Man with a Plan

I wrote a short story almost 15 years ago that I’ve never submitted anywhere, and that I haven’t even really thought that much about since committing my braindead scribblings to paper so long ago.

Today I found a short introduction I wrote for it a while ago, apparently thinking a particular magazine would pick it up, and it makes me want to pull out the original and rework it into something I can sell for $20. At least I could say I’d been published then.

God is God. As such, He requires nothing of the usual middle-management or bureaucratic nonsense, and prefers the roll-up-your-sleeves-and-knuckle-on-up variety of interaction over the human delegation style currently favored by the trendiest of the false gods, earth spirits and pet rocks. Because this is true—as it must be since I, your omniscient narrator, have never been asked to advise the Almighty—the story that follows must then be patently false. The more clever of this magazine’s readership will recognize the lack of value afforded such a work, and will discontinue consumption immediately. For those intrepid few low-brows who remain, however, what follows is a none-too-good example of what might have happened had God, tiring of the whimperings and supplicant fartings of the angelic host, turned ownership of a few minor details of the universe over to the wisdom of various panels, focus groups and bureaucratic committees. In this poor illustration, we consider life.

Raisin is a very special girl who figured out how to cheat the system and endow herself with various superhuman abilities before her birth. She gets these abilities, but a series of horrible miscalculations on her part whilst pursuing perfection makes life… well… not what she expected. I won’t give away the biggest plot twist, even though it’s revealed in the first paragraph, but I assure you it’s a doozie. And sort of stupid.

Maybe I’ll work on this soon. I think it’d be a quick and easy one to knock out, and it’d give me a much-needed sense of accomplishment after my mounting feelings of inadequacy over the past several months. I’ll let you know how that goes. 🙂