A long lifetime of stringing justified paragraphs together and not one character—in his case represented as a fictionalized person, letter, or punctuation mark—in the entire slush pile was deemed a literary masterpiece by anybody but himself. One late evening, a thunderstorm striking his imagination, the old and frail failed horror story writer sat stiffly at his attic office computer, at long last ready to write the grisly tale that would even surpass his idol’s best grisly tale in sales, at least in his humble opinion.
“Finally! All my toil and trouble will pay off!” he rasped from a lifelong Pall Mall habit. “At least in my humble opinion, this one will be on the New York Times’ bestseller list for a long, long time! Ha! Ha! Ha! All those book agents who rejected my other thousands of submitted masterpieces over the decades will be remorseful that they didn’t sign me, especially when they gush about the new genre I’m creating I’m calling ‘biographical slasher flash fiction!’”118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ24mFTrubU
He took as deep a breath as he could muster, coughed up some phlegm, and typed out this story, casting himself as the protagonist:118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ20T6ulLIRK
One dark and stormy night when the sky was as dark as a dark and stormy night, a horror story writer who wrote scarier stuff than even Stephen King, at least in his humble opinion, was inspired. 118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPDphWEmKIR
Thurston Theodore Wicket was busy as a bee in the attic office of his two-story house, painted white as a cloud, as dark now as a dark and stormy night, only white as a cloud again when the lightning flashed. He was biting at the bit to peck out the best short story ever, at least in his humble opinion. His eyes, blurry with glaucoma, were pasted to the screen, his hands, stiff as boards from arthritis, clawed the keyboard. He took a deep breath, heaved his lungs out, and typed out this story:118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLDdvp1eAVA
The creator of the revolutionary literary genre taking book clubs by storm called biographical slasher flash fiction sat at his computer in his attic office one dark and stormy night crafting another masterpiece, when a sudden disturbance filled the air. His eyes flew from the screen to the window. It didn’t exactly sound like thunder cracking like a whip, it was more of a distant creaking sound, like the front door being slowly being opened and then being gently shut, but then again his ears were becoming as deaf as doorknobs so it could have been anything.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGxsRiIEiUP
Thurston again was drawn to the screen like flies to watermelons and continued crafting another masterpiece until the house, quiet as a mouse, creaked again, sounding almost as if someone was tip-toeing up the old wooden stairs as rickety as his legs which had a lot less muscle on their bones than an Ethiopian chicken, he thought, then dismissed, and was again was drawn to the screen like flies to watermelons. 118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9XXzKWmgon
He wrote two perfectly-worded justified paragraphs, then was disturbed again, this time by what sounded like, but couldn’t have been, a corpuscul of old bones rattling near the attic office door that was now rattling the doorknob. “Ha! Ha! Maybe it’s the skeleton come knocking that had materialized. I was just thinking of adding this kind of dramatic situation to the storyline, after all, I am a pretty darn good horror story writer, at least in my humble opinion!” 118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLOrkROaLuL
His jaw dropped on the plank floor that was as dusty as a cattle trail when the attic office door flew open! The blood in his veins ran cold! He was shocked to his very being! Standing underneath the threshold was his high school English teacher, old Mrs. Higgins holding a meat cleaver with a blade as sharp as steel. 118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv9FuIZ6C85
“Why Mrs. Higgins, what are you doing here? You look—-118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXsReOxP7Jz
“Shut the hell up, you grammatical-challenged idiot who I gave a benevolent D+ to for four long years!” she belted out loud and strong because she didn’t smoke Pall Malls all her life. “How in the disgrace of Stephen King could you murder our language, our syntax, our imaginations with your really horribly written horror stories?” She fumed, swirling the meat clearer around in loose figure-eights. “Why in the hell, a place as hot as a barbecue briquette, have you been forwarding them all to me all these years?’118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWWavsFV9BY
“You told the class to keep in touch, so I took it literally since we were literally in a literary class,” he justified.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMC0KbB7spa
“I’m supposing you got my email address from the school directory. Am I supposing correctly?” she said all in one breath.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKIyjVo5Hhv
“Yes, you supposed correctly,” he quivered, now getting Misery uncomfortable.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe6h0VyAppH
“Why?”118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4dhZf57W1k
“I figured you’d be interested in following my highly successful writing career through life. You know, be one of those proud mentors who could crow like a blackbird, ‘yep, I knew Mr. Wicket way back when. He was my prize student for four short years!’”118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ497tokgX7Y
“That’s why I’m here, paraphrasing Sandburg, you word-butcherer to the world!” 118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIAws4MJ8t
She snarled as much as she could with her teeth out, growing as agitated as a washing machine on the wash cycle. “All those decades of hearing the ping of my email notification first thing in the morning hoping for someone fun or something important this time, but no, it was always just one of your, what you would call at least in your humble opinion, short story masterpieces you sent overnight. Sometimes two or three at a time if you were inspired. Your confusing jumping heads POV dialogue, tell-don’t-show descriptions, the structure built on a house of cards, plots six-feet under, characterless characters—oh! my! gawd!118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCqEm0qSDKz
The wannabe author wore a disappointed hound dog face. And a worried looking, too, when his eyes flew to the meat cleaver.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡddSTLSYt7H
“At first your posts were just annoying like flies to watermelons, then your early AM drivel began ruining my breakfast, then my whole day. I became depressed, unhinged, ruing why I ever decided to become a high school English teacher in the first place. The one you sent this morning with the subject line: ‘New genre: biographical slasher flash fiction. Enjoy!’ drove me to the breaking point. Every teacher has one, some learn to control their rage for ignorance. Some of us don’t!”118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxGKvb8RFtI
The End. Enjoy!118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhit04QT14k
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In 2017, noted true-crime author Susan Breckenridge published her seventh book, entitled, Parse This - Butchery in a Small Town, a true-crime novel about a 103-year old former high school English teacher named Elise Higgins who wandered fairly comatose from the nursing home she escaped from one dark and stormy night and slaughtered one of her former students as he was writing a masterpiece, at least in his humble opinion, in his attic office.
The victim, an 88-year old arthritic wannabe writer, who wrote horror stories even better than his idol Stephen King at least in his humble opinion, a guy named Thurston Theodore Wicket grew helplessly winded as he fought the non-smoker off and lost the battle when old Mrs. Higgins’ meat cleaver bashed in his benevolent D+ brain. She then finished him off by lopping off each one of Mr Wicket’s ten fingers, she later told police after turning herself in, “so he could never denigrate another sentence ever again.” Then for good measure she hacked up his keyboard. The perpetrator whose own brain was Swiss cheese from Alzheimer’s muttered as she was led away, “every teacher has a breaking point, some learn to control their rage for ignorance. Some of us don’t.”118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLDQYT01upr
The crime was so sensational, so odd, that Parse This - Butchery in a Small Town was on the New York Times’ bestseller list for a long, long time. Thurston Theodore Wicket's dream of becoming a famous author finally came true . . . in a figurative kind of way.118Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡO66FtpzNXi
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