Misunderstanding

by iBrow:

“Hey, check this out! I found something really cool!”

“What on earth is that?!”

“Well, I dunno. It just looks so cool, y’know?”

“It looks like a turd.”

“Says you, buddy! You’re just jealous of my amazing rock.”

“Could you even call it a rock? Look, it’s squishy.”

“Don’t poke it!”

“Yuck, that’s disgusting!”

“I told you not to poke it.”

The object being spoken of was a rock of the squishy variety, tinged with several rather ugly shades of brown and gray that did not mix well together. The finder of the rock was a boy of twelve, with a shaggy mop of unkempt brown hair and startlingly blue eyes. His exceptionally unenthusiastic friend had a head of blindingly blonde hair and contrastingly dark brown eyes.

“Hey Squirt, you know what we should do with this?” the blonde haired boy asked, grinning mischievously.

“I am not listening to another of your stupid plans, Ralph.” Squirt said.

“No, just listen for a second!” protested Ralph. “What if we threw this at Granny Macintosh’s window?”

“We die.”

“Don’t be such a negative dinosaur. She wouldn’t even know it was us.”

“You said that when we cocooned the entire thing in toilet paper, Ralph. Do you remember what we had to do for the next three weeks?”

“You know what? Just don’t hesitate.” Ralph said, grabbing the rock.

“Hey! Give that back!” Squirt yelled.

“Why? It’s a friggin’ turd, Squirt. Give it a rest. Watch the magic fly.”

Ralph pushed himself up off the gravel, which crunched underneath his feet as he stood. Squirt tried to scramble up, reaching for the rock, but Ralph pushed him back and he slid to the ground, furious. Ralph grinned at him, brought his arm back, and then swung it in a mighty arc. Both boys watched the rock sail through the air, and Squirt could’ve sworn he heard it whistling, before....

SPLAT.

Ralph burst out laughing upon the impact, as Granny Macintosh’s window vanished underneath a veil of disgusting brown.

“What did you just do, boy?”

Squirt and Ralph glanced at each other, gulping, before they both glanced over to the hulking figure of the police officer.

“Is there a p-problem, officer?” Ralph asked with a false bravado.

“I think I just saw you throw that... whatever it was into that window.” the Officer said.

“N-no sir, I would never do that!” protested Ralph.

“I saw you do it, just now.”

“I think you misunderstand, sir.” Squirt piped up. “He didn’t throw it. Some other kid did and then ran away. But we think the other kid was actually aiming for the tree across the street and not Granny Macintosh’s house.”

“Oh really... and what, pray tell, would this other child’s name be?”

“Uh... Gralph.”

“Gralph.”

Squirt nodded, and Ralph resisted the urge to put his face into his hands in a loud fashion. The Officer grunted and glanced up and down the street, seeing nobody else.

“All just a big misunderstanding?” He asked.

“Um... yes?” Squirt guessed.

“Very well then.” the Officer nodded. “I’ll give it to you this time, boys. I didn’t understand what I would be meeting in the terms of brain power here today. But I assure you, next time you will not get off so easy.”

The Officer turned and marched away. Squirt breathed a sigh of relief, before cursing when Ralph smacked him on the back of the head.

The End.

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by Eli/Kal Grochi:

'Just as Breann Sledge was finding herself bored, lo and behold, there appeared a computer before her.
“What shall I do with this wondrous instrument?” She mused aloud, then clapped her hands in sudden delight.
“I know!” She cried. “Facebook! I shall look at the wonder that is Facebook!” And as she had cried, so it was-in mere seconds she was browsing Facebook, and soon did she look upon a picture of her friend Katie’s. Within was a picture of a curious Bionicle creation titled “Bomonga,” as well as a picture of her friend Katie, seemingly being held by a young man by the name of Andrew Page. In her sophomoric curiosity with the idea of romance, she soon came to a misunderstanding of the picture. And instantly was she smitten with the idea of commenting upon a perceived romance.
“D’awwwww!” she typed, proceeding to add a small, oddly-shaped emoticon, “bomonga creates love with his staffzorz!” and then, there was a collective facepalm by all those who read it.
On second thought, however, she may merely have been acting that way in order to make a stupid joke, and therefore, we know not if the misunderstanding is hers…or ours.'

