Tag Archives: Arabian Nights

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Good Luck Charm

The Loch Ness Monster had finally been found, but not where everybody thought she’d be. She wasn’t located in the famous body of water after which she’d been named. No, she was actually in a retirement villa in Florida.

It really wasn’t so unusual that the Loch Ness Monster had chosen to spend her twilight years with land dwellers. She wore a cute bonnet, drowsed her days away in the rocking chair beneath a big old lime tree, and played bingo with the other oldies every Saturday evening. You see, our story is about something else, namely the cashier’s cheques that covered her residency at the retirement villa. Or, rather, it’s about the individual who issued them.

That individual’s name was Elvis Presley. He’d had an abiding interest in cryptids since he was a young tearaway playing gospel hits for the nuns at the Catholic school his parents had sent him to. The nuns were often rendered speechless by his frequent hip thrusting and gyrations, so they’d banish him to catalogue books in the library during recess. That’s where he found a dusty tome entitled, ‘Monsties of the Grand Ole Opry’.

A young tearaway Elvis may have been, but he was also a diligent student when the mood struck him. Something had only to capture his imagination, and this book didn’t fit the bill. So, he blew the dust off its cover, sneezed, then walked over to the shelf marked ‘M: Monotheism — Monticule’ to put it back in its proper place. But when he tried to slip it into the appropriate gap between two mouldy hardcovers, there was an obstruction. Elvis stood on his tippy-toes and took a closer look.

What he saw surprised him. He shifted some of the surrounding books off the shelf so that he could reach in and grab what appeared to be a sliver of metal. Of course, once it was in his hand, he realised that the sliver of metal was a key. It was old and not so shiny. He rubbed it on the lapel of his white jumpsuit, wondering what on earth to do with it.

Elvis was so immersed in his thoughts about the key that he failed to notice a pair of beady, black eyes creepily peering at him from the pin-up poster on the wall. He hadn’t even noticed the poster itself—although a pin-up poster on the wall of a library in a Catholic school wasn’t such a common thing, was it? No, it wasn’t. And especially not a pin-up poster of a topless cabaret dancer with the nipples cut out for a pair of beady, black eyes to peer through.

The eyes continued to peer at Elvis as he pocketed his key then continued cataloguing dusty tomes. He needed to be finished in time for the Friday afternoon Kazoo Appreciation Club with Brigitte Bardot and Ursula Andress. He didn’t care about learning how to play a kazoo insomuch as getting them to play his. What can I say? He was a typical horny teenager.

Cut to years later within the dark corridors of American Sound Studio in Memphis; Elvis met a strange woman. She was not as tall as Brigitte Bardot was short, and not as busty as Ursula Andress was flat-chested. She smoked like a chimney on fire and wore a white blouse with the nipples cut out for a pair of beady, black eyes to peer through.

“Where is the key?” she asked in a low, urgent voice.

“Sorry, ma’am?” said Elvis through clenched teeth. “And how did you get in here?” His voice carried a slightly aroused tone. He was trying to decide which pair of eyes he needed to look at. And no way in hell was he going to just hand over his key to this mysterious individual—yes, the same key that over the years had become something of a fancy souvenir for Elvis. Not only that, it had also become a kind of good luck charm, maybe even a mascot. Moreover, it was pretty handy whenever he needed to crack open a beer and there wasn’t a bottle opener around.

She waved a cigarette at his white jumpsuit with the dirty lapel. “It doesn’t matter. Give me the motherfucking key!”

“And what key would that be, ma’am?” Elvis tore his eyes away from the woman’s beady, black nipples and looked her in the actual eye. The key was in his jumpsuit pocket where it belonged. Yup, he was going to have to stand up to this bitch.

“Listen, motherfucker,” she snarled, “give me the key or I’ll rip your goddam head off and defecate down the neck hole!”

Elvis took a step back, squaring up for a fight if need be. The woman glared at him with all four of her unblinking eyes. Who knows if it was the Russian vodka in Elvis’s stomach or her vibe, but he suddenly found himself singing, “Love me tender, love me sweet, never let me go!” And, for whatever reason, the woman’s pale cheeks instantly began to blush, which then led her tightly compressed lips to relax into something resembling a smile. Could it be that her sub-zero heart was melting?

