It had been sixteen years since an industrial accident in the Glasgow Shipyards earned him the nickname "Stumpy McGillicuty." But with the loss of his foot came Stumpy's birth as an artist. After winning first prize in the The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, an annual competition honoring the worst opening sentence to an imaginary novel, McGillicuty found a publisher for his manuscript, Dancin' the One-Legged Jig. Fortune seemed to be smiling on the monopedal Scotsman...until the travelling chimp rodeo came to town.
Rachel had been in the ninja academy for only three weeks, but she was already developing blisters from the throwing stars. "So tired are you so soon?," mocked her master, Mr. Tan, "Ha ha ha! You have yet to learn the wall climb, the back flip, the smoke trick! Tonight you will sleep the sleep of the dead, or, as we ninjas call it, the dirt nap." Rachel had heard the phrase before, but only in reference to a creepy online collection of cemetery photographs. Would she be forced to take a nap in a pile of dirt? Maybe this ninja thing wasn't such a solid career move.
The constable peered out timidly from behind his riot shield, offering a nervous smile to the demonstrators who fell under the heavy, insistent thwack of his black, rubberized baton. "If only these wistful dreamers hadn't attempted to construct a human barricade in front of Cows on Parade, an amazing collection of artist-decorated bovine sculptures on display throughout Chicago from July until October, then I wouldn't be in the unenviable position of cracking open their noggins," he mused.
"There was a young woman named Bright," recited the corduroy-jacketed physics professor, "Whose speed was much faster than light." Meanwhile, sophomore Arthur Henderson began to doodle "AC-DC" in big, gothic letters on his spiral notebook. "She set out one day, in a relative way," added the prof, visibly savoring his digression into the heady depths of Physics Limericks. Sadly, Arthur was already fast asleep before the instructor concluded his witty paradox with "And returned on the previous night."
Amory Blaine inherited from his mother every trait, except the stray inexpressible few that made him worthwhile. His father, an ineffectual, inarticulate man with a taste for Byron and a habit of drowsing over the Warner Brothers Cartoon Companion, grew wealthy at thirty through the death of two elder brothers, successful Chicago brokers, and in the first flush of feeling that the world was his, went to Bar Harbor and met Beatrice O'Hara.
Twelve years ago, on the tenth anniversary of her marriage to a dim and depressed man from Carson, California, Mary muttered the wishful words, "I'm interested in the Imperial Forums. How about a road-trip to Rome?" Glancing up from his Promise Keepers periodical, her husband gave her a suspicious stare and, with that, returned to reading. Mary regretfully realized she would have to resign herself to Capitolium.org, a sanctioned source of information on the Imperial Forums. Since that smoldering summer afternoon, not a day has passed without a ponderous problem presenting itself.
Looking out over the bleak desolate landscape, lonesome Jimmy became increasingly aware of his isolation. Where were the trees he had climbed as a child? Where was the ice cream store he visited every day of the summer? Nothing was where it was supposed to be; only remnants of the past. Suddenly, a loud shot rang out, followed by a low, sinister hiss. It took a minute for Jimmy to realize his balloon hat had been hit. He couldn't see the spider monkeys, but he could hear their collective screech.