"IN THE BALANCE LIES A CHOCOLATE BAR" is such a special fast fiction that I can't even find superlatives suitable to describe it. What makes it so great ? Well it's based on art by the very talented Anders Nyberg for starters...
The rest of the magic lies in you putting on your halloween costume, reading this story out loud to trick or treaters at your
door and enjoying the looks of confusion and terror on their faces when they realize candy won't come easy this Halloween. Enjoy...
"I think we should have a big basket full of nothing and then when the trick or treaters arrive at the door, scoop up a big handful of that nothing and then drop it into their non-biodegradable plastic bags. As we're dropping nothing into their bags we can say something like, 'This year we're giving you a reminder of your innate creativity to imagine this nothing as anything you want it to be.' That's my proposal for this year," my mother smiled firmly. "It's just a suggestion."
My father cleared his throat.
The tension was as thick as soup, left-over soup that had been forgotten and abandoned in the corner of the fridge, only to be discovered by nostrils upon the opening of the fridge door. That was the foulness of this tension which existed every time we opened a family meeting about creative ways to circumvent corporately highjacked celebrations.
Especially Halloween.
In spite of all this building tension, all this talk of trick or treaters was making my sweet tooth ache for a chocolate bar.
"Michael, what do you think ?" my father asked. I knew I was expected to take an active role in the creation of our anti-consumer stance on this day in particular, especially after the fiasco of two Halloween's ago.
A mother dressed as an astronaut had spent a goodly chunk of the night berating my parents on our front steps: "You're trying to pawn off little poems about starvation in the third world to my kids while my husband is at home this very minute handing out candies for free that your son is gladly stuffing his bag full of." And that was how it was discovered by my parents that I had been sneaking out the bathroom window to run around the cul-de-sac for five minutes getting as much ill-gotten booty as possible.
"Well what do you say champ ?" my father was eagerly waiting for my decision. He was hoping that I would side with his idea of mirroring the trick or treater's actions after opening the door. Throwing back a reflection of the bloated beggars they'd become.
And I held the deciding vote.
Three hours before our family meeting, my father had promised that if I sided with him he would turn a blind eye if I disappeared for a few minutes on Halloween night.
He wanted more than anything else for his idea to come to fruition.
I let my sweet tooth vote for me.
The rest of the magic lies in you putting on your halloween costume, reading this story out loud to trick or treaters at your
door and enjoying the looks of confusion and terror on their faces when they realize candy won't come easy this Halloween. Enjoy...
IN THE BALANCE LIES A CHOCOLATE BAR
"I think we should have a big basket full of nothing and then when the trick or treaters arrive at the door, scoop up a big handful of that nothing and then drop it into their non-biodegradable plastic bags. As we're dropping nothing into their bags we can say something like, 'This year we're giving you a reminder of your innate creativity to imagine this nothing as anything you want it to be.' That's my proposal for this year," my mother smiled firmly. "It's just a suggestion."
My father cleared his throat.
The tension was as thick as soup, left-over soup that had been forgotten and abandoned in the corner of the fridge, only to be discovered by nostrils upon the opening of the fridge door. That was the foulness of this tension which existed every time we opened a family meeting about creative ways to circumvent corporately highjacked celebrations.
Especially Halloween.
In spite of all this building tension, all this talk of trick or treaters was making my sweet tooth ache for a chocolate bar.
"Michael, what do you think ?" my father asked. I knew I was expected to take an active role in the creation of our anti-consumer stance on this day in particular, especially after the fiasco of two Halloween's ago.
A mother dressed as an astronaut had spent a goodly chunk of the night berating my parents on our front steps: "You're trying to pawn off little poems about starvation in the third world to my kids while my husband is at home this very minute handing out candies for free that your son is gladly stuffing his bag full of." And that was how it was discovered by my parents that I had been sneaking out the bathroom window to run around the cul-de-sac for five minutes getting as much ill-gotten booty as possible.
"Well what do you say champ ?" my father was eagerly waiting for my decision. He was hoping that I would side with his idea of mirroring the trick or treater's actions after opening the door. Throwing back a reflection of the bloated beggars they'd become.
And I held the deciding vote.
Three hours before our family meeting, my father had promised that if I sided with him he would turn a blind eye if I disappeared for a few minutes on Halloween night.
He wanted more than anything else for his idea to come to fruition.
I let my sweet tooth vote for me.
posted by kevin spenst at 1:56 PM
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