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by Tyler Durden:

True Faith

“And he just came out of nowhere.”
“Yes, yes, YES!”

I couldn’t believe the sheer gall of this police officer as to question me about what had happened tonight, what I had watched and done and tried and failed to prevent, as if I was schizophrenic. As if I’d imagined what had happened. What did I look like, a 21^st century Lizzy Borden? Did I appear as though I had enjoyed sparking the scene that had befallen this house of holy? No, of course I didn’t. Of course I hadn’t imagined it. It was real.

And Damon.

He really had come out of nowhere; I was locking up the church after youth group, like I did every Wednesday night at 10 pm when the sky finally finished darkening and the Texas air stared to cool off and the area got so quiet you could hear tumbleweeds racing across open ground and asphalt from football fields away. It was the kind of environment that you could really say personified the American dream. It came as dust, it left as dust, but in between the coming and going, it could safely be said that this place was the kind of place where you could stack dreams like pancakes. Or Jenga towers.

Damon was a handsome, if austere kid, with big brown eyes and dirty blonde hair that poofed up around his eyebrows as though he went to sleep in a baseball cap every night. He possessed that air of untamable youth that at once made him such a gift to be around and at the same time made him arrogant, too secure in his position as a local demigod. His mortal half, the half that connected with the spirit and the people of the Town, was quelled more and more frequently by the Godly half of him, and when he forgot our God in the place of His own, that’s when things started to go south for Damon.

He’d been trying, I learned, to nab one of the guitars that a recurring participant here at Youth group – Hunter, perhaps, or maybe Mike – had left for next week. It was an ancient Gibson Les Paul, a prize that was passed down from generation to generation as a man of the Crusades would pass on his sword and armor to each generation that acted as a sequel to his own. It was a beauty of an instrument, but not one worth dying over. Or killing for.

But yet here Damon lay, right here on the pulpit, cold and red and very, very, dead.

Poor Damon probably didn’t expect anyone to be here, but he’d brought a weapon anyway, so I guess he thought that the Les Paul was worth killing for; poor Damon didn’t expect me to turn around and threaten to call the cops, so he cocked the gun once and aimed it shakily. I watched his naivety slip away like oil from a downed tanker as he fired once, barely grazing my shoulder. Instantly, memories came back to me from years before – the deployment that had turned me to God in the first place, the War, the way I could whip the gun out from its space behind the sound system and load it fast and aim it and fire it three times into Damon’s chest before he could make a pretense of a protest.

Now here was this officer, acting as though I had just murdered a boy of the faith– a boy of LOVE for god and a boy who had a bright future ahead of him – and as though I were glad that one of the best high school wide receivers in the state lay dead and discarded like a ratty Bible on the floor. No, of course I mourned Damon. I hadn’t meant to shoot him, this I was sure of. It was instinct, a long-suffering withdrawal from the adrenaline and repeated rush that the War gave me, unable to be matched by cocaine or heroin or bath salts or whatever the kids outside the church were using these days. But at the same time, an instrument – be it of music, like a Gibson, or loneliness, like a drug, or death, like a Glock handgun, or any other sort of song that carried with it any sort of emotional vulnerability – was not worth dying for.

But, as I stared at Damon, cold and dead with those deep brown eyes and that poofed up hair and now unable to ever catch another game-winning touchdown pass any time too soon, I realized that killing for it was another story entirely.

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by Andrew/Velox:

Misunderstanding

He slammed me against the wall. Hard. A bloody imprint was on the wall, and my hair was slick with the crimson liquid. My mind was working overtime, trying to comprehend what was happening, but I didn’t have time for anything except to close my eyes and clench my jaw as a fist flew toward my face.

The tears rolled down my face, and I felt the cut on my cheek begin to bleed. I fell to my knees, sobbing.

