DAILY MONSTER 57
Good morning! Thank you for checking in on the weekend. I hope you’re sitting at your computer in comfy clothes—maybe some toasty socks your great aunt knit for you—and with something good to nibble on, so you can really savor the latest batch of stories whipped up by all our far-flung creature correspondents:
Monster 57 clearly doesn’t have the day off. Poor guy! Having to work the weekend. And not at a fun job, either. This guy isn’t in charge of the lemur grooming at the Honolulu Zoo. He doesn’t get to drive around town in a tricked out gelato van. No ice cream vendor, he. He probably doesn’t even get to calculate local weather patterns for the 6 o’clock news. No, this guy is working today. But where? And why? Is this his regular shift? Did he get into a fight with the general manager? Or with the manager general? Did he loose a bet? Is he working his way out of his staggering gambling debts? Did he lose his shirt at the monster racetrack? Questions, questions, questions! I’m sure you already know what’s going on here. Please, take a minute and let us in on 57’s secret. Please:
Thank you again for coming to visit the monsters!
Please check back in tomorrow for the Sunday Creature.
For now, get busy being lazy, and know that 344 LOVES YOU
P.S.: As of last night, the Daily Monsters have been viewed over 250,000 times. Thank you so much to all of you for visiting and watching, and THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to those of you who are posting such great stories! You are giving the monsters their soul.
When he saw a fish i see a dog, small one, but very angry one, like “shinshila”.
if you want to see my doggy take a look:
http://picasaweb.google.com/lokidg/DailyMonster2007/photo#5019501977852195682
have another works based on Mr. Stefan creations
“RUTHERFORD!” His boss would yell, “I don’t have eyes in the back of my head. You do! Now get back to work!”
“Sheesh”, he thought to himself, “they’re not in the back of my head, any Glorock can see that. They’re on the side of my head, and it’s only one of ’em. And I hate wearing this tie.”
But he never said it. Instead, he dutifully went to the frying station, chopped the Arludges into small, perfect–if he did say so himself–bites, and plopped them in the frying oil. Damn, he wanted employee of the month so badly he could taste it.
He wondered if the Arludges hated his tie as much as he did.
Actually, Rutherford enjoyed the satisfaction of chopping the Arludges into such precise pieces, having had such an unfortunate experience with them during his eldritch childhood, and watching them sizzle and pop in the hot oil bath.
The problem Rutherford was having today was that he had tied on one too many ties trying to emulate his boss’s quintuple-tie eccentricity (the quintuple-tie look having been out of style since the ghichty-wenkies).
He was however, not to be swayed in his efforts of obtaining employee of the month. Tomorrow he would…
Orb was so excited to see FIVE packages under the tree at Christmas! And then….
Wake. Eat. Drive. Work. Eat. Smoke. Work. Drive. Eat. Drink. Smoke. Sit. Sleep.
He ties his ties and heads out the door.
He is in a diner. The Diner. He eats all his meals here. He eats and smokes and napkins his mouth. He is alone in a booth in a late-night diner, watching the drones droning and the servers serving and the forks forking. He sips his stale coffee and wonders about his next meal. He ties his ties the same every day.
He is the monster under the bed that will not hurt you. He lurks and spies, but his ties give him away. He gets caught on your dresser when he watches you sleep. He is the observer, learning the ways of his neighbors.
He sips his coffee and leans over the table. His ties dunk into his eggs, his coffee, his water, his homestyle fries. His teabag ties.
He is a teabag, dipping into your life. Hiding under your bed. Holding his breath in your closet. Tiptoeing in your attic. He is in the diner, in your home, in your thoughts. He is the monster you live with, you’re scared of. He is the monster in your dreams. He is the monster you love, you sleep with. He knows this.
He is in the diner, next to you, watching you dunk your fries in ketchup, watching you sip your next cup, watching you kiss your lover, meet your friend, stare out the window, dunk your teabag.
He is the ties around your neck, holding your tender voice, watching you.
He is the monster in your booth
slowly choking you
to death.
Frank Warburton worked down in Receiving. His girth was an asset when it came to moving the pallets of paper and mysterious chemical equipment that arrived every day at Ludovic’s Chemical and Explosives, Inc. People passed Frank in the halls during lunchtime, but since he worked in the basement and not in the shiny labs where the scientist made things bubble and fizz, no one ever noticed that Frank Warburton was really a monster.
