Soulful Amusement

James barely made it to the bathroom and got his sweatpants down before his gastritis caused the contents of his bowels to explode into the toilet. “Good lord,” he said when he finished.

James wiped the sweat from his forehead before it got to his green eyes. His attention deficit disorder hijacked his thoughts and he was reminded of a TV show he’d seen several years ago. One of the characters was faking their death and was forced to soil himself to convince people he was dead. It was gross but also really funny.

He laughed as he thought to himself, “When I die, it is going to be real unfriendly for anyone near me! Ghosts had better be real. I don’t wanna miss that!”

Several months later, he was late to a meeting and running to the elevator at work. There was a wet spot near the stairwell and his feet flew out from under him. He tried to remember what sensei had taught him about falling, but everything moved too fast and he landed with a thud.

James’ head slammed on the hard tile and he was knocked out. As he started to gain consciousness, he could hear people gasping at the sight of him. He realized there was blood pooling around his head and his long greasy brown hair was quickly matting as it soaked up the thick red fluid.

Heavy boots shook the floor as two EMTs rushed towards him with a stretcher. The pain in his head intensified and the scream was silenced by his inability to control his body.

“Can you hear me?” a distant voice asked. “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

James instructed his hand to squeeze the hand touching his but nothing happened. He tried several more times, more insistently with each attempt, but it was useless. His hand was not moving.

“We have to take you to the hospital and are going to lift you onto a stretcher,” a new voice said. “Don’t try to move. Ready, Dave? One, two, three… lift.”

The EMTs grunted as they lifted him. They lost their grip and his large body landed with a thud on the stretcher. A fresh chorus of gasps filled the hallway. “Be careful with James!” a voice scolded.

The two EMTs apologized then rolled him into the elevator and out to the waiting ambulance. “We’re putting you in the ambulance,” the first voice informed him. “Don’t try to move.”

James tried to speak but his mouth wouldn’t move. He tried to give a thumbs up but nothing happened. Several times there was darkness closing in around him and he struggled to stay away from the light that loomed in the distance.

The ambulance screeched to a stop. The rear of the rescue vehicle was slammed into by a large dump truck. James’ body lifted off the stretcher and slammed back down hard.

Much of his life flashed before him then everything went black except for the light that was now directly in front of him. He stepped closer to it and he could feel his soul rising from his body.

He looked down at his limp body and waited for it to go through the initial stages of death. “Here it comes,” he thought as he watched and waited. Suddenly there was a gurgling sound followed by a rush of liquid feces as his bowels emptied, filling the small enclosure with a putrid sweet smell.

“Oh damn!” the first EMT exclaimed as he tried to cover his nose and not hurl the contents of his stomach on James.

“Jesus! What did he eat?!” the other EMT asked, rolling down the windows to let in much needed fresh air.

James laughed heartily at the reaction of the two seasoned EMTs. It was so much better than he had imagined it would be. The Grim Reaper appeared next to him. “It is time to go,” he told James.

“One minute more, please?” James pleaded. As he finished speaking, a second rush of feces expelled itself from his body. It was too much for the EMTs and they both emptied the contents of their stomachs. The one leaning over James covered his dead body with vomit.

James laughed loudly as the Grim Reaper guided him away from the ambulance. “That was so good! Have you ever seen so much shit at one time?”

“I can’t say that I’ve ever noticed.”

“I bet you’d see so much nasty shit if you waited for them to soil themselves,” James said enthusiastically. “Oh man, I bet that would be so funny.”

James was still laughing to himself as they made their way down the path to hell. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate you letting me wait,” James said when they got to the entrance. “That was freaking fantastic! Totally worth it!”

The Grim Reaper rolled his eyes, then presented James to Satan’s fire imps to be processed and given the rules for life deep in the earth’s center.

A few minutes later, James passed through the checkpoint, still chuckling about the mess he caused, and made his way towards the cell where he was going to serve his eternal sentence in the pits of hell.

As the fire imp guard closed the cell door, James started laughing maniacally at the joke in his head.

“What’s so damn funny?” the soul in the cell next to him asked. His voice was gruff and he sounded grumpy.

“When I died, the EMTs got the shit end of the deal,” James replied then fell on the floor laughing. Eternity was going to be a helluva good time.

