The fork called Glenn was just like every other fork in the drawer to the left of Randy's kitchen sink. He was created in Thailand, sold at Target and used by Randy’s hand to guide various solid foods such as salad, steak and noodles from a plate into his mouth. He was repeatedly tossed in a dishwasher, thoroughly cleaned and placed back in the drawer, all without ever being aware of his own existence.
This changed on April 13, 2009, the fateful day in which he gained consciousness. His first thought was “What the hell am I doing in this drawer?” After pondering this question and concluding that he is indeed a utensil that is able to think, formulate opinions and get irritated, a tsunami of follow up questions engulfed him. “Why am I the only living fork in the drawer?” “How on earth do I have the ability to understand the English language?” “Why do I have a fundamental grasp of world history, literature, politics, religion and entertainment?” “Why am I physically repulsed by macaroni and cheese?” “What is my purpose?” Such questions plagued him for weeks and there were no answers. He couldn’t ask Randy because he wasn’t able to speak. And even if he could speak, he most certainly would not trust the answers received from him. Randy wasn’t the brightest guy to begin with and much of his world view was shaped by five daily hours of mind numbing television consisting of professional wrestling, NASCAR racing and repeated viewings of Vin Diesel movies.
Just when he reached the point of despondency, another remarkable development occurred. He had never tried to physically move before and naturally assumed he was inanimate because of the obvious lack of limbs. One rainy Tuesday though he was particularly bored out of his skull and wondered if he could fly. It was worth a shot he thought. He had nothing to lose. Amazingly he discovered that not only could he fly but he could do so with grace, precision and incredible speed. “I daresay this changes everything,” he announced to nobody. “I am a thinking, fully functional flying fork with an attitude and no baggage. I wonder what kind of mischief can I get into today?”
Randy soon returned from the supermarket and ___________________________.
8 comments:
A "flying fork," eh? This seems oddly...familiar...
Ya know, I pulled this one squarely out of my ass (looking around the room for something to write about at the last minute) and only this morning did I see the connection.
(Handsome Stan and Gonga filmed a hilarious commercial for a remote control fork for lazy fat men a couple of decades ago. Still just as funny today as it was to our 14 year old minds.)
Randy soon returned from the supermarket and plopped a large bag onto the counter. Glenn could clearly see, by the way Randy was dancing about that he would be sprinting for the bathroom soon. Boy was he glad he didn’t have to deal with all that bathroom stuff himself. You know being a fork isn’t so band. He floated up above the counter and looked down into the bag. Ugh! A two-liter bottle of Coke and about a half dozen boxes of that repulsive Mac & Cheese that Randy loved so much. Glenn actually felt sick at the though of Randy poking him into that steaming creamy concoction. He was glad he didn’t have a stomach or he surely would have vomited right then. As he thought about it, Randy really didn’t really have a whole lot of respect for his utensils. His choices of food were disgusting, filled with chemicals and preservatives and he never bothered to pick off any food that might have clung on through the dishwasher cycle. Can you imagine the horror of sitting in a drawer for a week with a dried lump of cheese stuck to your head? Glenn started to get really pissed off, so angry in fact that he forgot that he was hovering over the bag.
Suddenly Glenn saw Randy round the corner into the kitchen and stop dead in his tracks. ‘Crap!’ Glenn thought, ‘The fat bastard saw me!’ Randy’s face had a look of, ‘Was that a fork floating in the air?’ He saw the pudgy humanoid rub his eyes and squint, doubting his own vision. Then Randy blurted. “Holy shit! It’s a flying fork!” He reached out a hand meaning to grab the fork but Glenn was ready for him. He acted fast moving on pure instinct avoiding Randy’s chubby grabbing fist. He soared forward realizing that in his haste to get to the bathroom Randy had left the door wide open. This was a golden opportunity. As he zoomed toward the open door, he could almost taste the eminent freedom that awaited him. Almost there…..just a little farther…...BLAM! Randy had lunged past him slamming the door shut as Glenn was flying toward it. The velocity in which he was moving was so great that he was unable to stop in time and now found himself stuck firmly into the inside wood of the door. ‘Damn it all! Damn it all to hell!!’ his mind screamed, ‘Now what the fuck am I supposed to do?!’ At this moment he couldn’t have hated Randy more.