Born of a freak accident between a toaster and a rat trap, Frank was the subject of much jeering by his youthful monster mates. His eyes were too far apart, they said, and he looked wierd. To soothe himself, Frank ate too many Fried Snorking Fishes and Sugared Golliwogs and as a result, he packed on the weight and never lost it.
But he also never lost his meekness, drilled into him by his cruel classmates. Until one afternoon years later in Sharpton’s Menswear, he decided to shake things up. Instead of buying his usual five matching ties — he always wore five ties at once; this was another feature of his personality that few people at Ludovic’s ever noticed — in browns or dark blues, he decided he would buy five ORANGE ties. He clutched the bag tightly in his hand on his way home, chuckling at rebelliousness.
The next day, he wore his five ORANGE ties to work and waited with anticipation to see who would notice. “Why, Frank! You’re looking chipper today!” they might say. Or perhaps, “Wow, Frank, that’s really some orange you got there. I didn’t know you had it in you.” But the people he passed on the way into the building barely raised a hand in hello, if they looked at him at all.
In the basement, he loaded and unloaded pallets with his usual diligence, his spirits dropping with each passing half hour. No one came down into the basement, which was typical, but that also meant no one saw his five ORANGE ties. Then, at ten minutes to eleven, Jane Fedderly stuck her head through the doorway into his Receiving Room.
“Hey, Frank,” she called, and he looked up with excitement. “Company pictures today, up by the cafeteria. Don’t forget.” She let the door swing shut behind her without another word.
Pictures, Frank thought. This meant that everyone in the company would see, for the entire coming year, that he was a man of excitement, a man who could wear ORANGE. He set down his invoices and left the Receiving room, pressing the button for the elevator several times.
When he arrived at the cafeteria, the line for pictures extended down the hallway. He took his place at the end, rubbing his hands nervously on his pants, waiting for someone to notice and comment on his ORANGE ties. “Hey, Frank,” said Bill Waddell from HR. He held up a palm in hello as he passed. “Frank,” called Trent Snooter, the trim and very popular VP of the Blasting Caps Division. “You ought to be in pictures!” He raised his hand in the shape of a gun and mock-shot it at Frank. In return, Frank managed a weak grin.
None of this was any different than what people said to him every day. No one cared that he had ORANGE in his heart.
By the time he got to the photographer’s stool, he was utterly dejected. “Scoot back a little, that’s right,” said the photographer, adjusting something on his camera. “All right, smile!”
Shrouded in secrecy, Special Agent 57 was brought on to protect the sacred “varieties” Henry J. Heinz first began to create in 1869. The ties are merely decoration. Meant to distract would be thieves of the sacred catsup/ketchup (whatever your preference) recipes. With iron teeth and a steel gut, SA-57 is one tough mother … shut yo mouth!
He just can’t decide between
mandarin orange
orange with a subtle parquet pattern
aurora borealis orange
bengal tiger orange
or
the word that rhymes with orange orange
So he wore them all. He’s bucking for an R rating at Revver. At least.
**
LOVE IT!!!
And I forgot to say yesterday, doing the happy finny fin fin dance with that bonus animation bit!
What a lovely monster! Brooke N.: Spectactularly haunting. Now, unto this good fellow’s story.
=====================
They were all lined up perfectly in front of him. Five pencils. Five perfectly sharpened pencils. Their lengths exactly the same. Their spacing so exact. He adjusted the piece of paper a bit to the right. Perfectly aligned with the desk’s edge. Just like the other four sheets peeking out beneath it. He stared at his desk for five minutes. Just sitting there. At five-after five, he was ready to go home. He stood up and pushed his chair underneath his desk, its five wheels facing the same direction.
He walked the five blocks back to his apartment which was the fifth door on the right on the fifth floor. Closing the door, he slid the chain, turned the three dead-bolts and clicked the lock on the knob. He walked the five feet to the bar and placed the items in his pockets into corresponding trays. Five, of course. Change in the first tray, bills in the second, keys in the third, a small multi-tool in the fourth and miscellaneous items in the fifth. There were no miscellaneous items today, so he tapped the tray with a finger five times. He rounded the bar and opened the fridge to grab one of five pre-made sandwiches and one of five glasses of water. He would replace them before going to bed for the evening. Making his way to the pentagon shaped dinner table, he paused to turn the TV to Channel 5.