Yes, actually, it could. In fact, she got so weak at the knees that she fell on her ass with her legs wide open. And that’s when Elvis finally realised what the key may have been for. With her dress hitched accidentally over her knees, he could see the cast iron chastity belt that she was wearing. All he needed to do was insert the key and jiggle it a bit. He was turned on just thinking about it!

PS: About the cashier’s cheques… that part’s easy. As all of you are probably aware, Elvis had Scottish roots. As such, he was happy to help his great-great-great-grandmother out when she wrote to inform him of the pitiable lack of money that was preventing her from renting a property at her dream retirement villa.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Operation Beaverossa

The beavers had come in the night, but so far the barricade was holding. As much as they’d tried to buzz saw their way in with formidable razor-sharp buckteeth, they hadn’t done so quickly enough to avoid incineration by the Castle’s defense lasers.

So did the sombre morning replace what had been a calamitous night. The few surviving beavers retreated to the relative safety of their dam to take a wait-and-see approach beneath the willow trees.

“Well, that couldn’t have gone more tits up,” muttered Theo, “than if we’d grown tits then thrown them at the walls like water balloons.”

“Milk balloons.”

A sigh escaped Theo’s lips. Jensen could never bloody let one go. “Thanks, Jensen. What would we do without your penetrating pedantry?”

Jensen looked at him with the world weariness of a furry, pint-sized Sisyphus. “Sarcasm is the last refuge of fools, you know.”

“Just so you know, Jensen, Dostoyevsky never said that.”

“I’m not quoting Dostoyevsky!”

Theo pulled a pocketbook of quotations from beneath his tail and thumbed through it. “Here we go… ‘Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.'”

“See?” crowed Jensen. “Nothing alike!”

“Holy Jesus, guys! What are you doing arguing over quotations when all our womenfolk have been wiped out?”

“Shut up, Teskey!” growled Jensen. Theo nodded with him. They were both annoying to be sure, but Teskey more so.

“No! I won’t!” insisted Teskey. “The future of our tribe hangs in the balance, or haven’t you noticed?”

“I don’t need bloody women!” snorted Theo. “All I need is a pair of clean socks and some warm milk before bedtime!”

“Just because you’re a ‘love celibate’, Theo, doesn’t mean the rest of us need to be!”

“Oh, Teskey, you poor hormonally overburdened fool! Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it!”

“Well, I guess I have no choice now, do I?” snapped Teskey. “My wife’s probably a rotting corpse in the Castle now, with no way for me to give her a decent burial! Tell me how that’s okay?!”

“Well…” spluttered Theo, taken a little aback at the outburst. “Get over it? It’s just a bloody woman after all…”

“I bet Dostoyevsky never said anything like that.” Again, Jensen had to dig at him. “Check your little book, Theo!”

Teskey grabbed his head and howled. “Jesus hyperventilating Christ, guys! We need a plan! A solid, fucking plan that works!”

“To do what, exactly?” shrugged Jensen. “I mean, I agree we should have a plan.” He shot Theo a look. “I bet Dostoyevsky would’ve had a plan!”

“Here’s an idea,” interjected Theo. “First, you shut the hell up about Dostoyevsky. Only I get to talk about Dostoyevsky, okay?! And, second, we dump some sucklings near the Castle walls.”

Jensen and Teskey goggled at him, eyes wider than a giant’s grandmother’s finest dinner plates.

“Yeah, you heard me. Sucklings!”

“Are you sure you don’t mean ducklings?”

“No, Jensen!” Theo rolled his eyes. “Sucklings!”

Teskey shook his head, and then comprehension dawned. “Oh, you mean children, right?”

“Of course!”

“Then why didn’t you say sodding children, you boob?!”

“You’re a boob!”

“Anyway!” yelled Jensen. He had to break this up or they’d argue for hours. “What’s your plan?” He looked at Theo with a squinty eye that promised trouble if the plan wasn’t up to snuff.

“Well,” said Theo conspiratorially, “there must still be some women left in the Castle. So, we dump the sucklings outside, said women hear them crying, their motherly instincts kick in, they unbuckle their bras and come running with naked boobs flopped out ready to feed the poor creatures. Then we capture said women and make them ours! Erm… yours.”

There was an uncomfortably long silence as Jensen and Teskey tried to process this.

“Boobs?” asked Teskey at last, his tone telegraphing a lack of enthusiasm for the plan.

“Yeah, Theo, I’m surprised you didn’t call them udders or teats. Wouldn’t Dostoyevsky have called them that?”

