Lewie
Lisa
Lizzie
Richard
Tom
Serendipidy
Norval Joe
Planet Z
The next topic is Dear everyone
RICHARD
Twist
I hate how the world has become so dumbed-down. When did the human race descend to the level where everything has to be explained to them?
Have we really become so stupid we need instructions to complete even the simplest of tasks?
Please hold the hand rail’, ‘Push to exit’, ‘Twist to open’… I mean, come on, are we really that thick?
Then I watch the news, scroll through social media and find myself coming to the conclusion that, just maybe, we are.
Only the message we need isn’t ‘Twist to open’, it’s ‘Wake up and smell the coffee!’
LISA
A Need for Something Sweet
Neptune was angry. He pummelled the pier until the wood weakened and split. The end of the pier snapped into the water; the waves could lap at the shop then. Licking the windows trying to taste what was beneath. The weight of the water behind the waves splintered the glass and it gave way. The shop had been selling traditional sweets since the pier was built. Sweets that no one under thirty had even heard of never mind tried. Aniseed Balls and Candy Twist. A jar of bonbons bobbed in the sea then crashed against a rock. Neptune was calmed.
LIZZIE
Write the story of your life, they said. It’ll be a success. And she wrote the story. It wasn’t fine and it wasn’t a success. Why? Because the story had one character. She was the main and only character. Her story wasn’t that interesting, she thought. Born to a family of crazy people. Small town, crazy school. Moved to the big city and got a fancy job that paid well. Then, she decided to write her story. The intrusive thoughts took over and she was done. The moment she jumped off the bridge, she thought “I’m crazy enough to fly”.
LEWIE
Oliver Twist’s parents were out of town,
vacationing.
He hosted a party
full of energy and music.
There was someone in the other room
playing a game of Twister,
shouting, “Left hand Blue!”
His friend Ernő kept to himself,
sitting in a large armchair,
twisting a Rubik’s Cube,
and Timmy tested Tibetan tongue twisters.
Chubby Checker started singing the twist.
Outside, a twister formed — the ultimate plot twist.
The television died.
Henry screamed.
His mother scolded him for twisting her TV rules.
He blamed his twisted sister’s
twisted sense of humor.
“But it is the theme, isn’t it?” she chuckled.
SERENDIPIDY
Why does the twist always have to come at the end?
Why not the beginning? (The butler did it! There: I saved you a long read).
Or perhaps the middle? I think that would be a real twist… You’d never have seen that coming.
But no, we always pin it to the end, often the last chapter, maybe even the very last page.
So predictable, so dependable, so very boring.
So, I’m not going to do it.
You’re coming to the end.
And, there is no twist.
Really. I mean it.
And you still got to the last line anyway.
TOM
Like we did last summer
If you weren’t an Aruther Murray prodigy, social dancing was problematic. Spent time at many a Polish wedding hugging the wall. Then as if a gift directly from the gods came: The Twist. A dance that remained in my skill-set deep into the 80s. The trick is to look exponentially cooler is lower till your knee are nearly scrapping the dance floor. By 1993 I had all but lost this skill, but then who among us could have competed against the like of Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. And that Italian kid. Wonder if she can still cut a rug.
NORVAL JOE
Mandi shoved the magnifying glass into the pocket of the baggy cat pajamas borrowed from Mrs. Weinerheimer and followed Billbert down the stairs. Standing by the kitchen table, covered with other arcane devices, Billbert said, “Okay. Let her out.”
Mandi twisted the handle of the glass in her pocket back and forth, hesitating. Her bottom lip quivered. “Do I have to? She’s so mean to me.”
“Show Sabrina you’re better than that,” Billbert suggested. “That you’re kind.”
She pulled the magnifying glass from her pocket and looked into it.
Sabrina appeared and frowned. “Why are you guys staring at me?”
PLANET Z
Cindy woke up, sitting in a chair.
She tried to get up, but she was tied to the chair.
She looked around, some kind of dark basement.
A door opened, a man came down the stairs.
It was the singer, Chubby Checker.
And he was grinning.
“Do you want to twist again,” he said. “Like we did last summer?”
“No,” moaned Cindy. “Not again.”
She remembered the bruises. The pain.
The shame.
Checker wagged his finger.
“Come on, baby,” he said. “Just like this.”
Then he held out his hands, reached over to Cindy, and…
Cindy passed out from screaming.
Ireland