As he calmly dined, he noticed a small red stain on his cuff. He looked at the side of his sandwich and then he realized what it was. He set down his meal, took five sips of water and proceeded to the bathroom. The light was flipped on and he gazed at himself in the mirror, his five orange ties staring back at him. The water heated up quickly and he dabbed at the stain and worked at it with the soap until he was satisfied. Turning the water off he stood erect and a smile crossed his face, despite the second tie having flopped out over its neighbors. His five upper and five lower teeth gleaming in the light. Tomorrow, he would kill Number Five and his job would be done.
“Mr. Watterson?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s me, Calvin.”
“Calvin…How…how did you get this phone number?”
“I came from your brain, Mr. Watterson. You can’t possibly think I wouldn’t know your phone number already.”
“Well…what can I do for you, Calvin? How is Hobbes? Gah, you must be, what, in your mid-twenties by now?”
“Yeah. Desk job. Don’t ask.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter is that I went to sleep. Quietly. Like Mom always said I should.”
“You’re still living with your Mom?”
“You’re disappointed.”
“Yeah, a lot. I expected you’d be off flying space ships.”
“Well. Um. See, this is what I’m calling about.”
“What happened?”
“I went to sleep last night. And then I woke up this morning, to Susie–”
“–You and SUSIE are living with your PARENTS?”
“Just lemme finish, will you?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Susie was screaming. She said I looked like some freak from outer space. And then Mrs. Wormwood came stomping in through the door, only she was wearing some sort of awful slimy skin…”
“She finally turned into the Zorgomaut, did she?”
“I guess so. Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I woke up five times my normal size and wearing five neckties because I think I have five necks now. And I wanted to say goodbye, because I think I’m about to be deported to the planet you always thought I’d end up on. You know, somewhere in space.”
“So you’ve ended up as Spaceman Spiff after all, have you?”
“Uh, no. Not exactly. Look, I gotta run, okay?”
“Sure, sure. Hey, Calvin…thanks for the call. Just…one more question.”
“Shoot.”
“What happened to Hobbes?”
“Him? Oh, egads, don’t even ask. He made a pass at Susie. He had to go.”
“I’m sorry to hear it, Calvin.”
“Gotta run, Mr. Watterson. Commander Wormwood is calling.”
“Right. You take care of yourself, Calvin.”
“Later, man.”
Frau Zuberbühler, im hohen Alter von 99 Jahren, ist schon seit langer Zeit verwittwet. Seit dem Tod ihres Mannes und des gesprächigen Papageis, fühlt sie sich schon sehr allein; kein wohliges Kuscheln und auch kein unterhaltsames Schwätzchen mehr. In ihrer Einsamkeit ist ihr die Wahnsinnsidee gekommen, sich einen Gefährten für einsame Stunden zu basteln. Dank ihrer Sammelleidenschaft ist es für sie ein Leichtes, die dazu benötigten Teile herbeizuschaffen. Das Reisebügeleisen dient als Kopf, Knöpfe sind die Augen, die Flaumfedern des verblichenen Papageis ergeben streichelzarte Haare, und sogar das Nachtgewand Ihres geliebten Heinrichs kommt wieder zu neuen Ehren. Was für ein schönes neues Wesen…Frau Zuberbühler ist stolz auf ihr gelungenes Werk. Liebevoll streichelt sie sein Flauschehaar. Wenn sie den neuen Mann an ihrer Seite unter Strom setzt, wärmt er sogar ihr Bett an. Sehr praktisch, wegen erhöhter Brandgefahr allerdings nicht zur Nachahmung empfohlen.
Oh, Scheibe…!!! Das ist die Geschichte für das Monster 58. Hab zu schnell im Buch geblättert. Kannst du das vielleicht ändern?
Monster 57 ist ein stressgeplagter Kerl. Jeden Morgen sagt er sich: Zähne zusammenbeissen und durch! Seinen Vertreterjob würde er schon lange gerne mitsamt den orangen Kravatten an den berühmten Nagel hängen, aber mit seinem Aussehen käme nur eine Arbeit in der Metallverarbeitungsbranche in Frage. Mit seiner starken Nickelallergie wäre das aber mit Sicherheit nicht das Richtige für ihn.
Also weiter wie jeden Morgen: Zähne zusammenbeissen und durch!!!