“Shut up, Jensen! You’re testing my patience!”

Jensen blinked oh-so-innocent eyes. “You have patience?”

“Hold on.” Teskey stroked his whiskers. “Wouldn’t they be more likely to burn our babies to a crisp with the defense lasers?”

“Yeah!” chimed Jensen. “Our bubbas can be little shits but even that’s a bit much! And anyway, we can always look for women elsewhere.”

“Oh, come on!” roared Theo. “Haven’t you heard of honour in war? The enemy won’t shoot helpless sucklings! It’s just not done!”

Jensen frowned like his brain was about to explode.

“That’s the beauty of this plan!” Theo pushed on. “Use the sucklings to get more women without us having to bring down the barricade or them firing a single shot!”

“I guess…” And now Teskey was frowning too. “I mean, why look elsewhere if we’re already at the Castle? It’s the note that led us there in the first place!”

Jensen shrugged.

“Regardless, we should leave the babies out of this. Show me the note again,” he sighed, snapping his fingers at Teskey. “What did your wife write exactly?”

Teskey pulled a handwritten note from beneath his tail.

Jensen took it and cleared his throat. “She writes: ‘Dear Teskey wesky, having a girl’s night out at the Castle. Twig kebabs in the fridge. Microwave three minutes each. Tuck kids in at seven. Don’t wait up. Love, your Fanny wanny.'”

“See? That was last night. Which means they must all be horribly dead by now!”

“Teskey…” Jensen’s eyes narrowed. “Please don’t tell me that almost all of our tribesmen died in a tragic attempt to overtake the Castle because… well, you can’t turn on a microwave.”

He hovered over Teskey like a foreboding headmaster with an angry god complex.

Theo stood there looking on, dumb with astonishment. He’d forgotten about Dostoyevsky and boobs for now.

Teskey lowered his eyes.

Back at the Castle, the night club doors swept open and a covey of giggling, tipsy female beavers started on their way down to the river…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Let’s Knife!

Whilst investigating the case of a missing local fishmonger, a brave captain by the name of Beth Chan uncovered a legend about a cursed, weathered knife circulating throughout Africa. These two things were not at all related, and seeing as the knife sounded more interesting, Beth dropped the fishmonger case and went to Africa instead.

Well, we said Beth went to Africa but actually everything’s quick and easy only in fairytales. Of course, she first needed to investigate which African countries were open for entering from Sápmi, then pass the COVID-19 and serological tests, and fill in a hellscape of official papers and other such bullshit. (We sincerely think it would’ve been easier for Beth to find the missing fishmonger. Moreover, he wasn’t missing at all. He was just sleeping off a three day bender beneath the porch of the Screaming Barnacle.)

Anyway, back to Beth. Once she got into an African country with an unpronounceable name, she began to realise that she needed a bit more to go on than some old fishermen’s tales about a cursed, weathered knife circulating throughout Africa in order to find the cursed, weathered knife that was circulating through Africa. In fact, it could have been anywhere, and Africa was a ridiculously big place. Perhaps Beth ought to have secured herself some kind of mythical treasure map leading to said knife in the first place. This was like leaving for an opera performance without some bladder filtration device strapped inside your pants—she was woefully unprepared.

But Beth was a smart girl and she had a watertight plan. It was as simple as it was genius. If one thing was circulating through Africa and another thing was also circulating through Africa then obviously they would meet somewhere along the way. The odds were fifty-fifty as to whether they would meet or not. So, all Beth had to do was start circulating throughout Africa in order to run into the cursed, weathered knife that was also circulating through Africa. Clever, right?

And so that’s what Beth did. She circulated like a plastic bag in the wind, drifting here and there and everywhere. She flitted across the savannah, dodging the playful swats of lion paws and furry knob catching of giraffe heads. She swooped above the storm water drains of post-apartheid slums and weaved posthaste through the canopies of foreboding jungles. She floated around every nook and cranny and even bypassed a few choice fannies. She and the knife were sure to cross paths at some point. Even if it wasn’t inevitable, she would make it be, no matter what.

Now, back to the missing fishmonger. When he realised that no one was searching for him, he felt deeply insulted. So, he climbed out of the hole beneath the porch, brushed himself off, donned his fisherman’s cap, then curled his mustache and went to Africa. He was going to give that Beth Chan a right old talking to! Fancy calling yourself a ‘brave captain’ and then not following through on the expected heroics that accompany such a title! The bleedin’ cheek of her!

