Two Shorts, A Novel Break (Fall Notebook Page 12)

“Humanity is mad. It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre! What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!” Words that, A French lieutenant at Verdun who was later killed by an artillery shell wrote in his diary on 23 May 1916.

#1 A SCARY STORY

There were these wristwatches…
You’re on an airplane. The guy says,
Nice watch.
You say,
It doesn’t work. I got it at flea market in Michigan City Indiana.
That’s cool. Weird, but sure, I get it.
I don’t know, I just like it.
Let me see. Care?…
No problem. Here…
Nice feeling. Looks good on me. Write down the name. To see if I can find one online. It’s hard to find a good watch I like to wear. The band is nice. Stretches but not too much. You’re right. This is a cool watch. Care to sell it. Three Hundred bucks? It’s all I got on me…
Nope.
Cool. Probably find one online.
Maybe….

The plane is landing. The guy hasn’t said a word for almost two hours. He looks at you…. You say,
what man?
nothing..
I’m getting some strange vibes. I wasn’t sleeping the whole time. I know you kept looking at me and my watch. What the hell?
That watch you have, it’s from world war one, it only works when your pulse is going. They made them for soldiers, to make a quick head count, to know whose alive or not after a major offensive. It reads that many of the watches that survived were collected after the battle of Verdun.
Thanks for the update…
No. Just…I don’t like flying and…ha…Your watch isn’t ticking. Even when you had it on…
It’s broken.
I know. So when you were sleeping I took it apart. I’m sorry, it was just sitting there and I got bored. Opening it up and…so everything is there. It doesn’t need a battery…
What the fuck man?
Sorry. You’ll like this part. I read that they were made to work forever. They were the easiest way to listen to make sure people were alive before the mass grave was covered.
This is nonsense. What’s wrong with you? Here, try the watch on pal. I don’t know what you’re talking about…

#2 A Dad Joke

Did you hear they’re going to cross a human with a manatee?
Who are they?
Hu…manity…
Oh, it’s a joke?
Yeah, I just made it up.
Great…