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November 7, 2006

11.07.06

Let's hang someone. (Or something.)

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Jim: Poor Execution

The putrid steam-bath of the Guatemalan tropics made everything drip; me most of all. But I’d chased the killer all the way from Texas and it was time to finish the job.

“Guess you should try another tree,” the killer chuckled.

I scowled at my guide, Pedro. “Set up the noose.”

Pedro tossed the rope over a thick branch and tied the knot with quick-fingered efficiency. But the test pull broke the branch. Again.

Pedro made a wide gesture all around. “The indios, they call these trees balsa,” he said.

“That must be Injun for ‘God damned worthless’,” I snarled.

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David: The Perils Of A Participatory Judiciary

“Madame Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?”

She read the line off the form. “No, Your Honor. We are hopelessly deadlocked. No amount of further debate will bring us to a unanimous verdict.”

“Very well. The state thanks you for your service. This jury is dismissed.”

---

She struggled to wake, surprised to find herself vertical. It was dark. Something was around her throat. In the dimness, she saw others, hanging like meat from the rafters.

“They got away with it,” said a man’s voice, slowly. “Because of you, they won’t be punished for what they did to my family.”

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Ted: The JCN 9000 takes a Holiday

I got nothing.

No pithy or snarky religion bashing, no lame attempt to creep you out, nothing so ambiguous that you had to read it repeatedly just to disagree over what it meant, not even a fallback to my new gods series or the beautiful but chaotic Penny and her hapless investigator ex-boyfriend.

It's raining like hell. Whenever it rains like this, my brain just shuts down and all I want to do is sleep. I think it may have something to do with an overload of negatively charged ions in the atmosphere interfering with my positronic brain.

Hang it.

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From The Comments: PB McCoy

Burroughs scraped the last of the beetle’s innards out with his tongue and sat back as the hallucinations began to creep in along the edges of reality.

The stone rolled away and he found himself bathed in the light of the Third Day. At his feet lay a body, dead and abandoned; soulless and empty.

It turned to dust, scattering in the morning breeze and he shuddered. He was covered in the dead man’s soot, breathing it in, expanding his visions even more.

“The body. It is gone!”

They’re not hanging this one on me, Burroughs thought, and slipstreamed away.

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Stacy: And They Wuz Right

“C’mon, let me see…”

“No!”

“Oh, come on, how bad can it be?”

“You have no idea. Grade school, elementary school, high school, college… every single shower, every single changing room. I have been made fun of my entire life, and I just don’t think I could take it from you.”

“Look, I love you, therefore I’m pretty much a sure thing, but if you don’t take off your pants, we can’t get this show on the road. So to speak.”

“I love you, too, babe. Swear you won’t laugh?”

“As if. Now drop ‘em.”

thunk

“Jaysus, Mary and Joseph…”

Read more from Stacy's .

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Tanya: So Quiet

It’s going to be so quiet around here without John.

She leaned against the doorframe as her vision blurred with tears.

No one to take care of me. No one to kill the bugs and open the wine and rake the leaves. No one to open the salsa jar, or the pickles. No one here when I get home from work. No more hands to hold mine, and brush my hair. No one to watch over me. So quiet.

She straightened up and calmed herself. Then she re-hung the shower curtain and began scrubbing the blood out of the bathtub.

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