Of course, the fisherman had no idea where in Africa to begin looking. Perhaps if he relied on dumb luck then that might get him somewhere. He’d had dumb luck before, like the time when a great white shark tried to bite him in two but succeeded only in flossing its teeth with him. Who said losing weight and a strict yoga regimen wouldn’t have its benefits? Aye, not the fisherman!

Another thing that would have its benefits is filling you in on the cursed, weathered knife’s backstory. Why was it circulating throughout Africa? Where did it come from and where was it going? Was it circulating for love? Did it have hopes and dreams? Did it have a mother and a father? Was it carrying a gun? No one knew. All that was known was that everything the knife touched turned to sand. (Is this why Africa has an abundance of sand?) Oh, and we guess there was no gun because it would’ve been turned to sand with cute little sand bullets that crumbled amusingly between the eyes of would-be murder victims.

Anyway, we vividly remember that sunny day, the fifteenth of May. Or was it the rainy twenty-first of September? It might even have been Bavaria’s National Cow Milking Day. Whatever. It was a big day in Africa, not Bavaria. It was a day when, as crazy as it sounds, three parallel lines finally crossed. Beth, the fisherman and the cursed, weathered knife would actually meet.

This is how that went down: The fisherman saw Beth and slapped her upside the head with one of his wellies. Her head smacked into a wall, causing it to buckle then collapse in on itself… and a bunch of kittens that happened to be playing harmonicas nearby. Well, that shut them up quite definitively! However, the ghosts of said kittens were quick to take revenge, nudging the cursed, weathered knife onto a new trajectory, thudding it into the unsuspecting fisherman’s back. This, of course, turned him into sand. Let’s just say he’d had better days.

And so the amount of sand in Africa was increased and the amount of kittens playing harmonicas was decreased. Beth, meanwhile, had picked up the knife and was examining it carefully. You’re going to ask why she hadn’t turned into sand as well, aren’t you? Easy-peasy. She had taken one of the ghost kittens and wrapped it around her palm like a handkerchief. Everyone knows that if you touch a cursed, weathered knife circulating throughout Africa with the ghost of a freshly deceased kitten that used to play harmonica that all curses will be absolutely and irrevocably shattered! It’s science, don’t you know? Pure, unadulterated science!

Anyway, Beth returned home with the knife and now uses it in the kitchen when cooking with the fisherman’s widow (who, by the way, is pretty happy that her worthless hubby was never found).

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2021

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Where Does Bender Come In?

Satan is an accountant, and he’s having a spectacularly bad day.

It begins with Hitler calling him at three that morning. He’s in a tizzy about the shit he still owes the tax collectors that are banging down his door. Ever since his bid to take on Bunnings with an Aryan-branded homewares empire fell completely apart, he’s been bothering Satan with this cloying non-issue and that, and at any time of the day or night. What an irritating man-shaped dick he is.

Still, death and taxes cannot be avoided. Hitler lives under the delusion that they can, which Satan can’t help but sigh at. He should be sound asleep right now, but instead he’s sat in an office rummaging through a daunting mess of documents. Satan will have to drive a coach-and-four through it all, otherwise Hitler will drive him to an early grave—and not even bother ordering an orchestra along the way.

So… legalities and loopholes. These are what Satan will have to correctly identify if Hitler is to stand a chance. It also occurs to Satan that he’ll need a second pair of eyes to pick up any details he may himself overlook. He glances at his watch. He’s been here for bloody hours and it’s only finally hit seven. It’s probably safe to give Cthulhu a shake by now surely? Well, screw it. He’ll do it anyway.

Cthulhu’s still laid out on their queen-sized bed. He’s stretching, luxuriating, scratching a lazy left heel with his right. Upon seeing his boyfriend’s head pop through the doorway, Cthulhu demands coffee and be quick about it. Satan turns his back before daring to scowl, and by the time he gets to the kitchen he’s cussing silently. He has no intention of starting another row. Last night’s blazing ruckus had been more than enough. Jesus.

He brews up the coffee, strong and black—it’s like a pot of hot tar. Still fuming, Satan wonders what in hell has happened to them. Where have he and Cthulhu gone wrong? They had used to be so happy together but lately Cthulhu has been… well, openly hostile. Anything Satan says has been an excuse for much eye-rolling and melodramatic yanking of tentacles. Cthulhu’s not one to hide how he feels.

