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It was the End of the World and Dad decided to call a family meeting.
Food supplies were running dangerously low. The rusty generator would sputter in fitful grunts. The lights in the bunker dimmed with increased frequency, temporarily enveloping the last holdout in gloom. Outside, the mutants of the apocalypse moaned and scratched at the threshold.
“Team, huddle up," Dad shouted to his wife and daughter. "It doesn’t look good,” Dad chirped through his gas mask. “Like the narrator mentioned at the top we’re in trouble. By the sounds of it we’ve got maybe, I don’t know, eight to twelve hours before the mutants smash their way in.”
“Daddy, I’m scared,” daughter squeaked.
“I know honey, so am I,” Dad replied
“What are we going to do, dear,” Mom, asked her tremulous voice betraying her fear.
“Honey go pay homage to grandpa a sec, would ya,” Dad asked. He turned to his wife. “Well, honey what do you say we…” he whispered to his wife.
Mom giggled, feigned surprise and slapped Dad in the shoulder. “Should we ask her?”
“What do we have to lose? Honey, come here,” Dad said.
She padded over.
“I need to ask you something important. Daddy’s always wanted to participate in a ménage a trois, honey,” Dad said.
“What’s that?”
“It’s when three people who care about each other very, very much, like you and your mom and your dad, fuck.”
“But daddy, I’m only 10.”
“Well, look at it this way, when your 20 I’ll only be 45 and it won’t seem so bad. Your dad’s going to age real nice. Look at your grandpa.” He pointed to the moldering, plastic wrapped corpse in the corner, a baffled rictus frozen on his post-apocalyptic mug.
“Daddy we sacrificed grandpa last week,” daughter said.
“I meant figuratively.”
“Don’t talk back to your father dear,” Mom chimed.
“But you’re not going to reach 45, Daddy. We’re all going to die. You said so.”
“Exactly!”
“But isn’t it,” daughter asked haltingly. “Wrong?”
“Wrong?! Hello! It’s the end of the world dear. Don’t blow this for me over some moral hang-ups. I mean seriously.”
“Geez Dad, your unseemly behavior makes me wonder -- who are the REAL mutants?”
“It's definitely the mutants. Have you seen those things? Your dad’s just a little horny is all.”
Date Written: March 16, 2005
Author: scoop
Average Vote: 3.3
Comments:
03/22/2005 Will Disney: I just don't think this guy's behavior is very appropriate!
03/22/2005 Mr. Pony: Dad should be trying to *protect* his daughter!
03/22/2005 Mr. Pony: (The crappy acting in this short is starting to grow on me.)
03/22/2005 The Rid: I like it until the last two grafs.
03/22/2005 John Slocum (5): I'm going to lay a fiver down on this one.
03/22/2005 Ewan Snow (2): Not well written. Not very imaginative premise. Not good in terms of quality in genreral. Please never forgive me for this, author.
03/22/2005 Dylan Danko (3): I thought the opening line showed promise. And I enjoyed the last two. There's a lot of shoddy writing. I'm not sure I care about the premise being imaginative or not or at least it doesn't seem to be entirely unimaginative. I suspect this to be a Partytime original and hope he forgives me for not supporting the monolith like Slocum.
03/22/2005 Dylan Danko: Shit, this is an author short??? I take back a star.
03/22/2005 Litcube: Here's what I think(!): I really enjoyed this from the beginning, and 5's were dancing in my head. 5's, author. Anyway, I reached the endish (the endish) of this short (roughly around "Daddy we sacrificed..." and on, which, I think, might have been a detail better left out, due to its existence maybe sapping the "plastic wrapped corpse" bit, which is fucking excellent).
Upon reaching this precipice, I shook my head. I blinked. "What dastardly spell was I under?" said I to myself. The illusion around me faded in a scintillating dust shower. I was confused; I had nowhere to go. I slowly pivoted on my heels, scanning the vacuum. There’s got to be a way out of here. “Hello?” I called. To which the echo replied faintly, “hello.”
03/22/2005 Klause Muppet (3): 3 stars for the author and 3 stars for Litcube.
03/22/2005 Front (3): interesting but it fell off at the end. would a 10 year old say "unseemly"?
03/22/2005 Partytime (3): Dank ho you incontinent warlock. I agree with you on stars.
03/22/2005 Mr. Pony (3): I think that was part of the joke, Front (Hi, by the way! Welcome to Acme!). That said, I think there is a lot of stuff here (interesting self-conscious dialogue, fun Klingwrapped grandfather thing) that seems to get lost due to a lack of focus. Not saying it should have been all laser-like, but a little more coherence would have gone a long way, in my humble opinion.
03/22/2005 TheBuyer (4): It's dumb for some reason stated below but I laughed.
03/22/2005 Phony Millions (3): A generous three - that is, I'm being generous. There's too many little things that bug me like the one Front mentioned - if they were intentional, it's not clear enough and not so funny for me. It gets a three because it has a certain sheer lunacy.
03/23/2005 scoop: Cram it, music man.
03/23/2005 Phony Millions: I tried with this one!
03/23/2005 anonymous: Blah, blah, blah. I'm typing random letters and came up with this short. Author, I hope you slam your fingers in the car door. That's just my opinion.
03/28/2005 Litcube (4): That said, scoop, I enjoyed it a lot (!).