No-one even ‘liked’ the comment.

Today

I noticed today, for the first time, she appeared to be on the Facebook Chat instant messaging thing. After seventeen minutes or so (yes, I counted), it seemed reasonable to assume she was on for a sustained session, rather than merely glancing at messages.

After a stiff drink, I said hello. It was a little awkward, but we did manage to exchange more than thirty-eight words, thus doubling our total. And then, in a bid to try and move the conversation onto a higher plane, I decided to try this message:

“Maybe if your uncle had used staples rather than sellotape to hold up his stationary fort, he’d still be with us today.”

There was a pause of six minutes, then she said:

“LOL”

Nothing else followed, I’m unsure what to think now. Maybe the uncle isn’t really dead.

Thank you for reading. Please ask before stealing. And remember kids, don’t spend too much time on Facebook.

After a slightly longer gap than intended, as I attempted to get back into the swing of writing new material for my long-in-progress novel, here is another Friday short-flash story type thing.

This week, with rare topicality, I am hovering around the notion of the Rapture, the religious event scheduled for last weekend. Apparently the righteous were meant to disappear to heaven, leaving the rest of us to wallow in our morally bankrupt filth; I have tweaked the concept a little. I don’t think this qualifies as satire, but I’ve been wrong before.

As ever, more stories are available.

The Idiot Proof
By Nick Bryan

‘Ladies and gentlemen, the Rapture has taken place.’

‘Unfortunately, uh, there seems to have been a slight mistransubstantiation.’

‘I mean, “mistranslation”. Apologies. A mistranslation. The “Rapture” is not a religious event, it just happens to be in their texts. Like, y’know, the Bible and those other ones. It turns out, people were judged not on their spiritual worth, but their intelligence and practical usefulness.’

‘If you can still hear this radio thingy, then it appears you are officially an idiot. God has spoken. We are not sure what will happen to the world now, but there are reports of plummeting hygiene standards in restaurants, plummeting survival rates in hospitals and plummeting helicopters flown by co-pilots who cheated on their exams.’

‘Without intelligence, how will we cope? Of course, since no-one understands how to use a condom anymore, the next generation will be here shortly, but will humanity survive long enough? The answer will be difficult, almost as difficult as the rhyming dictionary I used to write this broadcast, and…’

At long last, Bob Slarne turned off his radio. They had been repeating the same report for the last week anyway, except during DJ segments. It turns out, even in a stupid-powered society, you could find someone to dribble between songs.

But if the news reporting became sloppy and not authoritative, the masses complain, even though they couldn’t do better themselves without spending hours upon hours on research. So the news reports became less and less frequent.

Many, unmotivated or simply uninterested, had stopped turning up for work. But Bob, a government minister with a sense of duty, continued to slave. All his Cabinet colleagues were newcomers or idiots.

Unluckily for him, Bob was the latter. He’d excellent advisors, surfed through democracy on sheer charisma; the man could give a speech, even answer questions efficiently, but when it came to preparing material or governing, he had people for that.

Make no mistake, Bob had been insulted when the Rapture left him behind. He’d known he wouldn’t be winning Mastermind, but hadn’t realised he was a certified moron. Still, couldn’t argue with the Almighty.

And worse still, since he possessed experience and token leadership skills, others kept looking to him for guidance. In fact, he had no sooner leaned back in his stately leather chair when the phone rang.

Bob knew it would be a request for help, because it always was. He just didn’t anticipate the scale.

‘You’re through to the Minister, how can I…’

‘Minister! Bob! It’s Zack!’

‘Sorry, who?’

‘The Minister for Defence!’

Bob was in his late forties. But somehow the Minister for Defence was a twenty-six year old called Zack. Even in a society devoid of intelligence, Bob couldn’t understand how this had happened. Still, even if the irritating spike-haired kid had all the gravitas of a Vodafone salesman, the news he carried did a lot of the work for him.

Bob’s rosy complexion whitened and he leapt up, not even grabbing his trusty suit jacket before fleeing the room. He bolted past his startled personal secretary, who was too useless to use Excel or access her email, and rushed down the corridors until he encountered Zack, who was sweating so profusely that his hair was beginning to droop.

‘What the hell?’ Bob gasped out, between heart palpitations. ‘How did this happen?’

‘The… um, the… foreign people called.’

‘Which “foreign people”?’

‘I… I think all of them?’ Fucking hell, Bob thought, how was he in the same IQ league as this man? ‘They called saying they’d had enough of boring diplomacy and were going to launch the nukes at us.’

‘Which nukes?’

‘I… I think all of them?’ Jesus christ.

‘Okay, fine, what can we do?’

‘Could we maybe… launch our nukes at them?’

‘I’m not sure that will defuse the tension, Zack!’

‘Well, you come up with something better then!’

‘Off the top of my head, I believe it would be more prudent to…’

And on that, it ground to a halt. The kid had uncovered his weakness. Bob could talk a good game, but now was the time to back up big words with big ideas, and he just didn’t have any.

‘Could we…’ Bob summoned up his entire reserve of acquired knowledge. ‘Duck and cover? Is that how they did it in the old days?’

‘Oh, don’t be so stupid,’ Zack sneered at the old man, ‘I’m not hiding under a table and fucking waiting to be atomised!’

‘Could we… ask the public? Maybe one of them has an idea?’

‘We’ll all be dead in minutes! We hardly have time to set up a PO Box!’

‘What about Twitter? Isn’t that how the young people communicate nowadays?’

‘No, don’t be so…’ Zack paused. ‘Actually, that’s quite a good idea.’

But before Zack could put it into practise, there was a tap on his shoulder and a whispered voice. ‘Uh, Mister Minister? I got this note, I’m not sure what it…’

Well versed in the uselessness of secretaries by now, Bob reached past his ministerial colleague and snatched it. As he began to read, a grin formed. ‘Apparently a series of nuclear weapons have exploded in their silos during an attempted launch towards the UK by…. France?’