Something else Satan doesn’t understand is why he had to go and offer Hitler his accounting services. What had he been thinking? That would-be führer is so pathetic he couldn’t even sell magic condoms to sex addicts. How had Satan let these pugnacious idiots enter his peace of mind and fuck with it? Everything had been normal before they came along and shat in his life sandwich.

He places a tiny, fragile coffee cup on a tray, then next to it adjusts a black rose in a small, porcelain vase. He adds the morning paper to this idyllic still life and takes a step back to admire his handiwork. Satisfied, he picks up the tray, takes a couple of steps forward, and is soon re-entering the bedroom. It’s beyond ludicrous that Satan’s slovenly boyfriend refuses to do even this much. The sight of Cthulhu reclining on satin sheets like that—shamelessly naked as you please—makes Satan want to puke. He could at least cover up his many chthonian naughty bits!

“You heard the rumours, Satti?”

Christ on a pogo stick. That fucking nickname again. Fucking ‘Satti’?! Satan would love to call Cthulhu ‘Fatty’ but he knows better. He’d never get away with it—Cthulhu would see to that. The pouting alone would be unbearable. Even the clinically dead don’t have the necessary fortitude to outlast that shit. Fine. Might as well play along with this tiresome attempt at conversation.

“No. Pray, do tell.”

Cthulhu shoots him ‘the look’. “You’re being sarcastic.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d think that,” sniffs Satan, making space on the vanity for the tray. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looks like hell, and not in a good way.

“Bender and his meat sack Fry moved in together.”

Satan tries to recall their faces. Who are they, and why he should give a rat’s patootie about another pair of freaks? “And?”

Cthulhu doesn’t like this response. He picks up the tray and throws the whole damn lot at him. “Yeah?!” he screams. “Well, screw you, flame boy! You can shove that pitchfork tail up your own arse!”

Satan beats a hasty retreat. May as well go outside and catch a bit of fresh air. He’s been up since the middle of the night after all and deserves something far less stressful. And the weather is lovely, so that’s a good start. There’s the aroma of freshly baked croissants from the small bakery across the street too. So devilishly good! Satan takes a coat and hat, and strides out into the street with purpose.

That turns out to be a mistake. Satan is striding so purposefully that he unwittingly steps into a puddle. And, naturally, he trips. The ‘fallen one’ has truly earned his name, faceplanting on the sidewalk next to a fresh dog turd. (Small mercies!)

“Goddamn arse tits!”

Satan is unaware if he’s saying this due to the pain of sharply connecting with concrete or relief at having avoided a jobbie facial. It’s all an emotional muddle really, and there’s blood pouring out of his nose too. It splats in copious, black gobs on the sidewalk.

“Never mind the onlookers,” he tells himself. “Walk on!”

So, Satan raises himself up, dusts himself off, and walks—bloodied nose in hand. When a black cat crosses his path, he starts to giggle like he’s lost his mind. A black cat? Seriously?! But at that very moment his face distorts—and not with laughter. He clutches at his chest and collapses.

And you know what? He goes straight to Heaven. So maybe the day hasn’t been so spectacularly bad as thought.

Well… he is a nice guy after all. It’s just bad luck he has THAT name.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

SCHEHERAZADE’S 1,001 BYTES // Extinction 101

The end began with being told to talk amongst ourselves.

I guess the lecturer had had enough of coaxing a classroom of unruly trilobites to settle down and pay attention. Farrier science is a pretty dry subject, so was it any wonder?

We hadn’t counted on him being preternaturally good at his job. He knew exactly how to tame our youthful sass and steer us aright. Instead of admitting defeat, he drew a circle and square on the blackboard. He then jabbed a very pink forefinger at it, saying to the class, “Listen up, you obnoxious little tackers. This here is what you’re going to discuss.”

We gawped at these shapes as though they were arcane symbols of a bygone age. They reeked of a certain geometric mysticism. Or cabbala. Both options were frightening. As was the lecturer’s toothy grin.

“So, geniuses, what do your sparkling minds make of it?”

“The Deathly Hallows?” ventured one student.

“A manifesto for making horseshoes?” piped another.

“You’re getting warm, Ms. Satana!” The lecturer winked. “It has something to do with shoeing horses.”

