Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

TRAMPLED BY MATHEMATICS


11 posts in this topic

Posted

This is a story I submitted to be considered for the second volume of Machine of Death, an anthology of short stories that all share the same premise: that a machine, once taking a sample of blood, tells you how you will die. Mister PHEONIX561 informed me of this thing that happens and has written his own extremely long short story. Mine is short. It's a short short story. I don’t expect them to accept it, but doop it’s there.

"TRAMPLED BY MATHEMATICS"

“Where are your manners?” a woman asked Simon. Simon was an ordinary welcome mat salesman with an appetite for adventure; though he was extremely well-educated in the ways of the forest and the migratory patterns of bears, he knew not of manners and was thus the rudest welcome mat salesman this woman had ever seen.

“Bears do not have migratory patterns,” he responded in earnest, “for they hibernate in the winter rather than move away from the cold.” To his surprise, this did very little to ameliorate the woman’s anger, which had moved her to retrieve a handgun from within her sock.

“I am going to shoot you in the leg, so that I may show you that your rudeness can have dreadfully ill effects.”

Simon frightfully shielded his legs with his hands, and she fired a single bullet through one of them into his thigh. She then snorted with aggression and galloped off into the sunset, which was much to his dismay because she was the woman of his dreams. “Oh, how I wish I could once more feel the sweet scent of her hair waft gently into my own,” he said.

Simon despaired as he walked home that night, for his one true love had run away, and he was bleeding profusely from his upper leg. He did not know where the bullet hole in his hand had gone. When Simon had reached the door of his apartment building, he found it difficult to draw his attention away from what appeared to be a robotic duck standing just in front of him.

“Are you a robotic duck?” he asked the robotic duck. The foolishness of this question struck him immediately: of course this was a robotic duck. There was something different about this robotic duck, though; this one clearly thirsted for blood. In an attempt to satiate the duck, Simon lifted it to his wound, where it enjoyed a prolonged drink of his life-fluid. When he had to set it back down due to his dizziness, it hissed lightly and ejected from among its mechanical feathers a small index card, on which were written the words “TRAMPLED BY MATHEMATICS.”

Simon stared in astonishment and removed his mask. Simon had been wearing a mask, as is customary for salespeople. He was also a quick wit, as was even more customary for salespeople. “This is obviously how I will die,” he said, taking the robotic duck into his coat. Then, a beast of dramatically monstrous proportions charged at him and impaled him with its mighty tusk. Simon fled into the woods.

“I was certainly not expecting a great beast to impale me with its mighty tusk,” he said. “I must have done something truly horrible to deserve this torture.” And indeed he had.

“And indeed you have,” he heard from inside his coat. It was the robotic duck, which seemed to possess the power of speech. Simon was unsurprised, for most of the robotic ducks across which he had come had possessed such a power. He knew also that if a robotic duck speaks to you, you have twenty hours to give it a name, or it will hunt you in your sleep.

“Your name is Panther Shuttle,” he told the robotic duck, which seemed to be pleased by its new name. “Your name is Panther Shuttle, and no one shall ever tear you from my arms.” He then fell into a deep sleep.

He awoke three decades later, now sporting a gruff beard and subtly decorative stains on his underarms. Upon examination of his immediate surroundings, he was upset to find that someone had torn Panther Shuttle from his arms. Simon wept and then devised a plan to get Panther Shuttle back. “I will build a magnificent hammer,” he said, “and I shall use it to craft a giant hammer. This will surely free Panther Shuttle from wherever Panther Shuttle is captive.”

He went to a restaurant to gather materials for the device he would use to build another device. When he had reached his seat, his waiter approached: a beast with a massive tusk. “You are the beast that had impaled me with its massive tusk!” Simon shouted. “You must also have taken Panther Shuttle in an attempt to antagonize me!” The beast, with a delicate grin, served him a plate of food and broke through the wall, dropping priceless works of art.

