practicallyserious

I’m going to take a break from my monster-pooping fiction-frenzy for a moment. There’s some unfinished business I need to attend to.

I’m think I’m going to hire someone to kill one of my blog-posts.

For the past month or two I’ve been going back to a little flash fiction story of mine that I never quite liked. Never quite worked out. It was the one called “Bigger Brother.” Don’t worry if you don’t remember it. You don’t even exist in the first place. There’s no one actually reading this right now, so I think it’s safe to say your knowledge of my post-archive is limited at best.

Moving right along folks. Over the weeks I’ve been sneaking back and tinkering with “Bigger Brother” with hopes that maybe if I made just the right changes, rephrased a sentence or two, got it just right, then maybe the thing would lose its not-good-ness. Maybe it would become the award-losing flash fiction story I always dreamed it could be.

I tried to help the thing. I’m constantly tinkering with all of my posts, hoping to make them less embarrassing, if only by a teeny bit. My blog archives are like the surface of beautiful Walden Pond in Massachusetts, ever rippling beneath the soft dance of the water bugs. Always changing. In fact, in the coming weeks I will almost surely delete that whole ridiculous bit about the water bugs and Walden Pond, so don’t bother referencing it in your comments. Change. It’s a fact of life here at Practicallyserious. Often times when someone is nice enough to comment on one of my posts, they’ll reference a line or two that they liked. And you know what happens? A day later, that particular line no longer exists. Yet the comment remains. It’s kinda like in the computer game “Oregon Trail” when your family dies of dysentery and you get to leave gravestones for the next player to find.

But “Bigger Brother” has a particularly bad case of dysentery, and after weeks and weeks of me hunting buffalo and rabbits it’s been doing nothing but stinking up my blog archives. Every time I take a stroll down memory lane I pass by that stupid story sitting there all pale-faced, dysentarying the hell out of its blue Levi’s overalls, and quite frankly I’m sick of it. If I can’t fix it, I will make it go away.

But here’s the thing: I don’t mind deleting or un-posting goofy comedy lists and dopey rants if I ultimately determine they are endangering my legacy of immaculate blog-quality, but I really don’t like the idea of killing dysentery stories (even flash-fiction writing exercises) just because I’m too lazy to find a way to make them work. It feels wrong. That’s not me.

So I’m going to have someone else do it for me. He’s meeting me right here in this very post in a couple paragraphs. A friend of mine recommended him. Said he does good work. Said he’s a professional and he gets the job done nice and clean. Won’t get traced back to me.

I’m a little nervous because I never hired someone to kill a blog-post before. I’m shaking. I need a few shots of vodka to calm my nerves before the guy shows up

(gulp. gulp.)

Okay. Now I wait.

*    *    *

Okay, here he is. Let’s hope I don’t botch this up. Crap, I’m nervous.

Blog-Post Assassin walks into the Blog-Post.

Blog-Post Assassin: Are you Derek?

Derek: Yes. Are you Blog-Post Assassin?

Blog-Post Assassin: (gives me a long, dry look)

Derek: Anyway, I got a little problem and I was told maybe you can help me out.

Blog-Post Assassin: Are you recording this meeting? Are you going to blog about this meeting?

Derek: No sir. No sir. (almost pisses pants).

Blog-Post Assassin: Okay boss, who’s the mark?

Derek: (winces at being called “boss”) “Bigger Brother.” It was a writing exercise where I had to take a law of nature and change it. I had to reverse it.

Blog-Post Assassin: Hmm. Gonna be expensive.

Derek: How much? I can’t pay you money because you’re not a real man…

Blog-Post Assassin: I know, boss. You have to pay me in blog-posts.

Derek: (winces) Okay. What do you want?

Blog-Post Assassin: I want you to write a sequel to “Crazy Moths.” I want to know what happens to the kids when they wake up in the station wagon and find out their father is insane.

Derek: (nods) Okay. Okay. It’ll be tough but I can do that. [note to reader: I was gonna write a sequel to Crazy Moths eventually anyway, heheheh.]

Blog-Post Assassin: And that’s not all, boss. I want more Paranormal Blog Investigators. I thought you said in a previous post that they were coming back after another five or six “regular” posts, and it’s been way over ten posts. Where are they?

Derek: I don’t know. They never showed up. But, fine, fine, I’ll call them again. They’ll be here. [note to reader: my blog is still haunted and I was definitely going to call them again anyway. Hehehehe]

Blog-Post Assassin: And one more thing.

Derek: (sighs) This is getting ridiculous. Okay, what is it?

Blog-Post Assassin: I heard rumors when I was still in there inside your head. Rumors that you wanted to do some kind of weird post where it’s like a fish that lives in a tank of words, and it eats “comments” and “likes” for food. And if it doesn’t get a certain amount it’ll die. I want you to stop postponing and finally make it happen.

Derek: (head sinks, rubs temples) That’s gonna be a hard one. It takes a lot of Creative-Midi-chlorians to pull off something like that. I’ve been putting it off for months because I’m too intimidated.

Blog-Post Assassin: (crosses arms, stands firm) Deal’s off unless I get my Wordfish.

Derek: (takes a deep breath, finally stands tall and confident) Okay. You’ll have your Wordfish, sir. Just make “Bigger Brother” go away.

Blog-Post Assassin: Consider it done.

Derek: But please. Make it quick. No pain.

Blog-Post Assassin: (insulted) I’m a professional.

Derek: Of course, of course.

Blog-Post Assassin: We never met.

(Blog-Post Assassin leaves the blog-post.)

Phew! I did it, readers! The hit is on. “Bigger Brother” is going downtown. Might get nasty. I won’t be able to watch it, myself, but if you think you can stomach it, if you think you want to see Blog-Post Assassin in action, follow this link.

Hmm. Now I feel bad. I almost want to call off the hit, but I guess that’s just my nerves. Totally natural. I’ll feel better in the morning. Sure I will.

Oh dear. (starts to cry).