Shorts You Will Never Wear

By Neal Wailing

An ebook of short stories designed for medium attention-spanned people with labyrinthine imaginations.

Plenty of samples are available at:
http://shortsyouwillneverwear.blogspot.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Neal Wailing
• Release date: Jun 21, 2010

Neal Wailing

I am an average sized human man with a petite yet wayward intellect.Since the age of four I have dimly shone like a broody moon. (Not really, just displaying my word-playfulness: like a word-musketeer; a deft proponent of the swishing word; Wordtagnan.)But the older I get the more I suspect that I am merely an idiot who has failed to understand the basic laws of human existence.I met the Horse; spokesperson for my hidden humanness.Questions bled into fountains. I have had but one response.I wrote a collection of short stories. Wow, special!I now walk around with a feather on my head--I don't wear hats well--wondering why I bothered. I need readers; an adoring/begrudging readership. But I have nothing; a crackly noise in an empty universe.I urge you to read Shorts You Will Never Wear; I challenge you to think the same about the world and your place in it afterwards.

Book preview

SHORTS YOU WILL NEVER WEAR

By

Neal Wailing

[e-mail]

* * * * *

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2010 Neal Wailing

* * * * *

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

* * * * *

Nice and Easy

Handing in my badge marked one of the lowest points in thirty-three years as a law enforcement officer. It was as though I had been drummed out of the good guys club and left to wilt among the bad guys. I was alone, with too much time to think, fending off demons became my daily, and nightly, focus. Bitterness and resentment became unwanted lodgers; threatened to daub graffiti on my immaculate service record. I stopped short of attending the group sessions offered by the department, but I spoke with an ex-colleague of mine, Jerry, who had served in the Specials and was now working for an agency that supplied operatives for the new Non-Interruptive Euthanasia industry. He told me I’d be perfect for the job but I would still have to pass the rigorous entrance procedure, which was fine by me because I needed a challenge. He said he would use his influence to get me to where I could make the final leap myself. I had not heard of Non-Interruptive Euthanasia, it smacked of causing pain for financial gain, but I learned more and realised it was cast iron innocent. I am making rabbit ears when I say ‘innocent’. What can I say, I am an old cynic. Anyway, I applied for the post of Non-Interruptive Euthanasia agent. I did the initial, exhaustive, paperwork and passed on to the next step.

The company is called Nice and Easy. The concept is as simple as it humane. Professional types, who refuse to spend their later years worrying about how they are going to snuff it, can purchase the peace of mind to know they will be well catered for. The company’s brochure offers stealth euthanasia: quick, clean, clinical despatch. It quotes sanctioned scientific studies details the best ways to die, though it avoids words like ‘death’, ‘dying’, and ‘stiff’. The glossy advert offers, ‘a choice of the top ten easy paths to ultimate peace,' and encourages customers to, 'submit to nature’s final call with no more fuss than a stroll on the boardwalk.’ You can join the Nice and Easy Gold Club and choose the environment in which to begin your celestial odyssey: a funfair ride, a beach walk, a mile high, or whatever takes your fancy. There are drugs about that have been designed to make you wholly unaware of death, ensuring that life’s end-credits roll over a movie that was worth seeing. These poisons mean happy deaths are possible. And you can have them administered by someone who knows what they are doing, and not have to commit the sordid, and illegal, act of suicide. The added plus of a poisoned system is that your body cannot be sold for human consumption. I am Eco graded, yes, but human flesh should be sacrosanct, whoever in the world is goddamn starving. Neurological tests of the departed have revealed that 100% of Nice and Easy’s clients have died unaware, and 100% of the Gold Club members have died in a state of bliss. As part of the deal you receive yearly, monthly, even weekly check-ups by the guys who make the thumb signs. My highly developed need to serve comes in here, let me tell you. I am willing and aware. I know that killing kills a part of the killer. I would not contemplate such work any earlier in life. Now is the right time in so many ways. I think of myself as the old man of the village. I am in a position of responsibility that is inherent in the role of someone with my life experience. At 8.30 am on January 3rd, 2044, at the offices of Nice and Easy, I got the first sight of my competitors for the post. I weighed them up as we queued for the medical examination. Let me tell you, the other guys were frail, the job was mine. I’d had dizzy spells but decided not to mention it. I was fitter than anybody there. A younger guy fainted while giving blood. Those of us who were not dismissed assembled at the reception area. An immaculate black electrocoach swished into the forecourt and we were ushered out of the foyer and funnelled on to it. The electrocoach was irresistibly relaxing. I experienced a series of sense-of-wellbeing dreams: Emily, the kids, and pets. I had outlasted them all. I toasted them; felt good about thinking about them for the first time. When the electrocoach whir brought me back we were on the old forest road heading south. Several attempts at conversation dived. I could see the fear behind the hard man stares. Faces of fear, thinly disguised by hard man stares.

The electrocoach stopped in a secluded area, which I identified as Newtonlake Wood. There had been a massacre in the seventeen hundreds that I researched during an investigation into a triple homicide on the site. I had pushed the details of the triple homicide out of my mind but the massacre was still freshly twitching like a dying insect. I agitated over whether any of my ancestors were involved. I had been brought up on those ancient ‘Cowboy and Indian’ films. I knew whose side I belonged to, but when I dug around the burial grounds of history, the pride I felt being a descendent of the great European conquerors became muddied. The doors of the electrocoach opened and someone, who seemed familiar, told us to alight. I turned edgy for no apparent reason. The sun said four or five. The ‘morning’ had taken most of the day. We were shown to an exposed semicircle of bleacher seats on the crown of a grassy knoll. I noted the ditch line at the base of the rise and mentally mapped an escape route. I didn’t want to listen to instinct but it had kept me alive up till now. We were asked to take our seats. As I brought up the rear, the only place left was an isolated chair near the centre of the semi-circle. I welcomed the opportunity to stand out; show myself as the obvious first choice to my prospective employers.

‘All rise!’

Everybody rises.

‘Be seated!’

Everybody sits.

‘Call the first witness, Jerry Considine Mardew.’

Jerry’s presence reassured me. ‘That man is a friend of mine, used to serve with the Specials,’ I wanted to say to someone but no-one was close enough. Jerry stood at the lectern, placed his notes and cleared his throat.

‘I am here for closure,’ he said, projecting, ‘to rebuild my foundations of justice. I hope from today’s cruelty comes tomorrow’s peace and from tomorrow’s peace a future that lifts Mankind out of barbarity like a baby from a pit of vipers.’

So now he’s an evangelist. He was good at it though, strong voice, capable oratory. He was always good at whatever he did. He was the best kind of buddy to have around, never let you down. I want to let the punks around me know what a great, great guy this man is.

Reviews for Shorts You Will Never Wear

[SueTilley · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Creative, inventive, playful, mad, bad and dangerous to know! I loved this little gem.