“Please…please,” I begged, but I could mutter nothing more. I held my hands up, palms out, for what little good it did me.

“It-it’s just…a big misunderstanding,” I managed to mutter softly between sobs and breaths. My voice choked, and I spit out blood. “You…you have the wrong guy.”

I was lying, but I kept my head down and the tears coming, still whispering how it was a misunderstanding over and over again as he repeatedly struck me. I remember what had really happened, as clear as if it was yesterday…

Four years ago to the day, I had held the gun in my hand. Smoke rose from the recently-fired barrel. The young man laid face-down, blood beginning to pool from the hole I had just put in his head.

A woman was crying, kneeling near the body. That was the worst part. I wanted to put a round through her head as well, just so I didn’t have to hear her screams. Her cries. But I didn’t.

I would never kill an innocent. That’s what I had promised myself all those years ago, and I had kept that promise. I wasn’t going to break it then.

Instead I had quickly gathered up any evidence of my presence, took the few files from the vault he had opened moments before, and left.

It was all still so clear in my head. They always were, every kill. I couldn’t just ignore them, and they wouldn’t let me even if I wanted to. They all haunted me in my dreams nightly, even though I knew every kill was just.

But there was always that slightly sliver of doubt that filled me after every kill. Was the intel truly accurate? Was I really doing the right thing? I had convinced myself that I was, just like I was doing right now.

I prepared myself for the fist flying at my face again. It struck hard, but I endured. I must wait, I thought to myself. Wait for the signal.

And then I heard it. The faint whirring of helicopter blades. Panic struck my attacker, and he stopped his assault on my body for a moment or two to issue a command for someone to find out what was happening. That was my chance. His head was turned away from me, and I struck. I put my hand-cuffed hands around his neck and twisted violently. He fell easily, and I removed the key from his pocket, quickly getting rid of the cuffs that bound my hands, and made my way out of the room, toward my approaching teammates.

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by Alex/Sechs:

Alligator

“That’s not milk,” Jeffrey says to me in his thick brummy accent as soon as I walk through the door.  On his face he wears a confused expression and he keeps staring from the hefty box in my arms to my bemused smirk.

I consider what he says for a bit, and then tilt my head. What an odd thing it is to say. Of course it’s not milk. “Well, it’s good to see you haven’t gotten senile in the short time I’ve been gone,” I respond, before grunting from the exertion of lifting the box up onto the counter.

“Short time?” Jeffrey strides across the room, staring at the calendar. “You’ve been gone a week, Jake. An entire ruddy week. Where the heck have you been? And what have you got in that box?” 

Without meaning to, I start laughing. I know it’s inappropriate to laugh in somebody’s face, but his reaction is just too rich not to enjoy. “Well, how long did you expect me to? It’s not easy to find a box full of alligators in this part of the country.”

Jeffrey stares at me horrified for a few seconds, before likewise bursting into peals of laughter. The sight of his amusement simply eggs my already-endless laughter onwards and we stand there, in the middle of the kitchen, giggling away like schoolgirls. Finally, Jeffrey breaks the wordless joy by wiping away a tear and saying, “Okay, that was pretty funny. But seriously, I went a week without milk. Where were you?”

A frown creases my brow as I process what he just said. Did he not hear me a few minutes ago? And why could he not just go down the shops and get the milk himself? He still has legs, I think. I mean, a lot can happen in a week. But surely not a limb-related disaster in the week I’m away. Jeffrey would never let me miss such a spectacle. 

“Well, I did what you asked me. I went down to the shops to buy a box of alligators. For some reason the woman behind the counter – you know the one – just grins at me. Doesn’t even say a word. So I felt like a right fool, so I go travelling around the country for about half a week looking for anywhere that might sell alligators. Turns out they’re not that common around here. I only found these by chance. Some guy in a black hoodie was very eager to be rid of the blighters.”

