It's A Dark World Full Of Idiots

The police raided the warehouse completely unprepared. No one thought an otter smuggling ring could amount to much. Just something to clean up before the eco-nuts got on their asses.

20 year veterans found themselves vomiting in their hats. The nightmares would linger for months.

The otters were not being smuggled to make fur coats or dog food. They were being skinned alive and fed to Russian babies on the adoption market. Apparently, otter flesh gives them a bright sheen that is more attractive to prospective mothers. 70% of the babies die within six months.

It's a dark world full of idiots.

The King's Club

The last thing you need when you're a new king is the old king looking over your shoulder. Sure, a lot of kings die of old age, or are poisoned, but some simply abdicate because they're ready for some peace and quiet.

And that's why we opened the King's Club, a top flight, luxury facility where former kings are treated as the royalty they used to be. When monarchs retire to the King's Club, they are fully fed, dressed, washed and groomed. We do everything we can to keep them distracted.

And if that doesn't work, there's always poison, right?

A Neo-Classical Analysis Of The Effect Of Reactionary Governments During Post-Napoleonic Pre-Imperial Fiji

When Queen Vicotria was young, God demanded she wage a land war in Asia. The Bolsheviks used the opportunity to sell France's entire population to Thomas Jefferson

However, the House of Lords rebelled and, after holding court at a cricket match, they decided to excommunicate Francis Bacon.

This caused some confusion as Bacon, thinking he was already excommunicated, had established the Church of England, married six wives, and moved to Utah.

The bull of excommunication, meanwhile, had gone astray and reached Francis of Assisi, who, released from Catholicism, approved the first mass publication of his heliocentric galaxy theory

The end.

From Guest Contributor, Boris Gump

Tag, You're Dead

His eyes spoke carefully, were impossible to read, and made me ill at ease. He flashed his badge, hoping to provoke a reaction.

"May I come in, Mr. Collins?" he asked.

"Please."

After a smattering of ill-fitting pleasantries, he got to the point.

"Your 100 words blog, it's interesting, the most popular tag is murder."

"Murder fascinates me. In the theoretical sense."

"And, as you know, six residents in the neighborhood have been murdered in the last three months. All in precisely the same fashion as depicted in your stories."

"Unfortunately, for your sake, that number will be seven after tonight."

Shareholders

Alan Alanwich hated stockholder meetings. "We all know in the current economy, it's necessary to enter new markets. And in a market as nascent as this one, we are literally building from scratch."

Mr. Stubbs, the shareholders representative, continued to press the issue. "I didn't travel all this way for excuses. We are behind on our projections. If you can't return the company to profitability, perhaps it's time for new leadership."

Alanwich had heard enough. "This is my company."

"The company belongs to its shareholders."

"You do realize we are on the moon."

"There you go with your excuses again."

An Epic Battle Of Wills

It was an epic battle of wills.

They tested each other beyond endurance to see who would yield first. One was content not to move. The other content not to push. It was the opposite of the irresistible force versus the immovable object.

There was no end in sight. Nary a blink nor a whisper. It was, to the untrained observer, as if neither knew of the other's existence.

"I told you, if you don't finish your dinner, you can't leave the table."

"And I told you, Mother, that I would rather die than eat any more of this broccoli."

The Seafarer's Guild

The Seafarer's Guild had very few requirements. Even the worst rapscallions and scalawags gained admittance for the right amount of gold. It got to the point that Sir Francis Drake, seeking to protect what was left of his good name, withdrew his membership rather than be associated with the Guild any longer.

Calico Jack had no such compunction. Moral qualms were a disorder for weak men fearful of Hell. Jack figured no Hell could be worse than the Hell of the high seas.

It was not long after Jack's death that the Seafarer's Guild began requiring a thorough background check.

Deliver Us From Evil

We are a lost people, driven from our homes. We have nothing except our myths. The myths remind us who we are and teach us about good and evil.

Evil men take their hearts and hide them in some secret place. If you can find their heart and destroy it, you destroy that evil.

From birth, a few of us are trained as hunters. We are no longer of the people. We are separate. We are nothing. Our names are written on a piece of parchment, and burnt without ever being uttered.

Only by becoming evil, can we destroy evil.

Truce

It was a rivalry that lasted for millennia.

Napoleon, insulted by the assassination attempt, meticulously plotted his revenge. First on Elba, to which he manufactured his own exile, then New Jersey, where he perfected his own time machine.

The damage proved catastrophic of course. Our world took on the characteristics of both men. The emperor's anal attention to detail coupled with George's creative inspiration combined to forever warp reality.

These days, the friends laugh over the destruction they wrought. They occasionally admit to some regret, but proudly note the empire runs on schedule, and tea is always served at three.

The Next Great Marketing Campaign

She sat in a corner of darkness, showing her back to the world. When confronted, her words drove stakes through the hearts of every remaining friendship. She clung to her timeworn memories until they crumbled about her in indecipherable fragments.

On occasion, for no apparent reason, she would laugh pathologically.

Every day of her life was a ritual of punishment. She obsessively opened and closed a refrigerator as empty as her existence. Her soul was dead.

For the rest of her life, if life you could call it, she would never forgive her roommate for drinking the last Miller Lite.