The Illusion Of Choice

I was given a simple choice. Pick one basket. Whatever was hidden inside would be my destiny.

There were 100 baskets to choose from. I knew from the stories that most of them were dull affairs, with fates that would play out over the next 50-70 years. A few were glorious. One or two held nearly instant death.

I thought having such a choice was wonderful. It wasn't until later I realized the feeling of control was an illusion, for though I could chose the basket, I had never been asked if I wanted to play the game to begin with.

The Best In The World

"I can make you the best in the world at one thing," said the leprechaun.

David mulled his choice over carefully before eventually answering, "I want to be the best in the world at not dying."

The leprechaun sighed, and David smiled smugly. "I outwitted you, didn't I? You weren't expecting that."

"It's not too late to change your mind."

"Nope, that's what I want."

"Very well," the leprechaun responded sadly.

A few moments later, a giant asteroid collided with the Earth. Over the next several months, humanity died off in the apocalyptic conditions. David was the last human alive.

The Coffee Wars

The Coffee Wars began in the 21st century, but unlike the other Great Wars, which ended via the exchange of cash settlements or mineral rights, the Coffee Wars dragged on.

John Grimes was the last survivor. Decades after the plantation riots, Grimes was housed in the Starbucks Asylum. He was kept alive through intravenous caffeination that was still technically against the law, but which was rarely enforced outside of government clinics.

It was Grimes' silent presence that allowed Starbucks, his chief adversary, to eventually quell the resistance. Grimes glumly watched, unable to act, or even speak, through the caffeine-induced shaking.

Hell

Hell is the worst place you can imagine, because if you could imagine something worse than Hell, than Hell would become that.

When he’d been alive, Edgar had been obsessed with cheese. He’d also been a huge prick and made everyone around him miserable. Now he was being tortured with cheese. He had cheese running through his veins and was repeatedly dropped into a vat of scalding cheese sauce. Even the scent of cheese lingered on his clothes in between dips. They thought of everything.

Edgar's secret consolation was that Satan hated cheese. Even Satan suffered in Hell.

The Way Things Played Out

We looked around at each other and it was clear that we all shared the same sense of panic. We'd all been shrunk down to a few inches tall, and what had once been a rather shaggy lawn was now a thick forest. Our pet rabbit, Olive, was one hop away from killing us all.

If this were a Disney movie, my siblings and I would have set aside our differences and we would have worked together to overcome a string of comical obstacles before returning to normal height.

This played out more as a Lord Of The Flies scenario.

For What Reason A Choice

Whenever she thought about the past, a heavy sadness weighed on her. Her term as Empress had been glorious and she was widely acknowledged as the greatest monarch in living memory.

Now that the peaceful successions had ended, and the municipalities were constantly at war, she regretted not holding on to power. It was the irony of their political system that those most worthy of holding power were those least likely to retain it.

Of course, giving up power had not been her first choice. She'd done so out of spite. Anything to get back at that ex-boyfriend of hers.

The Babysitting Job

Lisa had been babysitting for almost two years, ever since she was 14. Never in her long career had she seen anything so disgusting as this.

Little kids will puke and poop and spit and generally make a mess of everything they touch. Lisa was used to all these awful behaviors. She was a pro.

But she'd never seen a baby molt before, yet that was exactly what this toddler was doing. Shedding its skin and revealing a hard layer of scales underneath. Lisa shrieked and jumped on top of the coffee table.

Perhaps the Iguana family wasn't hispanic after all.

The Final Body

Once the police left with the final body, the reporters scattered their separate ways, much like vultures after a dinner party. I headed to my favorite diner, hoping some scalding coffee and room temperature pie would scrub away my lingering sense of insignificance.

Denizens of a past-its-prime diner also tend to be past-their-prime, but on this night, the man staring at me from across the booth reminded me of an aging but still dangerous predator, albeit one missing his front teeth.

Staring back at him, I had no way of knowing I was about to be embraced by eternal irrelevance.

Reversal Of Fortune

I was seized by the worst criminals and forced into bondage.

My captors liked to punish me in cruel but creative ways. They'd force me to hold down a weighted lever that would release a cage door for a hungry tiger should I let go. They'd cover me in honey and let bears lick me clean. They'd fill my mattress with earth worms. They'd purposely leave open an escape route but recapture me at the last moment.

But none of their tortures pained me as much as knowing that it had once been my job to dream up these punishments.

The Taxi Driver

Ed was too frightened to open the boot. The banging from inside could indicate the end of his job, but there were also plenty of scenarios that would lead to deportation back to England, jail, or worse.

He shifted through his options as he searched up and down the empty street. Finally, with his maglite in hand, he pushed the button on his keychain and jumped back.

As the jackal darted out and ran into the ditch, Ed cursed. He'd been ordered to stay silent. This was his last warning. No amount of money would be worth what came next.

This story is meant to demonstrate suspense, the topic of today's post over at The Chaos Factory.