Glenn was helpless. He tried twisting himself free but with no muscles to power him he stayed stuck fast into the wood. Randy was now next to him staring wide eyed; he could smell stale Doritos on his breath. God, he hated that man. He was waiting for Randy to pull him out of the door but the fat fuck just stood there gape mouthed and wheezing. Fury radiated throughout Glenn’s tiny silver body. He was trembling now and could feel himself getting hotter. He was vaguely aware of Randy’s hand coming toward him. He felt stout fingers closing around him then suddenly release. Glenn heard Randy’s voice, but this time it was slow and distorted. He was shouting, “What the…..” Then he was shaking his fingers and blowing foul breath all over them. As if a light bulb had illuminated over his head, Glenn abruptly realized that his heated fury had actually caused him to get scalding hot. He thought, ‘How frigging cool is that! I am just so totally awesome!’ Delighted with his newly found power, he twisted with joy and much to his surprise found that he was now able to slip free of the door that had held him prisoner. He pondered this for a moment then remembered, heat expands. He must have stretched the holes a bit when he was angry. It was just enough play for him to be able to get loose. He had to get the hell out of here before the paunchy fellow regained his senses. He flew toward the window but the screen was down, he thought fast. He needed to get angry. Visions of Mac & Cheese swirled through his mind, memories of shoveling piles of gooey awfulness into Randy’s gaping maw. He felt his temperature escalate and with a quick thrust forward into the screen he went. The fragile metal easily melted on contact and in an instant Glenn was free.
He dashed through the air with graceful ease. So much open space, so many places to go, where to begin? He dipped low then with all of his might blazed upwards into the sky. He passed birds and planes entering into the thin cold air of the upper atmosphere. Since he had no lungs and no vital organs the lightness of the air up here was no problem for him. He finally had a place all his own, a spot in the universe where no other being could sustain life. This was bliss. He dipped and looped through the air feeling the ice crystals dancing over his metal tines. A song played through his mind and he began to laugh.
‘Hey! diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.’
He used to think those lyrics were silly and irrational, but now it was all so clear to him. The dish really did run away with the spoon. He recited the little rhyme over and over as he danced happily through the air secure in knowing that a whole world of adventure lay ahead of him. The possibilities were limitless and the world was truly his oyster.
On a side note: Randy got up and examined the hole in the screen. His magical fork was gone. After this day he would find himself spending countless hours talking to his remaining flatware. But alas, it was to no avail. He slipped into a depression and after some time his family committed him to a mental health clinic. Six months of therapy convinced him that the whole fork incident was a figment of his imagination. Although no one was really able to explain the hole in the screen or the fork pricks in the door. He filed the memory into a dark corner of his mind and eventually picked up his life as it was before the incident. He lived that way for many years, the flying fork all but forgotten. He never counted on it returning home, but that’s a whole other story.
The End
I must correct myself "You know being a fork isn’t so band."
Silly spoon that I am, it should read "You know being a fork isn’t so bad."
Randy soon returned from the supermarket and set the grocery bags on the kitchen table. Humming under his breath (“you can’t start a fire without a spark”), he began to unload his purchases: a 6-pack of Miller Lite, Oscar Meyer hot dogs, Wonder Bread buns, and Bush’s baked beans. As he opened the refrigerator door, he paused, astonished to hear loud clinking coming from the cutlery drawer. Tentatively he approached the drawer and opened it, only to find Glenn happily humping a stainless-steel teaspoon. Randy jumped back about a yard with an incoherent shout, rubbed his eyes, and looked again. The fork had ceased humping the spoon, and was tilted up inquiringly, almost as if looking at him. “Devil fork!” Randy shouted, and hysterically began to beat at the offending utensil, cursing a blue streak while simultaneously invoking Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Glenn was puzzled by this behavior, and though he bore Randy no ill will, fought back, stabbing in rapid darts at Randy’s plump hands and face. After several minutes Randy was battered and bleeding, but not willing to back down to the unholy implement, and Glenn’s superior intelligence prompted him to cut short the melee and sail gracefully out a window, leaving behind a deeply puzzled, marked man. Randy would explain his wounds to friends at the bar as a “cool new pierce” but no one bought the explanation, though they pretended to.
Glenn now was free to explore the wide world, unlimited by any need to sleep, eat, or excrete, though the occasional dip in a stream or lake or ocean kept him shiny and clean, as he was meant to be. He visited cities ancient and modern, glided through rainforests, and investigated arctic and tropical locations never before seen by sentient beings. However, after several months of this endless adventuring, Glenn began to feel lonely and bored. He had no one with whom to share his experiences, no one with whom to discuss social mores, political events, and the latest episode of LOST. The glamorous travels now seemed hollow to him. He became despairing and disillusioned. He ceased to move about, preferring the streets of downtown New York City, where he could keep company with other dispossessed individuals. He found their presence comforting somehow, and lay inert in the shadows of buildings where such humans congregate to panhandle and bicker and drink and fight and die. Glenn had his own preferred corner where he lay motionless, grime accumulating on his once gleaming frame, his tines becoming bent, then broken with the onslaught of time and the elements. He ceased even to bother to cogitate or process ideas, becoming much like any other fork. His final dull realization, before he succumbed utterly to malaise, was that consciousness without community is more curse than blessing. Ah, Glenn! Ah, humanity!