The Broken Contract

An army of gigantic large mutant red fire ants descended upon the city. In the air, a swarm of huge wasps swooped down to fly above them. Riding on the lead wasp was a man in a white robe with flowing white hair and matching beard. The Gods were angry.

“Oh shit.” Police Chief Buzz Sanders dropped his sandwich mid-bite. He picked up the phone and called the president. “Look out the window.”

“I thought they’d deserted us years ago.”

The president hung up and watched the insects make their way to his office. There was no time to get to the emergency spaceship and on its best day there was going to be no way it could outrun those wide wasp wings.

“Come out, you deceitful bastard,” Apollo demanded. The president walked onto the balcony, his head bowed. No one looked into Apollos’ eyes.

“Hey, hey! Look who it isn’t!” the president joshed.

“You lied to us. You said that if we gave you another planet to live on, you would take better care of it. Is this what you call better?” Apollo asked, as he motioned to the smog-filled hazy skies, polluted waters, and littered streets.

“Yeah, about that. We tried it out and didn’t have any of the things we wanted when we were on Earth,” the president said. “You can’t blame us for wanting what we once had.”

Apollo snorted. “I guess you have forgotten the bit about what will happen if you screw it up again.”

The gentle whirring noise of the military-grade drones were drowned out by the sound of the wasps’ wings. The president smiled smugly as he replied,“Something fire and brimstone-like if I recall.”

The president gave a quick nod and the drones fired on the insects. Apollo glared at the president for several seconds then with a flourish of his hand, the drones were incapacitated and fell to the ground around the feet of the fire ants.

“You ungrateful nit,” Apollo said as his face hardened. “Look into my eyes, Mr. President.”

“I’ll pass, thank you though.”

“Look at me,” Apollo demanded as he put his hand out and lifted the president’s head up. The president tried to look anywhere but into Apollo’s eyes. The intensity of the stare from Apollo was too much and their eyes met.

The wrath of Apollo stretched across the span between them and flowed into the president’s body, causing his insides to melt. Apollo allowed the shell of the president’s body to fall to the floor. A loud gasp went up from the people watching from below.

“End it,” Apollo called out to the insects then rode the wasp back to his spaceship without looking back. Behind him the insects attacked the humans, killing them and destroying everything that had been built.

Inside the spaceship, Apollo gathered with other members of the Council of Gods. “Always a disappointment when they cannot keep their promise,” Apollo commented.

“At least they didn’t take eons to screw it up this time,” said Zeus. “Let’s get out of here. We have a surprise birthday party for Eros to attend. We can clean up this mess later.”

Apollo watched the destruction out of the window as they prepared to take off. “Hopefully the next batch will be less greedy,” he said to his sister, Artemis.

“Indeed,” she replied, then headed to her suite to get ready for the party.

Peaceful Dreaming

“Are you sure?” Dr. Roh’tul asked.

Superman’s eyes were dull, he was a shell of himself. “I keep having dreams that I’m finally free from this curse. I want to be … normal. I don’t want this life.”

“The operation isn’t guaranteed to work, and you could suffer permanent damage,” the doctor continued, his face stone cold. “You might not survive.”

“I need to do it.” Superman had tears in his eyes when he looked up at the doctor. “You have no idea what it is like not having any time to yourself. At the beck and call of everyone in Metropolis. There’s no rest.”

“We’ll have to run some tests then we can schedule the surgery. We’ll be in touch.”

Superman shook the doctor’s hand then his head drooped. He sighed as he heard a distant cry for help and flew away, missing the doctor’s devious grin.

Seven weeks later, the testing was complete and the surgery was scheduled.

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” Dr. Roh’tul queried.

Superman nodded his head.

“I’ll see you again after the surgery,” Dr. Roh’tul said.

The anesthesiologist placed the oxygen mask in place. “I’m going to count backwards from five,” she said. “Five, four, three, two … he’s ready, Lex.”

“Excellent.”

Dr. Roh’tul looked down at his nemesis. “I almost feel guilty,” he said then laughed maniacally as he inserted a vial of liquefied kryptonite into the muscular arm. The superhero’s body convulsed and his body shrunk.

The weakened man smiled and his face softened. “He’s dreaming,” the anesthesiologist commented.

“Get the ambulance ready. It’s time for his trip to the asylum. Goodbye, my dearest foe.”

The next day the headlines read, “Superman defeated; Luther to rule the world,” and the world mourned while Superman lived in peaceful dreams.