That was a relief. My parents hadn’t paid a shedload of college fees for me to end up sitting in the wrong classroom.

The lecturer cast a bemused look over us. He poked the aforementioned pink finger at someone in the second row. “Mr. Pups. Tell me, what’s the shape of the head of a horseshoe nail?”

The student looked completely trapped, as though he’d been asked what kind of death he’d prefer. Hanging? Toxic injection? Students on either side shrank away, as if to remove themselves from the lecturer’s line of sight.

“Cir… circle?”

Someone snickered in the last row. The lecturer turned his head. “Do you wish to add something, Mr. Fernsby?”

“No, sir. Sorry, sir.”

“I’m not interested in your vacuous apologies, Mr. Fernsby. What shape is it?”

“Don’t know, sir. A square, I suppose.”

“You suppose? Come on, Mr. Fernsby. You can do better than that.”

“I only need to hammer ’em, sir. The shape doesn’t matter, does it?”

“An honest answer, Mr. Fernsby. There may be hope for you after all.”

Another voice chimed from the sidelines. “Nail heads come in different shapes, don’t they? They could be round or square.”

“True,” the lecturer shot back. “Even triangles, yes?”

The rest of us kept our silence. We were leery of provoking a new torrent of devastatingly oblique questions.

“Mr. Pups. Mr. Fernsby. I challenge you to a discourse. You, Mr. Pups, shall persuade us that a round shape is the only acceptable shape for a nail head. Mr. Fernsby, you are adamantly opposed to the idea, and ready to prove your point of view that it should be square. Clear?”

They looked at him, slack-jawed and pop-eyed. The rest of us were doing this too. I think we’d expected this lesson to be a cruisy one. So far, it had been anything but.

“Will this be in the exam?” asked someone from the row in front of me.

“Mr. Yelchin, your exam has already begun,” smiled the lecturer, one eyebrow diabolically arched. “Life itself is an exam!”

I hunched down in my seat, making myself as small and unnoticeable as possible. No way was I going to get caught up in this odd little game. I was a trilobite, not a philosophy major.

“Well…” Pups looked distressed. He always did have a slight stutter but now it was quite prominent. “The shape should be cir… circular because… if we compare a squ… square and a circle with a similar pe… perimeter… the squ… circle area will be bigger…” He frowned at his own timid assertion. “Or smaller?” The poor guy closed his eyes and muttered something under his breath. Obviously, he was trying to do the math in his tiny trilobite mind.

“Oh my god!” interjected another student. “Listening to you is making me dumber!” I think his name was Hermes. “It should be a square! A fucking square! Stop embarrassing yourself and sit the fuck down!”

An odd request to be sure. Pups was already sitting down. He hadn’t stood up in the first place.

“Shut your mouth, Henries!” Okay, it wasn’t Hermes. “Someone should remove the bullets ‘cos you keep shooting off with it!”

Henries’s face reddened—quite a feat for a trilobite. Our faces aren’t exactly there, if you know what I mean. “At least I don’t shoot blanks, coffin stuffer!”

A girl from the fifth row—I didn’t remember her name—squeaked, “Leave him alone! If you can’t add two and two then you need to shut up and listen! And anyway, it’s round because circles are sacred. Perfect. A heavenly shape! Everything should be circles!”

Another girl’s voice countered from the sixth row—sweet, yet acidic. How are girls able to achieve such a combination? “Yeah, Dafna, we can see that you strive for this perfect shape. You keep stuffing yourself with perfectly shaped donuts and pizzas!”

That’s when all hell broke loose. A furious shriek was followed by the scrape of chair legs on polished wood, then the sound of slaps. Everyone jumped up and started punching hell out of each other. I dived to the side, and made a beeline for the lectern. I hid behind it, watching with dismay total trilobite warfare!

The lecturer’s face broke out in a malevolent smile. He sauntered to the door, opened it, and let himself out. I followed at a discreet distance, baffled. Why hadn’t he broken up this massive fight? I observed as he sauntered down the hall, opened another door, and let himself in. Huh? I tiptoed to the door and peeped through the window to see what he’d do next. He was casting his eyes over a classroom of young dinosaurs—clearly idealistic, full of ambitious dreams, with plans for a brighter tomorrow.

I watched in horror as the lecturer went to the blackboard, took a piece of chalk, and wrote on it the dullest topic one could ever imagine…

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020