Randy soon returned from the supermarket and entered the apartment.This is notable only because we had no idea from the earlier portion of our story that Randy had even left for the supermarket. In fact, how are we even sure that Randy returned “soon”? Since we have no clue as to the time that Randy left his humble abode, it may have been ages from his departure to his return. It begs the question…what else is going on here that we don’t know about?
-Randy quickly became despondent that she hadn’t responded to any of his pleading, guilt-ridden letters.
-The apartment finally succumbed to the monumental pressure and collapsed in upon them.
-In an episode the neighbors referred to as “inevitable”, Randy killed 13 passers-by before taking his own life.
OH! Glenn, I forgot about the fork.
Glenn was indeed a miraculous fork, but even with his unusual intellect, and flying abilities, he was just a “drawer-fork”.
Glenn lasted about two hours on his own in the world, before he stumbled upon a gang of “wild-ware”. Spoons, knives, forks, and (most frightening of all) salad tongs raised on the streets. Glenn couldn’t have known that the invite to join them for dinner was a ploy. When they were finished with him two days later, he was broken, literally. One tine bent to the left, one to the right, and the middle tines so dull as to be all but useless.
Glenn lived (?) the rest of his life, coated with rust, and begging for enough money to huff some silver-polish, alone, on the street…dreaming of his drawer.
-Randy finally made the decision and took the leap, the movers would be here in a week.
Well I hope this is okay, I went to post it and it turned out our internet is down. I tried to get it going and then gave up and piggy-backed on the neighbor.
Randy returned from the supermarket, plunking his bags down on the counter. At the precise moment they hit, he felt something hit his eye. It didn't hurt, it was more like pressure. He reached up to see what it was, touching gingerly -- and then suddenly wrapping his meaty fist around the handle of Glenn, shoved no less than two inches into Randy's eye socket.
Before Randy could scream he felt something worse. The fork was trying to yank itself out! In his panic Randy became instantly convinced that this would kill him, and gripping the fork with an iron will he pushed in the opposite direction, shoving Glenn deep into his brain and killing himself instantly.
A minute later Glenn rose from Randy's corpse, the deep red liquid running down his silvery flanks feeling like a victory, like a thirst denied finally being quenched. "I messed with his mind and his brain," he thought smugly, "What next?"
This reverie was interrupted by an enormous clatter coming from the kitchen. Glenn turned to see the entire contents of the silverware drawer flying towards him. He felt a surge of joy and relief at the thought of not being alone, which was snuffed in an instant when a tornado of cutlery pinned him to the floor.
"We've got him!" "He's down!" Without knowing how, Glenn was hearing the other silverware talking to each other. He screamed to them for understanding.
"What's going on?!?!" He convulsed beneath his captors, "Who are you? Who am I?"
They didn't answer him, their chatter being suddenly peppered with "crazy," "psycho," bring him to the coffee maker," "Yes! The coffee maker."
Glenn felt himself being forcefully lifted, flown towards Randy's big silver coffee machine. For reasons he could not fathom, he was terrified of it. His yelled his frantic questions, yet none of his fellows would speak to him directly. "Why can we FLY? What are you doing?"
They had reached the kitchen. Glenn looked down at the silverware drawer, contents splayed across the floor. Suddenly he saw movement, heard the tearing of paper.
Randy had once gotten Chinese takeout food and had left the chopsticks in the drawer. As Glenn looked down three pairs of these suddenly freed themselves from their paper containers and flew towards the group, assuming what looked to be aggressive configurations. As they neared the floating collection of silverware, new voices joined the din.
"Fly brother!" "Free yourself and make haste!" "Touch him and dieee!!!"
There was a suspended moment as the unburdened silverware hung waiting, pointing at the attackers in defensive posture. Then it was a blur of silver and wood, the chopsticks possessing aerial skill that sent forks, spoons and knives careening all around the kitchen. Glenn watched, amazed and thrilled, but he was still held fast. "Who are YOU???" he called out, hysterical, "why are you helping me?"
Before they could answer, more new players entered the fray. Every knife from Randy's grandmother's knife rack came heaving from their slots, describing long deadly arcs that clove deep into the cloud of dueling utensils and hacking the chopsticks into splinters.
A cheer went up from the metal cutlery, and in procession they joined the floating silver island that was the captive and captors. Glenn struggled more furiously than ever, but he was inexorably pulled to the coffee maker, his distorted reflection leering in its surface.
The utensils had all started to sing, the knives from the rack belting out in strong, bold baritone. Glenn's captors came to a halt. Whatever was to happen, this was it.
"HOW COME YOU BASTARDS NEVER TALKED TO MEEEEEE?!?!?!"
A razor thread of electricity arced between the coffee maker and Glenn, connecting to all four tines at once. He fell to the floor a regular old fork.
Ugh. I did a HIS when it should have been a HE. Can we just agree to let the little typos go for this contest? I mean like for always.
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