"Disgusting lime. I don't know how it gets there." His hair resembled a red tree. Actually he does live in a forest, not the Black Forest though.
Born without parents, this thinks-he-is-a man sits around putting tiddlywinks up his nose. When he doesn't sit around, which he never does anyway, the man eats like a platoon. Buying five bags of Frito Lays chips, he eats the other company.
"I am not quite that odd," he said scratching his head. Sometimes he thinks he has lice and eats imaginary ones to scare away the pretty girls. This is one reason he is single and might be female.
On his favorite closet, hangs an annoying sign reading NO SKELETONS HERE. This man needs a superhero. One time he wrote to Marvel Comics and they sent him a Fantastic Four tie. When push comes to shove, he'd rather dislike the Fantastic Four. "Push doesn't have to shove." He thinks he hears the narrative.
"I hear the narrative. Listen!" Somebody knocked on his door to ruin his silence. He answered the door, found nobody, and found a postcard from Greece. It displayed a picture of the Parthenon. He read the postcard hoping it wouldn't read him: THERE IS NO NARRATIVE TO HEAR.
"Don't tell everyone I am a fictional character, because I'm real. I fool you knot." This stupid man cannot spell not. "N-O-T minus the K." He is ugly and repulsive, yet it is hard to distinguish his gender. "Mail!"
Literally, a ton of letters gushed through his door, and swamped his kitchen designed like a bathroom.
"What in blazes is happening? Normally, these things don't happen to me. I've never been written about before." That's because he's a fabricated character just like Sherlock Holmes, but Sherlock is more believable.
"You make me sound unbelievable. Really I'm normal." He ate all his mail. "No, I didn't." He ran to the bathroom to send the mail back to his fans. "I'm still in the kitchen. Who is writing about me?"
YOUR NAME IS ARTHUR SHEA
by Jeremy Slagoski
In the Valley of Sixes, Mr. Shea picked a daffodil. Frolicking with his prize flower, cameras stood by. "This is what Pepsi or any other Pepsi product does to me!"
The director gave him his briefcase back. "Relax Arthur. Pretend Pepsi is running through your system."
"Why can't I have Pepsi really running through my system?" questioned the stiff actor.
"Good point." The director raised his hand and snapped his fingers. "Give this man a Coke!"
"No, no. Pepsi! I wanted a Pepsi!" demanded Mr. Shea.
"Coke...Pepsi...same thing," sighed the snooty director.
"Who said that?" asked the Pepsi representative on the set. He spotted the director and yelled, "Take this hypocrite away!" Two brutes and a brunette hauled off the unemployed director.
The Pepsi rep shook hands violently with Arthur Shea. "Thank you, Mr. Shea, for pointing out the traitor amongst us and that nothing beats a Pepsi."
Arthur was stunned. "Actually, I just wanted to..."
PEPSI IS GOOD. YOU CAN DRINK IT. IT MAKES YOU HAPPY. SOME PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN SEX. AND MORE PEOPLE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN MARIJUANA. BUT I NEVER HEARD ANYONE SAY IT'S BETTER THAN COCA-COLA.
"Who moved that capitalized paragraph above this sentence?" asked the representative of PepsiCo.
The entire advertising committee confessed leaving Arthur Shea the only man left employed by Pepsi.
"You know," said the Pepsi intermediary. "You are the true heart of this advertising campaign. And do you know why?" He grabbed Arthur closer to him shoulder-to-shoulder. "You really want a Pepsi. Arthur Shea, you are a good man for this."
"Yes," spoke Arthur. "I want a Pepsi, but I prefer..."
YOUR NAME IS LEONARD JUMPSUIT
by Jeremy Slagoski
He read a poem from his book entitled Chartreuse. The poem was entitled Goodness Gracious Me Oh My!
I stopped in front of my house
Seeing many policemen surrounding it
"Your home is under arrest," they said
"For keeping you locked up at night."
I said, "I lock myself in there."
They placed handcuffs on me
And threw me in jail
The law's too tight
And the jailbirds bite
I never win
Too bad he didn't have an audience. The response would be too bad. "Why do I write these poems for myself?" he asked himself. "Why do I ask myself questions about myself?" he asked himself. "Why I am so selfish?" He expected himself to answer his question, but he didn't, and that startled him into a world full of other people.
"That was a horrible poem!" screamed Mrs. Gullbird and her clique of poem critics. They dragged him to himself.
"I liked the poem, Leonard," he smiled to himself without a mirror. "I especially liked the poet, Mr. Leonard Jumpsuit, the Emperor of Excessive Self-Indulgence!"
The lamp's bulb blew leaving Mr. Jumpsuit alone in darkness. He wondered about criminals and monsters. They didn't exist as long as Leonard sulked with himself. He wished he could go to the store to buy another light bulb. But that required him to meet people. People are miscreants; they're not like him. They criticize him to one point.
He went out to buy a bulb anyway. On his way, he passed Evan Jensen and his little dog, both of them sneering. Then he ran into Mrs. Gullbird again. She had to yell, "You're a terrible poet!"
Finally, he got to the store, Expert Hardware. Ignoring the scoffing people, he snatched the bulb and took it to the cashier, Mr. Henry Billings.
YOUR NAME IS HENRY BILLINGS
by Jeremy Slagoski
"That'll be exactly two dollars, Mr. Jumpsuit," smiled Henry after pushing buttons on his register.
His last customer, Leonard Jumpsuit, the town's most renowned poet, gave Henry two dollars and a pocketful of change. "I'll trust that you have a full dollar here, Mr. Jumpsuit." He bagged the bulb and handed it to Leonard with another smile. "Keep on writing those poems."
Without saying a word, Leonard left. Henry's boss said some words though. "After you count Leonard's change, you can go home. Your shift's up."
Henry counted: two quarters, one dime, three nickels, ten pennies, ten more pennies, and four last pennies. "I've been shorted a cent," he sighed. "No matter."
After removing his nametag, Mr. Billings left Expert Hardware for the day. His house was only two blocks away from his job, so he walked. This day, he only walked one and a half blocks and never walked again.
YOUR NAME IS GRIM REAPER
by Jeremy Slagoski
Grim Reaper is death and deals the ace of spades. R.I.P.
YOUR NAME WILL BE FLANDERS
by Leonard Jumpsuit
"My name better not be Flanders," said Arthur Shea getting his first glimpse at the script. "People named Flanders are always made fun of."
The director looked at the Expert Hardware Commercial script to see if he could change his name.
Apparently not, "Your name will be Flanders."
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