Suddenly, Jeffrey surges past me and tears the lid off the box and stares in horror at its contents. Inside the straw laced container rests three sleepy, though equally hungry alligators. He gapes from me to the alligators, his jaw opening and closing in a manner not unlike that of a fish.

“I call the big one Bitey,” I say smugly, looking back on the memories of nearly losing a finger with something akin to parental pride.

“Milk! I said get me a pint of milk!” Jeffrey screams, waving his arms around wildly. I wince at the sudden increase of volume and wonder just what the neighbours must be thinking at this moment.

As his words eventually dawn on me like a rising sun, my frown deepens. That’s odd, I think. How could he be so stupid as to mix up the words milk with alligator? 

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By Harvey/Nuile:

The Wrong Killing

Fear. Know no fear.

It’s the mark of the weak. Only those without the necessary strength yield to such primitive emotions.

I know no fear.

It was easy to sneak to the bases of the walls undetected. It was a moonless night, and the unsuspecting fools think their fortress is invincible.

What is invincibility? Only a challenge that has yet to be overcome. Only an intimidation; a fear.

I looked up. The guard atop the battlement was leaning indolently against the parapet. His eyes drooped. His visage was dull. He looked tired. It must have been a long day.

With an arrow I gave him the sleep he so desired.

I hurled my hook and it caught in the stonework of the battlement. Them it was a simple matter of going up.

That was the easy part, of course. But it was all easy.

The courtyard was quiet. Everyone was in bed, where they should be. Except the other guards. But in my newly acquired panoply, I blended in seamlessly.

Smiling underneath the dead guard’s helmet, I pointed and raised the alert. “Look! Down there! Invaders, invaders! To arms!”

I could hardly keep myself from laughing. All the guards atop the ramparts ran to my side, and in the confusion I disappeared, with no excuse but to alert the Prince. That was all it required.

Guards were appearing everywhere, but I rushed to the future ruler’s side. At my entrance into his chamber he looked up, and asked, “What is it? Why do you disturb me?”

“Sir, I am here to protect you. The fortress is being attacked.”

“Attacked!” The Prince laughed. “Why protect me? No one has ever attacked this fortress and lived to tell of it.”

“Well,” I retorted, “that changes tonight.”

I drew my blade and plunged it cleanly into his chest. He died instantly. I never wasted time amusing myself. This was business, not pleasure.

I cleaned my blade on the bedclothes and then retreated. I told the guards on either side of the door, “The commander says to stay here and ensure nobody enters. I’m going round to the window to make certain it cannot be entered from that direction.”

And then I ran apace to the ramparts. The majority of the guards were crowded around the dead guard’s post. Soon they would discover the body; but I had plenty of time.

I dispatched the few guards along the opposite wall before any of the three could speak. Only one even noticed. Did he, I wonder, know fear in that last moment?

I attached the hook to the window, rappeled down the wall, and escaped into the night.

And it was that easy. That simple. No fear; just business.

~ * ~

When I entered the inn, I coughed in the haze. I had never become accustomed to it. But I had been there many a time.

I folded back my hood and took a seat at the table in the dark corner. The candle was extinguished, and the residual light from the other tables did not touch ours. Somehow even the revelrous voices of the inebriates seemed distant there.

A cloaked figure sat down opposite me. The lines of the silhouette were gracile and gently curved. I had never seen her face, but I suspected it was beautiful. There was a touch of it in her voice; but the cruelty of life had made it shrill and harsh.

“Did you accomplish your task?” she asked.

I nodded. “It was easy. It’s a wonder nobody’s ever overtaken the fortress before.”

“Yes—yes, I suppose it is. Did you enter it?”

“Of course I did. How else could I get to the Prince?”

“Get to the Prince? Whatever for?”

“How else could I accomplish the deed?”

“But your task had nothing to—Didn’t you receive my message?”

“It was a little smudged, but I figured it out. And I killed the Prince. Easy.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “When I said there was to be an invader, I was not suggesting it be you! I did not want you to dispatch the Prince—I wanted you to protect him! At any cost!”

And for the first time in my life, I knew fear.