Simon knew what he had to do. Summoning all of his strength, he spread out his sweaty arms and took flight. Because he was also a barber, he trimmed his beard into a fitting style along the way. In the air, he met with several birds shaped like islands who offered him peppermints and refused to tell him whether or not it was because his breath smelled bad.

“You birds are all fairly kind and shaped like islands. Would you like to help me rescue my friend, Panther Shuttle?”

“No,” they said in unison. “We are here to decapitate you with objects of overwhelming bluntness.” This upset Simon; when he was a boy, he had had a nightmare wherein he was decapitated by objects whose bluntness was noteworthy. The island-birds raised up spoons and clubs, and they took turns dashing at his neck and beating it lustfully. “We want to decapitate you!” they shrieked.

Simon wept for the demise of security. “In my day, you could fly through the air without worrying about the possibility of assault by island-shaped birds!”

“That is prejudice,” they said, and they went to file hate crime claims with their lawyer.

Simon was safe again, but not from the law; nobody is safe from the law. He landed to plan his counter-sue. As he brought out some paper on which to author his opening statement, the ground opened up beneath him and sucked him into its depths. “Why is all of this happening to me?” Simon asked as he reached terminal velocity.

“You ought not to have messed with me, salesman,” he heard.

“Who are you?”

“Behold; I am the tusked beast. My name is Donn’auk’lett-kam’bo.”

“What kind of a name is Donn’auk’lett-kam’bo?” asked Simon.

“Donn’auk’lett-kam’bo is an Irish name,” responded Donn’auk’lett-kam’bo.

“And where are you keeping my friend Panther Shuttle?”

“The robotic duck? I have eaten the robotic duck.”

Simon suddenly did not feel well and figured that the heavy blood loss must finally have gotten to him. His leg had been bleeding for thirty years. Wounds sustained by one whose love is unrequited do not heal. “I command, by all the authority of the seven gods who rule the seas, that you release my friend at once,” he said.

“I will not release your friend,” said the beast.

“Then you die!” Simon shouted; then, using the full extent of his power, he turned back Donn’aut’lett-kam’bo’s timeline to when Donn’aut’lett-kam’bo did not exist.

Simon, still falling, was elated to see Panther Shuttle fluttering with its mechanical wings just in front of him. “Thank you for saving me, Simon,” said the robotic duck. “I am forever in your gratitude.”

“You are my greatest friend,” said Simon, and then he was trampled by mathematics.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

first

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

where you get your skills is as big a mystery as what getting trampled by mathematics entails.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

Oh yeah, I submitted one of these, too. I considered posting mine. I feel like I should do that. It ended up being Eleven Thousand words, though.

I also feel like, knowing Ryan North's and David Malki!'s sense of Humour, they'll probably seriously consider putting this in the book.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

Why did Simon have to die. : (

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

Because that is how the machine of death works!!!!!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

lol

Kind of like Boy Dies of Radiation Poisoning.

Or was it Cesium? Don't remember.

Ganny, it seems you have a liking for falling through the earth at terminal velocity and also blunt, unexplained deaths!!

At least Panther Shuttle is alright.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

I also feel like, knowing Ryan North's and David Malki!'s sense of Humour, they'll probably seriously consider putting this in the book.

I would laugh so hard if they did. Like, you are most probably grossly underestimating the extent to which I would laugh. I would laugh so hard that my laughs could cut diamond. That hard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

decapitation with blunt objects is possibly the best way to go

imagine what the police would think while examining your corpse

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

George, I once made one Ms. Kaffles laugh for what was fifteen to twenty minutes by my count, and half of an hour by hers. You are going to need to laugh really, really hard.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Posted

I'm going to have to say that laughter length doesn't necessarily equal laughter hardness. Maybe she laughed for twenty minutes, but maybe I'll laugh for four minutes and then blow out my windpipe. Perhaps a small blood vessel in my eye will burst and fill my sclera with lurid puddles while I continue to laugh.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.