He looked up at Zack. ‘So it was France?’

‘Oh. Maybe.’

‘Wow. The stupid people are too thick to launch a nuclear missile.’ Bob grinned.

Zack smiled too, although it was more of a smirk when he did it. He looked like he’d just sold a 48 month contract on T-Mobile, complete with the insurance. And Bob felt saddened, not just because of that (although Zack was a prick), but because he himself was still here.

Because that Twitter idea had been a good one, even if he did say so himself. Part of him had hoped that would finally tip him over the intelligence boundary and allow him to be Rapturised up with all his former colleagues. But nothing came. Either he still wasn’t good enough, or there was no chance of redemption for idiots who bettered themselves.

As ever, above story copyright me, please don’t steal it, email me first if you do and sorry if it’s somehow offensive. It’s not meant to be, I come from a place of affection, but I know religion is a tricky area to wade into.

Good morning. Another week, another Friday story. I’m a little annoyed I didn’t notice Friday was April Fools Day when I wrote it, as I’m sure I could’ve come up with something. Alas, it came to me too late to produce a new one. (It was about midnight last night.)

Anyway, as mentioned in yesterday’s Script Frenzy blog post, my frenzying may stop me from posting these stories in the next month or so, although I will still give it a go. But if not, you could always read the entire archives.

Or, if you are really desperate for more short stories in the near future, I might have something interesting to declare here next week. Maybe.

JS-90701

By Nick Bryan

Well, my name is Peter. I am in my room, with the lights on, the heating turned up and a couple of cereal bar wrappers on the floor. I don’t have a girlfriend, a flatmate or even a pet. So there is really nothing else here, except for JS-90701.

I work somewhere anonymous. I don’t do anything interesting, but sometimes they carry exciting things past me. The security is amazing; you’d think it was the army. In fact, perhaps it is, I wouldn’t know. They are all in suits and shades, rather than khaki browns, but who knows what the military fashion is nowadays? Anyway, sorry, my point: they carry these containers past, flanked by machine guns.

Sometimes they’re big, and other times very small. And every so often, the security men stop for a breather and a dump quite near my cubicle. There are often seconds when the stuff is unguarded, and I don’t think it’s in the arc of any security cameras. A foolish mistake, really.

You sound like a bright girl, so you might be able to guess where is headed. I managed to swipe the box, and I really did expect a gun barrel pressing into the back of my head at any moment. Or perhaps they’d forego the formalities and shoot me there and then, I don’t know. It depends how valuable this is.

It’s not as heavy as I expected, which is handy. I was back at my desk, sitting calmly, before they noticed anything. Of course, I was a pretty obvious suspect, but this is the one part I had planned. My computer opened easily. Most people, especially ones who didn’t have to use them much, tend to see them as a single solid box.

Of course, it was always possible that the grunt who searched my desk would have been the one who understood there’s enough empty space inside a computer to hide the box. But he was exactly as I’d hoped. I was frisked, charmingly, my desk was turned upside down, but my computer was not opened up. Lifted up, but kept closed.

I had to throw it out of the window to get it out of the building, of course, as we were being searched on the way out, but retrieving it and running home was painless. And here we are.

It says “JS-90701” in stencilled type on the side. It is metal, barely bigger than my clenched fist and with a blinking light on the side I half-expected it to contain some futuristic homing device, bringing helicopters over my house within minutes, but there is no chopping yet.

Now, I know we’re meant to ask for advice when we call your helpline, so I guess my question is this: What do I do with it now? I mean, I did it partly for the thrill, partly because I hoped it might be profitable, but I can’t open it. How am I meant to list it on eBay? “Stolen military box, serial number JS-90701, mint condition UNOPENED!!!”?

Surely no-one would bid, and even if they did, I’d be arrested before they could collect their winnings. I’ve heard about the black market, maybe this is the sort of thing I am meant to sell to terrorists, but where does one find those people?

I’ve studied it in some detail, but can’t see an obvious catch or switch to flick. I suppose it’s meant to be secure. I’ve got a few tools, a hammer, crowbar, y’know, but what if it explodes? What if it’s booby trapped? What if it’s radioactive and all my sperm have already died?

Do you really think I should give it back? You’re not just saying that because you think you should? I mean, you really mustn’t worry, you can’t be implicated and I’ve made sure you don’t know enough to involve yourself. “Peter” isn’t my real name, and you won’t find anything if you google “JS-90701”. Trust me, I’ve been trying for hours.

But you really mean it? Well, I guess I could. Not walk up to them, obviously, that’s fucking suicide, but maybe leave it in reception or something? Try and wash my fingerprints off it first.

Still, it seems like such an anti-climax, doesn’t it? I mean, I wanted my life to have meaning and I’ve stolen an mysterious blinking metal box from a bunch of genuine Men In Black. If I can’t make any money, I owe itself to at least find out what’s in there, don’t I?

Yeah, thanks. I think I’m going to do,it, y’know? I’ve got my tools, there’s no-one else around, so it’s safe unless it’s a nuclear bomb. And let’s face it, it’ll probably be a rock sample anway.

Thanks very much for talking this through with me, young lady. If they listen back to this call in the future, and perhaps they will, I hope they take my advice and give you a pay rise. After all, you’ve definitely helped me, even if it wasn’t in a conventional way.

I’ll have to hang up now, I’m about to wedge JS-90701 under my bed so I can get a solid swing at it with the hammer. Take care of yourself, though.

You’re totally welcome to steal these stories and definitely shouldn’t bother emailing me if you want to use them elsewhere. April fool! (Was that funny? No?)